You don’t notice them at first, but at a certain point, you become aware of the hands. They are simultaneously delicate and strong, nimble and dexterous, their power coming in quick flashes like lightning, but also dense with strength, the kind that builds deliberately, like a river’s current. The hands…
It’s been more than a year since Dallas proper last heard from Centro-matic, but that doesn’t mean Will Johnson and Co. haven’t been busy. As one might expect from the prolific Texans, a new double record—a split release from Centro-matic and its slower, atmospheric sister band South San Gabriel—sits nearly…
You’ve heard of one-man bands—but one-man glam is something else entirely. On The Moonstation House Band, released earlier this year on the Secretly Canadian label, and a new EP built around the Moonstation single “Nothin’ No,” Vandervelde, who’s based in Chicago, nods to the glitteriest rock of the early ’70s…
This Oklahoma City five-piece plays a brand of bluesy rock with just the right amount of grit and soul. Wish I Had You, the band’s recently released third effort, is filled with authentic roots music that never descends into parody. Hints of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Tom Waits get equal…
“Any line-up is like a marriage,” says Nick 13, leader of Tiger Army and one of the best practitioners of psychobilly. “You hope it will work, and it either does or it doesn’t.” Speaking from a stop on the Warped Tour, Nick 13 (born Kearney Nick Jones) is happy with…
John Doe has experienced a few scary things in his day. The former singer for seminal L.A. punk band X was once run off the road and went off a small cliff in Maui while in a rental van with his wife and kids. He also encounters a few rattlesnakes…
According to maverick Nashville producer R.S. Field, Max Stalling “reminds me of artists back when I lived in Austin in the ’70s who existed outside of any groovy clique but still managed to fill up places like the Broken Spoke, the Split Rail, and Gruene Hall with regular people. I…
Like a Beyoncé album, Queens of the Stone Age records typically have two awesome tracks and are otherwise filled out by mediocre ones. The act’s latest effort, Era Vulgaris, is no different. Lead single “Sick, Sick, Sick” is a simple power-guitar anthem that speeds along during the verses, then slows…
Ryan Adams’ well-documented, newfound sobriety hasn’t changed anything about the artist really. He’s still consistently unsure of himself, pondering relationships and his role in them, and now coping with his own flaws. Easy Tiger sounds like a culmination of his last five years; it recalls the Grateful Dead sound he…
The last thing my parents would expect at this point in my life is me spending the evening with a woman. However, I can’t say that a night out with three women would go over well with them either. Well, maybe my dad, but that’s just how men are. On…
In a roller-coaster career that’s nearing the 40-year mark, Paul McCartney has tallied his share of both successes (McCartney, Band on the Run, Flowers in the Dirt and, most recently, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard) and embarrassments (McCartney II, anyone?). Consequently, the trumpeting of a new Macca opus brings…
It’s tough to say which part of Art Conspiracy’s upcoming event Seed is the most worthy of local support. The event is meant as a fundraiser for AC, a Dallas art collective that promotes visual art and music, as 10 local photographers will be auctioning off original works with the…
WWJR: We’ve never had any beef with church or church-goers—it’s just that Sunday mornings are mostly good for sleeping, and those pews are even less accommodating than the kitchen floor, which is usually where we find ourselves, frequently facedown, on a Sunday morning. But if controversial gospel rapper Tonex continues…
Has it really rained this much? Like, all of June? Seriously? Cuz the shit is starting to put a very literal damper on the Dallas music situation. Who wants to pay five bucks to park, only to have to sprint two blocks through a wall of precipitation, soaking your jeans…
National Props: The Monday, July 2, edition of The New York Times arts section includes a review of St. Vincent’s debut, Marry Me (in case you didn’t see it, Robert Wilonsky has written a fine article on our local heroine on page 58 of this issue of the Dallas Observer)…
It is the summer of 1988, far as she can recall now, at the ripe old age of 24, and Annie Clark is in the backseat of the car, on a family trip from Minnesota back to Oklahoma. Everyone is sick with a stomach flu, and frequent pit stops are…
Initially, the only thing that separated folk music from rock was electricity, and Bob Dylan quickly (but certainly not quietly) did away with this quaint notion in 1966 when folk-rock was fitfully conceived. Folk music didn’t end when Dylan plugged in, but the lines between folk and rock became forever…
Lyfe Jennings is living proof that convicts actually can be rehabilitated. At 15, the R&B artist from Toledo, Ohio, was ordered to serve between two and 10 years for arson. With good behavior, Jennings could have been released in two, but his turbulent nature resulted in his serving the whole…
Interpol’s major-label debut, Our Love to Admire, isn’t as monochrome (or monotonous) as its previous two albums. “Pioneer to the Falls” is arguably the richest song they’ve ever recorded, a track that channels the stormy textures of the Cure’s Pornography. Death-march piano and woodwinds add counter-melodies; a giant quivering mass…
Los Angeles-based promoter Andrew Lojero uses the ArtDontSleep pseudonym when he’s getting people drunk at loft parties. He organizes celebrations on the West Coast that highlight local artists and musicians, and on ArtDontSleep Presents From L.A. With Love, Lojero’s hand-picked array of underground psyche and beatmakers delights and befuddles. Producer…
New York began for me, a Philly schoolboy, the same way it did for out-of-town skaters and college students, graffiti artists, sculptors, stockbrokers, gym teachers, sanitation workers, B-boys, DJs, carpool dads, White Castle burger-flippers—basically anybody under the age of 30—with Licensed to Ill. Since then (two decades and more), all…
The Loch Ness Monster does exist. It has to, because there is no other explanation for the resurrection of the dinosaur known as Asia. It’s been 25 years since John Wetton (King Crimson), Steve Howe (Yes), Carl Palmer (Emerson, Lake and Palmer) and Geoff Downes (The Buggles) threw their collective…
