Cory Graves
Changes Abound, Locals Prep Record Store Day Releases and Power Trip Enjoys The Finer Things.
Baseball season is back, which means it's also time for our annual the-Observer-has-hired-a-new-music-editor announcement.
Next month, When he relocates from Minneapolis — where he previously served as the editorial administrator at the Observer's sister paper, City Pages — to assume the position, Jeff Gage will become the fourth person to hold the job since 2011.
Of course, April also brings with it another Record Store Day, too. In addition to the lineup of Good Records' day-long celebration that we hipped you to last week, we've also learned some of the special, locally-tied, RSD releases that'll be available in limited supply during that April 19th celebration. They are as follows:
• Pantera and Portland hardcore band Poison Idea will release a split seven-inch with both bands performing the latter's “The Badge,” which the former famously covered on the 1994 soundtrack to The Crow.
• Centro-matic will reissue its first album, Redo the Stacks.
• School of Seven Bells will release five previously unreleased tracks from the band's final recording session, called Put Down Your Sad. Sales will benefit the foundation of bandleader Benjamin Curtis, who died in 2013 of T-Cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma.
• Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys will reissue a set of 10 radio singles from the '40s that were never commercially released, many of which haven't been heard in 65 years.
• Parquet Courts will release a seven-inch featuring new singles “Sunbathing Animal” and “Pilgrims to Nowhere.”
As it turns out, “Sunbathing Animal” will actually be the title track of a new Parquet Courts LP, which will be released June 3 via What's Your Rupture?/Mom+Pop. You can stream that one here right now. That same day, the band will perform a release show at Three Links along with Swearin' and Radioactivity.
Speaking of Three Links: More acts performing at this fall's second annual Elm Street Music & Tattoo Festival have been announced. Among the new crop of announces are The Vandals, Scott H. Biram, The Whigs, The Chop Tops, Flametrick Subs, Mugen Hoso, PAPA, Slowride, The Roomsounds, Sleepin' Rattlers and Punk Rock Karaoke.
Moving on: Several local acts showed up on the small screen this week. The most amusing of these cases was undoubtedly Power Trip's stereotype-defying “Behind the Metal” segment from the same PBS-made fake news program that also gave us this bit of gold from the band during SXSW. Check the new clip out below:
Public broadcasts really loved Dallas acts this week, it seems. Hip-hop group The Outfit, TX also sat down for this half-hour video segment with NPR's Microphone Check series. You can catch that one here.
And when author Amy Yates Wuelfing appeared on The Daily Show last week to discuss her new book on the New Jersey punk club City Gardens, she brought along Butthole Surfers' Gibby Haynes, who, among other things, talked about being stabbed on stage once while performing at the club. Check it out here.
It's not just TV that loves North Texas artists, though. The movie world, it turns out, is also a fan. Dallas emcee Buffalo Black — whose new RedPillWondrLand EP is due out on the 29th — has now officially landed that placement in Spike Lee's new joint. Before that film's release this fall, though, you can preview the rapper's new single, “Bad Seed,” which was released earlier today, below.
Also in the works is a documentary on San Francisco pop-punk label Fat Wreck Chords that's being put together by Dallasite Shaun Colon. To fund his film — which will be called A Fat Wreck — Colon hoped to raise $7,500 via crowd-funding site Indiegogo. Astonishingly, the campaign raised that amount, and then some, in the first 24-hours alone. At the time of this writing, Colon has raised over $19,000 with 30 days left to go in the campaign. We should also point out that at least some of the footage shot for the film so far has been done by Justin Wilson, who also played a big part in the creation of last year's locally-created Descendents doc, Filmage.
Also currently amid its own Indiegogo campaign is Brutal Juice, which is trying to raise funds to record its fourth LP, the band's first since 1995.
Moving on to the print world: Tera Melos's locally-based drummer John Clardy wrote for Modern Drummer about how to stay healthy while on tour; J. Charles & The Trainrobbers' frontman and namesake, Jeff Saenz, spoke with Mix about the equipment he used to record Reverend Horton Heat's latest LP; and the Granada Theater and Gilley's both appeared in this Texas tourism ad in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.
Then there's The Flaming Lips, which is reissuing its debut EP packaged in a special container that'll also house a gourmet chocolate skull from Dallas chocolatier Dude, Sweet Chocolate, plus a special gold coin good for entrance to any upcoming U.S. Lips show.
Elsewhere: T-Bone Burnett will be among a collection of folks recording music set to lost, Basement Tapes-era Bob Dylan lyrics; Symbolyc One co-produced a song for Lupe Fiasco's upcoming LP along with his 16-year-old son; Eyes, Wings and Many Other Things debuted a track from its just-released Pour le Corps Records LP via Impose; and Pleasant Grove announced a new LP that's set to be released this fall.
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