Kacey Musgraves gave a “smooth” and “studio quality” performance on back-to-back rainy nights at Toyota Music Factory last week, and the internet is talking. Unfortunately it’s not her vocal skills they’re discussing. On Friday, the Golden, Texas, native took the stage wearing an áo dài, a traditional Vietnamese outfit that…
The weather is finally getting cool in Dallas, and Brody Price is taking the opportunity to sit outside his home with his dog and reflect on the upcoming release of his new album Hoop Dreams. The record is not your typical country album, but then again, Body Price is not…
Clay Perry had never heard of Oscar Wilde’s comment, “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” An aspiring hip-hop artist from Fort Worth, Perry found his poetry in the words and rhythms of street poets like Dr. Dre from N.W.A., Snoop Dog and local street legends D.O.C. and…
Across the nation, country music with a more classic sound, often labeled “Americana,” is making a comeback. Americana has come to describe a rising class of country musicians with an unornamented western sound and a penchant for storytelling and character-driven lyrics. In Dallas, that resurgence has many young faces.
Nya Marquez is fond of saying “period,” as in “end of conversation.” She says it when she is giving dating advice to her friends (which she does often) and when she concludes a rehearsal (which she does almost as often). On a sunny Tuesday at a barren shopping center in…
Regina Bugarin has become something of a household name in Denton’s music scene. At just 24, she is one of the most celebrated and active bookers in town, and there’s a reason people have lauded her work and practices. Bugarin has been booking shows in the college town since 2017,…
If you ask Bruce Robison whose idea it was to take legendary country singer-songwriter Willis Alan Ramsey out on the road for four dates for The Next Waltz Live tour, he’ll swear up and down that “he was the one that suggested doing some shows, but I think his idea…
To say we listen to music with our eyes would sound counterintuitive and foreign, but it wouldn’t be inaccurate. Think about it. How different would the live music experience be if we didn’t have eyes? How would record collectors listen to an LP in their living room if they couldn’t…
M3cca, “WTR pHiles” Denton sensation M3cca has built an astonishing catalog of soulful hip-hop music in the past few years. With a new album on the way, the vocalist unveils its lead single, titled “WTR pHiles” (pronounced “Water Feels”). The new song is a soul-cleansing metaphor about personal testimony that…
Chris Flemmons sits at a bench on the dimly lit, smoke-filled patio of Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton on a Monday evening, sipping a bitters and soda between tugs off his cigarette. He’s gearing up for an upcoming celebratory three-gig Texas tour with his band, the Baptist Generals, and the stress…
The Dallas Observer Music Awards, which reward the most accomplished, innovative and outstanding contributions to the local music industry, are on their 31st year. Thirty-one years, the age most of us consider becoming adults. In 1988, the year when DOMA first started, Reagan was president, the No. 1 song was George…
Quaker City Night Hawks drummer Aaron Haynes exploded onstage last week at the Big Velvet Revue showcase at the Basement East in Nashville. Well, exploding may be too strong of an image. His Fort Worth bandmates, David Matsler and Sam Anderson, weren’t actually finding pieces of their drummer strewn about…
Lizzi Trumbore walks into a McDonald’s and confronts an internal conflict. “I had to ask myself, ‘Should I buy something?’” she reflects later, sitting in that same Mickey D’s. “On the one hand, McDonald’s is this big corporation. They don’t need my money. On the other hand, I feel weird…
Say what you will about Kenny G, but the guy is one of the most disarmingly nice people you will ever have the pleasure to talk to, and he doesn’t really care if you have anything negative to say about him. “I may not be a person like Taylor Swift…
I’ve always hated the notion of the “tortured genius” since it essentially glamorizes an artist’s devastating struggle. Isn’t music supposed to, as Woody Guthrie once put it, “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable?” I’ll admit, it has become harder for me to intellectually defend my disdain for this archetype…
It seems like an eternity ago that derpy, 19-year-old Grapevine native Austin Post threw open the SoundCloud floodgates with “White Iverson” and thrust us into our current pop zeitgeist. Since then, there’s seldom been a mainstream radio hour, party or Spotify playlist sans one of his songs. Now 24 and…
In today’s America, where kids in high school don’t even know what a record player looks like, the yearly gross of vinyl sales is on pace to pass CD sales for the first time since 1986. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released their mid-year report on Sep. 5,…
It was a mild evening on July 28, 1994, the first season the Texas Rangers played at The Ballpark in Arlington. Kenny Rogers had pitched to 24 batters and sent all 24 back to the dugout, one out after another. Rex Hudler, second baseman for the California Angels and seventh…
When you’re gathering and doctoring cattle across thousands of acres of Texas backcountry, chances are there may not be a food truck in sight. But there could be a chuck wagon, and people will be gathering around it playing music and telling stories. That’s part of the experience that Damon…
Yes, it’s not even Halloween yet and some people are already gearing up for the Dallas Observer Music Awards. Every year for the last 31 years, the Observer has given out awards to the best in local music — with a glamorous and slightly decadent ceremony, which will take place this…
KERA hosted a preview screening of the upcoming Ken Burns docuseries Country Music on Thursday at Southern Methodist University’s McFarlin Auditorium, and we had the esteemed privilege of attending and even speaking with Burns’ co-collaborators Dayton Duncan (writer and lead producer) and Julie Dunfey (co-producer.) Between all three producers, there are…
On a blistering late summer night in Dallas, the funk band Electric Tongues has taken refuge in a Starbucks, sipping drinks that foretell the onslaught of seasonal marketing. “These are pumpkin spiced lattes, man,” guitarist Max Ogden says. “You already know.” At this, producer and new Tongues member Sean Dream…
