I don't know a whole hell of a lot about Alice Coltrane to be honest (other than the obvious), but here is a link to an NPR story about her death, and here is a link to her allmusic page.

And there doesn't appear to be anything happening around town this evening.

1. Joanna Newsom - Ys
2. St. Vincent - Paris is Burning
3. The Octopus Project - One Ten Hundred Thousand Million
4. Pilotdrift - Water Sphere
5. Mom - Today We Find Ourselves
6. A Hawk and a Hacksaw - The Way the Wind Blows
7. Tree Wave - Cabana EP+
8. Rickard Javerling - Two Times Five Lullabye
9. Helios - Eingya
10. El Perro Del Mar - El Perro Del Mar
11. Red Monroe - Red Monroe
12. Mom - Mom
13. Suburban Kids with Biblical Names - #3
14. Grizzly Bear - Yellow House
15. Mom - Light Bright
16. Noah Georgeson - Find Shelter
17. Benoit Pioulard - Precis
18. Menomena - Wet and Rusting
19. The Octopus Project/Black Moth Super Rainbow - House of Apples and Eyeballs
20. Brightblack Morning Light - Brightblack Morning Light

I know that most of you bros and babes will probably be throwin' down your 56 bucks to see Red Hot Chili Peppers and Gnarls Barkley on Saturday, but for those who can't afford to be so fuckin' sweet, heres some other stuff to do (updates this weekend if warranted)

FRIDAY

You might not need to go anywhere other than Greenville Ave for quality entertainment this evening. Never thought I'd say that.

The Octopus Project | Pilotdrift | Treewave | Mom (CJ Davis' Birthday Party-Good Records)
First and foremost, this show is free. Second, there will be free beer. Third, there will be free food. And oh yeah, the line up is great too. I'm not sure if CJ picked it or what, but its probably the strongest we've seen for a Good Records in store and one of the most solid shows to happen anywhere in a while. You probably know enough about all these bands to avoid having to read descriptions, so I won't write any. What I will say, however, is that Mom (clearly the least well known of the bunch) is well worth showing up early to see. They're one of the most interesting bands in Denton these days, and if you're a fan of any of the other bands on this bill (particularly the excellent Octopus Project), I promise you'll dig their fragile, atmospheric instrumental compositions. And by the way, Treewave's Paul Slocum will be playing this show solo. Mom is supposed to go on at 8.

The Party w/ Select, Sober and Prince Klassen (Zubar)
It seems that Austin's Prince Klassen will be filling in for Nature at the Party this week, and based on what we've heard about his sets at the Beauty Bar, he'll be a nice addition to the Central Booking crew.

Ghostcar | Stumptone (The Cavern)
In between the early show at Good and the dance Party at Zubar, you can catch two underappreciated local bands that should be fantastic to see in a small place like The Cavern. We're hoping Paul Baker's visuals will be a part of this show as well, but we're not sure whether thats happening or not.

SATURDAY

Lollipop Shoppe Spy Party w/ DJs Tigerbee, Pandaflower and Stephen R (Avenue Arts)
These Avenue Arts dance parties are pretty hit or miss for the most part, but when theres a good crowd in the house, the typically choice selections of the Lollipop Shoppe DJs can really create an electric atmosphere. Wonder what this one will be like....

Warren Jackson Hearne and the Merrie Murdre of Gloomadeers | Mauve Ed Experience (Secret Headquarters)


Hearne brings his iconic retroisms to SHQ on Saturday. The Gloomadeers are his large backing band that is as well versed as he in spinning various archaic musical threads into a unique and often sinister-sounding take on folk and roots music.

A Hawk and A Hacksaw | History at Our Disposal | ShitCannon Love, Martin (Films of Martin Iles' Choosing) (Rubber Gloves)


Interesting show. A Hawk And A Hacksaw is Neutral Milk Hotel drummer Jeremy Barnes in a one-man-band project that I hear has to be witnessed live to fully understand his accomplishment of this notoriously difficult feat. And about those films, here's former Good/Bad Art Collective director, Martin Iles:
The thing is in two sections. The first features PAPER RAD, Evangelist A.A. Allen, Naisu No Mori, blind women touching cactuses (Werner Herzog), and an animated Jack T. Chick tract.The second section is a pile of silent video shit that the group History at Our Disposal will accompany.In total it's about an hour of stuff, and very little of it you can rent, or find on the internets.

This sounds like a really great mix of footage. Herzog and Paper Rad in the same night!

The City is the Tower | Koji Kondo | Trifle Tower | The Mad Conductor (1919 Hemphill)
Mad Conductor wins the award for "Most embarrasing ska band we've heard in years." Koji Kondo are the remains of Blonde Girls, part of Druids On Parade, and most significantly, a guy who actually tries to sing into the microphone. Trifle Tower is brutal epic hardcore with high pitched screaming and features the fascinatingly complex drumming of Jared Lawson, from Man Is Mostly Water.

SUNDAY

Can't find anything as of yet. Check back with us this weekend.

Lost Generation | DJ Stephen R (Fallout Lounge)

Tonight Wanz will be playing Kill Your Idols at 10:00. SR did a great review when it was released on DVD last year. The Swans footage alone makes this worth seeing, but man A.R.E. Weapons sure make asses of themselves. I wish there were as many old clips on this as I saw at Weasel Walster's No Wave film fest in Austin a couple of years ago, but it's still a worthy effort. I'm really into this whole idea of showing an educational film before playing any music. If there were more nights like this then maybe I wouldn't have to get into fruitless arguments as much as I do. Knowledge is power, Dallas. Get powerful!

