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it list : tuesday
  
Sorry, something unexpected came up this afternoon, so no clever writing for today.



Arrington de Dinoyso Darktown Strutters Final Club Drug Mountain (Rubber Gloves)
  
Frank Phosphate on May 4thcomments (0)
  
  
it list : monday
  
Usual Monday with Cool Out and Jazz at The Amsterdam, however it's in unusual Monday, since local Film blog Gordon And The Whale is hosting a free screening of the new film, Exit Through The Gift Shop, which bills itself as the "World's first Street Art Disaster Movie" and is the creation of world-famous yet anonymous street artist Banksy. Entrance is free along with a printed-out copy of the Facebook invite, which you can get by "liking" Gordon And The Whale on Facebook. The Sour Grapes graffiti crew will be in attendance, and there is a possible Q&A afterward as time permits.

Bansky's art and publicity technique may be too gimmicky for some to stomach, but whatever you think of him, you can't dispute the truth of this quote, or at least, we certainly can't:

"Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was."

Yeah, that seems familiar. Film is at 7:30 PM at The Angelika at Mockingbird Station.
  
Defensive Listening on May 3rdcomments (0)
  
  
monday morning rock
  


TUE: Arrington de Dinoyso/Darktown Strutters/Final Club/Drug Mountain (Rubber Gloves)
THR: Stoned Men/Kampfgrounds/Drink to Victory/Akkolyte/Modern History Duet/Forbes Young Gonzalez/Billington Hart/Zanzibar Snails (Little Guys Warehouse)
THR: Nervous Curtains/Land Mammals/Dizastra (Rubber Gloves)
THR: Ramblin' Jack Elliott (Granada)
FRI: Centromatic/Matthew and the Arrogant Sea/Oh Lewis (Granada)
FRI: Imaad Wasif/True Widow/The Naked Eyes/Static (Rubber Gloves)
FRI: Yells at Eels (Tradewinds)
FRI: Tiger Hatchery/Lechuguillas/Drug Mountain/Akkolyte (Hailey's)
SAT: Fungi Girls/The Black Dotz/Soular Power (Tradewinds)
SAT: Florene/George Quartz/Melting Season (Rubber Gloves)
SAT: Sundress (Dan's)
  
Frank Phosphate on May 3rdcomments (0)
  
  
weekender
  
FRIDAY

Dr. Dog | Deer Tick (The Loft)
Man, Dr. Dog. Festival rock is a bizarre thing. They're better than most Bonnaroo fare, but their increasingly slick albums sort of fell off more quickly than they should have.

A1 | Schwa | Genova | Tyrone Smiley (Zubar)
Top Notch is now a monthly.

Enemies Of Inertia | Melora | Baring Teeth | Lycergus (Reno's Chop Shop)

Yesterday's Gold II With Tommy Boy and DJ G (Tradewinds)
We need more advertising like this.

Ralph White | Amy Annelle (Good Records)
Phenomenal banjoist that played with The Bad Livers and even with Jandek, though to see this guy live, you realize he's one of these people that shouldn't have any other players in the way.

Man Factory | Museum Creatures | Peopleodian (The Cavern)

SATURDAY

Ocelot | Sore Losers | Fizzy Dino Pop | Big J | TommyL33J0nez (Majestic Dwelling of Doom)
As of 4:27 PM on Friday: Confirmed Guests (278). Maybe Attending (243). Not Attending (487). Awaiting Reply (991). Oh, word? You guys are about as good at keeping secrets as we are. Presented by a whole bunch of folks, including the once pariah-like but now venerable We Made Out Once as well as Unkommon Kolor.

Matthew Gray | Dust Congress | Monastery | Gossamer and more (The Schoolhouse)

DJ Gigantrathor (Phoenix Project)
This is a last minute effort to get the PPC all properly coded up before their temporary CO expires. There will be food for volunteers and music. There is a raffle that will be held, based on the number of hours you put in which will get you into shows for free. This is one of the best things going in Dallas, so come out and do a little real work to support it.

