Hitch a ride: For the past five years, local country fans who wanted a little kick in their boots but thought Ryan Adams was a pussy had a rallying cry for their favorite brand of whiskey-fueled music: “Speedtrucker, motherfucker!” The local country quartet is known for a two-step that keeps…
Geek rock, whether by über-nerds like Weezer or more abstract purveyors of insignificant detail like Pavement, has rarely transcended the jab that it’s music for and by losers, soundtracks for the dateless–in the end, guy music. The Willis seems fine with that. The five Wisconsin natives who make up this…
Ten years ago, Oak Cliff resident Stuart Sikes had a hand in Cat Power’s breakout album, though technically, his engineering work on What Would the Community Think was relatively hands-off. He did the most with the least, ensuring that spare arrangements, low, rumbling guitar lines and strokes of feedback anchored…
Orlando’s DJ Baby Anne delivers the breaks end of Assault & Battery, and her fixation on deep, winding Miami bass results in a slightly harder product than Jen Lasher’s electro half. The squealing laser-tag bursts of Product 01’s “I Like It Now” are sandwiched between Anne’s own “Freaks Groove” and…
Howard Greynolds, owner of Overcoat Recordings, is an indie rock dream weaver. Last year he brought us the Iron and Wine/Calexico collaboration In the Reins, and now he’s decided to gift us with an entire record of covers by Bonnie “Prince” Billy (aka Will Oldham, he of the beard-folk and…
As rock had the Velvet Underground–way ahead of the curve, persevering till the world caught up–jazz had trumpeter Miles Davis. To the great dismay of his followers, Davis jettisoned his bebop-rooted approach and, inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone and avant composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, went electric, that classic swing supplanted…
Regression can be so soothing. Since local children’s show Peppermint Place went off the air in 1996, anyone who saw Mr. Peppermint and Muffin is now old enough to enjoy the nostalgia that the sight of Jerry Haynes in his peppermint suit with his worn-down carpet of a puppet would…
Back in ’99, the Damnations were that year’s shiny new model when they debuted with Half Mad Moon, a spunky set of truly alternative country with a rock-grrl kick. Since then, the Austin foursome led by sisters Deb Kelly and Amy Boone have matured and settled into their sweet spot…
Joy Division’s Ian Curtis was such a morbidly intense vocalist and personality, it seemed he always had one foot in the grave, even before he hung himself on the eve of the band’s first U.S. tour. You can’t exactly say the same thing about Baboon lead singer Andrew Huffstetler, though…
Every few months, Spune Productions throws some great “welcome to the music scene” shows that are perfect for local newbies. But it’s one thing to get a varied smattering of the best in local pop-rock in one sitting, with bands such as the Deathray Davies, [DARYL], The Angelus, The Hourly…
When DJ Pedro Sanchez comes cruising into Club One on his “Sledgehammer” bike Friday night, I wonder if he’ll have any sweet turntable skills in tow. Really, is this a shameless money grab by Efren Ramirez to cash in on his role as Napoleon Dynamite’s socially retarded sidekick? When the…
It’s not surprising that Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity, counts Marah as one of his favorite bands. They’re exactly the type of band his most famous protagonist, Rob Fleming, would obsess over. The band even wrote a song set in a record store eerily similar to Fleming’s Championship Vinyl…
Lyle Steadham needed a break. He was managing a Web site consulting business, a record label and a band at the same time, so he took time off from all of them in late 2004 to relax. Maybe throw a barbecue or two. But a brush with death changed that–no,…
Whether it’s the story of a musician’s rise, fall and possible redemption or a flavors-of-the-moment soundtrack in a lame teen comedy, film and music have gone together like popcorn and Junior Mints, fountain drinks and whiskey flasks or baggy pants and smuggled candy. The commercial success of music biopics Ray…
Dear D4L, I address you in a public forum, but I nurse a private wound. Indeed, so grievous is my pain that once again I have stilled the rivers of fudge and shuttered my factory. I can do nothing now but lie in bed in utter darkness and await death,…
By Monday, you couldn’t turn on a computer in Dallas without seeing Michelle Metzinger’s bloody face. The 25-year-old member of local roller derby league Assassination City Roller Derby found herself at the center of an Internet publicity firestorm. Blogs, message boards and MySpace posts made their way to the farthest…
A holy place: You were never supposed to hear about Sanctuary Studios. The DIY space was designed from the ground up as an entirely atypical music venue because, well, it wasn’t technically a music venue to begin with. “It was a living situation-type thing,” co-owner Aaron Gonzalez says. He and…
When Jenny Lewis’ solo debut sashays its way into record stores this Tuesday, it will surely be smothered in stickers–“Lead singer of Rilo Kiley…you know, those cute indie-rock darlings who were recently signed to Warner Bros. Oh, and Jenny starred in the movies Troop Beverly Hills and The Wizard too.”…
This Oakland-based R&B singer spends plenty of time on her second album describing the indelible virtues of everlasting love. Example: “First Love,” a lush slow jam with fluttering electric guitar and tinkly Motown piano in which she flashes back “six days into spring where our story begins,” recounts her slow…
This outta-nowhere gem might have stayed in the mines had it not been pimped by one of the better music blogs out there, Womenfolk (www.womenfolk.net). The site offered a single tune from the disc–a lovely, catchy, haunting cover of Modest Mouse’s “Third Planet From the Sun”–but helpfully mentioned the entire…
The premise of the CD/DVD combo of White Limousine is that someone can first listen to the CD as “intended” and then fire up the DVD in a computer, load a special program and change or remix the album’s songs however they’d like. It’s either a gimmick to hype the…
If it were 1978, Mute Math would definitely be called a “skinny tie band.” With obvious influences in the Police and, um, the Fixx, this New Orleans foursome thankfully updates its sound with ambient textures and some kinetic psych-pop songwriting. Heralded on several religious websites (uh-oh), the songs on their…
