Barbara FG
Audio By Carbonatix
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in these parts as some of the area’s favorite North Texas acts come home for the holidays. The homecoming begins with Abraham Alexander playing at the Majestic Theater downtown on Thursday. That same night Haltom City’s Cody Jinks plays a Christmas show in Fort Worth. On Saturday, Denton’s Sarah Jaffe returns to Oak Cliff to play a show with Walker Lukens, and another one of Denton’s own, Midlake, plays a show in Fort Worth with an opening Christmas set from the Midlake Jazz Trio. Arlington’s Pentatonix will also be in Fort Worth for a show on Wednesday night supporting its newest Christmas album. North Texas will also see some touring acts closing out their year this week with concerts from Dan Deacon in Deep Ellum and Touché Amoré in Fort Worth on Friday, Warrant in Deep Ellum and Anita Baker in Victory Park on Sunday, and Squirrel Nut Zippers doing a holiday show in Oak Cliff on Wednesday. It really is the most wonderful time of the year.
Abraham Alexander
7 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 14, Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St. $26+ at prekindle.com
Born in Greece, Abraham Alexander was adopted in Texas at the age of 11 after losing his mother in an automobile accident. Alexander excelled at sports in his adopted home before an injury left him with a lot of unoccupied time that he would later fill with music. After a few years developing his voice and guitar skills, a chance meeting led Alexander to record backing vocals on Leon Bridges’ 2015 debut album Coming Home. On the advice of his new mentor, Alexander began playing open mics around North Texas, amassing a huge local following. Earlier this summer, the singer celebrated the release of his debut album, Sea/Sons, with three headlining shows at The Kessler. This week, Alexander will be closing out the year at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas with an opening performance from Melissa, Texas, singer-songwriter Jackson Scribner.
Cody Jinks
9 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 14, Billy Bob’s Texas, 2520 Rodeo Plaza, Fort Worth. $40+ at axs.com
Outlaw country singer Cody Jinks, from Haltom City, began his musical journey as a member of thrash metal band Unchecked Aggression in the early ’00s. The band broke up on a tour to Los Angeles, and afterward Jinks took a year off from music, only to return as a country musician inspired by the music he grew up with. Known for his introspective lyrics on the topics of love, loss, addiction and hard times, Jinks has found his way to the top of the Billboard country charts with his last five albums. His most recent album, Mercy, came out late last year, and the album’s single “Like a Hurricane” landed the outlaw musician on mainstream country radio, which is quite an impressive feat for an artist who eschewed mainstream labels in favor of his own independent promotion. Jinks’s A Cody Jinks Christmas show goes on Thursday night in Fort Worth, with special guests Bryan Martin, Josh Morningstar and Tennessee Jet.
Dan Deacon
7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 15, Club Dada, 2720 Elm St. $20 at prekindle.com
Baltimore composer and electronic musician Dan Deacon started making music in 2003 while he was a student at SUNY Purchase, releasing his work on CD-R. The work was a mix of electronic sounds with some ensemble pieces thrown into the mix, but it was nothing like the music he would go on to create after signing with a record label. Deacon began making electronic pop music that dazzled the critics, but he didn’t start to focus on the lyrics that accompanied his work until he was already a well-established artist on the electro-pop circuit. As much notoriety as Deacon has received for his compositions, he is perhaps just as well known for his live performances. Deacon has been known to use audience participation as a major element in his performances, asking for everyone in the audience to join in on the fun. Deacon will have local support from electronic act Future Nest.
Touché Amoré
7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 15, Tulips, 112 St. Louis Ave., Fort Worth. $25 at prekindle.com
Post-hardcore band Touché Amoré formed in LA in 2007 and came up quickly on the national scene with the release of its debut album, …To the Beat of a Dead Horse. It’s not that the album sold well, but everyone who heard it knew that the genre had a new classic. Ten years following the release of that album, after the band had been signed to the iconic punk label Epitaph Records, Touché Amoré celebrated its debut by re-recording it in its entirety, giving the album the wider release it initially deserved. The band doesn’t seem to be touring in support of any particular release this year, however, as its last release, a split EP with Circa Survive, came out over a year ago. No, this tour seems to be just about connecting with fans. Touché Amoré’s Friday night show in Fort Worth will have opening support from Denton emo band Record Setter and Austin experimental band palefade.
Sarah Jaffe
7 p.m., Friday, Dec. 15, The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis St. $27.50+ at prekindle.com
Never defined by any genre, Sarah Jaffe’s musical career has touched on indie-folk, electro-pop, hip-hop and just about anything else she wants to do. Created in the grief of heartbreak, Jaffe’s latest album, SMUT, released in October 2019, displayed the songwriter’s talent for mixing spatial ambient sounds with uplifting melodies and lyrics as she searched for a way to have fun again. Now a New York City resident, Jaffe began her career in Denton, becoming a favorite in North Texas in 2008 when she racked up three Dallas Observer Music Awards before rising as a national star throughout the ’10s. Jaffe has also scored original music to the award-winning independent film Never Goin’ Back, and she co-wrote and sang on a Grammy-winning track for Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers LP 2 album, “Bad Guy.” Jaffe returns to Oak Cliff with opening support from singer-songwriter Walker Lukens.
