Music

A pair of aged hippies sit on a couch. One says, “If you could be any Bob Dylan you wanted to, which Bob Dylan would you be?” Our answer: Dewey Cox. The New Yorker cartoon was probably meant to conjure Todd Haynes’ kaleidoscopic, sort-of biopic I’m Not There, but intriguing…

Admit it: Sometimes you’re sitting around listening to your old Sex Pistols records and thinking, “I wonder which punk-rock icon has the biggest schlong?” Or maybe you’re wondering, “What kind of pizza would that one Food Network dude say goes well with the New York Dolls?” The Official Punk Rock…

A producer, beat maker, video artist, songwriter and performance artist from Olympia, Washington, Nicky Click is also a petulant bitch. But that’s probably exactly how she wants it. I’m on My Cell Phone, her sophomore effort, is an imaginative hodgepodge of minimalist hip-hop and urban folk that doesn’t sound like…

The meandering improvisation that makes Violent Squid’s music so fascinating for brief, beautiful moments is the same characteristic that makes it so easily dismissed at other times. The ever-evolving Denton collective, led by Ty Stamp, released nine albums or EPs in 2007, with two more already in the works. It…

Six Flags execs should be envious of all the twists, turns, surges and plunges that have taken place in the five years since R. Kelly faced multiple child-pornography charges: They can’t build as crazy a rollercoaster as the one the entertainer’s life has become. Since 2002, R&B’s self-proclaimed Pied Piper…

It’s always darkest before the dawn. Or so the music industry has been reassuring itself lately. You really can’t blame record companies for that whiff of optimism: Over the past few years, they’ve been bleeding like a hemophiliac with a razor fetish. The numbers are indeed grim. SoundScan figures for…

It would be hard to fathom a better collection of roots performers than this trio of acts from across the state. Fort Worth’s Tejas Brothers have been around a year or so, but their greasy mix of country, soul and Tejano is just now attracting the kudos it so richly…

Hailing from (where else?) Austin, Tiffani and Brit Ginn have been thrilling audiences with their pristine harmonies and melodies since 2003. The Sisters’ recent effort, Blood Oranges, came out in 2006 and featured mellow, acoustic Southern folk (“Down the Drain”) alongside some old school, hard-core honky-tonk (“Broken Spirit”). Tiffani writes…

I don’t know about you, but when I pay cover at Rubber Gloves, the Double Wide or the Granada, I would rather not see any of the money going to the Black-Eyed Peas. In a roundabout way, however, this is often exactly what happens. Organizations such as ASCAP (The American…

Pop up: Artist Thomas Allen’s work “Distraction.” (FMPR) Silent and neatly folded, packed away deep within the desolation of a rural Michigan farmhouse basement, lie the cut-and-paste dioramas of Thomas Allen. What began as a lovely, yet convoluted, interpretation of his grandfather’s hokey pose-and-smile vintage family photographs, Allen’s three-dimensional pulp…