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Matt Weitz

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Plain Jane in the membrane

Reputation aside, ICP is just your dull, everyday pair of lunatic clowns

By Matt Weitz
Mar 5, 1998

Lots of things look different on paper. The new puppy's errors in judgment, for one thing. Another was the Insane Clown Posse's show at the Bronco Bowl last Friday, February 27. On paper, it read like one of the more interesting concerts this year. ICP is a Detroit-spawned rap group...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Mar 5, 1998

Three's a charm Sing It! Marcia Ball, Irma Thomas, and Tracy Nelson Rounder Records Perhaps it's something about the implied cooperation and common cause it takes to get three divas together and on the same track, but such efforts produce unusually attractive music. Witness Trio, the 1987 album that combined...
Roadshows

By Matt Weitz
Feb 26, 1998

Oh the doo-dah day Quake before the wrath of the conservative moralists, whose censure and condemnation can banish a topless girl from an album cover, deny the fertile outlets of Wal-Mart to a corrupting influence, or--in the case of the Insane Clown Posse--give a flaccidly idiotic rip-off act the bad-boy...
Hammered

When Kevin Abdullah wrote a rap song for his idol MC Hammer, he thought he was getting his big break. Instead, he got screwed.

By Matt Weitz
Feb 26, 1998

They were just a bunch of buddies, cruising Red Bird Mall, trying to stay out of trouble while killing time. On that summer day in 1989, Kevin Abdullah, who had just graduated from Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, didn't even notice the approaching...
Roxy redux

Local artist leaves us something to remember him by

By Matt Weitz
Feb 26, 1998

The "bone house" in lowest Greenville at the corner of Oram and Matilda--the white clapboard rent house that once had enough steer pelvises, cow skulls, ribs, and femurs hung on its exterior to qualify as an ossuary--is now bereft of the skeletal decorations that used to adorn it. Once the...
Teahouse of the former Moon

Defunct space gets a new lease on life

By Matt Weitz
Feb 26, 1998

Mike Snider, still stinging a bit from his ouster as the principal booking agent at the popular Sons of Hermann Hall, has landed on his feet, hooking up with Deep Ellum power Wood Management (Trees, the Green Room, and the Dark Room). Together the two are taking over the old...
Out There

By Matt Weitz
Feb 19, 1998

All the world Pukar (Calling You) Najma Di Efchon (With Blessings) Haris Alexiou E Bercy (Live at Bercy) I Muvrini Mondo Melodia Touring America can be a great ego-controller for international pop artists. Sell millions in Europe or Asia, play live to tens of thousands in your own country, then...
Roadshows

By Matt Weitz
Feb 19, 1998

Town and country England--particularly London--has long served reggae in much the same way as Chicago served the blues: the place you go to acquire sophistication and polish. As a result, English reggae acts tend to be slicker than their Jamaican cousins; they also tend to be more liberal stylistically. British...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Feb 19, 1998

The Sybil of rock More Miles than Money Alejandro Escovedo Bloodshot Records Like most of us, Alejandro Escovedo--founding punk, germinal roots-rocker, and widely acclaimed singer-songwriter--is a conflicted man, containing in his person a number of opposite identities: pavement hound, earth child, father, rocker, monk, martyr, and maintenance man. He's seen...
Punk angst debunked

Darlington does the twist

By Matt Weitz
Feb 19, 1998

No. 13 has come decked out for the evening's festivities: white cowboy boots with the pants tucked into the tops, a bit-too-small sport coat, and over his shirt--in place of a V-neck sweater--a ragged red sweatshirt with the arms and neck cut out. His number gleams whitely against the red...
Too much pork for just one fork

By Matt Weitz
Feb 12, 1998

Too much pork for just one fork America's fascination with the South comes from the curious notion that somewhere down there, amid the humidity, kudzu, polyester, cheese grits, and firearms--it's just more fun to be Southern. That's the perception that gave Billy Beer and CB radios their nanosecond of marketability,...
The LeAnn Rimes of mariachi music

