I’m a suburbanite. Of course, I do spend a great deal of time in Dallas proper, drinking, eating and going to shows. But I live in Carrollton. I actually love it here, in fact. I’m not saying all suburbs are great – most certainly are not, but dangit-all-to-heck, C-town has…
With the 26th annual Dallas Observer Music Awards finally upon us — in fact, voting just closed last Friday and the music showcase convened in Deep Ellum over the weekend — we’ve spent the past couple month highlighting some of the nominees for this year’s awards. And when we say…
With the 26th annual Dallas Observer Music Awards just around the corner — in fact, voting is open right now — we’re looking to spend the next several weeks taking the opportunity to highlight some of the nominees for this year’s awards. And when we say that these artists are…
Eight years ago, Rhett Miller’s brother, Ross, also a musician, felt compelled to figure out how he and his famous brother could help a friend of his. A wife of one of Ross’s friends was battling cystic fibrosis, so the two Millers got to work on a plan that would…
Last week, Bedhead, the renowned slowcore pioneers from Dallas led by brothers Matthew and Bubba Kadane, saw the re-release of its entire body of recorded work. Chicago-based record label Numero Group, a label that specializes in offering up richly detailed, comprehensive collections from artists deserving of further inspection, released the…
Jeezy 9 p.m. Friday, November 21, at South Side Ballroom, 1135 S. Lamar, 214-421-2021 or southsideballroomdallas.com, $59.50 The Godfather of modern Atlanta trap rap is returning to Dallas. The artist formerly known as Young Jeezy has been a star in the rap game ever since he released Let’s Get It:…
The Black Keys With Jake Bugg. American Airlines Center, Dallas Sunday, November 16, 2014 A quick glance over the past decade of rock music doesn’t exactly produce an over-abundance of true, guitar-driven bands that have climbed up from the club circuit and into the realm of massive-scale arena rock. These…
Music compilations are something of a dying breed these days. Sure, there are some great choices to be had in the Best Music Compilation category in this year’s Dallas Observer Music Awards, but the essence of the compilation has been greatly diminished in the years since CDs were superseded by…
With the 26th annual Dallas Observer Music Awards just around the corner — in fact, voting is open right now at musicawardspoll.dallasobserver.com — we’re looking to spend the next several weeks taking the opportunity to highlight some of the nominees for this year’s awards. And when we say that these…
This week, Dallas-based songwriter Ronnie Fauss released Built to Break, his second full-length effort for the New West Records imprint Normaltown. Of course, that total doesn’t include the handful of killer alt-country EPs Fauss delivered before his 2012 Normaltown debut, I Am the Man You Know I’m Not. Since 2009,…
Daniel Markham is in the midst of a pretty serious addiction. Now 33 years old, the Denton-based singer-songwriter has managed to live an exceptionally lengthy time without tumbling into the otherworldliness of one of the most popular escapes of the past three quarters of a century. The drug he can’t…
Though he hasn’t officially released music in five years, for many of us in North Texas Jack Ingram hasn’t gone away. For starters, he performs around here a lot; he’s hit Plano, Dallas and Fort Worth in the past two months alone. And more importantly, he’s built up an impressive…
This past March, Fort Worth hosted the spring edition of the Untapped Indie Music and Beer Festival. The weather absolutely sucked, but in a weird way, that made the day and evening a fun one, because the beer lines were shorter and the crowds in front of the stages for…
On December 13, The Old 97’s will perform at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Dallas. That combination alone is enough to make for a pretty cool night. One of Dallas’ most beloved bands in one of the greatest rooms our city has to offer will never be an ordinary scenario…
As a child growing up in the tiny town of Niceville, Florida, McKinney transplant and country singer-songwriter Crystal Yates couldn’t avoid the twangy sounds of country music even if she had wanted to. “My mom says I could sing ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’ by Hank Williams before I could…
Some songs pop out of a writer’s mind and onto tape in mere minutes. Other songs, however, require a journey with several stops in order to develop into the fully formed statement they need to be. Almost three years ago, during the Christmas season of 2011, popular sports-talk radio host…
“Super group” is a term that’s prone to overuse. Hyperbole is often too tempting to resist. But in the case of Bethan, a band whose music thrives on an appropriate degree of restraint, it’s hard to think of another band in North Texas with a better claim to such accolades…
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers American Airlines Center, Dallas Friday, September 26, 2014 When the iconic opening riff to “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” soared through the American Airlines Center on Friday night to begin the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ second number, it was clear the night would be a…
Since 2004 Chicago-based post-metal trio Russian Circles have pounded out one brutally brilliant album after another. Last year, the group, consisting of guitarist Mike Sullivan, drummer Dave Turncratz and bassist Brian Cook, released the epic Memorial. Between headlining their own global tour and hitting the road with the Chelsea Wolfe,…
It’s now been a couple of years since Dallas-based folk-rocker Ronnie Fauss delivered his debut full-length record for New West imprint Normaltown Records, 2012’s I Am the Man You Know I’m Not. That album won him national acclaim from notable outlets such as Vanity Fair and the New York Times,…
Folk singers are storytellers. The best ones are able to take the most simplistic subject matter and make it ache with beauty. The great ones can also take life’s greatest complexities and unanswerable questions and present us with a new, relatable vision with which we can view such big-picture wonderings…
Dia De Los Toadies Festival With the Toadies, Old 97’s, Ume, Quaker City Night Hawks, Pleasant Grove, Somebody’s Darling, Residual Kid, The Longshots and Blank-Men Panther Island Pavilion, Fort Worth Saturday, September 13, 2014 With apologies to the out-of-town artists that performed during Saturday’s Dia de Los Toadies concert at…
