The Red Panther stands on the green ropes in the corner of the ring with his right hand raised as if he were challenging the sun to a wrestling match. He wears black tights and, similar to the other luchadores, a mask, black with a red panther face. On this…
“O Dallas, you shine with an evil light / Don’t you know that God stays up all night / How’d you turn a billion steers / Into buildings made of mirrors / Why am I drawn to you tonight.” David Berman penned those words more than 20 years ago. They…
They come from an enchanted forest where cheeseburgers grow on trees, milkshakes flow like rivers and french fries blossom in the morning sun. They look like possessed mascots from a demented clown’s playland, destroying the stage much like their musical inspiration, Black Sabbath, did off and on for 50 years…
Peace of Blues guitarist Kepha Arcemont had planned a night of guitar slinging at Canyon Road Barn & Grill reminiscent of his guitar hero, Jimi Hendrix, slaying the stage 50 years ago at Woodstock. A lanky, white-haired 59-year-old, Arcemont has been a fan of Hendrix since he was a teenager…
At a distance, he looks like an old homeless man with a cyborg’s eye and in desperate need of a cane. His spine protrudes down his back like Godzilla’s back spikes. His antlers cast shadows on the ground. Hunched over, he forever reaches for something that only he can see…
For 35 years, theater visionary Katherine Owens created expressive art in a basement in Deep Ellum, taking audiences to far away places and fairy tale lands created by legendary playwrights such as Samuel Beckett and David Rabe. As co-founder and co-director of the Undermain Theatre troupe, Owens established North Texas…
They called her Miss Excitement. Her real name was Nancy Bolen, then Powell, then Myers. But she was better known as Tammi True. With blonde, big hair like Marilyn Monroe’s, True looked like a movie starlet. She thought she resembled Kim Novak, who was best known for Alfred Hitchcok’s Vertigo…
Chris Palone wanted redemption, a second chance to live the rock ’n’ roll dream with local fans at a place where dreams were made onstage at The Rail Club. Nearly a year has passed since the old landlord chained its doors, and Brian Scheid and Palone blame their former partner Kevin Dunlap…
Life-sized photographs of the bodies of four African American people dangled from nooses on Barney’s tree in Glenn Beck’s studio on Wednesday evening in Dallas. Beck didn’t kill them, but some white man did. They were images of slaves who had been hanged in the past for real and then…
For nearly a decade, Fort Worth duo Pinkish Black’s music has been hard to categorize. Some have called it “doom rock.” (We labeled it heavy metal.) Kerrang! referred to it as “sci-fi synth doom,” like a collaboration between John Carpenter and Rush. Their latest album, Concept Unification, sounds like a…
The last time Chris Mullins saw his girlfriend alive, she was leaving for work early on a Monday morning in late November 2018. Maria Ezquerro had recently returned home from visiting her parents in Mexico and spent the night with Mullins in Denton. Partially asleep, he walked her to the…
All the Slayer fan wanted to do was return to the concert, throw up some devil horns and roar with the crowd as Slayer lead singer Tom Araya’s virus took hold. It was contagious this Wednesday evening at the Toyota Music Factory in Irving, affecting thousands of Slayer fans and…
Jason Lee Van Dyke sat at a table next to his defense lawyer in a Denton County courtroom, listening as an attorney for the Texas State Bar spoke about how fearful she was when she received his email message threatening her life. At 38, Van Dyke is stocky like a…
The new year has gotten off to a rough start for Dallas metal fans. Local metal legend Bruce Corbitt has entered hospice care. The former lead signer of Rigor Mortis and Warbeast, the 56-year-old Corbitt has been battling stage 4 esophageal cancer since early 2018. He’s been chronicling this battle…
All Aaron Clowers wanted to do was enjoy the mosh pit near the Gas Monkey Live! stage. The New Orleans band Goatwhore planned to devastate it this past Friday night with death metal as part of the Metal Alliance Tour with The Casualties, Black Tusk, Great American Ghost, Morethereon, Bad…
Mary Jane preferred animals to people “10 out of 10 times,” she says. She grew up in southern Louisiana, a place of winding swampland roads where family ties run deep. She studied wildlife management with a focus in aquaculture at Louisiana State University. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries agents…
The Rail Club was a place for the misfits, the outcasts, the forgotten. Black was the attire. Chains and spikes were optional. Located in far west Fort Worth, it was more than a live music venue in an old strip club. It was a home for the North Texas metal…
Three days passed before Texas Rangers sought a manslaughter charge against Amber Guyger, the off-duty Dallas police officer who police say mistakenly shot and killed her 26-year-old neighbor. Commenters on social media, however, started asking why the officer wasn’t arrested immediately as soon as the news broke. “If I shoot…
Four white crosses projected on thin silk curtains draped in front of the stage slowly began to turn upside down. An eerie electric guitar riff echoing through massive speakers behind the curtain acted as a soundtrack to the descent into hell that awaited the sold-out Slayer crowd Tuesday evening at…
San Francisco rock band The Stone Foxes were in high spirits when the quintet took the stage Tuesday night at Sundown at Granada. Driving into Dallas in their white van earlier that day, the rear suspension on their trailer busted and dragged behind them. The folks at Sundown jumped on…
Next Generation Action Network leader Dominique Alexander refused a plea deal Thursday in Denton County to serve four years in prison for a felony theft charge out of Flower Mound. An Oak Cliff native, Alexander has become one of the faces of the protest movement in Dallas. He’s best known…
Bei-jing Tashawna “Channelle” Walker wanted to protect accused killer Donnie “Lil-Debo” Ferrell. They were both from Hutchins, 12 miles southeast of Dallas, and engaged to be married. They appeared in each other’s Facebook profile photos. In a photo Walker uploaded Jan. 30, Ferrell, who worked at a home health care…
