James Bland Photogrpahy

The Sparrows, with Carter Albrecht (middle) and Danny Balis (second from right).

Music compilations are something of a dying breed these days. Sure, there are some great choices to be had in the Best Music Compilation category in this year's Dallas Observer Music Awards, but the essence of the compilation has been greatly diminished in the years since CDs were superseded by the advent of mp3s and streaming services. That wasn't always the case, though. Once upon a time, North Texas had a rich tradition of such releases, the killer Tales from the Edge series and the many offerings from One Tone Record's Buzz-Oven.

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Mike Brooks

Kowabunga, dudes! Fun Fun Fun Fest featured beautiful weather and lots of crowd surfing in 2014

Music festivals are a tough business. It's hard to make them stick. Organizers don't usually expect to break even for the first five years, often longer. Even if a festival survives, it's not the end of the story. Maintaining what you have often means expanding your model and your audience. But for many festivals, that goes against what makes them great in the first place.

Exhibit A: Fun Fun Fun Fest, which took place last weekend at Auditorium Shores in Austin. Now in its ninth year, its voluminous credibility is built on its status as a small, well-curated event. But while this year's installment was an overall success, there were hints of a festival that's hit a crossroads.

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Globe Trek Productions

Gary Louris of the Jawyhawks posted up at Aw Shucks for our 20th busking episode

For those of you keeping count at home, this morning's installment of our busking series marks a bit of a milestone. Since the folks at Globe Trek Productions started these band-on-the-street videos last year, they've brought us an array of great performances, from local and touring bands alike. This one marks the 20th video that they've produced for us. Here's to many more.

Appropriately enough, then, this new video, featuring Gary Louris of Minnesota's the Jayhawks, mixes things up a bit with not only an electric guitar but also some live artwork, courtesy of a mysterious companion named "Jacques." Keep it weird, guys.

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Wanz Dover

Donny Young has been DJing around Dallas for nearly two decades

Donny Young has been an active part of the Dallas DJ community since the early '90s heyday of rave -- first as a fan, and then as a DJ since 1996. Young is mostly associated with the DJ crew Motif and their parties. He has been a constant face amongst the local techno and house party scene, bringing his two decades' worth of experience to his reliably deep and floor-friendly DJ sets. For this week's Q&A, Young connects a few dots between his identity as a DJ and where he fits in the cogs of Dallas dance history.

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Sarah McGolgan

Mystery Skulls' Luis Dubac has his sights set on the future

Alejandro Jodorowsky's art-house masterpiece, The Holy Mountain, is about many things. Capitalism, religion, greed, immorality and materialism are all critiqued by the filmmaker throughout the duration of the 1973 film. One of the foremost and prevailing themes is the quest to self-discovery in a cruel world. Yes, deep, dark and thorough stuff.

Dallas ex-pat and current Los Angeleno electronica musician, Mystery Skulls (née Luis Dubac), says films are an inspiration for his music, and The Holy Mountain is among his favorites. As he sees it, the two mediums intersect. "You can paint an audio version of a picture," he says. "If you look at something and put it [a film] on mute, you can write to it, and that's how I do a lot of my music."

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Courtesy the artist

Is anyone home? Pizza Underground cuts straight to the punchline

Pizza Underground
With Har Mar Superstar and Candy Boys
Trees, Dallas
Monday, November 10, 2014

New York's underground art scene put on an unofficial art installation in Dallas Monday night, bringing some of its most incomprehensible acts to Trees . Leading the way was Macaulay Culkin and performance-art-piece-meets-Herman-Cain-YouTube-video, the Pizza Underground.

Culkin, who had goofed on a recent death hoax with a Weekend at Bernie's shtick at Fun Fun Fun Fest on Saturday, had already visited Dallas with the Pizza Underground -- a Velvet Underground cover band that changes all the lyrics to an ode to pizza -- back in the spring. Somewhere Lou Reed is rolling in his grave with laughter, and Andy Warhol is probably rejoicing. After all, Culkin, just the sort of pop culture icon Warhol would've painted had he been alive in the '90s, parodying the very band he helped make famous.

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The O's Are One of the Great Selections for Best Alt-Country Band.

With the 26th annual Dallas Observer Music Awards just around the corner -- in fact, voting is open right now at musicawardspoll.dallasobserver.com -- we're looking to spend the next several weeks taking the opportunity to highlight some of the nominees for this year's awards. And when we say that these artists are the "best," don't just take our word for it: We polled 150 local music experts to pull together the nominees this year, so they come on pretty good authority.

Alt-country has a particularly happy home here in North Texas. A twang that's recognizable, but indefinable, perhaps. A soulful groove that isn't at home in a world of straight-forward garage bands. A banjo that does far more than pick 'n grin a little bit. It's all an ingrained part of the local music landscape, and this year's DOMA nominees for Best Alt-Country Band do it especially well.

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Matt Wood

Garrett Gravley (left) and Albert Louis are the duo behind Who Loves the Sun

In the dull roar of a post-homecoming crowd at Crooked Crust in Denton, Garrett Gravley has his dining choices mocked. The perpetrator, Albert Louis, scoffs: "Dessert bread sticks and beer?" To which Gravley explains, "He's always making fun of how I eat."

This is the makeshift office space of Who Loves the Sun, a Denton booking entity that's been putting together shows for almost a year now. Gravley and Louis reach out to bands in the area and beyond, enticing them to play in Denton and Dallas at staples like the J&J's basement, Club Dada and, of course, Rubber Gloves. The two meet here once a week to flesh out upcoming shows, map out bands to contact and make jokes about Guy Fieri.

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Blake Ward

Sky Ferreira was undeterred by a host of problems at The Belmont in Austin on Sunday

Fun Fun Fun Fest
With Sky Ferreira
The Belmont, Austin
Sunday, November 9, 2014

Sometimes being bad at something isn't the worst thing in the world. Take Sky Ferreira's late-night performance at The Belmont in Austin on Sunday, which helped round off the three-day music celebration that was Fun Fun Fun Fest. To be frank, it wasn't good. In fact, it was pretty bad. And yet, for some reason, it was hard not to like it -- or, at the least, to still like Ferreira. Music is funny that way sometimes.

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Heather Bohn

Eli Young Band brought their House Party to the Rangers ballpark for the second year running

Eli Young Band's House Party
With Pat Green, Gary Allan, Cody Johnson and Maddie and Tae
Globe Life Park, Arlington
Saturday, November 8, 2014

Before Saturday night's House Party at Globe Life Park, it was a mystery to me why the Eli Young Band wasn't a bigger deal or more well known or why Nashville hadn't fully embraced them yet. They have a decent number of catchy radio-friendly hits and the band's leader, Mike Eli, is a plenty marketable frontman. They're just as good as anyone else in today's country music.

I had only seen Eli Young Band live once before and that was in college when they played for a fraternity's charity event. That was five years ago, and they were good from all that I can remember -- maybe not quite remarkable, but pretty good all the same. Seeing the band's second annual House Party, however, gave me a little bit of clarity.

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