Is Scott Herren gunning to become the Ryan Adams of slice-and-dice electronica? Like Adams, who released three alt-country albums last year, the Barcelona-based musician behind Prefuse 73 has been making records lately like the Keebler elves make cookies; since 2003, he’s issued four LPs and a joint EP with the…
The only thing the three Dallas acts on last Wednesday’s Callithump Productions bill at the Darkside Lounge had in common was an invite to SXSW. Nothing musically linked the sleepy-time guitarwork of Crushed Stars, the manic, confessional rap of Pikahsso and the Strange Boys’ whiny-voiced garage punk, and the pre-fest…
Last year, Green Day yanked its back catalog from Lookout Records due to unpaid royalties. This year, Ted Leo becomes the Bay City label’s latest defector, jumping ship to sign with Touch & Go in Chicago. It’s not the Green Day-level big-label leap critics have expected, though that expectation is…
New Hampshire native Matt Pond formed the band Matt Pond PA in the late ’90s while living in Philadelphia. Not much romance to it, but that straightforward attitude is typical of the singer-songwriter’s career. Since 2000, Pond and his changing lineup have released five albums of chamber-pop, culminating last fall…
Despite the atmospheric experimentation and dark lyrics that dominate much of their work, Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys are really a pop band underneath the layers of noise and blips built around their otherwise sunny, R&B-influenced synth-pop. Taking cues from the Sea and Cake, Arthur Russell and Silver Apples, the…
With a deep appreciation for legends of jazz, soul and funk as well as a keen eye for contemporary talent, Timothy Parker (aka Gift of Gab) and partner Chief Xcel have incorporated into their brainy Blackalicious mix talents as diverse as Gil-Scott Heron, George Clinton, ?uestlove and Zack de la…
Former Dallasite Nick Wright is the odd duck behind Dogme 95. Songs on his recently released thematic gem The Regal Beagle are the hypothetical musings on what a singer-songwriter might have come up with if he went to the Galapagos with Darwin. Brash and wonderfully pretentious, Wright’s dense melodies and…
Want to commemorate Centro-matic’s 10-year anniversary? Pick a date, any date. There’s the hazy “late April or early May 1995” in which guitarist, singer and songwriter Will Johnson wrote and recorded his first solo song, “My Test.” There’s also March 22, 1997, when the band’s current four-piece incarnation, a lineup…
If 2003 was the year that indie kids started dancing, DJ Nature might make 2006 the year that DFW hipsters finally get the memo. At the Party, his Wednesday night residency at Rubber Gloves, Nature highlights the latest tracks from genres that have recently dominated club scenes in New York,…
Van Morrison has been called many things: mystical poet, New Age guru, reclusive genius. Above all those, he’s a guy who doesn’t bother with the formalities of promotion or touring, making his March 6 concert at Nokia Theater quite special–it will be his first metroplex stop in more than two…
What’s the price of fame? For Sheryl Crow, it was a body count in the wake of her debut, Tuesday Night Music Club. When her record label was reluctant to release her first stab at an album that she cut with producer-to-the-stars Hugh Padgham, the one-time back-up singer was brought…
When local bands hype new singles, I have trouble holding back laughter. Really, a single? Do unsigned artists expect their songs to get played on 102.1 The Edge, the only modern-rock radio station in Dallas? It’s hard enough to crack the indie-minded Adventure Club playlist, let alone regular rotation (unless,…
Old 97’s front man Rhett Miller may believe his second solo album sounds like “George Gershwin does T. Rex’s The Slider,” but unfortunately for us, The Believer comes off more like Semisonic meets whoever wrote Rent, with the former hometown boy abandoning his twangy Texas roots on nearly every track…
Hipsters looking for disagreeable, hard-to-digest music will presumably turn toward the new Liars record, Drum’s Not Dead, for a hearty dose of parent-scaring noise. It’s a reasonable assumption, as their last album, in spite of its weirdness and witch-loving themes, won out amongst the noise-rock crowd by pulling off near-poppy…
In the early days of Mogwai’s career, an album titled Mr. Beast would have matched the band’s Category 5 noise-hurricanes perfectly. But as the Scotsmen refined their sound over the next decade, moments of levity and clarity–airy synths, strings, eerie silences–made the band’s emotional maelstroms more compelling. In fact, Mr…
Destroyer’s Dan Bejar says a lot on Rubies’ meandering, nine-minute-long title track, but its spot as the album’s lead-off song says even more. Bejar is an excellent (and sometimes purposefully difficult) songwriter who often sounds unsure of where he’s headed but confident that his listeners will go along for the…
Listening to American Werewolf Academy is like watching your favorite dumb comedy for the 15th time–fun in a nostalgic way, even when you know what’s going to happen next. But clocking in at just over 20 minutes, Tell Them Right Now! is a lot quicker of a pick-me-up than that…
The Jesus and Mary Chain disbanded roundabout 1999. Spacemen 3? 1991. But there’s no need to mourn acerbically romantic rock of the mid-’80s and ’90s–after all, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club still dishes it out. The band’s self-titled debut wasn’t shabby for a dinner consisting of leftovers, and 2003’s Take Them…
We were much too young to fully appreciate Urban Cowboy upon its release, yet we watched the movie over and over, rooting for Bud and Sissy and singing along to the musical performances at the original Gilley’s. The hirsute Johnny Lee was clearly the star of this spectacle, contributing such…
Texas guitarists must have a general reputation for greatness. How else can you explain two Lone Star six-stringers in a punk band that otherwise embodies Beantown pride? Created when former Dropkick Murphys singer Mike McColgan returned to music following a brief firefighting career, Street Dogs get back to the basics…
She wants revenge, or so claim DJs Justin Warfield and Adam 12. If you ask her, the reasons are pretty clear too. See, she always hated Joy Division, ever since her first boyfriend killed himself high on their post-punk misery. Two decades later, along comes Interpol and memories come rushing…
Signed while still in high school, Slightly Stoopid’s Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald were probably the “raddest” of all dudes “gnarly,” smoking more weed than humanly possible and tossing out generic SoCal skate-punk. Nearly a decade later, the two may still love to party, but their sound has grown up…
