Cory Graves
Index Fest Is Back, Sarah Jaffe Drops Some New Heat, Post Malone Goes Platinum and Where You Can Hear The BNQT Album First.
As if it weren’t already hard enough to keep all the local music festivals straight, someone had to go and do something like this: The once-dead Index Fest announced the lineup for its upcoming Fort Worth return this week — only, turns out, the new-look Index Fest is actually just craft beer and music pairing affair Untapped pulling a rebranding switcheroo.
Ugh, why is everything so complicated?!
“We just thought it would be cool to come up with a new name that implied indexing food, beer and music,” says the festival’s new owner, Brad Weiss. “We realize that there will be some confusion in Dallas, but we’re looking to take this thing outside of the city and outside of the state.”
Alright, if he says so. More cut and dry is the fact that, when Index Fest returns to Panther Island Pavilion if Fort Worth on Saturday, June 3 — its Dallas stop will come in the fall — it’ll do so with Dawes as its headliners and Johnnyswim, Shinyribs, Oilboom and DJ Sober also on the bill. And also 300 different beers from 80 different breweries — because, y’know, Untapped.
Less an abrupt change is Sarah Jaffe’s full on conversion from weepy indie folker to straight up electro-popper. She’s been dipping her toes in those waters since 2012’s The Body Wins, and waded even deeper with 2014’s Don’t Disconnect. Now, with NPR’s debut of the title track from her upcoming fourth Bad Baby LP today, it’s probably fair to drop all folk aspects from the conversation altogether.
Check out the first video below ahead of its July 7 release.
Also no stranger to big changes is Nashville-based songwriter Liz Rose, who has spent her entire career penning songs for other people like Taylor Swift and Little Big Town, both of which earned her Grammys. Now, after decades on that path, she’s finally releasing a debut album of her own, a concept album of sorts, based on her childhood in Irving, Texas, where she’d help out at her dad’s dime store.
“I write other people’s stories,” she told Nashville Lifestyles. “But it was really fun to tell mine.”
In other new record news, Danny Balis will be joined by Eric Pulido from Midlake for special DJ set live on 1310-AM The Ticket tomorrow night from 9 p.m. to midnight. As part of the program, they’ll be debuting the new BNQT record in its entirety. Listen online here.
That BNQT album doesn’t come out until April 28, but you can get a limited edition early copy this Saturday at Record Store Day — although you might have to sleep in the parking lot to score one. For some other good RSD tips, hit up our events directory to see what’s going on at what shops around town.
One shop you might not have heard of yet is the new Exploded Records, which makes its grand opening inside of Sylvan Thirty health spot JuiceLand on Saturday as well. DJ Sober and guests will be spinning at that party.
A record coming out a little farther down the line is Post Malone’s second effort, Beerbongs and Bentleys, which is tentatively scheduled for a June release. The news comes on the heels of word that his debut was recently certified platinum. And how did he celebrate? By dropping $8,000 to buy 10,000 Popeye’s biscuits for his Coachella party.
Moving on: Jack White’s first new solo release in years hit the web a couple weeks back. The instrumental track is not only being used as a promo song for the North Texas-based baseball bat company that he co-owns, but as walk-up music for his fellow co-owner, Detroit Tigers infielder (and former Texas Rangers favorite) Ian Kinsler.
Finally, Mothership is in the final days of a contest to open for Metallica on a mini-tour, and you can help them out by voting here; Wall of Orange, which features former members of The Tomorrowpeople, are set to make their live debut on April 29, at The Kessler; and following in Pueblo’s footsteps, another Azalea Project offshoot, the Max Poscente-led About You, is also dropping a debut album soon.
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