Reel Life Trout Fishing in America Trout Records It’s to the credit of Ezra Idlet and Keith Grimwood that Trout Fishing in America doesn’t come off as cutesy shtick, but rather the most natural thing in the world; Reel Life does nothing to upset this. A mix of live and…
The Waiting Game Claire Martin Honest Records Claire Martin never actually scats on her debut; rather, she delivers the rhythms of great scatting through sheer energy. The possibility that the music might break away from her unbridled singing gives a necessary dynamism to her classic bebop style. Improvising swing with…
American mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves is the hot Carmen right now, and for the next two weeks, she belongs to the Dallas Opera. It was one year ago, on October 7, 1995, that Graves made her Metropolitan Opera debut in the title role in Carmen, an event captured on 60 Minutes…
The guys who are known as Romanovsky and Phillips are funny and freewheeling during their Sunday afternoon interview from New Mexico, but one question quickly corks their flow of irreverence and candor: “Is Romanovsky and Phillips still a duo romantically as well as professionally?” A throat clears and feet shuffle…
Love’s labor lost October Rust Type O Negative Roadrunner Records Two themes run through the fourth Type O Negative album: love and death. Most of the time they are indistinguishable–“Love You to Death,” “Die With Me”–giving October Rust a hypnotic continuity. Still, the New York band manages to reinvent itself…
Oscillator to the moon Stylistic mutation has been the tonic for old, tired rock-‘n’-roll horses since the Beatles fiddled with sitars and Deep Purple jammed with a symphony orchestra. For the past six years the London-based collective Stereolab has embraced diverse influences and tinkered with musical paradoxes with the wide-eyed…
After seeing the Sex Pistols spit and sneer their way across America, it might be easy for jaded mosh pit denizens and music critics alike to dismiss the new Descendents album, Everything Sucks, as yet another moneymaking scheme aimed at the ears and wallets of the burgeoning suburban mall punk…
Be here now Return of the Funky Worm Johnny Moeller and Paul Size Dallas Blues Society Records Walk in the Sun Sue Foley Discovery Records What is it about the blues, that each generation has to peer into them, squinting? Maybe it’s the same thing that unites all popular art…
It was a little more than two years ago that Dawn Miller (formerly of Wayward Girl) was talking to pal Aden Holt, owner of local indie label One Ton Records, about an idea she’d had: a local band compilation that would rework the soundtrack to the mid-’70s hit Broadway musical…
“Mouseketeers’ roll call, sound off now! Karen! Cubby! Annette! Sharon! Lonnie! Bobby…!” Who of the TV generation was not indelibly imprinted by The Mickey Mouse Club, the ’50s TV show Life magazine referred to as “the first organization many boomers joined?” As is usually the case with an ensemble cast,…
The lunchtime clientele is about what you’d expect for a semirural rib shack not too many miles from Texas Stadium. There are a couple of telephone repairmen, a table of secretaries giggling over a pitcher of beer, and an isolated sales guy trying to keep barbecue sauce off his rack…
Moist and delicious Fashion Nugget Cake Capricorn Records First steps are inspiring, but more than one newborn band has learned that many things are possible with those steps, and that some of them–like smashing your forehead on the edge of a coffee table–are not very pleasant. It is with great…
Broken whiskey glass, parts one and two Gather ’round, oh ye insurgent honky-tonkers and new-country hellions, and pay fealty to some of the men who first chalked out the pattern for the clothes you now wear so stylishly: Jason Ringenberg and the Scorchers, a bunch of Nashville boys (transplanted and…
It’s obvious that tonight–with Deep Ellum roiling in the aftermath of the Texas-OU game–was not the best night to schedule an interview at Sol’s Taco Lounge. An orange-and-white Winnebago at the curb is but a faint warning of the mayhem within: a crush of spilled beer, red faces, and bellowing…
i’dswingitintheevening ifihadahifi Meredith Louise Miller Steve Records A friend once interviewed Meredith Louise Miller for a local radio station. “What’s so great about you,” my pal enthused, “is that you say all the goofy things about love that the rest of us are afraid to say out loud.” “Um,” Miller…
Dave Abbruzzese rallies bandmates Paul Slavens, Doug Neil, and Gary Muller for a firewood run–a trip out in the 4X4 to scavenge dead branches for the fireplace at Abbruzzese’s North Texas recording retreat. David Castell chooses to stay behind to continue mixing one of the group’s new songs rather than…
Everything Sucks Descendents Epitaph Records Call it charisma. Or attitude. Whatever it is, it is essential to the role of frontman. Milo Aukerman has it, but when he left the Descendents to pursue a career in biochemistry, he took it with him. For eight years, the band (renamed “All” in…
Mr. DJ, won’t you please play a real country song? Where’s your conscience? What’s the problem? Speak up and say what’s wrong –Dale Watson, “A Real Country Song” Blessed or Damned Dale Watson rules. In an age where more people at alleged “country” bars dance to AC/DC than Bob Wills,…
The front room and the darkroom behind–on the street side of photographer James Bland’s house in the heart of Oak Cliff–are unusually neat for one of the archivists of a scene as random and disordered as the early days of Deep Ellum, back in the mid-’80s when the now neon-lit…
David Newman’s Oak Cliff home contains a living-room wall of fame–the “Fathead National Museum”–adorned with his 28 album covers in chronological order. They date from 1959’s Fathead: Ray Charles Presents David Newman to last year’s Mr. Gentle, Mr. Cool. The great tenor sax player’s feisty old Aunt Freda runs his…
Satellite of Love Although much has been made lately about Christian music and the mainstream success the genre has enjoyed, most of the songs found there still fit into two categories: “capitalization” numbers wherein you need a lyric sheet in order to tell “love” from “Love” or “him” from “Him”;…
Be here now Return of the Funky Worm Johnny Moeller and Paul Size Dallas Blue Society Records Walk in the Sun Sue Foley Discovery Records What is it about the blues that makes each generation have to peer into them, squinting? Maybe it’s the same thing that unites all popular…
