There are a few tempting, all-but-mandatory questions for the Faint you are really much better off not asking, should you happen to engage one of the Omaha band’s members in either casual or professional conversation. No one warns you about this in advance–there’s no PR heavy standing by with a…
Gomez is one of those bands that, like a cat being forced into a pet carrier, struggles against being placed in any one category. Is Gomez a blues act? Space rock? Prog rock? Latin-tinged alt-country? Somehow, the answer to all of the above is yes. Yet despite this crazy-quilt approach…
With a face as pretty as his songs, former Lemonheads front man Evan Dando earned a reputation as the Mazda Miata of rock: sexy and utterly lightweight. Seven years after the Lemonheads ended with a whimper, Dando’s long-awaited solo debut, Baby I’m Bored, forces a reappraisal: It makes you want…
The last several releases by former Spacemen 3 guitarist Jason Pierce’s psychedelic-gospel outfit Spiritualized–Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, Royal Albert Hall October 10 1997 Live and 2001’s Let It Come Down–have been as much about Pierce’s tendency toward staggering production costs as his desire to capture in…
Back in the late ’70s, Ron Howard bolstered his film career with such art-house gems as Eat My Dust! and Grand Theft Auto. These cult classics relied largely on big cars, girls in short-shorts and redneck policemen who always ended car chases by driving into barns. Good stuff. But Howard…
Nashville is a soul-sucker and O brother thank God I found you and blah blah blah stick a needle in my eye. But you know what’s truer than a blind two-dollar hen with no teeth (or whatever)? That what I’m not getting right now from the neo-traditionalist set is a…
First things first: Even if you’ve never heard of Les Savy Fav, you must go see them live. If you’ve heard the band’s recordings and been underwhelmed, you must go see them live. If you’ve experienced their show already, then I know you’ll say it along with me: Everyone must…
Remember indie rock? Every once in a while, in a momentary clearing of the perpetual cloud cover provided by Ashanti and the White Stripes and Cannibal Ox and Kid Rock featuring Sheryl Crow, I realize that bands like Silkworm and the New Year, both of whom will hit Gypsy Tea…
Already seen Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses but still got a hankering for twisted trash-culture worship Antiques Roadshow’s just not providing? You’re in luck, my probably-makeup-wearing friend: Creepy garage-rock legends the Cramps turn up Thursday at Deep Ellum Live, and they’re bringing Detroit’s the Gore Gore Girls with them…
Living in Dallas and not checking out the strip clubs is like living in Telluride and never skiing: a waste of natural (and augmented) resources. On the other hand, the Dallas “adult entertainment” industry, besides La Bare, doesn’t particularly cater to women. And La Bare is, how-you-say, gross, in a…
Everyone who frequents the Curtain Club knows that Craig DePoi, who mans the upstairs bar, is one of the nicest guys around, which is important in a good bartender. If you’ve gotten to know DePoi at all, you might also be aware that he has an extensive collection of autographed…
Dave Grohl didn’t intend to fill a niche. Not really. When he released his first album as the Foo Fighters in 1995–a self-titled disc he calls “a demo tape that one person recorded in, like, five days”–he wasn’t applying for the job his old bandmate Kurt Cobain had tragically retired…
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs. With apologies to Sir Paul–plenty of people, in fact. Up and down the radio dial, there they are: love songs. They pop, they hop, they indie rock; they balladeer, they bitch and moan; they keen in urgent tremolo alongside pedal…
The dark constellation of singer-songwriters formed by Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave and Tom Waits is no place to go poking around if you can’t stand a little self-indulgence. So pomp-averse listeners beware: Crooked Fingers may well get on your nerves. The third installment of this earnest enterprise from former Archers…
Three current products of heated record-biz indie-hunting roll through town separately this week; buy T-shirts from them and maybe they’ll make a few bucks for their trouble. First up, headlining a Saturday-night bill at Deep Ellum Live that should woo every eighth-grader you know: the Ataris, touring behind So Long,…
Devendra Banhart is one of those intrepid eccentrics who lets loose rare nuggets of uncomfortable dream-brilliance one moment, and the next lays on art-school blather and clunky melodies that sound shoddily made up on the spot. The 22-year-old’s lack of an internal editor–that force that keeps most of us average…
We’ve said plenty about Eisley and its sisters-and-brother act (just trying to get ourselves in position for an episode of VH1’s Driven), but there’s another set of family ties that’s gone somewhat unnoticed: Salim and Faris Nourallah. There are a few reasons for that. One, the brothers have a bit…
It’s been a month to forget for the Dixie Chicks–and for everyone else involved in country music radio. Owners of a No. 1 country single heading into March, the Chicks now find themselves in a shit storm thanks to that well-covered offhand comment about President Bush at a concert in…
In some respects, Ministry’s Al Jourgensen has mellowed. For instance, he says he’s no longer helping his friendly neighborhood heroin dealer keep up with his Hummer payments. “It’s been over 11 months now since I’ve had anything,” he says. “I’m very proud and very clean.” From a creative standpoint, however,…
Ever been in a tour van? In ours it was always too hot and one window was duct-taped shut and this kid Alan always had his damn peanut butter everywhere and do you have any idea how much fuel air conditioning requires? Oh, and it wasn’t ever a van, either–try…
Whether or not you find the atomic-powered guitar-pop on Mary Star of the Sea, the debut album by former Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan’s new band Zwan, refreshing in its wide-eyed enthusiasm and lack of neo-goth melodrama, you’ve gotta hand it to Corgan for mixing things up. The Pumpkins had a…
Used to be, way back in 1998 when Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst was just 18, audiences adored him for his contradictions. On the one hand, the puny troubadour was a trembling, stage-frightened acoustic guitarist straight out of a bedroom four-track session. And on the other, he was thoroughly fearless, a…
