This spunky Hollywood pop-rock outfit boasts not one but two former child actors: singer Jenny Lewis, who made Shelley Long feel like a good mom in Troop Beverly Hills, and guitarist Blake Sennett, who somehow survived a four-year stint in the cast of Boy Meets World. (The band also boasts…
Twenty-five bucks for rare and unreleased tracks from, among others, Tom Waits, Old 97’s, R.E.M., Ben Kweller, Sleater-Kinney, Death Cab for Cutie, Jimmy Eat World, the Flaming Lips and Elliott Smith…what’s that you say? It’s actually $12 in a CD store and on Amazon.com? And it’s free if you go…
The artists collectively known as the Native Tongues are noted as the primary purveyors of “conscious rap” during the ’90s, but New Jersey’s Brand Nubian was also on the frontlines. But Brand Nubian wasn’t as well-received as groups such as De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest, largely because…
A tribute collection must be judged not on the reverence for the source material but on the overall quality of the new product. However great the influence the Carter Family had on folk country and even rock, this gathering of the usual suspects (Willie Nelson, George Jones, the late Johnny…
The Snoop Dogg Afterparty was heavy on party, light on Snoop. The Doggfather made only a brief appearance in the audience on Friday night, about halfway through Erykah Badu’s terrific mid-evening set. I lingered around till 3 a.m. with a few hundred other suckers, hoping he’d make a stage cameo,…
I’d pretty much gotten over Phantom Planet’s cute-guy L.A. indie-rock when Fox started showing these teasers for the second season of The O.C. with the band’s “California” as the soundtrack. That made me remember what a good tune “California,” off 2002’s The Guest, is, and that the people who made…
Some people would strongly suggest taking a date to see Kelly Willis in concert. After all, she’s a sweet-voiced Texan whose country tunes stand out from the CMT crowd, and such a date would prove a man’s sensitivity without straining his eardrums. But we’re not so sure that’s a good…
You may know Bob Schneider. And you may know Salim Nourallah. But you probably didn’t know that the two Texas singer-songwriters are childhood friends who played together while growing up in El Paso. Most people would never put the pair in the same sentence: Schneider is the swaggering, perennially-almost-famous frat-boy…
The sadly incoherent old-man bullshit spewed by Nick Hornby in his recent New York Times op-ed tribute to Philadelphia pub-rockers Marah wasn’t only annoying to humans who listen to music for more than a reminder that the 1960s have been over for longer than they happened. It was also in…
The members of the Wrens read off like a PTA roll call. Guitarist Greg Whelan and his bassist brother Kevin work for Pfizer in New Jersey and use their vacation time to tour. Drummer Jerry MacDonnell, a father of three, also holds a corporate job, as did singer/guitarist Charles Bissell…
Greece is the word. And as the Summer Olympics hit Athens for 16 days of glory, it’s the only word you’ll hear. Greece hasn’t hosted an event this big since Yanni played the Acropolis. And it will be big, and it will be beamed via satellite into our homes as…
While Lakewood father David Cunniff struggled to recuperate from a devastating attack that may leave him paralyzed, skinhead Jesse Chaddock holed up in a Long Beach apartment complex and hid from police. Last Thursday’s Dallas Morning News featured a blink-and-miss-it item on Chaddock’s arrest in California, including the information that…
This just in: Pleasant Grove drummer Jeff Ryan has left the band. Vocalist/guitarist Marcus Striplin cites “personal reasons” and says the band “is sad, but happy for him.” The band will be trying out new drummers and hopes to have someone in place in time for their September 3 show…
As a member of the Mekons, Sally Timms’ sexy, almost secretive vocals have added loads of likability to the brooding, political, country-punk carnage of that band. The occasional solo disc has presented a keen interpreter of songwriters as diverse as John Cale and Johnny Cash. Quite often she has proven…
Things you always knew needed to happen on the last Guided By Voices album: It has to be on Matador Records, the home of Alien Lanes and Under the Bushes Under the Stars. (It is. The band returned to Matador in 2002 after a brief fling with TVT Records. Though…
Idol Records’ latest split EP joins two of Dallas’ polar opposites to cover each other’s songs. The results? Well, for some reason, the pAper chAse hid its guitars while recording Will Johnson’s “The Riot Jack,” leaving the usually beastly band with only piano, synthesized strings and a processed drum loop…
The best song on The Chemistry Set’s full-length debut is a lacerating little number called “Lee Minor 7.” It’s a creepy, somewhat inscrutable story about dropping bombs and shooting guns, full of snare and syncopated piano and vocalist/guitarist Stephen Duncan’s telephone-muffled voice reaching through all that to announce: “This is…
So I get this tip about a part grind-core, part balls-out noise show at Rito’s Restaurant (“The Family Place”). Apparently, after the restaurant closes, Rito’s son Jesus plays host in the back room to bands from Dallas, suburbs and all over the country. It’s primarily an underage crowd, but not…
So I’m having breakfast at the Gold Rush Café when, totally unsolicited, a fellow diner approaches my table with a copy of Jolie Holland’s Escondida. “You have to hear this album,” he says. “This woman has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard.” He wasn’t kidding. Holland,…
It’s an indie-rocker fantasy come true: Sebadoh’s Lou Barlow and Jason Loewenstein reunite for the first tour since they promoted 1999’s The Sebadoh. The only thing that could ice this cake would be if there were a new Sebadoh album in the works. But it’s the second best thing: a…
Julia Fordham’s slight stature doesn’t prepare you for what happens when she opens her mouth. Her husky alto is at once unexpected and beguiling. It’s this unique voice that’s drawn storied producers and musicians to the British expatriate’s side throughout her career. Hugh Padgham (Phil Collins, Sting, Paul McCartney) produced…
“Accessible” is the worst curse someone could give a band like Xiu Xiu, which revels in its experimentation and just plain weirdness like songwriter Jamie Stewart’s lyrics revel in every type of sadness and longing, from unexpected love to redemptive suicide to sexual abuse. So, instead let’s say the band’s…
