Every week more and more shows are added to the Dallas Observer live music calendar –here’s how to make sure your show is included. And you can always peruse every upcoming concert on our calendar. Below are this month’s additions. The newest are in bold…
Legend has it that Stephen King once called James McMurtry: “The truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation.” Taking the stage this weekend at the Granada Theater in Dallas, McMurtry proved that he deserves such a title, as the Texas songwriter took fans deep into the heart of the Lone Star…
Now that the weather has turned to something other than scorching, we can turn our attention to catching a show outdoors. Although most promoters (and many in the crowds) don’t seem to mind a show taking place in the middle of August, I sure don’t mind having dehydration and hyperthermia…
Peelander-Z lives it. Plenty of bands come up with backstories and plenty thrill at live performance. But no one offers quite the experience of Peelander-Z. Gwar’s got the elaborate masks, sure, but the whole thing feels like a gory musical. At a Peelander-Z show, there are aliens among us, and…
Ray Wylie Hubbard graduated from high school in south Oak Cliff and now he’s one of Texas Country’s most recognizable and sturdy voices. Music writer Roy Kasten has been listening to Hubbard a lot longer than me, so I’ll turn it over to him for the specifics: “Mostly he just…
A friend of mine, on hearing that I was to see Daniel Johnston perform live, said, “his stuff is rough, but he is plugged into a scary truth.” That is a brilliant summary of Johnston’s music. His style is raw and unsophisticated, but also hyper-direct and fiercely penetrating. His lyrics…
Earlier this week, we had a clip of Tyler’s Eisley performing “Mr. Moon” on a ridge above the Trinity River in Fort Worth. Today, we have part two of that shoot — in it, the sisters perform “Save My Soul” from this year’s Currents…
Thousands of years ago, primitive man performed their music near the campfire. Flash forward some thousand more years, and the “live show” (for most of the time, just the only way you could hear music) was later housed in churches or the castles and courtyards of the Renaissance age. Flash…
Another Texas State Fair is upon us and when you’re not trying to stuff as much fried, doughy goodness into you or riding any number of spinning rides hoping said dough won’t unexpectedly leave your body, you might want to take a breather and listen to some music. It’s just…
Hunter Moore hasn’t technically been in business with the notoriously sleazy site “Is Anyone Up?” for some time. But he’ll forever be associated with the revenge porn site he maintained for years. Since the site shut down in 2012, Moore’s had more time to dedicate to traveling around the country,…
Gavin Cleaver: All competitions should be run in a scavenger hunt format. True, it’s a lot more work for everyone involved, but nothing good ever came from laziness, right? The FFFFest Scavenger Hunt, given that the prizes have an insanely high monetary value, is a perfect example of how you…
With Fall Out Boy and Yellowcard both in town this week, there are plenty of opportunities to get your early aughts nostalgia on. You might as well make a thing of it and watch Mean Girls, or go searching the depths of your closet for that old first generation iPod…
Jeff Whittington does not work on the most musically inclined part of your radio dial. Yet the executive producer of KERA’s Think with Krys Boyd and host of the long running Anything You Ever Wanted to Know, a concept started by the late Glenn Mitchell with whom Whittington worked as…
Even though Imagine Dragons have been playing music for a little over four years, the band’s meteoric rise to the top of the charts seems to have occurred over a much shorter time. Hailing from Las Vegas, the band plays unapologetically play infectious, radio-friendly alternative rock. From a tour stop…
Fall Out Boy Thursday, September 26, at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie Pop-punk never fared particularly well among people who enjoy spending lots of time talking about things like “authenticity” and “soundscapes.” It is a kind of music expressly built to make an antisocial expression (punk) as widely palatable as…
Lights All Night returns to the Dallas Convention Center late this December. We already told you about headliners Deadmau5 and Kaskade, and the full lineup has just arrived. It is spectacular, and surprisingly eclectic given the confines of an EDM fest. It features pop band Icona Pop, cartoon vigilante Major…
Today is One Hit Wonder day, allegedly marked by music journalist Steven R Rosen to honor the bands whose moment passed too soon. He was serious about this topic, even briefly publishing One Shot: The Magazine of One-Hit Wonders. DFW has had its share of flash-in-the-pan chart success, and we’ve…
If you have never been out to see Horror Remix and their spliced and diced versions of long-forgotten, campy and sometimes even scary horror films … well, then, put simply; you should go! Horror Remix’s hilarious plays on theme, puppet humor, and surprising film curation are reason enough. But tonight’s…
“We’re in a stadium, but I can probably hear each and every one of you,” says Ra Ra Riot front man Wes Miles. “So if you have anything you want to say…” That invitation rarely ends well. Some people standing near the back of the 50-person crowd in FC Dallas…
Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy hasn’t always had it as easy as he does now. After having a hit and miss high school career due to the effects of bi-polar disorder, Wentz played with several Chicago area punk acts before hitting the big time with Fall Out Boy. From…
It’s too hot out for a letter jacket, man…
Following an understated introduction, Black Milk’s band appeared on stage and began to play, starting with an actual drum roll. Those drumstick snaps seemed to stretch for an impossible duration, each thump another block stacked atop a mounting tension that felt like it could topple at any moment. And then…
