Yet another singer-songwriter from Austin, a city where you can’t even spit without gobbing on a sensitive dude? Yawn, you might say. But let’s give Grant Olney credit for at least being different from the rabble, even if he sings with a bit too obvious faux-Brit accent in order to…
Whatever name you call him by–sHack, Simon Shackleton or Elite Force–the British DJ is widely recognized as one of the top breaks producers in the world. Shackleton’s style extends beyond the breakbeat remix and is often referred to as “tech-funk,” encompassing various elements of house, techno and old-school electro. Starting…
When Daniel Smith began playing music with his siblings in 1995 as part of a senior thesis project at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, his inspiration was God. And so it’s been since then: On the handful of records he’s made both as leader of the Danielson Famile (a rotating ensemble…
The son of outlaw-country greats Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, 26-year-old Shooter Jennings plays country-fried Southern rock mostly about drinking, drugging and having a good time, even if you’ll regret it in the morning. He released his second album, Electric Rodeo, in April, and is spending the summer on the…
As part of our continuing drive toward journalistic excellence, we have discovered the private blog of director Chris Applebaum, in which he discusses his work on Paris Hilton’s new music video, “Stars Are Blind.” May 4, 2006, 7:49 a.m.: WHAT HAVE I DONE? Remember that Carl’s Jr. ad, the one…
“There are some guys in England who would kill you for this,” Brandon Carr says as he discreetly hands me a plastic case. The bearded Dallasite then gives me a look like he’s got murder on his mind as well. “Don’t. Leak. It.” I can’t help but laugh, and it’s…
Nothing like a blanket statement to get locals excited about a band, so here goes: Comrade is the new Pleasant Grove of Dallas rock music. You can’t get a better compliment than that, really. There’s Many a Slip Twixt the Cup and the Lip, the Dallas quintet’s debut, has the…
Really, Thom Yorke could loop the sounds of himself snoring and Radiohead’s obsessive fans would buy it. He’s done a little more than that on his solo debut, in which electronic beats are cut and pasted together from live instruments and synthesizer bleeps, though The Eraser’s nine tracks are songs…
1957 was a defining year for these two jazz greats. After a lengthy absence, Thelonious Monk’s newly reinstated cabaret card permitted him to return to the fertile playground of the New York City jazz clubs. John Coltrane just completed an informal tutelage under Miles Davis, successfully kicked heroin and was…
Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the title of Impeach My Bush, the third album by Berlin-based raunch-rap mistress Peaches, is a joke whose time has come. (Titles might be Peaches’ true talent–see also 2003’s Fatherfucker.) Whether or not Impeach offers more than exemplary wordplay is down to…
he’s been branded everything from tortured and bruised to moody and difficult, but right now, Fiona Apple just has a case of the sniffles. Talking on the phone from her Venice, California, home, the much-praised, much-embattled singer-songwriter/pianist is lying low, preparing to embark on the biggest concert tour of her…
Sara Hickman’s last concert at Poor David’s Pub didn’t have quite the air of a homecoming. Despite an inspired introduction in faux-Latin by club owner David Carr, the audience showed absolutely no enthusiasm, and that lack of energy in the crowd was reflected right back from the stage. Hickman tried…
Melody, heart and–for lack of a term as concise–balls; together, these qualities mark the best Midwestern bands, from Rockford’s Cheap Trick, to Minneapolis’ Replacements and Hüsker Dü, to Milwaukee’s Modern Machines. Say who? Modern Machines, a trio that’s been breathlessly compared to its Midwestern predecessors in the punk press, are…
At some point during last week’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, everybody did the zombie walk. After days of drug-amplified dehydration and exhaustion, the zombie walker shuffles forward, eyes and mouth half-open, often leaning to one side and stumbling a few steps while allowing the weight of…
On the evening of June 24, exactly one year and one day after my debut music column appeared in the Dallas Observer, a man left a vague message on my cell phone. Who was he? Not sure. How’d he get the personal number? Lord knows. But I slept through the…
Let your freak flags fly: Remember March’s Wall of Sound Festival 2006? If your memory’s hazy, that’s probably for good reason; expectations were a little high, crowds were a little skim and the thing ran a little too long, but the heart–and the bands, dammit–were worth it. We can’t help…
The rumors surrounding the long-awaited follow-up to one of Kool Keith’s most infamous creations, 1996’s Dr. Octagonecologyst, only serve to complicate an already convoluted character. To bring about The Return of Dr. Octagon, Kool Keith’s vocal tracks (supposedly from a 2002 session with producer Fantik-J) were appropriated by Simon Walbrook,…
Faux spookiness of the Count Floyd/Count Chocula variety is everywhere; just turn on MTV2, or head to your local counterculture shlock shop for a dose of unintentionally hilarious “goth” aesthetics. But for 25 years, the London-via-Amsterdam band Legendary Pink Dots have proffered a rarer, truer kind of darkness. Your Children…
The brainchild of Ben Chasny, a Bay Area-based guitar whiz who also plays in the celebrated psych-metal outfit Comets on Fire, Six Organs of Admittance dedicates the second half of The Sun Awakens to a single 23-minute track called “River of Transfiguration” that sounds like a one-armed hobbit practicing snare-drum…
An eight-hour van drive in Texas sans air conditioning–at any time of year, really, but this is the summer we’re talking about–is hardly an ideal way to travel. That’s the scenario Sound Team guitarist Sam Sanford faces during a recent interview, right as the sextet begins a U.S. tour in…
While her eerie alt-country creations with the Geraldine Fibbers were moody to say the least, Carla Bozulich’s second solo release, Evangelista, is another matter altogether. Largely improvisational, the nine lengthy compositions are dark and harrowing tales of religious and personal disintegration set to a pace only a snail could love…
Alejandro Escovedo hasn’t had it easy: His first wife committed suicide; his excellent, critically praised discs haven’t set any charts afire; and he battled a recent bout of hepatitis without the support of health insurance. So you might expect his first release since 2002’s By the Hand of the Father…
