Collin Herring is a little nervous. He fiddles with the butt of a cigarette, twisting and bending until it’s just a pile of debris on the table next to his beer. “A month ago, we had 900 hits on our Web site,” he says, adjusting his glasses. “Now we’ve had…
“This is like The Apprentice for indie rock bands,” said Stars lead singer Torquil Campbell at the band’s afternoon showcase at Emo’s. It’s probably an apt description of how it felt to be onstage, one of roughly a gajillion bands, screaming your vocal cords raw at 3 p.m. for a…
She was here 10 years ago, with a different name and a different look and a different sound. Back then, the first time she made the short trek from Dallas to Austin, she was known as Erica Wright and was but a guest of a guest performer on one of…
In a city that values luxury and exclusivity, the Barley House offered neither. Casual as its motto–“Where beer is a way of life”–the Barley House existed for 12 years as a regular hang for musicians and music lovers, poised on a once-bleak stretch of Henderson Avenue now bustling with such…
“I could have died Thursday night and been a happy man,” said Deathray Davies’ John Dufilho, who found himself arm in arm at the Guided By Voices hoot with no less than GBV’s Bob Pollard, who told him–and this is a direct quote–“I love the Deathray Davies.” “I didn’t even…
Another week, another pale quartet from England looking to sneak into American record buyers’ hearts before Coldplay’s upcoming album. Manchester’s Long-View are well-meaning chaps: Like fellow Manc-rock outfits Doves and Elbow, they’ve responded to what they no doubt view as a cheapening of musical values–in the band’s bio, singer Rob…
On its third studio album, Daft Punk lays on the irony as thickly as the distortion. Ditching the glittery nouveau-disco textures of 2001’s Discovery, the French duo renovates the gnarly crusts of tweaked noise that animated the best cuts on its debut disc, Homework. They loop absurdly rudimentary synth riffs…
Politics and music have always been uneasy bedfellows, but 27-year-old Maya Arulpragasam knows about unease. The Sri Lanka native’s family fled that country’s civil war for Britain more than 20 years ago, and her father–linked to the divisive revolutionary outfit the Tamil Tigers–remains M.I.A., a moniker Maya has adopted for…
Singer-guitarist Barry Hyde was at a cafe in Detroit when he found out his band’s latest single, a cover of Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love,” cracked the top 10 charts in his native England. For most new bands, it’s a revelatory moment, a chance for back-patting and celebration. But not…
Aimee Mann has a knack for writing soundtracks–both for our lives and for the silver screen. It was her song “Deathly” that inspired filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson as he wrote his sprawling 1999 film Magnolia, for which Mann contributed most of the music. He was so moved by one line–“Now…
Drumroll, please: Behold this year’s Dallas Observer Music Award nominations, determined through online voting by our readers. Voting starts Thursday, March 31, and winners will be announced at the awards show on Tuesday, May 3. Best Act Overall: Burden Brothers, A Dozen Furies, Midlake, Olospo, Radiant* Musician of the Year:…
Frequently asked questions: Dallas Observer Music Awards 2005 Where did these nominees come from again? In February we asked readers to fill out an online-only ballot to nominate their favorite artists for the Dallas Observer Music Awards. (Because it was online, we were able to spot ballot-stuffing easier. Long story…
Every great musical trend reaches a breaking point. Sure, the band that jump-starts a movement usually deserves fame, and a few good bands follow, but a far-too-derivative act inevitably rings the death knell. Grunge had its Candlebox, boy bands had their 98 Degrees, and next up for expiration is the…
If Frances the Mute were a horror movie (and with its ominous imagery, that’s not much of a stretch), it would thrive on gotcha moments, those sudden shocks that make viewers spill their sodas or otherwise soil their seats. In the past, the Mars Volta has bungled this approach, either…
“The biggest surprises come from the smallest armies,” sings El Oso front man Jim Hanke on “Country Radio,” one of several insightful cuts on the band’s complicated but catchy debut. The Milwaukee quintet channels diverse influences such as the Minutemen and (prime) Buffalo Tom into a heady, driving and demanding…
ZZZZ describes itself as a Tim Burton soundtrack on speed. Thats fitting; the Eastern European rhythms, sax riffs and hushed, conspiratorial vocals of this four-piece Chicago band are a Molotov cocktail of punk, folk and lounge that builds a story with a decadent cast of characters: In a speakeasy inhabited…
“So here’s how it works,” says Chris Holt, sitting with a guitar across his lap and sipping the first of several drinks. “You request the songs, and I play ’em.” Within minutes, the crowd is lining up to hand him titles scribbled on cocktail napkins or simply shouting out the…
Too broke to attend SXSW? Good Records has your back, as they’re hosting free daytime concerts with some amazing SXSW spillover. Portland’s Menomena stops by on Friday at 7 p.m. to play a quirky rock take on hard-bop jazz, and Sunday will see Britain’s Earlies headline a four-band, all-afternoon show…
Like the Futureheads, Scotland’s Dogs Die in Hot Cars is ensuring that XTC gets its fair due in the current Britpop revival. On Please Describe Yourself, the group’s exuberant debut, DDIHC sings about Paul Newman’s eyes, having no need for a barbershop and loving Lucy Liu, all over tightly arranged…
Fortunately, this isn’t an album review. On CD, Shonen Knife requires an acquired taste or a strange appreciation for “Engrish,” as the Ramones-loving girl trio adds little more to the three-chord pop-punk formula than weirdly worded phrases sung in Japanese accents. Luckily, their live presence, which makes a rare overseas…
Guthrie is heiress to the American folk dynasty–Dad is Arlo, Grandpa’s Woody. Irion used to play in a couple of also-ran South Carolina indie bands. Together they’re both a married couple and the duo behind a new album called Exploration that likely won’t blow up your skirt but likably capitalizes…
Singer-guitarist Landon Hedges–a sideman in the side projects of Conor Oberst (Desaparecidos) and Tim Kasher (Good Life)–looks like a young-adult version of Christopher Robin but sounds like an aspiring Burt Bacharach, his songs bursting with love but countered by a modern cynicism. He and fellow Omahans Dan Maxwell, Corey Broman…
