“Two parts wimpy, one part atmospheric, a little dash of pastoral imagery…all that crap.” That’s how smart-aleck front man Dean Wareham describes Galaxie 500’s sound to an interviewer after a terrific 1990 in-studio performance taped for British television–one of the more engaging moments on this hit-or-miss two-DVD, four-hour visual documentary…
Austin’s Grand Champeen puts on such exciting rock concerts that they shame the band’s albums. Thus, it was a bit odd to hear singer-guitarist Channing Lewis open the show by saying, “We’ll be playing some new songs tonight. Not that any of y’all care.” Actually, the crowd did: Champeen fans…
It’s nearly 6 p.m. outside The Clubhouse–Dallas’ premier all-nude strip joint–and just in time for their nightly broadcast, two newscasters speak into their cameras: “Tonight a community gathers outside a local club to mourn the loss of metal legend ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott…” It’s a solemn note for a character known…
Critics loved to believe that Pantera made music for slack-jawed, beer-guzzling stereotypes. But in reality, I was the target demographic for the group–a wimpy, pissed-off 12 year-old in the suburbs. When I moved back to Dallas for middle school, the preppy kids quickly tagged me as the isolated nerd, and…
The shooting that occurred in Columbus, Ohio, last week isn’t as shocking as it is sickening. Ever since Lee Harvey Oswald took aim from a musty downtown book depository, modern society has been all too familiar with the effect of one man and his gun. Twenty-four years to the day…
For the record: Congratulations to Brave Combo, who received their sixth Grammy nomination in the Best Polka category for their new album Let’s Kiss. Their 25th anniversary album, Let’s Kiss contains such chestnuts as a polka version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” and the band’s indelible take on…
When you consider that he’s titled previous albums God’s Son and Nastradamus, it’s not terribly surprising to find that the latest by New York rapper Nas is a double disc called Street’s Disciple whose cover features the MC proudly occupying Jesus’ seat at a modestly bling-crusted Last Supper. Once you…
There is a great but untrue story of pre-Clash Joe Strummer going into a bar and spotting Graham Parker. Strummer says he saw the Sex Pistols a week before. Asked what he thought of the band, Strummer replies, “Whole new thing, man.” Hearing Devotchka provides the same exhilarating rush of…
In the spirit of Spune Productions, known for its diverse indie-rock catalog, Denton’s Silver Arrows were the perfect start to the promotion group’s Christmas concert. The genre-hopping quintet went all over the map–surf-rock, jazz, Latin, fluff-pop–but the catchy, punk-meets-Zappa mess came together so well, largely because of dual-lead guitar lines…
The only real thrill of Under Blackpool Lights, the Detroit blues-garage act’s first DVD, is getting a closer-than-normal look at the freaky faces Jack White makes when he’s singing. Over the course of these 26 tunes, filmed on a typically grainy stock at Blackpool’s cavernous Empress Ballroom, the singer-guitarist scowls,…
A month ago, the upcoming release of the new Wu-Tang Clan live DVD offered a glimmer of hope that the group might come back together. With the recent death of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, it instead exists as, quite possibly, the last piece of Wu-Tang Clan product we’ll ever see. Shot…
When I first heard Autolux’s Future Perfect, I checked the CD for a copyright date. 2004? No way. This album sounds trapped in Matador Records’ golden years, when FP’s slow semi-grunge would’ve fit somewhere between Pavement and Helium. Then again, Autolux has encountered many delays en route to this album,…
It looks like the end of the world in here. Technological debris is scattered all around–stacks of computer cases, cables that would stretch for miles if hooked end-to-end, hundreds of adapters, chips and motherboards–and Paul Slocum digs through the middle of it to find a keyboard controller for his second…
Personally, I’d like an iPod mini. One of those cute suckers, just $249 and the perfect gift from any aspiring local artist wanting to “get ahead.” (I prefer pink, by the way.) And yet, we can’t all afford such luxurious gifts for our favorite little music lover. Some of you…
Last weekend, I joined MySpace. It wasn’t easy. For weeks people had been telling me about the Web site, the latest trendy wasteland for college kids and computer nerds, but I’d resisted joining–part Internet cynicism, part contrarian nature, the same portion of me that refuses to watch The Sopranos. And…
If you haven’t been watching The Battle for Ozzfest–and unless your Monday night is as lame as mine, I assume you haven’t been–here’s an update: We’re seven episodes into the season, and Dallas’ Marc Serrano of A Dozen Furies is still going strong. The good news is that of the…
Gwen Stefani’s obsession with material wealth borders on the pathological on Love, Angel, Music, Baby, the No Doubt front woman’s solo debut: She has her “million-dollar contract,” she wants to “clean out Vivienne Westwood in my Galliano gown,” she’s “luxurious like Egyptian cotton.” This is tiresome rhetoric, particularly from someone…
Being at the fore of rap’s hottest trend comes with perks. Those perks can be found on Crunk Juice, Lil Jon’s fifth full-length, which features an A-list roster of rap superstars, including Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, Nas and R. Kelly. Lil Jon needs all the help he can get. His…
“I’ve been running out of stories/I’ve been stealing Tom Waits songs,” sings Canadian John Guliak on the title track of this thoughtful, funny and rootsy effort. With a voice recalling fellow countryman Leonard Cohen, Guliak fronts a large folk ensemble as his deep, gravelly tone expresses quiet, rural concerns. “I’ll…
To those who feel American Idol represents the worst aspects of the pop-music assembly line, Kelly Clarkson is just another Mariah Carey clone. But the Burleson girl’s rags-to-riches story tugs at the part of us that finds something endearing about high school show choir, about an earnest soloist burning with…
On the surface, much of Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth? is an album of electro-pop covers of punk songs from Drew Daniel–ex-punk rocker, current Björk collaborator and Matmos member, and button-pusher behind the Soft Pink Truth–that’s perfect for apolitical dance floors anywhere…
At any town meeting, you have your concerned citizens who speak from the podium and your rowdy folk hollerin’ from their seats. The same was true at Denton’s “One at a Time: A Singer/Songwriter Night,” considered by the latter to be an acoustic-only round-robin of local musicians. But then Cody…
