Good Friday: Blue Jungle, True Widow, Eyes, Wings And Many Other Things, Sydney Confirm, Sore Losers, Yeahdef, Keith P, DJ Sega, Killanova, Prince William, Yeahdef, Beauxregard, Land Mammals, Jesse Gage, Mara Lee Miller, Theater Fire, Mimicking Birds

The ACL festival may be going on right now down in Austin town, but North Texas music lovers aren’t going to let some silly little no-compete clause ruin the weekend.First, let’s review the shows we’ve already mentioned. Tonight, Telegraph Canyon releases The Tide and the Current at Lola’s in Fort…

Bonus MP3: Chucky Sly — “Jimmy Is About To Die”

The feel-good hip-hop popularized by groups such as A Tribe Called Quest gets a prominent nod, sure, but so too does a smattering of dub influence, funk samples and even soulful singing (Sly himself belts out a few lines on “Until You Get Home”). As a result, the final product stands as…

Bonus MP3: VIDEO — “Images”

OK, Dallas: If in the last three months you hadn’t yet found time to drive to Denton to catch one of VIDEO’s sets, and you aren’t planning to see them in Austin tonight, then tomorrow night will be your first chance to catch the band considerably closer to home. As…

Pitchfork Does A Little Dallas On Its Top 200 Albums Countdown

All week long, Pitchfork has been counting down its list of the 200 top albums of the ’00s–just the latest series in its ongoing, highly entertaining set of features about the decade in music. And though three area artists popped up in the site’s countdown of its top 500 songs of the…

Bonus MP3: Fungi Girls — “Dream of Oz”

I guess now is the time where rubber hits road for upstart Denton-based record label Play Pinball! Records because, on Saturday night, as Cleburne’s Fungi Girls’ debut album, Seafaring Pyramids, officially hits the streets, it will instantly become the label’s first release.Early birds looking to catch the worm can get…

Giveaway: A Pair of VIP Passes To See Thievery Corporation on

Fresh off the band’s ACL performance this afternoon and follow-up after-party performance at Stubb’s tomorrow night, trip-hop duo Thievery Corporation will be stopping by Dallas for a Sunday night date at the House of Blues. That Dallas stop is part of the act’s (RED)-sponsored tour, aimed to help spread awareness…

Brave Combo Influences Bob Dylan, Answers Your Questions

Lest we go more than a week without recognizing polk-rock outfit Brave Combo as one of the true gems of the region, let’s use this bit of news as a quick reminder: Yesterday, the L.A. Times’ music blog ran an item on the forthcoming Christmas album being released by one…

ACL ’09: So Can We Get This Party Going Already, Or…?

Pretty sure I’m in Austin right now–seems it at least; there’s a whole bunch of young people running around acting like there’s something going on. I dunno, this is a pretty early wake-up call for me. But I digress: I’ll be here all weekend long, along with Observer Web editor…

Wye Oak, Cotton Jones

Two-man rock groups generally fall into one of two types of rock: blues and hard-rock. Then there is Maryland’s Wye Oak, a duo that is far from the blazing guitar work of Jack White and Dan Auerbach. The band deftly blends elements of folk, country and indie-rock into a style unique to…

The Dodos, Ruby Sun

After the breakthrough success of 2007’s Visiter by San Francisco psychedelic folk group The Dodos, frontman Meric Long stated that, for his next album, he “wanted to make a rock record.” And what better way for the acoustic-based duo to accomplish this feat than to become a trio? Although the…

Strung Out, Lower Class Brats, Nations Afire, Saboteur

Going on 20 years together as a band, Strung Out has been able to make its metallic pop-punk work wonders. Already claiming seven full-lengths, two non-LP collections, one live album and two EPs, the band is promoting its latest release, Agents of the Underground, with its current string of tours…

Arctic Monkeys, The Like

If you don’t remember The Arctic Monkeys’ 2007 sophomore album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, you’re not alone. Despite the fact that the band’s previous album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, held the honor of being the fastest-selling debut ever in the U.K. (it ultimately went quadruple platinum),…

These Arms Are Snakes, dd/mm/yyyy, Broadcast Sea

Expressions like “post-hardcore” and “math rock” are guaranteed headache producers, and the Seattle-based combo These Arms Are Snakes certainly lives up to whatever connotations go along with such terms. Terse, tense and relatively complex, the sound Brian Cook and his cohort create can be both impressive and irritating. There’s no…

Kings of Leon, White Lies

Kings of Leon, the fabled Tennessee band made up of three brothers (Caleb, Nathan and Jared Followill) and their cousin Matthew, has enjoyed the kind of slow rise to stardom that very few rock ‘n’ roll acts enjoy today. While the quartet has played to arena-sized audiences in Europe for…