Juicy chunks of fresh lobster,lightly bound together with mayonnaise and served on buttered, toasted bread. Spicy, bubbling étouffée laid out over a bed of steaming white rice. Succulent Chinese dumplings stuffed with garlicky pork, floating in a rich vegetable broth. Fucking delicious. That’s according to Derek Fudesco, anyway–the Pretty Girls…
Non-joke joke band Eagles of Death Metal are back with Death by Sexy, the stompy/feel-good follow-up to their ’04 debut, Peace Love Death Metal. This time, founding Eagles Josh Homme (drums, also of Queens of the Stone Age) and mustachioed singer Jesse Hughes gloss things up with a more dance-driven…
With his nondescript, boyish appearance, local multi-instrumentalist/ producer Todd Gautreau talks about his music with a casual enthusiasm, discussing his art with the same demeanor he might use in talking about his day job as a graphic designer. “I think what I do reflects a struggle,” he says. “I try…
Paul Simon and Brian Eno? The very idea reads like a trick false answer on a pop-music trivia quiz. Then again, so did the marriage of Simon and hometown darling Edie Brickell, which by all appearances has turned out to be a successful (and fertile) union. And so is this…
The crazed mind behind Fantômas, Mr. Bungle and other sonic mindfucks has finally released his first self-described “pop” record. It’s the musical equivalent of Godard filming a summer blockbuster or Italo Calvino writing a grocery-store romance novel, but the aforementioned director and author never delivered what Mike Patton has on…
When this Boston post-punk outfit reunited in 2002 after nearly two decades, observers didn’t hold their breath in anticipation of what maturity had done to Mission of Burma’s sound. After all, guitarist Roger Miller, bassist Clint Conley and drummer Peter Prescott sounded mature right out of the gate, outfitting their…
The perfect setting for the Theater Fire’s blend of rustic Americana and Southwestern music would be under a full moon on some sweltering backwoods back porch, where listeners slap mosquitoes on their sweat-slicked skin, pass around XXX-embossed jugs of hooch and laugh when the hounds howl along with the performance…
In Spanish, the word for soap opera is telenovela. And as anyone with even a limited knowledge of the Latin music scene knows, the eight years of Corpus Christi’s Kumbia Kings has been full of drama of the highest order. Supposedly, this is their last tour, as founding members A.B…
When he was 13, Montreal’s Alain Macklovitch [no relation, I swear -Ed.] used his bar mitzvah money to buy a used Technics turntable and a mixer. While still in his teens, Macklovitch was holing up in his basement listening to Jazzy Jeff records and focusing his vision. A decade later,…
Hate to break the bad news, but Austin’s Sharks and Sailors may have picked the wrong city to play on Sunday. The quartet wears its love for D.C. punk on its short, black sleeves, and the result reflects the cutthroat gall of Red Animal War and the abrasive guy-girl shouting…
Don’t dillydally on the way to Dada, because Voot Cha Index’s early set will be the highlight of the night. Singer Neil Sanzgiri has some grating vocal quirks–his voice couldn’t have dropped more than a few months ago–but with such pretty melodies and creative arrangements of piano, accordion, banjo and…
Aging heavy-metal acts might take solace in claiming to be “big in Japan,” but DJ Tiësto (just plain Tijs Verwest to his parents) has achieved an international renown that borders on megalomania. Despite the recent drug overdose of a fan at an April 22 show in Jarkarta, Tiësto brings his…
I’d rather not start a discussion about Denton’s Fry Street with an overemotional plea…but it’s tempting. As GlobeSt.com’s Connie Gore reported on May 5, Bellaire, Texas, real estate developer United Equities Inc. acquired 3.7 acres of retail in the heart of central Denton–essentially, the 100 block of Fry Street, home…
Many bands from the early ’00s Lower East Side explosion have released disappointing follow-ups–studio-slick, but the polish hasn’t masked mediocre songwriting. With A Hundred Miles Off, the Walkmen have followed suit, if only because it’s their warmest and most commercially accessible record to date. Unlike the latest from their Gotham…
Just as Chuck Berry is to rock ‘n’ roll or Run-D.M.C. to hip-hop, Derrick May’s intrinsic value to the sound known as techno simply cannot be overstated. Of the Belleville 3, the famed trio of Detroit high school friends who tested the limits of EDM and changed its form forever,…
The Theater Fire doesn’t have a single timely quality. That’s not just a cop-out to describe the septet’s sound, though the Fort Worth band is first to admit that its acoustic arrangements are rooted in the oldest days of Americana; co-songwriter Don Feagin can’t even pay tribute to music as…
In case you haven’t figured it out after all these years, Joan Jett is still the “tough girl.” When her name is mentioned in print, that phrase always follows, like magic, by rote. In an e-mail interview with the Observer, Jett has her own take on the pigeonhole she first…
It’s safe to assume that Dallas country singer-songwriter Mark David Manders doesn’t claim Cedar Springs as his local borough. Oh, don’t be fooled by the title of his latest single, “Brokeback Mountain,” posted for play on his label’s Web site, Big Karma Records (bigkarmarecords.com/catalog)–it’s not a movie-loving tribute that’ll be…
As the leading source for local music news, we at the Dallas Observer pride ourselves in breaking huge announcements before anybody else in the metropl… Who am I kidding? The news was all over the indie-rock wire after a post at therentals.com last week–The Rentals, the California band led by…
Vulgar display: Every weird organization in America tries to claim an official month, so we could not care less that May is National Bike Month, National Military Appreciation Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month or, according to VH1, “metal month.” But VH1 is doing more than roll out shitty Skid…
From downtown Dallas street corners to round-the-world street fights, it’d be understatement by half to claim it’s been a strange and surprising trip for sisters and Chicks founders Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, especially since it’s the latecomer lead singer who got the band into trouble in the first place…
If you’re between the ages of 14 and 35 and are still unaware of the new Gnarls Barkley record, I’d like to welcome you back from whatever rock you’ve been huddled beneath. An album-length summer jam with few contemporaries, St. Elsewhere is an unstoppable Frankenstein of musical styles. Kitchen-sink DJ…