Talented and determined, Nydia Rojas is forging a pop career while remaining true to her roots

By Matt Weitz
Feb 12, 1998

Olivia Rojas knew she was in trouble when she saw the look on her 10-year-old daughter's face that morning. In the annals of the age-old power play between parents and their children, her suggestion that Nydia get up and sing at a little taco stand not too far from their...
Spoth the ravin'

Mark Ridlen continues his sonic adventure

By Matt Weitz
Feb 12, 1998

The taillight-yellow 10-inch vinyl disc starts out with an almost-ambient collection of various electronic noises--just what you'd expect from Spoth, a group that's a collaboration between Lithium Xmas alum Mark Ridlen (experimental musician and platterman-about-town when he assumes his DJ Rid identity) and Brian Peterman. Ridlen is credited as "conductor"...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Feb 12, 1998

One giant leap for mankind Transaction de Novo Bedhead Trance Syndicate Musik Von Tone Float MIT Timothy's Brain c/o Avant Garde The big trend these days in experimental music--at least locally--has been to move away from hazy impressionism and zero-G soundtracks and into actual songs. Mazinga Phaser, Transona Five, and...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Feb 5, 1998

Head 'em up Technology--unlike money--seems to genuinely trickle down to folks who were never imagined as beneficiaries. Yet there's a cruel joke. Several items in recent Dallas Observer music sections have mentioned the fact that technological advances are enabling more and more people to make their own albums. That's the...
Changing the Course of Empire

Local favorite emerges from the commercial doldrums

By Matt Weitz
Feb 5, 1998

Chad Lovell, drummer for Course of Empire, has a barely noticeable habit: Whenever he discusses the history of his band, he tends to laugh a lot--as a person will when later recounting a terrifying or trying experience. You can't really blame him. After a host of troubles--including its record company...
Roadshows

By Matt Weitz
Feb 5, 1998

You know what they done? Bill Kirchen finally had to change the way he sang "Too Much Fun," the signature party tune he wrote during his stint as the guitarist for Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. The singer--in that band the all-too-credible Commander--marveled at being incarcerated simply because...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Jan 29, 1998

Two for Texas Shadows Where the Magic Was James Hand Self-released When the music that James Hand loved--in this case, the stark traditional country of the post-war era--changed and moved on, he stuck with it. It's appropriate, then, that Hank Williams Sr. is the name most often used to describe...
Facing the music

Local music exec's departure is a sign of better things than you might at first think

By Matt Weitz
Jan 29, 1998

After almost four years of steering promising local bands through the straits and around the shoals of outrageous music-biz fortune, David Dennard--director of Crystal Clear's steve records label and president-for-life of his own Dragon Street Records--has quit his CC post and gone to work in Dallas as the graphics manager...
Out There

By Robin Myrick and Matt Weitz
Jan 29, 1998

Coming out, growing up Ten Cent Wings Jonatha Brooke Refuge/MCA Records Jonatha Brooke can zing eloquent barbs at her self-absorbed lovers and spill poetry like water when smacked with a doe-eyed crush. She's also blessed with a beautiful cornflower-colored voice that cartwheels and jigs on command like a circus monkey...
Out Here

By Matt Weitz
Jan 22, 1998

More than HoJo mojo Voodoo Love The Voodoo Kings Virtual Records The borders of genre are often cliche or even worse, especially when you start dealing with questions of cultural imperialism--like taking the blues and turning it into good-time party music for white people. Voodoo--or as they say in Haiti,...
Rave on cats, he cried

Carl Perkins, 1932-1998

By Matt Weitz
Jan 22, 1998

Rock and roll legend Carl Perkins died on Monday morning, January 19, at 10:30 a.m. of complications developed following a series of three strokes that he had suffered at the end of 1997. He was 65. Although spit-curled Bill Haley is arguably the first white rock and roll star, Perkins...