Mono | Balmorhea (The Loft)

Museum Creatures | Abacus | Nurses | White Hinterland | Glen Farris | Tallest Man on Earth | Sundress | Dosh | DJ Five Easy Pieces (Haileys)

SUNDAY

Ralph White | Yells At Eels | Amy Annelle | Dim Locator (Dan's Silverleaf): Terrifically mixed lineup. Dan's Silverleaf has had some great shows lately.

Those Darlins | The Uptown Bums (Rubber Gloves)
  
Defensive Listening on April 30thcomments (0)
  
  
art list
  
FRIDAY

Denton Contemporary Art Walk
Meme Gallery
Burgers & Friends: 6-9 pm (108 W. Oak St.) featuring Katie Kader
Panhandle House: 7-10 pm (313 N/ Locust)
Meme Gallery: 8-11 pm (411 E. Sycamore) featuring Brett Rees

SATURDAY

FOURPLAY
John Casey, Mr. Hooper, Frieda Gossett, Bruce Lee
Webb Gallery (Waxahachie)
Opens Saturday, May 1, 7-10 pm

Drawings
James Blake
William Campbell Contemporary Art
Opens Saturday, May 1, 7-9 pm

The Vitamin Social
Scott Tucker
Eddie Henderson
Kettle Art
One Night Only - Saturday, May 1, 7-11 pm

Collop & Kiser
Paint Snob Collective
Williams & Leininger

500X Gallery
Opens Saturday, May 1, 7-10 pm
  
platetone on April 30thcomments (0)
  
  
it list : thursday
  
Owen Pallett | Snowblink (Granada)

Despite the alluring title of Baroque Pop that I always saw lauded by the press in reference to Owen's previous moniker, Final Fantasy, I never really gave the guy a chance. Did this have anything to with the fact that he has a concept album based around Dungeons and Dragons named He Poos Clouds? Yes. But after hearing his vocals on the Gigi album, which I highly suggest you do, I gave Heartland a whirl, and was delightfully surprised. For those of you who complain no one is producing anything original these days, I think you might have found an exception here.

Pallett takes the same grand approach to pop orchestration that Van Dyke Parks is known for, but whereas Parks keeps things fanciful, Pallett takes a much more dramatic approach. Not in an annoyingly dramatic way likeXiu Xiu, but more akin to a musically verbose piece of classical music. Every song is knee-deep in clever and sometimes daunting orchestration. If this were the score to a family drama, there would be a dead little brother or sexual revelation every stanza. Fortunately for us he doesn't fall into the traps of similar artists by attempting to match the gravitas of the music with equally bombastic emotional grandstanding.

Lyrically I'm not sure what the hell is going on here. I read that Heartland is a concept album about a farmer or something but I would have never extracted that from the music. It's not that he is hard to understand, in fact I find his plainly sung directness endearing, but the lyrics (and there are a lot) are very thoughtful, with arty pretension. Not really something you will find yourself singing in the shower. Humming the tunes, maybe.

If the music sounds pretentious to you, that probably isn't something you are going to get past. One of my qualms with his previous work was exactly tha,t but I think that with this new album he has left behind the forced ideas of before and has really focused on the accessibility of the arrangements. If you are a fan of Left Banke or Arthur Russell I highly suggest you check the show out tonight. I have never seen him live and I am not quite sure how this is going to translate to a live setting, but from what I hear he puts on a fun show.

Betdat | Bodytronix | Cygnus | DJ R9 (The Cavern)

Ishi | Darktown Strutters | DJ Sober (The Loft)

Please everyone, let's all help Ishi get to Bonaroo this year. Hopefully they won't find their way back.

80's Night (Hailey's)

Awesome Color | Hair Police | Hawk vs. Dove (The Lounge)

Jonathan has been really looking forward to this one so you know it's gotta be good.

