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Calendar: Highlights
If you know the name, Laurie Anderson, but don't fancy yourself an post modernist art music aficianado, it's probably because of her breakout hit in the 1980's “O Superman” - a...
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DC9 At Night: DC9 at Night
10/21/2014 By Matt Wood
On this Sunday afternoon, Alex Bhore is just packing and doing laundry in preparation for This Will Destroy You's upcoming East Coast tour. The band just returned from a European tour, where...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
10/20/2014 By Doug Davis
Sharon Van Etten
With Tiny Ruins
Kessler Theater, Dallas
Friday, October 17, 2014
There are shows that are a joy because they celebrate the music; the recent War on Drugs show is a great...
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Calendar: Highlights
Those campfire stories of yesteryear are about to look like child's play in light of Rawlins Gilliland's Happy Murder Stories. The unofficial Dallas Poet in Residence channels Edgar Allen...
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DC9 At Night: Show Reviews
08/13/2014 By Amy McCarthy
The Both
With Lemura
Kessler Theater, Dallas
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
To be completely honest, I have been an Aimee Mann fangirl since I first heard her work for the Magnolia soundtrack...
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DC9 At Night: Previews
08/11/2014 By Jeff Gage
Most of the time, it's pretty lame to say that a weekly concert lineup has "something for everyone." This week, however, it's kind of true. Or, better put, the shows that are happening in...
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DC9 At Night: Video Premiere
08/08/2014 By Lauren Smart
Local band Home by Hovercraft has a flair for the dramatic. You hear it in their music's melodious swelling and Seth Magill's resonant vocals; It comes across in their live shows with the...
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Calendar: Highlights
Blue Moon Men of Kentucky
What do folk music and aliens have in common? Well, nothing. At least they didn’t until The History of Future Folk, the movie about two aliens who visit Earth...
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Calendar: Highlights
07/31/2014 By
Think about this night at the theater like you would any other one night stand. Except perhaps this time you'll have wiled away the hours with a lively, charming man you won't regret in the...
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Calendar: Highlights
If you like Dallas burlesque, than you probably already know about La Divina Productions’ annual Hotter than Hell show. Before the unseasonably cool months of June and July wander into...
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Calendar: Highlights
Unless you're immersed in the urban erotic poetry scene or a fan of HBO's Real Sex you probably aren't familiar with Jessica Holter, activist, author and founder of The Punany Poets theatre...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
07/17/2014 By Darryl Smyers
Best known for her work with the Austin roots-rock outfit the Trishas, singer/songwriter Kelley Mickwee will be the first member of the band to release a solo album. You Used to Live Here...
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Calendar: Highlights
If you’ve ever been in a band, you know how difficult it is to manage all the disparate talents involved and make them sound like one cohesive voice. It’s a feat that can drive...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
06/25/2014 By DC9 At Night
José James
With Dustin Cavazos and Buffalo Black
Kessler Theater
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
By Thierry Peremarti
José James' 2010 album, For All We Know, is an authentic jazz album that's won...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
06/17/2014 By Darryl Smyers
Since the early 1960's, Dan Hicks has been creating his interesting hybrid of folk, jazz, country and pop. Hitting his stride with 1971's Where's the Money?, the singer-songwriter formed...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
06/16/2014 By Kelly Dearmore
Centro-matic
With True Widow and Cliffs of Insanity
Kessler Theater, Dallas
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Early on in Centro-matic's Saturday night show at the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff, a...
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Calendar: Highlights
After spending five years on tour in support of his platinum hit, “Collide,” Howie Day was looking for a much-needed break. Day has been largely off the radar since 2011, making...
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Calendar: Highlights
In a world where a raging torrent of filth is available to anyone with an Internet connection, where coprophagia goes viral and the hopelessly banal are awarded TV shows, it's inevitable...
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Calendar: Highlights
Look, we don’t want to jinx anything, but we think it’s finally safe to wear fewer clothes without fear of frostbitten … extremities. (Just mind your ACs, now.) And...