Jordan from The Flashlight Party (The Moon Bar on Berry in Ft. Worth)

Jordan will be going it alone in FW tonight. This is free and starts at 10 PM.

DJ G (Hailey's)

(Part One is here if you'd like to read it.)

Although staying at home and checking out Myspace profiles and blogs is clearly the easiest way to experience new music these days, it most certainly isn't the best way. Yes, even in the middle of the "online revolution" that is currently tearing the music industry up by its roots, live shows were still the key element to our local music experience over the past twelve months, and whether they were exhilarating, painful, predictable or surprising, live shows often provided us with the only sufficient material we could use to assess the local bands we were inclined to seek out. More often than not, Myspace band pages just didn't capture the true essence of their namesakes, and many times, particularly with local music, bands we found online ending up sounding quite different in person. This was a bad surprise as often (and maybe more often) as a good one.

Of course, we can't have a discussion about live shows without first mentioning many of the great touring bands that came through town this year. From the "you can't ever tell what DFW music fans will be interested in" department, The Books' arresting performance at Hailey's in April was surely one of the most exciting shows we've seen in a long time. Using video along with fragmented samples and meditative instrumental passages to tell some kind of loosely structured story while they presented their songs, The Books put on a show that was an emotional high for us and the rest of the shockingly sold out Hailey's crowd. We probably would have laughed if someone had suggested at any point before the show that the Books would draw the largest crowd we had ever seen at Hailey's, but that was exactly what happened, and it still seems quite remarkable. At Gypsy Tea Room, we had the privilege of witnessing unforgettable performances from The Fall (complete with crowd taunting and a Mark E. Smith walk-off), Sonic Youth (of the three times we've seen them over the past decade, this was easily their best performance), The Black Angels (who despite all their detractors have become a ridiculously good live band) and Liars. Just about everyone we've talked to who was at the Liars show seems to have a different opinion on the performance, as some (like us) believe it was brilliant and often breathtaking while others dismiss it as either a poor imitation of the songs on their records or simply a bunch of harsh, noisy garbage all together. Whatever one thinks of the music played that night, however, the Liars show was one of the most noteworthy and important performances of the year, and considering the relatively formless nature of much of their new material, the show's strong attendance was a pleasant surprise. Later in the year, we watched Ratatat put on a rock show that was actually more like a drugged-up dance party (albeit one that involved prog rock guitar parts), Shellac and The New Year terrify and mesmerize (respectively) a packed Sons of Hermann Hall, The Clientele romance a small but spellbound crowd at Hailey's with their quiet, hazy and introverted psychedelic pop, Man Man blow the roof off the often audibly inadequate Cavern, Indian Jewelry frighten and hypnotize roughly 25 people at Rubber Gloves, and Beach House allow their stoned, sleepy love songs to swim through and haunt a stoic Amsterdam crowd on a crisp autumn evening. The only downside to looking back at all of these shows comes when you realize that they occurred at a total of five venues, and that only three of the five bring in decent touring acts on a regular basis. DFWd probably couldn't have asked for a whole lot more as far as touring bands are concerned, but it would be nice if they had more than a small handful of places to play.

Unfortunately, we probably can't list nearly as many local shows that got us quite as excited as the bills mentioned above, but we witnessed several performances from local bands in 2006 that we enjoyed a great deal, and a couple that we consider to be (at least) somewhat important. Tied for the top of the "controversial posting" list on the blog this year is pretty much any post we made concerning the Strategies of Beauty Festival at Rubber Gloves. The anons certainly had a lot of opinions about the show before it even took place, but we felt it was important to reserve our take on things until the show actually, like, happened and stuff.

Strategies was not set up to appeal to a mass audience (Notes from Underground headlining is probably the most obvious example of this), and in many ways, it seemed as though it might have been set up to hijack any UNT frat boy that might have wandered in to Rubber Gloves that day trying to "fuck an art chick." Despite the relative strangeness and obscurity of the music to be performed, however, a very respectable crowd turned up to witness the madness of bands like idi Amin, Eat Avery's Bones, Fra Pandolf, Stumptone, and Hotel Hotel, as curator Michael Seman (of Shiny Around the Edges) took a gamble on the drawing power of bands that a lot of people around town had probably never heard before the festival. His gamble appeared to pay off on most levels, with the decision to close with Notes from Underground's overwhelmingly powerful compositions emerging as the best choice of the night. Notes' set that evening (in front of about 20 tired people no less) was certainly one of, if not the most exciting moment we experienced in local music this year. Anyone that tends to dismiss "noise" or "improv" as snobby, impersonal and pointless would have probably been forced to eat their words if they had experienced Notes taking layers of seemingly formless, abrasive noise and molding them into soaring build ups and bitter sweet come downs while somehow maintaining an emotional and structural core that was immediately engaging and quite generous with bits of warmth and beauty. Although not every act at Strategies was quite as powerful as Notes, it seems that the festival was a moderate success by any reasonable measure, and even if only a few of the bands struck you as interesting or enjoyable, it can at least be said that Strategies helped establish the fact that there really is a healthy market for experimental rock and avant garde music in the area, which can only help to expand on the local talent pool and provide confidence to the bands that are already here so that they might grow and develop in the near future.

