Fort Worth Weekly - News, Entertainment, Restaurants, Music

Some people think so. They say the 817 scene now isn't what it was as few as a couple of years ago, when Flickerstick, Black Tie Dynasty, Tame ... Tame and Quiet, Calhoun, and Darth Vato were all still together - and huge - and when an annual Fort Worth festival called Wall of Sound was attracting marquee indie-rock talent from as far away as Seattle and Brooklyn. The glass-half-empty folks have a point, for sure, at least regarding indie-rock.

But consider a couple-a things:

1.) Indie-rock isn't the be-all, end-all of local music. There are other genres, too, especially Texas Music and a style I'm going to call "New Timey," a play on "new" and "old-timey." (Artists that fit the description are The Theater Fire, Whiskey Folk Ramblers, and Keegan McInroe.) Just look at all of the nominees in our Texas Music and Acoustic/Folk categories - there's a ton. And a few of them are getting some airplay on commercial radio. All are gigging regularly.

2.) While Flickerstick, Calhoun, and the other aforementioned break-up artists may be gone, there are a lot of good indie-rock groups still together and new ones coming up, including The Burning Hotels (who'll be featured in an upcoming major motion picture, Bandslam), the cut*off (who recently toured with the nigh-legendary Old 97's), Telegraph Canyon (whose forthcoming album is being produced by Centro-matic's Will Johnson), plus The Orbans, Stella Rose, Dove Hunter, Jefferson Colby, and a few more. To imply that the death of just a handful of bands bodes ominously for an entire city's worth of music is way too pessimistic. And if there's one thing we all could use a little more of these days, it's optimism.
- Anthony Mariani

New Artist

Brainy rockers Automorrow cover the bases from rap-rock (the song "Pulse" sounds for all the world like Cake minus the damn trumpet) to metal to Radiohead-like shoe-gazing, with the same kind of ironic sensibility as Devoesque sci-fi geeks and '09 Heavy Metal nominee Urizen. The Dangits look like your garden-variety alt-rockers, but the band's high-energy rockaroll sounds like the work of musos who have at least dipped a pinky toe in the stream that flows from Detroit to Stockholm by way of Sydney. DISCO: HATE's spiky, Wire-y sound has just enough quirky strangeness and charm (not to mention keen pop flourishes clothed in clever arrangements and occasional dissonance) to make the vehicle for singer-songwriter Casey Colby an underground must-see. Secret Ghost Champion plays a lysergically lifted brand of oddball Americana that blends delicate, rustic instrumental filigrees with claustrophobically close-mic'ed Beach Boys harmonies and backgrounds of swirling ambience, inviting comparisons with local lights as disparate as The Theater Fire and Stumptone. Pop-punkers The Vatican Press have all of the elements - buzzsaw guitars, four-on-the-floor drums, adenoidal vocals, heart-on-their-sleeves lyrics about girls 'n' stuff, and no political guff - to make you want to party like it's 1994. - Ken Shimamoto

Live Band

End of the World Parade features some Spoonfed Tribe dudes getting extra action by taking their old drumming-in-the-street shtick to a new level - after all, what's more tribal than a marching band? Pablo and the Hemphill 7 come from a school where it's mandatory to keep the folks dancing for four hours at a go, and while they've missed the recording boat throughout their eight-year existence, their vibe is as much about their party-ful originals as it is about their encyclopedic take on reggae. Southside kings the Panther City Bandits helped put the Chat Room Pub on the map as a music venue, and their potent mix of Dropkick Murphys-style Celtic punk and epic Springsteenian rock balladry is a powerful stimulant. The sad demise of Sally Majestic's collaboration with Daniel Katsük has brought about the return to the boards of one of the Fort's perpetual faves: the loose-limbed trio of Les Claypool-esque frontman "Funky" Scott Vernon, affable bass boyo P.J. Fry, and drummer's drummer Tim Cowdin. It's been a few years since the Spoonfed Tribe almost set fire to the stage at the Ridglea Theater, but the pop-funk outfit remains the percussion-fueled groove machine that lifts big audiences into semi-orgiastic states of ecstasy, so what's not to like? - K.S.

MVP

A decade ago, singer-songwriter Tommy Alverson walked out on his 30-year day gig at Miller Brewing, and since then he's never looked back, providing living proof that you can make a lifetime vocation of music. Though The Fairmount ended up closing, Alverson did all he could to help keep the Southside venue afloat: playing shows and donating his take to the club and getting other local Texas Music and honkytonk musos to follow his lead. Engineer Bart Rose's "little studio that could," Fort Worth Sound (formerly First Street Audio), has grown up into a state-of-the-art facility, handling clients such as The Toadies, Green River Ordinance, Goodwin, Stephen Pointer, and R&B guitar legend Cornell Dupree. Good technicians like Will Hunt do their work and go, so it should be no surprise that having performed yeoman service on projects by The Polyphonic Spree, Green River Ordinance, and The Burning Hotels, producer Hunt is packing up his ProTools and heading for the Big Apple. - K.S.

Venue

While some long-in-the-tooth folks have never forgiven Danny Weaver's Aardvark for supplanting the late, lamented HOP, others have watched its evolution into a more open and inviting space for alt-rock locals and ever-bigger-and-better road acts with more than passing interest. Gracey Tune and Eddie Dunlap's Arts Fifth Avenue presents admirable educational activities and also provides a space for listeners of more refined sensibilities to dig stuff like the annual Django Reinhardt festival and periodic Thelonious Monk tributes in a family-friendly, smoke-free environment. Though no more shows will be happening at The Chat Room Pub, the Southside hangout deserves props for having showcased some of the most progressive music over the past few years. Now that Brian Forella's busy making money in the Stockyards, Lola's Saloon-Sixth has become the playground for local bands that the Wreck Room once was, with ace appointments courtesy of master stage manager Andre Edmonson. Forella's Longhorn Saloon, meanwhile, has played host to marquee artists like Hank Williams III and Junior Brown, occupying a spot at the intersection of Redneck Alley and Rawk Avenue. Since the stage was moved at The Moon, Chris Maunder's West Berry Street haunt (where the ghosts of the Dog Star still linger) seems more like a rock room while remaining intimate enough to feel like the hippest house party in town. Hardy perennial fave the Ridglea Theater, periodic rumors of its demise notwithstanding, remains many a gig-pig's room of choice, bringing a steady stream of mainly metal shows to sleepy Camp Bowie Boulevard. Finally, the Scat Jazz Lounge combines an unbeatable Sundance Square location with a glittering array of talent in the multitude of styles currently going by the moniker "jazz": swingin' saxman Johnny Reno, Hammond organ eminence Red Young, and Sinatraesque crooner and co-owner Ricki Derek being just three among the many who've graced the Scat's stage. - K.S.