1. The Shins - Wincing the Night Away
2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder
3. Menomena - Friend and Foe
4. Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity
5. Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
6. The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen
7. Deerhunter - Cryptograms
8. Beirut - Lon Gisland
9. Fujiya + Miyagi - Transparent Things
10. Various Artists - Zac Crain for Dallas Mayor Compilation
11. St. Vincent - Paris is Burning
12. Arbouretum - Rites of Uncovering
13. Benoit Pioulard - Precis
14. Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - #3
15. Lymbyc Systym - Love Your Abuser
16. Mum - The Peel Sessions
17. The Earlies - The Enemy Chorus
18. Sloan - Never Hear the End of It
19. The Broken West - I Can't Go On I'll Go On
20. Paolo Nutini - These Streets

After we watched The Great Tyrant shatter eardrums and hurt feelings at Art Prostitute last month, we vowed to make every effort to see them the next time they played a show anywhere in Dallas. And apparently, a lot of other people made themselves similar promises. The band's well attended opening set at Doublewide on Saturday confirmed that they are indeed one of the most brutally powerful and exciting live acts in Dallas, Denton or Ft. Worth at the moment, packing punches of sprawling, theatrical doom noise accompanied by the kind of technical skill and precision that comparable bands usually don't even need in order to get the job done. In front of a simple yet effective set of visuals, the band coated the room with an oozing, angry syrup of noise that took cues from drone metal and early goth infused with a nervous psychedelic abandon that made the entire experience hypnotic and unpredictable. Daron Beck's soaring vocals, seemingly influenced by soul as much as Scott Walker, Nick Cave or Peter Murphy, sat front and center as Tommy Atkins' flawless basslines played off the mind blowing drumming of Jon Teague, creating a menacing rhythmic assault underneath the layers of foggy noise that combine and clash with one another to take the band to the next level in terms of both performance and composition. The overwhelming heaviness of their music is certainly what will draw most listeners at first, but as you step back and start to notice the details and sophisticated structures that the Great Tyrant uses to create what initially comes across as chaos, the possibilities seem endless, and the band's growing local notoriety certainly seems well deserved.

One of the things we laugh about around here is how we're accused of kissing Wanz' ass and showering everything he does with praise when the fact of the matter is that we've honestly been less than impressed with most of the live performances we've seen from him over the past year. Sure, just about every project he has been involved with has had great potential (as well as a fair share of brilliant moments), but repeated technical difficulties and passages of seemingly unnecessary self indulgence have often turned Wanz Dover shows into less than thrilling experiences for us. As his new band The Frenz took the stage at Doublewide on Saturday, the place had filled up pretty close to capacity with what seemed to be Wanz' built in crowd, and happily, those in attendance were treated to what was probably the most completely realized and intriguing music that Wanz has played since we started writing this blog. Kicking off the set with several long, mesmerizing electronic tracks that sounded heavily influenced by German minimalist house and dubstep with overtones of shoegaze and Boards of Canada styled IDM, The Frenz set the bar quite high early on. Wanz' vocals (which reminded us of Danzig quite a bit) were typically understated and well delivered throughout, showcasing a notable strong suit, while the band's highly layered instrumental passages were delivered quite effectively with the excellent drumming of Guyton Sanders keeping focus and standing out as a highlight. The set seemed to falter a bit at the end (after an excellent Can cover) as the live instrument-centered songs didn't carry the same weight and immediacy as the electro tracks, but it was clear that Wanz has put together an excellent new project with the kind of skilled musicians that might help give it the staying power it needs.

Although we didn't get to catch all of what seemed to be a typically enjoyable set from the Angelus, what we witnessed was indeed a truly solid local bill featuring bands that manage to take risks without being reckless, which is a rare treat no matter where you happen to live.

I'm guessing many of you will either 1) watch the super bowl; 2) watch the super bowl and get drunk while watching; 3) not watch the super bowl. Either way, you'll be able to check out members of Ghostcar playing at Winedale starting at 10pm... if you're into that sort of thing.

(Contributions from SR and DL on this one.)

FRIDAY

The Vietniks (Secret Headquarters)
The Vietniks consist of three Texas filmmakers who play music along with projected images that they produce themselves. The music sounds like dirty minimal blues slop from the sixties, a decade they obviously draw heavily from. (SR- I would say that bands like Vietnam and Pink Mountaintops are good contemporary reference points based on what I've heard, which of course means Velvet Undergound by default. Doesn't everything?)

