Dallas Music Blog

Moneen, interestingly framed.

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Canadian indie rock band Moneen has sometimes been tagged as an emo outfit--but such a descriptor hasn't necessarily rankled the five guys who make up the band.

Founding member Kenny Bridges says he's more worried about Moneen actually making it to the venue and not losing any more members. He took some time to talk about Moneen's recent difficulties as the band prepares to play tonight at The Door on a great bill with Say Anything, Eisley and Miniature Tigers.

Moneen has been through some tumultuous times recently. Have things calmed down?
Well, this newest form of the band has been on tour for about a month, and things have been adventurous. We just bought a new van for the tour, and we've already had two major breakdowns. We had to cancel four shows and leave half the band in Salt Lake City for about 10 days while Hippy [guitarist Chris "Hippy" Hughes] and I jumped on a plane and played acoustic for about 10 shows. Since then, the other guys finally flew out and met us back in Toronto so we could do a show as a full band. We had to rent another van and just continue the tour.

Patience Steltzer

Titanmoon

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DFW's own Titanmoon just arrived home from its first international tour--a whirlwind trip that took the band through Japan, Pakistan and Dubai and found the band being treated like heroes. And though a couple of bombings canceled a couple of shows, the indie rock outfit has nothing but great stories to share from its trip across the world.

Earlier this week, we caught up with lead vocalist and guitarist Tyler Casey, who kindly took a few minutes to tell us a few of those tour stories and share some insight into the band's future plans. After the jump, check our Q&A with Casey, plus a free download of "Just a Shame" from the band's late 2008 release, Film Black.

The Low Anthem

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Hailing from Providence, Rhode Island, the three members of The Low Anthem are all Ivy League-educated, classically trained musicians whose band is receiving a healthy critical and commercial buzz. The band's sophomore release, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, has drawn praise for its highbrow take on folk and blues. And for good reason: Ben Miller, Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams are all multi-instrumentalists who have managed to adapt their impressive skills to the relatively simple structures of folk music. Darwin, quite simply, is a remarkably beautiful record, an album deserving of all the critical kudos.

Which is why we're excited that the folks at the Granada Theater have passed along five pairs of tickets to the band's performance there tomorrow night with Blind Pilot. The first five people to email Pete with the word "Darwinism" in the subject line will each get two free passes to tomorrow night's show.

Update: Contest is over. Congrats to our winners.

But back to The Low Anthem: Speaking from his car on his way home from giving a music lesson, bassist Jeff Prystowsky took some time to pontificate on The Low Anthem's recent success, and also to share what tomorrow night's stop in Dallas might reveal about the band and its audience.

Are there pros and cons to everyone in the band graduating from Ivy League schools? Is there a chance of being criticized as intellectual elitists?

We don't hear that much criticism anymore. Being from an Ivy League school doesn't really represent us. We met in college, but lots of bands meet in college. There is an intellectual bent towards our material, but I'd much rather have people talking about our songs or our lyrics rather than a school like Brown, which was a great school. There is a worry about being considered elitists. We are not trying to fool anyone. We're not trying to pretend that we are playing the authentic, folk music of the people. Nothing that we do is really folk music. People should just listen to the music and not worry about where we were educated.

​Using a combination of hope, creativity and instrument strings, Abbie Chesney is reaching out to the local music scene for help with a jewelry project she's calling Eye on the Sparrow Designs.

The whole idea started in response to the death of her close friend and musician Carter Albrecht. Chesney, a music fan herself, started using donated broken strings and instruments from local musicians and turning those worn items into pieces of jewelry. Relating directly to her day job as an eating disorder therapist, she offers her pieces to interested parties in three different sizes: chunky, thick and slim. And a portion of the proceeds go back into the music community as well, as donations to the Carter Albrecht Music Foundation.

We caught up with Chesney to talk about Eye on the Sparrow Designs, the inspiration behind it, and where she hopes to take it.

What does "Eye on the Sparrow" mean, and how did you come up with that name?
The name came from the idea of the sparrow originally. [Carter] fronted a band a while back that was called Sparrows. Ryann [Rathbone], his girlfriend, had drawn out four sparrow drawings, and after he died and we found them and thought "These are great."

In the process of grieving over Carter, I went out and bought a horse named Sparrow. In the horse riding I do, you come up with a horse show name and, so, when I was trying to think of a name for Sparrow, I came up with "Keep your eye on the sparrow"--so that's where the Eye on the Sparrows designs originated.

