Die Antwoord House of Blues, Dallas Saturday, May 31, 2014 No music reflects our ever-fragmenting, post-internet cultural condition quite like hip hop. The last ten years have seen the genre in constant flux, splintering and contorting into some of the most bizarre and fascinating shapes music has ever taken. Case…
Deep Ellum’s about to become pretty busy in the next couple weeks. Or is it just that much busier? Starting June 11, Elm St. will swarming with (presumably inked-up) concertgoers for five whole days, thanks to the Elm St. Music and Tattoo Festival. Now in its fifth year, this is…
Sand blankets a warehouse floor in west Dallas, a space aglow with the fluorescence of artificial tree-life. There’s three bikini-clad women bathed in blood. An audience convulses like spirits locked in exorcism pangs. On the horizon sits the Dallas skyline, shimmering and stoic, like massive sticks of studded jewelry. At…
The first half of 2014 has been a strong one for beloved acts with strong ties to the North Texas region. The new albums from St. Vincent and the Old 97’s have sent fans and critics looking for new superlatives, and rightfully so. Now we can add Centro-matic to the…
Fu Manchu Gas Monkey Bar & Grill Wednesday, May 28, 2014 Since I’ve been over here, I’ve been slowly but assuredly collecting bands I liked in the late ’90s, like someone younger might collect baseball cards, or Pokémon, or whatever it is the youth of today enjoy. Bands I would…
Journey With Steve Miller Band and Tower of Power Gexa Energy Pavilion, Dallas Sunday, May 25, 2014 There’s something about hearing songs like “Lights,” “Only the Young” and “Don’t Stop Believin'” that never truly gets old, no matter how many times you hear them or how old you are. The…
Memorial Day makes for a short week this week, which should come as a relief even if it does make Tuesday into something of a de facto Monday. (Can’t win ’em all, am I right?) As we all trek back from our weekend getaways and shake off those barbecue-induced hangovers,…
DOWN With Black Label Society, Butcher Babies, and Devil You Know Verizon Theatre, Grand Prairie Friday, May 23, 2014 Ten-year-old Jacob Trueblood had been waiting to meet Phil Anselmo all night. He’d been telling his mom that he wanted to give him a hug. He’s been listening to Pantera and…
Eagulls With Twin Peaks and Sealion Three Links, Dallas Friday, May 23, 2014 For any band who’s accustomed to playing extremely large venues, it can be a test to see how well they perform when they step down to a much smaller stage. Eagulls, a five-piece from Leeds, have played…
OFF! With Cerebral Ballzy and Nasa Space Universe Club Dada, Dallas Friday, May 23, 2014 There’s the great scene in The Dark Knight where Alfred explains to Bruce Wayne the true nature of the Joker. “Some men just want to watch the world burn,” says Alfred. Watching Keith Morris front…
Tonight, the Granada Theater stage will play host to two very distinct conventions of typical performance abandonment. One will be intricately oddball. The other will revisit a quintessential performance by one of the most revered and unapologetically adorable new-wave bands of the ’80s. The rare occurrence of witnessing, nay, experiencing,…
Morrissey With Kristeen Young Majestic Theatre, Dallas Thursday, May 22, 2014 You have to hand it to Morrissey: He’s one aging rock star who will not go softly into that good night. No, his band didn’t wear the “Meat Is Murder” T-shirts that were mooted to be the plan. (The…
We love Morrissey. We love his coiff, we love the tactless way he shoots off his mouth. We even love his supposed plan to have his band show off their new “Meat is Murder” T-shirts as a gesture of protest during his Thursday night show at the Majestic. And did…
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made their fans happy twice over this morning with the announcement of a new album and a slew of North American tour dates taking place in late summer. The album, Hypnotic Eye, due out on Reprise Records July 29, is Petty’s 16th studio album and…
Eels/Chelsea Wolfe Annette Strauss Square 5/19/2014 I have seen Mark Oliver Everett and his rotating band of anonymous indie rockers several times now. Not once, in all of these times, have I heard the same song. Sure, I’ve literally heard the same song a few times. But it’s never been…
Betcha didn’t see this one coming: Austin’s annual late-year concert extravaganza, Fun Fun Fun Fest, just revealed the lineup for this year’s edition, and the headliners will be none other than everyone’s favorite metalhead leatherboys, Judas Priest. That’s right, of “Breaking the Law” fame. The same guys, in fact, who…
As rock radio mainstays Jimmy Eat World ran through their albums at Fort Worth Music Festival on Saturday, a man in his 50s wearing a Suicide Girls T-shirt looked on as a group of thirtysomethings danced and relived their youth. Close by some college kids took breaks from dancing to…
With extremely low expectations, I made my way into the Verizon Theatre in Grand Prairie on Saturday night to catch a trio of acts that saw their best days nearly four decades ago: Foreigner, Styx and Don Felder, of Eagles fame. For the two co-headliners, it was a case of…
Driving up U.S. 75 toward Durant, part of me was excited about seeing Hank Williams Jr. live. I knew that he was an arch-conservative, a bit of a racist, and probably too old to be any good, but there is always something exhilarating about seeing and hearing songs from your…
Which way do you want to rawk this week? Because there are a number of different ways to do so, given the lineup of concerts that hit Dallas between now and Sunday. If it’s metal you’re looking for, this should be an especially bountiful week. If it’s arena-sized power ballads,…
Look, Dave Matthews seems like a great guy. I even like him as an actor. But the guy’s music bores the living hell out of me. Maybe it’s because he’s basically a younger version of Jimmy Buffet just playing to a crowd partying with a different substance. Maybe it’s because…
It’s almost game time on a beautiful afternoon in Houston and free time is incredibly tight for Eric Nadel. The legendary voice of Texas Rangers broadcasts, who would choose Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” as his walkout music from the dugout, did have some time to talk with DC9 before…
