They take their name from the “The Black Angel’s Death Song” by the Velvet Underground and ominously sing about war, paranoia, devastation, hell and death–of course, death–over a weighty, dark-hued, funereal rock drone. So one might naturally expect to find the Black Angels hunkered down in a decaying urban warehouse…
No one knows the brutal sting of being curb-kicked by your record label like Dallas musicians, so it is with open and empathetic arms that we receive Sam Means and Nate Ruess, known to their previous overlords at Elektra Records as The Format. Lullabies, their 2003 major label debut, was…
Although working in similar veins of country and folk, singer-songwriters Slaid Cleaves and Hayes Carll come to greatness from remarkably divergent paths. Cleaves is a more traditional tunesmith, parlaying friendships with Lucinda Williams and Gurf Morlix into a decade’s worth of solid releases–all pleasant, mannered and respectable. Carll brings a…
New Jersey nutballs in love with heavy-metal power and prog-rock technique, the Dillinger Escape Plan plays absurdly complicated art punk that’s got more in common with old-school outfits like Faith No More (whose Mike Patton actually sang with DEP for a 2002 EP) than with any of the mall-core screamo…
One is the loneliest number, but when coding binary beats in the musical matrix, 0010101 comes a close second. Ask John Tejada: Considering his continuous output of original, imaginative and downright funky dance floor offerings, he must have joined the lonely hearts dance club long ago. Where many techno producers…
Back when Deep Ellum was a musical hotbed, Meredith Miller was one of the talented teens who coulda been a contender. With her loamy alto, slightly quirky lyrics and smart-chick style, she might have ended up a more urbane Dar Williams or followed in Lisa Loeb’s footsteps to a mid-level…
I can scream from the mountaintops about the wonders of the Internet all I want. Shout about blogs. Hoot ‘n’ holler about podcasts. But for all the attention and growth that Dallas music Web sites have seen in the past few years, the result is still just the sound of…
“Don’t be nervous!” The makeup girl smiles as she attempts to brush a wad of Cowboys cheerleader pink across my lips, but suddenly my knees are shaking so much that I can’t even keep my face still. Thing is, I totally had the situation under control, like, two seconds ago…
At a recent gig, Dallas’ Sarah Hamilton knew she was in for a good time when a dancing fan fell backward over the venue’s monitor and spilled Hamilton’s Lone Star…before the first song was even through. The dancing calamity is understandable; in concert, Hamilton sticks to a repertoire of boot-scootin’…
In a fashion not dissimilar to how it brought succor to black Southern field hands, the blues has also been a means for white kids like Guy Forsyth to escape their suburban roots and acquire some soul. And unlike hordes of his fellow Austinites whose music prattles endlessly through the…
“There’s just something about them,” Kristin Allen-Zito sing-mutters to open her 2004 album Helium. Sounds like yet another coffee house singer with cigarette-stained vocals, a strummed acoustic guitar and cute “ooh”s in the background, but then she finishes the sentence–“that makes me want to stick my dick in/I know it’s…
Taking their name from Jerry Lee Lewis’ best country song, one might wrongly assume Austin’s What Made Milwaukee Famous would fall squarely into the alt-country camp. Instead, this quirky quartet draws inspiration from sources as diverse as Television, Jeff Buckley and the Cars while still remaining contemporarily stylish in a…
Yet another singer-songwriter from Austin, a city where you can’t even spit without gobbing on a sensitive dude? Yawn, you might say. But let’s give Grant Olney credit for at least being different from the rabble, even if he sings with a bit too obvious faux-Brit accent in order to…
Whatever name you call him by–sHack, Simon Shackleton or Elite Force–the British DJ is widely recognized as one of the top breaks producers in the world. Shackleton’s style extends beyond the breakbeat remix and is often referred to as “tech-funk,” encompassing various elements of house, techno and old-school electro. Starting…
When Daniel Smith began playing music with his siblings in 1995 as part of a senior thesis project at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, his inspiration was God. And so it’s been since then: On the handful of records he’s made both as leader of the Danielson Famile (a rotating ensemble…
The son of outlaw-country greats Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, 26-year-old Shooter Jennings plays country-fried Southern rock mostly about drinking, drugging and having a good time, even if you’ll regret it in the morning. He released his second album, Electric Rodeo, in April, and is spending the summer on the…
As part of our continuing drive toward journalistic excellence, we have discovered the private blog of director Chris Applebaum, in which he discusses his work on Paris Hilton’s new music video, “Stars Are Blind.” May 4, 2006, 7:49 a.m.: WHAT HAVE I DONE? Remember that Carl’s Jr. ad, the one…
“There are some guys in England who would kill you for this,” Brandon Carr says as he discreetly hands me a plastic case. The bearded Dallasite then gives me a look like he’s got murder on his mind as well. “Don’t. Leak. It.” I can’t help but laugh, and it’s…
Nothing like a blanket statement to get locals excited about a band, so here goes: Comrade is the new Pleasant Grove of Dallas rock music. You can’t get a better compliment than that, really. There’s Many a Slip Twixt the Cup and the Lip, the Dallas quintet’s debut, has the…
Really, Thom Yorke could loop the sounds of himself snoring and Radiohead’s obsessive fans would buy it. He’s done a little more than that on his solo debut, in which electronic beats are cut and pasted together from live instruments and synthesizer bleeps, though The Eraser’s nine tracks are songs…
1957 was a defining year for these two jazz greats. After a lengthy absence, Thelonious Monk’s newly reinstated cabaret card permitted him to return to the fertile playground of the New York City jazz clubs. John Coltrane just completed an informal tutelage under Miles Davis, successfully kicked heroin and was…
Whatever your politics, you have to admit that the title of Impeach My Bush, the third album by Berlin-based raunch-rap mistress Peaches, is a joke whose time has come. (Titles might be Peaches’ true talent–see also 2003’s Fatherfucker.) Whether or not Impeach offers more than exemplary wordplay is down to…
