Interpol engages the Palladium crowd Thursday night. (Matt Mueller) Interpol is one of those bands I managed to only see at festivals up to this point. Let’s face it, festivals suck for technical bands. Luckily, I was able to catch the New York band Thursday night at the Palladium Ballroom…
A Wednesday night out on lower Greenville offered a couple of surprises. First, parking was a bitch. Is Wednesday the new Friday? The second surprise was President George Bush with pasties. Did I really drink that much? Zubar celebrated its 11th anniversary with a prison themed party, Lock Down, and…
We’re watching the clock, waiting until it’s time for tonight’s Atmosphere show over at The Loft. If you’re like us, and can’t wait to hear the group’s rhymes, we have a treat for you. the track “Sunshine” from the band’s latest Sad Clown Bad Summer Number 9 (Rhymesayers). Listen while…
Sarah Jaffe Two weeks ago, we mentioned the forthcoming documentary titled At War, about U.S. combat troops stations in Afghanistan. It was directed and shot entirely by a former soldier-turned-photojournalist from Portland named Scott Kesterson, who spent a year in Afghanistan and is currently in Dallas editing the movie with…
Dallas’ soul musician Montrose is a fan of fashion mags. Can you tell? (Clark Perkins) Rock-soul musician Montrose isn’t unlike many other Dallas hidden gem, waiting patiently in the wings of local notoriety for his moment to shine. He, his band and his partner in prose Rhonda Nicole zig zag…
So how about that Kanye West/50 Cent beef, eh? And by “beef” we mean “public rivalry manufactured to stimulate sales of two albums being released on the same day by the same parent corporation.” West’s Graduation and Fiddy’s Curtis ended up making a bunch of Caucasian record label executives very…
Ya know, there are worse things in the world than naming your band something annoying—things like killing people, or donning a diaper and chasing some astronaut cross-country, or, I dunno, literally getting away with murder, only to years later bust into some Las Vegas hotel room with a bunch of…
It’s hard to imagine how I could have botched my interview with Interpol guitarist Daniel Kessler even more badly than I did. Maybe it could have been worse if the only thing I’d asked was “Why don’t you go fuck yourself?” On second thought, that line of questioning would have…
Toronto, Canada’s Rock Plaza Central quickly endeared themselves to the crowds at this year’s SXSW, flooring music writers and college kids alike with the triumphant post-Mangum folk anthems of their strangely moving sophomore record, Are We Not Horses. And while an orchestral folk concept album about robotic horses might sound…
Billy Joe Shaver and I have been talking for about 20 minutes when I bring up his son Eddy, who died of a heroin overdose in 2000—on New Year’s Eve. He passed away just more than a year after Shaver’s wife and mother both succumbed to cancer. Then in 2001,…
So, you might have noticed, we’ve launched a new Dallas Observer music blog, titled DC-9 at Night (named after the line in the Jimmie Dale Gilmore song “Dallas”). Or maybe you didn’t; we haven’t really made a big deal of it. When Pegasus News reported that we were starting said…
Given the advances in digital studio equipment, cutting an album in analog can be both more difficult and more expensive than using readily available modern gear. Ben Harper, though, wanted the old-school experience, so he and his band laid down Lifeline fast and dirty using a 16-track console. The results…
Anyone who saw Liars cover Nirvana’s “Territorial Pissings” during last year’s summer tour might have suspected that, despite the seemingly irredeemable freakiness of 2004’s They Were Wrong So We Drowned and 2006’s Drum’s Not Dead, the New Yorkers hadn’t lost track of their more conventional roots. Sure enough, for this…
“By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Wichita Lineman,” “Didn’t We”—the songs of Jimmy Webb can only be classified as hits. While most writers work a lifetime hoping to write just one standard, Webb began writing them at 20 and had written half a dozen more by 25. Though he’s…
Grayskul’s 2005 release, Deadlivers, seemed suspiciously mature for a debut effort, at least until fans did some digging about these ascendant masters of the underground universe and discovered Reason, Fiddle Back Recluse and Phantom Ghost El-Topo were the superhero aliases of scene vets Onry Ozzborn, JFK and Rob Castro. These…
Jenny Hoyston’s street cred is impeccable. She’s the frontwoman for the crazed post-math-nu-rock-whatever groundbreakers Erase Errata, whose latest release, Night Life, demonstrates the band’s continued maturity, as Hoyston leads her crew through a seamless series of songs that are both weird and compelling. Hoyston’s known for dipping her toes in…
The epic, soaring sonics on Happiness Ltd., Hot Hot Heat’s latest effort, owe a debt to some tricked-out production that results in a number of satisfying swells. The strongest candidates for airplay are front-loaded for instant gratification, while the rest of the album needs time to ferment. Comparisons to the…
DC-9 just got an e-mail announcing 2008 Austin City Limits Festival three-day passes are now on sale at special early-bird prices. If you buy ’em, the ACL folk will send you a confirmation e-mail and mail the tix later in the year. (So you don’t have to hang on to…
Just opened up my press materials from the House of Blues fall schedule. Scrolling through, I noticed there are a few changes, and also the return of the best ’90s comeback band so far the past two years, Dinosaur Jr. Check it: Swizz Beatz’ Oct. 16 show is cancelled. Ringo…
Just got word the Bonde Do Role’s Dallas’ show scheduled for Oct. 5 at the Palladium has been nixed. No word as to why. When we get the skinny, we’ll be sure to share. — Jonanna Widner…
Red Monroe, The Lifters, Oliver Future Central Market, Fort Worth. Free Get your broke ass down to Fort Worth on Thursday, Sept. 27, for a trio of nu-nue-nuevo-nouveau pop from this trio of bands. First off, Red Monroe shakes and shimmies with a style that culls from everything from new…
Dammit, I heart Austin City Limits. The show, not the festival. Well, the festival’s fun, too, but right now I’m talking about the show. The venerable PBS show, a music-lovers wet dream and a good excuse to stay home on a Saturday night, has announced the schedule for its upcoming…
