One would be extremely hard-pressed to find a better grouping of authentic roots and Americana than what will be on display in Deep Ellum this Friday. Lloyd Maines (father of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines) has been a producer and musician on some of the most seminal recordings of Texas music…
Extraordinarily creative Austin psychedelic-garage rock innovators The 13th Floor Elevators amplified rock ‘n’ roll’s cultural promise to unprecedented heights. But the reality of Roky Erickson’s band’s methods and ideology was nothing short of flabbergasting. Compelled to live as outlaws, never rehearsing or performing without the benefit of pharmaceutical LSD, routinely…
You’d think that when a young band has the good fortune to see its self-produced first album re-released on a big label and then be sent to a proper Los Angeles studio to record the second, the results would be something like a kid in a GameStop store. But after…
“I know yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow, it’ll never come” is about as deep and original as Chicago duo Walter Meego allows itself to get. So it helps that profundity isn’t the point. What singer Justin Sconza and multi-instrumentalist Renaissance dude Colin Yarck seemed to be going for on their May-released…
This year’s Austin City Limits Festival ushered out the summer concert season with performances by Beck, Erykah Badu, Spiritualized and dozens of indie rock, folk and alt-country critical darlings. And, as can be expected with a festival of ACL’s size, there were moments of brilliance, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to witness music…
Given the amount of love that we here at the Dallas Observer tossed the Dallas Theater Center’s way over its The Who’s Tommy—a cover story previewing the show (“Enter Stage Right,” August 28), a glowing review of the show (“Who Knew,” September 4) and multiple blog posts under both our…
A lot of neo-goth/New Wave quartet Shiny Toy Guns’ firepower comes from the group’s two lead singers—one male (Chad Petree) and one female (Carah Faye Chadrow). Each boasts a powerful, angsty voice that well-matches the group’s goth dance tendencies, which, at times, can product stellar results (see “Le Disko” off…
Screamin’ Jay Hawkins at The Prophet Bar. (Cynthia Conrow) For all the wrong reasons, legendary zombie blues howler Screamin’ Jay Hawkins hated my guts. Our relationship was pretty much doomed from the start. I just couldn’t do anything right in his eyes. He and I shared the same birthday, but…
Today, in music news that, really, comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone who’s ever bought or downloaded an mp3, Dallas-based company Crystal Clear has announced the closing of its distribution department. “At the end of last year, we deleted about 90 percent of our catalog, or 450 titles,” explains…
Kool Herc, the father of hip hop, will make his first-ever Dallas appearance Friday, October 31, at minc with Busy B. The booking coup was announced less than a week after Instrumental Entertainment bought the Exposition Park club. Creo Jones, marketing director for Instrumental, said the appearance will include an…
Robert Wilonsky came across the above trailer this morning for the upcoming (although I don’t know when it’s due) documentary called Dallas Electric: The Texas Blues Story, a film currently being produced by The Still Kickin’ Foundation. Yes, that’s famed area blues musician Hash Brown in the clip, but the…
Someone got all arty with his angles last night… (Patrick Michels) As Lance Lester wrote in last week’s print edition, L.A.-based indie pop act The Broken West is “one of the greatest unsung indie acts around.” So, on that note, our new-ish Web editor, Patrick Michels, decided to hop on…
Cut Copy, The Presets Granada Theater September 30, 2008 Better Than: Chocolate-covered kittens. Last Night, the Granada Theater was buzzing with an eclectic array of people and fashion senses: clubbers, frat boys, and of course, a handful of aspiring hipster, perhaps hoping to reign over the less fashionable show-goers. Unfortunately…
I dunno. Maybe I’m overreacting a bit. But, surely, I can’t be the only person who’s excited about the fact that various members of two GREAT (but kinda-on-hiatus) area bands, Pleasant Grove and Baboon, have teamed up to form a new band called The Boom Boom Box. And I can’t…
When it rains, it pours. (Erica Fellicella) Seems Dallas’ own little alt-country diva Kristy Kruger is out on a national tour with former Verve Pipe frontman Brian Vander Ark. And, actually, Kruger isn’t only opening the shows; she and her two able sidemen (drummer Richard Hewett and guitarist Dylan Sneed)…
Way back in March, about a month after I’d arrived in town, I met with Tami Thomsen and Dale Brock of Kirtland Records. Nothing too formal, just a few drinks at the Idle Rich, I believe, to talk about what each of us did and what each of us hoped…
Let’s be honest with ourselves: The 13-year-in-the-making Guns N’ Roses maybe-masterpiece Chinese Democracy probably won’t be coming out on November 25, no matter the reports. But if–if!–the recent rumors of a Best Buy-exclusive release are, indeed, true, you can credit a Dallas-held Best Buy vendor convention for being the source…
We didn’t bother mentioning anything about it back when AC/DC’s current U.S. tour was first announced–we’re not really in the business of telling about the shows that aren’t coming through town–but we did find it a bit sketchy that the rock gods decided to hit up both San Antone and…
It was, oh, two and a half years ago now, that we heard last from Dallasite Eric Grubbs about that status of his book Post: An Anthology of American Post-Hardcore, 1985-2007. Well, now comes this news: Grubbs, who spends the bulk of his time broadcasting area traffic reports for a…
CD World may be closed, but Mike Schoder’s other business–The Granada Theater–still appears to be doing quite well for itself. Tonight, marks the end of a truly remarkable stretch at the theater (thanks, ACL!) that saw Del tha Funky Homosapien, Neko Case, Sunset Rubdown and, now, Cut Copy and The…
Sunset Rubdown The Granada Theater Better Than: Finding out that the Meridian Room has closed. Sunset Rubdown may be an English-speaking band, but something seemed lost in translation between the Canadian band and the audience at last night’s poorly attended show. After opener “The Taming of the Hands That Came…
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a weekend–well, maybe it just seems like it happened in Star Wars time now that it’s Monday–but if you weren’t in Austin like Jesse was, or Vegas like Pete, it was a good weekend to be in Dallas…
