There’s been a shift in my party conversation lately. A few weeks ago, I was just another freelance journalist yapping about the same old things: what I did that weekend, what movies I’d seen, and can I get another beer? Then, I became the music editor at the Dallas Observer,…
If I were Britney Spears’ mom, Lynne, I’d be…very rich! But I’d also be confused: The routine deluge of self-promotion that’s accompanied the release of Spears’ fourth album, In the Zone, has included a fair amount of anguished why-won’t-the-media-leave-me-alone?, dropped purposefully into network-news interviews, VH1 specials and any number of…
A couple of years ago I sat in a New York news channel’s green room for an hour and a half waiting for Mavericks front man Raul Malo to finish soundchecking for a three-minute on-air live slot he was scheduled to perform in support of his majorly slept-on 2001 solo…
Lest you think Desert City Soundtrack’s album Funeral Car might contain a few rays of sunshine peeking through the dark clouds, the first track, “My Hell,” sets the record straight. It begins with slow, deliberate piano, soon accompanied by a mournful trumpet and then joined by equally downtrodden vocals gently…
Edwin McCain isn’t one of those musicians anyone really thinks about. He doesn’t have any buzz–never really did, even when VH1 was spinning the video for his single “Solitude” and hometown homies Hootie and the Blowfish were all the rage and pumping him hard. But if some bands are, say,…
Well-regarded Texans Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis have given themselves an early Christmas present: Happy Holidays, a seven-song EP of seasonal songs the singing-and-songwriting husband and wife recorded together and are selling at shows and through their respective Web sites. Since the Lifetime network keeps reminding me to be forgiving…
Once upon a time, there was a little orchestral pop band from Oklahoma. No, I’m not talking about The Flaming Lips. Seriously, folks–the Sooner state has birthed many great bands other than them thar Lips. Bands like, um…Color Me Badd? OK, point withdrawn. When it comes to the sounds of…
Malcolm Middleton is in a good mood. This isn’t a big deal, really–except that as the brains behind Arab Strap’s music, Middleton isn’t someone you expect to find in high spirits. “Bukowskian bleakness” is the term often employed to describe the mood of Arab Strap, and from their very first…
Sometimes the version of history that never happened is as interesting as the one that did. No Thanks!, the new four-CD punk-rock retrospective from Rhino, was originally called the wide-open-to-interpretation Ever Get the Feeling You’ve Been Cheated? Was it a reference to the fact that the almighty Sex Pistols, whose…
It’s been a good quarter-century-plus since punk rock raised its snarling li’l head and slammed out those loud, fast chords and rimshots heard ’round the musical world. So, like, dude, time to grow up already, right? Hardly. As the folks who make Vans will happily (and profitably) tell you, punk…
For one thing, since I’m not actually leaving the Dallas Observer, just changing jobs, I didn’t really wanna do this. Writing a goodbye column, to me, feels like storming out of the room after a fight only to realize you left your keys inside and have to slink back in…
Even after four solid, gorgeous CDs, Ndegeocello is relatively overlooked by consumers and critics. This new album, marked by fantastic musicianship and pulsating sexual energy, should rectify that. Comfort Woman is a cool-weather disc, perfect for generating heat between lovers. It opens with an invitation, “Love Song #1,” in which…
Good luck putting Talking Heads in a box. They spent the better part of their early years building a revolutionary bridge between the art-punk tremors of the mid-’70s and the MTV overthrow. More impressive, their sheer popularity bucked convention, bringing an unprecedented amount of creativity and angry intellectualism to an…
Damien Rice may be the feel-baddest balladeer to find a wide audience since Volkswagen revived Nick Drake. Like his countryman David Gray, Rice specializes in putting the cold, wet feeling of Irish winter onto 2-inch tape and has a similar, if more astringent, vocal style. But Rice’s music is a…
It’d be an egregious understatement to say Pansy Division’s gay rock manifestos were ahead of the curve back when the band formed in the early ’90s. Way before Will and Grace and the Fab Five brought alternative men’s lifestyles to prime time, singer-guitarist Jon Ginoli was tearing through explosive queer-eyed…
With Where Shall You Take Me, Damien Jurado has pared down his craft to reveal a gift similar to Bruce Springsteen’s on Nebraska–the ability to render an old soul’s stories in a youthful voice. This is not necessarily Jurado’s own experience, but something deeper and darker and better-traveled. If his…
Guilt is a powerful motivator. We feel it whenever we spin Count the Stars’ Never Be Taken Alive, the baby-faced, just-past-jailbait New York band’s debut on Victory Records. Its sing-along rock, pop punk, splash-of-emo tunes are highlighted with riffs stolen straight from ’80s guitar tabs. But whatever guilt we feel…
Two weeks ago in these pages I called “Shh,” the unlisted closing track of Minneapolis hip-hop duo Atmosphere’s new Seven’s Travels, one of the year’s best songs about tiny-town living (or at least midsize-town living that includes drinkable tap water and syringe-free playgrounds). That’s true (I wrote it!), but what’s…
There are four reasons it’s safe to tell people you’re going to KISS FM’s Jingle Ball at Next Stage on Wednesday night: 1) All your friends are going, and you’ve all decided to wear the same red-and-green-striped leg warmers. 2) You’re pumped to see Hilary Duff in the flesh, since…
For the rest of us, language flows on a nonlinear yet generally straightforward neural pathway before it reaches our tongues, picking up a few personal significances and even trace bits of wit if we’re lucky. Every so often, though, a few people start receiving Valis-like transmissions from somewhere, which act…
This is a story of the little band that could. There are a few versions of this story, similar and by now familiar. Little band’s four-track demos magically materialize in the hands of so many taste-making buddies, who pass bad copies around like samizdat until at last some savvy label…
It’s not easy getting into Jay-Z’s recording home at Bassline Studios, tucked away on West 26th Street in Manhattan. I have to sneak in behind a woman walking into the building, take an elevator to the eighth floor, then knock on a pair of glass doors before a security guard…
