Music

The Dallas sons and current Austin residents in The Strange Boys are making two stops in North Texas this weekend as they head north and east out of Austin to launch their summer tour. Tomorrow night, you can catch the fellas at Rubber Gloves up in Denton.But tonight, a special…

Friday night our nightlife team made a long-overdue return to Zubar to catch Broken Teeth (Prince William & Keith P) and Jason Mundo in the back room, and DJ Select and DJ A1 spinning classic hip hop, reggae and dancehall in the front, ever-mindful not to run afoul of the…

Ontario’s Constantines has parlayed its intriguing brand of art-punk into a decade of rock ‘n’ roll relevance by balancing humor and consequence. Only a band with a special touch could write a song about suicide (“Arizona”) and, in that song, describe rock ‘n’ roll as “that great gospel jest.” Over…

American-originated black metal is a strange beast: Gone is most of the pomp, mystery and makeup that shrouds the Norwegian architects of the genre, and in its place is an emphasis on that other part of it. What’s that again? Oh yeah, the music. For the most part, it’s a…

Rock critics are seduced by the tendency to call out an album of the summer—especially during the season’s opening bell, when the road ahead is waiting, in need of a tasty soundtrack. But what happens when this summer’s best album was released last fall, and it just took a few…

Long after its debut album won the Mercury Prize, and its cover of The Beatles’ “Getting Better” was featured in a Philips commercial, Gomez is (thankfully) still around. You might not hear about them as much in the press as compared to say, Kings of Leon, but there is something…

The Toronto-based Holy Fuck transcends its look-we’ve-got-“fuck”-in-our-name handle by giving instrumental electro-rock a major kick in the arse. Just its genre—experimental electronica—implies either the coming of a pretentious and formless noise cloud or the likelihood of a drooly shoe-gazing sesh. The fucksters avoid both, though, pushing their ramshackle synths and…

Even over the phone, it’s hard to mistake the voice of Jimmie Dale Gilmore. A high, dusty warble perfectly suited to the Panhandle plains from which it came, it’s instantly, unmistakably recognizable, worthy of inclusion in the choir of uniquely American voices like Bob Dylan, Otis Redding and George Jones…

Reunion shows often feel like watching some dive-bar cover band do its best to play another act’s tunes, as bands strive to capture the way things “used to be.” So when a big-reputation band fails to live up to past expectations, it can be a crushing disappointment for the fan…

In the Moroccan-tiled patio of downtown Los Angeles’ Hotel Figueroa, Will Oldham, having been drinking for a few hours at this point, relays a bizarre conversation he had the night before while cruising through the Hollywood Hills. It was foggy, he recalls, and the car’s headlights accentuated the mist in…

“Have some fun, clap, holler, get down!” On some days, that’s hard advice to handle. But Robert Cissell of Dear and the Headlights is handling it just fine. “There are so many bands these days that are so consumed by the idea of coolness and image that they forget what…

Back in mid-April, there existed, if only for a moment, a glimmer of hope for Dallas’ ever-struggling cultural scene: District 14 councilmember Angela Hunt, on a trip to the Pacific Northwest, gleefully updated her Twitter status to share a litany of pleasant experiences she’d had with the public transportation, parks…

Tonight is the one-year anniversary of The Cavern’s weekly mashup of rock bands, DJs and visual artists, so event creator John Mudd has assembled an even better lineup than usual to mark the occasion. In fact, three of the acts are up for Dallas Observer Music Awards this year: Vega…

Last week, at our weekly, Wednesday night DC9 in SPACE taping, the duo of Ryan Thomas Becker and Grady Don Sandlin, otherwise known as RTB2, stopped by SPACE Studios for an intimate, low-key, 40-minute-or-so performance for a pretty good sized crowd, actually. It all made for a grand time–Becker’s attempts to harness his in-performance animation,…

Those lucky enough to catch the legendary New York Dolls at the Granada the last time they visited Dallas were treated to a hell of a show. Even though the band is down to two original members (vocalist David Johnasen and guitarist Syl Sylvain, both in their ’60s), the band never-the-less…

’90s fans unite: Counting Crows is kicking off a new summer tour in late June, hitting major amphitheaters around the country and stopping at the Nokia Theatre in Grand Prairie on August 4. According to the press release, Adam Duritz and pals will be sharing the stage with Michael Franti & Spearhead with Augustana…