NX35 Is Starting Right About… Now.

Right about… well, right now, actually, the very first event of the second annual NX35 Conferette is underway–a discussion about the DFW art scene and its future. As for me? Well, I’m hitting the road right now to head up to the conferette’s second event this weekend, a panel in…

Reckless Kelly Reschedules Dallas CD Release Show For Next Week

Fans of Austin’s great alt-country act Reckless Kelly may remember my story that appeared in the print edition last month–y’know the one where I mentioned the band’s CD release party which was set to take place at the House of Blues on February 11?Well, the damn blizzard of 2010 canceled…

Smile Smile’s Hearts Are Broken–But Its New Record Is Solid

Inter-band turmoil? That’s just something to be expected during any band’s career. Problems can arise from a range of sources, including monetary concerns, creative strife, roadweariness and, often enough, infidelity. It happens. Infidelity’s a tricky one, though. It’s hard enough as is, most would say, to stay in a committed…

RJD2 Looks To His Own Past For Inspiration

In a certain way, RJD2’s latest, The Colossus, is the album the artist has been building toward over his entire career. On it, like on a sitcom “clip show,” the versatile DJ samples music and production styles spanning his dozen years of recording. That’s no small feat: RJD2’s artistic journey…

Reckless Kelly Tries Someone Else’s Songs For A Change.

Austin-based country-rock band Reckless Kelly has been around for more than a decade and, in that time, Willy Braun and his band have made major inroads on both the alternative and mainstream country scenes. Like Steve Earle before it, Reckless Kelly straddles the line between country and rock, creating riff-laden…

Nouvelle Vague, Shock of Pleasure, Chameleon Chamber Group

Call it kitsch if you must, but the French ensemble Nouvelle Vague has found an affable niche reimagining rebellious punk, post-punk and New Wave anthems as breezy bossa nova tunes. Following two albums of well-chosen covers and a surprisingly diverse DJ mix, last summer’s 3 revealed a new trick: Members…

Screaming Females, Jeff The Brotherhood, Teenage Cool Kids

A Screaming Females show is a noisy, thrilling thing. Wearing a trademark vintage mandarin dress as she wails and pumps out frenetic riffs, front-female Marissa Paternoster’s bangs fall over her eyes, her mouth stretched into a cartoonish oval that echoes her glossy bowl-cut as her voice swoops between throat-bleeding howls…

BT, Glint

Behind that pop-star-looking face on a few of BT’s album covers is the mind of a musical engineer. Maryland’s Bryan Wayne Transeu started writing music at an early age and got a shot at Berklee School of Music at 15. He arrived on the trance scene a bit late for…

Mayer Hawthorne

Stones Throw label head Peanut Butter Wolf was sure he was hearing long-lost soul classics when someone slipped him the first singles by Mayer Hawthorne (nee Andrew Mayer Cohen). He quickly came to realize the shocking truth—that a nerdy, white 30-year-old from Ann Arbor, Michigan, had, by handling the instrumental…

Quasi, Explode Into Colors, The Cave Singers, Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Dutchess & The Duke, The Ruby Suns, Moondoggies, Generationals, Seryn, Monastery

Between its folky Thanksgiving soiree and now-legendary winter dance party, Spune Productions is developing quite the reputation for throwing the area’s most epic seasonal shindigs. And with a bill that boasts eight touring bands—as well as two local acts—for just 10 bucks, this week’s Rite of Spring Fling at Hailey’s…

Muse, Silversun Pickups

The last time Muse played in Dallas-Fort Worth, the band came dangerously close to doing the impossible—upstaging U2. I’m not sure what would happen in that situation, but I bet people’s heads would explode. At their shared concert at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, it wasn’t hard to see that Muse…

Titus Andronicus Tries To Right The Ship

In 1861, the United States commissioned John Ericsson—widely considered one of Sweden’s greatest engineers—to construct an iron-clad warship eventually christened the USS Monitor. Napoleon had recently rejected a similar concept, but, at the onset of the American Civil War, the North needed something to compete with a new fleet of…

Surfer Blood Sets The Record Straight

It sounds like an aperitif on the menu for the finny diners that tend to hang out just beyond the white sandy beaches of South Florida. But, turns out, the name Surfer Blood actually applies to a group of fresh-faced dudes who formed a band in West Palm Beach and…