Adrian Hulet of Oso Closo.

​Last week, it was announced and then un-announced that Denton's Oso Closo had won a Chipotle-sponsored contest that involved them filming themselves singing about their favorite burrito.

On Monday, though, the official word from the popular restaurant chain came: Oso Closo was indeed the winner of $10,000 in prize money, free food for a year, and a burrito named after them which will appear on the menu in local restaurants.

Now that burrito-gate is officially behind us, we caught up with Oso Closo singer Adrian Hulet to get his take on all that's gone down... and why the band chose black beans instead of pinto ones for its creation.

Who initially heard about the contest and how did that person go about talking the rest of the band into writing a song about a burrito?
I guess [Oso Closo guitarist Chris] McQueen was having a meal at Chipotle and saw a sign about the contest and mentioned it to me, and we agreed that we should definitely try and get something together for it. A few days later, I woke up a little early and sat down to try and write and just kind of wrote the burrito song. I called McQueen and told him I thought I had it pretty much done and that he should come over and help me finish it. He came over and made it a thousand times better, and we recorded it that day in my living room on his laptop.  Then, when it was done, we were so stoked about it we called our friend Shane Connelly to see if he'd help us make a video and enter the contest with us. He obliged.

David Wilson

Darius Holbert

Who needs a corner, window office? Former Dallas resident and musician Darius Holbert proves you don't need a 9-to-5 to keep up with the mortgage. Just a little creativity is all.

That's how Holbert says two of his tracks ended up in the upcoming films World's Greatest Dad (starring Robin Williams) and The Shrink (starring Kevin Spacey). We recently caught up with Holbert to talk about these upcoming placements--and a few other things, too.

How's life in LA?
It's great. It's fantastic. I was convinced I was going to hate it when I first moved out here. You know how it is. I was trying to live the life of a musician in North Texas, doing a lot of session and studio work. After a while, there are only so many social dates you can do at Avanti's, doing straight up jazz for no money.

How did you figure out how make a living?
Mainly film scores these days. When I first moved to town, I was playing in 14 bands or something, trying to hustle and make rent. Slowly but surely I've been kind of more focused on film scoring. One of the main reasons is I'm getting kind of old. I'm an old-ass man. I'll be 35 this year. The rock 'n' roll lifestyle has taken a toll. Plus, I got married, and I'm not touring as much as I used to--only if it's cool music or a cool place. I just went to Iraq last week with that guy Everlast.

Rarely has a band's hometown been held against it, but that's definitely the case with Candlebox.

Forming in 1990 and hailing out of Seattle, Candlebox was compared, for better and worse, with bands that were a part of the then burgeoning grunge scene. With more in common with classic rock acts such as Led Zepplin and Aerosmith, Candlebox was labeled "grunge lite" even though not one member ever claimed any connection to bands like Nirvana or Mudhoney.

But lead singer Kevin Martin and the rest of the Candlebox had the last laugh--at least commercially--as the band's self-titled debut sold more than 4 million copies. Songs such as "Change" and "You" are still in regular rotation at numerous men's clubs across the country.

The band's fortune has declined steadily, however, as the band's third unenthusiastically received effort, 1999's Happy Pills, was thought by many to be the band's swansong. After a few years apart, though, Martin and guitarist Peter Klett were producing a Candlebox compilation when they decided to resuscitate the band. 2008's Into the Sun was the first new studio product from Candlebox in nearly a decade.

Martin took some time between tour stops to talk about the band's history and its unlikely second coming.

How much has the music scene changed since Candlebox formed in the early 90's?
It's gotten a lot more cookie cutter. There are a lot of bands that sound the same and you can't really tell who's singing or whose the song's written by. They're all kind of saying the same thing. The Internet has made things a lot crazier. Any band can put basically anything out there. I don't know what Candlebox would have done if the Internet would have been around. I think things have gone backwards, unfortunately, especially in the past 10 years. I don't know how to work with it, really. You put a record out and hit the road. Bands have to rely on their touring because you can't rely on the radio. Labels don't work records the way they used to. There is no artist development anymore. You've seen that with the collapse of most of the major labels. All in all, it's a way to make a living for us.

Justin Bua at 4th Wall Gallery.

