It was an overcast day in the spring of 2014, but everyone at the meeting was wearing sunglasses. Dave Howard and Pete Swulius, a pair of quiet software gurus, chose the recently opened Wild Detectives as the site for this unusual rendezvous. “It was a hit job,” Howard recalls. “And…
There are two ways in which one can be offensive: One is by causing a disturbance in a way that targets vulnerable people, and the other is by causing a disturbance in a way that targets power. Truly constructive and historically exonerated offensiveness is achieved with an implicit understanding of…
When Dierks Bentley was in Dallas just last year, he turned Dos Equis Pavilion inside out, entertaining a rowdy group of fans, the same kind of loyal followers who helped make the country artist a star with multiple No. 1 hits spread out over nine successful albums. Now, as he…
With a catalog as diverse as Beck’s, with its broad range of emotions from manic to maudlin, it was hard to predict the set that Dallas would receive this past Saturday night. With tour mates Cage the Elephant and special guests Wild Belle and Spoon attached to the bill, however,…
On Friday night, I was on assignment for a concert review at Toyota Music Factory, where Third Eye Blind, Jimmy Eat World and Ra Ra Riot performed. A fellow Dallas Observer music writer, Chelsey Norris, happened to be among the 8,000 people in the crowd, after which we conversed about…
There are plenty of top-dollar shows this week, but about half of them on this list are free. The “Spontaneous Song Generator” Paul Slavens will be doing his thing in Denton on Monday. On Tuesday, you can hop over to The Free Man Cajun Cafe & Lounge to see the small-band…
Frank Iero is a man of many names. Band names, that is. The former My Chemical Romance guitarist has always dabbled in side projects, even in the band’s heyday. But since the emo icons went their separate ways in 2013, Iero has been going at it alone. “I never set…
For this week’s batch of announcements, our area will receive a return visit from a local Grammy winner along with drop-ins from some punk veterans, soulful female singers and a couple of singer-songwriters. Read on for the details. News came in late last week that Texas native and Grammy Award-winning…
In between jokes about raucous rock orgies, memories of “mystical,” mushroom-fueled adventures and stories about onstage “fuck-ups,” the men of Kyoto Lo-Fi reflect on the peaks and valleys of the last few years. The late summer sun has descended on Bishop Manor, and the band is taking a break from…
Austin-born band Spoon will be releasing a compilation of their greatest hits, Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon. The album is a scrapbook of the last 25 years of Spoon’s career, which will delight old fans and serve as a road map for new fans discovering the band…
It’s difficult to listen to commercial pop music with a critical mind, and that is said with no hint of irony. You would think that commercial pop’s mainstream accessibility and focus-grouped nature would make artists of the genre easy to evaluate, but if anything, the corporate nature of such music…
By now, you’re a little past the half-way mark and just need to survive another month of summer. Well, that still calls for a celebration, a week-long celebration full of live music. Shawn Mendes can help you get the party started at American Airlines Center. Afterwards, if you’re trying to save some…
Jack White continues to show much love for Dallas. Fresh off appearances last year at The Bomb Factory, his well-attended charity baseball game with The Ticket and his ongoing involvement with bat company Warstic, the singer-guitarist is heading back this way with The Raconteurs, his epic garage rock outfit. They’ll…
From her home in Oxford, Mississippi, the folk-blues, country-rock singer-songwriter Shannon McNally calls to talk about her latest album, Black Irish, produced by country music legend Rodney Crowell ahead of her upcoming show at Sons of Hermann Hall on July 26. Upon finding out her interviewer’s affinity for punk rock…
Indie folk-pop band The Head and the Heart is in a unique career stage: Too popular for the likes of Canton Hall and House of Blues, but not popular enough for some of the city’s larger venues. The Seattle sextet made camp at Toyota Music Factory on Friday for the…
Corpus Christi has Selena, Houston has Beyoncé, Dallas has Post Malone and El Paso has Khalid. And Khalid has El Paso, as he was recently presented with the key to the city. While Khalid is still fairly new to the pop music landscape, he’s already garnered himself a large following…
If you’re trying to make it to Sunday evening church service and also see some of the biggest acts in town this week, you might be a little busy. Inna Vision, Built To Spill, Korn and Alice in Chains are all rolling into town for North Texas performances that night…
Billie Eilish’s upcoming Dallas appearance highlights a busy week of new concert announcements. And, while that show is likely to draw masses to American Airlines Center this fall, there are a slew of other artists, both large and small, coming this way. Read ahead for the details. Billie Eilish is…
It’s a 2016 tour stop somewhere in Pennsylvania. Zach Deputy has the audience jiving to his one-man funk-jam show. Deputy plays the last tune, exits the stage, and an icon is standing there. It’s The Prime Minister of Funk, George Clinton, who says with a smile, “Hey! You dat boy…
For September Moon, music has produced a rippling, magnetic effect. Musicians Daniel Brown and Katherine Rublein met during a singer-songwriter competition in the Fort Worth Stockyards several years ago, and the 30-year-old newlyweds have been making music together ever since. “That’s how this whole band thing kind of came together,”…
Country artist Chris Young’s Raised on Country World Tour might not be prompted by the promotion of a new album, but when it makes its way to Dos Equis Pavilion on July 20, that won’t mean fans won’t have new songs to sing along to. “Raised on Country,” the song…
Sequels don’t have to suck, and New Found Glory has proved that with their latest collection of punk rock movie covers, From the Screen to Your Stereo 3. The Florida natives have been a band for over two decades, and their history of making movie covers goes back just as…
