We'll have a full report on the DOMAs from one of the masked men (Or masked persons I suppose) later today. In the meantime, get ready to put on your damn dancin's shoes and go to:

1. The Party w/ Dj Nature (Rubber Gloves-Denton) OR

2. 80's Night with Dj G (The Cavern)
Playing all types of ill shit, including classic house, disco, underground new wave, etc. One of the better weeknight parties in Dallas.

Or at least some of us looked like we did at the Observer awards tonight. Fucking sweet. I wonder if the WSJR team made Belafonte cry?

I haven't lived in Dallas my whole life, which means that I wasn't around for the great 80's teams or anything like that. No, my love for the Mavs began during the strike shortened season of 1998. I'm not sure why. At first, I think it was just a joke.

Anyway, tonight's game has to be one of the three or four most important wins for this team since 1998 (I would say that Game 5 playoff win at Utah in 2001 might have been THE most important). Yeah, I know, it is just the second round, and it was just one game. But not only did the Mavs win BIG, they did it in San Antonio, in the playoffs, without a huge game from Dirk, and with a tough ass attitude that is a necessity to thrive in the playoffs. Every time the Spurs mounted even the slightest start of a comeback, the Mavs shut it down. They played amazing defense all night long, and just about everyone contributed on the offensive end in some way. This was the most playoff savvy I've ever seen the Mavs play, and they've got almost all the momentum you could ask for coming back home for game 3. I can't wait to watch it.

1. Sunburned Hand of the Man | Mazinga Phaser II | Unconscious Collective (Rubber Gloves)
Ahh, here is a good line up. SHOM is one of my favorite bands that I really don't listen to that much. Yes, its stupid but true. I really dig what they do... and I can't even really describle it for you other than to say psych/noise/ avant garde/free form, but they really really push the limits of what a touring "rock" band could possibly be. And although I haven't seen them, I hear the live show can be quite good. Two other groups doing interesting things from DFW will also be representing. Be there early for Unconscious' free jazz freak out.

And I hear there might be some STRANGE people at the Observer awards tonight.... and I'm not talking about any of the totally extreme freaky rock n rollers bro.

EDIT #2: Here is an article about the whole thing. Apparently an investment group has already purchased the land from Loveless. I wonder if this means that they have received assurances that the deal will go through Denton City Hall without a problem....

So I'm sure that some other news source has published something on this already, but I couldn't really find one so I decided to get a little more information on it and post what I found.

It appears that the Winkelmann Civil Engineering firm of Dallas is teaming up with another development group to propose a complete tear down and rebuilding of Fry St. as we know it. The project, which is being referred to as "University Town Center," would involve the tearing down of all the buildings in the center of the Fry St. area, basically from the Yellow House to Cool Beans with Fry St and Welch as borders. This means that pretty much the entire center of Fry St. as we know it would be gone if this thing gets approved. Once destroyed, all the buildings would be replaced with student housing and "Lifestyle" retailers, kind of adding that really cool west Plano slash mid cities vibe to the whole area. Fucking lifestyle retailers?

I spoke with Lori Shelton, project manager for the City of Denton, who confirmed that this plan was submitted to the city in March as a pre application proposal. This means that the developers would have to go before the Denton zoning and planning commission and receive approval from them, and then take it to city council to receive final approval, meaning that any sale of the Fry St. properties to these developers is probably conditional pending the city's approval. Shelton, who was extremely helpful and genuinely concerned about the project, says that the entire process will be open to the public and that public participation in the form of town hall meetings, etc. will be encouraged. This means that public pressure on the council and the developers will be heard and WILL work.

Much of the land is currently owned by a Denton man named Curtis Loveless, who apparently has an office on the square. This is all that we know about it right now.

We don't know how many of you have heard about this proposal, but anyone that is interested in helping Denton maintain anything that makes it unique might want to find out more about all of this and get involved in the effort to make sure that this plan never makes its way through the red tape. This could mean an end to many of the things that make Fry St. fun.

Here is a PDF of the plan that was submitted to the city: PLAN

To get involved, get in contact with these people.

EDIT: The borders of the proposed project are actually Fry St, Welch, Hickory and Oak, leaving the Yellow House in the clear a block away.

Go read a book or something.

Here you have it, the line up for this summer's Denton noise rock music festival:

Strategies of Beauty, Vol. 1 Noise Folk Festival Saturday, July 1st $5 Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios 411 E Sycamore Street, Denton, TX 76205
Ribelle Scaltro (Denton)
Eat Averys Bones (Dallas)
iDi*Amin (Denton/Hurst)
Chris Garver (Denton)
Cue (Austin)
You Are the Universe! (Denton)
Hotel, Hotel (Denton/Austin/Tucson)
Samantha L. Moss (of jetscreamer) & Emil Rapstine (of The Angelus)...this will be a spoken word/music performance... (Denton) Shiny Around the Edges (Denton)
Stumptone (Ft. Worth)
Fra Pandolf (Denton)
Notes from Underground (Denton)

More info when we get it.

