Too bad David Gedge didn’t form his band in the Midwest in 1995 instead of 1985 in England, directly in The Smiths’ shadow. Maybe then he would have had a shot. Actually, there’s no maybe about it. Look at the career trajectory of The Promise Ring, and you’ll see what…
A white guy with a journalism degree, rapper Sage Francis is a writer and a rhymer. On his solo debut for Epitaph, a predominantly punk label, the New England native teams up with producer Danger Mouse (of Grey Album fame) for “Gunz Yo,” the first song to address hip-hop’s firearms…
“Seven Nights in Erie,” the standout track on this Austin quintet’s fine new release, makes explicit the connection between traditional Irish music and true hard-core honky-tonk. While singer Willy Braun applies his fine baritone, his brother Cody lays down a fiddle break so pristine you almost want to cry in…
San Diego’s Unwritten Law wears its drama on its tattered, beer-stained sleeve. Rehab, girl problems, band infighting–it’s all here. Maintaining cred is always an issue with a punk band, but UL has earned enough points with real-life exploits–heroin addiction, unceremoniously firing drummer Wade Youman last year–that it can get away…
You can play name-that-influence with this album till you’re blue in the face, but the first thing that sticks with me is the first song’s opening line: “It looked like a crime scene covered up with ice cream.” In the same way Interpol was forgiven for being Joy Division hacks…
Let me clear up a bias: I distrust the Dallas Music Festival. Bands compete with each other by selling tickets to earn high-profile time slots, and that, along with a lack of quality headliners (Drowning Pool, despite selling out, does not count), instantly puts a stink on the affair. But…
Front man Jonathan Meiburg’s vocals are so tender and delicate, it’s a wonder they even make it out of his mouth. Like a choirboy in the desert, Meiburg tells tales that are both innocent and lonely. Shearwater’s new EP Thieves continues the fragile and intricate trance folk of last year’s…
Indie rock thrives deep in the heart of Texas tonight. Centro-matic front man Will Johnson has more songs in him than bands to play them, and though Centro-matic’s current tour commemorates no newer album than 2003’s sweet, shaggy Love You Just the Same, you can bet on hearing your share…
Always be wary of those who throw around Hemingway and Raymond Carver in their bios, but McCombs’ dreamy and incisive pop nearly backs up his bravado. Sporting as large an ego and sense of melancholy as classic mopers Ian McCulloch and Morrissey, McCombs’ latest, PREfection, is overloaded with woe. Songs…
If you’ve been making lame excuses to avoid checking out the renovated Granada, then Friday’s amazing local bill should render your excuses null and void. To drive the point home, the lineup is so crowded with talent that Dallas mainstay Pleasant Grove is relegated to an opening slot. Arrive early…
Will Johnson, Midlake, Black Tie Dynasty, Record Hop and others are playing your birthday party–you’re either Seth Cohen or Good Records. To celebrate five years, GR is stepping up the usual family-style beer-and-burgers in-store with one hell of an expanded lineup. Start off at noon with Ashley Cromeens’ didn’t-mean-to-be-so-sexy-but-I-am voice…
With around 200 bands playing 18 stages over four days, the Dallas Music Fest may be the best organized and least interesting music festival around. That’s no surprise: The festival is the brainchild of John Michalak and Dan Bliss, the same out-of-town promoters who began the Cleveland Music Fest and…
With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, there’s really no better concert to take a sweetie to this weekend than Mates of State. On the flip side, there’s also no worse concert to attend if you’re lonely, single and bitter. The husband-and-wife duo–Jason Hammel on drums and Kori Gardner on keyboards–spin sad…
The American heartland has been unfairly deprived of its share of plainspoken, homegrown frat-dude acoustic-guitar troubadours. Good ones, I mean. Minnesota’s Mason Jennings aims to fix that: On his lovely Use Your Voice, he makes like a Midwestern Jack Johnson, singing simple, tuneful little ditties about lowercase concerns in a…
On Friday night, after Gourds singer/multi-instrumentalist Kev Russell inevitably belts out, “With so much drama in the LBC,” the crowd at Poor David’s will hoot and holler louder than they have for the rest of the Austin band’s set. It’s a damn shame that the band’s novelty hit, a countrified…
It takes a special kind of artist to be a karaoke superstar. It is not enough to sing well, although that helps. A karaoke superstar must own the stage; he must brand it with his name, make the crowd forget they have heard this song a gazillion times even as…
Austin’s Yuppie Pricks exist beyond the parameters of the never-ending “What is punk?” debate. While their music has much in common with the Buzzcocks and the Sex Pistols, their backgrounds and lyrics do not. According to their Web site, lead singer Trevor Middleton has an estimated worth of $30.5 million;…
The Wu-Tang Clan shouldn’t still exist. In an industry where today’s rap superstars become tomorrow’s MC Hammer, nine Staten Island MCs pulled off the impossible. They outlasted the three great pitfalls of modern hip-hop: ego battles, gang violence and, most important, irrelevance. Rappers worldwide would be wise to learn from…
Last Thursday, the nomination ballot for the 2005 Dallas Observer Music Awards went online. Since then, I’ve had several conversations like this: Me: Have you voted yet? Them: What are you talking about? Me: This year, we’re letting readers pick the nominations for the Observer Music Awards. Them: That’s interesting…
Aqueduct is where indie rock meets mainstream pop. The band (in the studio, it’s mainly Tulsa jack-of-all-trades David Terry, although other players join live) takes the now-revered sounds of ’80s synth bands and combines those with the guilty pleasures of MTV-friendly heavy metal. These songs are so catchy they make…
“Human hearts and pain should never be separate,” Jason Molina sings in “The Dark Don’t Hide It,” the first song on this live CD by his Bloomington, Indiana-based group Magnolia Electric Co. That’s a pretty handy crystallization of Molina’s work over the past decade, both with Magnolia and with Songs:…
When Sabina Sciubba, the only woman in the New York group that calls itself Brazilian Girls, sings, “I love the music on the radio/And this is how it goes,” you have to assume the radio she’s talking about is part crystal ball, because the instrumental break the band subsequently slips…
