Between releasing their second LP, Haha Sound, and recording their third, Tender Buttons, the band Broadcast lost a few members and, it seems, gained a body. Although the new album is distinctively Broadcast-esque in its finessed sonic atmosphere and lullaby vocals, there’s a kind of corporeality to the music now…
Fifteen years ago, the flashy harmonica and sly vocal delivery of John Popper helped cement a new subset of pop music. Picking up where the Grateful Dead left off, Blues Traveler’s success and the formative H.O.R.D.E. tours they organized and headlined popularized dozens of bands like Phish, The String Cheese…
Since reclaiming the moniker in 1997, mainstays Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant have grappled with issues of age and relevance, but Siberia is their first effort since re-forming to actually embrace their classic sound. Yearning, thoughtful and poetic, the new cuts are just a notch below such early ’80s classics…
“This is just like church,” Bagg drummer Grady Sandlin observed as he rode in a rented party bus back to Denton, after his band and headliners Olospo exhausted the Granada crowd with nearly six hours of jam-band improvisation and eclectic rock. The standing-room-only party bus shuttling Bagg’s Denton fans to…
In March, I drove to an abandoned church to be saved. More specifically, the place was Austin’s Church of the Friendly Ghost, an unofficial concert venue during the SXSW music festival, and the preacher was Micah P. Hinson, a songwriter from Abilene. I’d seen accolades from mags like Uncut and…
Though M83 is already four years and three LPs into its recording career, the band is still getting its sea legs as far as touring goes. That makes sense: The French band’s self-titled debut, which is only now seeing American release, would be daunting stuff to try to play live:…
Even at age 69, legendary blues guitarist Buddy Guy, who Clapton himself called “the greatest guitar player alive,” can still burn up a fretboard. During the Chicago blues heyday, you couldn’t find classic recordings by the likes of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf or Junior Wells that didn’t predominately feature Guy’s…
Portland’s Decemberists are not unlike Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds, if that band was drained of all testosterone and fronted by Arnold Horshack from Welcome Back Kotter. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, although Colin Meloy’s lisping, painstakingly enunciated vocals seem to be a sticking point for anti-Decemberists. Indeed, the…
With events in Louisiana on folks’ minds these days, the delightfully outrageous Cajun rock of C.C. Adcock might well provide some needed respite. Last year’s Lafayette Marquis was only his third release in over a decade. Yet Adcock’s time was well spent as the disc features some blistering guitar work…
No more celibacy: We try not to promote canceled shows, but it happens. Take, for starters, last week’s Dirty Projectors concert in Denton–we talked about how zany it was going to be, and then the one-man-band wound up canceling his Texas tour dates. Perhaps we have the power to reverse…
Prior to starting recording sessions for The Double’s second album, drummer Jeff McLeod injured his hand. But what might have dealt the New York quartet a blow instead worked in the young band’s favor, as the injury forced The Double to reconsider their more conventional rock assumptions and reinforce the…
In the past decade, positive, old-school hip-hop collectives have bridged the gap between rap devotees and newcomers, and The Roots have reigned supreme in that effort thanks to hot albums, collabs with Cody Chestnutt and Jay-Z and a richer, full-band sound. But in concert, The Roots can lose their hip-hop…
In the music biz, a family name is more often a curse than a blessing. After all, Tito Jackson never compared to Michael and Janet, and Lisa Marie pretty much puts the Presley name to shame. But the exception to this curse is Inara George, daughter of the late, legendary…
Like many reclusive artists in the past decade, Yale dropout Dave Longstreth has adopted a band name for his one-man musical project. But unlike most band-but-not-a-band artists, once he’s on the stage, he’s anything but reclusive–in fact, his solo presence is alarming. Longstreth, with a projector playing drugged-out videos full…
New Orleanians are now left grasping for silver linings. Thankfully, we’ve found some in Houston, where many of us have fled. Our first night here meant free food and margaritas at Señor Rita’s in Montrose. The YMCA donated free gym membership to help us shed the too many fried shrimp…
The members of Magnolia Electric Co. don’t listen to a lot of music on the road. Relentlessly touring behind the two records they’ve released this year, What Comes After the Blues and the live Trials and Errors, the Midwestern quintet may spend a lot of time cooped up in a…
I have to watch my words in public. If I’m asked about my job and I answer with anything less than “it’s perfect,” someone always perks up and butts in: “Yeah, real tough. Must be a pain in the ass to get all those free CDs, you big baby.” Always…
Shut the gate: For years, Dallas resident and former 89.3 KNON DJ Kelly Cutler acted as tour manager for Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown without knowing the story behind the nickname. In his decades as a premier guitarist in a genre he refused to call “blues” and a favorite of Jimi Hendrix…
If you believe the songs on Cripple Crow, that goddamned hippie Devendra Banhart is some sort of sexed-up Johnny Appleseed, sewing his freak-folk oats from coast to coast and filling your daughters’ wombs with long-haired babies. He starts out just like the wide-eyed innocent we heard on last year’s Niño…
Despite such strong evidence as the likes of Bob Dylan and Jules Shears, a bad singer does not always equal a great songwriter. And make no mistake: Actor Billy Bob Thornton is one hell of a bad singer. He mumbles, whispers and moans throughout Hobo vainly searching for the suitable…
Odditoreum’s introductory spoken-word track sets up the story that in some alternate universe, a postwar jug band named the Dandy Warhols invented rock ‘n’ roll. It sounds like an idea left over from some stupid inside joke, at once self-important and ironically self-deprecating. In other words, it epitomizes the album…
Two albums and three EPs into his career, the man known as Iron and Wine is still plucking songs from his original 2001 home demos, and his latest release is further proof that there’s not a clunker in the bunch. On In the Reins, Sam Beam realizes his dream to…
