You hate to hold trying hard against someone, but on his smoothly polished (you might even say slick) debut, King for a Day, local swingster Hunter Sullivan turns in something so utterly well done–yet somehow lacking an attractive warmth–that it compels an examination of the entire lounge/swing phenomenon. It’s not…
In a music industry laden with cynicism and false claims, it is refreshing to bump into Nate Fowler, Kinley Wolfe, and Clint Phillips. The three members of the American Fuse will not tell you how good they are, or how they are punkier than thou, or how original they are,…
Big mouth strikes again Be Here Now Oasis Epic Records Now that the hype has settled, it is easier to see how this band of loudmouthed Manchester lads almost managed to become as big as the Beatles–if only in Britain. If brothers Noel and Liam Gallagher say it enough times–who…
Peter Holmstrom is sitting cross-legged on top of a conference-room table, looking very much like the young Keith Richards he clearly aspires to be. A little touch of eye-liner darkens his visage, and chipped silver polish shines on his guitar-strumming nails. We talk a little about art, which is apparently…
Authentically fake Madeleine Peyroux–a 24-year-old woman born in New Orleans and raised in both Brooklyn and Paris (but of course)–raises all sorts of authenticity issues, the kind that make LeAnn Rimes look like the first off the assembly line and the Squirrel Nut Zippers sound like they just invented this…
Liquor and country music are as connected as Siamese twins. Sure, George Jones is sober now, but his hallowed liver–crusted in a bell jar in a Nashville tourist emporium–will someday rank with Graceland and Jim Morrison’s tomb as a prime music shrine. Still, when the Lucky Pierres talk about their…
Boob tube TOOMuch Is Not Enough TOOMuchTV Carpe Diem Records Most of the best art is personal. Great artists only listen to the voice from inside, their ears closed to what the mass market suggests. Broose Dickinson’s TOOMuchTV–his project when he isn’t pop poppins’ frontman–operates along these lines. That’s the…
Crowley, Chomsky, black and white magic, books of crime-scene pictures, Beat literature and world-beat music guides, outre and obscure videos, odd niche periodicals: For six years now, Forbidden Books–nestled in the heart of Fair Park at 835 Exposition Ave.–has provided Dallas with access to media that you could lump together…
If lewd dancing, drinking, and revelry are good things, then Robert Ealey has inspired more good than most governments. He is Fort Worth’s premiere blues shouter, and he’s doing something surprising. He’s getting famous. His newest CD, I Like Music When I Party, is on the Black Top label, which…
The last two years in the life of British pop combo Blur closely resemble the plot of an awful movie starring country singer George Strait. Pure Country was foisted upon an unsuspecting American public in 1992, and it was notable solely because it marked the “acting” debut of Strait. In…
Young lions A lot can happen in the course of three years: You can go from hopping buses to shop demos coast-to-coast to getting signed, having platinum sales, and touring the country with fat pockets. The formula that brought about this change for Bone Thugs-N-Harmony members Layzie Bone, Flesh-N-Bone, Wish…
They’re not the most commercial of bands, but the Green Romance Orchestra has finally released an album into widespread circulation. The band is half longtime (but now defunct) local jazz-rock group Ten Hands (J. Paul Slavens on piano and keyboards and Gary Muller on the Chapman Stick), plus drummer Dave…
Foo for thought If it’s true that the best songwriters have to experience some amount of emotional pain to become great, then the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl may rank as one of the greatest songwriters living today. Pain has played an all too important role in his life in the…
No other medium–save perhaps the chemical–can dislocate or transport with the potency of music. Sound, rhythm, and tone all combine to evoke moods that can transcend the limits of everyday life and experience. The effect of music of another culture–built on utterly foreign assumptions according to blueprints that assume an…
New youngblood blues Super Blue & Funky Pat Boyack & the Prowlers Bullseye Blues Blues critics have traditionally reviewed work by up-and-comers by comparing it to the output of whatever elder mentored the youngster. Now, however, there is a generation of players–including Shawn Pittman, John Edelman, Mike Welch, and Pat…
Canadian singer-songwriter-instrumentalist Jane Siberry is forced to bump our interview back by a half hour because her plane is delayed. She’s arrived late in her Nashville hotel room when I call, and has another telephone interview scheduled. Might we talk 30 minutes later to give the other journalist a chance?…
Camping in the chilling fields Pup Tent Luna Elektra Records The title to Luna’s fourth album comes from a childhood game that girls were asked to play. They all said “no.” It’s the essence of frontman Dean Wareham’s worldview–life as a set of almost-sly tricks that never seem to work…
“If you like your roots rock as gnarly as it gets, you won’t miss with Fireworks’ new album, Lit Up.” You would expect this quote is culled from an underground fanzine, not from the music biz authority that is Billboard. Yet the two-column mini-feature in the magazine’s “Declaration of Independents”…
“I like the idea that before the Lilith Fair, there was Lilith,” says Amy Martin, a local percussion fixture known to most through her tireless work with drumming circles and the various Solstice celebrations here. “You know, originally, women were on equal footing with men in the various temples and…
Time of the preacher Dangerous Spirits Ray Wylie Hubbard Philo/Rounder Records Much has been made of Ray Wylie Hubbard and how this, his first major-label album, marks his coming into his own. Actually, Hubbard established himself with Loco Gringo’s Lament, his 1994 album for Dejadisc and the first album he’d…
Dallas has produced its share of groundbreaking artists in the field of hip-hop and R&B, including MC 900 Foot Jesus as well as the reigning queen of soul, Erykah Badu. To that list we can now add the name Bhakti–a hip-hop project featuring 23-year-old Reggie Shaw that has caused an…
A new attitude Walter T. Smith ambersunshower Gee Street Records God knows what’s taken so long, but contemporary R&B is slowly taking a turn for the better. This overlooked album follows the examples set by Erykah Badu, Me’Shell Ndegocello, and Maxwell, a new wave that is putting the soul back…
