Jim Heath was the only one awake in the back of his tour bus when he first smelled the smoke. He and his band, Dallas vets Reverend Horton Heat, were passing through Oceanside, California early Wednesday morning on their way from a show in Hollywood to another one that night…
One of Dallas music’s worst-kept secrets has finally become official. After delaying last year’s event for several months, Spune, the organizers behind indie music festival Index, have decided to pull the plug this year. Originally slated to take place last September, Index was originally postponed until an unspecified date this…
S.O.U.L.Jah has been an ever-present force in Dallas DJ culture over the past decade, holding down a string of residencies in a variety of genres at some of Dallas’ most beloved DJ haunts. S.O.U.L.Jah has deep roots in Dallas drum and bass, but has never been one to play it…
Arthur Peña, founder and director of Vice Palace, will close out the roving venue’s second year with a two-day show at RBC in Deep Ellum featuring a lineup of local talent. The event is both a retrospective and a hint of what to expect from year three. Peña’s cassette label,…
The fierce Chicago quintet the Orwells ended their set early on Saturday night at the Spillover Fest with a fight when Trees staff tried to boot them off the stage. It’s unclear at this point what led to the ass kicking or even who received it. The Orwells’ lead singer…
Omar Mustafa is part of the younger class of DJs that have come up in Dallas in recent years. Mustafa has made the rounds as an audience member and as a DJ, playing at many of the key spots for the city’s key promoters. Mustafe is always able to adapt…
We hate to say we told you so, but in this case, we definitely did. Last December, we spoke with up-and-coming country singer-songwriter Maren Morris, who was then just on the cusp of becoming a star. At that time, Morris had only just released My Church, her first EP. Now,…
Today’s the big day for KISS fans of North Texas: Nearly eight months after plans were first unveiled, Rock & Brews, the restaurant franchise owned by Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, opens the doors on its newest location in The Colony. The newest addition to the quickly growing Grandscape development,…
Richard Haskins and his band the Wee Beasties were scheduled to play at J&Js Pizza in Denton on Friday as part of the opening night of music for this year’s 35 Denton festival. But he never got as far as performing, as he was apprehended around 10 p.m. for charges…
Gabriel Mendoza is a DJ’s DJ. A crate digger’s crate digger. From punk to metal to psyche to funk to Britpop to disco to Krautrock and beyond, he is a hard man to stump. Mendoza has the keen ability to find infectious funk in the places few choose to even…
The saga over Kesha’s ongoing battle to free herself from the man she says drugged and raped her is nothing new for Dallas music fans. But new comments from Burleson star Kelly Clarkson may be more damning, not only for her accused rapist, Dr. Luke, but for Sony Music as…
A more fitting album-opening line has rarely been offered by a band, local or otherwise, than the one on Lift to Experience’s The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads: “This is the story of three Texas boys busy minding their own business,” sang Josh T. Pearson, “when the Angel of the Lord appeared.” Better yet, it…
We’re a week into March, which probably means one of two things for Dallas music fans: You’re either preemptively popping Xanax to brace yourself for South by Southwest in Austin or else saying to hell with it and preemptively popping Xanax to deal with the insanity of St. Patrick’s Day…
David Wiley and Rachel Roberts have a dream to enrich downtown Dallas with a new wave of street musicians. Buskers are already regular fixtures at night in Deep Ellum, playing music for tips from passersby, but Wiley and Roberts want to do more than just bring busking to downtown and…
When French synthpop band M83 announced last month that they were searching for a new female singer and keyboardist for their upcoming tour, Kaela Sinclair’s friends and fans all seemed to be in agreement: she would be the perfect fit. And after a whirlwind, month-long search, M83 frontman Anthony Gonzalez…
It’s about time we made this official: Future seems to have a thing for Dallas. The Atlanta rap superstar has been making it a habit of visiting of our city, with at least three appearances in the past year, including headlining the Rageville Festival at The Bomb Factory last October…
Remember all the buzz surrounding BOOM 94.5 FM’s launch in the fall of 2014? When the classic hip-hop station appeared, unannounced, one weekend in November it had pretty well everyone talking — and for a hot minute, it wasn’t the only station in the game. Fast forward about 15 months…
Matthew “Urbanic” Urban is an Ohio ex-pat who followed a winding path that led him to Dallas. Appropriately, then, Urban’s contribution for this week’s mixtape is all over the place genre wise, more than just a string of tunes with similar beats per minute. There is an emotional depth conveyed…
Little did Jessie Frye know that when agreed to pose with some fellow musicians for a Frack Free Denton photo in 2014 that it would turn into an opportunity to get involved in presidential politics. David Sanchez, the Texas Deputy State Director of the Bernie Sanders campaign, just happens to…
If you weren’t watching last night’s episode of American Idol, you have officially missed your last opportunity to see the show whittle its competitors down to the final top 10 contestants. After 15 seasons, the FOX reality show will conclude this year, and the network is clearly hoping to go…
Three days after the Dallas Observer spoke to controversial Portland band Black Pussy and an organizer for the 35 Denton musical festival, which had booked them to play next month, the festival has announced that that it is removing the band from the lineup. A press release issued by 35…
Adam Pickrell is a producer-DJ-musician triple threat. He made waves with his live band house experience White Lotus Society and as a session musician, he has sat in with everyone from St.Vincent to Cas Haley to John Congleton’s Nighty Night. He recently became the musical director for Nellie Furtado. Pickrell’s…
