The rent for Lakewood bars is too damn high. At least that’s what we’re learning this week as another area staple shutters its doors. Around 6 p.m. last night, Lakewood Bar & Grill updated its Facebook page with news of its abrupt closure. According to the update, the closure was unplanned…
Go here to vote online. Grab a paper ballot in the print edition out today if you prefer. You can vote over text-messaging, too. Those details are in the paper as well. Point is: Vote early, vote often. We’ll be accepting votes right up until and during our October 15…
Technically — technically — last week was supposed to be it for Rio Room’s somewhat over-the-top, but nonetheless impressive summer-long offerings of DJ sets from bold-faced names. Diplo’s performance was to be the cap in the summer’s feather, and the weekly Sunday night residency from Grammy-winning Dallas production duo Play-N-Skillz…
Back in July, when we caught up with Centro-matic frontman Will Johnson to talk about his band’s latest release, the excellent Candidate Waltz, much of our conversation centered around the small dusty city of Bastrop, Texas, located about 30 miles south of Austin, where Johnson wrote essentially all of the…
Some pertinent St. Vincent news to pass along to end the day today, exactly one week before Dallas product Annie Clark releases her third solo record, Strange Mercy, the most pressing of which is this: In case you haven’t yet noticed, the new, made-in-Oak-Cliff, John Congleton-produced album is streaming over…
Two weeks back, you may recall, we passed along a free download of local rapper Jay Fresh’s take on the unavoidable Jay-Z and Kanye West song “Otis,” for which Fresh had a little help courtesy of a production update from electronic artist and new Pretty Lights Music signee, SuperVision.A few…
Earlier this week, Denton musician Jessie Frye accomplished quite the feat. She, like so many other area artists before her, had taken to Kickstarter to raise funds for her art — in this case, money to help produce her first-ever music video. She figured she needed $1,000. So she asked…
About a year ago, before tragedy twice struck the much-adored area greaser-punk three-piece Spector 45, first with frontman Frankie Campagna on New Year’s Day and then again in March with bassist Adam Carter, the band had been approached about having their music used in an upcoming TV ad promoting the…
Spune Productions head Lance Yocom is moving rather swiftly down the road to recovery after he mysteriously fell ill in Flagstaff, Arizona, last month. It took a few weeks of intense testing for doctors to discover the Yocom was suffering from severe pneumonia. As such, for over a month, Yocom…
At 75, guitarist Buddy Guy remains as nimble of a string-bender as he was when his career started over 50 years ago. And what a career it’s been: Eric Clapton calls Guy the greatest player ever, and, clearly, Guy has influenced generations of blues guitarists. He still makes great albums, too: Living…
This weekend out in Arlington at Cowboys Stadium, the Louisiana State University Tigers and the University of Oregon Ducks will “geaux” head-to-head in a feats-of-football competition, effectively kicking off the college football season. If nothing else, the game is giving an advantageous promotions company called Destination Entertainment an excuse to…
Four of the biggest names in Dallas music over the past 20 years? All on one stage? Gotta say, you guys, we’re pretty freakin’ stoked about this one.No, we’re not knocking last year’s deal at all — our first Dallas Observer Music Awards showcase in Deep Ellum and our first…
Hope you’re not sick of St. Vincent yet. Seems, as we approach the September 13 release of her third LP, the John Congleton-produced Strange Mercy, the one-time Dallas resident born Annie Clark is only going to be more and more visible. Already, she’s been on the cover of Spin. Under…
Back at the beginning of the month we passed along this fairly exciting, if also a little bizarre, news: Neon Indian helped create a synthesizer called the PAL 198X, and, if you buy the deluxe version of their new album, Era Extraña, you’ll get it as part of the package…
Leagues frontman Thad Cockrell has been writing and performing country music for well over a decade. All three of his albums, two of which (Stack Of Dreams and Warmth And Beauty) were released on Yep Roc Records, have been met with critical acclaim. His fan base has stayed loyal throughout…
Over the years, Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios’ annual Free Week, which welcomes students back to the town’s University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University campuses each fall with a spate of free shows, has become something like the Denton music scene’s Chanukah. Really: The public is given a treat…
Gotta say, for the first time in a long time, the MTV Video Music Awards were pretty awesome this year. The annual event, which aired last night, had become pretty stale in recent years, as MTV has kowtowed to teen and tween demand, celebrating the likes of Justin Bieber, et…
Moments into a discussion about his new solo record, about his performance at the House of Blues’ Cambridge Room tomorrow night and about, well, just the overall state of his world right now, Patrick Stump gets right to the point.”I’m totally at peace with the reality that I’m always going…
For a while there, it was the best rumor in local music — that the Dallas-based Kirtland Records owned Bush’s back catalog because label owner John Kirtland, the former drummer for Deep Blue Something, had won it in a high-stakes poker game.Turns out, alas, it’s just a tall tale.”I love…
Unless, like me, you’re a Red Sox fan, there really wasn’t too much to cheer about during last night’s Rangers game at The Ballpark in Arlington. The team got beat badly, losing 13-2. Still, there were at least some moments when the home crowd seemed rather entertained last night. Most…
The club kids from the late ’80s spawned, and their children now have oozed onto the surface of popular culture en masse. Subsequently, electronic dance music has become the newest form of mainstream pop music. Or something like that. As a result, on Sunday night at Gexa Energy Pavilion, the…
Today’s piece of proof in the Dallas-loves-electronic-dance-music-and-so-even-do-the-folks-who-run-the-city department is kind of amazing: The folks behind the annual Lights All Night New Year’s Eve party, who last year brought Ghostland Observatory to town, have seriously stepped their game up this year, turning New Year’s Eve (rather surprisingly) into a two-night affair…