Even if the name Justin Bua doesn't ring a bell, chances are you've seen New York City-raised artist's work--most notably, his almost ever-present piece "The DJ." It's the image on which Bua made his name as a prominently hip-hop-centric artist, leading the way to his design work in recent years with entities like MTV and video game company EA Sports and, even more recently, as a professor at the University of Southern California.

Starting tomorrow and running through the end of August, 10 oiriginal pieces of Bua's work will be on display at the 4th Wall Gallery on Fairmount Street, where it's also available for purchase. And, for a special treat, during tomorrow night's opening reception, Bua will be on hand from 7 to 10 p.m. to mingle with fans, admirers and curious onlookers.

Yesterday, we caught up with Bua over the phone to discuss his personal upbringing, how it's affected his art and how his lifelong interests in hip-hop and breakddancing further cemented his artistic vision.

After the jump, you can read the entirety of our discussion.

As space was pretty tight in the print edition this week, I wasn't able to fit the entirety of my interviews with VEGA's Alan Palomo or the Granada Theater's Mike Schoder into the space for my column this week on the Crystal Castles cancellation at the Granada. Below, find the entirety of my interview with Schoder from last Wednesday afternoon, in which Schoder details his dealings with Crystal Castles and his opinion on their decision to back out of the show.

Initial thoughts on what happened last night?
Nobody does that. You don't cancel because you don't like somebody. I don't know if they felt like VEGA was better than them or overshadowed them. Who knows?

Did they give you any reason for why they were willing to cancel the show?
They were saying, "We don't need this money." It was all about [Ethan] not liking the way the kick drum sounded. And it's like, if you've seen shows here, that just isn't [the case].

What's the worst part about how things went down last night?
Just to crap on the fans--that's the biggest thing. All these people bought tickets and came out and not only does he cancel, but he waits until 10 o'clock to do it, when all these people have been standing in line for three hours. It's just terrible.

At what point did you know the show wasn't going to take place?
As soon as the manager came to us and said they weren't going to play. That was just shortly after 10 o'clock.

What happened prior to that?
I was talking to Ethan, the keyboard player, for hours at the front of the house. It was just ridiculous.

As space was pretty tight in the print edition this week, I wasn't able to fit the entirety of my interviews with VEGA's Alan Palomo or the Granada Theater's Mike Schoder into the space for my column this week on the Crystal Castles cancellation at the Granada. Below, find the entirety of my interview with Alan Palomo from last Wednesday afternoon, in which Palomo discusses, among other things, his intercations with Crystal Castles in Austin and how he heard the news that his band wouldn't be playing with them in Dallas.

Richard Card

VEGA's Alan Palomo

 So I understand there were some problems in Austin that led to your getting kicked off the Dallas bill...
As far as we were concerned, we were incredibly accommodating to the band...

OK, but before we get too far into what happened, I imagine you were pretty excited to get on the bill in the first, place, right?
Yeah. We were absolutely stoked about it.

And now? After what happened? And given what Crystal Castles is accusing you of?
It's completely flipped. It's like they're trying to wash their hands entirely of this.

On Saturday at the Plano Centre, Mike Ziemer's Third String Productions will throw its annual South by So What!? event--a deal that's become something of a tradition.

But it's not the only show Ziemer puts on every year. At just 23 years of age, he's booked thousands of bands on hundreds of shows--most of which take place in the suburbs of Dallas. And, despite his age, over the past few years, Zimer's Third String Productions has become well-known throughout the region and beyond, for all-day music festivals like SBSW and the winter holiday-related Unsilent Night--shows that feature 20 to 30 bands and attract thousands of young would-be music aficionados.

We recently caught up with Ziemer to talk about how--and why--he does what he does.

When did you recognize that there was a need that wasn't being fulfilled in North Texas music? How and when were you able to set up a plan to address it?  
Probably when I first moved here. I was 16. I was a spiky-haired kid from California with surf clothes and everyone automatically thought I was a punk kid, so I started hanging out with bands and there was nowhere to do shows. I didn't start doing shows till I was 18 or 19, but they called me the mascot, the manager, and they started recognizing that I could get them shows and I could do things for them. Back then, you would play the Door or the Across The Street Bar, and that was it. We really wanted to open up new venues--or potentially new venues--that we could do stuff at. We started doing stuff at churches, just places you wouldn't normally have shows--and all these kids would show up because there was nothing else going on.

In last week's print product, we spoke with M83 frontman, founder and brainchild Anthony Gonzalez about the major influences on his latest release, 2008's stellar synth-heavy Saturdays=Youth.