Kettle Art: Dallas Video Fest Classics: The Kettle Art Gallery in Deep Ellum has partnered with the Dallas Video Festival to present some of the best selections from the DVF archives. And it actually looks awesome. Here's the 80's-centric lineup:

From 1987:

MTV "Art Breaks"

"Buzzbox" with Pee Wee Herman

From 1988:

Selections from the Dallas Show where Dallas artists interpret the assassination of JFK, including:

Blessing by Rev. Bob

’63 by James Chefchis

The Single Gun Theory by The Church of the Subgenius

Taste the Legend with Jackie Matrix by Mark Ridlin

Selection from Dallas at the Crossroads (with Walter Cronkite)

Selection from "Dick Talk" by X

"Free Society: The Way Things Go" by Paul Garrin

From 1989:

Selections from The Texas Show, including:

Rev. Bob heals the Videotape by Farley Scott

Susanville: The Epic – Part I by Susan Magilow and Susan Teegardin

Exoskeleton by Dave Hynds

and Selections from DEVO: A Retrospective

SATURDAY

The Angelus | The Frenz | The Great Tyrant (Double Wide)
Epic show. The Frenz is Wanz Dover with some "friends" helping him out, including members of Ghostcar, Jack With One Eye, and Paul Baker of the late Sub Oslo, who will be providing projected images for your visual stimulation. The Angelus continues the cinematic atmospherics but does it through their music as opposed to having a visual aid. The Great Tyrant blew everyone away at our Art Prostitute show back in December by not only overcoming the notorious sound problems in that room but also coming close to blowing the audience through the front windows with sheer force. They also recorded a song for a Magma tribute, which is one of the coolest things a local band has ever done.

Sparklehorse | Jesse Sykes And The Sweet Hereafter (Gypsy Tea Room): Mark Linkous' greatest musical achievement might his production on Daniel Johnston's Fear Yourself. The fact that this man is even alive is also quite an accomplishment. So go see a real survivor at Gypsy Tea Room, which for better or worse, is not quite the survivor that Linkous is.

Eat Avery's Bones | Nouns Group (Secret Headquarters)
Eat Avery's Bones will look especially bizarre in whatever costumes they're wearing under the eerie blue glow of the SHQ space. I have never seen this band play with anything except unabashed and contagious enthusiasm, and a lot of sour rock stars should take a page from their book. Nouns Group doesn't have a Myspace profile.

The Paper Chase | Dove Hunter | Tre Orsi (Rubber Gloves)
Tre Orsi is the Texas supergroup that has members of South San Gabriel, Okkervil River, and Little Grizzly. I've heard that the band is a good rough-edged live experience and pretty much steers clear of any sad-bastard country rock posturing. The Paper Chase end their trio of Texas shows with this one and will be back on the road later this month to play a rare (for any band) Alaska stop with Cursive before starting another ultra-ambitious tour in March. Dove Hunter has members of 54 40" or Fight band Mandarin, but they are a lot more country than calculus.

SUNDAY

The Frenz | Night Game Cult | Chief Death Rage (Rubber Gloves)
The Frenz stay busy with their second show in the same weekend and are spoiled with another solid lineup. Chief Death Rage will make sure that nobody is left standing and I'm convinced that Night Game Cult rule more than ever after their triumphant performance at SHQ, no matter what the fucking Observer says.

In Dot Dat | Mom | Final Fight (Rubber Gloves): This should be a mostly laid-back affair punctuated by moments of grandiose ear-splitting buildups to balance things out. From what I can gather, all three of these groups are mostly instrumental, taking cues from other cerebral and vocal-less indie rock groups. I've heard nothing but good things about Mom, whether it be on this blog or around town.

Lost Generation with DJ Wanz (Fallout Lounge)

Description from Wanz:

At some point I am gonna show the Roll Deep documentary and then throw on Appleseed for eyecandy while I am spinning. As usual I have a ton of new stuff and old classics from the vault. I am gonna lay heavy on the dubstep, hip hop and funk tonight.

It was kind of slow last week. I could use a little better turnout so come out, tell a friend, make a request, have a drink and get down Lost Gen style. Cheers!!!

DJ G (Hailey's)

Flashlight Party (The Moon in Fort Worth)
I'm assuming this is a residency now.

Michael Chamy sent me the email below, and I was wondering if people who know more about the 90's scene or know this guy personally might like to comment or provide us with more information. We noticed that Wanz had posted something about this in a comment thread the other day, but since I don't know anything about this person and very little about his band(s), I figured we'd give someone else the chance to share:

"apparently Chris Foley was found dead sometime in the past few days in an Austin motel room. I heard this secondhand. Foley, as far as I know, was most recently and perhaps still in Austin's very good melodic shoegaze dream/pop group the Swells (circa 2000 to either present or recently, though I think Foley was only in the group the past couple years, though I am not certain), but much more noted in DFW and Texas at large for being a core member of the great slowcore space-pop outfit of the late 90s, Transona Five (circa 1995 to 2000) ... not sure if they were technically from Ft. Worth, Denton or elsewhere in DFW .... but they made some serious waves around here at some point, especially at the end of the Denton space rock thing (they were kinda closer to Comet & Bedhead though) .... they were on the Austin label Sandwich Records, and I think they may have even moved to Boston or something, perhaps causing their demise."

Here is a a short Wikipedia entry about Transona Five, and here is an Allmusic entry about the Swells.

UPDATE 555pm: A blog on Transona 5's Myspace confirms this.