Velvet casket?: On April 1, Undeniable Records threw its first-ever birthday bash, and the burgeoning record label picked the Double Wide to host the festivities. The 2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards nominee for Best Music Venue, tucked into the outskirts of Deep Ellum, was an ideal spot; after all, Undeniable…
At the end of March, Justin Wilson drove up to the Dallas Observer to drop off a box of promotional materials…a huge one. The bottom was blanketed with every single disc released by his first major Dallas band, Red Animal War, since 2000. He added some copies of his side…
At first glance, the touring package of Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard boggles the imagination. Is it some musical version of a national unity ticket for the 2008 presidential race pairing Hillary Clinton and John McCain–the rabid leftist with the old-school conservative? Or is it a bout between competing song…
With the recent passing of his chief influence and mentor, Buck Owens, it should prove interesting to witness Dwight Yoakam’s mood during his forthcoming appearance in Rockwall. The pair had recently played together, and Owens had been known to dispense some fatherly advice along with an occasionally stern rebuke when…
Maybe I didn’t notice it before. Maybe I was too overwhelmed by the breaking-waves-crashing-thunder drums, the moaning-and-monotone vocals, the shattered-and-shattering guitars and keybs coalescing into the Big Bang unheard since Bonzo croaked and Syd cracked. But it’s unavoidable now, two albums and one EP into a major-label career that’s seen…
Kudos to the Flaming Lips for releasing the best A-side/B-side of the year so far. The Lips kick off their latest “of course it’s gonna be weird” album, At War With the Mystics, with a bang: “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” has its freak-folk-meets-psychedelic-guitars lunacy capped off by a subtly political…
Here’s an MC boast so frank it’s hilarious: “In this corner, the undisputed champs of hip-hop–RJD2 on the beats, Blueprint on the rhymes–versus everything that sucks about music in the opposite corner.” But it’s no joke: Soul Position’s second LP is a stone classic. It’s not just that Blueprint is…
For ex-Unicorns Nick Diamonds and Jaime Tambeu, releasing a “mature” follow up to their acclaimed 2003 debut could have been a total disaster. Considering that the Montreal group’s unpredictable song structures and amateurish, lo-fi charm were what initially earned them so much praise, their decision to disband the Unicorns, start…
With the recent uproar about immigration and other issues on the U.S./Mexico border, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for the new album by Calexico, the multinational collective (members hail from both the United States and Germany) founded by Tucson residents Joey Burns and John Convertino. However, Garden Ruin sees…
In a nifty bit of yin/yang, Lee Ann Womack both embodies and dispels the simplistic Nashville saw about “three chords and the truth.” Sure, the song is the heart of it all, something this East Texas gal learned early on from her disc jockey father, musical schooling in the well-regarded…
It’s hard to write about Neko Case without admitting my utter, total bias toward the Tahoma-bred bombshell. Really, there are plenty of other angles to start from–the folklore of a girl who began her musical career as a Canadian punk/rockabilly drummer, her recent signing to Anti- Records, the never-ending help…
At 29, Maria Taylor has experienced a musical passage equivalent to folks twice her age. While barely in her teens, Taylor was part of Little Red Rocket, a Birmingham duo who released two efforts on Geffen and garnered positive comparisons to Belly. Taylor and her partner, Orenda Fink, then formed…
“I can hear a collective rumbling in America.” This line on “Be Good to Them Always,” one of the best cuts on the Books’ third and most approachable album, is a sample hidden amongst so many other samples–percussion, cello, banjo, guitar–and struggles to have its say. It’s an old recording,…
They may seem simply entertaining or innocuous when prancing around the TV screen, but behind the scenes the Pussycat Dolls are ushering in an unsavory new era in the business of music. Ostensibly a vocal and dance ensemble, the unapologetically manufactured group is seemingly everywhere now as the Pussycat Dolls…
In a bar somewhere on the West Coast, a presumptuous punk-rock fan approached a woman who looked familiar. “Hey, you look just like Exene Cervenka. What are you doing here?” The woman, taking pleasure in the opportunity to shut down this clueless tool, flatly said, “I am Exene. I just…
For record labels, videogames and music are a match made in target audience heaven. EA Sports pushes major-label names in rock and hip-hop on the company’s yearly Madden and NBA updates, and Tony Hawk games sport underground punk and metal soundtracks. While those are somewhat appropriate, this week’s latest music-in-games…
Last year, the Wall of Sound Festival was just another local-loaded concert in a crowded month. April 2005 saw quite a few super-sized music events around the Dallas area–Fry Street Fair, Deep Ellum Arts Festival, WakeUp Festival–and each had its share of solid local bands but little to distinguish it…
Drumroll, please: Flip to page 80 to take a gander at the official list of nominees for the 2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards. Starting right now, you have four weeks to cast your vote, so either fill out the attached ballot and mail it in or log on to dallasobserver.com…
Listening to Band of Horses’ stunning debut, Everything All the Time, it’s almost impossible not to hear echoes of the Shins and My Morning Jacket. They’re no mere copycats; it’s just that they forge their sound from the same familiar elements–the pitch-perfect pop songcraft of their Sub Pop labelmates, the…
Bruce Robison’s new album has a few good songs about those old country staples of heartbreak and regret. Unfortunately, the production (all done by Robison) is about as exciting as recent Claritin-D commercials starring him and wife Kelly Willis. Though the Austin musician loads Eleven Stories with considerable filler, Robison…
With his reedy voice, exceptional guitar chops and classic good looks, Tommy Keene should have been a star in the late ’70s when his career first began. The problem was that Keene’s amalgam of post-punk earnestness, ’60s pop and dense hard rock was always out of fashion. Even when Geffen…
Smile Smile’s sad sad guy/gal duets about failure, break-ups and betrayal are like a journal detailing a quarter-life crisis, but the pretty pretty multilayered harmonies and piano are the antidepressants that keep you from crying about it. The first three song titles–“Waving the White Flag,” “Now It’s Over” and “Sad…