But what ran in the print issue was only a piece of the conversation--we also spoke with the Frenchman about his current role opening for the Killers (the tour stops through Grand Prairie tonight at the Nokia Theatre) and whether he was nervous with the fact that his latest album features him singing more than any previous efforts of his have. Below is the whole kit-and-kaboodle--OK, well, as much as we could get before Gonzalez's phone dropped out of service in a remove area of New England...

First off, where are you right now? On the road?
I have no idea, actually. I know that wherever I am, it has a weird name, but I can't tell you exactly where it is. I'm on the road. I think I'm close to the Canadian border, but that's all I can tell.

Earlier this week, we caught up with Ollie, the drummer for Los Campesinos! (pictured, right), to talk for a few minutes about the band's quick ascent to success, the fact that the band released its first two albums within six months of each other, and even how the differences in the racial make-ups of America and the UK contribute to the different styles of music each nation creates.

Here's how it all went down...

Where are you guys right now? Are you in Alabama?
Yes, we're in Birmingham.

How's Birmingham treating you?
Um, alright at the moment. We went for a very nice Thai meal last night.

In Birmingham?
Yeah. And there's a guitar shop across the road that's managed to fix Neil's guitar. Neil's been having problems with his guitar so they did that.

That's cool. Well, not that he's having problems..
Well, yeah. But apart from that, I've yet to explore it. So that's what I'm gonna be doing in a bit.

Years ago, area legend Ben Kweller was dubbed a wunderkind by nearly every music publication in the country. Today, the child has grown into a husband and father--and says he's eager to reconnect his family and career to the place he still calls home: Texas.

His fourth major solo album, Changing Horses, set for release next Tuesday, finds Kweller searching for vintage authenticity: He recorded the LP in analog format in only 11 days at Austin's Public Hi-Fi studio, founded by Spoon drummer Jim Eno. And with the bright pedal steel guitar tickling the dusty chords of Kweller's acoustic, the disc finds the familiar voice of Sha-Sha telling stories of prostitutes, junkies and deceased love ones as if they were gospel.

The down-home country quality of Changing Horses is quite the departure from his typical piano-laden garage-rock set, though. So will it sound a tad off?

Not really: When listening to Kweller recount his adolescence spent in this neck of the woods, as he did when we spoke over the phone last week, it's easy to see how this sound was in him all along.

Word on the street is you moved out of New York and down to Austin last year. Welcome back to Texas!
Thanks, man! I love Austin. My roots are here in Texas.

Scarlet Page

The Answer opens for AC/DC tonight, then heads to the Pontiac Garage for a midnight gig.

Tonight at the American Airlines Center, before Aussie rock legends AC/DC will be bringing back a lot of high school memories by banging out classic hard rock warhorses such as "You Shook Me All Night Long" and "Hell's Bells", the crowds will be warmed up by Ireland's The Answer, a Led Zeppelin-inspired quartet who has done well across the pond and is just beginning to make inroads here in the states.

The Answer's next album, Everyday Demons, will be released in America on March 31st, but if it's anything like 2006's Rise, most AC/DC fans in attendance this evening will be quite pleased if they get to the gig early. Speaking from a tour stop in Toronto, lead singer Cormac Neeson spoke in a thick, Irish accent about the pros and cons of opening up for such a renowned band as AC/DC, as well as some of the other big acts The Answer has opened up for...

How is the tour with AC/DC going so far?
Well, right now, we're freezing our balls off. Besides that, it's going well. We're getting a really good response from crowds all across the states and Canada. Generally, we're getting 80 to 85 percent attendance for our gig which is pretty great. It's such an unbelievable opportunity for the band. We're starting with kind of a blank page here. No one knows who we are, but since we've starting this tour, our Myspace page is constantly getting hit by all these people who come to see AC/DC but really enjoy us as well. We're all really happy with the progress we've made in North America.

Drummer and vocalist Cedric Burnside, grandson of the late, great blues guitarist R.L. Burnside, brings his brand of funk-infused delta blues to the House of Blues tomorrow night for a free 9 o'clock show in the venue's restaurant.

