It’s hard to write about Neko Case without admitting my utter, total bias toward the Tahoma-bred bombshell. Really, there are plenty of other angles to start from–the folklore of a girl who began her musical career as a Canadian punk/rockabilly drummer, her recent signing to Anti- Records, the never-ending help…
At 29, Maria Taylor has experienced a musical passage equivalent to folks twice her age. While barely in her teens, Taylor was part of Little Red Rocket, a Birmingham duo who released two efforts on Geffen and garnered positive comparisons to Belly. Taylor and her partner, Orenda Fink, then formed…
“I can hear a collective rumbling in America.” This line on “Be Good to Them Always,” one of the best cuts on the Books’ third and most approachable album, is a sample hidden amongst so many other samples–percussion, cello, banjo, guitar–and struggles to have its say. It’s an old recording,…
They may seem simply entertaining or innocuous when prancing around the TV screen, but behind the scenes the Pussycat Dolls are ushering in an unsavory new era in the business of music. Ostensibly a vocal and dance ensemble, the unapologetically manufactured group is seemingly everywhere now as the Pussycat Dolls…
In a bar somewhere on the West Coast, a presumptuous punk-rock fan approached a woman who looked familiar. “Hey, you look just like Exene Cervenka. What are you doing here?” The woman, taking pleasure in the opportunity to shut down this clueless tool, flatly said, “I am Exene. I just…
For record labels, videogames and music are a match made in target audience heaven. EA Sports pushes major-label names in rock and hip-hop on the company’s yearly Madden and NBA updates, and Tony Hawk games sport underground punk and metal soundtracks. While those are somewhat appropriate, this week’s latest music-in-games…
Last year, the Wall of Sound Festival was just another local-loaded concert in a crowded month. April 2005 saw quite a few super-sized music events around the Dallas area–Fry Street Fair, Deep Ellum Arts Festival, WakeUp Festival–and each had its share of solid local bands but little to distinguish it…
Drumroll, please: Flip to page 80 to take a gander at the official list of nominees for the 2006 Dallas Observer Music Awards. Starting right now, you have four weeks to cast your vote, so either fill out the attached ballot and mail it in or log on to dallasobserver.com…
Listening to Band of Horses’ stunning debut, Everything All the Time, it’s almost impossible not to hear echoes of the Shins and My Morning Jacket. They’re no mere copycats; it’s just that they forge their sound from the same familiar elements–the pitch-perfect pop songcraft of their Sub Pop labelmates, the…
Bruce Robison’s new album has a few good songs about those old country staples of heartbreak and regret. Unfortunately, the production (all done by Robison) is about as exciting as recent Claritin-D commercials starring him and wife Kelly Willis. Though the Austin musician loads Eleven Stories with considerable filler, Robison…
With his reedy voice, exceptional guitar chops and classic good looks, Tommy Keene should have been a star in the late ’70s when his career first began. The problem was that Keene’s amalgam of post-punk earnestness, ’60s pop and dense hard rock was always out of fashion. Even when Geffen…
Smile Smile’s sad sad guy/gal duets about failure, break-ups and betrayal are like a journal detailing a quarter-life crisis, but the pretty pretty multilayered harmonies and piano are the antidepressants that keep you from crying about it. The first three song titles–“Waving the White Flag,” “Now It’s Over” and “Sad…
One-time New Jersey cop Eddie Mahoney stopped walking his hometown beat in order to pursue his dream of rock stardom. In the late ’70s, he changed the clunky-sounding Mahoney to an ’80s-ready Money, and in one of the most unlikely ascensions imaginable, this poor man’s Springsteen hit the big time…
At Good Records’ most recent birthday bash concert, Astronautalis’ set came right when I was hungry for the party’s free hot dogs. I figured I’d listen to one song and grab some lunch, but his riveting performance ensured that didn’t happen. What first grabbed me was his backing music, which…
Two Gallants’ second album What the Toll Tells opens with a robust and bluesy foot-stomper a la Jack White’s most infectious work called “Las Cruces Jail.” While this two-piece band out of San Francisco share some of the Stripes’ spare, lo-fi sound, they consistently get right what the Stripes like…
Just like 50 Cent’s ninth bullet wound or a glowing review in MaximumRocknRoll, geography is often the secret to cred in the EDM DJ scene. With that in mind, it’s all the more strange to consider the meteoric rise of Hernan Cattaneo. See, Cattaneo is from Buenos Aires, not exactly…
[UPDATE, 04-01-06: The link to the song in question has now been added to the end of the article.] At first glance, Dirk Nowitzki’s iPod doesn’t seem particularly special in an age when everybody owns one. It’s the newest Nano version, 4 GB of memory, in a leather case. Stock…
Ben Gibbard just woke up, and he’s in no mood to be talking to anyone, let alone a reporter, let alone a reporter asking about a certain TV show/pop-cultural icon with which his band, Death Cab for Cutie, has become permanently tied. The last thing you’d want to do at…
“The U.S. is more of a continent than a country,” says Fredrik Nilsson, drummer of the Sounds, Sweden’s latest attractive source of ’80s new wave memories. Currently on tour in Los Angeles, Nilsson is somewhat awestruck on his second trip to America. “There’s more musical tradition here…In Sweden, people only…
In early December 2005, I walked into Club Dada for reasons that don’t normally lead me into Deep Ellum. A buddy was playing his first gig with a new acoustic trio, and he needed friends to show up so that the group might get booked again. I went to Dada…
Partners in kind: Two months ago, local songwriter Jayson Bales called us up with little more than an idea and a dream–to help local musicians with legal, medical and financial counsel, the kinds of things full-time musicians without insurance can use in droves. After a successful organizational meeting in February,…
Before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O strutted, spit and cooed her way to indie-rock icon status, the last dynamic female to front a big-name rock band was arguably Courtney Love. After propelling Hole to stardom on landmark album Live Through This, she somewhat lost her cathartic bellow on the…
