Don’t dillydally on the way to Dada, because Voot Cha Index’s early set will be the highlight of the night. Singer Neil Sanzgiri has some grating vocal quirks–his voice couldn’t have dropped more than a few months ago–but with such pretty melodies and creative arrangements of piano, accordion, banjo and…
Aging heavy-metal acts might take solace in claiming to be “big in Japan,” but DJ Tiësto (just plain Tijs Verwest to his parents) has achieved an international renown that borders on megalomania. Despite the recent drug overdose of a fan at an April 22 show in Jarkarta, Tiësto brings his…
I’d rather not start a discussion about Denton’s Fry Street with an overemotional plea…but it’s tempting. As GlobeSt.com’s Connie Gore reported on May 5, Bellaire, Texas, real estate developer United Equities Inc. acquired 3.7 acres of retail in the heart of central Denton–essentially, the 100 block of Fry Street, home…
Many bands from the early ’00s Lower East Side explosion have released disappointing follow-ups–studio-slick, but the polish hasn’t masked mediocre songwriting. With A Hundred Miles Off, the Walkmen have followed suit, if only because it’s their warmest and most commercially accessible record to date. Unlike the latest from their Gotham…
Just as Chuck Berry is to rock ‘n’ roll or Run-D.M.C. to hip-hop, Derrick May’s intrinsic value to the sound known as techno simply cannot be overstated. Of the Belleville 3, the famed trio of Detroit high school friends who tested the limits of EDM and changed its form forever,…
The Theater Fire doesn’t have a single timely quality. That’s not just a cop-out to describe the septet’s sound, though the Fort Worth band is first to admit that its acoustic arrangements are rooted in the oldest days of Americana; co-songwriter Don Feagin can’t even pay tribute to music as…
In case you haven’t figured it out after all these years, Joan Jett is still the “tough girl.” When her name is mentioned in print, that phrase always follows, like magic, by rote. In an e-mail interview with the Observer, Jett has her own take on the pigeonhole she first…
It’s safe to assume that Dallas country singer-songwriter Mark David Manders doesn’t claim Cedar Springs as his local borough. Oh, don’t be fooled by the title of his latest single, “Brokeback Mountain,” posted for play on his label’s Web site, Big Karma Records (bigkarmarecords.com/catalog)–it’s not a movie-loving tribute that’ll be…
As the leading source for local music news, we at the Dallas Observer pride ourselves in breaking huge announcements before anybody else in the metropl… Who am I kidding? The news was all over the indie-rock wire after a post at therentals.com last week–The Rentals, the California band led by…
Vulgar display: Every weird organization in America tries to claim an official month, so we could not care less that May is National Bike Month, National Military Appreciation Month, Asian Pacific American Heritage Month or, according to VH1, “metal month.” But VH1 is doing more than roll out shitty Skid…
From downtown Dallas street corners to round-the-world street fights, it’d be understatement by half to claim it’s been a strange and surprising trip for sisters and Chicks founders Emily Robison and Martie Maguire, especially since it’s the latecomer lead singer who got the band into trouble in the first place…
If you’re between the ages of 14 and 35 and are still unaware of the new Gnarls Barkley record, I’d like to welcome you back from whatever rock you’ve been huddled beneath. An album-length summer jam with few contemporaries, St. Elsewhere is an unstoppable Frankenstein of musical styles. Kitchen-sink DJ…
“The Death of Us,” the opening cut on The New Amsterdams’ notable new release Story Like a Scar, is music so open and lonely that it almost had to come out of the Midwest. Kansas native Matt Pryor’s frail tenor graces the rootsy accompaniment like a cool breeze across a…
Arlington’s Man Factory has been building momentum in concert for the past year, throwing enjoyable, oddball twee-pop shows that are filled with equal parts promise and sloppiness. Which half of the equation wins out on the young quintet’s first official release? Hard to say. On their contributions to the Boyfriend…
Rap granddaddies don’t get the same benefits as their rock counterparts–names like Big Daddy Kane and Young MC won’t move a crowd these days the way the Rolling Stones or Gang of Four do. But if you’re coming on two decades in the rap game, and you’re still as hard…
“Sunday living/Seven days a week”–so goes one chorus on the debut of Austin’s Brothers and Sisters, Texas’ newest and brightest purveyors of easygoing ’60s-style country-rock. In concert, the band more than lives up to their name, mixing the family-style harmonies of the Mamas and the Papas with the chiming guitars…
You gotta give Hank III credit for being almost all things to all people. To some, he’s the genetic reincarnation of his grandpa. Or he’s as much an appealing contrarian as his dad, Hank Jr. He’s even the ultimate country punk–a soused and pilled-up Gen XXX nightmare inflicted on NashVegas…
Real quick: Dallas Observer Music Awards should’a-won Bosque Brown promises new songs at this gig; in addition, Austin’s Tenlons Fort is a lovely match for BB, with elaborate, country-tinged folk that dabbles in Beach Boys-style pop as well. And the grilled cheese at the AllGood is the best in town…
Even with his hearing at risk, Pete Townshend would still go to shows by AC/DC, claiming the rush of sound and volume was an aphrodisiac, loudness as an assault and a reward. Japan’s Mono offers that same kind of visceral thrill with lengthy and thunderously loud instrumentals that touch on…
Endure a few run-throughs of Pomp and Circumstance, make sure your tassel is on the correct side of your cap and ready your flask for the after-party at the rich kids lake house. Its a graduation, baby. Most years, the theme of the Dallas Observer Music Awards is an afterthought,…
A few songs before the cautionary tale about a man who loses everything to booze, Blueprint laughingly de-scribes his own drunken forays into club-land. He vows, “No calling women ‘bitches’ just to prove that I’m a man,” then later jokes about slapping a broad’s ass hoping to get laid. Immediately…
You like me, you really like me: Opening the DOMA nomination process to the public always results in a few anonymous gems. And even though nobody cast any write-in votes for Alf, Jesus or Laura Miller, a few suspect items did pop up. First off, I must be totally out…