Those Darlins | John Wesley Coleman III | Jesus (City Tavern)
  
Frank Phosphate on April 29thcomments (0)
  
  
it list : wednesday
  
I could have finished this much earlier, however, I spent a long time cleaning up HTML on the entries submitted to our shows page. I don't mind stupid fonts and a little style, or lack thereof, here and there. If you want your show announcement to look stupid, then have at it. But making your letters six inches tall and the like, come on. That being said, I appreciate your participation in making the shows page often include shows that aren't listed elsewhere, even if it's not always the most comprehensive listing.

Also, personally insulting Jaime-Paul Falcon* in your show description is a little much. If you want to take a shot at the most tactful man in local music, you go ahead and be a man and do it as an anonymous commenter. He really hates that. I heard he was one of a few writers that was all over us at some panel during NX35, where according to the panel's host, Sam Machkovech, the lineup was loaded with writers that "loathed We Shot JR."

I have always loved the whole journalist VS blogger argument. Remember, the onus is not on the blogger to prove that he or she is a journalist. The pressure is on journalists to prove they can behave increasingly like bloggers, in order to save archaic business models. I wouldn't be surprised if they had meetings with topics such as, "How To Sound Casual," "Snarkiness 101," and "Illegal House Shows: A Primer."

When you have a journalism major that would much rather be writing about city hall, or sports, or the restaurant business, or community gardens, well, they may not always have the same enthusiasm towards figuring out whether or not some band still has the same bass player, or whether or not a track should really be considered Cold Wave. There's no accountability for this stuff. It's always suspicious to me when a group of professionals has to sit around and waste their breath on why they are, in fact, professionals, and the amateurs are irrelevant.

People have every right to try to make their dreams come true and to try to apply their degree as they had envisioned it would be applied, but I just wish that music wasn't always the first casualty in "journalistic boot camp," where young writers are thrown to sink or swim. This happens since music is largely seen as unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but also as a definite draw and a money-maker, so they can't completely ignore it. But the lowest common denominator usually rules, and safe and accessible is forever favored over anything "challenging." Even in the case of the local music press eventually embracing "Denton DIY" very late in the game, they still mainly focused on the most melodic and straight-forward acts.

Hey, speaking of "amateur bloggers," did you know that Forest Family has already sold out of their first seven-inch? Their new record, by Lafayette, Colorado's Gauntlet Hair will be out in "late May/early June," according to the label.

Don't Look In The Basement featuring The Devils | Alucarda (J&J's Pizza)

Video Rehab "Rival Gangs" Switchblade Sisters vs. The Warriors

Switchblade Sisters is one of my all time favorite exploitation movies. Highly recommended you check that one out if you haven't, and even if you have it's even better with a crowd. (FP)

Sally Glass | Jeffrey Saenz | Joe Radnik | Quick Chris (The Cavern)

Pretty Lights | Gift Of Gab (The Granada)

Drop Legs featuring Redeye | Prince William (Zubar)

*I am in no way encouraging you to really attack JPF with comments. In fact, I erased a very mean comment about him on the show listings.
  
Defensive Listening on April 28thcomments (0)
  
  
not new music tuesday
  
Some times this world can get to be a bit much ya know? There is that bullshit state sponsored fascism going on over in Arizona, the exploitative financial market crumbling before us, the ever widening division between economic classes and now local booking agents frontin' like they know all about DIY shows. With our country making leaps both forward and backwards all at the same time, there is one thing that we as a people can unite and take solace in. Something that Tea Partiers can never take away from us. That my friends is the soothing sounds of soft core pornography music. Whether relaxing by the fireside with a loved one or knitting mini sweaters for your pets, the Emmanuelle soundtrack will get you where you need to go.

In case you need a nerdy rock fact to justify downloading this here ya go. Famed guitarist and King Crimson member Robert Fripp won an out of court settlement over "borrowing" some of the music from Crimson's Larks' Tongues in Aspic album for this recording. One of many things keeping this treasure out of print.

sweet dreams
  
Frank Phosphate on April 28thcomments (0)
  
  
  
  
NEWEROLDER
  
  
 
 
 
 
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