Music

House music still dominates electronic club music in Dallas, but bass music, techno and electro also made waves in 2017. BRØKEN, Temporal Loop, Texas Recording Underground, Dolfin records and New Math records all played key roles in growing regional electronic talent. Gavin Guthrie’s Texas Recording Underground continued making headway in the…

A defining quality of the current generation of rappers is that they’re relatively unconcerned with hip-hop’s history. But local promoter Callie Dee is doing her part to change that by inviting three pioneers of the genre to crown the best emcee in North Texas at Saturday’s DDFW Master of the…

Destroyer play Club Dada Tuesday For Dan Bejar and his fellow Destroyers, touring is managed like a two-minute offense. Consider the North American tour that kicks off this week to promote Ken, the band’s 12th studio album: They play 14 consecutive nights before taking a one-day breather. Another stretch is…

A.J. Croce plays Arlington Music Hall on Friday, Jan. 19 He has a name. And it’s A.J. Croce. The 46-year-old son of late, legendary folk artist Jim Croce will perform live in Arlington for the first time Jan. 19 at Arlington Music Hall. He released his newest album, Just Like…

This Friday, the purple curtains of Three Links will turn red for an audio-visual experience that promises to delight fans of Twin Peaks. As David Lynch’s Showtime series reached the end of its “return” season, King Camel Productions’ Jeff Brown announced on Facebook that he intended to book a Twin…

More than 225 people, a mix of family, friends, fans and former bandmates, gathered on Friday at Dan’s Silverleaf in Denton for a concert commemorating the birthday of missing internationally known percussionist Joe Cripps. While Dentonites and North Texans made up the bulk of the packed house who sang, danced,…

2017 was a fruitful year for North Texas rappers, and as always there were several newcomers who broke onto the scene with fantastic releases or live shows. T.Y.E., FlexinFab and Diego Money are just a few who grabbed our attention and held it last year. Now we’re anticipating a whole…

Toyota and The Range 95.3’s country music festival is two decades old, but just like the Japanese car manufacturer, it’s new to Plano. After 19 years at Southfork Ranch in Parker, the Toyota Texas Music Revolution moved to Oak Point Park in March 2016. Chris Knight and Lee Ann Womack led that…

This week the Observer visited the home of Dallas DJ, producer and frequent Erykah Badu collaborator Richard “Picnic” Escobedo. In between all the serious questions about his start in music, relationship with Badu and the origin of his nickname, we found time to ask him a few fun ones. Once…

“In Bed With” is a new Dallas Observer series in which we delve into the homes and personal lives of Dallas music industry professionals.  Richard “Picnic” Escobedo’s various jobs allow him to claim more titles than Daenerys Targaryen: He’s a producer, percussionist, musical director, DJ, photographer and videographer, to name…

For almost 20 years, local musicians have flocked to producer and artist Salim Nourallah’s Pleasantry Lane Recording Studio, tucked inside a converted one-car garage on a residential street in Vickery Park. On Dec. 22, an unusually frigid day in Dallas, singer-songwriter Nicholas Altobelli approaches the pale blue door. A fluffy…

Coachella and Governor’s Ball announced their summer lineups this week, and so, too, have several local venues. Taylor Swift added a second night in Dallas, Erykah Badu set things up for another birthday run and the Bomb Factory added several other exciting concerts. One show in a massive football stadium…

Reno’s Chop Shop Saloon bartender Jessica Brodsky says she was taking a break outside the bar Dec. 24 when she noticed a man who was sitting alone. “I saw this guy walking on the street, and it was cold, so I invited him in,” she says. “No one should be…

Shaun MacGillivray, president of MacGillivray Freeman Films, knows a thing or two about making Imax films. A precocious adventurer who has been around film sets since he was first learning to walk, he’s produced award-winning 3-D films such as Journey To The South Pacific, Grand Canyon Adventure and National Parks Adventure…

On a weekday afternoon in Oak Cliff, artist Haylee Ryan is trying to juggle both a guitar and her 10-week-old Dalmatian puppy, Sugar, who will soon knock over a glass of wine. Ryan’s best friend Amanda Page is tending to another, older Dalmatian named Sister in between finishing Ryan’s sentences…

Last year, Dallas’ underground DJ culture burst at its seams. Audiophile is just one local label that continued to expand its empire through sublabels Audiophile Deep and Audiophile XXL, making its catalogue one of the largest and fasted growing in Dallas. While Audiophile represents producers from all over the world, it…

You might say that Texas Music Project got a “Second Wind,” when it announced its new honorary chairwoman last month. The title goes to Grammy winner and Arlington native Maren Morris, who participated in a songwriting camp organized by the music education nonprofit when she was 16. Texas Music Project…

Ashley Falgout sings in improvisational hip-hop band CoLab, and when she met Dead Flowers frontman Corey Howe, it was her only experience performing with a band. The two met through Evan Johnson, the bassist for both CoLab and Dead Flowers, and via Howe’s former gig as a bartender at the…

We’re not even a week into 2018, and Erykah Badu has already been at the center of two weird, and likely related, stories. On New Year’s Eve, the neo-soul songstress and Dallas native posted an Instagram video during a supposed traffic stop by Dallas police officers who “just wanted to…

At 2 p.m. Saturday, Exposition Avenue was completely empty except for a handful of people dressed head-to-toe in mid-’60s garb. As they filed inside Eight Bells Alehouse they were greeted by other men and women who were also decked out in everything from flowery headbands to long, curly wigs; fringe…