Music

Joel Trujillo, Jr. is better known around town as Killtron, and he’s been playing party-jams in the Metroplex since 2005. He got his start by listening to “Energy,” a segment on nonprofit listener-supported station KNON, catching the show at every opportunity he had, eagerly listening in, and even recording his…

It was about a month ago now when I first came across Katie Carroll’s “Paper Girl” via my pal Mark Schectman, host of KDGE-102.1 FM The Edge’s “The Local Edge” (not to mention an Observer music section contributor, hey hey). He was playing the song on pretty much constant rotation…

…and for the YouTube inclined, here’s your link.Surely, you already clicked through some of Danny Fulgencio’s pictures from the NX35 Conferette a few weeks back? Well, our man was all over the place, covering everything having to do with the festival–before it, during it, and after it, even–and doing it…

Turns out the EP we’ve been waiting on from Denton’s Spooky Folk–a band, which, you’ll recall, is neither spooky nor folk–isn’t an EP at all, but rather a long-player well worth sinking your teeth into. And, through the first few listens, the disc seems quite the treat, a collection of…

So. We’ve had two weeks now to let the video for Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” sink in. If nothing else, this provides a good opportunity for me to get at someone I’ve been meaning to talk about for a while now…..

Ms. Badu–at least, we think that’s her underneath that Rick James ‘do–stopped on by The Wendy Williams Show yesterday for a performance of “Window Seat,” New Amerykah Pt. 2: Return of the Ankh’s throwback of a lead single. It’s a unique performance, if only because, as Badu herself admitted on…

Argh, mateys! This week’s submitted winner was created by the folks of the Denton group Constant Seas, via another Denton band on the bill, The Bizarro Kids. According to Jonathan Biggs of The Bizarro Kids, “the band Constant Seas created this flyer for our show with them, us, and Shake…

Hipster Runoff has a pretty funny take on this Nylon video interview with Alan Palomo of Neon Indian, in which the interviewer seems to be taking the “Band Crush” series title a bit literally. As Carles says, interviewer Becka Diamond asks “a bunch of relevant questions from 1 year ago,”…

Hey, I got two out of three. We wound up with Paige Miles, Tim Urban and Katie Stevens in the Bottom Three. And Paige Miles, as expected, was sent home. What wasn’t expected was for Simon to tell her there was absolutely no chance in hell they’d give her the coveted…

As Pete let you know back in September, Dallas indie skate-hop MC Dustin Cavazos made his very promising The Shelly EP a free download. So maybe you can return the favor by checking him out live at Mokah Coffee Bar in Deep Ellum tonight, whaddya say? The Scuba Team Go…

There isn’t anything simple about an artist injecting the natural beauty of true simplicity into one of his songs. And, sadly, today’s country music landscape is littered with catchy ditties that aim for an unaffected purity but instead fall into a clichéd and brain-dead compost pile filled with recycled anecdotes…

Idealism doesn’t age as well as cynicism. Perhaps that’s why punk’s earnest socio-politic evolved into the ironic distance of indie rock. It may also be why there are so few artists like Ted Leo, who’ve retained both the brash challenge of their rhetoric and its compassionate spirit through two decades…

Popularity can be a mixed bag for a band. With mass acceptance often comes a form of indentured servitude, with each entitled fan expecting the band to continue his or her personal notion of the band’s trajectory, even if that trajectory is effectively standing still. Moody pop-punksters Alkaline Trio have…

There was quite the time to be had at the Double Wide on Sunday night for Parade of Flesh’s annual post-South by Southwest bash, the recently branded Bro Fest (nee South by South Flesh), which featured among its 17-band bill SXSW stand-outs The Soft Pack, Those Darlins and Dum Dum…

There are some things you can consistently rely on from a talent like Angie Stone. Among them? Her thick, rich alto, riding old-school grooves and tales of good love and love gone wrong. It’s a familiar recipe, sure, but it’s worked repeatedly for Stone, scoring her a solid (if predictable)…

Last month, FUR’s Witches had the honor of becoming the first release on Sacramento’s fledgling indie label Waaga Records, which, if you’ve been following at home, you’ll remember is the new sister/subsidiary label of Lesfe Records and the PR gurus Banter Media (see: Neon Indian). And, yes, Witches deftly includes…

Attempting to breathe freshness into a classic—if not slightly stale—style such as soul-baring blues can be a tough task to tackle for many bands. All too often, the group brave enough to undertake such a possibly embarrassing task ends up coming off as more of a living room blues-Guitar Hero…