Happy to identify themselves as a Fort Worth band, Urizen have been around for the better part of a decade, honing their songwriting and instrumental chops while skillfully avoiding any easy classification. Autocratopolis, the band’s 2005 debut, has been described as avant-metal and features a bewildering concept of man’s inhumanity…
Maxine’s Radiator had a fun-loving psychedelic take on white-boy soul that made them one of Denton’s most exciting live bands about a decade ago. I wore out my cassette copy of Plastissimo, and I can’t be the only one who thinks they were a treasure: Fuzz Bites on Your Neck…
Get it straight: Scary Cherry and the Bang Bangs won’t be playing geeky music at Darkside Lounge Friday just because it’s a Revenge of the Nerds theme party. That’s a happy coincidence. “The theme doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with what’s going on onstage; we won’t be playing nerdy…
If you’re digging around in your mom’s attic and stumble across an LP called The Impact Sound of Kenny and the Kasuals Recorded Live at the Studio Club, hold on to it. The sucker is worth about $400, and with good reason: Kenny and the Kasuals are a legendary Dallas…
It’s no secret that AFI’s Davey Havok and Jade Puget have an affinity for electronic music, as evidenced by Puget’s programming credits on the last two AFI discs. With CexCells the duo takes its synthesizer obsession to the next level, though, with results that range from sublime to serviceable. The…
Unfortunately, none of the money from this benefit will be going to freelance Dallas Observer writers. But don’t let that stop you from heading out to Secret HeadQuarters in Denton for this fund-raiser for indiewriter.net, an independent Web site and magazine dedicated to “supporting independent authors and their publication.” Your…
The last Lazer show of 2007 is destined to be like Woodstock—so many more people will claim to have been there than were actually present. And sure you could just lie to your grandkids and say you were there; you can even probably bluff your way through reciting a fake…
Even if you don’t know acid house from Hugh Laurie, you’ve probably heard of U.K. DJ Digweed, who as half of Sasha & Digweed and as a solo DJ/producer became one of the biggest dance-floor tastemakers and trendsetters of the past decade. (Perhaps you’ve heard “For What You Dream Of,”…
Though it sounds like the mascot of Major League’s woeful Cleveland Indians, the moniker Chief Beef is entirely appropriate for a band that yields juicy slabs of power-trio rock. The Phoenix, Arizona, band’s 2007 Gravy Tour comes on the heels of its independently released debut, Something About Rock. Step into…
It’s not every day one stumbles across a French band that sounds plucked straight from the Midwest—specifically, the mid-’90s Midwest and its thriving post-rock scene. But that era’s melodic throttling and anti-grunge angst spring to mind when listening to the Headcases and the trio’s 2007 album Castaway But Blessed. Recorded…
“Conscious rap” needs to be eliminated from hip-hop’s vernacular—or at the very least, Talib Kweli’s name should be stricken from its rolls. Nobody’s quite sure what the term means: Music that doesn’t focus on rims and butts? Songs wherein the listener’s life isn’t explicitly threatened? Kweli has said he doesn’t…
Welcome back from summer vacation; hopefully, you’ve advanced a grade at your Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, so sharpen your pencils: Question 1: MatchingMatch the following bands, each of which is releasing a CD in the next seven days, with their type of music: A. Karen Mal (Friday, September 7,…
Notorious B.I.G. D: OK, this is weird. As you probably already know, Violetta Wallace, mother of Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls, aka Notorious B.I.G., is co-producing a biopic of her son, the rapper who was mysteriously gunned down in L.A. in the late ’90s (P. Diddy is another producer). Rather…
In preparation for the highly anticipated Blood on the Moors show, I endeavored to speak with frontman LeMont Shockenbacker. He proved elusive, like any typical god of rock, and I was dependent upon Giles Rothchild, personal assistant to Mr. Shockenbacker, for some connection. A packed schedule of drunken debauchery and…
It’s beginning to look like anytime you attach the word “core” to the end of another word, something’s going to suck. Case in point: There was an article last week in The New York Times about “mumblecore,” a faddish subgenre of independent film that chronicles the young and existentially grumpy…
Over the course of the band’s 25-year career, the thrash-metal pioneers of Slayer have been accused of inspiring murder and necrophilia (check out www.elysemarie.org). They’ve covered “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” for the Less Than Zero movie soundtrack. And just last year they won a Grammy for the song “Eyes of the Insane,” off their…
Really? Us? Tour with Def Leppard? That’s what Tommy Shaw of Styx said to himself when he first heard the offer. “Mr. Roboto” aside, it seemed like a mismatch. Worse, he discovered that Foreigner was also on the proposed bill. But then he realized that he’d been humming “Pour Some…
Could someone please tell Daddy Yankee that reggaetón is supposed to be over? Because on his latest, El Cartel: The Big Boss, the fiery Puerto Rican rapper acts like the party’s just begun. While detractors continue to proclaim the genre’s premature death, this proper follow-up to 2004’s “Gasolina”-powered smash Barrio…
Agit-pop artist Ron English is lying low. For someone whose biggest hobby is a second-degree felony, it’s probably a wise move. English, a renowned culture jammer and artist whose anti-corporate artwork has illegally graced more than 1,000 billboards across the United States, is taking a breather, focusing on the recent…
What a long, strange trip it’s been for Peter Case. He’s gone from the proto-power pop of the Nerves and Plimsouls to several solo albums of reflective, spunky folk rock. Then it was back to the Plimsouls, and now he’s moved to the stark, virtually naked Let Us Now Praise…
Some day Spencer Krug will reveal some hint of human fallibility. Good news—it’s still yet to come. To follow the Sunset Rubdown full-length Shut Up I Am Dreaming with an equally great album just more than a year later is remarkable, especially considering he continues to write for and play…
Rubber Gloves is always worth the dough. Let’s face it, in the last week, we’ve seen Au Revoir Simone, Oh No! Oh My! and Sydney Confirm, all in one show, for a mere eight bones. So the idea of rolling out to the storied spot for free is nothing but…
