So here’s some news: South FM has signed with MCA Records. Apparently. See, one of the members of the band told someone on the Dallas Observer staff a week or so ago. But when we tried to verify the information with him, we got this: “Unfortunately, I will neither confirm…
To a certain fan of a certain subgenre of rock and roll, and certainly to any rock critic, there are few things in life more agreeable than the disagreeably somnambulant snarl of Mr. Lou Reed. There’s just something kind of relaxing about the deep, nasal croak that drones on like…
Let’s face it: A degree from a respected college is rarely a good credential in a punk’s résumé. The fact that members of the Strokes attended tony Manhattan prep schools is the loudest false note underneath their hype. And the diplomas from Emerson College and Brown University held by Slick…
Devendra Banhart’s debut is a mixture of song fragments, whistles, handclaps, chants and some of the most oddly affecting, full-blown songs you may hear all year. Recorded on four-track–and occasionally on ye olde answering machine–the music rolls out slowly and sometimes abrasively. Banhart’s juxtapositions can describe something like flesh in…
Red-headed Lena Katina and brown-haired Julia Volkova are t.A.T.u., two Russian teen-agers who may or may not be lesbians involved in a steamy underage relationship; 200 km/h in the Wrong Lane, their English-language debut, is scorched-earth teen-exploitation pop nearly as good as “My Boyfriend’s Back” and “Leader of the Pack.”…
Never understood why the Hives were the ones tagged as Your New Favourite Band (from Sweden, anyway), when The (International) Noise Conspiracy does virtually the same thing, only better. Actually, I do: The Hives play it Swede and lowbrow, hoping to move heads (but definitely not brains) by mimicking Mick…
They’re always lumped together (well, by Entertainment Weekly, anyway), and with good reason: They be Kiwi, got suck in the ’70s like Hoovers gone haywire and come bearing songs with “fuck” in the title (“MF from Hell,” proclaim The Datsuns; “Rocknroll Motherfucker,” boast D4). The only thing separating the two,…
Duncan Sheik could’ve been a contender. OK, maybe not a contender, but a guy with more than one great song inside him. “Barely Breathing” still brings back warm freshman-year memories, driving around with a girlfriend who wouldn’t last, wishing the radio played more stuff that disguised real songcraft beneath blandly…
Pardon Western Keys’ Ben Dickey if the Damage done on the Austin band’s seven-song debut has the same Bright Eyes and dark thoughts as Conor Oberst’s Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ears to the Ground. The singer-songwriter can’t help that he and Oberst both happen…
Since Aimee Mann fought the record-biz law and won, she’ll probably yankee hotel foxtrot through good reviews for the rest of her career. But along with all the what-nice-melodies-you-have that accompanied last year’s Lost in Space, critics dished out complaints that Mann sounded cold and unemotional, unmoored from some supposed…
Steve Earle is a political role model to some now, but that wasn’t always the case. Sure, he looked like he was doing something, appearing at rallies with guitar in hand, but he didn’t really care. Back then, this was Earle’s version of Getting Involved: “I rolled up in the…
In casual conversation, it’s difficult to nail just what made a concert great, especially if you’re trying to trigger pangs of regret in a friend who foolishly passed up an opportunity to attend. You can praise the vocalist’s operatic highs, recount the way three guitarists intricately tangled their notes, attempt…
For a long time, the only hip-hop in Deep Ellum was the odd Young MC or Tone Loc song that would sneak into rotation on The Bone’s roof deck. And, yeah, that didn’t really count. Always been pretty hard to find hip-hop or R&B or even a DJ set between…
You get one disc “for those of us who prefer singles to albums.” (Titled, naturally, “Pop,” and selected by journalist Miranda Sawyer.) Another put together by a man who believes the group to be “touched by the hand of God–not once but twice.” (“Fan,” assembled by journalist John McCready.) A…
Nas runs, it seems, on two themes: loss and the reclamation of former glory. With God’s Son, the Queens rapper–plagued by a lack of focus for years–makes those themes indistinguishable, finally meeting the challenge of Illmatic, his 1994 masterpiece and albatross as he struggled through mediocrity. Conceptually, the new album…
Pink and Shakira made serious inroads last year for major-label pop tarts trying hard to shake up the system. Pink, of course, decided Y Kant Tori Read wasn’t such a bad listen and so toughened up her outré R&B with help from a 4 Non Blonde, of all people. As…
Overheard at a bar in the wee hours of New Year’s Eve: “Well, the thing about the floor is, there’s nowhere left for me to fall.” Eric Bachmann, late of Archers of Loaf and now the Tom Waits-lite croon–er–croaker of Crooked Fingers, might have written that line. As the front…
James Taylor’s stab at “Everyday” was just underwhelmingly twee; Andy Bell makes the Buddy Holly tune full-blown gay, which is precisely the point, since few singers are so loud or proud about their sexuality as the Erasure singer (emoter, really). Erasure’s “Everyday” plays even sweeter than the original, but not…
BLACK We hear someone softly speaking in Italian, then… FADE IN: A HOTEL ROOM–EARLY EVENING The room is in slight disarray. Whoever is staying in the room has been here awhile. A few room-service trays are stacked on a table. The bed is made, but rumpled. A lit cigarette rests…
They’ve arrived like Cubans on the Miami Beach shoreline, those cover-cum-tribute bands that clog the local concert calendar each weekend and push “original” acts further to the sidelines. Not quite sure what it says about the local rock scene when the best new band is the best old band–Queen for…
The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) announced its nominees for the 45th annual Grammy Awards on Tuesday, and it was a pretty sweet day for Dallas acts. Well, kind of. See, Norah Jones and the Dixie Chicks both are up for a handful of awards, and both…
Oleander is a droll name for a band whose lead singer’s last name is Flowers–the Sacramento quartet gets its handle from the ubiquitous, dusty pink and white shrubs that “decorate” freeway medians across the land (and the blossoms are deadly poisonous, how rock and roll). Coming off at first like…
