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Christina Rees

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Mo Better

Corn Mo left D-FW for NYC, but he didn't leave his talent behind

By Christina Rees
Oct 24, 2002

Earlier this year, the folks at MTV's Total Request Live had one for Corn Mo: Play us a Limp Bizkit tune on your accordion. Corn Mo had just regaled TRL's viewing audience with his passionate rendition of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine"--delivered without hesitation or irony. Earlier that...
Radney Foster

September 12

By Christina Rees
Sep 5, 2002

A couple of years ago, shortly after I quit my job and moved to England to write a damned novel, I went to see Radney Foster play a solo show at a smoky London club. He often stops there on his way to visit his kid who lives in France,...
Julia Fordham

July 2

By Christina Rees
Jun 27, 2002

Julia Fordham's new Concrete Love is smooth sounds, all right, kinda jazzy and intimate, and bubbly with the occasional quasi-Brazilian rhythm, with a thin veneer of self-congratulatory sophistication. It's music for former music lovers, and it completely lacks teeth. But it wasn't always so. Her 1988 self-titled debut and 1989...
The Machines Are Winning

Secret Machines have conquered NYC. Sort of.

By Christina Rees
May 16, 2002

The logistics are enough to discourage any band from moving to New York City. Think about it: find an absurdly expensive and tiny rehearsal space in some borough outpost. (Never mind Manhattan. These days East Village bands are about as common as dodo birds). For load-ins, schlep your guitars and...
Kinda Sorta

Sorta Plays for Lovers, and other musicians, on its debut

By Christina Rees
Dec 20, 2001

It was likely the best three-band bill downtown has hosted in ages, in an unlikely spot. Fury III, Sorta and the Sparrows at the Liquid Lounge felt like an accidental jackpot or a secret club, and the bulk of the Thursday-night audience was other Dallas musicians. Everyone knew everyone, so...
The sound of Deep Ellum

Or: How I went to London to find the next Jam, and found Rhett Miller instead

By Christina Rees
Jun 22, 2000

I'm not at all homesick, but that night his words hit home, maybe harder than they should have. "I mean, you get to England, and you expect the bands to be as good as the Beatles, as good as the Kinks, and that's just not the case." Rhett Miller, frontman...
Macy Gray

By Christina Rees
Jan 20, 2000

Macy Gray Much has been made of Macy Gray's come-from-behind tackle: out of nowhere, a new voice, a new attitude, a new sound for our tired ears -- all contained in one remarkable debut, On How Life Is. Well, not entirely new -- the former USC film student's tunes pack...
Out There

Tim Finn

By Christina Rees
Jan 13, 2000

Tim Finn Say It Is So (Sonny's Pop Records) Split Enz was kind of a mess before the younger Finn, Neil, joined up and dragged big brother's art-school band into pop land. The elder Finn, Tim, had up to that point driven New Zealand's most aggressive export on equal parts...
Rees, in bits and pieces

By Christina Rees
Dec 30, 1999

Wiring Prank at Rubber Gloves, July 19 Absolutely worth the wait. The half-irritating low-profile mystique perpetuated by a drummer who left the band earlier this year has fallen away and finally given the others a chance to breathe. Denton's longtime best-kept secret took the stage at Rubber Gloves last summer...
The Buzzcocks

By Christina Rees
Nov 25, 1999

Late to the Buzzcocks camp, I was the fan who knew of the band's impact long before I ever heard "Orgasm Addict" and thus the fan who wonders why the band would bother to hijack its way back into '90s consciousness. The band's original sound is so pristinely punchy, such...
Radney Foster

By Christina Rees
Nov 18, 1999

Well, he's got a band with him this time, in a venue he's always haunted solo. Some fans may like that, and some may not, but anyone who caught Radney Foster with a full backing band last May at the Gypsy Tea Room can confirm that Foster with a supporting...
Girl trouble