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Calendar: Highlights
02/27/2014 By
Where ya at? Gris gris, ju ju and voodoo. Mardi Gras is coming to the Kessler, ya heard. They even get the name right — OCarnivale Masquerade Ball. Costumes are always encouraged and...
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Calendar: Highlights
Pull out your swingiest vintage skirt and shine your dance shoes because Dallas’ most authentic Prohibition-era jazz band is coming to Oak Cliff for a night of two-steps, one-steps,...
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The Mixmaster: Holiday
02/13/2014 By Amelia Jaycen
Valentine's Day is back and with it come visions of fat little blonde men in tiny diapers aiming sharp objects at your pulmonary artery. It's the time in late winter when North Texans get...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
12/27/2013 By Darryl Smyers
Shakey Graves, aka Alejandro Rose-Garcia, is a roots rock, one man band hailing from Austin. Over the course of just a few years, Graves has developed a solid local following due to his...
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Calendar: Highlights
Dallas today may not be known for the highest degree of rockage, but it’s important to remember that once upon a time Dallas did, in fact, rock. For two decades starting in the...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
12/12/2013 By Darryl Smyers
Once described as one of America's best singer/songwriters, Dar Williams has spent the better part of three decades living up to the accolades. A writer of intensely personal songs, Williams...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
11/26/2013 By Darryl Smyers
With his handmade "guit-steel" guitar and deep, country drawl, Junior Brown makes a hell of an impression. Over the course of four decades, Brown has taken his blues-inspired honky tonk...
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The Mixmaster: Comedy
10/23/2013 By Allison Perkins
Sandra Bernhard is an actress, comedian, writer, singer, advocate and in general just kind of a badass bitch. And she knows it. Bernhard's latest show, The Comedic Prophesies of Sandra...
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Calendar: Highlights
When you think about Sandra Bernhard, you likely picture Nancy, Arnie’s wife on Roseanne, but you need to think a little harder. Bernhard is an octuple threat — she writes,...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
07/26/2013 By Darryl Smyers
From the very beginning,Living Colour broke boundaries and erased stereotypes. If known only for their breakthrough single, "Cult of Personality," Living Colour's place in rock 'n' roll...
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Calendar: Highlights
While we support Dallas’ glitzy, high-fanning local burlesque community, we also love it when out-of-town pros pass through to show off what’s hot in their own cities....
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
07/17/2013 By Darryl Smyers
At 64, Marcia Ball could well be considered the queen of Texas blues. No other female performer has captured the transcendent mixture of swampy, New Orleans style piano blues and the more...
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Calendar: Highlights
They have ideas to better the world — seat-belt buckles designed for Texas heat, perhaps. On Thursday, we’ll hear exactly how life-changing those philosophical and researched...
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Calendar: Highlights
Dallas loves its burlesque. It’s almost hard to keep track of the who’s who when we see it literally every weekend. Thankfully, the Kessler Theater (1230 West Davis St.) is...
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Calendar: Highlights
Dallas is used to being the brunt of jokes about its supposed superficial culture and lack of a coherent creative scene. But I’ll dare any Twitter-wielding smartass to make such a...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
02/19/2013 By Darryl Smyers
Although the music of Ra Ra Riot has been described as baroque pop, it's not nearly as pretentious as that might imply. Hailing from Brooklyn (by way of Syracuse), this intriguing five-piece...
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Calendar: Highlights
Saturday’s Pretty Things Peep Show at the Kessler Theater (1230 W. Davis St.) is a bump-and-grind touring sensation celebrating the best vaudeville talents in the biz. Go-go Amy and...
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Calendar: Highlights
You’ve seen the organic King Cakes resting awkwardly on Whole Foods’ shelves, which leads to the questions 1.) Man, is it Mardi Gras already? And 2.) Is the cake baby...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
01/22/2013 By Doug Davis
Los Lobos is one of a handful of American bands that have sustained a notable and distinguished presence on the American music scene for over 30 years. A crossover band before the term was...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
11/16/2012 By Darryl Smyers
Grant Lee Buffalo was one of those '90s bands that seemed to be perpetually flirting with the big time. Each of their four releases was heralded by the critics, but mainstream success was...