Another institution that has done a lot to push the envelope in local music recently has been Denton's House of Tinnitus, a small, simple venue that consists of a house with a living room and a kitchen in a neighborhood that could indisputably and literally be labeled Denton's "wrong side of the tracks." Although we're not completely sure about these things, it is likely that a house very similar to Tinnitus probably opens up in Denton every year and begins hosting shows, meaning that this concept really isn't anything new. The Tinnitus people are aware of this, however, and what you'll find if you decide to venture up to one of their shows is a generally warm, welcoming and intelligent group of people that are truly interested in music as an art form rather than a meal ticket or a commodity. The Dead Echoes festival we took in there on Halloween, featuring excellent performances from Zanzibar Snails, PD Wilder and Oveo among others, was a perfect example of this kind of attitude on display, and Tinnitus' willingness and ability to host touring acts and more traditional rock groups like the ferocious Chief Death Rage indicates that the house's inhabitants are open to expanding their horizons and booking a wide variety of quality acts that might help to raise the profile of the house over the next year. Although some might not want to hear it, the "new weird" Denton noise scene is strong, tasteful, self sufficient, and productive, and at the center of it are a seemingly thoughtful and talented group of (mostly) young musicians that are happy to experiment and explore. As we've said before, the kind of music that many of the Denton experimental bands play is probably never going to have mass appeal, but a lot of the work coming from this sector of town seems to us to be on par with a lot of contemporary free form and avant garde music we hear coming from any locale these days, which is surely an exciting development.

If you took the second to last sentence of the previous paragraph and inserted "Dallas" and "rock" in the place of "Denton" and "noise," people would unfortunately be likely to laugh in your face. Or at least I would. But the good news is that there appears to be a few local figures within the city limits who are gaining momentum in the face of widespread mediocrity, and some of them are almost as new to the scene as we are. Treewave is certainly not a "new" band (as in just started playing this year), but they have emerged as one of our favorites in Dallas, Denton or anywhere else in the area. While many have deemed the group noteworthy because of the way Paul Slocum makes music, their methodology is only a part of their appeal. We caught Treewave for the first time at Red Blood Club with Kid 606 (a show organized and promoted by Stephen Ruiz, who is coming into his own as a DJ and promoter with his Hot Flash Party at Fallout Lounge), and while we were initially impressed with their onstage set up, it was their set opening cover of Brian Eno's "Needle in the Camel's Eye" that really caught our attention. As the band continued to play, our previously held notion that Treewave might be some kind of gimmick band was demolished rather quickly, and their noisy, blipy shoegaze influenced electro shot them right up to the top of our "holy shit, this band is from Dallas" chart (Faux Fox and the Strange Boys are on that chart somewhere too).

Finally, a description of the state of the city in 2006 would be vastly incomplete without mentioning the year that DJ Nature, Sober and Select had with their Central Booking events. As far as overall impact on the area's music scene, no other musicians or DJs came close to what their crew was able to do this year. We first found DJ Nature by chance while we were screwing around on Myspace one day in January, and after looking through some of his set lists and learning about his connections to the San Juan reggaeton scene, Fader Magazine and Arto Lindsay, we were fairly certain that seeing one of his weekly sets at Rubber Gloves was a necessity. What we heard when we arrived at Rubber Gloves on some random Wednesday night was the most tasteful and relevant DJ set we had encountered in Dallas or Denton. Ever. As opposed to many of the local acts we had seen up to that point, which often seemed like dated and poor approximations of sounds that weren't all that great to begin with, Nature's set screamed NOW. Right this second. Effortlessly mixing indie dance stuff like LCD Soundsystem, !!! and Yeah Yeah Yeahs with reggaeton, dub, new wave, Bmore, grime and American hip hop, Nature's set list contained at least one track that would appeal to pretty much anyone reading this right now, and many of his other selections were so new and different that most people probably didn't know what they were hearing, other than something good.

As the year progressed and Nature hooked up with like minded DJs Select and Sober, it started becoming apparent that Central Booking was bringing a built in following, a traveling party of sorts, everywhere they went. Whether they were playing an art gallery, a shoe store, or their monthly Party at Zubar, they seemed to attract a large and fashionable crowd drawing from all spectrums of Dallas night life that was ready to dance open to hearing stuff that they weren't expecting. The quality and diversity of their sets was certainly the most important factor in their quick rise to the top of the pack amongst area DJs, but their knack for clever marketing (including great cross promotion with people like P.E.G., Cultura Fina and Krispee Ones), stylish presentation, fashion and venue selection all played significant roles as well. More than anything else, Central Booking's events, particularly at Zubar, were always simply the most fun things we could imagine attending on any given night. Instead of going to a show to talk with friends, find out about the after party or simply to be seen, people went to The Party this year to go to The Party, and every indication is that more and more people will continue to do so this year. A lot of great things happened in local music this year, but nothing else clicked like Central Booking. At times during their events, it really felt like everything was coming together at just the right time, and the excitement they generated was impossible to ignore.

