Life has a way of dragging us off the charted path and into rather randomly obtuse trajectories. Sometimes you just feel like you’re everywhere, all the time. Like you’ve got the whole world in the palm of your hand.It often comes down to an intangible law of attraction: Many of…

The 11th grade Biology teacher once shared this insightful observation aimed specifically at those of us with long hair: “Sons, this country is divided into three groups of people: the people who shower before work (re: white collar workers); the people who shower after work (see “blue collar”); and the…

Allen Ginsberg and Karen X. Minzer at the Starck Club in Dallas in 1986 Driving through East Dallas the other day I had the odd impulse to swing by the old KNON studio. Kind of depressing to see an empty lot taking up that space now. The studio was formerly…

Noise is not for everybody. Some people hear a jackhammer on the street corner and promptly cover their ears; others hear a subsonic melody and random harmonic movement in the staccato repetition of mechanized machinery. “Industrial music” is the umbrella term used to describe artists who eschew acoustic or organic…

It’s hard to imagine that any of us could ever develop an emotional connection to any of the sterile corporate live music venues here in the DFdub. We don’t think fondly of places where the employees wear headsets and matching uniforms, scowl into walkie-talkies or feel the need to cavity…

Rocking against Regan in 1984. (John Spath) This week’s Echoes and Reverberations installment comes with an accompanying slideshow courtesy of John Spath. Check it out here. In the spirit of the presidential election, let’s reflect upon that memorable week when radical protest art and conservative politics collided on the streets…

Rush’s Neal Peart: Not a fan of pot. Or Jeff Liles. (Vernon Evans) During the late ’80s and early ’90s, I was a frequent contributor to Your Flesh, a seminal Minneapolis-based art and music fanzine. One of the myriad perks of this gig was that it led to actual paying…

Was this show the turning point for Deep Ellum? (James Bland) A little over 22 years ago, the Butthole Surfers decided to tape their performances during a weekend-long stint at the Theatre Gallery in Deep Ellum. It was the first time Dallas-based producer David Castell had tried recording a live…

Eddie Van Halen, April 15, 1978, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Jeffrey Liles) It was the spring of 1978 and rock music was in big trouble. The Village People’s “YMCA” was sharing space on the Billboard charts with the Bee Gees and Andy Gibb. The Rolling Stones had (gasp!) gone disco…

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins at The Prophet Bar. (Cynthia Conrow) For all the wrong reasons, legendary zombie blues howler Screamin’ Jay Hawkins hated my guts. Our relationship was pretty much doomed from the start. I just couldn’t do anything right in his eyes. He and I shared the same birthday, but…

Iggy Pop at the Agora Ballroom in the late ’70s. (Vern Evans) Check It Out: We’ve posted a slideshow of Vern Evans’ photography. The late ’70s will forever be remembered as a remarkable paradigm shift for rock music in Dallas. Mark Lee, the owner of tiny bar just off Maple…

The Toadies played the Roxy last week, 13 years after the band’s first showcase at the historic LA venue. (Crystal Kelly) In February of 1995, Interscope Records packaged two of their “baby bands” together for a tour of the US. Our beloved Toadies and Bush were apparently on two different…

Editor’s note: Is Trees closing for good at the outset of 2006? As of press time, it has not been confirmed, though the answer could come even before this story reaches racks–check www.dallasobserver.com for updates through the week. Still, a barren December concert calendar, relocated January concerts, thousands of dollars…

This week, we offer a special guest column in remembrance of Austin’s Randy Biscuit Turner. On the eve of a highly anticipated art opening, with his face on the cover of the Austin Chronicle and his name on the lips of every punk rocker in town, Randy “Biscuit” Turner, the…

A month ago, the upcoming release of the new Wu-Tang Clan live DVD offered a glimmer of hope that the group might come back together. With the recent death of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, it instead exists as, quite possibly, the last piece of Wu-Tang Clan product we’ll ever see. Shot…

Finally, on the seventh day after his passing, for the first time during the three months I had been in Los Angeles, the skies cracked open and a real rain rinsed the ashes off everything. On my way to work I drove by the sidewalk memorial and saw kids pouring…

So I’m having breakfast at the Gold Rush Café when, totally unsolicited, a fellow diner approaches my table with a copy of Jolie Holland’s Escondida. “You have to hear this album,” he says. “This woman has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard.” He wasn’t kidding. Holland,…

If it’s an election year, then it must be time for the new Ministry album. Word on the street is goateed psychotic Al Jourgensen is up for his two-year chip at the downtown El Paso NA meeting, and he’s ready to reinvent his particular church of the subgenius. Even estranged…

Longtime listeners of KNTU’s Sunday night Frequency Down program are surely salivating at the opportunity to check out this upcoming live show by their favorite artist, mellowdrone. On the debut EP, a demonstration of intellectual property, 21-year-old solo artist Jonathan Bates (aka mellowdrone) showed amazing chops as both a singer…

Maybe you discovered the gifted North Carolina vocalist Anthony Hamilton the same way I did, stumbling across his recent appearance on Dave Chappelle’s Comedy Central joint a couple of weeks back. Or maybe you heard his guest spot on the Nappy Roots’ last album. Regardless: If you’re into organic r’n’b…

Serart is the fascinating debut collaborative art project from the gifted Armenian multi-instrumentalist Arto Tunc Boyaciyan and System of a Down lead vocalist Serj Tankian. Damn if it ain’t bangin’. You can ask my neighbors. I’ve listened to this record 15 times in the past three days, and now they’re…