Music

Ruts are normal, and nowhere is this truer than in art, where it’s easier to be a follower than a leader. So it is that metal and hardcore, which broke out of the morass of their heavily scripted, regimented styles by cross-pollinating, have slid back into predictability after a brief…

Stew’s newly released EP, Harm & Ease, is not what it initially seems. The record’s five tracks clock in at almost 40 minutes—longer than many full-length albums. The band, however, wastes no time getting started: A forceful, growling bass line plays for a few bars at the top of the…

North Texas-based pop-rocker and former Quickserv Johnny frontman Matthew Glenn Thompson isn’t looking to reinvent the radio with his album, The Garden and The Arcade. In fact, there is very little that one would deem hip, let alone cutting-edge, about this enjoyable collection of soul and folk-inflected pop. But, really,…

Not too many people know about Denton’s Cuckoo Byrds. They’ve played live only twice (in front of small crowds), and their noisy style of hard-to-classify rock can be hard to stomach. “We like to play loud,” says David Townsend, the band’s guitarist and keyboardist. “It’s kind of hard to pull…

Raise your fist, stomp the accelerator and crank out the hooks. It ain’t rocket science, but neither is most heart-pumping rock’n’roll. Wyoming’s Teenage Bottlerocket takes their cue from the Ramones and Screeching Weasel, specializing in catchy, high-energy irreverence delivered over a fiery backbeat and guitar crunches crackling like peanut brittle…

“Mission To Mars,” the first song on Charming Gardeners’ debut, self-titled EP, begins with an all-too-familiar sound—a broken-up guitar playing a mid-tempo groove, filtered through a wah-wah pedal. The rest of the band kicks in, and it’s apparent from the start: This act is making no attempt to hide their…

Austin’s David Wingo, who performs under the moniker Ola Podrida, grooves on where he comes from. Literally. The name under which he records his beautiful and spaced-out folk is a direct nod to the first time he ever performed in public—as a mouse at the Olla Podrida Mexican Market in…

Much like his idol Willie Nelson, whom he covered so eloquently on last year’s To Willie, Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck is that rare musician almost everyone can agree on, whether they’re pretentious indie-rockers or stubbornly twangy Americana fans. The recently released Here’s To Taking It Easy sees Houck settling into a…

Deep Ellum was on fire on Saturday. And, no, that’s not some sort of lame-ass reference to the heat (which, let’s be honest, was fairly oppressive). Rather, it’s a lame-ass reference to the incendiary performances offered up by the 46 acts that played our fourth annual Dallas Observer Music Awards…

Seems the longer The New Pornographers are together, the more the band’s coed lineup expands. Currently touring as a nine-piece, at the center of the band have always been the songwriting contributions of its two lead singers, Carl “A.C.” Newman and Dan Bejar. Newman writes most of the material, while…

Welcome to Staff Trax, the weekly feature here on DC9 where we shed some light on the music we’ve been enjoying of late, regardless of the touring or album release schedules that tend to bear the focus of most of our coverage. Consider it a chance for you readers to…

Typically, us Observer peeps keep our ever-simmering hearts of hate hidden behind the gentle curtain of the written word. But, tonight, we are coming out from behind our mixed metaphor to make an exception for you, our readers, whosoever of you are foolish enough to get drunk and sing in…

Dr. Dog has the innate ability to spin out quality record after quality record thanks to the band’s duel songwriters Scott McMicken and Toby Leaman. Along with a distinct Beatles influence, there’s some Lennon/McCartney competition going on between the two singers–but it certainly doesn’t hurt the band. It’s helped them…