It’s always been complicated for Ghetto Fame-Us. Time, money, whatever: Something always gets in the way. For example, the group finished recording its debut, Add On!, in late 1998, and then spent the better part of the next year scraping together enough nickels and dimes to release it on their…
Some bands will do anything to get one new person to come out to their shows. The names of some are seen stickered on bathroom stalls, merch booths and light posts between Malcolm X and Good-Latimer more often than they’re seen on club calendars. Then there are bands who hand…
It’s probably true in other cities, but it might as well be gospel in Dallas: If you can make it here, well, you’ve probably already made it somewhere else. Erykah Badu is the most infamous example: When her debut, 1997’s Baduizm, finally hit local airwaves, it was well on its…
On 2000’s The Ecleftic, former Fugee CEO Wyclef Jean consistently pushed listeners’ definition of elemental hip-hop, going to such lengths as crushing Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler” into Pharaoh Monch’s “Simon Says” for Clef’s own version of a dub plate. On his new release, Masquerade, he pulls out even more tricks,…
When a nü-metal band decides it wants to be scary, who is it the band decides to scare? Its fans? Its fans’ parents? Other nü-metal bands? Themselves? Embattled electro-goth outfit Deadsy doesn’t offer any clues: Commencement, their new, long-delayed DreamWorks debut, turns early-’80s synth-pop into a gory prep-school horror show…
At just under an hour, The Osbourne Family Album manages to give Jack and Kelly Osbourne’s burgeoning music-biz gigs a boost (dour Dillusion, who talent scout Jack’s been developing for Epic, appears here for that reason alone, and Kelly previews her forthcoming debut with a rote rocked-up run-through of Madonna’s…
On her third album New England folk-pop chanteuse Patty Griffin gets her full, slightly husky alto to work overtime for her: 1000 Kisses is that rare singer-songwriter record that winds its way through a handful of stylistic settings but holds together as the work of a single voice. There’s plenty…
The Strokes will fade from glory, as will the popular resurgence in taste for garage rock–this much seems inevitable. (Doesn’t it? Or can we look forward to a future in which Barbra Streisand gets called out of retirement to sing Mitch Ryder tunes? And Liza Minnelli has the Hives play…
When Lewis was named Best New Act in the 1999 Dallas Observer Music Awards, the band was so new that the joke around the office was, “Lewis who?” The quartet had recently moved to Dallas from College Station where three members earned degrees from Texas A&M University. But then things…
What burbles through the veins of the online underground soon enough spills out into the mainstream; by the time The New York Times comes sniffing around, the cutting edge has dulled and the trend has outlived its expiration date. Yesterday’s Brand New Thing is today’s pale and bloodless fad, like…
I got an e-mail from Chris Holt, lead singer-guitarist of Olospo, a few days ago, at the very unrock-starish hour of 7:31 a.m. He was responding to my request for some lyrics and a set list. “Can’t wait to read your article, as long as it doesn’t say anything about…
Even the loosest, freest musical movements need standard-bearers, those few acts whose rigorous work ethic keeps the younger whelps in line. And so it was that Widespread Panic, one of the earliest groups to build a dedicated performance-based following upon the demise of the Grateful Dead, became the quintessential Jam…
Multiple-choice time. Recently, the following words were uttered: “Ain’t no way that SPM can be a human being.” Who said them? a. the prosecutor during SPM’s molestation case b. a disgusted juror on that same case c. a pissed-off grandmother after hearing about the case on the news d. none…
Maybe 11 or 12 years ago I saw Social Distortion with my dad at an outdoor summer-themed concert series in Little Rock, where I grew up. Seeing Social Distortion with your dad is weird, but I guess I was too young to go alone or he was too old to…
You know indie rock’s begun its slide into respectability (or calcification) when its front people start tossing out solo albums like guitar picks. Recent discs by Modest Mouse singer Isaac Brock and former Archer of Loaf Eric Bachmann have straddled the divide between essential slacker-guy pathos and superfluous minor-key mewing,…
Surprisingly, the Brooklyn duo I Am the World Trade Center isn’t the only outfit in the indie-rock underground where the boyfriend plays dinky synth-pop on a computer and the girlfriend sings anodyne melodies in a voice that’s supposed to humanize machine music. The California band Her Space Holiday functions in…
We could ignore this, move on to something else for 800 or so words, make everyone happy. There are other things we could talk about. Say, Vanilla Ice (or V-Ice, as Robbie Van Winkle now refers to himself) and his new double-disc set, Bi-Polar, which finds him teamed up again…
The most difficult thing about making an utterly sublime album is the (sometimes insurmountable) task of making the next one. Doves have a lot to live up to with their newest release, The Last Broadcast, coming as it does on the heels of 2000’s Lost Souls, a near masterpiece of…
Each week musicians drag out their friends, family and co-workers to see them play new-band showcases where the drink specials are the real draw (and often stronger than anything seen onstage). They hope one day they’ll play to more than a handful of familiar faces and some disinterested drinkers. Maybe…
High on Fire just might be the most overhyped indie metal band in the world. Spin called it one of the top five bands to watch for, Alternative Press gave its debut album, 2000’s The Art of Self-Defense, five stars, and several critics placed it in their year-end top-10 lists…
For the third weekend in a row, a local radio station throws its annual summer shindig, a pledge drive disguised as a present to the fans, a bash studded with stars and loaded with favors. As in, X will play your concert if you start spinning Y’s record. That kind…
Romantic to some, maybe: “It’s painful to observe him looking at your curls/It’s sorry to be me, sad to be a churl.” That’s about as amorous as Luna front man Dean Wareham gets on Romantica, his band’s sixth album of shimmering, downbeat guitar-pop. If you’re familiar with the detached personality…