As we said in the beginning of this piece, DFWd music seems to have a long way to go in many respects, but a lot of the things that have annoyed us about this place (shitty bands, shitty clubs, etc.) seem to have become easier to ignore as we have watched all the movement below the surface and the changes that are slowly starting to occur as a result. On a more personal level, two of the projects we were involved with this year really hammered this point home for us. After assembling the Projection local music compilation, we realized as we sat and listened that it was something we would enjoy even if we weren't writing a local music blog and didn't have any interest in Dallas music. And as we finished off our night at Art Prostitute last month watching an absolutely mind blowing set from The Great Tyrant (a band a lot of people will be talking about this year), we realized that things had either improved over the last 12 months or we just hadn't been looking hard enough before we started the blog. As people continue to debate the merits of Christian venues in Deep Ellum and ask whether Radiant will ever get to play network television again, there are musicians, DJs and other assorted figures all around town who are ignoring all that crap and creating their own art, communities and movements that seem to be gaining some momentum. There is some talent here to be sure, and the small beginnings of an infrastructure to support it is slowly coming together. Its difficult to say whether any of the good things we've found this year will be able to attain the kind of visibility that would be necessary to give this town the face lift it needs, but compared to our attitude a year ago, we're fairly optimistic about the future and the changes that could take place in an area that has left a lot to be desired.

Just to let you know, part 2 of the year end thing will in fact be posted at some point today (or this evening). The editing, etc. is taking a bit longer than we had anticipated, so cut us a little slack, jack. Tonight's a slow night from the looks of things, but heres something good:

Sticky Buns (Rubber Gloves)
You might want to check out Sticky Buns, who seem to play everything from Jackson 5 To Camera Obscura to The Knife to Salt N Peppa. Sounds like the kind of DJ set you would play if you had any balls. Or if you didn't.

The strange and compelling Chris Garver, whom we noted long ago as being the shining diamond in the rough better known as the singer/songwriter circuit, is playing the, um, singer/songwriter circuit tonight at The Bone with Ben Fleming, Clint Niosi and Ryan Thomas Becker. If nothing else, this is a good opportunity to see why Chris stands out above the rest, although Clint Niosi seems to be quite decent as well.

2006 was a year of surprises for me as far as local music was concerned. I've been following the local scene longer and more closely than some of the other writers on here, probably since 1995 or so, and with that kind of previous local experience comes a certain amount of baggage, both good and bad. I was probably as pessimistic as Stonedranger when I started to read this blog, maybe even more so.

I found 90's DFW to be mostly dreadful and I've witnessed a lot of inexplicable nostalgic enthusiasm for a time that's largely embarrassing when reflected upon. I definitely had more positive experiences in random little pockets of the Metroplex the first five years of this decade than at any time during the 90's, from underground venues like Rito's in Northeast Dallas, The Sanctuary downtown, Moon Tunes in South Dallas, Hidden Noise Collective in Deep Ellum, and occasionally even the Sandbar in Deep Ellum, which hosted both House (as in dance) music shows and hardcore shows and catered to the most devout followers of both.

Through my experiences in those places I realized there was a whole world mirroring Dallas that wasn't really concerned with head counts, bar sales, "Which band are you hear to see?", New Music nights, or any of the other tired trappings of the DFW club circuit. Your average show at any of these spots was much more about the performance, the idea, spontaneity, execution, improvisation, and the actual creation of something that wasn't necessarily bound by the confines of the careerist mentality that so often dictates a band or artist's behavior. As more of these venues disappeared I became less hopeful that I could find something that I could believe in as far as local music goes.

I was at an all-time low in my interest or faith in DFW music when Stonedranger asked me to write for this blog. By forcing myself to reassess the situation, I actually discovered that even though there is a lot that could be improved around here, there are flashes of hope and brilliance illuminating the bleakest spots in this flat and desperate city. Having said that, I actually want to focus on death, which is necessary in all life cycles, even local music. I want to talk about the important yet completely unheralded passings of Idi*Amin, The Undoing of David Wright, Birth To Burial, and The Blonde Girls. These bands displayed the fearless underground spirit of the venues I named and in some cases even played them. All four groups were not only great, but also represent my transition from wondering where I could find anything challenging or exciting in this city to being forced to realize that I might not have been looking hard enough. I'm glad I was forced. Here goes:

Idi*Amin:

So a music scribe (formerly of the Austin Chronicle and currently the Dallas Observer's Michael Chamy) and an artist (former Art Prostitute associate and local favorite Nevada Hill) meet and they find out they share the same interest in analog oscillators. One of them even owned a sine-wave generator. So they did what any two guys in this situation would do, they start a band. Surprisingly, they didn't find their find their musical dialogue through Beatles covers. Instead, they set out to start a "power drone" group which was nothing like most local music. The group started playing in 2005 and eventually incorporated the fleshed out lineup of guitarist Paul Overby, drummer Jared Stone, and the manic and unwieldy sax playing of the oft-employed Mike Forbes. Forbes is credited as the binding force in the band that brought all the other scattered elements together. They were eventually joined by the frighteningly talented Boyd Dixon, also of Tame, Tame and Quiet. Hill made the excellent decision to switch to guitar and his scratchy and abstractly aggressive playing shattered some of the drone-y aspects of the group. They then made a decision I'm not so sure about, turning down a show with Wolf Eyes in October of '05. Their live debut at Rubber Gloves in November '05 was just a hint at the band's most fruitful period from January to April of 2006. The playing sessions in this period were often recorded and those recordings would eventually make up the band's first and only full length B.C.E., which we glowingly reviewed last July. Idi*Amin gave a triumphant performance at the controversial Strategies Of Beauty Festival (a show bafflingly previewed in Spin Magazine). This stands as one of the group's proudest moments and you can view a video here. The demanding organic nature of building up momentum as an improvisational live group eventually clashed with the equally natural concerns of geography, marriage and family. Idi*Amin would hold itself to a standard that probably would have been to hard to meet at this point. The group came to it's logical conclusion and disbanded. It would splinter into two different groups, Musica Mandana, featuring Overby and Dixon, and Zanzibar Snails, which is Hill and Chamy. Experimental improv music will always rely on a revolving door theory when it comes to performers but this particular cast will be missed.