Midlake
7 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 16, Tulips, 112 St. Louis Ave., Fort Worth. $25 at prekindle.com
Currently composed of Eric Pulido, McKenzie Smith, Eric Nichelson, Jesse Chandler and Joey McClellan, Denton indie-folk pioneers Midlake play a special holiday show Saturday night in Fort Worth. Midlake’s first albums established the band as a fixture on the international music scene, each one incorporating different sound elements. Their 2004 debut, Bamnan and Slivercork, brought in shades of psychedelia; their breakthrough album, The Trials Of Van Occupanther, added some ’70s soft rock; and they infused Brit-folk into their sound on The Courage Of Others in 2010. The band’s 2013 album, Antiphon, brought all of these elements together, and their 2022 release, For the Sake of Bethel Woods, pushed things even further with great sonic reach through layers of new sounds. This Saturday, three of the band’s members will open the show as the Midlake Jazz Trio with an opening holiday set performing Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Warrant
7 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 17, The Factory in Deep Ellum, 2713 Canton St. $39+ at axs.com
For a band that’s had about 30 members pass through its ranks while keeping a genre going that was long left for dead, it’s absolutely remarkable that Warrant is still around, much less headlining a show in Deep Ellum Sunday night with Winger and Lita Ford. Like many bands that emerged out of the Hollywood metal scene in the 1980s, Warrant has had a long and troubled history, complete with ’80s metal tropes – like lead singer Jani Lane crashing the Corvette on which he spent his advance from Columbia Records shortly after buying it. Regardless of the cliches, the band was intent on living up to, Warrant still managed to bring the good times until the original lineup broke up in the early ’90s with its best-known song being “Cherry Pie.” Warrant went through a lot of replacements until the original band reunited in 2008, but Lane was promptly replaced by ex-Lynch Mob lead vocalist Robert Mason, who is still with the band today.
Anita Baker
8 p.m., Sunday, Dec. 17, American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave. $39.50+ at ticketmaster.com
You may or may not remember this, but back in the late ’70s through the mid-’80s, there was a radio format known as “quiet storm.” The format focused on the R&B genre performed in a jazzy, smooth and sexy way. If you were born in that time period, there’s a chance that quiet storm radio was the soundtrack to your conception. And Anita Baker was one of the brightest stars from the quiet storm period. Baker got her start singing in the funk band Chapter 8, but she achieved international acclaim with her debut album, The Songstress, in 1983. In 1986, Baker released Rapture, which reached the No. 11 spot on the Billboard 200 before the popularity of quiet storm radio receded. Forty years later, Baker is taking her debut album back out on the road with The Songstress Tour, which will make its way through Victory Park on Sunday.
Pentatonix
7 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 20, Dickies Arena, 1911 Montgomery St., Fort Worth. $170+ at ticketmaster.com
Arlington’s a cappella pop quintet Pentatonix originally formed as a trio to win a radio contest to meet the cast of Glee. The three then became five before entering the third season of The Sing-Off, which the group went on to win in 2011. In the 12 years since, Pentatonix has released 11 studio albums and earned three Grammy awards. Of those 11 albums, seven have been Christmas-themed, including the group’s most recent album, The Greatest Christmas Hits, released at the end of October. Not to be confused with a best-of collection of the groups’ best Christmas recordings, The Greatest Christmas Hits, is a massive collection of holiday favorites with featured artists like Jennifer Hudson, Jazmine Sullivan and even Elvis Presley. The group’s The Most Wonderful Tour Of The Year makes its way to Fort Worth on Wednesday night.
Squirrel Nut Zippers
7 p.m., Wednesday, Dec. 20, The Kessler, 1230 W. Davis St. $34+ at prekindle.com
Swing revival band Squirrel Nut Zippers was probably the coolest band to come out of that mid-’90s movement, effectively reintroducing the genre to the masses in 1996 before The Gap got ahold of it. What set the Zippers apart from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies and The Brian Setzer Orchestra was that the Zippers captured a lot of the darkness behind that old speakeasy jazz, which the rest just danced away in new khakis. The group was prolific throughout the ’90s, but Squirrel Nut Zippers became more of a road show, doing mostly “reunion” tours until 2018 when the band released its first album since 2000, Beasts of Burgundy. Their latest, Lost Songs of Doc Souchon, was inspired by the mysterious characters from New Orleans jazz music history, which is really where the Squirrel Nut Zippers’ whole aesthetic comes from. The band’s Holiday Caravan Tour rolls into Oak Cliff on Wednesday.
