Hey, look! I’m a P.I.C.A.S.so! Uh-oh. We just got word that there’s a rapper from Newport News, Va., who calls himself P.I.C.A.S.So–which is pronounced exactly the same as the name of local celestial brain phunkmaster Pikahsso. One big difference: Newport News’ P.I.C.A.S.so is a born-again Christian rapper, and Dallas’ Pikahsso…
Prolific Denton-based indie popster Daniel Folmer is set to finish another two new albums in the coming weeks, which means 2008 is going to be just as busy for Folmer as 2007 when he released the slacker, caffeine-addicted Wear Headphones and the more mature and polished Gloria. So, what should…
Anyone else excited to see Mars Volta next Tuesday, April 8? Well, if you’re wanting to go but not drop the $35 for a ticket, we’ve got your back. DC-9 has managed to get its grubby hands on a pair of tickets to the show. We’re making this contest very…
Odis at the Ridglea Theater last Friday. (Jonathan Finley)Dallas band Odis released its debut album Feel in February. We heard the rock band play the new tunes live last weekend at the Ridglea (see the pictures), so when we heard the band posted the song “Breakin’ Me Down” to its…
Dallas pop-rockers The Vanished will play the Journeys Backyard BBQ with The Secret Handshake and Aiden.With upcoming tours with Cobra Starship and Cartel (at home and abroad) on tap for The Secret Handshake, the band is still up for doing a local mall show every now and then. OK, so…
Cowboys from Hell? More like angels! I don’t even think the superfans on the Pantera message boards have seen this yet–then again, I might’ve just missed it among all the talk about the best Pantera songs to make love to–but here’s some sweet news for all you Pantera lovers out…
Zane Lewis’ “Southland”: Hot or Not? I know that Zane Lewis’ modern country sound isn’t exactly up most most of our readers’ alley. Hell, it’s not really up our alley, either (although I was, admittedly, a modern country apologist for a time in college…it’s how I started to get into…
We’ve been talking a lot lately in the office about the upcoming Centro-matic/South San Gabriel double-disc release Dual Hawks (which you can buy in June, or, well, now, as an import on Amazon.com). Seems like we’re not the only ones excited, either. The folks at the mp3 blog Captains Dead…
Glen Reynolds: Future Hip-Hop Mogul? Of all the possible local music collaborations you could dream up, a pairing of Glen Reynolds from Chomsky and Picnic from PPT would likely be the last you’d think of. And yet, here we are: “I’ve played guitar on the new PPT Denglish record and…
To celebrate the eighth birthday of their record store, the folks at Good Records are throwing another annual bash for themselves on Saturday, April 19. This time around you can expect: “special goodies” from a number of labels, limited edition merchandise, free food and beverage (even stuff for vegans!) and,…
Symbolic One. According to a post on Symbolic One’s blog, Young Buck raps over one of his beats on a track called “I Got Money,” which just leaked to HipHopGame.com. If you don’t recognize the name, Symbolic One (S1) is one of the area’s most respected producers and part of…
The curtain dress. Oh, the curtain dress.In celebration of the AFI Dallas International Film Festival, Texas fashion institution Neiman Marcus has collaborated with The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas to present the unique AFI event Through the Lens Clearly: Icons & Images from The Harry Ransom Center…
Wait, let me get this straight: You just went ahead and blew all your hard-earned cash on musical instruments and computer software? You want to start a band? Well, good luck. You’re gonna need it. Because—just so you know—today’s musical climate is somewhere south of overcast with a chance of…
A wide-eyed, panting inline skater—no more than 12 years old—whizzes through a narrow concrete passageway past a fenced complex of quarter-pipes and launch ramps. “Guys! Guys!” he yells to his buddies. “There’s a band about to play! There’s a band about to play!” It looks like Vicki Eisenberg’s prediction is…
Punk blues/soul musician Black Joe Lewis is apparently a man of few words, but then again, songs like his own “Bitch, I Love You” pretty much speak for themselves. The track, from his self-titled 2006 debut, marries Lewis’ foul-mouthed man-done-wrong verses (“Come home late at night/Bitch, you know it just…
Colin Meloy, the Anglophile frontman for indie rock darlings The Decemberists, hardly tops the list of the people you’d expect to hear singing Sam Cooke. After all, the wordy, bespectacled and talented songwriter is known more for his affected accent and stylistic wardrobe than for his soulfulness. Basically, you can…
The biggest knock on the Keys’ 2006 major-label debut, Magic Potion, was its lack of innovation. That can’t be said about the band’s new disc, Attack & Release, which remains steadfast in its blues allegiance while expanding the Akron, Ohio, duo’s territorial reach. Tastefully done, it’s undoubtedly a Black Keys…
R.E.M.’s 14th studio album, Accelerate, lives up to its speedy title. It’s loud, quick and dirty, spinning by so fast that it takes multiple listens to absorb. It’s full of buzzing guitars and stream-of-consciousness discontent, along with an abundance of Mike Mills’ choir-boy harmonies and sinewy bass. And naturally, it…
Destroyer frontman Dan Bejar decided that the lineup that recorded his band’s 2006 album Destroyer’s Rubies should remain intact indefinitely, so the follow-up to that record, Trouble in Dreams, now finds the Vancouver indie-pop band testing its own limits. “Blue Flower/Blue Flame” trumps Ladybug Transistor at its own game and…
Like the subject matter at the heart of its lyrics, Wounded Soldier is almost too much to bear. The ghosts of fallen soldiers and the traumatic memories of warriors still living seem to haunt every song in this brutal tour-de-force from Broadcast Sea. A press release notes that singer Sterling…
The southern rockers in Cross Canadian Ragweed—who, it should be noted, aren’t Canadian at all (their band name is derived from elements of the four members’ last names: Cross, Canada, Ragsdale and, um, Plato); they’re from Oklahoma—are, at worst, an act you wouldn’t mind playing your favorite bar and, at…
Ghosthustler, Denton’s much-loved electro-dance outfit, doesn’t exactly appear to be in a big hurry. They’ve been mentioned on Pitchfork’s tastemaking site, they’re constantly hyped up by locally based national music blog GorillaVsBear and they’ve even been profiled at length in this very publication. And yet, the band has only offered…
