One can’t help but wonder how much a rock band can rock without a guitar player, but Washington D.C.’s Apes are out to disprove the common assumption that rock bands without guitar players are nothing more than shtick. The band’s singer/organ/bass/drums lineup is capable of creating quite a racket, actually,…
On its 2003 debut, The Decline of British Sea Power, U.K. indie-rockers British Sea Power laid buzz-saw guitars on top of an expansive, psych-tinged background. The band’s 2005 follow-up, Open Season, sacrificed some of that steely bite for strings and swooning textures. Without jagged guitar slashes propelling them, the songs…
Vampire Weekend has been buzzing in the blogosphere for almost a year now—some overzealous hipsters even named the Brooklyn band’s self-titled debut “Best Album of 2007”. . . even though it wasn’t even officially released last year. Fresh out of Columbia University, these four smarty-pants sing about French designer Louis…
I can’t in good conscience recommend paying for this show, as that would mean supporting two acts whose masses-pleasing mediocrity helped define the reprehensible and irreversible plummet in quality that “alternative rock” radio took during the mid-’90s. But if you somehow end up with free tickets to this perfect storm…
Even though Dan Dyer was born in East Texas and now resides in Austin, his musical roots are firmly set in his former residence of Missouri, reflecting the rhythm and blues tradition commonly associated with St. Louis. Vibrant, loose and engaging, his vocals recall the likes of W.C. Handy, Stevie…
Eat Me, Drink Me, the effort supported by Marilyn Manson’s Rape of the World tour, is unimaginative alt-rock from an artist that became more accessible at exactly the time he could and should have pushed the envelope further. Following the yes-no-maybe The Golden Age of Grotesque, last year’s Eat Me,…
Oh, nostalgia. A good decade or so after both NOFX and No Use for a Name’s heyday, the Fat Wreck Records label mates are still ticking, still touring and still making mall punk music with lewd, punny song titles. Just last year, NOFX released a new live CD, They’ve Actually…
The Redwalls (Patti Farfan) The Chicago-based band The Redwalls is currently touring the country in support of its self-titled album, which was release last October. With a sound that evokes British bands past and present and a look that does the same, The Redwalls are another in a long line…
Badu and Co. on stage…as seen from a crappy camera phone. (Pete Freedman) Erykah Badu and friends… February 26, 2008 House of Blues, Dallas Better Than: Staying home, watching American Idol and really pulling for that kid with the dreads. It took a bit for Erykah Badu to hit the…
The guys in Siren City just gave us a heads up that they’ll be playing a special show Friday, February 29, at The Max. Moving Atlas and Loaded Moses are on the bill, too. The show is 18 and over and starts off at 8 p.m. The Dallas rock band…
Langdon Jones, the smartass, hipper-than-you frontman/guitarist for local rockers Fracas, is just happy to have a band. After eight years spent toiling with false starts, personnel problems and learning how to write songs, Jones has finally assembled a seemingly secure lineup that includes bassist Nick Upperman and drummer Matt Chappel…
It’s Dave Chappelle…bitch! Quia’s gonna be checking in first thing tomorrow morning with a review of tonight’s Erykah badu show at the House of Blues, but before she does, we’ve got to mention something else of note: In addition to a slew of big names we already knew Erykah was…
No? OK then… If you’re not going to tonight’s House of Blues show, you’ll want to watch VH-1 Soul tonight at 8 to catch Ms. Badu’s Storytellers performance. After a write-up about tonight’s show for tomorrow’s blog, we promise we’ll stop might consider backing off Erykah for a bit. –…
Erykah Badu at Bill’s Records. (Hal Samples) The crowd was somewhere between antsy and bored in anticipation of Erykah Badu’s arrival at Bill’s Records last night. Then again, the crowd probably felt a bit out of place–it’d be tough to say for certain that any of the people in the…
My knees just got a little weak. The Mars Volta will be in Dallas April 8. I will be there. Sure, I don’t have tickets. Tickets don’t go on sale until Saturday, March 1. No matter. I’ll be there. The last time I saw The Mars Volta it was in…
So, yesterday we kept hearing that we needed to check out Lil Wil’s video for “My Dougie.” We’ve seen it now, and the video isn’t really all that it’s cracked up to be. But check the song and keep your eyes open for a handful of Dallas rap favorites. (Then…
Man, The Afters are getting some media love for today’s release of Never Going Back to OK. (See, Pete was totally on point with last week’s column. Seeeeeeeeeee?) Reuters has declared the band has beat the sophomore slump with the disc (I vote we wait to say that until the…
She couldn’t be the reason…right? With Van Halen scheduled to return to town for the second time in three months a week from today, we figured we’d pass along this juicy tidbit: The two legs just before the March 3 performance at American Airlines Center (in Charlottesville, Va., and Duluth,…
Reunion’s the name of the game of late in the Dallas music scene. A couple bands got back together for the Melodica festival this weekend and, well, we already know about Chomsky’s return. Next up: Macavity, whose reunion show will take place on March 8 at the Double-Wide. In anticipation,…
More from Badu camp. (Marc Baptiste) We’re all excited about the new Erykah Badu release New Amerykah: Part One ’round these parts (Wilonsky’s gone especially batshit), so we’ve been updating you like woah on all things Badu. Well, here’s some more news: -Erykah will host a CD release party at…
Another weekend, another slew of good shows here in the D. I only managed to hit the Melodica Festival (for about 20 exhausting hours of the course of the weekend), which you can read all about in the next Observer. In the meantime, there was a whole bunch of other…
Gazelles’ bassist Ron the Bear. (Melanie Gomez)Looks like Scion of Dallas is bringing together a bunch of local indie bands for Spring Indie-Fest ’08. The show, set for March 29 at The Door in Dallas, features some of our favorite Dallas and Denton indie bands. The eight groups on the…