The 30-year-old Burnside, who grew up playing in juke joints and started touring with his grandfather at 13, has seen his career surge in the last couple of years: He was featured playing drums with Samuel L. Jackson in the Craig Brewer film Black Snake Moan (if you haven't seen it, do so immediately), and recorded 2 Man Wrecking Crew with vocalist and guitarist Lightnin' Malcolm in just three days--quite a feat, even if the duo was working with producer David Z (Etta James, Prince, B.B. King). Burnside took a few minutes to chat with DC9 on Wednesday before leaving his Mississippi home for the drive to Big D.

What was it like learning to play music with your grandfather?

We didn't have a radio. My grandad and them used to have house parties--they'd set up all the house parties and all the grandkids would be there kicking up dust to the music.

Tomorrow evening at The Granada Theater, The Gourds will perform its annual night-before-New Year's Eve concert in Dallas. Seems the band likes playing its hometown of Austin on December 31st, so we get the night before.

Either way is fine with me because, even after fourteen years, The Gourds are still one of the most unique outfits our state has ever produced.

Still mining that same alt-country/psycho-Americana vein that helped the band gain significant acclaim for its roots version of Snoop Dog's  "Gin and Juice" way back in 1996, The Gourds warped take on country music remains as fresh as ever. And the band's upcoming release, Haymaker, is its best effort in several years.

Singer/guitarist /songwriter Kevin Russell took some time recently to talk about the new effort and what the future may hold for The Gourds.

The show in Dallas late in December has become something of a ritual for The Gourds. Do you save New Year's Eve for Austin?

Unfortunately, there is only one New Year's Eve. Otherwise, we'd play Dallas on that night. It's the next best thing, playing the night before. It's always a party in Dallas and in Austin. It's always a long show, and we work up a lot of crazy covers in order to make it a unique experience for everyone.

Los Angeles band Woven play an interesting mixture of electronica and rock. Though they explore a wide variety of sounds, they generally combine  unique, dark electronic textures and heavy two-drummer percussion into straightforward poppy rock songs. After the band's 2003 album, 8 Bit Monk, Woven left Interscope. That was the last release from the band until Designer Codes in September of this year.  They're currently touring in an RV converted to run on vegetable oil. Woven performs tonight at The Prophet Bar along with The Breach, Aftertraces, Domestic Sleepless and Cully Woods.

Following is an email Q&A with singer/guitarist Ory Hodis (pictured in an Adam Jerugim photo). --Jesse Hughey

I read where you said the last album, 8 Bit Monk, relied too heavily on the computer and that Designer Codes was more of a full band effort. Were you not happy with the way 8 Bit Monk sounded?

It's not that we were not happy with the way 8 Monk sounded, as a band we are always expanding and changing our writing process. With 8 bit monk there was a lot of backward learning to prepare for our live shows. We would create a song on the computer and have to learn the parts. It's a really strange process, almost feels like your learning someone elses songs. With Designer Codes we were striving for a more balanced approach, less machine.

Did you try to make the new record sound more organic from the beginning?

The album and songs write themselves according to our experiences in life, and then we derive meaning from it.

Why such a long delay between the two records?

Life happened. Babies were born, people close to us died, and we also left Interscope. What it did though was bring us closer as friends and also provide the inspirational backdrop for Designer Codes.

Was Designer Codes just a really difficult album to record, or were you all working on other projects during those five years?

We each have other projects, but this did not delay the making of the album. After leaving Interscope we decided that we were going to complete the whole album independently. we found ourselves able to focus more on our process and take the time needed to refine out art.

You've performed with an interesting variety of acts, from They Might Be Giants to Raekwon. Obviously, the audience for Raekwon would be very different from a They Might Be Giants crowd. Does your live show change much depending on the audience?

Because we have never fit into any genre, I think we are not limited to who we are playing with or in front of. Our live show changes in the sets we choose to perform and we also improv so spontaneously we never know what's going to happen.

When did you perform with Raekwon, and what was that like? Did you get to hang out with him?

We performed with him at a ski resort. Unfortunately I do not remember the name. We never got a chance to hang out with him because we had to rush off to play another show.

You've done interesting remixes of TV on the Radio and Mars Volta songs ["Televators" and "Staring At The Sun," both available on the band's MySpace page]. How did those come about?

Tour can get really hectic so certain songs give us solace and inspiration. We will play them over and over again. After we get home  remixing the songs allows us to give thanks for the inspiration these amazing bands have given us.

Matthew Caws formed Nada Surf way back in 1993 and the band found success two years later when the song “Popular” became just that.

