Music

Here’s your best bets for the weekend, kids, according to our crack team of music snobs. We didn’t put Rock Lottery on the list, by the way, since we assume you already know about it. (If not, check Wilonsky’s excellent piece on it here .) Beat the Devil Good Records…

Midlake performing on the BBC in April. (Bella Union) At least around DC-9 HQ, a mere mention of the word “Midlake” can spawn a fairly heated debate: On one side are those who dig the Denton band’s lush brand of soft-rock; on the other are thems who think the band…

Mike Relm—a bespectacled Asian DJ who wears a suit and tie while he spins—is single-handedly introducing turntablism to parts of middle America. The San Franciscan is on his second stint traveling across the country with the Blue Man Group. He opens their current production, “The Rock Concert Instruction Manual,” with…

We here at the Dallas Observer have been reading a lot about the days of disco. We’re not sure why. In any case, we’ve become kind of obsessed with Andy Warhol’s place in the ’70s culture, specifically his magazine Interview, in which musicians and celebrities interviewed other musicians and celebrities…

Recently, while researching a story, I stumbled upon an essay by seminal rock writer Lester Bangs, called “Bye, Bye, Sidney, Be Good,” about Sid Vicious. The essay focuses on how Vicious murdered (allegedly; the case was never fully investigated) his soul mate, Nancy Spungen, by stabbing her to death, then…

Retro soul’s got to be damn fine to justify its existence, since the stuff it’s modeled on is readily available for listening pleasure and embarrassing comparisons. Fortunately, the latest from Sharon Jones and Bettye LaVette qualify thanks to vocal authenticity and musical settings that offer inventive takes on the old…

It was conceived a decade ago as a one-off event—wham, bam, phew. It didn’t even have an official name: Most knew it at the time only as Good/Bad Art Collective Benefit 22, the latest link in the heavy chain of events staged by Chris Weber, Martin Iles and the rest…

Sonic Youth’s recent Rather Ripped pulls the maturing band toward a more mellifluous path that doesn’t reject their famously splintered tonality but seems a bit more ear-friendly as it addresses a subtler emotional terrain. With the departure of multi-instrumentalist Jim O’Rourke, S.Y.’s now back to their “classic” lineup of guitarists…

Icons for drunken, adolescent debauchery, the Black Lips travel with a hard-earned reputation for dangerous, lewd and unfathomably wild behavior. Piss, puke and nudity may have helped the Atlanta foursome score a few headlines, but it’s their howling, punked-up garage sound that packs gigs and sells records. Whereas the band’s…

“The world is full of children/But I ain’t ever had none/Cuz that means it’s time to settle down/And give up all my fun”—such go the lyrics to Funeral Drive’s “Ballad of Lonnie,” a rockin’ rave-up that combines the jaded worldview of a rockabilly cynic and the yee-haw exuberance of 21st-century…

Shock rock has seen its fair share of gory characters, but they’re all tame in comparison to GWAR. Known for its wild stage theatrics, which include homages to necrophilia, scatology, bestiality, rape, murder, carnage and lots of other things that could give Tipper Gore types a heart attack, GWAR has…

The Duluth, Minnesota, trio Low could just as easily be called Slow, with their glacially unwinding, minimal soundscapes. Their latest CD, Drums and Guns, has some lovely moments of downbeat grandeur, such as the hymnlike “Breaker,” which unfolds with searing keyboards and backward guitars under Alan Sparhawk’s gruff, Peter Gabriel–like…

When did mainstream rap become more relevant than its underground counterpart? Talib Kweli and El-P released self-congratulatory pap this year while Kanye West’s sincere, introspective effort sold a million copies in its first week. Now we’ve got Chamillionaire, whose Ultimate Victory is perhaps the most topical album ever, and although…

Even if you don’t think you know Iron & Wine, the stage name of singer-songwriter Sam Beam (inspired by the packaging on a protein supplement), you’ve no doubt been caught mouthing the words to his cover of the Postal Service’s “Such Great Heights” in the M&M’s commercial that plays before…