This could have been better. Should have been better. Why postpone the obvious? Two years ago, even last year, there was no reason to expect much/anything from Fixture. Why would you? All they had to show for themselves was 1998’s ultra=sound, which wasn’t much, but hey, they were just starting…

Afew years ago, former New Times Los Angeles music editor Keven McAlester (who once held down the same post at the now-defunct Met) came up with a system to determine the worst albums of the year, a scientific formula that separated the chaff from the wheat with such precision, its…

Without question, 2000 was a good year for local music, as familiar faces and genuine surprises delivered the rock and didn’t take it back. From The Rocket Summer’s teenage love rock to Centro-matic’s literate onslaught to Captain Audio’s well-intentioned pretensions to [DARYL]’s new new wave, there was more than enough…

Right now, there’s a high-school kid somewhere perfecting a file-sharing system that makes Napster look like Columbia House. There are students working in college dorm rooms on file-compressing software that would render MP3s the equivalent of eight-track tapes. In a few years–or a few months, possibly–there will be technology on…

We’ve been trying to tell people this for months, but now the national press has gotten involved: Alternative Press recently selected the pAper chAse as one of the “100 Bands You Need to Know About to Call Yourself a Music Fan.” The article hits newsstands in the March issue of…

You never notice the smell of cigarettes until you stop smoking them, and even then it takes a while before you really start to notice the stale stench staining air and skin and anything else it comes in contact with. Kind of like breaking up with someone and not realizing…

While there are more than enough songs about Christmas, and more every year–Idol Records just released another 18 into the wild on Electric Ornaments, and that’s just locally–there aren’t very many about Chanukah. There’s Adam Sandler’s self-explanatory “The Chanukah Song” and…well…uh…hmmm…that’s about it, unless you wanna count “A Lonely Jew…

Bruce Goldberg knows that a Japanese import version of Marilyn Manson’s new Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) exists. He’s seen it, held it in his hands, stuffed it into a bubble-wrap envelope. In fact, his company, Weathermen Records, recently shipped 123 copies of the disc…

Maybe it was a bad idea to have DirecTV installed on that Saturday, but then again, how could I have known? After almost a year sans tube, I’d finally decided to jump into the 500-channel deep end, return once again to the magical world of nonstop Law & Order reruns…

Rhett Miller nailed it when former Dallas Observer staff writer and London resident Christina Rees caught up with him (“The sound of Deep Ellum,” June 22) at an open-mike-night performance at London’s Kashmir Club earlier this year: “I mean, you get to England, and you expect the bands to be…

In case you haven’t heard, and unless you hang out on The Toadies’ Web site (www.thetoadies.com) you probably haven’t, Interscope Records has finally set a release date for Hell Below, Stars Above, the band’s second album for the label and first since 1994’s Rubberneck. (Yes, yes–it’s been a while; no…

You gotta hand it to Matt Gunter; the kid’s persistent. After working with Jeff Liles and his HEIRESS-aesthetic Records label on the Static Orange project–a double-disc set of local groups that was available free with the purchase of any other local album at area record stores–Gunter jumped right back into…

Call me lazy, shiftless, whatever you want. You’re right. For once, God almighty, you’re right. These records should have been reviewed before now, before the bands that made them moved onto something else. So, save your letters. You don’t agree with my feelings about these eight records, write about that…

The alternative venue at the moment is the Elbow Room on Gaston Avenue, just on the cusp of Deep Ellum, previously thought to be little more than a beer-and-billiards joint–a good hang, but not much more. For the past few months, however, it’s been the center of Dallas’ burgeoning instrumental…

Since we haven’t had regular access to television in almost a year–during which time a couple of sets died tragically in the line of duty at the hands of our fourplex’s sub-Amish wiring–we’re not entirely sure what the kids are watching these days. Nothing is Must See TV any more:…

What does the music wrenched from the reluctant psyche of a tortured man sound like? Kid A. With more audience anticipation than the birth of a nation, Radiohead has released Kid A, the fourth album from the media-defined Most Important Band in Rock. To listen to Kid A is to…

Despite the way this will undoubtedly be marketed, there’s not as much novelty here as on 1994’s American Recordings: Johnny Cash singing a U2 song? Hell, he did that on Zooropa. Singing with Tom Petty and backed by various Heartbreakers? That’s all Unchained is. And sure, he offers his take…

Someone at Epic Records’ New York offices is laughing, thinking about the two fools in Dallas who shot off their mouths only to shoot themselves in the foot. I’ll admit, it sounds stupid: Listening to 25 live albums…by the same band…in a row. And to top it off, the band…

You can probably find Budapest One’s new album, The Crooner Rides Again, in stores. But that is not the best way to wrangle yourself a copy of the disc: If you e-mail front man Keith Killoren at budapest1@hotmail.com, he’ll more than likely appear on your doorstep with The Crooner Rides…

This won’t come as a shock to anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of seeing us perform that point-and-jump-and-duck step Rerun used to do on What’s Happening? or try to recreate the finale of Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo, but we can’t dance. Not really. Not unless the polka counts, and…

It’s not by accident that Centro-matic’s latest (and fifth, if you’re keeping score) begins with the sound of a typewriter hunting and pecking out a miniature backbeat, a writer finding his rhythm. South San Gabriel Songs/Music is not necessarily a concept album, but it certainly sounds like a novel set…

Put a Nick Drake record on the turntable and poke a hole in one of your speakers. Grab a bottle of red wine and a pair of scissors. Forget who’s asking or answering, or even what they’re talking about, and just read. Start in the middle and end at the…