First of all, for future reference, there will NOT be a Mavs post when they fucking lose. Especially when they fucking lose a game they should have fucking won. But thats all I'm gonna say about that. All I know is that game 2 is now a must win.

Tonight at Doublewide, Chris from Gorilla vs Bear will be hosting Mp3 blog buzz band Birdmonster along with St. Vincent, who is apparently involved with Polyphonic Spree in some way. I don't know much about either one of them, honestly, but Birdmonster sounds like the kind of band that will translate well in a live setting, particularly at the Doublewide (small venue, most consistently good small sound system in Dallas). Nothing strange or new, but they've got some pretty good songs. I'm not so sure about St. Vincent (only heard one song), but what I have heard sounds worlds better than that other band she is in, so thats a good thing. It would probably also be a good idea to support Gorilla vs. Bear, which is one of the few things coming out of Dallas right now that attracts the attention of anyone outside north Texas with good taste. Apparently our strip clubs are way above average too. That rules.

I've heard a lot of debate about the quality of the Gypsy Tea Room as a venue lately. This is due in part to its nomination as "Best Venue" in the always entertaining yet completely irrelevant Dallas Observer music awards. I say entertaining because I'm always amazed at the Dadaist approach to categorization. It's definitely more fun to laugh at that than to find out who "wins". The Observer (not to mention a lot of DFW) has worshipped this place for as long as it has existed. Not even the beating and paralyzing of a man by an "ex" skinhead was enough to get people to look past the Tea/Ballroom's semi-classy setup and say,"Hey, maybe this is just another trashy Deep Ellum hole." I swore off going to the Tea Room for a longtime, but if the band is good enough I'll make anexception. The Fall played last night. I made an exception.

There wasn't much of a crowd when I arrived and the people who showed up late were lucky to miss the sonic plague that opening act the Talk unleashed on an unprepared audience. The Talk was a perfect summary of everything that was wrong with music... about five or six years ago. That was the most confusing aspect of the band. They seemed desperate to be your run of the mill commercial band. They dressed the part, but their music was completely stale as far as what's been popular the last few years. Come on, Talk, at least throw a dance beat in there! While the band was onstage they asked if anyone in the crowd liked Archers of Loaf or Superchunk because they, like theTalk, are from North Carolina. How dare this completely unoriginal band name-drop those two N.C. legends while they're onstage? And I don't even like those bands. Compared to the Talk, however, they're two of my favorite bands of all time. I guess the Talk got to tour with the Fall due to a savvy business move on the part of their label owner (who does most of the gruntwork for their label, MoRisen). Bad move, my friends. Touring with the Fall will guarantee that you will be hated by Fall fans across this great nation. If you go to the Talk's website (www.the-talk.com) you canhear a truly inspiring audio clip where some industry cog discusses the Talk's "buzz" during their recentSXSW performance. He compares them to early Pavement. I wouldn't compare a band that is more like All American Rejects fronted by one of the Oasis twins to early Pavement.

Speaking of early Pavement, the Fall were the fucking Fall. You either know what that means or you don't. It seems there is some speculation around here as to the outcome of the live show and whether that is determined by the size of the audience. I have only seen the Fall two other times before last night. Once was in England in front of thousands and thousands of people. They were fucking terrible. People that usually loved them were disappointed. I was disappointed. And they even played "Bingo Master's Breakout". Mark E. Smith does not care how many people are at the show. He is going to do what he is going to do, whether you're there to see it or not. We were only disappointed because he spent most of his time offstage and we wanted to see him.

I have a pretty good story from that night concerning the much discussed attitude of Mr. Smith. I'll tell you the short version. We're in a pub after the show and my friend gets the courage to ask him if he can take a picture of him. I let him know this is a bad idea but he listens to his old buddy Alcohol and stomps rightup to him anyway. He blurts, "Hey, excuse me, but can I get a pic-" and before he can finish he stumbles into him and knocks a cigarette out of his hand. MarkE. Smith bends over, picks the cigarette up off of the dirty pub floor, and shoves it into his mouth. He looks at my friend as he's lighting up and, not knowing whether to be more pissed about the question or the accident, gives him a very disgusted, "NO." It was hilarious. I know it's stupid, but this is part of the Fall's greatness. Fall fans love being in this abusive relationship. You can see it on their faces every time M.E.S. turns down one of his guitarist's amps without asking him. You can see it when they smile back at his frown of complete contempt for the audience. You can see it when they shell out $20 at the door of some shitty overrated venue, something I almost never do.

