New Amerykah Named In USA Today And Pitchfork Best of ’08 Lists

Hotel guests across the country will see Dallas’ own Erykah Badu named among the artists in USA Today’s critic’s picks for top albums of 2008. Edna Gunderson named New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War as the No. 5 album of the year, describing it as “Gutsy, inventive, deeply felt…

Roy G. And The Biv Offers Up Its Favorites Albums Of The Year

Jason Janik Denton electro-dance act (by way of Boston) Roy G. and The Biv–which, in terms of abundant coverage and love, has pretty much been Quick’s answer to our Mount Righteous–has offered up its choices of the top ten albums of 2008 to the Stark Magazine blog (the same blog…

The Orphanage Benefit: Same Show, Different Order

In the print edition of the Observer this week, I previewed Saturday’s top notch bill of local acts at Double Wide who are playing to benefit the Fort Worth adoption agency The Gladney Center. Well, Danny Balis, co-host of The Orphanage, the weekend radio show on 1310 KTCK-AM The Ticket,…

Fight Bite Enters The Year-End List Battle Royale

Stumbled across a couple sites this afternoon that name drop Fight Bite’s Emerald Eyes as one of the year’s tops–including this blog from Stark Magazine which drops the disc in at the No. 43 slot on its year-end Top 50. And, in other good news, Jeff Louis and Leanne Macomber’s…

More Dual Hawks Love (Kinda). And This Time, From Overseas!

Ah, the joys of year-end lists: Reading up on your own personal favorite records of the year, seeing where they rank on others’ lists, finding out what others’ thoughts on those discs are…Well, OK, sometimes it’s not that easy.Today, a blog called Secretly Belgian checks in to name Centro-matic/South San…

The Chat Room Pub Announces 2009 Shows

Chat Room Pub barkeep Ben Rogers (on the left in the inserted picture, with owner Brad Hensarling) just updated the schedule for the bar and occasional music venue. Booked so far for 2009 are headliners History at Our Disposal, Musee Mecanique, Mount Righteous, “Danny Doyle” (I’d guess that means Daniel…

MTV Names New Amerykah The 9th Best Disc Of ’08`

Considering that I’ve only seen eight of the 25 artists mentioned in MTV’s year-end best albums list (Kanye West, Lil Wayne, No Age, Death Cab, Vampire Weekend, Panic At The Disco, MGMT, Coldplay) actually have their viddeos played on MTV or sister network VH1, you’ve gotta imagine that, for 17…

Who’s The Odd Man Out In The Lil Wayne Concert Lineup?

We’ve been privy to the Lil’ Wayne concert for a while now, but only recently did I start hearing radio drops for it that announce who else would be sharing the stage with him: Keyshia Cole (OK), T-Pain (I can see that), and Gym Class Heroes (WTF)? Not taking anything…

Ben Curtis’ School Of Seven Bells Get Some Stereogum Love

Former Tripping Daisy member, Secret Machine and Dallasite Ben Curtis and his new bandmates in School of Seven Bells are at the receiving end of some fine love today from the folks at Stereogum, who are featuring SVIIB in the debut of a new video performance feature called Decomposed, in…

Dual Hawks Eyes Another Year-End List

More proof that Centro-matic/South San Gabriel’s Dual Hawks is, truly, among the year’s best releases (as has already been implied elsewhere): The influential I Am Fuel, You Are Friends blog has included the disc in its write-up on the site’s favorite albums of the year. Sayeth IAF,YAF: “This album was…

MTV Brings Us The Year In JoBromances

MTV News this morning has a delightful little feature looking back on the year that was 2008–in Jonas Brothers romances. Seems Westlake’s own abstinence-pledging JoBros have had themselves quite the year in love, having been seen about town with tween music starlets Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift, among…

More Gift Ideas: ‘Tis the Season for Reissues

Still looking for that perfect gift for the music lover in your family? Well, the holiday season is traditionally a time when compilations, box sets and reissues flood the marketplace–and this year is no exception. What is exceptional, however, is the surprising high quality of this year’s re-issue crop. Here…