When Woodstock took place in ’69, big music festivals were a rare and special thing. Today, nearly every major city has a generous handful of annual festivals representing a variety of genres. Dallas-Fort Worth has Spillover, 35 Denton, Oaktopia, Lights All Night, Homegrown Fest, Untapped, JMBLYA, and that’s not close…
On a Friday afternoon in October 1991, 33-year-old Don Nedler was handed the keys to the building located at 2424 Swiss Ave. after paying $12,000 for first and last month’s rent. This weekend, the business he built there, Lizard Lounge, will celebrate 25 years as a mecca for Dallas’ rave and…
On any given night, Mike Brooks can usually be found prowling from concert venue to concert venue with a set of cameras around his neck, working to capture the evening’s music highlights on film. We spoke with Brooks, who frequently shoots for the Observer, on the smoking patio of The…
This week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit held by Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) to continue building on a section of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux tribe land in South Dakota. However, two Fort Worth benefit concerts intended to raise money for the tribe…
For the past 15 years, RC Williams has been a musical director, producer and keyboardist for Erykah Badu. He’s also become an avatar for music scene in Dallas. In November he released his sophomore record, called The Feel, with his band the Gritz. With the album, Williams meant to capsulize…
Justin Gabrielli does things all the way or he doesn’t do them at all. The musician-producer scrapped more than 30 of his songs under his new indie-trap project DRIP and started from scratch, because he wasn’t sure the feel was right. It’s kind of shocking until you consider the way…
After Saturday’s Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase brought out hordes of well-heeled music lovers to Deep Ellum for memorable performances by 88 Killa, Mothership, Field Guide, Cygnus, Sealion and more than 40 other Dallas favorites, the awards ceremony at the Bomb Factory Tuesday decided which acts had made the strongest…
Joe Walker has about two and half decades behind the decks and he’s still very much a devotee of the art of mixing vinyl. His knowledge of club music is encyclopedic, backed up by his own mammoth-sized vinyl collection. For this week’s mixtape, Walker is performing under his Jon Wang…
Nick Valensi hadn’t planned to start another band. As the guitarist for the Strokes, who could blame him? But as band members Julian Casablancas and Albert Hammond Jr. began to invest more time in their solo careers, Valensi found himself with more free time than he liked. “A couple years…
You might not always get what you want in this world, but Tuesday night at the Dallas Observer Music Awards the Dallas music community got a whole lot of what it needed. As the Observer honored local artists for the 28th year running at The Bomb Factory, handing out awards…
The Grammys are routinely slagged and often called an irrelevant pep rally for a music industry in decline. But when an awards ceremony that is broadcast to millions worldwide recognizes acts from our own neck of the woods, it’s still nice to see. It means other local acts will get…
It’s November 2012 and John Stewart has just uploaded a remastered version of Danger Mouse’s legendary The Grey Album to SoundCloud. In a matter of hours it’s gone viral; glowing receptions litter the internet, from blogs to top shelf music publications and magazines. But something about the original never sat…
Denton-based hip-hop artist and magician Ritchy Flo spent the bulk of this year resting after writing, producing, recording and mixing his double album D.I.C.K., an onslaught of music, comedy and magic videos, completely by himself in 2015. But he’s about to come back onto the scene with a new album, and…
How incredible would it be if dogs were toilet trained? There would be no getting up, putting on their leash and being forced to go outside for “fresh air” or whatever the preferred euphemism. Denton musician Ace Hampton and his dog aren’t quite there, but almost. Hampton’s dog, Pablo, at…
Flickering lines jump and crawl across the faces of a trio of darkwave musicians at RBC as Evan Henry is on deck with his analog video electronics. He manipulates the video art in real time and projects it onto the stage, bathing the band, Troller, in colorful abstract light. An…
In the perpetual hot today/cold tomorrow world of the nightlife industry, party themes are a common way to carve out a niche. But few have been able to garner the cult-like following of the All/Everything Sunday night series at RBC, which launched in February. If you don’t believe the hype,…
In September Blue, the Misfit hosted a listening party for his upcoming album Perfect Night For A Funeral at Dallas’ Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. It was the type of grand, first-of-its-kind event befitting of an artist who has always operated outside of the norm. In the sold-out theater of invited guests…
In recent years, Kelcy Warren, the billionaire CEO of Energy Transfer Partner, has been best known for building fun things. In 2007 it was folk label Music Road Records; four years later, it was a music festival on his property in Cherokee, Texas; and in 2012 it was the popular downtown…
For the past nine years, DJ Soi has been carving out his niche in the Dallas scene as part of the Faded Deejays. Rooted in a diverse musical background, Soi has grown into more of an open format DJ with a funky twist. For this week’s short but action-packed mix,…
Preparations for the 2016 Dallas Observer Music Awards are getting into the home stretch. Voting for this year’s ballot wraps up at the end of the week, and the showcase takes place this Friday. Then, come Tuesday, it all comes to a grand finale with the awards ceremony. But what,…
Six Shooter is a recurring feature where we highlight six new releases by North Texas-based musicians. It’s easy to give thanks when the North Texas music scene is so obscenely rich with diverse talent. This month’s new music came from famed local instrumentalists, avant-garde rappers, thrash-metal stalwarts, tongue-in-cheek country stars…
Shamar Willis took a big risk when he quit his corporate job to pursue his childhood dream of working in the music industry. But less than two years later, he has a successful business, Legna Entertainment, to show for it. Willis grew up in Dallas without much in the way…
