About four years ago, some flyers started circulating around the Dallas-area rehearsal facilities for White Cane Studios. They’d shoot a music video for you, complete start-to-finish job, for (I believe) $250. Fast forward to present, and Johny Cane and his partners have shot videos for Here Holy Spain, The Virgin…
Welcome to Alice Column, in which Alice Laussade writes stories about things on (roughly) the same day of (roughly) every week, making it (roughly) a column. Got an idea for a column? Start your own blog and write it up, you lazy shit. Dear Sleeping-Through-the-Night Jesus: You were a baby…
So today the daily newspaper tells me my cell phone is the portal through which Texas is being subjected to a massive text-message spam and phone-call phishing attack. You think? Because that would explain the endless text messages I have received in recent weeks informing me that my pay-day loan…
Those 9 p.m. sunsets are creeping closer and closer to a reasonable hour. The heat stays but something about the sticky September afternoons reminds us of summer’s conclusion. Whatever magic it brings is dwindling. The school zones have lit up, those of us with summer vacations have bid them adieu…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
The pressure to spit out news stories as fast as they happen, a disinclination to provide linkages that might look too subjective, a simple failure in our own ability to see: for whatever reason, we in the news business seldom show you how the stories we present to you are…
Late last night the Dallas school board carried out an hours-long closed-door session where they listened to an investigative report into alleged policy violations by school Superintendent Mike Miles. The report by attorney Paul Coggins cleared Miles of all of the legal and policy violations of which he was accused…
Saturday at 10 a.m. at the City Performance Hall on Flora Street, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, City Council member Dwaine Caraway and Dallas County Commissioner Elba Garcia will host an event called “Conversations About Race,” in which I was not invited to participate. Well how do you like that? I…
Dear Mexican: Can I “Ask a Mexican” why El Tri sucks so much? And why a little stadium in Columbus, Ohio, was louder and more passionate than Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, which seats more than 100,000? Can I also ask why a country that lives and breathes soccer/fútbol always…
Channel 8 WFAA TV investigative reporter Brett Shipp had a big piece on last night’s 10 p.m. News Update newscast about Dallas school Superintendent Mike Miles facing “new allegations of policy violations.” I disagree with the piece, especially as it painted media relations consultant Lisa LeMaster, but that doesn’t make…
This week, LM’M turns to “most interesting name” award recipient, Moody Fuqua. Fuqua has logged plenty of time as a local musician, and talent buyer, most recently for the stage at Crown and Harp, who are getting ready to host a benefit Saturday night for one of Fuqua’s inspirations in…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
On Sunday The Dallas Morning News printed an essay on its op-page by Austin writer John Savage about teaching in what he calls “the worst school in Texas.” It’s a piece that has been making the rounds from Salon to the blog of Diane Ravitch, a former champion of school…
Wouldn’t want you to miss a very interesting letter to the editor in today’s Dallas Morning News from architect/civic activist Bill Booziotis about a recent review by Mark Lamster of the star-crossed arts district condo building called “Museum Tower.” (Hey, do me a favor. Get a sandwich, a cold drink,…
Love of children, compassion for children, the instincts that propel us to shelter and nurture our young: These are profound and innate. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be tricky. Back in the ’90s I was on the board of directors of Head Start of Greater Dallas. Briefly. African-American leaders…
Dear Mexican: I have a Mexican friend at work, and we happened to get in a discussion that started off fine — but I believe that I offended her as the discussion progressed. We were talking about an upcoming celebration, and I asked if she knew the true meaning behind…
Dallas is two months shy of its commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the murder of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in Dealey Plaza, which probably will come off somewhere midway between tragedy and comedy. For more than two years, The Sixth Floor Museum, the city’s official assassination museum in the…
Superintendent Mike Miles didn’t write the letter. Mike Miles didn’t tell Kevin Smelker to write the letter. Mike Miles didn’t edit the letter. The narrative painted by Paul Coggins in his recent investigative report to the Dallas school board is a fiction. Last week former U.S. Attorney Coggins gave the…
Lloyd Banks runs Rockin’ Rodeo in Denton, but he’s been perched up north doing live music venues for a decade and a half: national touring acts mixed with local and regional bands, not only as opening acts, but also plenty as standalone showcase acts. He’s managed a band or two…
Dallas is talking about a ban on disposable plastic shopping bags. And I’m all for it. Because plastic bags are lazy. They break right when you need them. They refuse to hold as much as a paper bag. They make your cool bathroom trash can look dumb. They float around…
Naughty little secret I will share with you from my own craft, the news business. In my line of work it is by no means unheard of for a reporter who is about to get sacked to suddenly invent an untrue story to the effect of, “They’re trying to silence…
Are you a musician? Is your group having issues? Ask Fan Landers! Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to…
