Listening to the Unicorns’ debut, Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone, it’s hard to tell whether the silliness is a cover for the morbidity or vice versa. Maybe being morbid and silly is just the same thing after all. The album is akin to an acid-laced roll of…
Yeah, they’re bearded and broken. They wear tired trucker caps, dirty tees and seem to be looking for lost change on stage. Even their name sounds drunk and sleepy. But Grandaddy can’t help but write great songs. While the band’s latest release, Sumday, doesn’t meet the expectations set by their…
If the Walkmen’s Everyone Who Used To Like Me Is Gone sounded so pretty when it debuted in 2002, then how did it wind up sounding sluggish only two years later? It’s because this year’s Bows & Arrows makes their debut seem like nap time in comparison. The sophomore disc…
Some people will never appreciate Charlie Chaplin turning two dinner rolls into dancing feet in Gold Rush. Others will never laugh at John Cleese’s “The Ministry of Silly Walks.” And, sadly, some will never give due credit to Fishboy and his band of merry men, including the kazoo- and horns-playing…
This Canadian collective–led by Toronto scene gadabout Kevin Drew but occasionally including up to 10 other moonlighting musicians whose résumés (if not names) you’d likely recognize–drew acclaim last year for the expansive, spaced-out indie rock on its American debut, You Forgot It in People. It’s easy to float someone’s boat…
Among the instruments in Tree Wave’s arsenal are: an old beige Commodore computer, a 1985 Epson dot matrix printer and an Atari console that hasn’t been in fashion since Knots Landing ruled prime time. Tree Wave makes music with these clunky ancients and–believe it or not–it’s good. This isn’t a…
These days, Lisa Loeb is having her cake and eating it, too. Literally. Besides a new album in the spring and a nationwide tour with beau Dweezil Zappa, Loeb is also co-host of a funky television show on the Food Network, Dweezil and Lisa. When I interviewed the pair over…
Last Saturday, The Vanished held a press conference. “Thank you for spending your afternoon with us,” said lead singer Kevin Kirkwood, twisting around on his swivel chair somewhat nervously. “I wouldn’t even be out of bed yet if I was you guys.” The room was lit for a hangover, or…
Blake Sennett’s breathy, breakable delivery is as overly dramatic as a LiveJournal entry, and his dear-diary lyrics are even more so. “And if you see me down at the liquor store, please don’t tell my dad,” he moans on “Greeting in Braille,” with the back of his hand presumably draped…
How the Get Up Kids ruined underground music for my generation in 200 words or less: Late in 1996, when this Kansas band released their first seven inches, ear-to-the-ground indie kids went ballistic. The band’s full-length debut, Four Minute Mile, fused post-punk staples (Braid, Jawbox), navel-gazing confessions and crunchy pop…
“Rock and roll. Period.” That’s how singer/guitarist Matt Riggle has described the fourth album in just over four years by his band, 41 Gorgeous Blocks. And it hits that mark. Two guitars, bass, drums, vocals is a tried-and-true formula, but they can only be manipulated so many ways. Here the…
Perhaps concluding that fusing two fading musical styles is a surefire way to stave off cultural obsolescence, Cooper Temple Clause layer vehement grunge-rock melancholia atop the kind of big-beat electronica ESPN uses to add emphasis to fourth-quarter touchdowns. Most of the time on Kick Up the Fire, CTC’s second album,…
These aren’t your father’s classical musicians. They’re young, dressed-down and prefer Depeche Mode to, say, the church choir. They are also making classical music–that ultimately expressive but occasionally stuffy music form–into something for all ages, what violinist/composer Mark Landson calls “new classical.” They use videos, work with dancers, spruce up…
With all the attention lavished on female R&B stars like Beyoncé, Janet Jackson and Christina Aguilera, a whole crop of talented male crooners has been getting shortchanged lately by radio, MTV and the ineffable commodity known as General Media Presence. Conveniently, this generous package tour’s stop Friday night at NextStage…
Blues clubs used to rule Deep Ellum. Back when Blind Lemon Jefferson was busking the streets, the whole place throbbed with it, pouring out of bars and brothels. But if the blues knows one thing, it’s this: Times can be tough. Over the decades, the blues disappeared from Deep Ellum,…
When the twisted fighters-not-lovers of Fleetwood Mac reunited last year to yield the modest creative returns of Say You Will, the band’s first real studio album since 1987’s Tango in the Night, it was easy to imagine the perks of a re-entry into the public eye offsetting the group’s storied…
In a parking garage near the Fort Worth Convention Center, monster trucks gobble up the compact-car spaces. A Firebird blazes past with four young women in fuchsia lipstick and tops held together by strings. In the passenger seat of a Mazda, a woman catches your eye. Pat Benatar clothes; your…
For every album that refines pop songwriting, there’s another that sets it on fire. Or in analogy form, Pet Sounds is to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless as Revolver is to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. The former are championed for their universal appeal, but die-hard fans love the latter because they are the…
The Casual Dots sound exactly how you would expect a group associated with incestuous indie stalwart Kill Rock Stars to sound–which is both good and bad. Their debut’s jumble of angular guitar shards (“Derailing”), wobbly country torch songs (“I’ll Dry My Tears”) and slackjawed strumming (“Flowers”) maintains the un-self-conscious, thrown-together-in-a-weekend…
If there’s one thing Austin’s Grand Champeen has learned in its nigh-on seven years’ existence, it’s that rock critics are, at times, blazing idiots. Singer-guitarist Michael Crow has several anecdotes about clueless scribes searching for qualifiers. “Someone in Nashville called us the Southwestern Green Day. That one sucked because every…
Buzz-Oven’s Aden Holt is doing it for the kids. And we love him for that. His Buzz-Oven project, introducing high-schoolers to local music through free CDs and all-ages shows, is an ingenious marriage of art and commerce. Coca-Cola pays for ad space; kids get turned on to Dallas talent. Past…