Yet after a successful tour with alt/pop kindred spirit Superdrag, various snafus led to the band being dropped by its label. Luckily, Caws and fellow Surfers Daniel Lorca and Ira Elliot somehow kept from breaking completely apart and released what many believe to be their best record, 2000’s The Proximity Effect.

Nada Surf’s latest release (its fifth) is Lucky, yet another shining example of brainy indie rock that just goes to show the fruits of determination. Matthew Caws took some time during a tour stop to talk a little past, present and future.

And, after the jump, check for details on how to win a pair of tickets to this show.

Is it hard to believe that Nada Surf has been around for 15 years?

That seems like a lot of time to me, too. The first record came out in ’96, but we had been together since ’93. It’s a surprise to us to be together so long. Even in 1998, when we were making our second record, some fan of ours had floated a theory that we broke bands up since so many bands we toured with had indeed broken up. But, we certainly are lucky to have stayed together.

Last week, Sony Legacy released a 30th anniversary edition box set of At Budokan, Cheap Trick’s remarkable entrance into popular culture. Sure, the Illinois quartet had released three previous albums that had received some critical kudos, but Budokan sent Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson and Bun E. Carlos into the rock and roll stratosphere. Not only did Cheap Trick’s songs gain strength in front of thousands of screaming Japanese fans, the live effort has remained the band’s magnum opus since its release in 1979. Contemporary rock radio was shitsville in those days and Cheap Trick provided a light-hearted but hook-heavy respite against the constant, boring barrage of Journey, Styx and Kansas. Going strong well into a fourth decade, Cheap Trick is still touring and making new records. The band seems to play the area about every six months or so, oftentimes in oldie packages which don’t do the band justice. Speaking after a show in Perth, Australia, guitarist and uber-nerd Rick Nielsen spoke about the recent DVD + 3CD reissue, Budokan!

Why do you think that Budokan became such a defining moment for Cheap Trick?

It has its place in music history. The import version sold so well that the label had to release it in the states. For a lot of people, fans, the guys in the band, it was the defining moment. It’s one of those records where people ask themselves where they were when they first heard it.

Sometimes--especially after listening to “A Hard Day’s Night”, we long for the '60s pop days of old: catchy hooks, vocal harmonies and hand clapping sequences.

Locksley is the latest modern-day act to attempt to fill that musical void. The songs on their first album, Don’t Make Me Wait, reissued September 9, are heavily influenced by groups like the Kinks, and, yes, the Beatles, and they're all about girls and having fun.

But don’t let the homage fool you: With shades of punk and '90s garage rock, and modern influences like the Hives and the Rapture, Locksley may be a product of the past--but they’re leaving themselves room to evolve.

The band, whose music you’ll know from television commercials for Payless, Starz, and MTV, have remained unsigned but stayed pretty busy nonetheless. Currently traveling the country in a bus dubbed the Straight Rock Express, as (first time) headliners for MTV’s Choose or Lose tour, the group will stop in at the studio to start work on their second album before heading back out on the road as the backing band for Ray Davies--yep, that Ray Davies.

We caught up with guitarist Jesse Laz for a phone interview as the band stopped in for a show at its hometown of Madison Wisconsin.

So how'd the band get together? I mean, I’ve read that y’all met in high school but it never really says when you became a band.
Well we just all played together in high school and then we went to college. Tried that for a year and we were like, “Hey guys, you wanna, y'know, move to New York and try and be in a band?” We played around and didn’t make much money--still trying to figure that one out. We rehearsed in this space that Guy [the band’s producer and manager] owned. We rehearsed in this space, and Guy owned the studio and started producing our stuff, and he asked if we wanted him to be our manager and we were like, “Well, who have you managed before?” and he was like, “Well, nobody,” and we said "Alright." He’s just been amazing. He’s taken nothing for doing all of this. Literally nothing. I think he’s actually put his money into the band. We’ve become really good friends. We have a joke that, whenever something particularly good happens, Guy says “See, this is what you’re not paying me for.”

Street Dogs, who perform tonight at the House of Blues, are as Boston as the Red Sox, clam chowdah and irritating accents. The band was started by former Dropkick Murphys singer Mike McColgan, who left his former Celt-punk band to be a Boston firefighter but eventually decided to return to music.

It may come as a surprise, then, that two members hail from Texas, including one from North Texas. Guitar duties are handled by Tobe Bean III of Houston and Marcus Hollar of Pilot Point, a town of about 4,000 northeast of Denton. Hollar, a fan of the band, sent a demo CD which so impressed the guys that they decided to let him audition.