Rock and roll is still a man's, man's, man's, man's world

By Christina Rees
Sep 30, 1999

Trees was packed that night, and you couldn't help but wonder whether the club would have been quite so packed if the band on stage, Sleater-Kinney, were made up of three men instead of three women. Drummer Janet Weiss was capable but not great, suffering from that awkward, constipated look...
Motörhead

By Christina Rees
Sep 30, 1999

Motörhead How many years, how many allusions to This Is Spinal Tap must a band endure before digging its own grave and graciously crawling into it? You would have thought that singer-bassist Lemmy Kilmister's need for speed, tempo and otherwise, would have severely curtailed the group's staying power. Yet here...
Kim Lenz and the Jaguars

The One and Only (Hightone Records)

By Christina Rees
Sep 16, 1999

Used to be Kim Lenz and her Jaguars, though I suppose when your music is as static as this all-novelty-all-the-time act, you gotta shake things up somewhere, so why not the name? The surging audience for this local act has more to do with citywide retro-love than true musicality, although...
Reed Easterwood and Junky Southern

Secret Power (of You) (Self-released)

By Christina Rees
Sep 2, 1999

You know the sad and familiar tale: Brilliant local musician trudges on with great work, other local musicians nod knowingly and with respect at the mention of his name, yet said talent hasn't yet attracted the frothing fan base he deserves. No doubt Reed Easterwood knows the words to that...
Duran Duran

By Christina Rees
Aug 19, 1999

Duran Duran Duran Duran used to be the boys that the little girls understood. Only now, those little girls are all grown up, and it's all they can do not to change the station when flashback radio blares "Hungry Like the Wolf." Sure, Duran Duran and all its lip-gloss-coated adventure...
Thank God it's Monday

Matt Hillyer and Eleven Hundred Springs look a little bit rock 'n' roll, but they're all country

By Christina Rees
Aug 12, 1999

An explosion of graffiti covers the walls and ceiling of the room, Lone Star beer flows from the bar like sweat on a thick August night, and the sharp voice of a fiddle cuts down the long, narrow concrete floor. Neon beer signs lend a mellow, buzzing backdrop to a...
Music Against Brain Degeneration Revue

Deep Ellum Live, August 8

By Christina Rees
Aug 5, 1999

Flaming Lips, Sebadoh, Robyn Hitchcock A friend of mine -- the sort of Robyn Hitchcock fan who hits his Web sites every few days -- has been keeping up with the fans' online reviews of the current tour their cult hero is on with The Flaming Lips and Sebadoh. "They...
Getting a Big Head

The London Suede leaves behind its heart for Head Music

By Christina Rees
Jul 8, 1999

The publicist from Columbia Records calls right on time, Tuesday at 10 a.m., the very moment a member of the London Suede is scheduled to call for an interview to promote Head Music, the band's latest album. Only, instead of the expected "I've got Richard Oakes from the London Suede...
The Pretenders

Viva El Amor! (Warner Bros. Records)

By Christina Rees
Jul 1, 1999

God knows I'm not the only one who can't get past The Voice. That deep and rangy alto -- a near tenor at times -- has a way of dragging the music forward to match it. We forgive artistic trespasses and let ourselves be dazzled by indirect nostalgia. Since the...
Will Oldham

Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios

By Christina Rees
Jun 24, 1999

Will Oldham Palace, Palace Music, Palace Brothers, Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- any way you slice it, it all comes up with the ever-troubled Will Oldham, constant traveler of sepia-toned folkways and lonesome byways. By now, with his sixth album -- I See a Darkness -- under his belt, Oldham has...
Truly, deeply

With the long-awaited release of Stumptone, Denton loses a true talent but gains a cool album

By Christina Rees
Jun 10, 1999

Chris Plavidal is raving about the view from the windows of his new apartment. Over the phone, he sounds positively joyous. "On one side, I can see the Empire State Building," he nearly shouts, "and out this way is the Statue of Liberty!" So much for Denton's glowing "Corn-kits" sign...