Our music section here at the Observer tends to ignore (if not openly mock) cover bands, aside from enjoying the semi-ironic tribute acts that crop up every Halloween. But really, is yet another terrible “original” band that’s a blatant rip-off of, say, Radiohead or Wilco more inherently valuable than an…

As some of us from the Observer learned a couple weeks ago in the 24 Hour Video Race, making a short film is not as easy as it sounds. While we were thrilled just to have some semblance of a plot and a few jokes about balls that made us…

Few things are more depressing than day-old doughnuts. I found this out as part of the custodial staff for the UNT University Union, where the sympathetic employees in the deli store would give us leftover pastries they otherwise would have had to throw out after closing time. They look fine,…

Former MADtv player Pablo Francisco rivals fellow impressionist Frank Caliendo for supremacy of that small, strange niche of stand-up comedy. But where Caliendo doesn’t bother much with a narrative thread to introduce his impressions, usually just saying something like, “Wouldn’t it be funny if so-and-so did such-and-such?” Francisco works his…

The North Texas Beer Festival isn’t just an educational opportunity to sample from more than 100 craft and import beers. The three-day event is also an opportunity to explore the Great White North, as each part of the festival takes place in a different suburb north of Dallas. The fest…

Note: The date for this event has changed from Tuesday, May 17 to Wednesday, May 18. Want to know how to make us lose interest in a book immediately? Tell us it’s part of a vampire trilogy. In this case, though, an excerpt proves Justin Cronin’s The Passage is no…

One of the most compelling elements of a great ghost story is a character’s guilty conscience, leading the audience to question whether it is a ghost or regrets doing the haunting. Playwright Naomi Iizuka’s Language of Angels, a kind of ghost story set in working-class North Carolina where a girl…

Cinco de Mayo originated as a celebration of the Mexican army’s underdog victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. So to commemorate the holiday, Bailey’s Prime Plus, 8160 Park Lane, Suite 130, hosts a panel discussion of the French occupation and its repercussions on the United…

A new gallery may prove to those from north of the river that there is art in Oak Cliff outside the Bishop Arts District: Start Gallery Dallas, 1004 W. Page Ave. at Polk Street. Start gets its start with The First Exhibition featuring three Dallas artists: Martin R. Campos (mixed…

While East Coast and West Coast rappers battled, sometimes figuratively, in the ’90s, both sides paid little attention to a rising threat for hip-hop dominance: the South. From 2 Live Crew’s obscenity trial to the Geto Boys showing how good it feels to be a gangsta to OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”…

It happens every spring so consistently that we could mark it on our calendar: We seriously consider trading in our lifestyle of being caged in a gas-guzzling car for the open-air thrills, the drastically reduced petroleum consumption and the traffic-weaving efficiency of a motorcycle. Watters Creek, at Bethany Drive and…

The two-artist display at the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art is an opportunity to contrast works from a self-taught artist and those of one who has studied the masters. From what we can tell, the more academic artist seems to have the looser, more playful approach while the self-taught…