The life of the music memorabilia collector can be a strange one. There are your more ordinary items, like gig posters or rare records. But from there you can go pretty far down the rabbit hole, through sweat-stained clothing to, say, locks of David Bowie’s hair — or, as is…
Cameron Brand has been active in Dallas music since the ’90s. Mostly he’s done time with bands like Blackheart Society, Bring in the Satellites, Apparatus and AT NIGHT. Nowadays he can usually be seen deejaying records from his collection as DJ Culturegang. A measured selector, he’s eclectic enough to get booked for…
The 2016 Dallas Observer Best Of Dallas issue is barely off the presses, but already our sights are set on our next big special issue of the year: the Dallas Observer Music Awards. This year marks the 28th annual for the DOMAs. The DOMAs, of course, are much more than…
There were a few ups and downs this week on the Dallas music front. Well, fortunately the main “down” didn’t happen here, and didn’t even involve a Dallas musician, but it did involve a missed appearance. With a celebrated homecoming for Norah Jones leading the week’s other news, though, there…
Chris Penn has spent a decade at the forefront of the vinyl resurgence in Dallas. He co-owns one of the city’s most beloved record stores, Good Records with business partner and Polyphonic Spree frontman Tim Delaughter. When Penn isn’t busy with day-to-day store operations, though, he moonlights as a DJ…
Timing can be everything for a band, as the members of Gammacide know all too well. They hit the North Texas metal scene in the late ’80s, when thrash metal peaked in popularity, and the band disappeared into legend shortly thereafter. The Arlington five-piece left behind a couple of demo cassette tapes and 1989’s Victims of…
RL’s Blues Palace II, in the Fair Park neighborhood, is a stand-alone venue in more ways than one. Its surrounding streets are far from Dallas’ sanctioned nightlife districts. The adjacent strip mall parking lots get crowded with loiterers on hot summer nights, hanging out on the backs of cars or…
Vanilla Ice’s hometown show at The Bomb Factory on Saturday night was as ’90s as it could get. Dallas’ loved and loathed one-hit-wonder, and still best-selling local hip-hop exponent, pulled out all the nostalgia stops in Deep Ellum. (The review is here.) But one thing was missing from the night:…
Brightly painted surrealist faces grin, jeer and snarl at passers-by under the neon sign that heralds the entrance to Club Dada – a club that sits on Elm Street just shy of where it intersects with N. Crowdus Street. The masks, fabricated by local artists, have been there for 30…
Thirty years ago, a band of four men — Bruce Corbitt, Casey Orr, Harden Harrison and Mike Scaccia — walked into Sound Logic, a small recording studio in Garland, to record their first demo. Ten hours later, the members of Rigor Mortis finished seven of the most brutal songs to…
As hard as it is to believe, it’s already halfway through September — but that’s a good thing for music fans. It means peak concert season is nigh for touring artists and survivable music festivals are just around the corner. This week was a pretty busy one in local music…
Thomas Blackburn, aka Tommyboy, is busy curating the DJs at Midnight Rambler cocktail bar at the Joule Hotel. But he has been an active top notch music nerd in Texas for two decades, playing gigs here and in Austin. His collection is so large and varied that, if he opened…
Bryan “Infidelix” Rodecker considers himself a “busking ninja.” Berlin is his playground. It’s been his playground for a couple of years now, since the Denton artist arrived in Europe in 2014. Rodecker’s street music has inspired people to join him in song. Sometimes they’re wanting to promote their art. Other…
Pop-ups are all the rage this season. Just last month, fans flocked to Stone Briar Center, a mall in Frisco — Frisco! — in order to stand in line for hours at Kanye West’s Life of Pablo-themed pop-up store. Not one to be one-upped, Puff Daddy is hosting his own…
What’s that saying about how if it ain’t broke? After months of carousing, touring and burning cigarettes on each other (a regular pastime of theirs, apparently), Post Malone and Justin Bieber finally, officially released their first collaboration together, “Déjà Vu.” But the title may be a little more literal than it…
Lance Lopez has seen a lifetime of change in recent years. The 38-year-old Dallas-based blues guitarist lost a dear friend, found sobriety and love, formed a new band with other blues legends and fathered a baby girl named Lilly. He’s also come a long way as a musician since the…
It was a short week this week thanks to the holiday weekend, but things didn’t slow down very much in the music scene here in Dallas. From festival announcements to reality TV to even news of a Christmas album, the first full week of September was a busy one in…
Sean Anderson has been deep in the production side of dance music for a very long time under his alias Pointbender. His label Harmonious Discord, which just celebrated its 15-year anniversary, has featured some of the best and brightest in Texas electronic producers, as well as artists from beyond the…
(Excerpted from Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap.) In the mid-1980s, Cleo Turner spun records as a Los Angeles DJ, calling himself Dr. Rock. He joined a flamboyant electro-rap group called World Class Wreckin’ Cru. Dr. Dre took his…
Denton rapper Bryan “Infidelix” Rodecker has spent the past couple of years promoting his music on city streets across Europe. He’d quit his job as a waiter, cashed in his life savings and crossed an ocean to pursue his dream of sharing his lyrical art. Now he’s gone viral. Rodecker,…
Don’t mess with North Texas country ladies. That seemed to be a recurring theme this week, as two of them — Maren Morris and Miranda Lambert — made headlines by notching up some big-time awards (or at least award nominations). But there’s been a lot more happening closer to home…
Cody McPhail performs electronic music of the experimental variety under the moniker of ATOP. Over the past few years, ATOP has cultivated a niche in the Dallas music scene with his Dallas Ambient Music Nights. DAMN has become a meeting point for the audio and video artists that exist in…
