Critic's Notebook

Is the suburban dream already over? For festival organizers in Plano, it’s certainly become much more of a long shot. After only its first year, the Suburbia Music Festival, held last May at Oak Point Park and Nature Preserve, has lost the support of festival organizer LiveNation. It’s a blow…

Going to a hockey game is fun for a lot of reasons: The breakneck pace of the game, the physical game play, the fights, the goals and the music. Let’s face it: Hockey has always had a bit of a leg up on the other North American sports for music…

Brass Tacks is a new barbershop in the heart of the Bishop Arts District that people actually enjoy waiting in. Grab a stool or relax in one of the ridiculously comfortable chairs, have a hot or cold beverage and watch a fun ’90s film on the TV, something like Desperado…

There is something almost magnetic about a good sad song. According to science, that irresistible attraction to songs that make us a little teary eyed comes from our brains’ penchant for nostalgia. When we hear sad songs, we think of better times, and in turn actually end up happier than…

There is an undeniable American fascination towards New York City, and perhaps from the world, where everything and anything could be a cultural metaphor. For better or worse, the pulse of this metropolis continually re-kindles creativity in everything from cuisine to art to fashion. And music. One such band with…

Problem Dogg is an anti-band. They take every chance to challenge the audience by using multiple bass lines, hosting frantic shows and unleashing a terrifying energy on listeners. Continuing this trend, the band released a 49-song anthology album last week, collecting all the tracks the band has written in the…

Eight years ago, Rhett Miller’s brother, Ross, also a musician, felt compelled to figure out how he and his famous brother could help a friend of his. A wife of one of Ross’s friends was battling cystic fibrosis, so the two Millers got to work on a plan that would…

Being in a band is a full-time job. Anyone who has played in one will tell you this. Between jams to write music, rehearsals, recording and gigging, it is exhausting and taxing. The trouble with playing in a band is that musicians see very little from it, aside from a…

On Thursday night, the Deep Ellum on Air show Local Over Everything began its second season. The show’s hosts Rodney Blu, Mo the Bear and Simon Phoenix brought in Dallas rapper Blue, the Misfit to mark the occasion. The show has done well with its unconventional, but authentic program format…

Seal Bass is part of an extreme minority amongst Dallas DJs. He plays techno in its purest form. While he’s not so well known in the regional DJ circuit, Seal Bass has over 20 years’ experience behind the decks. He still plays vinyl and his breadth of knowledge of classic…

Since early Saturday morning, the people of Dallas are momentarily retiring their auxiliary cables and tuning into not one, but two new radio stations, both specializing in a virtually untested format. As we reported Monday, both Boom 94.5 FM and Hot 93.3 FM made an unprovoked about-face early Saturday morning:…

A unique thing happened in Deep Ellum last night: People crowded into a bar, filling it wall-to-wall, and looking on in attentive silence at person in the front of the room. But that person wasn’t playing music; they were giving a lecture. The person was Jeffrey Liles, the artistic director…

In March of 2011, the Flaming Lips released a limited edition collaborative 12″ EP with Neon Indian that lit up the internet. It was a fascinating alliance, but the pictures of the actual vinyl records were just as exciting. No one had ever seen vinyl like this before. Every copy…

When frequenters of K-Soul 94.5 FM tuned to its position on the dial this weekend, it was to only quickly discover that without warning, their destination for “the best old school and R&B” had been replaced by something a little bolder and less conventional by radio standards. The silent makeover…

Inspiration is a strange beast. For Philip Gage, the leading track on No Touching’s EP came to him in response to a 7-Eleven clerk who he had a less-than-pleasant experience with. The track, “Big Mama,” started as a joking poem-rant from Gage to bandmate Elana Nelson, but eventually developed into…

Now’s when the real fun begins. Voting has been open for the 2014 Dallas Observer Music Awards for just about six weeks, and we’re in the home stretch. (If you haven’t already voted, you’d better make your way over to musicawardspoll.dallasobserver.com and make sure your voice is heard!) The awards…

Donny Young has been an active part of the Dallas DJ community since the early ’90s heyday of rave — first as a fan, and then as a DJ since 1996. Young is mostly associated with the DJ crew Motif and their parties. He has been a constant face amongst…

In the dull roar of a post-homecoming crowd at Crooked Crust in Denton, Garrett Gravley has his dining choices mocked. The perpetrator, Albert Louis, scoffs: “Dessert bread sticks and beer?” To which Gravley explains, “He’s always making fun of how I eat.” This is the makeshift office space of Who…

This week, Dallas-based songwriter Ronnie Fauss released Built to Break, his second full-length effort for the New West Records imprint Normaltown. Of course, that total doesn’t include the handful of killer alt-country EPs Fauss delivered before his 2012 Normaltown debut, I Am the Man You Know I’m Not. Since 2009,…

Tonight was supposed to witness Connecticut band the World is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die visiting Dallas for a show at the Prophet Bar. But as of last night, that is no longer the case. Show cancellations are commonplace — Ms. Lauryn Hill’s scheduled…

Every Music scene has that guy who has seen it all. He’s the guy you always run into at influential shows, record stores and DJ nights from as long as you have been going to shows. Evan Chronister, known to many as Captain Groovy, was one of those guys in…