Love him or hate him, Scott Stapp has one of those over-the-top personas that seem part and parcel of being a rock star. Best known as the leader of Creed, Stapp’s deep, bellowing vocals helped that band reach massive popular heights in the late ’90s and early 2000s. During that…
Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden are coming our way this summer. Make no mistake, this is big news, and not a mere nostalgia trip for for those of us who were in high school or entering college 20 years ago. The announcement of a tour featuring a co-headlining double bill…
Ronnie Sterling isn’t your typical high school assistant principal. He’s also a guitarist in Protest, a local band known for its “unrelenting, no bullshit metal onslaught on stage.” It often comes as shock to students when they find out he plays in a metal band. “Wow, there’s no way,” they…
From February 26 to March 8, your 2013 Dallas Observer Music Award winners for Best Folk Act hit the road touring across the Midwest. In two weeks and eleven shows, The Fox and The Bird shared the experience of a lifetime together. From driving through the polar vortex to make…
Hailing from Australia, Thy Art is Murder is a deathcore band that has managed to garner significant fan bases in Germany, the UK and here in the States. Hate, the band’s sophomore effort from 2012, is considered by many a hallmark deathcore release and the album actually charted in Australia…
Last night I reluctantly headed to Deep Ellum’s Club Dada to see Macaulay Culkin’s pizza-themed Velvet Underground cover band perform. Now, if you’re anything like me, then that sentence takes some serious digesting before it can be completely understood. Former child star Macaulay Culkin is in a Velvet Underground cover…
Jerry Warden is a conduit for promoting heavy metal in the North Texas area. The former lead singer of Warlock, one of the first heavy metal bands in DFW, started in the early ’80s hosting live shows in the middle of a pasture christened “Heavy Meadows.” He continued with several…
Can you hear that? It might be somewhat foreign by now, but it’s the sound of the Dallas Cowboys scoring a touchdown. You know, thousands of fans cheering in Cowboys AT&T Stadium and that one song blares through the speakers. Well that song is California-based band The Burning of Rome’s…
Sadly, many people may only know Gary Numan for “Cars,” his surprising, off-the-wall hit from 1979. Yet Numan’s four decade long career belies any classification as a one-hit wonder. Indeed, some of Numan’s best music came immediately before and after he made “Cars.” Taken together, Numan’s catalogue makes him one…
You can’t have a true St. Patrick’s Day concert without a few staples: a mega-ton of beer, a sea of green-covered people who may or may not look that way because they’ve had more than their fair share of said beer, and a long list of bands and performers. We’ve…
Even with the cold wind, Texas country music fans still headed out to enjoy the 18th annual Texas Music Revolution. This festival, featuring more than a dozen acts on the bill, was to take place at the famous Southfork Ranch in Parker. My friend and I picked up our tickets…
Bryan “Infidelix” Rodecker runs through the streets of Ireland trying to find some place to hide. He knows his assailant is getting closer. The clapping of the little man’s heels echoes through the streets of Dublin like the chiming of church bells. He doesn’t know what he’d done to piss…
For nearly twenty years, the Finnish heavy metal band Children of Bodom has done the symphonic, melodic death metal thing with passion and power to spare. Long considered one of Scandinavia’s best metal outfits, Children of Bodom have never resisted change. Proof of such is the band’s recently issued album…
We’ve talked about the wonderful Girls Rock Dallas plenty of times on DC9 in the past few years. The volunteer-run, non-profit offers something that no other music camp can provide for females aged eight to seventeen: a chance to learn instruments, form a band, play a show, and most importantly,…
Our boys over on Elm Street, Oliver Peck and the Reverend Horton Heat, have really outdone themselves this time. Fresh off the success of last year’s greatly expanded festival, the guys have somehow arranged for Black Flag to visit Deep Ellum. Starting on June 11 at Three Links, the festival…
It might have been the Christmas spirit or a feeling of a quarter-life crisis creeping up on me, but whatever the reason, I decided to volunteer. I ended up teaching some local kids everything about hip-hop dancing. Before you glance up at my name or Facebook stalk me, I am…
Organizers of the March Madness Music Festival have announced headliners for the Dallas block party, and you’ve probably heard of a few of them: The free Dallas shows, which will take over the former site of Reunion Arena during the first weekend in April, will include performances by the Killers,…
Known for forming and fronting 7 Seconds, one of the seminal American punk rock acts of the 80’s, Kevin Seconds has always been one of the hardest working guys around. Even today, besides occasional 7 Seconds reunion shows and his solo work, the guy is involved in at least six…
It all started with one tweet. Nice! Not even MY “entire”family are big fans. A few are like,”meh”RT @paginaskinner:seeing you in concert Sat.My entire family are big fans— Brad Paisley (@BradPaisley) July 25, 2013 As I was performing my usual pre-concert routine of listening to the artist’s entire collection, I…
When Jeffrey Brown of King Camel Productions opened up shop last year, he used a tried and true formula for success. He was getting into booking shows around Dallas last year, and started hitting the streets of Deep Ellum to do a little research. What he found was an opportunity…
Although Santa Cruz’ The Expendables play an energetic hybrid of rock, ska and reggae. Its members themselves take pride in being way laid back, and that’s what led to the band’s most recent offering: the all-acoustic Gone Soft. Speaking from Tallahassee on a day off from the tour and in…
There are album releases and then there are collaboration and then there is The Versus Project. The cliff notes version is that Austin’s Borrisokane decided to put out a new album, and then they decided to share the process with six other Texas bands. On April 25, Oscillation Records will…
