Incredibly, it has been 35 years since on Joey “Shithead” Keithley got together with a few other Canadian punk rockers and formed D.O.A. Playing a mixture of the Sex Pistols and The Ramones, Shithead and his revolving array of sidemen became a fixture on the West Coast American punk scene…
Dallas is in for a techie treat with upcoming concerts by two of hip-hop’s most promising internet by-products: Childish Gambino (March 7 at South Side Ballroom) and Vic Mensa (February 1 at House of Blues). With Gambino’s release of Because the Internet and Mensa’s full-length solo debut, Innanetape, 2013 introduced…
Country singer/songwriter Jason Eady is one fascinating guy. Not only did Eady perform secret missions for the Air Force, he did so after spending two years learning Arabic. After leaving the military, Eady picked up a guitar and started making some seriously fine Americana music. From his home in Granbury…
One of the must-see shows this week is happening tonight at the Kessler. Pleasant Grove will headline and Crushed Stars will debut material from their excellent new record, Farewell Young Lovers. We caught up with PG members Jeff Ryan and Marcus Striplin on the band’s history, their best and worst…
Besides Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, no other band is as synonymous with the glory days of Deep Ellum as Ten Hands. Beginning in 1986, the group quickly garnered a solid local following that has not diminished in three decades. Although Ten Hands formally stopped playing in the mid ’90s,…
If you were to listen the intro to “The Ceiling,” the song that’s garnered some serious praise for Los Angeles-based The Wild Feathers, you might quickly – and prematurely – assume that the fresh-faced five-piece act is yet another entry into the Mumford-fueled folk-rock revival. Of course, after listening to…
Metal has always had a natural fit with fantastical landscapes that look like they were crafted by the hand of Frank Frazetta. The Fort Worth metal group The Hack and Slashers, however, don’t live in a world that looks perfectly suited for a custom painted van in the ’80s or…
Sort of, kind of a local band, This Will Destroy You tour so incessantly that it’s hard to determine where these guys are from. Two band members live in Austin, one is in Waxahachie and one hails from Dallas. Wherever they are from, This Will Destroy You has never had…
Fresh off the January 14 release of their awaited sophomore album, Darkest Hours, Dallas’ premier folk rock collective, Fox & the Bird, opened their melodic minds to the Dallas Observer about the band’s collaborative Texas sound, juggling life as part-time musicians, and how shadowy realities can still shine with harmonious…
Todd Gautreau of Crushed Stars wouldn’t be a natural choice to star in an indie-rock reimagining of the sentimental 1989 Kevin Costner hit film, Field of Dreams. As Ray Kinsella, a failing farmer with daddy issues, Costner’s character blindly followed a random, ghostly voice telling him that “If you build…
Whether fronting Bravo, Max! or going solo, local singer/songwriter Johnny Beauford has a lot to say and a very pretty way of saying it. Over the course of six years, this Winspear Opera House bartender has made his way into three different local acts while still finding time to release…
It’s less than an hour’s drive from Palestine, Texas to the World’s Rose Capital, Tyler, Texas. Both are considered to be the “Big City,” for the folks living outside of their borders. Though that Dogwood-scented pocket of East Texas isn’t a Metropolis by most standards, there’s a great deal of…
St. Vincent marches on towards the February release date of her self-titled fourth album. “Digital Witness,” the second release from the album ahead of its release, came out last week and the more we listen to it the more we need to play it again. Annie Clark, St. Vincent herself,…
The definitive music critic poll, Pazz & Jop, has just released its 2013 rankings. Started in 1971 by The Village Voice, the poll collects year-end rankings from hundreds of writers — this year there were 457 voters. Kanye West won the album category for the fourth time, while Daft Punk’s…
Since the early 1980s, Barrence Whitfield & the Savages have been pummeling audiences across the globe with a fiery mix of R&B, soul, funk and rock. Known for his over the top stage presence, Whitfield enjoys turning concerts into physical therapy sessions. The recently issued Dig Thy Savage Soul is…
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Justin Timberlake exposing a little too much of Janet Jackson’s body during a halftime Super Bowl performance. It seems like it has taken that long for the producers of the Super Bowl to feel safe about booking modern performers again. Aside from MIA…
There was still bubble wrap on the rafters and plastic over the doorway at the 3619 Greenville Avenue last night, but it was still easy to see what the newest bar from some familiar faces will become. “It’s just a neighborhood bar with snappy background decor,” says owner John Kenyon…
Yesterday, an announcement was made that The Toadies’ major label debut, Rubberneck, will be reissued in April on Kirtland Records. Remastered for CD and vinyl with five unreleased bonus tracks, this is obviously a pretty big deal for longtime fans of the band. The band will head out on an…
This music blog takes its name from the opening line of Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Dallas,” a song written in the early ’70s and recorded most famously by his trio with Joe Ely and Butch Hancock, The Flatlanders. Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night? On Monday, after…
Los Angeles’ Bad Suns formed in 2012 and have quickly made commercial inroads via a couple of nice EPs produced by Eric Palmquist. Blending post punk influences from the late 80’s with a modern indie sensibility, the band is capable of channeling both The Clash and The Cure. From his…
When you walk into Books & More in north Denton, everything about the tiny-looking used-media shop comes as a surprise. “When I first went there, they had a bunch of comic books, I was a kid, and the lady there let me work there,” says Charles Wright, 22, a customer…
The eleven alternative weeklies of Voice Media Group are responsible for a tremendous amount of music writing: This year, we produced thousands of pages of printed stories and tens of thousands of blog posts. We’re proud to present the very best of that work in the second annual Voice Media…
