Music

Last month was a bad month for singer-songwriter Daniel Folmer. From start to finish, April dealt him a handful of troubles and misfortunes that sound like a sad plot plucked from some old country-western jukebox favorite. The final blow landed when, on the last weekend of the month, someone burglarized…

It’s not easy to promote your new album when most people think you vanished a half-decade ago, but then again, that’s not Papa Roach’s only problem. Earlier this year, the group faced a lawsuit from its founding drummer, Dave Buckner, who was unceremoniously kicked out of the band in 2007…

That Robin Thicke could become a top name in R&B is proof that anything’s possible in the magical world of pop music. A clean-cut white boy with a pop-culture family tree (he’s the son of Growing Pains papa, Alan), Thicke nonetheless has a serious jones for syrupy ’70s soul music…

We’re all going to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it. So relax. As grim as that sentiment may be, it’s morbidly comforting when everyone around you is frantically forwarding e-mails about the latest swine flu casualty. It’s also the theme of The Paper Chase’s upcoming album, Someday…

It’s been two years since Elvis Perkins burst onto the scene with his melancholic solo debut Ash Wednesday, a poignant and at times grief-stricken homage to his photographer mother, Berry, who died in the September 11 attacks, and the AIDS-related death of his father, Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, nine years…

For the better part of two decades, 311 has been cranking out album after album and trotting almost nonstop around the globe. Of the band’s eight albums, four have gone gold, one platinum and one triple platinum. And oh yeah, the band’s had seven singles hit the Top 10 on…

Campy, caterwauling and definitely contagious, Germany’s Mad Sin has been doing its depraved punkabilly thing for over two decades. Led by singer Koefte DeVille, Mad Sin is all about everything but subtlety. Brash and comical–but still intense–songs such as “Rusty Nails” and “Fuel for Brains” tell you just about all…

For my money, Passion Pit’s “Sleepyhead” (see above video) is the leading candidate for electro dance track of the young year (apologies to Empire of the Sun’s “Walking on a Dream”)–to say nothing of the fact that the band, which stops through town for a gig at the Granada Theater…

That above headline comes at the request of Mike Biggs, the man behind Life in Deep Ellum, who briskly walked past me two weekends ago at the second annual Mokah Music Summit and Showcase and opined as much, expressing his disappointment in the number of people (or lack thereof) who’d…

As usual, your weekly roundup of new concert listings. Just a heads up on Cowboy Mouth, they gave short notice for their May 29 show. Fans of acoustic and Americana should definitely make Gaelic Storm a priority when they come through in a couple months. If you’ve never heard of…

Saturday night’s storm — and people’s recent health concerns with hanging around tightly packed, hot, sweaty venues — all combined to keep the crowds down to a miniumum around lots of Dallas parties last weekend. The Lek Brothers send word that a few clubs were more or less vacant during…

Though Old Crow Medicine Show singer Keith Secor doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about life on the road in Lance Lester’s preview story, I know quite a few fans who are excited for the chance to see his old-timey string band perform tomorrow night at The Granada Theater. Making the show…

Kenny Chesney @ Pizza Hut Park, Saturday, May 2Sure, his tractor is sexy, but that was the last thing Kenny Chesney fans were thinking about Saturday in Frisco. Instead of disappointing thousands when a spring storm rolled in, the sleeveless heartthrob pressed on, giving concert-goers at least a little of…

Dave Matthews plied an emotional range from “vaguely amused” to “really jamming out now” at the Superpages.com amphitheater in Fair Park Saturday night, while fans up front swooned, and fans in the back rolled around smearing mud on one another.Hard to find anyone out there on the rainy night who…

Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer of This is Spinal Tap, A Mighty Wind and plenty of other music-heavy ensemble favorites over the years, played the Nokia Theater during the Saturday night downpour, out at the Nokia Theater in Grand Prairie.Photographer Rachel Parker was there, and brings us this…