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Calendar: Highlights
Burlesque is a unique entertainment genre in that it’s typically performed by scantily clad women and women are also some of its strongest audience supporters. Sure, guys enjoy the...
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DC9 At Night: Commentary
07/12/2012 By Darryl Smyers
One could argue that Roky Erickson's entire body of work is underrated. Nevertheless, I waded through his maddeningly inconsistent catalog and picked out five songs that may have escaped...
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Calendar: Highlights
As Jerri Blank, the facially contorted “boozer, user, and loser” from Strangers With Candy, Amy Sedaris taught us about many important things. Turtles shouldn't eat “hot...
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Calendar: Highlights
You love Dallas. You value Dallas. You enjoy Dallas. Now, don’t you want to Savor Dallas? Get your chance from Thursday, March 29 through Saturday, March 31 as the 8th annual Savor...
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Music: Show Preview
The third installment of KXT's Triple Play series tops itself with this DFW uppercut. People on Vacation, the Dallas duo of Bowling For Soup's Jaret Reddick and Smile Smile's Ryan Hamilton,...
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Music: Show Preview
Few fused Mexican rhythms with "Nuevo Wavo" quite like Joe King Carrasco. The native Texan was penning Farfisa-driven party anthems way back in '83 ("Party Weekend," anyone?) and enlisted a...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
02/28/2012 By Darryl Smyers
Possessing one of rock's most recognizable voices, former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson sounds as good today as he did when he helped form the legendary progressive rock band over four...
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Music: Show Preview
There's a generation gap being bridged at the Kessler Theater. Jon Anderson, the former lead singer of one of the world's first progressive rock bands, Yes, has traded in the big stage for a...
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Music: Show Preview
The O's just spent a month on an East Coast tour with the Old 97's, and this marks their triumphant return. Taylor Young and John Pedigo are still riding the good country-folk fumes of last...
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Music: Show Preview
Forth Worth's Fate Lions just dropped some hot wax on Plano's 7-inch-centric Tree Fall Sounds to follow up their 2009 full-length Good Enough For You, and the three songs pick up where they...
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Music: Feature
"There's too many ways to steal music. The only way to make a living in this business is to go on the road." Shelby Lynne's soft drawl betrays her Alabama roots and suggests an easy...
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Music: Show Preview
Austin fiddler Carrie Rodriguez gets around with collaborators, and always manages to make it seem like more than just a fling. She made half a dozen albums with "Wild Thing" scribe Chip...
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Music: Show Preview
New Year's Eve in Dallas, we've heard, "goes off." Here are a few suggestions to help you find your way. At Club Dada, Astronautalis, Gallery Cat, Hello Lover, the Mystery Skulls and...
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The Mixmaster: The Master List
12/16/2011 By Elizabeth Bair
There are plenty of holiday activities for the younger set, and why shouldn't there be? The holidays are for kids and kids love giant Christmas trees, gingerbread house villages and Santa's...
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Music: Show Preview
"I was into more the lifestyle of a wild visionary than actually learning the craft of it," explains Ray Wylie Hubbard. "I didn't do that until my 40s." The Okie songwriter got a huge break...
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Music: Columns
Reached by phone at home in Brooklyn a few days after returning from a European tour, Marc Ribot peppers his conversation with yawns. "I don't know why they call me!" the extravagantly...
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DC9 At Night: DFW Music News
11/22/2011 By Daniel Hopkins
People On Vacation have been a thing for some time now -- almost two years according to the introductory band video we posted earlier this year. Billing themselves as a sort of local...
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Music: Show Preview
Like the bottle cap or happy hour, seems Junior Brown's been with us forever. A talented guitarist with a voice booming enough for fracking, in '85 he hired Michael Stevens to create the...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
11/14/2011 By Doug Davis
Octopus Project, Analog RebellionNovember 12, 2011The Kessler TheaterBetter Than: Having Octopus Project play at your house party and having to clean up the mess. If limited to a single...
