Dear Mexican: I’m curious as to the meaning of the term “Viva la Raza” that I have often heard expressed by my friends and family. I know what it translates to, but I don’t know why we say it. I happen to be what some call a “half-breed,” and therein…
Rereading last week’s leaked investigative report on Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles, I kept getting this little itch. I was sure I had read something about this somewhere else just recently. But I couldn’t imagine where. The report is the work of an obscure entity called the Office of Professional…
In the year 3013 in public squares at the hearts of modest villages and small capitals the world over, there will be statues of a global hero whose original identity is barely remembered, his or her actual existence in doubt and debated among scholars and the faithful. The exact appearance,…
Brad Paisley put out a new album this year, and it’s a safe bet no country superstar has given its label as much of a headache as Brad (this would be Wheelhouse, the album with “Accidental Racist” on it). But hey: Angry blog posts and album sales are getting less…
Over the years, the Vans Warped Tour has fascinatingly evolved to include a widely diverse collection of alternative rock acts. What was once simply a showcase for metal and punk now features rap, electronica, folk and bands in several other genres. This year’s Warped Tour may be the most varied…
Sorry, all you highway fans, but I can’t help loving the snit Texas Republicans have gotten themselves into over road money. Governor Oops, posing for the last two years with a Tea Party pitchfork, dropped the act yesterday and blasted the medieval wing of his own party after they shot…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
Lindsey BestAndrew Youssef[Editor’s Note: Long-time concert photographer Andrew Youssef found out two years ago that he had stage IV colon cancer. In that time, he has continued to shoot tons of music events, on top of other freelance work and working a day job at a hospital, of all places…
Uh-Oh. Hippie Liberal Elitism Alert. If you are a hippie liberal like me, do not, repeat, DO NOT read the story in today’s New York Times about National Park Service plans for curbing visitation to Yosemite National Park. Reading of this story may cause serious damage to your democratic convictions…
One question you’ll always be asked, forever, is about the band at the first concert you ever saw. The first ever concert I attended, at 13, was Texas (I know, right?). Texas is a frankly awful indie pop band from Scotland, and for this one tour they were inexplicably popular…
Yesterday when he told the Urban League he was going after Texas on voting rights, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder quoted a federal court decision last year in which the court said Hispanic plaintiffs in Texas had “provided more evidence of discriminatory intent than we have space, or need, to…
Way back in 2010, the Observer wrote about a hellish July Fourth night that saw Dallas PD launch a volley of pepper balls into a crowd in an attempt to disperse it. That night seemed to be the tipping point for Lowest Greenville, and then-city councilwoman Angela Hunt proposed an…
With singer David Lowery fronting both Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker (and with both scheduled to play the Granada Theater this Saturday), it is a good time to compare and contrast these two exceptional bands. Cracker has always seemed to get a bad rap because the band is not as…
All right. Maybe the headline was a little sensational. If the headline had been, “Interesting Charette Held,” you wouldn’t be here, would you? And there was some talk of dynamite last night at the “Connected City” seminar at the Nasher Sculpture Center. Different people, I’m sure, left last night’s deal…
We had gathered in an East Dallas home to have a party before a party when someone asked, “What is House of Plates?” The question grows more common with each soirée thrown by the Dallas group of um, bloggers? Event planners? Mysterious tweeters? Master Instragrammers? They are all those things,…
Way before the Pirates of the Caribbean films brought buccaneer chic back into vogue, various rock acts over the decades have mined this particular influence; some better than others. Here is a list of those who have been particularly ham-fisted, including one Adam Ant who performs this Sunday at the…
Dear Mexican: I had a conversation today with an 18-year-old Mexican co-worker that blew me away. She has a 3-month-old with her 19-year-old (also Mexican) unemployed boyfriend. They just found out she is pregnant again. After listening to her sob about it, I asked if she was going to keep…
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, talking last week about the worries some people harbor concerning the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination in Dealey Plaza, recalled his own recent visit to President Obama’s second inaugural in Washington. When a pro-life person climbed a tree and attempted to disrupt the inaugural, Rawlings…
Took the tour yesterday at Museum Tower, the new 42-story condo tower accused by The Dallas Morning News of torching the Nasher Sculpture Center in the arts district downtown with its reflected light. I’m no architecture critic. But, wow. Pretty damn sweet. Oh, not the torching. Sorry. I meant the…
Most know Barry Kooda from his days in The Nervebreakers, a local punk act that good fortune smiled on in an awful big way in the ’70s when they opened locally for The Boomtown Rats, The Police and even the grand triad of classic punk, The Ramones, Sex Pistols and…
For about three months I was a pre-law student in college — a fact, I have always felt, that should give me the right to dispense partial legal advice. Partial legal advice, in my view, is legal advice that you should rely on only partially. So with that in mind,…
While making of a list of the greatest music documentaries of all time would be an exercise in futility that would probably drive us insane, we can capably compile a list of six great documentaries made in the last five years. This list also includes a rash of great films…
