Damoyee Janai’s Songwriting Is an Exercise in Self-Discovery

We open on a coffee shop two days after Christmas in a city clinging to the last vestiges of the season. Christmas music rises in the background as the camera centers on film composer Damoyee Janai, a songwriter with impeccable posture. Dance is one of the mediums she ditched in…

Food Porn: The Best Songs Using Food as a Metaphor for Sex

While food and sex may be on different tiers on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they are two things that most everyone loves. In pop culture, the movie 9 1/2 Weeks popularized the pairing of food and sex, while Seinfeld’s George Costanza nearly managed to turn us off from it completely…

These Machines Are Winning Return with a Literally Explosive New Video

Counting from 2012, you’d be very hard-pressed to locate a more artistically ambitious project in the North Texas music sphere than These Machines Are Winning. Led by veteran Dallas rockers Dylan Silvers, Ryan Hartsell and Blake McWhorter, the group is really hard to define, at least in typically simplistic music…

5 Holiday Songs for the Sad Santa Types

Christmas music tends to generally fall along the merry and bright end of things. Songs of joy and happiness fill the airwaves, and everyone feels that fond glow of happiness nestled all snug in the soul. But it’s worth remembering — nay, embracing — the more melancholy sounds of the…

The Late Daniel Johnston Is Being Honored at The Kessler on Friday

The beloved Texas-based songwriter and artist, Daniel Johnston, left this world back in September. But the influence his work has had on music and art will keep him alive forever. This Friday, several acts will take the stage at The Kessler for a Johnston tribute show, ensuring the fire behind…

Medicine Man Revival’s Long-Awaited Album Is a Thank You to Dallas

How far can you get by creating with your friends? This is the question that motivates the members of Medicine Man Revival. A belief in each other’s talents and those of their fellow Dallas musicians inspired them to start their eclectic, electrifying band in 2015, and has been driving them to…

Top 10 Worst Songs by Really Great Artists

In the spirit of our “Top 10 Best Songs by Really Bad Artists” piece that ran earlier this week, we thought it was only fair to point out that some indubitably fantastic artists also have songs that are rather terrible. Yes, it happens to the best of us, and as…

Life’s a Party for DJSC, the Exclusive Dallas Cowboys DJ

DJSC has partied at every Dallas Cowboys home game for the last 10 seasons. Why? Because it’s his job. His real name is Brandon Williams, but his larger-than-life persona could be best understood by the fact that the DJ moniker he picked for himself stands for DJ Sexual Chocolate. Williams…

Move Over, Mariah: Celine Dion Is the True Queen of Christmas

If you have yet to see God and learn what it feels like to witness her in all of her preternatural, eternal glory, then presumably you have not listened to a Celine Dion Christmas album. Christmas music is a subgenre so replete with artless drivel, so seeping with sugar-drenched rehashes…

The 2019 Dallas Observer Music Award Winners

You know what they say: It’s an honor just to be nominated. And sometimes cliches stick around for a reason, as was the case with our 31st Dallas Observer Music Awards, which took place Tuesday night and weren’t so much about the awards themselves but a celebration of artistry, the…

Jack Barksdale Is Back with His Single ‘Man in the Shadows’

Jack Barksdale, the 12-year-old powerhouse blues-Americana singer-songwriter, is back with his new single “Man in the Shadows” and a music video to boot. The song, Barksdale says, is about the internal conflicts people have within themselves. “Some of these are more serious than others,” Barksdale says. “I wanted to record…