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…
On Thursday, the Dallas Museum of Art will honor the life and legacy of the Thin White Duke himself, Mr. David Bowie. Every second Thursday, the DMA hosts an event titled “Second Thursdays with a Twist,” an occasion during which the Arts District staple modifies its programming and interactive experience…
If you were a season ticket holder for the Dallas Cowboys this year, you have my deepest sympathy. It may not have been the worst season in the franchise’s history, but the campaign to an 8-8 finish still felt abysmal and sad — like a wandering drunk who somehow finds…
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…
It’s the last month of the year, but these North Texas artists are ending it with a bang — songs so hot you’ll forget it’s winter. Yella Beezy ft. Ty Dolla $ign, “Ay Ya Ya Ya” While his Chris Brown-featured “Restroom Occupied” soars to platinum status, Yella Beezy doubles down…
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…
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…
Let’s face it, Christmas music can be a real drag. It’s not so much about the songs themselves, it’s the fact that we’ve heard them all before, every year, for years and years on end. While there will always be a place for the nostalgia of those traditional Christmas songs,…
We all know Dallas is home to some pretty great musicians, but the rest of the country doesn’t always have the good sense to recognize it. But sometimes, word gets out. Here are 10 Dallas artists who made press appearances outside of Dallas: the good, the bad and the ugly…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Our city was graced this past week with the exuberant presence of an artist who has been rightfully missed. Dallas native turned New Yorker Dezi 5 returned to the city that raised him for a week packed full of musical merriment. In his time back, he graced various local stages…
The red carpet rolled out at Canton Hall on Tuesday evening for the 31st annual Dallas Observer Music Awards ceremony. The venue was buzzing with excitement from the moment the doors opened, letting in lines of fur, sequins, leather and oh so many accessories. There’s no doubt it was the…
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…
Daniel Markham put out a new single, and it’s like nothing he’s done before. “Don’t it Feel Good” debuted recently, heralding Markham’s return from the studio with a new album, Burnout. The track is a nod to 1990s grunge with a riff that chugs like Weezer and bites like Alice…
The Dallas-based Big Ass Brass Band has become known in the Dallas music scene for the energy and joy they bring to the stage.
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…
I had never listened to Jagged Little Pill in its entirety until last Friday, and my thoughts about it already felt like a Reductress headline “Man Discovers Alanis Morissette For the First Time 25 Years Later.” I hope I will get some leeway as a black man for being late…
One young woman from Waxahachie has gained national fame for singing cover songs in a parking garage after becoming an American Idol reject. Emma Oliver, 21, now has more clarity than ever before on what she can achieve through her music. At 16, she sang her way onto the Dallas…
