Oven Lovin’: After a meteoric rise in publicity and a few big-name opening tour gigs (you know, that whole Coldplay thing) in previous years, Tyler’s Eisley had all its pop-rock ducks in a row in 2005. Everything seemed set for the February release of their first major-label full-length, Room Noises…
The biggest debates in rock music are about the great mimics. The Strokes outlasted comparisons to the Velvets, Coldplay somehow became bigger than Radiohead and you can’t even speak the word Nirvana without thinking the word Pixies. So it’s understandable that one of the most refreshing groups to surface this…
This year’s edition of American Idol–the show’s fourth season since igniting a tele-musical frenzy in 2002–was something of a triumph for the South: The program’s two finalists, Oklahoma native Carrie Underwood and Alabama-born Bo Bice, proved that Dixie denizens could compete with contestants from flashier locales, and that music with…
When the Xbox 360 hit stores last month and the system sold out within hours, a Berkeley business professor commented on the genius of Microsoft’s marketing. “Shortages create a whole mystique of desirability,” the prof said. Ryan Adams, take note. With the release of 29, Adams’ third album this year…
Best thing I’ve heard all year? That would have to be this fantastic EP’s opening cut, “The Commander Thinks Aloud,” in which the Long Winters’ enigmatic frontman John Roderick caterwauls over a symphonic mess of a song. While obscurely tackling the two NASA shuttle disasters, Roderick stakes a claim on…
For whatever reason, the Polyphonic Spree is among the most despised bands from Dallas. Maybe it’s the fame, the robes or the super-happy lyrics, but something about the enormity and oddity of the Spree just doesn’t do it for hipsters and jocks alike. Well, Scrooges, it’s Christmastime, which is the…
A virtual crash course in current Southern hip-hop, 97.9 The Beat’s holiday blowout rounds up an impressive array of Dixie’s hustle-and-flow men (and one woman) to remind us of the real reason for the season: cash! Headliner Young Jeezy–Atlanta’s 50 Cent, in more ways than one–has had quite a year,…
A pair of major-label misfires confused longtime fans and turned this bone-crunching Massachusetts quartet into so much pop pabulum, but Cave In has righted their thunderous course with the recent Perfect Pitch Black. Never content to simply play along with the often-generic metal genre, Cave In mixes progressive touches a…
If you think country music is all about longnecks and two-steps, well, you’re wrong. But if you’re headed to Cowboys Arlington to see Deryl Dodd and the Homesick Cowboys, it won’t much matter. Armed with an arsenal of songs about honky-tonks and heartache, pearl snaps and rodeos, Dodd is a…
Justified or not, “trance” has become a dirty word in many IDM circles. Today’s mainstream anthem-trance sound and the crossover success–and hero worship–of artists such as Tiesto and Paul Van Dyk has polarized the hard-core dance community. Extended chord progressions and ever-popular ten-minute breakdowns conjure images of, well, Yanni and…
I must have a reputation in the local radio community. This week, I wanted to have a talk–a simple, harmless, non-accusatory chat–with the program directors at 97.9 The Beat and K104.5 FM, Dallas’ highest-rated hip-hop radio stations. Unfortunately, neither Jon Candeleria nor Skip Cheatham, respectively, returned my numerous calls, which…
In the 1980s, Gram LeBron was a typical middle-class kid in Garland, living out his teendom in typical 1980s suburbia. He killed time at the Galleria, watched too much MTV, spent Friday and Saturday night at the dance club in the West End. He was interested in music–played in high…
Truth be told, most blues-related Christmas gifts are depressing and not just because they’re the blues. Current players seem content to substitute instrumental finagling for true passion, but several late-year releases from pioneers of the genre are here to make 12-bar melancholy sound good during the holidays. The best of…
At the box office, everyone used to be equal. The only way to get super-close tickets for U2 or the Rolling Stones was to wait in line on the first day of sales. Web site ticketing has eased the need to camp out overnight in recent years, but with a…
Who are the biggest tastemakers in local music? A decade ago the answer might have been clearer–a radio DJ, a newspaper writer, a person who booked for any given concert venue in town. But with the proliferation of Internet bulletin boards, podcasts, MP3 blogs, webzines and other cheap, easy means…
Abbott anniversary: On December 8, 2004, metal fans the world over lost an icon in “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott at a Columbus, Ohio, nightclub shooting at a Damageplan concert that took three other lives, including Damageplan security guard Jeff “Mayhem” Thompson. To honor and remember Dimebag’s years of performing in Dallas…
One of the most original bands ever to gain a bankable following is beginning to sound too comfortable in its self-invented genre. Not that any other band has duplicated the formula: metalcore mosh with auctioneer-gone-mad vocals, followed by incantational harmonies and exotic-stringed acoustic breaks. And few other bands with such…
At nearly 60, Robert Fripp continues to be an enigmatic asshole. Twenty years ago, he claimed that guitar gods Clapton and Beck didn’t even know how to hold a pick. And while fronting whatever incarnation of King Crimson he chose to gather around him, he proved that he did. Fripp…
Since doo-wop masters the Platters and the Drifters are shimmying through Irving Arts Center this week, now’s as good a time as any to take a listen to Doo Wop Vocal Group Greats, the umpteenth doo-wop box set (which happens to feature both touring groups) to hit stores in time…
If beauty is a result of tragedy, then Swedish indie whiz kid Dag Rosenqvist has picked the right name for his band. His heavily processed, static-based compositions may have little in common with the site of a Texas racial tragedy, but the pure emotion Jasper TX wrenches in this dense…
“Frances, Frances Bean…what are you doing up here, sweetie?” “I was just going through Daddy’s tapes, Mom. I wanna pick a song for the new album, too!” “Okay, honey, but we’ve only got room for three unreleased tracks, all right? The other 19 are coming from last year’s boxed set…
Not all Christmas songs evoke images of snow, toys or the birth of Santa Claus. Many of the greatest holiday songs empathize with those who have nobody to share the holidays with; lonely souls like the walking dead and lunar explorers. What, you haven’t heard “Zombie Christmas” or “Christmas on…
