Watching the seven-piece psych rock band Acid Carousel perform is like watching a pen full of well-dressed wolf pups wrestle with their favorite sticks. Frontmen and songwriters Gus Baldwin and John Kuzmick are young, at 18 and 21, respectively; there’s a lot of long hair; they have boundless energy; and the…
The ongoing efforts of Encore Park to preserve the historic Warner Brothers building are starting to show promise following a $2.1 million grant from the Moody Foundation, which was announced Wednesday. The Moody Foundation has been benefactor to a number of other high profile developments in the city of Dallas,…
Patrons of Deep Ellum’s Buzzbrews Kitchen are likely to recognize Evan Bornes by his perky dreads and thick, wide-framed glasses. The 21-year-old Lakeworth native, also known as rapper-producer PeepSigns, has adopted the popular hangout as his base of operations when producing music or editing his new podcast, Black Swan. For the…
Rick Simpson is a veteran of the Dallas DJ scene dedicated to the old school craft of mixing tracks. He is most often seen playing with his crew Disco’s Revenge, who have had a vinyl-focused, monthly residency for the last few years that recently moved to The Nines. Simpson’s focus…
Yesterday, Homegrown released the full lineup for its eighth festival this May. While the reunion of the 17-years silent Tripping Daisy is still the biggest news, the announcement of MUTEMATH, Porches and Still Corners also reveals an interesting tweak to the festival’s vision, in that none of these three acts…
On the surface, Pearl Earl and Siamese, two of North Texas’ most innovative rock bands, appear to sail different musical waters. The women of Pearl Earl traffic in psych-rock with heavy grooves and charging guitars that at times hearken back to late ’60s San Francisco. Siamese make noisey rock, too, but…
Last night’s 59th Grammy Awards may have been dominated by Adele, who accepted five gold-plated gramophone trophies, Metallica’s microphone issues during their performance with Lady Gaga, and a tribute to Prince, but in between all that, North Texas artists also received some love. Arlington-born country sensation Maren Morris performed “Once” with Alicia…
There was a time when pop punk trio MxPx toured constantly, and hit Dallas on every go-round. Whether it was Deep Ellum Live or Trees, the gaps between shows were short. But these days the Washington-based band doesn’t tour at all, instead opting to restrict their travel to weekends and…
Country music outsider and critical darling Sturgill Simpson has announced a series of tour dates beginning March 4. The tour includes a stop at Verizon Theatre in September as well as dates in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Portland and Austin. In 2014 Simpson sold out two shows on the same…
It’s hard to talk about the ’80s post-punk period without including Adam Ant. He released Kings of the Wild Frontier in 1980, setting the tone of rebellious confidence that persisted in music throughout the decade. His music and persona was a declaration of war against a music industry he perceived as…
Being in the rap game for over 15 years earns you some leeway, as Dallas rap legend Tum Tum has learned. For one, he’s never in a rush to release new music. It’s been almost six years since his last studio album. But on Feb. 28, Tum Tum will release…
Daniel Cortez is a recent transplant to Dallas from El Paso who is making waves as half of production duo Prototype. He’s had a hand in putting together some of the most exciting techno parties to pop up in Dallas recently, for which he brings in international artists from boutique…
A tip from an Uber driver about a property that was for sale along the Trinity River led Jay LaFrance to saving one of Dallas’ most historic musical landmarks. Built in 1950, the Longhorn Ballroom was once the home of Bob Wills and run by Jack Ruby, but when it came up…
Fort Worth rapper T-Ryde is straight off a gig with Struggle Jennings, Waylon’s grandson. T-Ryde, whose real name is Jerry Hammons II, writes his own lyrics in a style he refers to as underground, double-time rap, and his music left quite an impression on Jennings. “Struggle just really liked my…
In January we announced that none other than Jimmy Eat World will be headlining the Dallas Observer’s annual St. Patrick’s Day party on March 11. Well, guess what? There’s even more fun rock coming your way: Rooney and the Unlikely Candidates are also on the lineup. Rooney was formed in…
His tombstone is unnerving in its stark simplicity. It bears his name, his birth date, and the date of his death: Feb. 22, 1987, 30 years ago this month. There’s no list of accomplishments, nothing artsy or clever or ironic. That’s all you get. Andy Warhol once said that he…
Last Friday night, during Foreigner’s hit-laden performance at the Verizon Theatre, 26 members of the Arlington Heights High School Treble Choir joined the band for a version of the soft rock staple, “I Want to Know What Love Is.” Foreigner has done this song with local choirs for years, and…
Several local record shops that focus on vinyl, such as Josey, Good Records and Spinster, are managing to thrive in the age of streaming; meanwhile Dallas’ oldest store, which has specialized in CDs for the last two decades, is struggling to keep its doors open. But Top Ten Records on West…
On any given Saturday in Deep Ellum, throngs of 20- and 30-somethings roam the streets in small packs, looking for a good time, live music, or their next lay — maybe all of the above. But what’s relatively unusual is to see people forming lines outside the neighborhood’s laid-back watering holes. This…
In December 2015, we profiled Banquet, a Denton-based band made up of four members of Midlake along with members of Band of Horses, Travis, Grandaddy and Franz Ferdinand. This week their first single, “Restart,” dropped and their full debut album is set to be released on April 28. The release, titled…
Even Brutal Juice’s frontman has difficulty describing the band. But sitting out back at Dan’s Silver Leaf in Denton, Craig Welch tries anyway, calling it “an acid-fueled excuse to turn amps to 11 and play with feedback loops.” It’s a fairly close approximation. The band’s post-punk music was known to roar, thrash…
Brian Armstrong has spent the past two decades as a dedicated apostle of DJ culture. At various points he’s been a budding dance music fan, an MC, a record store employee and a full-time track slinger under his alias DJ BrianPibb. Like any good working DJ, Armstrong is not one…
