Music

If you say the words “Michael Bolton” to most passers-by, two reactions are common: smiles and fond ’80s memories of AC radio hits like “Time, Love and Tenderness” and “How Can We Be Lovers,” or punches to the face. But there’s a third response that’s grown in popularity over the…

For anyone whose limited exposure to the music of Jamaica and West Africa has fostered the impression that reggae is one-dimensional, such a person needs to get his or her ass in line early Monday afternoon at the Granada and be prepared for Burning Spear’s inspiring zeal. If you ask…

In any other city, this review might fall into the cracks–in fact, it’d deserve to. Pleasesuite is not a disc that grabs, throttles or even pinches, and that quality is precisely what makes it fit so well in a Dallasite’s CD player. Philip E. Karnats, now a Chicago resident, did…

What passes for heavy metal these days possesses little of the danger and none of the wit that belonged to true stalwarts of the genre. Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Motorhead, early Metallica–the best of the leather-and-studs crowd always mixed in a good dose of the absurd while overloading songs with…

Toby Keith may not really be a dick, but he plays one on CD. He generally comes across as ultra-smug, as if flaunting his popularity in the faces of intellectual elitists was half the fun of success. Yet the attitudinal aggressiveness that dominates White Trash is vastly preferable to the…

Grand Champeen doesn’t just wear its influences and passions on its sleeves. This Austin combo actually prints ’em up in bold type on a faded tour t-shirt. “Let It Be, Let It Bleed, On the Beach, The Gilded Palace of Sin, Heaven Tonight and The Kids Are Alright” shouts out…

Combine the sex howls and cabaret androgyny of glam rock with the urgency of punk, then throw in some lose-five-pounds-in-one-song ass-shakin’ and you have Celebration. Sean Antanaitis serves as resident monkey-boy, playing just about every instrument (including his own creation, the guitorgan) save drums and wife Katrina Ford’s inimitable voice…

Rumor has it that the major label bigshot who took aside the boys of Irving and told them to choose a “frontman” ended up in critical condition at Cedars Sinai hospital’s emergency wedgie clinic. This is a quintet that doesn’t work without splitting the spotlight, which is probably why they’re…

Conor Meads, vocalist for this San Diego pop-punk quartet, has a fondness for the overwrought theatrics of Elton John and the late Freddie Mercury. Trouble is that his innate ability is more in line with your local high-school punk. Meads and his three cohorts somehow manage to make this dichotomy…

Jana Hunter’s otherworldly voice isn’t exactly what you’d expect to hear coming from a girl raised in Arlington. After appearing on the Devendra Banhart-curated Golden Apples of the Sun compilation, the enigmatic Hunter teamed with the freak-folk king to release both a vinyl split and a full length LP on…

Houston’s Blue October has sold out a spacious venue just weeks after the spectacular 80-some-odd band Wall of Sound Festival did not, proving that the metroplex is confused about which bands suck and which bands don’t. In our ever-vigilant effort to get your heads straight, here are five signs that…

Thirty-three hours after the Wall of Sound Festival 2006 kicked off, I was worn down to a nub. I’d seen roughly 44 acts by Sunday evening. Some were full sets, while others were just one song, but still. A similar sense of fatigue and exhaustion was evident on the faces…

Velvet casket?: On April 1, Undeniable Records threw its first-ever birthday bash, and the burgeoning record label picked the Double Wide to host the festivities. The 2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards nominee for Best Music Venue, tucked into the outskirts of Deep Ellum, was an ideal spot; after all, Undeniable…

At the end of March, Justin Wilson drove up to the Dallas Observer to drop off a box of promotional materials…a huge one. The bottom was blanketed with every single disc released by his first major Dallas band, Red Animal War, since 2000. He added some copies of his side…

At first glance, the touring package of Bob Dylan and Merle Haggard boggles the imagination. Is it some musical version of a national unity ticket for the 2008 presidential race pairing Hillary Clinton and John McCain–the rabid leftist with the old-school conservative? Or is it a bout between competing song…

With the recent passing of his chief influence and mentor, Buck Owens, it should prove interesting to witness Dwight Yoakam’s mood during his forthcoming appearance in Rockwall. The pair had recently played together, and Owens had been known to dispense some fatherly advice along with an occasionally stern rebuke when…

Maybe I didn’t notice it before. Maybe I was too overwhelmed by the breaking-waves-crashing-thunder drums, the moaning-and-monotone vocals, the shattered-and-shattering guitars and keybs coalescing into the Big Bang unheard since Bonzo croaked and Syd cracked. But it’s unavoidable now, two albums and one EP into a major-label career that’s seen…

Kudos to the Flaming Lips for releasing the best A-side/B-side of the year so far. The Lips kick off their latest “of course it’s gonna be weird” album, At War With the Mystics, with a bang: “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song” has its freak-folk-meets-psychedelic-guitars lunacy capped off by a subtly political…

Here’s an MC boast so frank it’s hilarious: “In this corner, the undisputed champs of hip-hop–RJD2 on the beats, Blueprint on the rhymes–versus everything that sucks about music in the opposite corner.” But it’s no joke: Soul Position’s second LP is a stone classic. It’s not just that Blueprint is…

For ex-Unicorns Nick Diamonds and Jaime Tambeu, releasing a “mature” follow up to their acclaimed 2003 debut could have been a total disaster. Considering that the Montreal group’s unpredictable song structures and amateurish, lo-fi charm were what initially earned them so much praise, their decision to disband the Unicorns, start…

With the recent uproar about immigration and other issues on the U.S./Mexico border, the timing couldn’t be more perfect for the new album by Calexico, the multinational collective (members hail from both the United States and Germany) founded by Tucson residents Joey Burns and John Convertino. However, Garden Ruin sees…

In a nifty bit of yin/yang, Lee Ann Womack both embodies and dispels the simplistic Nashville saw about “three chords and the truth.” Sure, the song is the heart of it all, something this East Texas gal learned early on from her disc jockey father, musical schooling in the well-regarded…