I’ll be honest: I’ve only been here a little more than three months. I don’t feel particularly qualified to give you a year-end retrospective about a town where I still don’t know the best way to get to the grocery store. But I will say this: Music-wise, this is a…
The revolution was not televised, nor was it sold at the local record shop. Colorful chamber-pop collective the Polyphonic Spree instead digitally released one of the best albums of the year, the five-song EP Wait. Bookended by two songs from the group’s forthcoming full-length, A Fragile Army, which is tentatively…
1. Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther 2. The Polyphonic Spree, Wait EP 3. Centro-matic, Fort Recovery 4. The Theater Fire, Everybody Has a Dark Side 5. The Paper Chase, Now You Are One of Us 6. Bosque Brown, Cerro Verde 7. Red Monroe, Red Monroe 8. The Drams, Jubilee…
So we only hit one in 10 with last year’s list (see “Death Pool for Cutie,” January 5, 2006), and it’s painful that it had to be the Godfather. And we failed to predict some final exits that seem obvious in hindsight. But we’ve learned from our mistakes and recalibrated…
1. The Theater Fire, Everybody Has a Dark Side 2. Midlake, The Trials of Van Occupanther 3. PPT, Tres Monos in Love 4. Burntsienna Trio, Gregor-Jotace Mission Cathedral 5. Money Waters, Swalhaggin 6. Sivion, Spring of the Songbird 7. Strange Fruit Project, The Healing 8. Red Monroe, Red Monroe 9…
It was either philosopher-poet George Santayana or actor-celebrity sibling Don Swayze that once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” It’s also a popular quote amongst hack writers trying to drum up a quick intro to a “year-in-review” piece. With this in mind we peek…
1. PPT was neither calm, nor silent, nor filled with shame. They were, in fact, quite the opposite. 2. The Xaglaxian mothership did not retrieve the Polyphonic Spree and return them to their home planet of Quarzallium-72. 3. Despite our many phone calls and letters, the Burden Brothers did not…
It’s probably not the best thing to cop to owning all the tracks listed below; we don’t wanna end up on the RIAA watch list. So, let’s just say these things were all available, at some point or another, on the Web during 2006—most for as long as it took…
TOP 10 ALBUMS, by Darryl Smyers 1. Centro-matic, Fort Recovery 2. Kristy Kruger, Songs From a Dead Man’s Couch 3. The Cut*Off, The Rorschach E.P. 4. The Theater Fire, Everybody Has a Dark Side 5. The Drams, Jubilee Drive 6. Auto Escape, Turn It Off 7. Boys Named Sue, The…
TOP 10 NATIONAL ALBUMS Wolf Eyes, Human Animal Wolf Eyes & Anthony Braxton, Black Vomit Wolf Eyes just blew the field away this year. It’s hard to fathom how anyone could have better control over broken machines, creepshow thuds and squelching electric currents and weave it all together with such…
You hear it at the end of every year—the critical moaning and gnashing of teeth, as music writers and fans alike proclaim what has become a holiday mantra. “This was a bad year for music,” everyone cries, their hands clutching iPods lifted imploringly to the heavens. “Why have the music…
In 2006, the pop singles market continued to dominate, in no small part because the pick-to-click-driven mentality of online music stores and ringtone sites gave consumers unparalleled freedom to Choose Their Own Musical Adventure. What suffered in the meantime, though, was the quality of pop-rock albums. These platters frequently spawned…
This story, as originally conceived, was supposed to be a compilation of the year’s best boxed sets and other re-issues. But then it hit us: In today’s shuffle-driven iPod world, with the pace of pop culture moving at breakneck speed, it’s pointless to make such temporal distinctions. The past is…
It was, according to no less an authority than The New York Times, the year rap went regional. There was plenty of recent evidence to support this claim, beginning with the suddenly paltry record sales racked up by some of hip-hop’s heaviest weights. There was lots of historical evidence, as…
Clearly nobody needs a primer on indie rock. We all have our own idea of what it is, right? Nonetheless, why is it that so few of us can agree on who deserves such a designation? Fact is, attempting to define indie rock universally is as futile a task as…
The criterion for this list was simple: Only the hardest, heaviest metal albums were considered. Bands who play a hybrid style of metal that is not thrash, speed, death, black metal, hard-core, grindcore or some amalgamation thereof were not included. What follows is pure effin’ metal. Bang your head off…
I had been hearing about Sorta since before I even began this job. Before I moved, I did some research, polled some Dallas Observer staff and tore through the Internet seeking out the band names I should know, who I should go see. Sorta kept coming up. The first Sorta…
Good cause, good times: Only in Dallas can the normally polar opposites sports and indie rock not only reach peace, but engage in a fruitful marriage. In the Big D, we love our Cowboys, we love our Mavericks and we love our music, so it makes sense, especially if the…
Bent over a shelf of aging vinyl, Johnny Lloyd Rollins adds another record to his stack of take-home goodies. He’s got a $20 bill in his pocket, and he wants to get the maximum amount of Disney for his buck. Rollins has struck gold: a Robin Hood picture disc, vivid…
January 1979: Al Green can barely sit still behind his desk at his offices just across the road from the Memphis airport. The nondescript building is tucked behind another housing “Al Green Hairstylists” and just a short drive from both Green’s Full Tabernacle Gospel church as well as the late…
Do you remember a time way back in the early 1990s when ska was “invented” by bands such as Voodoo Glow Skulls, No Doubt and Rancid? Well, actually it was invented in the early 1980s by bands such as the Specials, Madness and Selecter. Oh, wait a minute, it was…
Most parents find it difficult dealing with the sounds emanating from their young child’s room. The yearly onslaught (especially during the holidays) of products geared toward the wee ones can be daunting to say the least. What follows is a guide through the minefield of pre-adolescent music, one that might…
