Just a few feet from the train tracks that run through Denton’s industrial district is a club that recalls the college town’s rough-and-tumble early days of DIY music venues. Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios was a place that welcomed the experimental, the eccentric, the talented and the uninhibited. In its heyday,…
They come from an enchanted forest where cheeseburgers grow on trees, milkshakes flow like rivers and french fries blossom in the morning sun. They look like possessed mascots from a demented clown’s playland, destroying the stage much like their musical inspiration, Black Sabbath, did off and on for 50 years…
When Flogging Molly arrives in Irving to play the Toyota Music Factory Aug. 13, fans of the long-running band will be treated to the group’s trademark mix of Celtic-inspired arrangements of punk-infused rock. They’ll also be greeted by an artist more at peace, more centered, and just all around happier,…
The Green Elephant in Dallas was turned into a psychedelic music festival, just for one night. Los Angeles-based record label ILLUZYN coordinated a two-stage rabbit hole adventure called ESCAPISM, that ran as smooth as some major music festivals. ILLUZYN representative Vladimir Calise says that he and his partners wanted to…
On Wednesday, we published a concert review of New Orleans hip-hop duo $UICIDEBOY$, who played Toyota Music Factory on a quasi-touring festival called Grey Day Tour, which meshed both hip-hop and hardcore punk acts. There was a rather noticeable stylistic contrast, but each act earned a positive and lively reception…
At least half of the acts on this list have released new music in the last year, so make sure you’re up to date before you head out to a concert this week. Uji, a nomadic electronic producer and multi-instrumentalist, just released his debut solo album Alborada a year ago. The…
Summer rolls on and the heat is rising. Back to school, though, is fast approaching. As such, make sure you’re setting aside some free time from studying or making babysitting plans, because the concerts are rolling in. We’ve got a big show at American Airlines Center, a chart-topping rapper coming…
Pop music has long made heartbreak hummable, but making it a feeling worth savoring? That’s a bit tougher to pull off. Yet Carly Rae Jepsen did just that Thursday night throughout her 90-minute headlining set at the House of Blues. In her first Dallas-area appearance in three years, the 33-year-old…
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…
