No? Weird, ’cause MTV apparently is. Yesterday, the music network checked in with some of the area’s hip-hop heavyweights–or, possibly, just the ones it still had email addresses for in its “Dallas Week” Rolodex–to hear their thoughts. Play-N-Skillz seem OK with it…”I think the Cowboys will be good with or…
I think it was two weeks back now that the above song, “Song I Hate”, was announced as the second single to be released from the Toadies’ No Deliverance record (the first single, remember, was the title track). So that’s not new news, necessarily. But this is kinda new (assuming…
Tonight, down a ways on I-35, Cut Copy, Matt & Kim and Knightlife are playing a sold-out date at Stubb’s. But there are still tickets available to tomorrow night’s show, when the three danceable acts make their way to the Granada here in Dallas. As Observer contributor Doug Davis mentioned…
I was twelve years old and up way past my bedtime. The headphones were on and I was hiding underneath the blankets. The stereo was tuned to a Dallas radio station called “The Zoo”. A DJ named JD was playing a track from The Beatles’ White Album called “Revolution #9”,…
Your daily dose of national music news for Friday, March 6, 2009… The Beatles: Rock Band will hit stores on 9/9/09, at which point it will become the most overrated game ever. Yeah, yeah. Chris Brown got charged with felony assault. Marshall Mathers is making up for lost time by releasing two…
I’m going to have bad dreams tonight. This poster is so memorably creepy that I can overlook the apparent failed attempt at a literal interpretation of the headliner’s band name. But knitted-vs.-woven nitpicking aside, that horrible skeletal figure and those button eyes–so nightmarishly wide-open, yet blank–make this one of the…
Last week, in a blog post about my favorite band from Cowtown, The Cut*Off, I mentioned how the band would be part of this Saturday’s Texas Showcase Showdown at the House of Blues. Well, Cut*Off guitarist Jayson Hamilton just sent me an emailing detailing the line-up and schedule for this…
Over at NX35.com, which is, fittingly, the home page for the inaugural Denton debut of the former North by 35 South by Southwest day party–but on a much larger scale–the festival’s organizers have released the performance and speaker schedules for its four-day jaunt around the Denton Square. Nothing scheduled for…
Stumbled upon this press release about local music instructor Mike Ellis this morning, and figured it might raise a few eyebrows. Ellis, whose been teaching music in the Dallas area for 35 years (he’s supposedly tutored worked with well-respected artists like Chuck Rainey, Greg Bissonette and Christopher McGuire and once…
It’s been a little over a year now since Dallas rapper Tum Tum released Eat or Get Ate, the breakout album that saw the man who also calls himself Tumzilla (or sometimes just Zilla) score a moderate national hit with the song “Caprice Muzik”, and though we still haven’t seen…
I’ll be honest. I was somewhat underwhelemed by THe BAcksliders’ 2008 release, You’re Welcome. It was weird, I thought. Here’s this raucous, straight up rock ‘n’ roll band–one that’s pretty darn great live, and here’s this disc that just shimmers in crisp, clean, shiny production. Something didn’t really jive.But today,…
Per a House of Blues press release: Katy Perry’s Dallas performance has been moved back from March 21 to May 11. Tickets purchased to the original date will be honored at the new one. Per an EMI press release that showed up seconds later: The entirety of Perry’s 50-city world…
Your daily dose of national music news for Thursday, March 5, 2009…Phish Heads around the country have reason to rejoice this weekend: The band is finally getting back together for a full weekend of music. But, if you can’t go, well, you also have reason to rejoice: Free downloads of…
It’s not exactly a secret that Dallas hip-hop is enjoying a serious high at the moment. Hell, turn on your televisions. Last week, the almighty MTV ran a series of news segments touting the city’s finest efforts of late, laying down some serious praise for Grammy-winning area producers Play-N-Skillz and…
“Over Whiskey Flats and I am on my way, Lord let me fly/The Bosque flows and it runs dry/Hold me down, that’s where I will die.” Google the unincorporated community of Whiskey Flats, Texas, and the first thing you’ll find is an AP story on a man who attempted to…
“It’s like comparing the different women you’ve fallen in love with,” muses journeyman singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo. “Some end up well, some not so well, you know?” But Escovedo isn’t talking about romance, per se—rather, he’s ruminating over the bands he’s played in, a theme that recurs throughout his latest album,…
Kool Keith is known by many names: Black Elvis, Ultra, Dr. Octagon and Dr. Dooom. What he’s not known for is being your average MC. Thirteen years ago, when the hot thing in hip-hop was flaunting your cars, money and jewelry, Keith, with the help of legendary underground producer and…
Cut Copy successfully mashes together its musical influences of disco, Motown, shoegaze and trance, while adding some melody and decent lyrics. And, as such, its second full-length release, last year’s In Ghost Colours, ended up on lots of “best albums of the year” lists. More impressive, though, is that the…
Most discerning listeners over the age of 18 tend to dismiss mainstreamo as nothing but stupid haircuts, whiny vocals and self-obsessed lyrics. But for each of the last eight years, the Take Action! Tour has championed the charitable nature of that scene. Presented by Hopeless Records (and its nonprofit label,…
With her crackling samples and toothy snark, Lily Allen arrived in the middle of this decade as the antidote to Britney’s self-aggrandizement. She was the Gawker.com to Spears’ People. Now, with the saucy 2000s winding down, its signature decadence and celebrity lust are growing quainter with each property foreclosure. Attitudes…
All hail the shitty recording. Nearly everything counterculture has been pillaged and repackaged, but the shitty recording remains a floodwall against wider mainstream acceptance. With the new crop of in-the-red punkers, from Vivian Girls to Times New Viking and now Wavves, a harsher, more contemporary take on lo-fi has advanced…
Minnesota’s Jayhawks—co-led by singer-songwriters/guitarists Gary Louris and Mark Olson—were one of the finest bands to come out of the No Depression movement, carried aloft by the duo’s trademark rough-hewn high harmonies. So when Olson flew the coop in 1995 (mostly to collaborate with then-wife Victoria Williams), Louris soldiered on as…
