Ten years ago it would’ve been a major event in my life–receiving a new Elvis Costello album in the mail–but when I got All This Useless Beauty last month, it just went in the big pile. After a few days I finally got around to listening to the Costello LP,…
Odds and sods All This Useless Beauty Elvis Costello Warner Bros. Records Deep Dead Blue Elvis Costello/Bill Frisell Warner Bros. Records/Nonesuch Warner Bros. has no intention of releasing the Costello/Frisell collaboration in the States, though it has landed over here as an overpriced import worth its price. Recorded in front…
In Sam Myers’ East Dallas space-age bachelor-pad apartment, the bluesman keeps vintage 1950s LPs of Louis Jordan, Percy Mayfield, T-Bone Walker, and, of course, his old partner in music and moonshine, guitar great Elmore James. An honorary lifetime-achievement award from the Sonny Boy Blues Society and three W.C. Handy Awards…
In the 14 years during which East Texas State University has been holding its “Five Star Concert Series,” never once has a rock-and-roll band graced the school’s stage. There have been country bands (Bryan White, who’s “country” only between the quotation marks), comedians (such as Sinbad), even the occasional R&B…
Ghost of a band 3 Pound Universe Wes Martin CMP Records Wes Martin, the last-minute New Bohemian guitarist added shortly after the band got signed to Geffen in 1987, wrote most of this material five years ago, as the Bos were going bust; it was recorded in 1993 in Germany…
Glam dancing There’s not one damned original thing about Spacehog. The ambisexual clothing is lifted straight from the glam section of the history books, as is most of the music–sort of operatic Mott the Hoople metal with a pogo beat–and the shtick is punk even if the execution is pure…
In the musical mythology, Austin is one of the coolest, most laid-back music towns on the planet, a Central Texas bohemia where slack and good vibes rule. But just beneath the seeming bonhomie, one finds a voracious creature that eats its own–and frequently its best. When Stevie Ray Vaughan got…
Big green Blow it Out Your Ass Veruca Salt DGC Records Steve Albini goes for the gold and grabs at straws: Whether the former Big Black frontman now lends his precious name to the likes of Veruca Salt and Bush for pop prestige (theirs, not his) or because it’s some…
Clad in a pale green sweater and faded jeans, her red hair cut short and her face barren of any makeup, Ann Magnuson cuts a drab path through the lobby of the Sheraton Park Central. It’s a stark contrast to the look she wears best–the more-glamorous-than-thou wardrobe, the style of…
When Richard Hunter announced he was running for the office of mayor in Fort Worth, he expected everyone to figure he was goofing. After all, Hunter isn’t a politician. He’s a long-haired 25-year-old bass player, for God’s sake, best known for his stint in Killbilly and now I, The Jury…
Listening to a musician talk about his or her craft is often as enticing a prospect as watching sausage being made. That is, you don’t want to know how many fingernails and lower intestines and skull fragments get ground into the mixture; you only want to taste the final result…
Worshipping the Gods As a performer, Young Gods’ frontman Franz Treichler is Jim Morrison reincarnate. He stands with his eyes closed, sweaty hair in his face, arms outstretched as if he wants to fly or be crucified, and his voice vacillates between a painful whisper and a determined howl. He…
Let’s say you’re single, and you meet someone interesting and attractive–maybe at a party or on the job, wherever. You have a nice conversation and seem to have common tastes, so you think you’d like to know this person better. But you’ve had your share of clumsy first dates so…
Bastard of middle age Eventually Paul Westerberg Reprise Records The Monkees are headed out again this summer looking to rake in the cheap dollars of middle-age nostalgia, bloated in the knowledge there are plenty of suckers out there willing to pay for the thrill of revisiting memories better left forgotten…
Michelle Shocked doesn’t get back to Dallas much anymore. She lives in New Orleans now, and though she lives in a state bordering Texas, she resides just far enough from her old home that she doesn’t much think about Texas anymore–except, maybe, when she writes a song. But even then…
Trio of one Three Women Domestic Science Club Crystal Clear Sound Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt did it first in 1987, donning their Sunday best for the stirring Trio and attending services at the Church of the Holy Tradition; it was ’80s country by way of ’50s pop,…
Los Lobos has existed for 23 years now. Its members were, for the most part, childhood friends who grew up in the same East Los Angeles neighborhood. They were raised on the same blocks, attended the same schools, listened to the same music, played in the same bands. They were…
On a windy and colder-than-usual Sunday night in April, more than 3,000 people showed up in Deep Ellum to do nothing more than hear local bands. There were no street fairs, no free food, no mimes, no apartment open houses. No, these people piled into Blue Cat Blues when Josh…
Beat surrender Nobody likes a rock-and-roll star, but everybody loves one. Rock-and-roll stars–the singers and guitarists who look bigger than life even when they’re half a mile away on an arena stage–are the ultimate figments of the imagination. They only exist when they’re performing, hollering, screaming at an audience they…
At first, Kim Deal ignores the constant interruptions caused when someone keeps trying to click in on her call waiting; she says to forget it, that it’s probably not important. But soon she can’t get a word out without getting cut off. “Hang on for a second,” she groans, and…
A pain in the ass Shot The Jesus Lizard Capitol Records The Butthole Surfers’ new Electric Larryland is their first “rock” record, the psychedelic shtick contained and the avant jerking off restrained until you realize they’re not screwing around anymore; Gibby and the boys are playing it as straight as…
To hell with tradition. Instead of dedicating the annual Dallas Observer Music Awards issue to just the winners, this year we decided to feature all the bands nominated before the ballots are counted. The Music Awards are, after all, voted up by the readers, your chance to prove the critics…
