12/2/10 - Mr. Gnome, The Baker Family, Dim Locator

...at the Dee-dub, with Knuckles and the Piledriver.

Dim Locator (Denton) - one guy with slide guitar, plus foot-operated drum-type accessories. Massively talented, there's no doubt, definitely knows his way around that guitar. Some pretty decent bluesy tunes. Sometimes felt like technique was over-emphasized, but that's probably just me.

The Baker Family Band (Austin). Pretty enjoyable indie pop, though they took themselves a bit too seriously for my taste. Very Local Natives-esque, says The Les Savy Fan. I liked the way the blonde gal danced, it made my insides feel funny.

Mr. Gnome (Cleveland) headlined. Seen them many times now, and been blown away every time. Phenomenal.

10/9/08 - Mr. Gnome, Menkena, Les Americains

headed to the cavern to catch Mr. Gnome. knuckles came with, and the les savy fan showed up later, being as how his cradle-robbing activities were on hiatus for the night.

Les Americains were up first. i dono, seemed like some pretty generic pop rock. really failed to keep my interest. next up was Menkena, and they were...{yawn}......low-key ........ dreamy ...{yawn}... down-tempo..... ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
last up was Mr. Gnome, from Cleveland, who i'd heard at club dada back in may. two-piece band (one guitar plus drums, sometimes keys), but with an unbelievable sound. nicole on guitar was amazing, sometimes playing far-out trippy rock, sometimes blistering hard rock (knuckles, the metallica fan, was in heaven). loved her voice - sometimes breathy, sometimes an ear-shattering howl. sam on drums was insane, turning the drum set into an actual instrument, not just a rhythm section. he adding an amazing dimension to the sound, something i don't normally hear from drummers. my only complaint - it seemed like a really short set, but maybe that's because i didn't want it to end. fantastic stuff. don't miss these guys if you have the chance.
oh yeah - did i mention nicole was smokin hot?

5/17/08 - The Felons, mr. Gnome, Sunward, Falken's Maze

this one's gonna have to lean more towards the "photo-journal" side of things, folks, being as how i had a pretty rough night on saturday. i over-drank, and i paid for it, at one point having to, uh, use the facilities for terribly unpleasant purposes. i'm pretty pissed at myself, since i was really looking forward to a great night of music (my two favorite local bands in one show!), and i don't remember anything, except for a few songs at the end of the felons' set and a couple conversations i had early in the morning as i sobered up. i definitely heard all four bands (i have the pics to prove it), and i'm sure i enjoyed it at the time, but if you can't remember it, what's the point? oh well, another learning experience for me (i'm what you'd call a rookie when it comes to the drank (that's a long, tirade-filled tangent that i'll skip for now)), so i'm not that good at it yet. workin on it hard, tho. real hard.

i do remember that my buddy josephus made it out, tho, wantin to see if the felons and sunward could live up to all the hype i've been spewing. you can read his take on the evening here.

first up was Falken's Maze, and all i can say is that i thought it was unusual that there were 3 keyboard players, and no guitars. that's really all i got.

next up was the greatness of Sunward. absolutely love these guys - see my previous raves here and here. i am sure they kicked my ass again saturday, just sure of it.

next up was mr. Gnome, from cleveland. two-man band: smokin-hot chick on guitar, dude on drums. cool trip-rock, like portishead on roids, howling soulful voice on lead, some really cool, unusual percussion playin by the dude (this is all based on a short video i took of these two, so...).

last up were my boys, the felons (previous write-ups here and here), whose music always takes me to a happy place.

after the felons finished up, dave and the guys decided to play a few radiohead covers in honor of their first dallas appearance in 10 years. i loves me some radiohead, so that was a nice finish to the evening.

speaking of that, i was actually at that radiohead show in '98 at the music hall in fair park, when they toured for OK Computer, and i think i know why they've skipped over dallas ever since then. during the whole concert, thom didn't say one word to the audience - no interaction at all, until one point late in the set, when he walks up to the microphone and says "hello, dallas"...{wild screaming from audience}..."pretty fookin dull in here". of course the audience cheered for that, too, prolly not quite realizing they'd just been dissed. ah, well, 'twas a great show anyways.

see you out there...