The Undoing Of David Wright:

If I remember correctly, I discovered this blog by searching for coverage of this band. It was a perfect marriage when Undoing was going strong and Stonedranger was coming up. What else can be said about them? They silenced their critics through sheer talent and hard work. That's quite an accomplishment when you bait a close minded North Texas audience that's more than ready to heckle you for wearing make-up and using a drum machine. Of all the bands that have had shots taken at them, there is no band of comparable stature that received so little negative anonymous commenting. It was almost a shock when you'd see one. The band oozed personality with Lars Larsen's on and offstage crowd taunting, A-Train's spidery guitar technique and the various costumes and narratives, but I've always found their secret weapon to be Shane English's bass playing. He was already gaining attention in his unadorned performances as the bassist for both Blank Blank and White Telephone. I only knew of these two bands when The Undoing Of David Wright was a last minute addition to the lineup of a show I was attending. Someone dismissed them as the guy from White Telephone's goth band and I wasn't expecting much. What I received was an assault on complacency, boredom, and all that is mundane. This band shoved itself down your throat but it wasn't in the bull-headed hardcore tradition, though they could hold their own with any hardcore band. They did it with style. They didn't just stomp all over an audience, they danced on their ashes. Nobody knows why The Undoing disbanded but it's more important to point out that they set a local example that many bands would be wise to take note of. They didn't bellyache about who was doing what for them or their scene. They made two albums (one yet to be released), two eps, went on three tours totaling close to 45 cross-country dates, and even opened a fucking venue. Maybe the next time you decide to open your mouth about why things aren't better around here, you go out and try to accomplish something instead. And if you can't do that well at least shake Aaron, Lars, or Shane's hand when you see them at a show. They played one of the most significant roles in what has made this place tolerable, and even great in recent months. Thank you.

Birth To Burial:

This band embodied a humble and unpretentious everyman aesthetic that was worlds apart from The Undoing of David Wright, though they were by no means boring and probably even shared some influences. Lead by Pat Ferguson since 2003, along with bassist and former Secret Headquarters founder Rob Black and drummer Donny Pavlasek, Birth to Burial made a solid mark locally through constantly playing out with good bands and at least one smartly booked Midwest jaunt with Record Hop. Their name could almost be a hindrance, since it was so dark sounding it almost implied they would be a splattercore band or something comparably heavy. None of these things would really matter though if it wasn't for the fact that their music was so good. Birth To Burial could never be accused of being a "style over substance" act and they obsessively honed their craft working up a repertoire of over 40 something songs in a year. And their songs had a vast range of stylistic variances, from slow crushing shoegaze territory to the tight speedy hardcore rhythms of SST's golden era. This was due to the fact that Pat and Donny were into complex rhythmic structures while Black was always more of a West Coast punk rocker, complete with a Circle Jerks tattoo. Birth To Burial was known as one of the most supportive bands around town, from Black's work with SHQ to Pat joining every band that asked him to, sometimes four projects deep. The band recorded a full length that was eventually scrapped due to some overzealous gearhead purchases that prevented them from having the money to put it out themselves, a common pitfall for bands. I thought their Color of Paint EP was the band's best achievement, a perfect little document that summed up their various musical philosophies. Even though it was the lamentably awful TJ's, their Fry Street Fair performance last year was definitely the best part of that day. Black would come and go from the band until he eventually just disappeared altogether, with little to no explanation. That kind of push and pull takes a toll on groups and eventually it became too much for Birth To Burial. Pat and Donny will still continue to play, but it will most likely be with a new member and a new name. Pat seemed worried about the pressure to continue to make quality music when he e-mailed me for this piece. If the new band is half as good as Birth To Burial was, he'll have nothing to worry about.

The Blonde Girls:

Genre defying. Time defying. Defiant period. The Blonde Girls perhaps best represent how you can avoid the bar rock/drink sale setup and still have a very meaningful existence as a band. They are the only band I've listed here that took a conscious stand to almost never bother with most of the things a band thinks it must regard as necessary evils. They weren't snobs though and they agreed to play any type of show, any genre, to any crowd, but on their terms. When they started just barely over a year ago, they set out to tour and record a 7-inch. They did both. I first discovered them through We Shot JR and was pleasantly surprised by their charmingly rough-edged recordings. The first time I saw them live they were a chaotic mess of switched around instruments, guitar noise wreckage, and shouted vocals. They would eventually grow into a more nuanced act with stretched-out instrumental passages that approached prog territory. Their jazz chord manipulation was an obvious nod to the Minutemen, as was the shouting. Most of the time the band wouldn't even sing into microphones but just shout over the din of their playing. I thought this perfectly summed up the group. You can go about things another way and still be heard. A long and ambitious East Coast tour last summer solidified the bands belief in the house show/art space booking strategy. They used other bands as examples of what not to do, such as "require guarantees and play mainly bars...it didn't work out that well for them.". The tour also divided the band along artistic lines and it would eventually be the end of them because they were ultimately more dedicated to remaining friends. Two of the members now play in Koji Kondo, and one of them is starting a hip hop project. I can't remember a time when I witnessed a local band accomplish so much in less than a year. Truly, a testament to their ethos.