The Tea Room was much more packed when it was time for the Fall to go on. I guess that time was determined by the Fall because they wasted what felt like thirty or more minutes before they came on. They started the show with a series of projected clips of various moments in popular music history. The short performances by Queen, Elvis, the Jackson Five, Babs Streisand and others looked like distorted versions of shit you see on Youtube. Then the screen just froze with a display of their most recent album title, "Fall Heads Roll". This was accompanied by a vinyl runoff sound which I believe was from "Loop41'Houston" on the "Real New Fall LP". With a coupleof exceptions, most of the songs I recognized were from that album. Anyways, the runoff loop went on forwhat felt like an eternity. This was obviously annoying the crowd and I got a kick out of watching them squirm. I assume that a lot of their set was from "Fall Heads Roll" and I wouldn't mind purchasing that album if that's the case. I truly enjoy Mark E.Smith's disposition onstage. The air of pervasive awkwardness and unpredictability that emanates from the stage brings me true joy that I rarely feel when seeing shows. Unfortunately, this bad behavior will sometimes result in a drunk audience member's call to action. From what I could make out, a woman who resembled Thalia Zedek tugged on our hero's suitjacket and yelled at him, "This sucks!". He leaned towards her and replied with a curt, "Fuck off.",which she deserved. It was at this point that either a roadie or a club employee tried to intervene or get an understanding of what was going on. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Smith fled the stage. The band wandered into an instrumental version of a song trying to keep the show going. Their singer returned to fly through "Mr. Pharmacist," but the show was pretty much over at that point. The Fall didn't even finish their set list and still blew away all the shit I've seen in the past six months. When the Fall plans their next tour they might recall this little incident. It might make them decide to skip Dallas. But, like me, I hope they make an exception.

Gotta run, but here is a show going on tonight that we might be down wifs:

1. Helio Sequence | Crystal Skulls (Hailey's-Denton)

UPDATE: End of School afterparty at the Brown House, 808 Welch St. in Denton, near the corner of Welch and Eagle.

1. It looks like Spune's End of School Show up at Hailey's in Denton is going to be great local music showcase, and its free for those of you who are over 21. The Line up:

Faux Fox 1am

The Undoing of David Wright 12am

Pilotdrift11pm

Peter Schmidt and His Gentlemen Scholars 10pm

Robert Gomez and His Band of Musicians 9pm

Record Hop 8pm

Tame.. Tame and Quiet 7pm

We don't know what Peter Schmidt and Robert Gomez do, but the other bands range from pretty good (Faux Fox) to great (Undoing). Should be a good way to see a couple of these bands for chizeap.

2. Fishboy and Teenage Symphony are doing early shows at Club Dada (probably around 7 pm)

3. Mogwai is in the Tea Room ballroom and

4. John Vanderslice is in the Tea Room Tea Room.

I am probably not the right person to be reviewing the new Theater Fire record. For one thing, I don't know shit about country music. Sure, I can rock some Hank Williams or Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings as much as the next guy, but my knowledge of country music doesn't extend past the short list of legends that everybody recognizes as geniuses in the medium. The other reason that I might be totally wrong for this record is that for the most part, I can't stand altcountry. Sure, Uncle Tupelo and Centro-matic and yadda yadda yadda, but there is something that is usually very annoying to me about young twenty-somethings from Plano or wherever singing songs about the desert and camping under the stars and being authentic cowboys before they go home, check their Myspace and fall asleep on feather pillows. And I'm certainly not turning this into a class thing, because rich or poor, I just don't really care what the average person my age has to say about anything when they are pretending to be 80 year old homesteaders that have just seen a William Jennings Bryant stump speech. It all seems a little silly to me.

That being said, The Theater Fire is certainly a band that most people would classify as altcountry. Not necessarily because they sound like any of the founding fathers of that genre, or because there is anything really "alt" about their sound, but simply because they are modern men in a big city (or big cities) that, like it or not, have about as much to do with authentic cowboys as Will Smith's "Wild Wild West." Regardless of all that, however, Everybody Has a Dark Side is a record that I got behind upon first listen, and one that certainly marks a large leap forward for the Theater Fire, a band that now sounds as though it is ready to take itself across that invisible line between "charming local band" and "band that people outside of DFW might actually start giving a shit about."