I wrote a profile of Hollar for his hometown paper, the Pilot Point Post-Signal, right before he moved to Boston (he has since moved back). Some five years later, his enthusiasm doesn't seem to have waned at all.

The band really seemed to expand its sound from straightforward punk to include classic rock and Celtic music influences on State of Grace. What led you guys to do so? Did moving to a new label [Hellcat] have anything to do with it?

I think we expanded our sound because we didn't want to corner ourselves into one thing. It's very easy for bands to stick to what they do and always play the same kind of music. With this new release, we wanted to keep our punk influences that we've always known and love and at the same time develop a new sound. What we came up with is what you hear on "State of Grace." We found a new home at Hellcat Records and we didn't want to hand them just another punk record, so in a way, moving to a new label had something to do with it.

Dallas' own Carly Patterson, best remembered as a 2004 Olympic medalist gymnast, is attempting to reinvent herself as a musician, as Richie Whitt explained in 2006. So how has her career come along in the two years since she last talked to the Observer about her ambitions?

Her first single, “Temporary Life (Ordinary Girl),” is on iTunes and has received some airplay on Radio Disney. Her album, Back to the Beginning, was supposed to come out in August, but has been pushed back to later in the fall.

Patterson's brand of bubble-gum pop will probably appeal to about zero percent of our readers, but when her publicist offered a Q&A we couldn’t resist.

Is the album all pretty much upbeat pop, along the lines of the single?
Yeah. There’s about one slow, slow song, but most of them are pretty upbeat and fun. Some are about girl stuff or relationships and just experiences in my life that I’ve written about. You know, stuff like that.

From his "My Sharona" parody "My Bologna" to his latest hit, the Chamillionare-spoofing "White and Nerdy," "Weird Al" Yankovic has served as pop culture's funhouse mirror for nearly 30 years. The Grammy-winning music, video and movie star performs in North Texas tonight. He spoke with DC9 about his live show, possible Broadway roles and suicide rumors.

I've read that you're saying this tour is the biggest of your career so far. How so?

That's with anything I do. I try to make each album the best one yet, and each tour too. Every time out, we try to better ourselves.

You've got a deep catalog, going back to "Another One Rides The Bus" from 1981, and "My Bologna" from 1979. How much older stuff are you going to play?

Having dominated Dallas' dance floors for two years with their unique approach to “party rock”, The Party continues to roll deep with an entourage of loyal jitterbugs.

Celebrating the two-year anniversary of the creation of their wildly popular DJ collective, Markus Underwood (Nature) and Will Rhoten (Sober) rap to us about the past, future and what it takes to make people wiggle. And The Party, in true form, is throwing themselves a raucous birthday bash at the Zubar tonight--you know, just to remind their fans what makes their music so damned fun.

OK, so, when humans celebrate their second birthdays, they're still considered fledglings. How does The Party rate their own evolution in the last two years?

Rhoten: We’re fully developed.

(Laughter)

Underwood: We’re still getting going to a certain extent. When we started, it was just a night--actually, it was a night in Denton in 2006. Two or three months later, it was me and Scott (Scott Quinn, aka $elect) starting to do parties out here. A month after that it was me, Scott and Will. And when we started getting together as a trio, we set a whole list of goals--big ones. We wanted to do a party here and a party there--all across Texas and tie in this and that. We had a lot of long term goals and I think that, two years down the line, basically, everything that we set out do on paper, we’ve accomplished…and more.

The Party entertains in Dallas, Houston and Austin. Is there a future plan of “world domination?”

I never imagined this job would ever lead to opportunities like interviewing a former Hillary Duff tourmate and Seventeen cover boy, but Teddy Geiger was kind enough to tell us about upcoming Peter Cattaneo film The Rocker.

Starring Rainn Wilson, Josh Gadd, Emma Stone and Christina Applegate, it tells the story of a hair-band reject who gets a second shot at glory while drumming for his nephew’s rock band. Judging from this trailer, at least, the movie looks hilarious.

Geiger told us about acting, the similarities between the movie and his real life, and his unorthodox method of letting fans choose which songs will be included on his upcoming album, due out in September.

What was it like on set with all those comedians [including Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Aziz Ansari]? Were they always “on,” trying to crack each other up, or did they chill out between shots?

They were always on, always joking around with each other. I was kind of the only non-comedian there, so whenever I would try to make a joke, it would go completely silent.

