I get all sorts of news releases describing gadgets that promise to change a cook’s life forever. I delete most of them after a quick look. Often the device can be easily duplicated with a more common kitchen device most of us already have on hand. Other times the tool…
Oh, tinfoil hat, all that stuff about how I’m paranoid, go ahead, say it, get it out of your system. I’ve got to be ready for it by now, right? But let me tell you something: There’s a big difference between paranoia and clairvoyance. And in the matter of the…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
The easiest thing to say about Dallas City Council elections would be that no one gives a shit. Voter participation in the council run-off election last weekend, counting everybody who mailed in a ballot or voted early, was 4.21 percent of the people who were registered to vote. That would…
HBOBy C. Townsend Rizzo It’s not news that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects our right to free speech, press, religion and peaceful assembly. Though reasonable and righteous, it has become a crutch of complacency. Everybody has something to say, but generally, they’re only making a weak…
The Pixies reunited in 2004 for the sake of nostalgia and money. There can’t be much doubt over this. They never hinted at new music (apart from the bizarre one-off soundtrack single “Bam Thwok”) and unashamedly toured Doolittle to within an inch of its life. This morning, entirely apropos of…
When you go to a concert, which is purportedly a collection of like-minded people on the grounds that you’re all there to see a particular thing you personally enjoy, you have two choices. You can either dress like you think everyone else will, or you can shout “FUCK IT” into…
Safe to say that I was doing bong hits on the couch one afternoon back in 1987 when Michael Alago, the A&R rep from Elektra Records who discovered and signed Metallica, called me up out of the blue and asked what was happening with the music scene here in Dallas…
Dear Mexican: In Philadelphia, there are three Spanish-language stations on regular broadcast television. None of them offer English subtitles. I bet plenty of people of all heritages would like to check out Spanish-language television or the news from Central America or whatever, if we could get subtitles. I called one…
Wrong. I said the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dallas would be no big deal. It will be. And it looks as if Dallas, to the delight of many, will step right into the middle of that big deal looking guilty as sin of something or other. The…
For more than three decades fans have been waiting for a Black Sabbath album with the original founder, the Lord of Darkness himself, whose distinctive growl along with Toni Iommi’s pulse-grinding rhythms influenced generations of metal heads to pick up an ax and replicate the metal purity that reverberated from…
For over a decade now, Casey Di lorio’s musician colleagues have asked him for help making a record. Nowadays, it’s the basket he puts all of his creative eggs into, at his own Valve Studios. Di Iorio played in One Ton Records-signed rock outfit Valve back in the day, who…
Lindsey BestAndrew Youssef [Editor’s Note: Longtime concert photographer Andrew Youssef found out almost two years ago that he had Stage IV Colon Cancer. In that time, he has continued to shoot tons of music events for our sister paper OC Weekly on top of other freelance work and working a…
Say it ain’t so #JohnnyFootball:twitpic.com/c05zy6— Kevin McGuire (@KevinOnCFB) February 2, 2013 For decades, music has been used to enforce the rivalry between the University of Texas and Texas A&M. On Saturdays in the fall, Longhorn fans proudly sing, “Give ’em hell, give ’em hell, make ’em eat shit!” while Aggies…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist, and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Welcome to Ask Willie D, where the Geto Boys MC answers reader questions about matters, in his own words, “funny, serious or unpredictable.” Something on your mind? Ask Willie D! DITCHED Dear Willie D: I got a little problem. My girl and I was supposed to hang out this weekend…
Dallas is a big city, but it’s a small town. The ability to walk into a room and find a friendly face can be a comfort. Still, it can be hard to disappear into the background when you want to. Sometimes a lady craves a bit of peace and quiet…
Seeing that Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson hit the Verizon Theater in Grand Prairie this evening, we thought it would be a good time to compile a list of the scariest acts in music. Scary can be a relative term. One person’s demented can be another’s delightful, but each of…
From 1998 when the Trinity River Project was first presented to voters as a racially unifying parks project, there has been a tension, to put it very politely, between the promise and the real agenda. As a matter of fact, I don’t really use the word tension. I prefer lie…
Tim Dog: RIP?As long as there have been celebrity deaths, there have been celebrity death sightings. A quick Internet search will turn up allegations of people spotting Elvis Presley in the steamy Memphis heat, or Jim Morrison in a Parisian cafe. There are those who would swear on a stack…
Highland Park police say they shot and killed a man Tuesday after he escaped from handcuffs while locked inside a patrol car, shot out the back window of the car, attempted to escape and got into a gun battle with them on a crowded shopping center parking lot where other…
Dear Readers: U.K.’s spectacular Guardian newspaper has asked if I could field some questions for their readers as part of the paper’s summer travel package — turns out Brits want to know more about Mexican food! Let’s be benevolent toward those buggerers: Their idea of what our comida constitutes comes…