Christian! Teenage Runaways | The Opposites Attract | The Cocker Spaniels | Foot Foot (Club Dada)

Wonderfully mixed bag of a show with one of my favorite new bands from last year, Christian! Teenage Runaways as the crown jewel. I'm interested to see how their act plays out in your standard Deep Ellum club versus their usual stomping (under)ground. I'm excited no matter how it turns out because they're the kind of band that still kills it even when chaos ensues. The Cocker Spaniels is the project of the extremely prolific Sean Padilla. His music sounds like a more humorous GBV or even early They Might Be Giants, and I hope the group doesn't take that as an insult. You know how a lot of bands have these smug imaginary bios that are often extremely unfunny and uninteresting, but they seem to think otherwise? Well, I just want to say that The Cocker Spaniels have one of the best true bios I've ever had the pleasure of reading on a Myspace page. Their song, "Only Black Guy at the Indie Rock Show", is the musical summary of the band bio and it's equally charming and funny. I had a hard time understanding what Foot Foot was going for, but it sounded like pretty inoffensive and quiet acoustic stuff. The Opposites Attract is a local rock band with pretty cool sounding and enthusiastic vocals.



Kaboom | Bitchin' Kitchen | Final Fight (J & J's Pizza)

I hadn't heard of Kaboom until today and I was surprised at the nastiness of their recordings. I don't think it's just the lo-fidelity that's causing it all to sound so distorted and insane. There's some palpable heaviness to the music, I think I even heard a blastbeat in there. Should be cool live. Bitchin' Kitchen is Ed from Fra Pandolf's solo project and the music is not too far from that band's music. Couldn't find anything on Final Fight but I'm told they are similar to Godspeed, You Black Emperor. That could go either way, I guess.

Night Game Cult | girlsrisewithheat | Sydney Confirm | A Vague Sound (Rubber Gloves)

There are many shared rhythmic sensibilities in this lineup. All of these acts employ a lot of dark melodrama and dance rhythms, though Sydney Confirm seems to be a little more light hearted. Night Game Cult is always a truly unique live experience that everyone should try at least once. The kind of courage displayed at a Night Game show isn't exactly common around here. I wish this wasn't the same night as the aforementioned Dada show.

because we got somethin' cookin. We might also have something exciting for you the week of SXSW in either Dallas or Denton. Stay tuned for details on both, and help us get this little girl to stop eating weed brownies.

Having trouble digging anything up for tonight other than Bad Ass Jazz Night @ The Amsterdam Bar...

(Because of some issues with blogger and length, we're going to split up our 2006 year in review into two parts. This is part one, and part two will be posted Wednesday along with a year end piece from DL.)

If January 2006 wasn't a low point for local music, then Dallas has to be one of the most boring cities in the United States. At this time last year, a very tangible sense of disinterest and disillusionment seemed to be present in every corner of the local scene, from the deserted streets of Deep Ellum to the suburban cities we forgot to name, and as people began asking themselves why Dallas-Ft. Worth/Denton, the 4th largest media market in the nation, didn't have an underground music community that could generate enough excitement to sustain a decent number of respectable live music venues or more than a handful of interesting bands, fingers began pointing in every possible direction in search of something or someone to blame. Club owners, police, promoters, local radio, bands, local journalists, club thugs, personal conflicts, scene politics and small business economics were all suggested as possible culprits in the case of local music's "mysterious" downward spiral, but it was clear that these factors, individually, were merely small parts of a complicated issue. The writers of this blog started the year by arguing that one the city's main problems was a simple lack of compelling local music, and now, a year since our first blog post, we are inclined to proffer a similar if slightly more positive thesis concerning what we've seen over the past twelve months. But this time, we're putting a big fucking asterisk next to it.

You see, its quite difficult to craft a year end analysis piece like this when you have no real frame of reference with which to compare the recently passed year, and we're well aware that any 2006 summary we offer will lack some of the wisdom that a working knowledge of local music history would provide. We came into this whole project with a sufficient awareness of underground, experimental, and independent rock music (as well as hip hop and jazz) in general, but our experiences with the local scene were almost nonexistent aside from the occasional uneventful local show that friends would drag us to. This has obviously changed over the past year, but it is still difficult for us to look back at 2006 and determine whether things are on an upward or downward trajectory from where they were more than a year ago. At a certain point, it becomes impossible to really assess 2006 without knowing much about what happened in years previous, so we're a bit reluctant to make any strong conclusions about how this year compared to any other.

Furthermore, we know that the sentiments described in the opening paragraph probably don't apply to some of the people reading this blog, not to mention the tens of thousands (or more) of locals who are interested in the kind of music we talk about on here but have never read a local music blog (and barely even read the Observer). To be sure, the problems discussed above probably didn't even occur to most people currently living in Dallas, and many of the complaints we have outlined here mattered quite a bit more to people who were intimately involved in the local music scene than to those outside of it. To put it another way, the doom and gloom picture we've painted here probably isn't as dramatic as we or many local scenesters make it out to be, even if it did seem to be the dominant narrative around the time we started publishing this blog.

