Critic's Notebook

We were happy to see Pitchfork give the Polyphonic Spree a shout-out today, noting the Dallas band’s new single, a remix of “We Crawl,” off Tim D, et al’s latest disc The Fragile Army. — Jonanna Widner…

Dallas-based Deaf Pedestrians were played on prime time Tuesday night. The band’s song “Hail to the Geek” was featured in the new episode of the CW’s “Beauty and the Geek” (yeah that show with hot, but dumb women and socially awkward men). We’re happy for the Pedestrians. We’re scanning YouTube…

Fort Worth’s smartest, most animated, most illin’-est* hip-hop crew P.P.T. just sent out the video to its latest single, “Down South Girl,” from the group’s Idol Records release Tres Monos in Love. Waco hip-hop band Strange Fruit Project lent a huge hand to P.P.T. by producing the video and appearing…

Our much-loved locally-owned venue the Granada Theater just gave us even more reason to want to kiss owner Mike Schoder’s hemp shoes. The following is a MySpace bulletin sent via the Granada’s new MySpace page: How much do your friends care about you? Do you really know who your friends…

Sigh. We here at DC-9 would feel remiss if we didn’t post the just-breaking info about Kelly Clarkson’s new tour. And, rather than try to slather a thick layer of sarcasm on what really is already a parody, we figured we just be straight about it. So, Clarkson, according to…

Radiohead In Rainbows (Self-distributed) Conventional in every sense, save for how it was released: over the Internet, pay what you will, gratuities graciously accepted. It’s been a week since Radiohead’s smash-and-grab sale, and aside from wrecking the music biz with a disco ball and gold chain, all’s right with the…

Wow. I just stumbled upon a video of Dallas underground — way underground — MC Jimbo Jenkens flexing his crazy free-style skills. Aside from the rap itself, my favorite part is the occasional flash of the rake on the garage wall. According to his MySpace page, Jenkens is a poet,…

The Bat Mastersons’ Byron Lord and David DiPietro are welcoming guitarist Darrin Robinson (The Mumbles) into the group. The trio is rehearsing new tunes and, we’re told, will start playing shows in the Dallas area in the next few months. The Bat’s format isn’t going to be changing, though. The…

Rhino Records, that label I love to hate because they keep reaping the benefits of nostalgia by releasing expensive, retrospective box sets of, like, every genre you could think of, has released the self-explanatory Heavy Metal Box. I haven’t heard it, and probably won’t, but over at PopMatters.com Adrien Begrand…

I just got word about the Granada’s 2007 Halloween bash/costume contest, which takes place at 8 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 31 (duh!). It used to be called the Goth Ball, but this year the name has changed to Haunted Halloween Ball 2007, which is good because goth is so 1997. The…

…Does that mean Idolator is punching itself? I normally don’t read Idolator because I think they are snotty jerks. But tomorrow my cover feature on Interweb phenoms Ghosthustler comes out (ah, yes, I can already hear the swelling collective groan from little d music obsessives), and much of the story…

We just got a heads up that Cool Hand Luke had to cancel its Texas tour last-minute because of financial issues. So, anyone who was planning on hitting up the Cavern Saturday, Oct. 13, to see the band, may want to find something else to do. However, if the Cavern…

Ladies and gents, this is a touch navel-gazing, but we have a celebrity here in the office, (in our midst, folks!). We just can’t figure out which one. That’s where you come in. See, our Night & Day man (and frontman of the Naptime Shake), Noah W. Bailey resembles about…

Check out this interview with local-boy-made-good Ben Kweller (this time, sans tampon) at the 2007 ACL fest a couple weeks back (wait…a month back? Three weeks? Jesus, what day is it?). It’s cool and everything, especially the shoutout he gives to Club Dada, except looks like word never made it…

Another news quickie: New Club Dada co-owner Amanda Newman has confirmed that Sondre Lerche will be headlining a show there on November 15. Ticket info after the jump…

Not one but two DFW artists made the ol’ Pitchfork media Forkcast today. Check out Midlake performing “Roscoe” at Spune Productions’ Wall of Sound Fest, and then scroll down a bit to catch Ms. Annie Clark—St. Vincent, to the rest of the world—giving up a trio of fine video pieces…

So we go to lunch today at the venerable Cosmic Café, craving hummus and nan and other noshables, but we got a bonus we never expected. Seated at the front of the restaurant, near the water and tea pitchers, was accordion player Matt Tolentino. The baby-faced and witty guy serenaded…

Damn, y’all, Dallas has got me running around like a yardbird sans cabeza. I pounded the pavement last night, trying to catch bits of several shows in an attempt to expand my musical horizons. I figured I’d fill you in with a little rundown of the evening instead of reviews;…

I’m a little reluctant to say how new this video is since we got reamed for local band Radiant ending up on our Best New Artist ballot at this past summer’s music awards. We got it. They weren’t new. But seriously, how many of you knew them before the whole…

You’d be grinning, too, if you were were a doctor of music and artistic director of a chorale at 33. Maybe you’re slacking. We are. (Shawn Northcutt)New kid on the block Jonathan Palant is making his debut this Sunday, Oct. 7, as the artistic director of the Turtle Creek Chorale…

Hey kids, we saw this Midlake item awhile ago, but just now gettin’ around to el posto. Suffice to say: Midlake succumbs to MTV’s evil powers and give the TV crew a tour of Denton. (I saw this on Pegasus News, but I think Denton Rock City posted it first,…

Shitfuckfart! In all the koo-koo madness here at the funky Office Space-style digs we have here at the Observer (Yep, Wilonsky’s been Xeroxing his ass again. And then comparing it to the picture of Mark Cuban’s ass he keeps posting on Unfair Park. But that’s another story.), I lamely forgot…