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Music: Columns
Maybe you were one of the fortunate few who saw a bold, jaw-dropping performance staged by Austin-based Octopus Project in one of a handful of their concerts last year.
The quartet of...
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Music: Show Preview
Willie Nelson called him "the best songwriter alive today," and Kris Kristofferson compared him to Hemingway. For the last four decades, the 72-year-old Shaver has burnished his reputation...
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DC9 At Night: Local Music 'Mericans
11/01/2011 By Alan Ayo
Welcome to Local Music 'Mericans, where we meet some of the people behind the local music scene -- those who aren't necessarily members of local bands, but more the people who make the scene...
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Music: Show Preview
Like the marriage of her wide-eyed, porcelain-doll visage and her buzz-saw guitar licks, Annie Clark has made a career under her stage name of St. Vincent by capitalizing on jarringly...
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Music: Feature
Two hours have passed since Ruby Jane Smith finished up an early Sunday morning set at the fourth straight Austin City Limits Music Festival in which she's performed. She's still a ball of...
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The Mixmaster: Arts & Culture News
10/05/2011 By Patrick Williams
One day, the light bulb comes on above your head. You have a great idea for ... something, anything. Cargo pants, maybe. Or sliced bread. The world needs your innovation, but how do you let...
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Music:
When Denton's Novaak announced their break-up up shortly after the 35 Conferette in March, the band's lead singer, Jessi James, already had a few tracks in her solo repertoire. Just a month...
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Calendar: Highlights
We can't tell you how often we've been watching the news over the past thirtysomething years and thought to ourselves, "Man, this crazy cult would make a killer cartoon!" Whether it's the...
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The Mixmaster: Comedy
08/30/2011 By Daniel Rodrigue
Of all the stand-up comics booked in all the venues in town, Tig Notaro and The Kessler seem to go together like indie kids and vinyl. And The Kessler folks couldn't have picked a better...
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Calendar: Highlights
Who better to kick off the new Comedy at The Kessler series than the first stand-up comic signed to indie label Secretly Canadian, the side-splittingly entertaining comedian Tig Notaro?...
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The Mixmaster: On The Scene
08/08/2011 By Elizabeth Bair
People packed into The Kessler this past Saturday for Hotter Than Hell Burlesque, but it wasn't just the scorching temperatures that made it a night that was truly hotter than hell. After...
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The Mixmaster: Dance
08/05/2011 By Jayme Rutledge
The woman stood in the back of the theater, watching a porno flicker across the screen. Disgusted, she walked backed to her dressing room to pack her costumes.
She confronted the manager...
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DC9 At Night: My First Show
07/26/2011 By Eric Grubbs
Cabe Booth's name might not ring too many bells. But if you've ever been to the Curtain Club, you've seen his artwork. Creating stunning, life-like paintings of legendary bands, you...
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The Mixmaster: Last Night
07/22/2011 By Jenny Block
I wrote a book that came out in June of 2008 called Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage. For the last three years, I've had the chance to read at all sorts of venues. I've read at...
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The Mixmaster: Events
07/21/2011 By Alice Laussade
Tonight, the Kessler Theater (1230 W. Davis St.) is presenting BedPost Confessions, "a fabulous and diverse group of sexy writers, readers, and actors with performances about sex,...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
07/20/2011 By Kelly Dearmore
Current Portland-dweller Sallie Ford has come on strong to quite strong this year. While her and her band had built up steam before the end of 2010, the group's New Years Eve show in front...
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DC9 At Night: DFW Music News
07/13/2011 By Pete Freedman
Back in early June, we passed along the word that Dallas native Annie Clark, known to most by her stage name of St. Vincent, had set a September 13 release date for her highly anticipated...
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DC9 At Night: DFW Music News
07/07/2011 By Laura Mann
Vinyl records are an interesting phenomenon. Those who are into collecting vinyl are especially passionate about it. And Bill's Records, now in its fifth year on South Side on Lamar, is one...