Truth be told, the only way to even begin to discern the average Joe's thoughts concerning local music at the beginning of last year is to look at concert attendance and the general mood prevalent around town at the time (an admittedly unscientific approach). By either measure, things didn't appear to be going very well. Local shows seemed to be empty, venues seemed to be closing, and music fans seemed to be either going through the motions or ignoring largely lackluster local output all together, and the worst part was that we couldn't blame them. In fact, our limited experiences with local music at that time were enough to make us so incredibly frustrated with this town that we decided to start a blog in order bitch about it. It wasn't because we wanted to "help out" or "save the scene," nor because we thought "Dallas can do better" or "deserves better." Instead, we just wanted to have fun in our home town, and at the beginning of last year Dallas wasn't delivering for us. Its difficult to get a good read on the attitudes of people around town in general, but by any way you could possibly measure, DFW and Dallas in particular seemed stale and in danger of getting worse.

A quick, surface level glance at what is currently going on in DFWd reveals a place that isn't a whole lot different than it was twelve months ago. There are still a good number of lame local bands getting more attention than they deserve from people who claim to have good taste but actually don't seem to know their asses from a whole in the ground. Local radio still sucks (for the most part). People still find it necessary to go to annoying karaoke nights and bad cover band shows on a weekly basis. Deep Ellum is still a joke. Denton is still a long fucking drive. Shows are still largely underattended across the board. Clubs are still closing. The Observer's music section is worse than its ever been, and seems to be falling more and more out of step each week (other than Michael Chamy's stuff). Scene politics, a hipster version of a small town good ol' boy system, remains an omnipresent force around town. Basically, a lot of the things that annoyed us about local music last year are still annoying us today, even though we realize that most cities in the U.S. probably face similar problems, and that many of these things will never change.

However, the big fucking asterisk we mentioned earlier is an important one: although a lot of things seem to be the same, we have found over the past year that there are a number of musicians, DJs, venues, promoters and artists throughout the area who are doing some exciting things. And although many of them probably aren't receiving the kind of recognition they would in other locales, there does seem to be a refreshing level of enthusiasm thriving just below the surface of the local music establishment, and it is this enthusiasm that gives us pleasant pause: essentially, it feels like the city is waking up.

Very early in the year, after spending some time pointing out the silliness of Belafonte and discovering the brilliance of DJ Nature (more on him later), we had the pleasure of hearing the furiously dizzy electo-industrial disco theatrics of The Undoing of David Wright, along with the screaming cartoonish hardcore punishment of Eat Avery's Bones, both of whom played well attended and exciting shows with the Strange Boys at Doublewide and Avenue Arts, respectively. Only a couple of weeks into writing the blog, we discovered two bands that we'd never heard before but really enjoyed, with one effectively mixing prog influences with post-punk, metal, early industrial and synth pop, and the other sounding as though they were playing hardcore cover versions of Swell Maps songs with a nastier keyboard and a generous supply of speed. What made the experience even better was the fact that both bands were incredible live acts, albeit for very different reasons. While Undoing was about as tight as a band could be, jumping around the Doublewide stage and playing rather complex rock music without missing a note, Eat Avery's Bones was the sound of getting run over by a train, showcasing a reckless mix of violence and smarts that seems to be so rare amongst bands as young as they. These two early shows left us with a surprisingly hopeful outlook on the new year and what DFW/Denton might have in store for us.

A few weeks later, we attended the opening of the Metrognome Collective's performance space in Ft. Worth and were amazed not only by the dimensions and feel of the place itself, but by the ambitious and truly thoughtful plans that James Watkins and the rest of the organizers had for it (also caught a pretty good performance from Bosque Brown). Providing facilities for live music, film screenings, gallery expos, artist studios and band practice spaces, the Metrognome seemed to be exactly the kind of place that a town like Ft. Worth (or Dallas for that matter) needed, a forward thinking centralized venue being operated by people that seemed to actually understand and care about art, music and the cultures surrounding them. Over the past month or so, the place has been struggling with fire codes and financial issues, but their recent year end anniversary is an indication that all is not lost. Despite facing a variety of problems (including criminally small Ft. Worth crowds), Metrognome has consistently booked great shows featuring the kind of music that we didn't even think existed around here at this time last year, and have done it in a fashion that is admirable on just about any level. I can't imagine that there are very many diy venues anywhere in the country with a more exciting and comprehensive vision than Metrognome has, and the possibilities seem endless for them as long as they can get through the growing pains they are currently experiencing. Unfortunately, it is during these periods of financial and logistical turmoil that many DIY venues seem to shut down, but the motivated Metrognome crowd seems willing and able to move past their issues and on to bigger things.

Throughout February and March, it seemed as if more good news was finding its way to our doorstep on a pretty regular basis (other than the disappointing closing of Sanctuary Studios, which was really the only non-bar rock music venue in Dallas). Aside from catching absolutely unforgettable shows from Akron/Family (Dan's), Dinosaur Jr. (Gypsy), Stereolab (Nokia) and Ariel Pink(Hailey's), we encountered several local DJs, musicians and others who seemed to be doing noteworthy things around town. After reluctantly heading up to Denton for an "80's night" at Hailey's, we discovered that Dallas' DJ G wasn't really playing 80's records in that "video killed the radio star" sort of way, but rather was focusing on the more interesting side of the 80's: acid house, new pop, European disco, and tons of underground electro tracks that we had either never heard before or were only vaguely familiar with. And although some of DJ G's appearances have been shockingly underattended over the past year, his Hailey's residency continues to be one of the best dance parties in town, and his sets remain highly entertaining, unpredictable and even a bit educational for those who are interested in dance music's history. As DJs go, G is one of the sure things in the area, and the records he spins are right in step with many of the noteworthy movements in well known electronic music centers around the world.

