Critic's Notebook

The night “Big Mike” Rios’ life changed, he was sitting at Blind Melons in San Diego, watching Willie Jay and the Texas Hurricanes.

The world is an unraveling mess. Russia is trying to push the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock way past midnight as Vladimir Putin schemes his way into Ukraine.

The Jackass franchise, which includes the TV show, movies and even the video game introduced us to a brave brand of comedy that is the definition of what it means to be punk rock.

Each Dallasite has his her or their own impressions and memories of Deep Ellum. But many tourists to Dallas’ entertainment district are unaware of the neighborhood’s storied past.

When we first met Elyse Jewel, she had just wrapped up a performance at The Pop Up 2. At the showcase, which took place last December at the NS Event Center, Jewel shared the bill with other local musicians, including Ashton Edminster and CABUS, formerly known as Larry g(EE).

While the music news cycle continues to be hijacked by Kanye West’s “Ima let you finish”-style public meltdown, every other person not involved in that shit sandwich has flocked to the most wholesome of musical content.

There’s no denying that Dallas is a pretty iconic city that has inspired the creation of movies, TV shows and the death of at least one president.

The Venn diagram for iconic rock bands Foreigner and King Crimson do not have a lot of overlap. It’s safe to say that most devoted fans of one do not own any records by the other, and the descriptor “rock band primarily active in the 1970s” is about as far as you’ll get when it comes to their similarities – except for one extraordinarily key element of both groups: multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald.

Hopping between the northern and southern hemispheres is a good life if you can swing it – galivanting Argentinians hit Uruguay beaches in January when it’s summer and the Colorado Rockies in February in the thick of winter.

There’s been a growing buzz around controversial North Texas rapper 2G.Kaash for a couple of years now. Around this time last year, the Irving native was sitting in a cell, fighting for his life, looking at anywhere from 5 to 99 years in prison on murder charges.

The plan from Avenged Sevenfold singer M Shadows to buy Vinnie Paul’s house sounded like something from AMC Theatres owner Adam Aron’s playbook.

Winter Storm Landon arrived this week, creating a snowballing flurry of canceled shows for artists and venues. Dallas alt-country band Ottoman Turks had to call off the first night of its residency at the Barley House on Wednesday, and Deep Ellum club Three Links had to cancel punk band Authority…

It’s a Monday night – the first evening’s rest of the new workweek, and Joe Blow from longstanding Dallas punk band Dog Company is by an old jukebox toward the back of Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton, admiring the selection of classic country and rockabilly songs.

Cameron McCloud burst onto the Dallas music scene in 2015 after a video blew up of him sneaking backstage at the Bomb Factory and freestyling for Erykah Badu.

The wig is off. Touring life is briefly at a halt and so is the blinding shine of rock stardom. St. Vincent is in Los Angeles, but she’s soon flying home to North Texas as “Just Annie.”

Of the nearly 55 years that Jethro Tull has existed as rock ‘n’ roll’s ambassador of flute-driven English folk music, 45 of those years were driven by the muscular guitar battery of Martin Barre

Elton John fans will not be feeling the love tonight. The English rock legend announced on Tuesday that his Dallas shows, scheduled for Tuesday Jan. 25 and Wednesday Jan. 26 at American American Airlines, are canceled because he’s tested positive for COVID-19.

When going down the rabbit hole that is social media, it’s almost impossible to miss the dance videos – you know, the ones where large groups surround two extraordinarily talented dancers as they alternate taking the center, battling it out for bragging rights.

Sir Elton John is doing a two-night stand at American Airlines Center this week, and while the singer-songwriter extraordinaire has normally been confined to single nights at the same venue in times past, this time is different.

There can never be another Meat Loaf.The artist who was born in Dallas in 1947 as Marvin Lee Aday and died Thursday at the age of 74.

Chances are you’ve seen someone share a picture of the lineup poster for Live Nation’s When We Were Young festival, a collage of emo and alternative band logos that looks like the early aughts threw up on a Goth kid’s Trapper Keeper.

Some members in the McKinney-based band The Kid Brothers aren’t old enough to drink, and some of them aren’t even old enough to drive.