They’re the men in the box. Ugly Mus-tard, the unnecessarily hyphenated industrial-metalheads who were featured in the Dallas Observer back in 1995 and earned the “Best Industrial/Dance” Dallas Observer Music Award in ’96, is back. To put it mildly, their sound has not aged well. Their minor radio hit “High”…
While it might be the most obviously named rock and roll sextet in history, Detroit’s Electric Six is still quite capable of making out-of-the-ordinary music. The band’s mix of garage, disco, punk, new wave and metal might indeed be a bit too multi-faceted for some folks, but the devil may…
Ray and Peter Lek Diplo’s Saturday show, originally scheduled for the Palladium, moved to the friendly confines of the Loft, where the crowd of partiers included a crowd-surfing sausage and a topless alien. The slideshow from that show is up here. Our nightlife photo team also made it out on…
Despite being in his 70s, country music legend Merle Haggard has always seemed to make his way to Dallas a couple of times a year. And hopefully that trend will continue after Haggard recovers from lung surgery at his home in Bakersfield, California. A recent biopsy revealed that Haggard had…
There’s two shows as part of this year’s ordeal, and a pretty blatant difference between them. Show No.1 (Or: How The Dude Rock Stole Christmas) Thursday, December 4, at House of Blues Blue October, Hoobastank, Deep Ella Show No. 2 (Or: How The Edge Went A Little More Indie) Friday,…
Kinda got a hip-hop vibe going today on DC9, so what the hell: We’ve got an extra pair of tickets to see Matisyahu play the Palladium Ballroom on Thursday night, and this seems as good a time as any to unleash them on you all. First person to email me…
With little more than talent and a MySpace page, Pleasant Grove rapper Anonymous has managed to build enough buzz to catch the attention of Parade of Flesh and snag a couple headlining gigs at The Lounge on Elm Street, including a pre-Inauguration party January 17, 2008 2009. Why all the…
A couple big hip-hop shows are rolling through town in the coming days. Chronologically, the big ones you need to know about: Method Man and Redman stopping through on Sunday night at the House of Blues; Digable Planets performing on Tuesday night at the Granada; MURS playing Hailey’s in Denton…
So what if it’s raining? So what if it’s Monday? So what if you woke up to the dulcet tones of your dog gagging and vomiting all over your bed at four a.m. this morning?! It’s a great big beautiful world and here’s the proof — at home, the vomit…
They wheeled David “Honeyboy” Edwards, 93, to the edge of the stage. People in the shadows helped him to stand, and he crossed into the spotlight, taking slow deliberate steps, carefully placing each foot until he reached the plain wooden chair placed in the stage’s center. The crowd, full of…
Atmosphere’s Paint the Nation Tour House of Blues November 9, 2008 Better Than: Getting drunk, going into a trailer park and picking a fight. Last time I checked, Atmosphere was a hip-hop duo. And when I listen to them in my headphones, I hear introspective rap with distinctive beats that…
Trail of Dead at Club Dada on Friday night. (Dylan Hollingsworth) Photographer Dylan Hollingsworth hit the club circuit for us last weekend, dropping by a pair of noteworthy shows around town. Saturday night, of course, was Calexico’s turn at the Granada, which we’ve already reviewed here. For more photos from…
Calexico, The Acorn November 8, 2008 Granada Theater Better than: Eating some peyote, playing with a couple of rattlesnakes and doing other desert-related leisure pursuits. More photos are up in our slideshow here. After spending most of a beautiful fall afternoon cutting down trees in my backyard, what better respite…
Deerhoof, Experimental Dental School, Flying, Hawnay Troof Granada Theater Novermber 7, 2008 Better Than: Being accused of hitting on a 14-year-old by his mother. Seriously, this happened. I had heard that Deerhoof had a lot of underage fans (this might explain the 8 o’clock show start time). But there were…
…and, really, the best news of all is that we’ve pretty much written about them all already. (Makes writing this little entry MUCH easier.) There’s a couple more shows worth mentioning, as always, but first, a reminder of what’s to come… Tonight, there’s the Deerhoof-headlined gig at the Granada, the…
OK. Last batch of tickets to give away. On Sunday night, the Legendary Pink Dots stop in to play at the Granada Theater> And if this review of the band’s Wednesday night show from our sister paper down in Houston is any indication, it should be a fun time. The…
What with Deerhoof, Calexico, Trail of Dead, Parts and Labor, Atmosphere and Diplo all coming to Dallas this weekend, it’s a good weekend of music for the Big D all the way through Sunday. There’s still plenty going on in the Little D too, though, like Saturday’s show at Hailey’s…
Parts & Labor (Abrinsky) Usually when you hear about a free show, the performance unquestionably mirrors the price of admission. But this Sunday The Lounge has a free show that folks should feel guilty for not paying something. Brooklyn’s experimental/noise quartet Parts & Labor headlines a bill that will also…
Noah Bailey had the significant pleasure of speaking with Calexico’s Joey Burns for this week’s paper–and he got some good stuff out of him, too. Especially, I think, toward the end of the piece, when the topic of the track “Victor Jara’s Hands” is brought up. At the very least,…
Believe me, there’s a reason why I’m posting the above trailer for Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist here–and it’s not just for kicks. I’m doing it for Bishop Allen, a fun little indie pop rock act whose “Middle Management” song pops up on the soundtrack for the film and is…
The clip above? That’s the video for “Offend Maggie”, the first single off Bay Area-based indie art rock act Deerhoof’s last month-released disc of the same name. Pretty cool, right? Eh, no big deal–just more of the same goodness from a band that straddles the sublime and the ridiculous with…
Consider the Trail of Dead and Municipal Waste giveaways from this afternoon an appetizer: At random points throughout the day tomorrow, we’ll be dolling out a total of 26 individual tickets (13 pairs) to five various shows happening around the region this weekend. And, as always, we’ll be giving them…
