Cory Graves
NPR Overanalyzes Leon Bridges, The Ghost Throws An Awards Show and Poison Culture Takes On Trump.
OK, so we all know that the Dallas music scene has exploded greatly in recent years — to the point that we hit both peak venue and peak festival at least a year ago.
You could say there's been an embarrassment of riches around here. In fact, there are at least four over-the-air stations that are now playing local music at some point during the week, even if it's during off-peak hours.
One thing we haven't maxed out on yet, though, are award shows. Sure, the Dallas Observer and Fort Worth Weekly each have their annual local music awards ceremonies, and a couple of other local publications dedicate at least a couple spots in their annual “Best of” issues to music-related categories. But is that more than enough glad-handing, inward-gazing and back-patting for one scene?
One local entity says no. On Sunday, November 22, Dallas music blog The Ghost of Blind Lemon will hold its first Ghosty Awards at AllGood Cafe. The categories and nominated acts can be found here, and online voting is expected to open Monday, September 21.
As we eluded to in last week's Buzz Rankings column, though, one thing people actually may have gotten their fill of is Leon Bridges. Well, judging from the hatchet piece that ran on on NPR today, anyway. It over-analyzes every move the man's ever made while trying to answer the question, “Do we even need new old soul music?” The answer? If you like it, sure. If not, you should probably just move on. Or so says Leon, anyway.
On the other hand, people are still way stoked on Donald Trump songs — although that'll probably change in the coming months. The latest to throw its hat in the ring is Dallas shoegaze outfit Poison Culture, which posted a pair of tunes onto its BandCamp page yesterday to coincide with the #Trumpster's it's-not-a-fundraising visit to Dallas yesterday evening.
Another thing folks (arguably) can't get enough of is cover tunes. Already today, we've posted an interview with Claire Morales about her current covers project, which has most recently seen her take on Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood's “Summer Wine” alongside Chinasky the Fury's Dalton Kane. But she's just one of several locally-tied musicians that put their spin on other people's songs this week.
Ahead of the release of its Heretics LP this Friday, Consequence of Sound premiered the Toadies' take on Blondie's “Heart of Glass” — one that plenty of Fort Worthians got to hear firsthand this past weekend at the eighth annual Dia de los Toadies festival.
Not to be outdone, Demi Lovato dropped by BBC Radio 1's “Live Lounge” in an attempt to resurrect Hozier's “Take Me to Church.” Her convincing take just might have done the job, too, if so many others hadn't driven the song to an unrecoverable depth in the ground before her.
Even Rat Rios got in on the cover game with a rendition of Billy Idol's “Eyes Without a Face” that she released last year, but that only recently found its way to Dangerous Minds. Writes the site's Christopher Bickel: “It's rare that I think a remake or cover surpasses a well-loved original, but I've got to hand it to Rat Rios. This bedroom dream-pop version of 'Eyes Without a Face' surpasses the Billy Idol original in every way.”
Also throwing out some old, albeit non-cover, music this week was Mystery Skulls, which put out a collection of B-sides and rarities that predate Forever, plus one previously unreleased track. That one can be grabbed over at BandCamp.
Turning in some new original music this week was 817 “synth-driven post-punk/doom duo” Pinkish Black, which posted another track from its Bottom of the Morning LP, which is due out October 30, via Relapse.
Aside from working with his band Pinkish Black, Daron Beck also had a hand in producing Nervous Curtains' new LP, which earns its release on October 2. This week, CMJ premiered the album's second single, a song called “White Flashes,” that may or may not be about cocaine, although this one was produced by This Will Destroy You's Alex Bhore.
More new music comes from Denton's Pageantry, which released its first new single since this time last year on Monday to promote its upcoming West Coast tour. “Girl Breath” comes from a batch of tunes recorded by Matt Pence at The Echo Lab, and it'll be part of the band's still-unreleased debut LP.
On the other hand, one of Dallas' most critically-hailed emcees, Buffalo Black, just released his SURRILLA LP, for which he's built plenty of anticipation for in the 16 months since his widely adored REDPILLWondrland EP dropped. The LP, which the rapper says “sheds light on peace, love, hate, culture, politics, society and their place in all of our lives,” is streaming in full below.
Hoping to build some similar buzz leading up to his own album drop is The Rocket Summer, who has launched a crowd-funding/pre-order effort for his next LP with some pretty interesting incentives. Aside from the usual, signed setlists and the like, he's also offering up the jacket he wore on the Of Men and Angels cover, opportunities to play with his band onstage, a Skype session and even his services co-writing and producing a song with you. That two-day recording session — which doesn't include travel costs — will cost you a cool $4,000, though.
Then there's Jessie Fry, who recently signed with Metaledge records, which'll release her upcoming full-length on October 29. To promote that one, Frye recently released a new music video for single “One in a Million” that finds her going all Warrior Princess on your ass.
Similarly, local (super?) group The Hundred Inevitables just put out a new clip to drum up some support for its recent Idol Records release, Decade of Downtime, which was released after at 10-year quiet period for the pop-rockers.
And, finally, we'll leave you with a few quick-hitters:
• Symbolyc One and VohnBeatz are nominated for a Dove Award for their production work on Lecrae's Anomaly LP last year.
• In other Leon Bridges news, he and Macklemore have been shooting a music video together in Berlin.
• The Von Ehrics will play a 15th anniversary/reunion show on October 9 at Three Links.
• Lastly, KXT is currently looking for a new assistant program director with “strong knowledge of the Triple A format, a passion for music and a minimum of three years on-air experience (public radio preferred).” Interested? Apply here.
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