John Gorka “I’m not afraid of drums,” says John Gorka, one of contemporary folk’s most accomplished songwriters, discussing the genre’s historically odd recoil from percussion. “I’d like to be thought of as in the folk tradition,” says Gorka, “but I really like the beat.” For more than 20 years Gorka…
Is it too early to be nostalgic for the mid-’90s? The beautiful space rock transmitting from Denton and Austin should have ushered in a new space age of Lone Star psychedelic instrumental music but faded out sometime just shy of the millennial finish line. But someone had to buy all…
Bringing a toy for a tot will get you half off the already affordable $4 door admission at Callithump’s New Music Tuesday. At two bucks, you’ve got no excuse, and what’s one more toy when you’ve already gotta sell plasma to pay for all your Christmas shopping? The toys won’t…
On their own, Irving’s DJ Frantic and Houston-bred Big J are dangerous. Dangerously funky, that is. But when they join forces they’re twice as dangerous, four times as funkified and 86 million trazillion times doper. That’s just simple math, folks. Clutch City transplant Big J relocated to Dallas from the…
For a woman who spends much of her time rapping about sex, Canada-born Merrill Nisker, who performs as Peaches, doesn’t seem all that concerned about having fun. Take “Two Guys (For Every Girl),” a provocative cut from Peaches’ latest CD, Impeach My Bush, in which she declares, “I wanna see…
Sabrina Ewing, singer of Austin’s all-female punk revivalists The Applicators, is a single mom with an attitude. Speaking from her kitchen, Ewing is both peppy and articulate as she discusses the pros and cons of females in punk rock. “We don’t need to rely on being girls or fall for…
A year ago Paul McCartney opened the vaults to The Freelance Hellraiser, who smashed the back catalog all to, well, hell by mashing up mediocre Macca till it sounded brighter than the solo Beatle ever did all by his lonesome. Now comes the old pro hisself, Sir George Martin, attempting…
New Pagan Love Song, Paul Brill’s wonderfully skewed neo-pop confection from 2004, established the New Yorker as a singer-songwriter of unusual subtlety and brave innovation. Mixing the plainspoken charm of Ben Folds with the sonic weirdness of Sparklehorse, Brill found a fertile, unforeseen meeting place of the sweet and the…
If I had to venture a guess—just based on the personally scrawled letter on notebook paper that arrived accompanying Daniel Folmer’s new release—I’d say he’s a simple guy, prone to bouts of wit and vulnerability. Hell, the 21-year-old explains his musical history (cello since age 7, writing and recording the…
Blowfly performs Tuesday, November 28, at Rockin’
Rodeo, Denton.
Ah, yes, the holidays: A time for eggnog, good cheer and…milking the Nirvana legacy for all it’s worth. That’s right: Even posthumously, Kurt still sells, especially at Christmas, and Geffen Records is cashing in this season with its release of a DVD version of Live! Tonight! Sold Out!. Like 2005’s…
GWAR performs Saturday, November 25, at Gypsy Tea
Room with The Red Chord.
Man, the lighting guy for the Radiant CD release party at the Granada last weekend pulled out all the stops. Giant swirls of light cascaded down the art deco walls; purplish backlighting highlighted the band; kinda psychedelic orange patterns crisscrossed the ceiling. Dude, save something for the New Monsoon show!…
Knee-Deep: Is there a Deep Ellum resurrection in the making (though we never really thought it had died in the first place. It was more in sleep mode.)? First, there’s the item former DO music editor Sam Machkovech dug up for his blog, www.bigdlittled.com, in which he notes Trees is…
With a handful of underwhelming solo records and the drawn-out demise of Son Volt, Jay Farrar’s last half-decade has been awfully uninspired—just song after song cut from the same dreary fabric that has resulted in so much monotonous blue-collar alt-country. Gob Iron, Farrar’s venture with Aders Parker, is the first…
Although there have been many attempts to properly anthologize The Clash, most efforts became bogged down in trying to cherry-pick tracks off of albums such as London Calling which were self-sufficient statements. The Singles presents a complete picture of the seminal band by gathering together every single and B-side the…
Three years ago, if you had told me a childlike pixie with a harp and a Renaissance wardrobe would make some of the best records of the ’00s, I would have told you to go back to Iceland. But dammit if Joanna Newsom didn’t do just that, first with her…
There’s a revolution of underground amateur noise artists, and Wolf Eyes has in large part inspired it. They have just about reached the pinnacle of success for a group that sounds more like a study in the art of electrocution than what most people would call music. Despite this, they…
Of all of the albums a band might choose to re-create, Pussy Cats, Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s drunken incursion into the bowels of New York City, would rank high on the unlikely list. Recorded during Lennon’s separation from Yoko Ono, the original album was a high holy mess: a…
The Hidden Cameras perform Thursday, November 23, at
Gypsy Tea Room.
Sunday, November 26, at the Gyspy Tea Room
Wednesday, November 29, at Sons of Hermann Hall
