Critic's Notebook

… ’cause the man who put on the fifth-best show of 2008 ain’t bringing his Working on a Dream tour through the D. Well, at least not yet….(Sobs.)…

Two weeks ago, we passed along word that Tim DeLaughter had written the theme song for the new Diablo Cody- and Steven Spielberg-produced Showtime series The United States of Tara. Well, that’s the opening above. And, yes, it does mention nature, love and happiness, as anticipated. (Tip o’ the ball…

  Your daily dose of national music news for Tuesday, January 27, 2009… The rights to a stage version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller 1=28102″>have been purchased by Broadway producer James Nederlander. The show, once it actually gets produced, will included songs from Jacko’s Thriller and Off The Wall albums. No word…

No, nothing will ever, ever compare to this, the original version of Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good”. Nothing.And yet, somehow, this new cover of the song (via) from one-time Dallas resident Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond) is a pretty decent effort in its own right–and certainly worth a listen. Girl’s…

Greenville native Ben Kweller’s new full-length album, Changing Horses, will see the light of day next Tuesday (February 3), and, as we already told you, those excited about the release can go ahead and pre-order that sucker to get some extra goodies from the shaggy-haired redhead. Oh, and those folks…

Seems that native Fort Worthian Andrew Kenny, founding member and frontman of Austin-by-way-of-Fort Worth act American Analog Set, has started a new band. It’s called The Wooden Birds–and, no big deal, the brand new band’s already been signed to the phenomenal Barsuk label, in fact. Happened on Friday, wouldn’t ya…

Seems we keep coming back to Daytrotter in recent weeks. Already, twice in the past two months–when the studio recorded My Brightest Diamond, and then again when the studio recorded Ben Kweller–we’ve linked to the tour-stop recordings made at this little, but well-known (thanks, Internet!) Illinois studio. Now let’s go…

Your daily dose of national music news for Monday, January 26, 2009…Wu-Tang mastermind RZA and System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadijan are working to finish up a collaboration on a new album. The group, called, Achozen, will not, according to Odadijan, be a Nu-Metal band…Kanye West has denied the…

Here’s something worth mentioning: Local rock outfit Macon Greyson has a song in the Mickey Rourke comeback flick, The Wrestler. The band first announced to its fans that its song “Blacklight”, off the band’s 2007 release 20th Century Accidents, would appear in the movie back in mid-December via a Myspace…

Tonight at the American Airlines Center, before Aussie rock legends AC/DC will be bringing back a lot of high school memories by banging out classic hard rock warhorses such as “You Shook Me All Night Long” and “Hell’s Bells”, the crowds will be warmed up by Ireland’s The Answer, a…

One-time Dallas native David Berman, the mastermind behind longtime indie folk favorite (20 years!) the Silver Jews, has reportedly decided to end his project.The news is all over the web this morning–Pitchfork, Stereogum, NME and many other places, too, I’m sure–and for devoted fans of Berman’s work, this is no…

Your daily dose of national music news for Friday, January 23, 2009…Hey, did you like the Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake song “Dick In A Box” (see above)? It was pretty funny, right? Well, Samberg and his comedy writing partners are coming out with an album now…I guess Kanye West…

Yesterday, over on FrontBurner, we saw a post by former Observer music editor Zac Crain, purporting that The Happy Bullets (who have a history of making some great videos) were going to attempt to break the world record for most people making out in one place at one time during…

It was just about six months ago that we’d heard that Soulja Boy had signed a contract to promote the Arlington-based shoe company Yums, and since then, Soulja Boy’s kept up his end of the deal, for sure, promoting the apparel and kicks on BET (see above) and in interviews…

Iff’n you’re in a band, and you wanna play NX35, well, you better get to submittin’ yer application. Because the deadline is today… maybe… but most likely, yes, it’s today. So who else is playing so far? Check the list right here. The list is not complete just yet (obviously…..

Early in 2007, a group of young men out of Plano formed a band called Swim Swim and released I’m So Glad That I’m an Island, a wonderful, but grossly neglected collection of indie pop that should have made local heroes out of Jeremy Aulden, Mike Brady and Jason Bailey…

Another Denton-reppin’ experimental band got some love from overseas. This time it’s Florene, which caught the ear of No Pain In Pop, a London record label and music blog. The duo’s “Room 5” was yesterday’s featured download track. NPIP’s Tom King described the group’s music as “soothing and balming, melting…

Your daily dose of music news for Thursday, January 22, 2009… Even the inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday couldn’t keep Beyonce from goin’ all diva on the Secret Service’s ass. It seems the building her hubby Jay-Z was rehearsing in for his inauguration concert was part of a five…

Josh Alan Friedman, who penned an amazing piece about the Texas Tenor for the paper version of Unfair Park long ago, brings sad news today: Corsicana-born, Dallas-raised sax great David “Fathead” Newman died yesterday. There’s only been one obituary, but a call to David’s wife and manager Karen offers further…

Robert’s got the deets on Unfair Park. Of course, he gets into much more detail on the matter in the cover story in this week’s Observer–the one with the sweet vinyl image on the cover. …

Jonathan Goetsch As I alluded to last week in Good Friday, Hey Hollywood has, in fact, officially changed its name. The new name, which comes with some new-ish players on bass and guitar (and, with them, a new sound) is Companion. And what of the new sound? Well, it’s still…

Earlier this month, we unveiled our Dallas Observer contributors’ top albums and, in some cases, top singles of the year, as submitted to the annual Pazz & Jop poll conducted by our sister paper in NYC (in some cases, to the best of our recollections).Well, now the full results of…