As one of contemporary R&B’s brightest stars, John Legend possesses Grammys and hits galore. But could he be any blander? His twinkling tunes about love and relationships are, at best, serviceable. And, lyrically, he treads the same ground as a hundred other singers. His status as a genre top dog…
Josh Alan Friedman, who penned an amazing piece about the Texas Tenor for the paper version of Unfair Park long ago, brings sad news today: Corsicana-born, Dallas-raised sax great David “Fathead” Newman died yesterday. There’s only been one obituary, but a call to David’s wife and manager Karen offers further…
Arlington’s only ska/dub/punk/electro-dance band, Automorrow, has its CD release show this Friday at the Ridglea Theater in Fort Worth. My review of the band’s debut EP will run in the print edition of the Observer next week, but for those looking for an out of the ordinary band to check…
Robert’s got the deets on Unfair Park. Of course, he gets into much more detail on the matter in the cover story in this week’s Observer–the one with the sweet vinyl image on the cover. …
Jonathan Goetsch As I alluded to last week in Good Friday, Hey Hollywood has, in fact, officially changed its name. The new name, which comes with some new-ish players on bass and guitar (and, with them, a new sound) is Companion. And what of the new sound? Well, it’s still…
Earlier this month, we unveiled our Dallas Observer contributors’ top albums and, in some cases, top singles of the year, as submitted to the annual Pazz & Jop poll conducted by our sister paper in NYC (in some cases, to the best of our recollections).Well, now the full results of…
At the moment, Dallas rock band Caterpillars is on the road, headed for its first out-of-state gig at FUBAR in Saint Louis tomorrow night, followed by dates in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. You can catch them at the Lakewood Bar and Grill in Dallas February 10. Meanwhile, in tomorrow’s print…
Your daily dose of national hip-hop news for Wednesday, January 21, 2009… Hip-hop beefs are nothing new–they’ve been around for years. But it seems that 50 Cent has now taken to creating controversies as his promotional tool. He still seems to think that Kanye West is his adversary for some reason,…
There’s a lot going on in just that one photo above from Zubar Saturday night — but we’ve got plenty more where that came from. Zubar hosted Pop Rocks with Brett Johnson and DJ Mike Chapman, while Voicerock and MC Atstro spun at the Green Elephant See the photos in…
Not a lot going on, music-wise, this inaugural evening in our area, but there are a few worthy performers out there who could help you celebrate Obamamania…Chance Anderson is a youthful, roots rocker from Lewisville (via Empire, Oklahoma) in the vein of Steve Earle. Anderson plays tonight at the Back…
“I don’t know what you’ve been told, but George Bush is out of control,” raps Anonymous at the beginning of “Get Up.” The track combines the Pleasant Grove rapper’s rhymes about the troubles plaguing the Bush-plagued country with inspiration and hope, all over a Lehtmo Joe LehtMoJoe-produced military marching beat…
Just got word from Lance Yocom at Spune Productions that Denton’s own Doug Burr has been tapped to open up for Jay Farrar’s Uncle Tupelo offshoot, Son Volt, on a five-day, five-city swing in February that will take Burr and the alt-country legends to Houston, Austin, Denton, Oklahoma City and…
At, oh, about 11:15ish last night, Robert gave me a call. Earlier in the day, we’d half-kidded about going to a strip club to watch the inauguration–surely, it was the most inappropriate place we could think of for watching the festivities (without putting ourselves in harm’s way, at least). But…
Fantasia Barrino, who you may recall from her American Idol days, headlined the 26th Annual Black Music and Civil Rights Movement Concert, presented by the Black Acadamy of Arts and Letters at the Meyerson Symphony Center Sunday night.Dancers, poets and more singers performed at the show, which was also included…
Or so one can glean from the Associated Press piece, datelined in Carrollton, that ran in the Morning News and in countless other outlets this past weekend. (No big deal, but we’ve already covered this ground, AP! Only, well, not so gushingly…) This piece, which compares Barney to The Mickey…
Your daily dose of music news for Tuesday, January 20, 2009… Apparently the Notorious B.I.G. biopic wasn’t the hit it was built up to be. Beat in the box office by a movie about a bumbling mall cop? Really? U2 is streaming its first single, “Get on Your Boots,” from the forthcoming album…
The New York Times has an obituary today on Clint Ballard, Jr., who died on December 23. 2008.Ballard, a longtime Dallas and Denton resident, wrote a number of hit songs, including Linda Ronstadt’s No. 1 hit single, “You’re No Good.” His death comes two and a half years after he…
Dear troops,Just writing to let you know that Plano resident Sue Adkins has written a song in your honor. The above clip is her duet performance of the track, called “Watch Over My Child”, with Djore Nance. Surely, its awesomeness speaks for itself.Love,Pete…
Morley didn’t pen the Dallas theme–that was this guy–but the transexual composer and conductor (born Wally Scott) did receive an Emmy nomination for scoring a few Dallas episodes, says this Variety obituary…
Just went looking for Dallas concert clips on Youtube, and all I found was……this performance from LA singer-songwriter Porter at Opening Bell Coffee:…
Sons of Hermann Hall played host to Saturday night’s release party for Doug Burr’s new album The Shawl, and DC-9 was there to cover the show.Unfortunately (for me, anyway) camera troubles cut short the photography portion of the night — but we do have some shots from Burr’s set, along…
Black Tie Dynasty and What Made Milwaukee Famous (who you may remember from this May 2008 Aural Ambush) played the Granada Saturday night. Darryl Smyers mentioned the show in this week’s print edition, touting the lineup (but not necessarily its headliners…).So how’d it pan out? Well, our photographer Rachel Parker…
