Janet Weiss might have been better off if she had just left Quasi when she joined Sleater-Kinney in 1996. She could have said goodbye to her ex-husband and Quasi partner Sam Coomes, his Roxichord, and his honestly caustic lyrics, and run off to be the star drummer in the much…
Although New Orleans is the main attraction in Louisiana for music fans, as too many House of Blues T-shirts attest, the state’s real musical magic, and maybe also the best food, is actually found in the heart of Cajun country to the west of the Crescent City. In fact, the…
It all made sense at the time, and to hear Melodica Festival founder Wanz Dover tell it, it still does. The annual festival had been left homeless when The Argo finally closed down after threatening to for months, so Dover decided to relocate to Austin. He had already planned on…
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young Looking Forward (Reprise Records Aside from the commercial conceit — this sure ought to get your parents back into record stores, even if they’ll no doubt spend most of the trip wondering where the vinyl went — it’s hard to figure why Neil Young would…
Marchel Ivery 3 (Leaning House Records) It’s hard to stumble across a revelation, if only because there’s nothing left to shock or amaze us. Today’s music is often just a hodgepodge of superior yesterdays, a pastiche of sounds resurrected and retooled for an audience that’s heard it all before and…
The Get Up Kids The lyrics to “Red Letter Day,” off The Get Up Kids’ just-released sophomore album Something to Write Home About, don’t stand out from the rest of the songs on the disc. The song seems to tell the story of yet another broken heart, one more high…
Waylon Jennings It’s ironic how country music, once a realm where the adage “respect your elders” was all but religious law, has become so negligent of its aging Great Men. Even the youth-obsessed rock and pop game doesn’t urge its elders out to pasture in the lazy and fattening grasses…
Pet Shop Boys “The music’s blandness is part of the quite well-executed concept: articulating the ambivalent romanticism, immodest hopes, and not-so-quiet desperation behind the suburban façade of the people who create Smash Hits pop, and maybe consume it, too.” — Robert Christgau, reviewing the Pet Shop Boys’ 1986 debut Please…
Method Man and Redman No telling how Dave Matthews and Little Feat both managed to end up on Method Man and Redman’s recent collaboration Blackout!, except for the fact that both Men smoke more pot than most of the red-eyed fans at one of Matthews’ concerts; the disc has more…
Matthew Sweet “Girlfriend” was one of those out-of-nowhere singles that could have — should have — turned its author, Matthew Sweet, into just another one-hit wonder, especially since he chose to follow the album it appeared on (also called Girlfriend) with Altered Beast, a more experimental, less straightforward disc. Beast…
Uh … thanks? While we at the Dallas Observer are more than happy to receive any and all awards, especially those that don’t involve participating in some sort of swimsuit contest, we couldn’t help but be baffled by the recent discovery that we walked away with the Best Music Info…
Scene, heard Word is that a short Centro-matic documentary will be released around the same time as the band’s next album, due in stores in January. Grady Highberry is accompanying the group on its impending tour, including a string of dates with The Promise Ring and Burning Airlines, shooting footage…
Trying to capture Kris Kristofferson’s life in a 2,000-word story is like trying to offer up the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in a teaspoon. Even now, at the age of 63, the man himself is astonished by what he has done, by whom he has known, by what he…
Most of Ani DiFranco’s sentences don’t end so much as they drift away, sometimes bumping into another thought, usually plunging the conversation into uncomfortable silence, the kind of quiet that comes when two former friends run into each other for the first time in years and neither has anything to…
The Beta Band fits approximately nowhere. Signed to a label known for spearheading the pop-electronica invasion in America, the band’s records feature nary a danceable track. Although the group’s music bears some resemblance to the hip-hop folk of Beck, The Beta Band doesn’t even try to traffic in singles –…
For every Funland, whose members have repeatedly turned down lucrative offers to reunite for just one show, there’s a New Bohemians, back together to perform at Gypsy Tea Room on October 23, and reportedly, set to return to the studio to record their first new album in almost a decade…
Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs, Vols. 1-3 (Merge Records) A single album would have sufficed — one today, another next month, another next year, if only to digest the first 23 songs without choking to death on the remaining 46. Still, though you can purchase each volume separately, it’s too…
Los Lobos Most bands don’t grow; they either shuffle forward, tripping over lazy feet, or just stew in their own juices, smug and satisfied with being able to get out of bed and into the studio. Not Los Lobos: From East L.A. wedding band to world-music modernists in the span…
Luscious Jackson, Ben Lee This bill could have been titled the Grand Royal Showcase of Failed Potential, if only Sean Lennon, Butter O8, and the Beastie Boys themselves were along for the ride. Grand Royal is still the hippest label around, but its rep was earned three or four years…
The Adventures of Jet Part 3: Coping With Insignificance (Space Age Records) Maybe it’s because singer-keyboard player Hop Litzwire, drummer Rob Avsharian, bassist Tony Jannotta, and guitarist Jason Weisenburg keep changing their name, from Bobgoblin to The Commercials to The Adventures of Jet in less than two years. Or it…
Ben there, done that When Ben Kweller moved to Connecticut with his girlfriend in April, it looked as though his band, Radish, would be moving as well, leaving Mercury Records after releasing one album, 1996’s Restraining Bolt, and not being able to release its significantly better follow-up, Sha Sha, which…
AOJ is A-OK Sometimes winning isn’t everything, especially when you’re not sure you want the prize. Just ask The Adventures of Jet. The band advanced to the finals of the Ultimate Band List’s Born on the World Wide Web contest, but it wasn’t able to go all the way. Singer…