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The Mixmaster: Events
06/28/2011 By Seth Cohn
We suppose you could call it a drive-up movie theater.
This Friday, the Filmmobile, a straight-outta-LA school bus catering to all things cinematic, sets up shop outside the Kessler Theatre...
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DC9 At Night: Show Reviews
06/13/2011 By Paul Semrad
Calhoun, Radiant and MenkenaKessler TheaterJune 10, 2011Better than: crossing the river to do anything else Dallas.Midway through Calhoun's loose, rollicking set at the Kessler Theater on...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
06/03/2011 By Darryl Smyers
From his home in New York, singer-songwriter Chip Taylor sounds invigorated. At 71, the guy could easily sit back and cash in on his past accomplishments. Or, he could just live off the...
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City of Ate: Events
05/03/2011 By Elizabeth Bair
At City of Ate, every day is an excuse to party, especially when we've enlisted a talented chef who wants to cook a fancy four-course dinner and some spicy musical stylings from a local jazz...
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City of Ate: Events
04/05/2011 By Elizabeth Bair
Last month, we announced that City of Ate is teaming up with The Kessler Theater for a dinner series featuring live music and food from some of the city's best chefs. The first installment...
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DC9 At Night: DFW Music News
03/04/2011 By Pete Freedman
Perhaps, back on Monday, you caught my recap of last Saturday night's Wanda Jackson show at the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff? Yeah, y'know, the one I referred to as "a once-in-a-lifetime...
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DC9 At Night: Last Night
02/28/2011 By Pete Freedman
Wanda Jackson, The King Bucks, LalagrayKessler TheaterFebruary 26, 2011Better than: a normal Saturday night spent with a 73-year-old.? Just before the clock struck 11 on Saturday night,...
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Music: Show Preview
When you first discover "Queen of Rockabilly" Wanda Jackson, you'll spend about a month in awe of her sinful growl. Easily one of the most underrated female instruments in rock and country,...
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DC9 At Night: Interviews
01/21/2011 By Sartaj Chowdhury
At this point, Austin's Bob Schneider is far more than the guy who dated Sandra Bullock, the guy who fronted the raunchy Scabs, or the guy who seems to play Dallas every other month. His...
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Music: Show Preview
If roots-rock is your thing, well, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better triple-bill—on New Year's Eve or otherwise—than this Kessler Theater offering of Centro-matic,...
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Music: Show Preview
These days, he might be best known around town as a radio jock on KKDA-730 AM Soul 73, but Bobby Patterson, as longtime local music fans are already well aware, is far more than just another...
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Music: Feature
Here's the ugly truth about Oak Cliff: Exciting and progressive a neighborhood as it may be, those arguing about its future as a musical epicenter for this city are doing little more than...
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Music: Show Preview
Black Mountain may be hirsute hippies with a groovy melodic touch, but they're not so stoned that they'll pass up an opportunity to knock you on your ass. They're reminiscent of My Morning...
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Music: Feature
I'm not usually one to get too nostalgic—not for local music, at least. There's already a debilitating amount of those types around town as is. You know them—those who glorify...
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Music: Show Preview
Much like his idol Willie Nelson, whom he covered so eloquently on last year's To Willie, Phosphorescent's Matthew Houck is that rare musician almost everyone can agree on, whether they're...
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City of Ate: Drinking
07/06/2010 By Merritt Martin
After a full-belly dinner at Smoke, girl drinker Marla and I headed off to meet other girl drinkers Sarah, Lindsey and Amy, and some other homies at the Kessler Theater. The Beaten Sea and...
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Music: Show Preview
It's been 25 years since Shallow Reign's first show, 23 years since the release of their debut self-titled LP and 19 years since the band, which at their apex counted themselves among the...
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Music:
Denton's Sundress is not one of those bands whose members jump around yelling, "Look at me!" They don't clamor excitedly for attention in conversation, talking over one another and cutting...
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Music: Feature
As French folk singer Yann Tiersen and his band run through a sound check a few hours before headlining the Granada Theater last Thursday night, Doug Burr, one of Tiersen's two local...
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