Music

Nicky Click is your “one-woman feminist electro band.” (Nickey Robbo)When I looked at this weekend’s calendar, I was especially bummed. Not because the prospects suck, but because I’ll be out of town. If I were doing to be in DdFW this weekend, these are the shows I’d hit first. Nicky…

In the early ’80s, the Go-Go’s were considered the quintessential California girls, thanks mainly to sunny new-wave songs such as “Vacation” and “We Got the Beat.” But times are (somewhat) different now for the quintet: vocalist Belinda Carlisle, guitarist Charlotte Caffey, bassist Kathy Valentine, drummer Gina Schock—and especially guitarist Jane…

Being the director of your own music school can have its positive results outside of work, especially if you front a band in your spare time. “I make music all day long with children and adults, and the enthusiasm from that energizes me to jam all night,” says David Hall,…

Despite his best efforts to sway opinion to the contrary, Bob Mould will always be defined by his work within Hüsker Dü. The Minneapolis trio’s bracing punk, overloaded with volume and pop hooks, still carries amazing weight some 25 years after the fact. District Line is certainly one of Mould’s…

It’s inevitable. At some point you’ll be at a bona fide grown-up party, where nobody is throwing up, burning things, doing bong hits or staining the carpet. You’ll find you’re actually enjoying it, even though the music is too quiet and people are talking about real estate. Then you’ll look…

Formed in 2001 by Berliner steel string guitarists Jan Thoben and Jochen Brisen, Taunus started as a fairly conventional jazz combo with eccentric folk leanings. The debut, Malinche, consisted of minimal, interlocking guitar patterns that were akin to Robert Fripp surveying the Burl Ives songbook—intriguing but a bit too laidback…

Traditional regional music is a heavy influence for all three acts on this bill. Flogging Molly is a Los Angeles punk band that uses traditional Irish melodies and instruments, including the tin whistle, and falls somewhere between the Dropkick Murphys and The Pogues on the punk-to-traditional-Celtic-music continuum. Singer Dave King…

Verb! Pikahsso shows action on his birthday by teaming up with local photographer and homeless advocate Hal Samples to throw a party and collect winter clothing for the homeless. The party, at Samples’ studio, will feature performances by some of the best rappers in the D-F Dub, including Pik’s group…

Lee May, singer/guitarist of local psychedelic rockers Holy Diver, is adamant that his band is not, nor ever will be, a tribute band to Ronnie James Dio. “We all had this ongoing joke about the song and how we didn’t know what it meant and how hilarious it was,” Lee…

Irrational exuberance is so widespread in hip-hop right now that Alan Greenspan might freak out—if he understood rap lyrics. There are no two ways about it: Hip-hop sales stink. Album sales dropped 30 percent in 2007, a figure that includes digital downloads. And ringtones, which have given folks like Soulja…

As you might have noticed, the Dallas Observer music section’s been in a state of flux for the past two months awaiting the arrival of a new music editor, with several of us filling this space and editing duties falling squarely on the shoulders of cranky old Buzz. Thankfully, our…

Seated behind a folding table in the small lounge at Lee Harvey’s, next to the Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga arcade game, Mark Griffin is flipping through a book of CDs, trying to pick the next song when two 30-something guys walk in, halt in their tracks and stare at him for a…