The record starts off with four instantly likeable songs that showcase a band that seems to have figured out that minimal arrangements suit their songwriting style quite well. "Kicking Up the Darkness" sets a rustic, creepy Oldhamesque vibe that pervades throughout the record, while "Fiddleback Weaver" showcases what Theater Fire seems to do best, spaghetti western sing-a-longs with sparse instrumentation and some mariachi horns that work really well, seemingly setting them apart from most other bands that might lean more towards the "country" than the "alt." Elsewhere, the band showcases its obvious talent for writing infectious pop singles, as "Barrel Riders" and "I Heard About You" are clearly the two catchiest songs that The Theater Fire has recorded to date, with "Heard About You" quickly implanting itself into your head with footstomp leading handclaps and "Barrel Riders" drawing you in with a simple, sloppy guitar part that surely requires repeat listens. Meanwhile, "Valentwine" sounds like a very good approximation of what a twangy, later period Velvet Underground would have sounded like if they had been from Austin as opposed to New York, which sounds like a silly thing to say until you hear the song and realize that I'm right as usual. However, the best song on the record (and the best Theater Fire song to date) is clearly "These Tears Could Rust a Train," which is a quiet, dreamy acoustic slow burner featuring well placed background strings and fragile, understated vocals that fit just right, sounding sad yet comfortable. The album's acoustic, folk influenced feel is a strong argument for less is more, and clearly a welcomed subtraction from some of the band's earlier work that tended to sound a bit cluttered at times, indicating that the guys have really started to find a songwriting style that highlights what they do best while rarely giving you more than you want.

Country and folk fans will certainly see Everybody Has a Dark Side as one of the strongest local releases in quite some time, and people like me, who usually don't get too into this kind of thing, will likely appreciate the album as a break from the norm, a clear step above most of the musicians that make what people often refer to as "Texas music." Maybe people don't refer to this kind of music as "Texas music" and I'm just full of shit. Like I said, I'm not a country guy, an altcountry guy, or a "Texas" guy, and I could be totally off base. But the best thing about this record to me is that you don't have to be into any of that stuff to enjoy it, which is why I decided to go ahead and write this review anyway, with very few names to drop and relevant comparisons to make. To me, most of the record is just good pop. By all accounts, Midlake appears to be the band that is most likely to break out of the DFWd musical purgatory this year, but Theater Fire has certainly made a case for itself as a band that people should start taking more seriously. But hey, what the hell do I know? I think I heard Wilco for the first time on NPR.

1. The Fall | The Talk (Gypsy Tea Room)
If there are indeed 50,000 Fall fans all over the world, I'm going to guess that about 800 of them read this blog. Thats like 1 1/2% of all Fall fans in the world, right here in Dallas. For those that don't know much about the Fall and are trying to decide whether or not to go see them tonight, you should read this. Then you should go ahead and download "The Classical" by clicking on the link below. It is one of our favorite Fall songs on one of our favorite Fall albums, Hex Enduction Hour. Which leads us to our question for all the hardcore fans out there. What is YOUR favorite Fall album? We are partial to Hex Enduction Hour, like we said, but everyone at WSJR headquarters also really enjoys The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall and This Nation's Saving Grace. But whatever your favorite might be, I can't think of many bands, maybe not any bands, that have continued to release good records as consistently as the Fall while maintaining such a high level of artistic value and integrity. And Mark E. Smith is great fun to watch live. Hope to see you there, even though I don't know who you people are.

"The Classical" Mp3



And Just for fun, another Fall song from The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall:

"Copped it" Mp3

Scroll down for our post on Teenage Symphony and some Mp3s. For some reason, it got posted out of order. Goddamn Blogger. We want our money back!

Hey, wouldn't it be sweet if another place that we really like closed its doors? I asked Jesus this before I went to sleep last night, and he responded by telling whoever owns the Yellow House in Denton to kick out the tenants, without even giving them any time to host a final show or party. We're not sure what happened exactly, but here is the post they made on Myspace:

"Well. if you dont already know. or maybe forgot. We got kicked out of our house today. We"re all real sorry for the inconvenience. sorry that we couldnt have a farewell show. but we thank all of you who supported the idea of free rock shows and a safe place to party. We tried the best we could to kick as much ass as possible.. Remember the fights, the talks on the porch, and the gallons and gallons of beer we drank. thanks to all the bands that played here.Tonight is the last porch night we'll ever have.p.s. Buy us beer.I love yall.Micah, Josh, Lou, Jacob, Ben, Stella.

Goodnight, Goodbye."


I wonder if this means that somebody else will get to take the place over. Lets hope so. And I wonder what these guys did to get kicked out. It probably involves a number of funny stories. Hopefully whoever starts living in this place next will be as generous with their place as these guys were, and will have the good sense to keep letting good bands play there on a regular basis.