Cory Graves
The Majestic Aims For Relevancy and Quaker City Night Hawks Clean Up.
The city-owned Majestic Theatre is the last of the city's historical Theatre Row buildings still standing. And that, really, is reason enough to pay the place a visit every now and again — even if it has been a long while since music fans have had a reason to patronize the place on the reg.
Off the top of our heads, we can only pinpoint two worthwhile concerts at the venue in recent memory: Jeff Mangum's visit back in January and Andrew Bird's in March of last year.
But, according to an update on Dallas Morning News's City Hall blog yesterday, that's all about to change: Mike “The Colonel” Schwedler (who once booked shows at Granada Theater and managed the Old 97's) began taking over booking duties at the Majestic back in May. As Schwedler put it in that DMN piece: “I want to bring in relevant, current and popular music — roadshows, the kind of things that roll into other rooms around town that would be perfect for the Majestic but don't come here because the rules were too strict or they weren't encouraged to or they didn't nurture that relationship. But that's why I am here: to bring that back.”
Speaking of venues looking to turn things around, Fort Worth's Queen City Music Hall made a strong case for its supremacy over the building's previous tenants this past weekend as they played hosts to this year's Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards ceremony. For many a Fort Worth band, the weekend's ceremony marked their first visit to the freshly-renovated room.
“I haven't been here since it was an underage dance club,” we overheard from someone in the venue this weekend.
And, sure, while City Streets did have quite the reputation for serving alcohol to minors, it wasn't necessarily known as a place to catch a show. Like, ever.
The more we think about it, though, the more we realize what a smart move hosting a big event like the awards was for this just-opened venue. We're guessing that inviting just about every artist in Fort Worth to check out the hall (not to mention filling them full of free beer) will do wonders for the space's local bookings over the next few months.
As far as the Weekly's ceremony itself was concerned, Quaker City Night Hawks were undoubtedly the big winners of the night, taking home awards in a whopping seven of the nine categories in which they were nominated, including Artist of the Year, Best Band, Rock Album of the Year (Honcho), Rock Song of the Year (“Fox in the Hen House”), Best Live Band, Best Guitarist (Dave Matsler), and Best Drummer (Matt Mabe). To be fair, they probably would have taken home the Best Male Vocalist category as well, had members Sam Anderson and Dave Matsler not split the vote.
Another Fort Worth outfit that's doing rather well for themselves at the moment is The Unlikely Candidates, who signed to Atlantic Records shortly after this year's SXSW. Following their Barefoot at the Belmont performance this Thursday, the band will embark on a headlining tour over the course of the next couple of months, before eventually hooking up with Blue October — sometime around October, actually — to play main support for them this fall.
Lastly, we caught ourselves double-taking at a recent TXU Energy television spot this week — and not just because of their unbelievable new nights and weekends rates, either!
Rather, we noticed, the experimental electronic musician in the opening shot looked an awful lot like notable Dallas oddball George Quartz. A quick note from Quartz confirms our suspicions.
“I have an agent that sends me out on auditions,” Quartz tells White Noise. “This was the first high-profile thing. It was pretty fun to shoot.”
See the full ad below — or enjoy more of Quartz's work in the form of The Baptist Generals' “Dog That Bit You” music video, if you'd prefer.
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