Another weekend, another slew of good shows here in the D. I only managed to hit the Melodica Festival (for about 20 exhausting hours of the course of the weekend), which you can read all about in the next Observer. In the meantime, there was a whole bunch of other…
Gazelles’ bassist Ron the Bear. (Melanie Gomez)Looks like Scion of Dallas is bringing together a bunch of local indie bands for Spring Indie-Fest ’08. The show, set for March 29 at The Door in Dallas, features some of our favorite Dallas and Denton indie bands. The eight groups on the…
Art at Arlington’s F6 Gallery. (Michael Insuaste)So, it’s probably not a surprise that we hit up Melodica – we’ve been talking about it for awhile now. So, yes, we went. We wrote about it. But we also drove over to Arlington for a great art event (seriously), got our Oscar…
The crowd at Obama’s rally. (Brian Harkin)As all of us music snobs know, the true make of a person (and that includes candidates) is what music they listen to. Therefore, I offer you some selections piped through the speakers at both Obama’s and Clinton’s rallies. Choose wisely, in the primaries,…
…and you can read said mention here. Snobbish hipster types around Dallas jump for joy! All together now: “Validation! Validation! Validation!” Meh. We give Pitchfork’s coverage here a 6.3 rating. But if you’re itching for more–and I know that you are–Rich Lopez broke this ish down for ya in this…
Avary is pretty excited to share this cover with everyone. (The Rocket Summer)We’re so proud! Bryce Avary — a.k.a. The Rocket Summer — earned the cover of the April edition of Alternative Press. (Full disclosure: I’ve written for AP on and off for a couple years, but nothing about The…
Murry Hammond has been part of the Dallas music scene for far more than 20 years. Stints in the Sleepy Heroes and the unheralded Peyote Cowboys preceded his more high-profile days as bassist for the Old 97’s. Hammond’s first solo CD comes out February 22, and Hammond is playing the…
This is just stupid. So I posted this little entry on Tuesday night. Little did I know it’d be all over the Interwebs by this afternoon. First this blog picked up on the item. Then Nashville’s daily paper, The Tennessean picked up on it. Now, CMT is reporting it. The…
Black Joe Lewis campaigns for Obama (Photo by Keith Gaddis) Every once in a while, a quaint little band will get a phone call from a frantic local booker looking to fill a short-notice role in a TV show or a celebrity event. We’ve seen local bands dive into slots…
The ‘Screw The Vote’ Contingent: Opium Symphony.With Obamamania spreading across the country, there’s lots of talk about the youth who have been energized to participate in politics for the first time and whether or not they’ll actually turn out to vote. Well, here’s something a little different — a local…
Wondering what life is like on tour for Dallas rock quintet Kessler? Well, the guys are out on a big national tour and are kind enough to be posting videos on their MySpace blog to give us a glimpse of life on the road. The video from February 19 is…
So, for the Forever The Sickest Kids fans out there (Oh, don’t deny it. You guys read shit about them like crazy.) the band is again soliciting stuff from its fans. Before it was questions, then YouTube videos, now the band wants your pictures. The group is after pictures of…
After 13 years, No Depression, the bi-monthly magazine covering alternative country music, has decided to fold. Not only did many local semi-legends such as Slobberbone, Old 97’s and Theater Fire receive countless mentions throughout the magazine’s history, but even lesser known area talents such as Collin Herring and Darryl Lee…
Brooks & Dunn ain’t nothin’ to f*ck with. There’s an argument to be made that Dallas should have been the country music capital of the world ahead of Nashville–hell, the in-place economic infrastructure is alone enough of a compelling case. But, alas, things happened and Nashville got Dallas’ number there…
Pleasant Grove The alt-country/indie rockers in Pleasant Grove have posted (from the looks of it…) four new tracks on their MySpace page for your listening pleasure. Each track (including our favorite of the bunch, “Luzern”) is hinted to be on an album called Release The River that’s set to come…
Somebody posted a couple o’ Youtube clips from the Chomsky reunion on Saturday night at the Double-Wide. Here’s the better of the two: “15 Minutes to Rock” by Chomsky (How does one punctuate “rock-thirty”? Is it that way? Or “rock:30”? Does anyone know?) It was, indeed, quite a fun show…
The Lash Outs are being kind enough to let everyone download their two new tracks, “The Kids Don’t Wanna Dance” and “Dream Catcher,” on their MySpace. And, after listening, we’re pretty damn excited to hear more of the new stuff. “The Kids Don’t Wanna Dance” has a catchy riff and…
This could make for a touching and interesting lunch hour. Says here that “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott is going to be honored today at, of all places, Pleasant Grove Elementary for the Little Kids Rock’s newest chapter in Dallas. The program fosters music education in public schools and something Dimebag was…
We pleased the indie fans and the country lovers with our last couple video Q&As. So, it’s only fair for us to give our rock crowd a little something. Our videographer Jonathan Finley met up with the four guys in Peacemaker earlier this month to give us a glimpse of…
Jim Clark, an animator out of England, has done some phenomenal work here, taking the few existing photos of Robert Johnson and distorting them in time with his recorded tracks, making it appear as if the legendary bluesman is, indeed, performing the track on video (or close enough to it)…
Evan Callis, aka Rawdog, was a member of Criminal Habits We just got news that Evan Callis, who went by the name “Rawdog” when he performed with his hip-hop group Criminal Habits, died in the early morning hours of Saturday, February 9, in a manner eerily similar to DJ Frantic’s…
Someone posted a YouTube clip of Ashlee Simpson’s performance of “L.O.V.E.” at Purgatory from last Thursday. Tough to tell if she’s learned her lip-syncing lesson given the phenomenal camera work/angle here. (Yes, this was a blatant attempt on our part to get Google hits. Suckers!) — Pete Freedman…
