Like the beast it’s named after, Atlanta’s Mastodon is fairly ugly and makes a hell of a racket. In just over a decade, the band has released five albums and each has been better than the last, culminating in 2011’s The Hunter. Speaking from the tour bus and in anticipation…
Last night, Dresden Dolls singer Amanda Palmer was in town, mixing her new album with the ubiquitous John Congleton. Not only did she do a Violitionist Session with Neil Gaiman (yes, Neil Gaiman was in Denton, let that sink in), she also donated money to Girls Rock Dallas. They’ve declared…
Remember just last month, when were were asking bands to submit demos to be part of Homegrown Fest? Remember when I proposed that instead of a musical battle, bands actually had to physically battle for favor? Oh, memories. Well, we’ve narrowed Rock the Park down to the top eight, four…
Good RecordsIt’s hard to beat Good Records’ yearly Record Store Day celebration. They always manage to put a solid lineup together, but this one trumps any from years past. Thanks to Sunday’s Edgefest, Good’s Chris Penn was able to procure performance slots for Ting Tings, Civil Twilight and Switchfoot, along…
Hugely influential on the local metal scene, Rigor Mortis’ violent live performances throughout the mid-to-late-’80s are the stuff of legend. Vocalist Bruce Corbitt was fired in 1989 and the band was never the same. Luckily, after a 20-year cooling off period, the original line-up has been playing reunion shows since…
Brooklyn via Southern California band Delta Spirit have certainly spread their wings over the course of three studio albums. Managing to go from the lo-fi, alt-country stylings of their 2008 debut, Ode to Sunshine, to their new, shimmering, self-titled offering while still sounding very much like the band that banged…
Moving from Tennessee to London proved fairly easy for Nathan Nicholson of The Boxer Rebellion. After losing his mother in 2000, he hightailed it across the pond and quickly formed a band. Speaking from a tour stop in Austin and in anticipation of tonight’s show at Dada, Nicholson talked about…
On Friday afternoon, clubs editor Daniel Hopkins played a fun game called How Many Promoters Does It Take To Confirm An At The Drive-In Show, and I believe the tally was three by day’s end. As the weekend progressed, social media confirmed that the El Paso band’s whereabouts on Tuesday…
There aren’t a whole lot of venues like Fort Worth’s 1919 Hemphill anymore: all ages, volunteer-run, existing on donations, bringing in great hardcore and punk bands, maintaining a library of zines. A true community venue built on support and common ground, one that encourages discourse. The motto, writ large on…
On and off, for nearly three decades, Brent Best has fronted Slobberbone, arguably the best alt-country act to emerge from the local scene. Beginning in the mid-’90s, the group produced a series of albums that culminated in 2000’s Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today, which remains a landmark…
So many got to know former Dallas Cowboys assistant coach Joe Avezzano as a hard-nosed, foul-mouthed, award-winning special-teams coach during his days roaming football sidelines, which began in 1968 and ended yesterday, after Avezzano died of an apparent heart attack while in Italy coaching the Seamen Milano of the Italian…
Led by the energetic and enigmatic Riley Gale, Dallas metal-punk trio Power Trip has been stuck in a creative lull since releasing the killer Armageddon Blues EP back in 2010. However, since changing drummers and getting the guitarist to commit full time, Power Trip is once again forging ahead, having…
Remember when the city was divided into two sides and it was all East side versus West side? Just when you thought that violent feud was over, BAM, East Dallas hits hard with the first ever East Dallas Indie Crawl. The bar-hopping event starts at the AT&T Performing Arts Center,…
Oak Cliff’s Foundry, built into the space of previous bar Jack’s Backyard, is quickly becoming one of the coolest venues in town. Thing is, it hasn’t even had a show yet. This weekend, a Rockers vs. Mods party will remedy that.On Saturday, Sleezy Mancini, The Black Dotz, Missile and The…
Sitar virtuoso Anoushka Shankar, daughter of legendary sitar master Ravi Shankar and half-sister to North Texas’ Norah Jones, is an extraordinary talent who lets her inventive work introduce her vision. Shankar sees a wide, blank canvas from which to work, using regional and sonic traditions as mere suggested guidelines. Whether…
The term battle of the bands is sort of an antiquated one, yes? I mean, bands are battling every day to keep their heads above water on the Internet, to get their music to the people (and, in turn, to get people to come see their music), to keep the…
The all-Texas lineup for the third annual Homegrown Fest is quickly expanding, with the addition today of Austin’s Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and The Bright Light Social Hour, plus the Ticket’s own George Dunham. Add those names to a roster including Hayes Carll, Robert Ellis, Octopus Project, Centro-matic,…
Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius, is a talented, young singer-songwriter who has made quite a mark with his sophomore effort, Put Your Back N 2 It. However, the release was not without controversy. Perfume Genius’ 16-second ad for the new album was deemed inappropriate by YouTube because it featured the…
Bands that mash up several genres can produce some amazingly unique music as well as some unadulterated shit. New York’s Mindless Self Indulgence is quite capable of doing both within the same song. For nearly 15 years, Jimmy Urine and crew have created what they like to call industrial jungle…
Since the 2005 release of his modern outlaw coming-out party, Put the “O” Back In Country, Shooter Jennings has proudly waved the banner his mother and father, Jesse Colter and Waylon Jennings, had helped design decades ago. After the surprising release of his 2010 concept album, Black Ribbons, Jennings collected…
Ah, yes. So much synergy happens during SXSW. If you’ve been on the Austin festival circuit in the last six months or so, you may have noticed Christian Bale at Austin City Limits, where he played bongos with Fleet Foxes, or Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara at Fun Fun Fun…
Chuck Ragan returns to Dallas tonight with the fifth annual Revival Tour, and the co-frontman of Hot Water Music will share the stage with Dan Andriano from Alkaline Trio and Tom Gabel from Against Me!, as well as Mississippi songwriter Cory Branan. In the midst of remodeling the bathroom in…
