This is what happens when you’re a songwriter who happens to have an MFA in poetry and a published collection of poems on the shelf: You become known more for your lyrics than your melodies. So it is with Joe Pernice, whose small but devoted following is as likely to…
Bill Callahan (aka Smog) is a man obsessed with sex and death. Well, who ain’t? But the lo-fi singer-songwriter’s masterful use of allegory is what sets him apart from the rest of us. Both a lyrical prankster and an earnest crooner, Callahan has earned a loyal following, who will undoubtedly…
Mark Mulcahy formed Miracle Legion in the mid-’80s. Initially deemed another in the wave of R.E.M. clones, the band signed to Rough Trade and produced a trio of shimmering efforts that both embraced the jangle of the time and delved deeper into a more coherent emotional abyss. The Backyard EP,…
Evidence that you are, indeed, a fucking star: When you piss over an entire state in a drunken onstage rant and, upon returning, you are greeted with shouts of “Texas loves you!”; when your hair is that greasy and girls (and boys) nevertheless want to stick their tongue in your…
Lately, the savviest bands around Dallas are crazy about the buddy system. From the member-sharing of Sorta and the now-defunct Sparrows to the pop alliance between The Happy Bullets and The Tah-Dahs, double bills have proven a good way to double a fan base. Thus, it’s no shocker that Black…
Tooling around the Tower of London a few months ago, I had the pleasure of beholding a suit of armor worn by Henry VIII. The highlight? An enormous codpiece as large and irregularly shaped as a bean burrito from Taco Bell. Louis XIV should have named themselves Henry VIII: On…
Of Montreal, of course, isn’t of Montreal at all. This will probably be a good thing once the Arcade Fire-driven Montreal mania reaches its zenith and the backlash begins. For now, the band seems quite comfy in its Athens, Georgia, home. The brainchild of loose Elephant 6 affiliate Kevin Barnes,…
Aqualung is a polite British fellow called Matthew Hales. Like many other polite British fellows influenced by but not terribly interested in sounding like Thom Yorke, Hales plays introspective pop-rock ballads seductive to students, wedding planners and people who shop at Banana Republic (but not Old Navy). His American debut,…
A few days before hitting Denton on her current headlining tour, former Helium front woman Mary Timony will have wrapped up a series of West Coast dates opening for Sleater-Kinney, which makes good sense: Like S-K on their latest, Timony stretches out on her new Ex Hex and unabashedly brings…
In the great Bright Eyes biopicGifted, or The Ego Is at Full Boil, Keep Your Head Outta Your Assthat will sweep the Oscars in 2015, the role of Conor Oberst will be masterfully portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Spry, wiry, pint-sized, bright-eyed and supremely talented, yet vain, mercurial, insolent, inelegant, intermittently…
One of the loopier multilingual Euro acts to ever cross the Atlantic, Stereo Total is a charming Berlin-based couple made up of wacky French chanteuse (and author) Françoise Cactus and goofy German keyboard whiz Brezel Göring. Using antiquated keyboards and homemade gadgets, the duo concocts a kamikaze of kitsch-flavored, American-accented…
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of The Art of OneMind, the soulful hip-hop collaboration realized by New Jersey beatmaker Illmind and Dallas’ own Symbolyc One, is that despite flip-flopping production duties and using more than 30 vocalists, the project has a unified sonic approach that sounds as though it sprang…
“Do they play any of their own songs?” I asked the fan dancing in front of me. “This is one of their songs,” she replied. But it wasn’t. Local act Macon Greyson was playing “Monopoly on the Blues,” a great song written and performed almost 10 years ago by the…
Get your TiVos ready: Midlake will perform as musical guests on The Late Late Show on Monday, June 13. As everyone knows, The Late Late Show is that thing hosted by the guy who is no longer Craig Kilborn. I think he’s Scottish. Anyway, the band will appear on the…
“Blue Orchid” is a scam. The White Stripes’ first single from Get Behind Me Satan has fooled thousands of radio listeners with fuzzed-out guitar, falsetto vocals and big, banging drums, and anybody who buys the duo’s fifth album expecting another guitar-loaded affair is in for a grand piano-sized surprise. Singer…
Perhaps Shelby Lynne should have called her new album Suits Herself. After two records defined in large part by the sonic stamps of the male megaproducers who helmed them–2000’s I Am Shelby Lynne, with Bill Bottrell (known for his work with Sheryl Crow), and the next year’s Love, Shelby, with…
Their name may evoke a certain robot in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but Hal is the polar opposite of space-age efficiency: Their debut album is an exuberant explosion of pure, fun, optimistic retro-pop. Lilting falsettos and the perfect harmonies of singer brothers David and Paul Allen adorn ultra-catchy, laid-back pop…
For the past decade, Sleater-Kinney has won a sizable fan base with a perfectly decent pop-rock formula. Atypical guitar chords, foot-tapping rhythms and Corin Tuckers polarizing voice have kept listeners guessing over six albums, cementing the trios status as an American indie-rock mainstay. So who would have thought that The…
Cory Helms felt a lump in his neck, a hard, round pebble perched above the collarbone. He hadn’t been sick, but, he says, “I immediately thought it was cancer, just because that’s the way I think. And I was right.” He laughs softly. “Pretty good, huh?” With little other warning…
Can’t be much to do in Lawrence, Kansas. Sure, there’s a university and the, um, Dole Institute of Politics, but other than those attractions, you’d be hard-pressed to entertain yourself in Lawrence if you aren’t in a band. In Kirk Rundstrom’s case, make that two bands. The guitarist for Lawrence’s…
The Everglow, the new album by Virginia-based emo quintet Mae, is the well-meaning counterpart to My Chemical Romance’s Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge: Whereas the MCR disc tells the graphic-novel-inspired tale of a guy forced to collect the souls of evil men, Mae models itself after a colorful children’s book,…
Ted Leo’s about as dependable an indie-rock show as you’ll see: The thoughtful, rocking New Jersey troubadour sings so hard you can see the veins popping from his neck; he attacks his guitar as if it were on fire; he rushes tempos his capable band easily keeps up with. With…