Elsewhere, we came across two great non-trad Denton venues, Lars Larson's 8th Continent and the UNT staple Yellow House, which is sadly out of commission at the present time. Although the bands weren't always top notch, shows at Yellow House consistently felt like a big event, with the tossed off thrown together vibe of the place adding to the excitement when solid local acts like Strange Boys, Chief Death Rage, The Pebble that Saved the World and Cartright set up shop in the living room and played to a packed house full of enthusiastic fans that seemed to know each band's every move by heart. On the other side of town, 8th Continent acted as Yellow House's dark, art school educated brother, showcasing the more experimental side of Denton and Texas music. Maintaining an independent-minded, anything can happen vibe and putting musically adventurous acts like You Are the Universe, Undoing of David Wright, Best Fwends and Cry Blood Apache on its small stage in front of an equally enthusiastic audience, we found the 8th to be a humble but often exhilarating venue that seemed worlds away from any bar that we know of. A new group has taken over the 8th since the last time we visited ( some of the Strawberry Fields people and Kyle of the provocative Night Game Cult), but the fact that they recently hosted the Unconscious Collective and Wanz Dover for a Terry Riley inspired improv show indicates that there is more to come on Texas St. in 2007.

Throughout the year, we were also pleased to encounter a few people that made Dallas radio tolerable. Sure, one of them wasn't actually on the radio, another was only on for a couple hours a week and another was on illegally, but Radio UTD, Frank Hejl, Meat Radio and Movin' 107.5 all provided great ways to forget that Yellowcard gets more play on The Adventure Club these days than any band you actually care about. Radio UTD was perhaps the most consistent of the bunch, bringing true college radio eclecticism to a town that desperately needs it while providing a playlist that would be considered more than solid on any college campus in the United States. Frank Hejl's Frequency Down on KNTU focused a good deal on popular contemporary indie rock, but Frank's typically strong selections (both new and old) were a breath of fresh air, keeping listeners in tune with the latest (including local stuff) while avoiding the beat down of too much indie cute overkill.

Meat Radio, an East Dallas based pirate radio station, was truly a compelling story that thrived off of being kept generally on the down low for most of its existence. It was always a pleasure to get into a car in East Dallas and be able to listen to soul, funk, 60's garage, classic indie underground and anything and everything in between at any given time on the weekend, and Meat Radio's clear progressive leanings (as evidenced by its broadcasts of progressive political talk shows) made it a true "alternative" to the Clear Channel empire of Dallas radio that did nothing this year other than provide funds for numerous right wing political candidates. Meat Radio obviously had to stop its regular broadcasts once it got a little too hot to handle, but their brief presence on the air was quite a highlight for our depraved radio dial.

Towards the end of the year and after the downfall of Meat Radio and Frequency Down, Movin' 107.5 became the station that seemed alright to listen to at pretty much any time during the day and absolutely any time at night. Playing a notable portion of the music that you might have listened to while riding in your mom's car as a kid, Movin' quickly earned a spot on our pre-programmed dial in order to help us live our dream of being able to hear Outkast, Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and P.M. Dawn during one of The Ticket's 10 minute long commercial breaks. Void of annoying contemporary commercial R&B and tongue in cheek hipster irony, 107.5 was simply a fun, albeit brainless place to turn when we just weren't in the mood to listen to the Liars record or NPR, both of which were a bit dark for some of our better moments.

Of course, the easiest and most efficient way for us to discover new local music this year was Myspace, which lead us to many of our local favorites like Mom, The Angelus, the sadly disbanded Washing Machine, Teenage Symphony and Shiny Around the Edges. But despite the greatness of these groups and the live shows that we eventually experienced, we were also pleased to find that local bands were making solid old fashioned full length records this year as well. Albums from Chris Garver, The Theater Fire and Midlake were all in heavy rotation around the headquarters throughout 2006, but the two that probably received the most attention amongst our crew were idi Amin's B.C.E. and Current Leaves' Pastense, which sounded like they were made on different planets. Realizing that we could listen to one great local album of Bakersfield informed psychedelic rock immediately before another album of sax driven ethereal noise explorations was probably one of the most telling signs of the exciting diversity to be found in the DFWd underground, and one of the best indicators of the talent to be found in the area.

(Part two coming soon...)

year end local stuff is coming. And I spot at least one butt cut below:

Sober will be playing records at Petrus Lounge, 1217 Main St. in the middle of downtown. Never been to this place before, but it looks fairly upscale from what I can tell. Could be fun.

The Boston Shanks | Brimstone Howl | The Strange Boys (J&Js 118 Oak St. in Denton)
Pretty sure that things get started around 9 or 10, but don't quote me on that. Don't know much about the Boston Shanks, but you might want to give Brimstone Howl a listen because they sound absolutely fantastic.... super muddy and raw garage rock that reminds me a bit of Black Lips. This could honestly be the best show of the weekend.