Journeys Backyard BBQ featuring Rockett Queen, Before The Fall, Alesana and othersMay 10, 2008Grapevine Mills Mall Better Than: Spending the day at the Journeys store nearby. I had high hopes for the Backyard BBQ. No, seriously. A decent mall band (Alesana), a handful of local acts and a collective of…
The Whigs, What Made Milwaukee Famous, The Dead Trees and Collin Herring The Loft May 9, 2008 Better Than: Well…the record, in The Whigs’ case. You know, for a town than supposedly views Austin with disdain, Dallas sure supports Austin musicians… It’s fairly well known that both The Black Angels…
Sarah Jaffe sings. (allisonvsmith.com) Mostly local stuff bubbling up as the tops in town this weekend, which is totally cool by us. Each one of the acts we’re mentioning are ones you should be familiar with–one ones you should familiarize yourself with. So how’s ’bout we step it up, ‘mkay?…
What you missed on DC9 this week as you sat around marveling at how much you actually enjoyed Iron Man… – We told you about Strawberry Fields’ move and what it meant for the future of the store’s DIY concerts. – We let you know about a certain icon’s upcoming…
Go ahead and set your iPods to the over-used but somehow still uplifting anthem “Clocks.” Because, ladies and gents, Coldplay’s coming back to town. According to the press release that arrived in our mailbox this afternoon, the “Viva La Vida” tour (same name as the upcoming album which, unfortunately, doesn’t…
The Black Crowes land in Addison. Does Addison have good taste in music? That’s debatable, judging by this lineup, but this weekend’s food and music festival, Taste Addison, has certainly managed to secure some big names for this year’s festival, including Friday performers Switchfoot and Gavin DeGraw and Saturday headliners…
How often do we get mail from bands? Often. How often do we get an actual hand-written letter from a band? Pretty damned rarely. I remember an inspirational greeting card from witty songstress Laura Palmer around last November and Daniel Folmer has been known to keep us updated on new…
Fort Worth singer/songwriter Tim Halperin plays his final area show this Friday at the Chicken Ranch, a club located in the Stockyards. The TCU student will then be off to his hometown of Omaha for a few months to reconnect with his roots. “The guys I used to play with…
Odd that these guys wrote “You’ll Never Make It.” (Chapman Baehler) California’s Pennywise has been playing its brand of working man’s punk for nearly 20 years now, and the members show little sign of slowing down. Even after the 1996 suicide of original member Jim Thirsk, the band soldiered on,…
What Made Milwaukee Famous (Cambria Harkey) We launched a new weekly DC9 feature called Aural Ambush yesterday, in which we hit the streets, armed with an archaic discman, and ask the people of Dallas their thoughts on a song from a band coming through town. Yesterday’s bit focused on the…
This is not the Sloppyworld sound system. This is just a tribute. John Freeman’s had himself a rough 2008 so far, between opening Sloppyworld, perhaps closing Sloppyworld, definitely closing Sloppyworld and trying to scrounge up the money to pay Sloppyworld’s leftover bills. Now, just four months before he heads off…
Ozzy knows how to give his mama some love.OK, boys and girls, Mother’s Day is this Sunday. That means you’ve got a mere day and a half to come up with something sweet for that lady who raised you (and maybe your grandma, too? She probably rules, too). In the…
Michael Chamy loves his new Speak and Spell. Sitting outside Recycled Books on the Denton Courthouse Square, Chamy’s jittery fingers fly around the toy’s letters and buttons, producing a stream of squawks and metallic-anthropoid vocalizations that sound something like Max Headroom going nine rounds with the Hal 9000. Chamy, a…
Mother’s Day’s coming up this week and—just in case you forgot, you miserable excuse for a child, you—Mom should be at the forefront of your mind. You do know Mom, right? The folkish electronic and instrumental duo from Denton whose debut EP, Little Brite, is still selling well (well, as…
Vampirism, hard time, booze and stress relief through random gunfire: Unknown Hinson is the most rock ‘n’ roll cat to ever dismiss the genre as something “a damn 15-year-old punk can do.” But thanks to his darkly funny, politically incorrect songs and blazing rockabilly riffs, Hinson is gaining popularity with…
Precious few listeners notice the drumming in modern-rock bands. But Julian Dorio, stick man for the Whigs, is an exception to this rule. His agitated skinsmanship on Mission Control, the band’s new full-length, not only anchors the album but provides just as many of the hooks as do frontman Parker…
After Green Day made punk acceptable to middle-class kids who bought their CDs at the mall, there was a void of product that was filled by an unlikely source: hard-core punk that didn’t have the advantages of tastefully applied eyeliner and faux British accents. Those disgruntled suburban youths were in…
Though it was once chiefly a spot to check out up-and-coming rock bands, The Cavern seems to have found its niche by branching out into hosting local hip-hop and dance events like the weekly Cool Out with DJs Schwa and Big J. Similarly, Saturday’s lineup is sure to be a…
Pardon, if you will, but the bliss is almost too much to bear—and that’s before the needle greets the record. (Ah, yes, right: “needle” and “record.” Children, do ask your grandparents.) Costello—still ignoring the expiration date stamped “1986,” the date of his most, ahem, recent must-own—has finally rushed to market…
The characters given life by Slug on Atmosphere’s new album have unenviable situations, but they’re not all “painting that shit gold” (whatever that means): Vagrants, single parents and dope-addled fiends, they all work, fuck and wallow in their misery, giving the emotional indie rap act a chance to traffic in…
Robert Holley, lead singer and principal songwriter of the retro-indie quartet Airline, possesses a dry, off-the-cuff delivery that makes even his most intriguing lyrics come off stress-free, as if he’s capable of keen introspective at the drop of a hat. Airline’s heady debut, Farewell Republica, features casually delivered, yet fully…
San Antonio-based Girl in a Coma’s 2007 album Both Before I’m Gone is pleasingly versatile: “Their Cell” resembles the swirling pop of Cocteau Twins, and “Clumsy Sky” begins like a Cat Power lullaby before morphing into a My Chemical Romance-esque rocker—which makes sense, considering that Joan Jett personally asked the…
