I’d probably exceed my allotted word count just roll calling all the A-list amigos that appear on Hi-Tek’s latest release. Established hip-hop statesmen like Q-Tip, Nas, Talib Kweli, Common, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon (among many others) drop solid contributions on top of a neck-snapping, toe-tapping canvas of orchestral loops, bleating…
Because he recorded for countless labels over the course of seven decades, John Lee Hooker’s hugely influential brand of blues and boogie has never been successfully anthologized until now. This four-disc set clocks in at more than four hours and features 85 examples of Hooker’s distinctive brilliance. It’s a massive…
Gerard Way offers his critics plenty to ridicule on the latest Romance CD, including unbridled theatricality, more classic-rock nods than even Lenny Kravitz typically offers and the sort of show-biz shamelessness that hipsters consider terminally uncool. Yet the garish over-the-topness of the entire twisted enterprise is precisely why this disc…
For more than a decade, Damien Jurado has flown under the radar as this generation’s Nick Drake. Jurado has a hushed, fragile vocal that’s a pleasant complement to his minimal instrumentation. But what sets him apart from his deceased ’70s counterpart is how well he crafts a string of despairing…
Good metal is hard to come by these days. For a while, the fallout from the late-’90s rap-rock explosion threatened to undo forever all that is good and metal in the universe. Luckily, new blood continues to flow. Orlando’s Trivium unleashes faithful metal epics that channel late-’80s Anthrax and Cliff…
The lovely ladies over at FineLineLive.com continue their maternal resuscitation of the local scene as they proudly present Club DaDa’s Featured Artist of the Month, Rahim Quazi. Mr. Quazi’s first record was an exercise in melodic indie melancholy occasionally garnished with flutes and strings and such. He’s now at the…
Sometimes it’s more the “songwriter” than the “singer” in “singer-songwriter” that really transforms a gal with a six-string into a triumph. Athens, Georgia’s Madeline sings with the perfectly imperfect, heartbreakingly restrained power of Jolie Holland, but it’s the songs around which her voice is wrapped that pull the listener into…
Part MTV Unplugged and part VH1 Divas (which we suppose would add up to be an installment of VH1 Storytellers), Saturday night’s Flying Solo show at The Cavern features four local frontmen strippin’ it down and kickin’ it acoustic, though they’ll have to get by without a little help from…
Riding high on the crest of new single “Everybody Is Easy,” Dallas’ all-star cast of musical veterans drops a new disc, Mercy, an oddly named piece of work, as the disc shows none. It is a full-on, unapologetic sonic throwback, full of rock riffs and distort-o gee-tars and, of course,…
It might be going a bit far to place Social Distortion alongside the ’80s underground legends who have been so revered of late, but there are mobs out there who would go toe-to-toe with you on that. You know the story: Wasted-years L.A. punks ride the drug train off the…
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, better known by his stage name, Taj Mahal, is less a traditional blues artist and more a cross-cultural musicologist who just happens to play some damn fine blues guitar. Over the course of four decades, Mahal has perfected his unique melding of blues, reggae, Cajun, gospel,…
Joey Beltram highlights an all-star lineup at the
Meltdown Block Party on Saturday, October 28 at Lizard
Lounge and Club Seven.
Our Band Could Be Your Band takes place Saturday,
October 28 at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton. Doors open at 6
p.m., and music starts at 8 p.m. Admission is $7.|2006
may be the New Day Rising that Hsker D sang about, but
a more fitting epithet for the Our Band Could Be Your
Band event might be, as the Replacements once said,
“You be me for a while, and I’ll be you.” Here’s the
lowdown on who is whom:
Chin Up Chin Up performs with Oxford Collapse on
Thursday, October 26 at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio
in Denton.
Sad Bullets?: In Deep: This is the last week to hit up the Deep Ellum haunted houses set up by D/E/E/P, aka Deep Ellum Enrichment Project, aka the Project Formerly Known as Save Our Scene. D/E/E/P member Tania Ion, also of local band the Ramonalisas, says the houses are intended…
Zion I, the Grouch and Pigeon John perform Tuesday,
October 31 at the Cavern.
What better way to celebrate Halloween than with the devil’s music? Strangely, Christmas has been much more thoroughly celebrated by rock ‘n’ roll songwriters than the day marked by death-mocking costumes, self-indulgence and malicious pranks. But while the wait for another smash-hit novelty song like “Monster Mash” to set the…
Oxford Collapse and Chin Up Chin Up perform Thursday,
October 26 at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studio, Denton.
Wednesday, October 26 at Gypsy Tea Room
On Sam’s Town, Killers vocalist Brandon Flowers makes it very clear that he wants to be Bruce Springsteen, judging by the Boss-esque sentiments decorating the over-the-top single “When You Were Young.” While it’s admirable that the Vegas quartet wants to be taken seriously as musicians and lyricists on its sophomore…
On their self-titled debut, the Scissor Sisters dipped their hands into a multitude of genres, which is what made the songs fun. In contrast, Ta-Dah overflows with nothing but pop and dance ditties. If the Bee Gees entered the studio with Elton John cohort Bernie Taupin and Beatles producer George…
Friday, October 27 at Gypsy Tea Room
