Of all the labels to be unfairly saddled with, the oxymoronic “Christian punk” tag has dogged this Pacific Northwest trio for more than a decade. Sure, these fine, not-so-young lads don’t spew expletives like hard-core legends Black Flag nor do they wallow in sexual depravity like punk godfather Iggy Pop,…
In 2000, lauded producer, remixer, DJ and label owner Peter Rauhofer won a Grammy for Remixer of the Year. For all those who even knew such a category existed (and for the even fewer who believe a Grammy bestows any merit whatsoever), Rauhofer (who splits his time between New York…
You punks! Get off my lawn! I’m kidding. Just mind the tulips, wouldya? Judging by your Operation Ivy patch and your pal’s Green Day pin, you’re on your way to get tickets for Rancid’s Friday, July 14, show at the Gypsy Tea Room. Sixteen bucks for tickets…that’s real punk. But…
They’re currently enjoying the indie-scene buzz that can turn a little-known local band into an international sensation overnight, but Rachael Hughes and Nathan Shineywater’s brief history as Brightblack Morning Light did not begin auspiciously. As Hughes recounts over the phone from a tour stop in Florida, she and Shineywater met…
With so much death metal and screamo in the metroplex, what’s a headbanging purist to do? Sure, a band like Necrogazm will hump your eye socket with rapid-fire sludge, and Autumn Silence adds metal riffs and satanic screams to a mall-friendly emo formula, but speed and screams alone don’t cut…
Do you even read this?: Every week, someone calls or e-mails AAT HQ to ask the following: “Are there any good local bands worth seeing?” We’re required by staff policy to smile and politely respond with a concert recommendation or two, though we’d rather wrap a brick with a copy…
On Camera Obscura’s third album, Tracyanne Campbell’s songs have propelled the Scottish outfit from a lesser-known Belle and Sebastian mimeograph to a full-blown pop consortium of its own. Let’s Get Out of This Country nods to other artists musically, from George Harrison to the Supremes to the Concretes, but lyrically…
There were but four Small Faces, and two of them landed in Austin: bassist and multiple sclerosis sufferer Ronnie Lane from the late 1980s to the mid-’90s and then-keyboard player Ian “Mac” McLagan, today the capital city’s most beloved ex-pat musical Brit. MS finally took Lane’s life, but McLagan fondly…
The title of A Hundred Highways, Johnny Cash’s final recordings, actually understates the roads and mileage he traveled–literally, spiritually and musically–and their resonance throughout this disc. The larger-than-life Cash voice is ragged and wizened, yet it still brims with what was all along his biggest vocal gift: character that runs…
A collection of 21 outtakes from last year’s Illinois “shamelessly compiled by Sufjan Stevens” (as the cover faux-modestly reports), The Avalanche lacks by definition the potent thematic thrust that’s defined each of this Christian emo-folk heartthrob’s previous albums. That’s more than a cosmetic issue: Stevens makes no attempt to conceal…
They take their name from the “The Black Angel’s Death Song” by the Velvet Underground and ominously sing about war, paranoia, devastation, hell and death–of course, death–over a weighty, dark-hued, funereal rock drone. So one might naturally expect to find the Black Angels hunkered down in a decaying urban warehouse…
No one knows the brutal sting of being curb-kicked by your record label like Dallas musicians, so it is with open and empathetic arms that we receive Sam Means and Nate Ruess, known to their previous overlords at Elektra Records as The Format. Lullabies, their 2003 major label debut, was…
Although working in similar veins of country and folk, singer-songwriters Slaid Cleaves and Hayes Carll come to greatness from remarkably divergent paths. Cleaves is a more traditional tunesmith, parlaying friendships with Lucinda Williams and Gurf Morlix into a decade’s worth of solid releases–all pleasant, mannered and respectable. Carll brings a…
New Jersey nutballs in love with heavy-metal power and prog-rock technique, the Dillinger Escape Plan plays absurdly complicated art punk that’s got more in common with old-school outfits like Faith No More (whose Mike Patton actually sang with DEP for a 2002 EP) than with any of the mall-core screamo…
One is the loneliest number, but when coding binary beats in the musical matrix, 0010101 comes a close second. Ask John Tejada: Considering his continuous output of original, imaginative and downright funky dance floor offerings, he must have joined the lonely hearts dance club long ago. Where many techno producers…
Back when Deep Ellum was a musical hotbed, Meredith Miller was one of the talented teens who coulda been a contender. With her loamy alto, slightly quirky lyrics and smart-chick style, she might have ended up a more urbane Dar Williams or followed in Lisa Loeb’s footsteps to a mid-level…
I can scream from the mountaintops about the wonders of the Internet all I want. Shout about blogs. Hoot ‘n’ holler about podcasts. But for all the attention and growth that Dallas music Web sites have seen in the past few years, the result is still just the sound of…
“Don’t be nervous!” The makeup girl smiles as she attempts to brush a wad of Cowboys cheerleader pink across my lips, but suddenly my knees are shaking so much that I can’t even keep my face still. Thing is, I totally had the situation under control, like, two seconds ago…
At a recent gig, Dallas’ Sarah Hamilton knew she was in for a good time when a dancing fan fell backward over the venue’s monitor and spilled Hamilton’s Lone Star…before the first song was even through. The dancing calamity is understandable; in concert, Hamilton sticks to a repertoire of boot-scootin’…
In a fashion not dissimilar to how it brought succor to black Southern field hands, the blues has also been a means for white kids like Guy Forsyth to escape their suburban roots and acquire some soul. And unlike hordes of his fellow Austinites whose music prattles endlessly through the…
“There’s just something about them,” Kristin Allen-Zito sing-mutters to open her 2004 album Helium. Sounds like yet another coffee house singer with cigarette-stained vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar and cute “ooh”s in the background, but then she finishes the sentence–“that makes me want to stick my dick in/I know it’s…
Taking their name from Jerry Lee Lewis’ best country song, one might wrongly assume Austin’s What Made Milwaukee Famous would fall squarely into the alt-country camp. Instead, this quirky quartet draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Television, Jeff Buckley and the Cars while still remaining contemporarily stylish in a…
