If you want to see both Broken Social Scene and the Stars, two of Canada’s hottest indie-rock darlings, then you better hope DART builds a super-speed rail line in the next few days. On Friday, the Stars are opening for Death Cab for Cutie at the Ridglea Theatre in Fort…
“I’VE GOT A THROAT INFECTION, WHICH MAKES SINGING A BIT OF A PROBLEM,” writes David Gray. “TO BE HONEST IT’S A TOTAL DOWNER.” With his Dallas concert a week away, I should’ve taken Gray’s request for a written interview as an omen of bad things to come. Instead, I jump…
The world is full of inexplicable events. The 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey victory, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Rob Schneider’s film career–you know, things you never thought you’d see. Here’s another, and it’s pretty personal: I kind of enjoy Tommy Lee. It’s perplexing, because everything Mr. Lee has done…
One of the best things about hate mail is when angry readers get upset about a band that I’ve lauded repeatedly. “Why do you go on and on about Record Hop, The Tah-Dahs and Man Factory when you could talk about a real band like Feces Frank and the Porcelain…
Bullets over Broadway: Two months ago, we reported that Undeniable Records, the local imprint behind the 2005 Dallas Observer Best Of-winning albums by The Happy Bullets and The Tah-Dahs, was going national, baby. More precisely, they teamed up with national publicity firm Team Clermont to spread the word as the…
Depeche Mode’s new album begins with a bang–15 seconds of harsh, grinding, construction-site screech seemingly designed to quell suspicions that these dance-rock elders have been softened by age and irrelevance. You can hardly begrudge them their determination; since 2001, when the trio released Exciter, their moody synth-pop moves have been…
To think, the music industry had a potential super-genre to milk and didn’t jump all over it. The suits who oversaturated our ears with boy bands, rap-rock and grunge had an opportunity to do the same with revitalized country singers after Johnny Cash’s successful American series, but it’s probably better…
Three Houston veterans–Mike Jones, Slim Thug and Paul Wall–helped our not-so-neighbors in southern Texas slowly invade the rap world in 2005. But Mike Jones dropped the ball with a platinum-selling (but notoriously redundant) CD, and Slim Thug’s album, though one of the best of the year, lost its Texas shine…
Poorly recorded with oddly muffled vocals and an overemphasized, enthusiastic audience, Jackson Browne’s late-in-the-game “unplugged” recording will come as a shock to all who thought the well-tanned West Coast icon had retired or simply become irrelevant. At 57, Browne brings a morose sense of purpose to 12 songs spanning his…
Every few years, 90.1 At Night’s Paul Slavens charms local music fans with a special movie-related concert that would make even Cameron Crowe blush. With the help of local rockers from bands like Baboon, Mission Giant and local American Idol favorite Daron Beck, Slavens puts on infrequent live performances of…
It’s not everyday that the biggest living legend in Texas music plays on the street in downtown Dallas, but this Friday, Willie Nelson will do just that during the Chevy Speed Stampede, a free event coinciding with this weekend’s NASCAR races at Texas Motor Speedway. The Whiskey River will flow…
For Spune Productions’ second woman-focused showcase, local music kingpin Lance Yocom has extended his space-rock arms not only outside his favorite genre but also his favorite city. Three stand-out Austin bands lead the way in this must-see concert, starting early in the evening with the incredibly surreal One Umbrella, an…
No doubt, gentle reader, reports of violence elicit in you the appropriate sense of sympathy for the victim. Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, however, has pleaded no contest to two charges of misdemeanor battery against the Dwarves’ Blag Dahlia, the singer known for drunken 15-minute shows, sexist cover…
“I’m the motherfuckin’ Bill O’Reilly of this hip-hop shit,” Sage Francis claims on A Healthy Distrust, his first release from punk staple Epitaph Records. He may not be too far off the mark. With a journalism degree and a passion for political wordplay, Francis has seamlessly combined aggressive battle rhymes…
If turntables outsell electric guitars and everyone and their mother is a DJ, then what exactly sets the Terry Mullans of the world apart? Hailing from Chicago’s fervent dance scene is a start, as Mullan was exposed from an early age to true dance originators such as Farley “Jackmaster” Funk…
“With music, you think it’s a young man’s game,” local country crooner Darryl Lee Rush says. “But at 39, it’s like I can finally make some moves.” With his graying beard and receding hairline, Rush looks more like a middle school teacher than a country up-and-comer, but his dark eyes…
At the Dallas Observer, we can’t always speak with big stars, but that doesn’t stop us from conducting interviews with them. Here, with the help of every U2 album’s liner notes, is an interview with Bono himself. Sort of. Dallas Observer: Good afternoon, Bono. Bono: Hello, hello. DO: Why are…
It’d be pretty easy to have a laugh or two at Daryl Hall & John Oates’ expense. After all, the band (they insist they’re not a duo) hasn’t had a big hit in at least a decade, and in the wake of Internet cult hits like “Yacht Rock” (go on,…
Put that copy of “The Monster Mash” away, Pops. We hate when backyard haunted house organizers bore kids’ ears on Halloween with cheesy sound effects and campy songs. Instead, why not scare the Father, Son and Holy Ghost out of the little buggers? Create a truly haunted house with these…
Because I was an ’80s kid, MTV glowed in the background for many of my most formative moments. The first time I bonded with my father was while watching Robert Palmer’s “Addicted to Love” video together. My first taste of rebellion came in kindergarten when I stayed up late and…
Deep Trouble: On Friday, October 14, the Entertainment Collective, owners of Gypsy Tea Room, Trees, Jeroboam and the Green Room, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Chapter 11 allows a company to continue operating while it reorganizes to repay its creditors (rather than, say, sell off the trees inside of Trees),…
Rogue Wave’s Out of the Shadows was last year’s great indie-pop debut–a bittersweet album of ’60s-inspired pop ideal for melodists and English lit students who had gone too long between Shins albums. It was the work of one man–Oakland’s Zach Rogue (born Zach Schwartz), who recorded the album before even…
