Abraham Alexander is a relatively green musician, a fact that belies the maturity of his sound. Just four years into playing music full time, he is releasing a self-titled EP that reflects his cultural influences as well as his internal rumination on purpose and identity. Alexander hopes that this EP…
Dallas has always been home to a plethora of musical styles and genres, and one neighborhood in particular acts as a home to them all. Sure, you can scour the rest of DFW for these sounds and styles, but nowhere else can they be found in such close proximity to…
Peace of Blues guitarist Kepha Arcemont had planned a night of guitar slinging at Canyon Road Barn & Grill reminiscent of his guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix, slaying the stage 50 years ago at Woodstock. A lanky, white-haired 59-year-old, Arcemont has been a fan of Hendrix since he was a teenager…
When you first set eyes on Austin Meade, you can’t help but feel like you’re in a time warp. While inked forearms, steel-gray eyes and half-buttoned shirts are all timeless pieces to the rock ‘n’ roll arsenal, it’s Meade’s ’70s porn star mustache and long, dirty-blond hair that loudly scream…
A Dallas court on Friday will conduct a hearing on a request for a temporary restraining order made by Spinderella concerning her former band co-members in ’90s girl group Salt-N-Pepa. Paul Stafford, the lawyer for Dallas-based DJ Spinderella, aka Deidra Roper, says issues among Spinderella and Salt-N-Pepa will be discussed…
For 9-year-old Dave Walser, the inspiration that would propel him through the next 55 years seemed to strike out of nowhere. As a boy living in West Texas, Walser was still learning to play the guitar but had mainly been learning the traditional folk and bluegrass songs his parents and…
Coming up with an idea is not the same as devising a plan, executing it and bringing it to fruition. When Dallas hip-hop artist and entrepreneur Mozez Tha Great has an idea, he sees it through. A year ago, we spoke with him about the first I Am Dallas Hip…
Since exorcising some of his demons and getting clean on his 2017 sophomore album Corners, Dallas-based singer-songwriter Dalton Domino has recently had more things go right than wrong in his life. Domino has lost two bands, suffered a relapse and gone back into treatment, but he still says his life…
After a string of renovations and soft re-openings earlier this year, Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios is poised to ring in a new era for Denton’s creative scene. With more than just concerts on the books these days, the club is undergoing an identity change under the ownership of a retired…
The Tay-K saga is a tall, meaty lasagna, and to go into granular detail on it would be as exhausting as explaining to your parents who Tay-K even is. So in the interest of brevity, I’m going to pretend you, the reader, are my mother (a 56-year-old woman who listens…
Musicians like Mike Mitchell, Bobby Sparks and Frank Moka, all of whom have either won or been nominated for a Grammy, don’t want to be told what to play. They want to do what they want to do, says Corey Pond, founder of restaurant-live music combo The Common Table. When…
The new Helium Queens video isn’t just a neon-bright example of the Dallas band’s dreamy vibe. It also provides an intimate glimpse into the group’s psyche. In particular, the mental inner workings belonging to Poppy Xander could be described as a vivid, complex, enchanting, bizarre and galactic tapestry of ideas…
Unlike their ant-snorting rock star predecessors, for Rufus Du Sol, the only acceptable vice is exercise. The band’s on the road for their 25-date North America summer tour, and drummer James Hunt is strolling California’s Avila Beach. The sea breeze is blowing while an unruly flock of seagulls rudely chirp…
Julia Holter is not your average singer-songwriter. She layers orchestral and electronic instruments over her ethereal, mesmerizing vocals to create something wholly unique. Her music could be described as avant-garde, but don’t let that intimidate you. It’s captivating and has an air of mystery, which as it turns out, was…
As a member of the iconic band The Moody Blues, musician John Lodge has been going strong for over five decades. To hear him tell it, there’s no time to rest on one’s laurels. “I never reflect on any of it…If you start doing that you’ll get lost somewhere else…
The world of electronic music is dense and varied with more genres, subgenres and non-genres than most other types of music. To the uninitiated, it can be intimidating. To those who just discovered dance music in the last decade, there is a common pitfall of lumping it all under the…
Two years ago, a chance meeting in Deep Ellum between (now former) Home by Hovercraft member Shawn Magill and local musician Joey Noga resulted in an up-and-coming band: Secrecies. The group has been steadily building buzz since signing with the long-standing homegrown indie imprint Idol Records in 2018. Now the…
When local musicians’ guitars get battered and bruised, many bring them to a small, yellow-painted house sitting on Denton’s Elm Street. There, 62-year-old Gregory Lange pumps life back into stringed instruments. He’s a luthier — one who fixes and fashions pieces such as guitars and violins. One might call Lange a…
Willie Trimmer has been a constant presence in Dallas music culture for decades. As one of the few club DJs who still makes a full-time living behind the decks, Trimmer has a particularly well-informed perspective on the DJ landscape. His versatility and depth of genre knowledge, ranging from popular mainstream tunes…
Amanda Bongiovanni is hesitant to share the story behind her nickname-turned-stage name. “I feel a little weird about it,” she says. “Like, it’s not professional enough.” Bongiovanni is a hip-hop soul singer born, raised and based in Dallas. She has taken shelter from a midsummer storm in Astoria Cafe, where…
Sarah Jaffe is back with a double helping of her introspective and arresting bedroom pop. Born of a bad breakup, Jaffe released a double EP during a release party Tuesday night featuring DJ Hannah Hammond at the Belmont Hotel. The double EP, dubbed This is Better, features a contemplative, electronic…
Stop us if you’ve heard this before: Morrissey’s political views have made headlines, and the former Smiths frontman is no stranger to controversy. Even his most loyal fans cringe at the dissonance of his earlier and seemingly whimsical and romantic lyrics and his statements on race and allegiance to the far-right…
