Houston-based soul and R&B outfit The Suffers had some abysmal luck following a set at this year’s Homegrown Fest. As we reported back in April, the eight-piece band lost about $33,000 worth of equipment when thieves took off with the band’s detached trailer, which stood in the parking lot at…
Chris Flemmons sits at a bench on the dimly lit, smoke-filled patio of Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton on a Monday evening, sipping a bitters and soda between tugs off his cigarette. He’s gearing up for an upcoming celebratory three-gig Texas tour with his band, the Baptist Generals, and the stress…
The Dallas Observer Music Awards, which reward the most accomplished, innovative and outstanding contributions to the local music industry, are on their 31st year. Thirty-one years, the age most of us consider becoming adults. In 1988, the year when DOMA first started, Reagan was president, the No. 1 song was George…
Quaker City Night Hawks drummer Aaron Haynes exploded onstage last week at the Big Velvet Revue showcase at the Basement East in Nashville. Well, exploding may be too strong of an image. His Fort Worth bandmates, David Matsler and Sam Anderson, weren’t actually finding pieces of their drummer strewn about…
Let’s go back in time for just a moment. Word War II is over. We all have tons of extra money because America is in the midst of an economic boom. We like Ike. Elvis, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly and The Everly Brothers are filling the airwaves with a new…
Lizzi Trumbore walks into a McDonald’s and confronts an internal conflict. “I had to ask myself, ‘Should I buy something?’” she reflects later, sitting in that same Mickey D’s. “On the one hand, McDonald’s is this big corporation. They don’t need my money. On the other hand, I feel weird…
His songs have been performed more than 100 million times worldwide. His LP and single sales number more than 90 million. He’s sold 10 million albums worldwide, and got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the Canadian one, too. With more than 500 songs to his credit,…
There is only one certified diamond-selling dance hall reggae artist, and he will be performing at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving on Saturday. His name is Shaggy. Yes, the artist who wrote “It Wasn’t Me,” the got-caught-cheating-red-handed record that sat in that No. 1 Billboard spot for three weeks and…
First of all, shut up. We get it. Yes, Greg Ginn is the only original member of Black Flag left in the band. No, Henry Rollins does not have nice things to say about Ginn or the current iteration of the band. Yeah, pro-skateboarder Mike Vallely is not the lead…
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard admitted that a friend of his has nicknamed him “Earnest Strum,” due to his penchant for “the type of exceedingly sincere, traditionally-rooted folk that Hansard has mostly been making for the past dozen years,” the article reads. The soft, somber,…
If you’re on a budget, which, unless you’re Mark Cuban or Bill Gates, is pretty much all of us, this list of shows is for you. Seeing one of these top-notch local acts like Paul Slavens & Friends and Cure for Paranoia, as well as bigger bands like Iron Maiden…
Say what you will about Kenny G, but the guy is one of the most disarmingly nice people you will ever have the pleasure to talk to, and he doesn’t really care if you have anything negative to say about him. “I may not be a person like Taylor Swift…
This week’s batch of concert announcements brings a slate of shows scheduled for 2020. It’s been a busy 2019, and though there are still a few months to go, many promoters and venues are rapidly filling up their winter and spring calendars. Read on for a bevy of artists coming…
I’ve always hated the notion of the “tortured genius” since it essentially glamorizes an artist’s devastating struggle. Isn’t music supposed to, as Woody Guthrie once put it, “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable?” I’ll admit, it has become harder for me to intellectually defend my disdain for this archetype…
Dallas indie-punk band Posival was pretty much dead in 2015. In the two preceding years, singer and guitarist Michael Zamora had written enough material to fill up three full-length albums and an EP, all released after the band members went their separate ways in early 2016. It was in those…
It seems like an eternity ago that derpy, 19-year-old Grapevine native Austin Post threw open the SoundCloud floodgates with “White Iverson” and thrust us into our current pop zeitgeist. Since then, there’s seldom been a mainstream radio hour, party or Spotify playlist sans one of his songs. Now 24 and…
When Joel Zimmerman’s, aka Deadmau5’s, team of handlers offered an interview ahead of his Sept. 12 and 13 shows at South Side Ballroom, I thought “OK, fine.” A conversation with Deadmau5 seemed like fun, after all. He’s a talented musician and no-filter guy who likes to rant about everything and…
In today’s America, where kids in high school don’t even know what a record player looks like, the yearly gross of vinyl sales is on pace to pass CD sales for the first time since 1986. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) released their mid-year report on Sep. 5,…
It was a mild evening on July 28, 1994, the first season the Texas Rangers played at The Ballpark in Arlington. Kenny Rogers had pitched to 24 batters and sent all 24 back to the dugout, one out after another. Rex Hudler, second baseman for the California Angels and seventh…
When you’re gathering and doctoring cattle across thousands of acres of Texas backcountry, chances are there may not be a food truck in sight. But there could be a chuck wagon, and people will be gathering around it playing music and telling stories. That’s part of the experience that Damon…
Yes, it’s not even Halloween yet and some people are already gearing up for the Dallas Observer Music Awards. Every year for the last 31 years, the Observer has given out awards to the best in local music — with a glamorous and slightly decadent ceremony, which will take place this…
KERA hosted a preview screening of the upcoming Ken Burns docuseries Country Music on Thursday at Southern Methodist University’s McFarlin Auditorium, and we had the esteemed privilege of attending and even speaking with Burns’ co-collaborators Dayton Duncan (writer and lead producer) and Julie Dunfey (co-producer.) Between all three producers, there are…