Christina Applegate plays your mom in the movie. She’s somewhat young to be the mother of someone your age, and is still really hot. Was that tense, to have to act like someone that attractive was your mom?

For many bands, video games are an amusing distraction at best. Practicing at the home of a member who owns a console can be a risky endeavor, as a spontaneous game of Halo or Madden might stretch into an hours-long tournament.

That’s not the case with Arlington’s Man Factory. This band is in the process of turning a love for a classic fighting game into a three-CD epic.

The members offered the first part of Street Fighter II: Rock Opera as a free download on their MySpace site last year (it's still up for free download, now), and they've begun work on the follow-ups.

Curious about the progress on the trilogy, we sent a few questions to singer/guitarist Tyler White and guitarist/keyboardist Austin Sevener. They kindly answered our questions about the album by e-mail, and even made up some queries of their own. We’re still not sure how they managed to storm out and knock over our tape recorder three times during the exchange... --Jesse Hughey

Steven Van Zandt just called to chat about his syndicated Underground Garage radio show, which can once again be heard on 92.5 KZPS-FM at 10 p.m. on Sunday nights.

Now in its seventh year, the show can be heard on more than 140 stations and around the world on both the Armed Forces Network and Voice of America.

Van Zandt, of course, is also currently the E Street Band's guitarist and formerly (or maybe not so “formerly”) played Silvio Dante on The Sopranos. We talked about the show, the late Bo Diddley and, of course, we couldn’t resist inquiring about the possibility of a Sopranos film.

Your show has a very eclectic playlist. How do you come up with a theme and decide what to play each week?

We try to stay as consistent as we can, and we try not to take the theme too seriously. We might dedicate a content break or two to a certain theme. We might celebrate an album, or we celebrate pop culture whenever we can. We might celebrate the guy who invented the hot dog or something silly like that.

Prior to 2007, Robert Lowe was just another local working stiff. After a day in his cubicle working for an insurance company in Addison, Lowe would sometimes go practice with one of the metal bands he fronts around the region.

For over a decade, Lowe has wallowed in relative anonymity as singer for Solitude Aeturnus, one of Dallas’ best purveyors of doom metal. Predictably, the band has been a major draw across Europe, but has never made inroads in its hometown or country. Concept of God, Lowe’s more experimental outfit hasn’t fared much better.

So each Monday through Friday, Lowe returned to his dreaded cubicle. Until last year, when a fateful call came from Sweden. One of doom metal’s most celebrated groups, Candlemass, was in need of a replacement vocalist. Seems the leader of Candlemass, Leif Edling was a big fan of Solitude Aeturnus and wanted to know if Lowe would mind the cooler temperatures across the Atlantic.

Needless to say, Lowe was on the next plane to Scandinavia. And after a year spent playing to crowds of thousands instead of hundreds, Lowe returns to Dallas for the first time this weekend with a show at Lola's in Fort Worth.

Speaking from a tour stop in Portland, Lowe told us of his remarkable good fortune...

At the Granada Theater tonight, Austin singer-songwriter and founding Asylum Street Spanker Guy Forsyth will perform songs from his latest album, which is either ten years old or brand new, depending on how you look at it.
Forsyth's Calico Girl, released Tuesday, consists of rerecorded versions of songs from his 1999 album Can You Live Without. This isn't a case of an idea-challenged artist scavenging from his past, though. Forsyth says that because of the label's failure to live up to its side of the contract, he doesn't receive any money from sales of the original album.

Forsyth redid the entire album and added a scathing diatribe against the music industry as an introduction. But he didn't stop there. Forsyth went on to create his own music label, Small & Nimble. He also formed an organization called Artist Authorized that allows artists to download a logo indicating that they approve a music release.

We caught up with Forsyth to talk about his tour, latest album and his efforts to help protect musicians' interests.

Tell me about your upcoming tour. Are you playing with a band, or solo?

I've played in a lot of different lineups. Right now, I'm working with Will Landin, who plays bass and sousaphone, and Rob Hooper, who plays drums and cajon and percussion. So we're playing as a trio, which I like a lot. We can play a festival, like a 20,000-person festival, and it feels like it fills the space, and we can also play little quiet rooms, too. They're both such monster players, it feels like it can go anywhere. I refer to them as my musical ninjas. [laughs]

So the new record is actually something you put out about 10 years ago, but you had trouble with the label, right?