“Mark Farner hasn’t played with us for nearly eight years,” says Don Brewer, not hiding his animosity. Brewer, the drummer and co-founder of Grand Funk Railroad, one of the most critically panned yet immensely popular bands of the late ’60s and early ’70s, has come to grips with keeping the…
After having rocked the capacity crowd at yet another civic center/sports arena, Nickelback front man Chad Kroeger and Hoobastank singer Douglas Robb retire to a dressing room. They stand in front of a large mirror while wiping off eye makeup. KROEGER: Man, that song about how you were a prick…
“Dallas fans, you have been wonderful, and we will miss you dearly,” Belafonte lead singer Brian Hedenberg wrote to the Dallas Observer in July. It was perhaps the only nice sentence in an insult-loaded farewell from a pop-rock band that said it was moving to–go ahead, guess–New York City. “But…
New Bohemians and Red Sox fans have a lot in common. Both keep hoping their team will finally go all the way, and when they don’t, which is pretty much all the time, they get their hearts broken. So have Edie Brickell fans gotten their ’04 World Series? A surprisingly…
Nick Nowell, guitarist and front man for Thorn vs. Side, one of Dallas’ freshest mixes of punk, pop and metal, is a literate and sometimes stern individual who wills this rather homely quartet beyond the generic blare that accompanies most things emo. The band’s recently released Arson, produced by local…
Possessing one of the most recognizable voices in rock, Richard Butler has delivered his stylish rasp for nearly three decades. With the Psychedelic Furs, Butler helped bridge the gap between punk and art, between the Sex Pistols and Roxy Music. His sexy mix of power and fashion continued in Love…
In one sense, Arizona nearly killed Alejandro Escovedo; in another, it saved his life. In April 2003 he collapsed after a Tucscon performance of his musical drama, By the Hand of the Father. He’d been living with hepatitis C since the late ’90s (although most people didn’t know). He still…
Dave Matthews Band appeals to a wide, albeit similarly hued, audience: white college students. I know. I used to be one. But it is a variety of white college students–from stoned Ultimate Frisbee enthusiasts and well-manicured sorority sisters to bare-footed, bushy granola chicks and circle-jerking frat guys–that have always been…
Local veterans from indie-pop bands Go Metric USA, Wurlitzer Prize and Lo-Fi Chorus fill the cast of Pegasus Now, but 25-year-old lead singer Neu LeBlanc stands front and center, only recently hopping onto local stages after working on solo home recordings for years. The members’ varying levels of experience come…
It looks like a little snake head, two fangs exposed and poised to bite. It’s bulky, elaborate and even intimidating. I’m an amateur in the field of turntable equipment, but by looks alone, this thing is already intriguing. Dallasites Michael Hossack (DJ alias: Ghost) and Randal Sandan Jr. (DJ Horn…
For two suburban indie-pop bands losing members to higher education, the college town setting and former college-radio DJ acting as MC was perfectly appropriate. Indie-poppers Mathstorm and Voot Cha Index commemorated the end of life as they know it Friday by rocking Denton’s Rubber Gloves with Frequency Down’s Frank Hejl…
Grandpunks: In late June, we heard that a Summer of ’86 Dallas punk reunion was scheduled for August 19 at the Double Wide. Made sense at the time; a Loco Gringos tribute had just taken place the previous week at the Bar of Soap and–shucks–nostalgia’s contagious. We knew it was…
Judging by the intrinsic eccentricity of the Flaming Lips, Starlight Mints and now Norman, Oklahoma’s Evangelicals, there must be something in that Red River water. So Gone, the trio’s fittingly titled debut, is music of an alternative frame of mind, songs filled with a schizophrenic abandonment that has ties to…
Santa Cruz’s Comets on Fire unleash an unholy fret-blazing fury that is best experienced through big, clunky headphones. Ear buds cannot properly handle the sheer magnitude of their riffage. Don’t believe me? Try it. Your brain will explode, and your face will melt off like the bad guys at the…
If you’re looking for a lipstick kiss (and a platform-boot kick) from, say, lower Manhattan circa 1973, the New York Dolls, Version 2.0, upgrade their classic program for pop-hooked trash rock with a delicious finesse. Yes, the 2006 Dolls are a far more able band than V 1.2 that recorded…
If our culture survives long enough for Devo to get its due, the HBO biopic will open with a hectic re-creation of the May 4, 1970, Kent State University shootings, in which the Ohio National Guard killed four anti-war protesters. Then: Cut to an artists’ loft, where a couple of…
Not to denigrate the artists’ own distinctiveness, but imagine Ian Hunter and Neil Young sharing a bill or a battle of the bands between the Velvet Underground and Crazy Horse and you get an idea of how fine and vital this piquant pairing is. Suffice to say that the stunning…
Austin’s Okkervil River had quite the year in 2005, touring extensively in both the U.S. and Europe and releasing their third straight masterwork, the critically lauded Black Sheep Boy–a raw, sprawling concept record based on a character in a Tim Hardin song (and so good it deserved its own equally…
San Francisco’s Birdmonster dabbles in a brand of guitar rock that owes as much to the dirty-denim styles of Tom Petty and Bryan Adams as it does to surly Brits such as Joy Division and the Buzzcocks. Relentless, driving guitars hurl headlong over precision percussion and curling bass runs. Singer…
Dead American Radio, the third album by L.A. quartet Left Alone, seems like your standard punk rehash, complete with two members sporting mohawks bigger than Gene Simmons’ tongue and ego. But first impressions are decidedly misleading as Left Alone’s brand of ska/pop/punk is a refreshing and uncommon noise, a rejection…
It’s nearing 3 a.m., and Amanda Newman is finally getting her boys ready for bed. Jesse sits cross-legged on Newman’s wide leather couch and smiles shyly as she tosses a blanket beside him. She already made sure he and Dave, who will have to share the couch, have a late-night…
Alasdair MacLean, front man for British retro mope rockers The Clientele, is as unapologetic about his band’s signature sleepy sound as he is unafraid to share his opinions about pop in his homeland. The band’s 2005 release Strange Geometry was a melancholic marvel, an effort that should have come with…
