Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. With apologies to Sir Paul–plenty of people, in fact. Up and down the radio dial, there they are: love songs. They pop, they hop, they indie rock; they balladeer, they bitch and moan; they keen in urgent tremolo alongside pedal…
The dark constellation of singer-songwriters formed by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Tom Waits is no place to go poking around if you can’t stand a little self-indulgence. So pomp-averse listeners beware: Crooked Fingers may well get on your nerves. The third installment of this earnest enterprise from former Archers…
Three current products of heated record-biz indie-hunting roll through town separately this week; buy T-shirts from them and maybe they’ll make a few bucks for their trouble. First up, headlining a Saturday-night bill at Deep Ellum Live that should woo every eighth-grader you know: the Ataris, touring behind So Long,…
Devendra Banhart is one of those intrepid eccentrics who lets loose rare nuggets of uncomfortable dream-brilliance one moment, and the next lays on art-school blather and clunky melodies that sound shoddily made up on the spot. The 22-year-old’s lack of an internal editor–that force that keeps most of us average…
We’ve said plenty about Eisley and its sisters-and-brother act (just trying to get ourselves in position for an episode of VH1’s Driven), but there’s another set of family ties that’s gone somewhat unnoticed: Salim and Faris Nourallah. There are a few reasons for that. One, the brothers have a bit…
It’s been a month to forget for the Dixie Chicks–and for everyone else involved in country music radio. Owners of a No. 1 country single heading into March, the Chicks now find themselves in a shit storm thanks to that well-covered offhand comment about President Bush at a concert in…
In some respects, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen has mellowed. For instance, he says he’s no longer helping his friendly neighborhood heroin dealer keep up with his Hummer payments. “It’s been over 11 months now since I’ve had anything,” he says. “I’m very proud and very clean.” From a creative standpoint, however,…
Ever been in a tour van? In ours it was always too hot and one window was duct-taped shut and this kid Alan always had his damn peanut butter everywhere and do you have any idea how much fuel air conditioning requires? Oh, and it wasn’t ever a van, either–try…
Whether or not you find the atomic-powered guitar-pop on Mary Star of the Sea, the debut album by former Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan’s new band Zwan, refreshing in its wide-eyed enthusiasm and lack of neo-goth melodrama, you’ve gotta hand it to Corgan for mixing things up. The Pumpkins had a…
Used to be, way back in 1998 when Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst was just 18, audiences adored him for his contradictions. On the one hand, the puny troubadour was a trembling, stage-frightened acoustic guitarist straight out of a bedroom four-track session. And on the other, he was thoroughly fearless, a…
It happens every now and again: An interloper breaks into our homes to remind us of all the things we forgot we cared about. Doesn’t steal nothing–borrows, maybe–but wakes us from our slumber long enough to remember that, yeah, maybe there are a few things lying around the house we…
From Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language: crap (krap), n. Slang. 1. Vulgar. excrement. 2. nonsense; drivel: Man, don’t hand me that crap. 3. a lie; an exaggeration: Bah, you don’t believe that crap, do you? 4. refuse; rubbish; junk; litter: Will you clean up that crap? 5…
Although some still think of her as the woman who used to wear baggy denim overalls and pluck the fiddle in John Mellencamp’s backing band, Lisa Germano now finds herself in sympathetic artistic company. She’s come into her own as the aesthetic dysfunctional soul-sister to the eels’ E, Michael Penn,…
You know what they say about April showers: They bring dour indie-rock duos from the U.K. to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for intimate shows at crowded nightclubs. Arab Strap, perhaps the U.K.’s premier dour indie-rock duo, turn up opening for Bright Eyes on Wednesday night at Trees, and while that…
8.0: This bar-meets-lounge-meets-concert stage provides great nights on the tree-shaded patio. As one of the only music venues in Fort Worth that mixes local music outdoors with a great indoor bar, its home to cool weekend nights in the heart of Sundance Square. 111 E Third St, Fort Worth, 817-336-0880…
8 p.m. EST, Monday, March 17 In the lobby of the Radisson Deauville, on the eve of the Winter Music Conference, the music stops when President Buzzkill addresses the world. The face of George Bush replaces the Dirty Vegas video on the big-screen TVs in the center of the lobby…
If Kelly Osbourne had different parents, we wouldn’t be talking. In some ways, she almost wishes that were the case. She could do without all the attention, the fans on the street who pester her with questions, the journalists on the phone who badger her with slightly more professional versions…
When Joe Tillotson and his investors (including Scott Cecil and Richard Winfield) opened a bar in the Knox-Henderson area a decade ago, they were taking a chance. There wasn’t much there in the way of nightlife, and it didn’t look like there would be anytime soon. Take a look at…
Indie rock’s most enduring institution has reaped more praise than it can handle: With a collective fear of striking a false note that borders on the paranoid, and an equivalently intense aesthetic curiosity, the trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew practically defines the word “credibility.” At least…
Since last she was heard from seven years ago, when she made do with demos, Rosanne Cash killed time by filling the pages of children’s books and Martha Stewart Living, where she penned a piece about the allure of the lullaby; also tossed on the bookshelf was a songwriters-without-the-songs anthology…
After a year spent in trend-piece captivity, finally, fortunately, the White Stripes get to be a band again. And a better one, as it turns out. All those pats on the back from the suits at MTV and Clear Channel must have felt like knives to Jack and Meg White,…
Write a song. Write 10 more. Find three guys (or girls–sorry) to play them with you. Play your first show on a Wednesday night, part of a three-bands-for-three-bucks bill. Do this a dozen times until you finally hook onto a decent show. Do this a dozen more times before someone…
