(Bonus) Track of the Day: RTB2–Goon

What a handsome Denton duo.

I had the pleasure of listening to this new RTB2 song last week because of my involvement with 35 Conferette (said involvement being the reason Jaime and I haven’t exactly been churning out content here).

Though I didn’t get a chance to hear much of it, I can only assume Indie-Verse played this on their 35-Conferette-packed weekend because it is AWESOME. And the new album Ryan Thomas Becker and Grady Don Sandlin recorded last week with Stuart Sikes, the album that this very gem came from, is sure to be just as AWESOME.

Check it out for yourself:

RTB2–Goon

I’m currently in the middle of 35-related (name dropping much?) work, so the only other thing I’m going to add is that I look forward to hearing this song live when they open for Dr. Dog, White Arrows and Telegraph Canyon on Friday. The action starts at 4 p.m.

Rundown: 1/11-1/17

We apologize for the tardiness of this week’s Rundown. We’ve been dealing with a lot of stress: career changes, family crises, illness, favorite local acts going on indefinite hiatus and, of course, the controversy surrounding NBC’s late night lineup.

I think I speak for all of the staffers at Daybowbow when I say I am staunchly pro-Conan and anti-Leno. Now, as a professional journalist (believe it or not, I am a professional journalist) I am not supposed to take sides in public debates. But I can’t hold back with this one.

Jay Leno is being an asshole. A rich, car-obsessed, humorless asshole. He needs to step down gracefully, as Johnny Carson (a better man than Leno will ever be) did in 1992. He knew six years in advance that Conan was going to take over the reins and he (and NBC) should give him a chance to get a feel for his new time slot.

Now, recently NBC has only existed for me on Thursday nights from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. and on Saturday nights from 10:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. And their crappy prime time lineup has a lot to do with their poor late night ratings. But I’ve watched Conan since childhood. He’s intelligent, funny and much more forward-thinking than Leno could ever hope to be. He might be a tad too off-the-wall and raunchy for some people (i.e. my staunchly conservative grandparents), but that’s preferable to Leno’s recycled, middlebrow (at best) style of “comedy”.

I agree with Conan’s sentiments that the late night lineup should stay as is. They never should have fussed with the formula in the first place, and fussing with it more isn’t going to magically improve their ratings. I’m not a television programmer, so I don’t know what they can do to fix their ratings, but driving Conan away certainly won’t help matters.

Anyway, that’s enough of my rant. Here’s the cream-of-the-crop as far as local shows this week. As always, feel free to let us know about anything we missed in the comments section.

-Jess

Rundown: 9/29 to 10/4

This Trees thing annoys me. Really I hate the way it’s being heralded as the savior of Deep Ellum, despite the fact that the bar is catering to the Firewater set by bringing in bands who are sans radio play, and were popular for like a second in about 1998 (Looking directly at you Powerman 5000, and really who would have thought a Ozzfest band would take their name from a Kinks album.). Seriously, there were 4 news stations there covering it’s opening, Vanilla Ice sold out the place, and various media outlets are have continually gone ape shit with coverage of the places exploits.

The fact of the matter is what John Is does with Parade of Flesh is a thousand times more influential to the “scene” down there then anything Trees has done so far. Seriously, the man tirelessly books a wide variety of quality acts in various clubs in the area, and doesn’t get a quarter of the press that shitty bar gets, and that’s a tragedy.

I’m taking this space to thank John for the hard work, Parade of Flesh continues to book some of the top shows in the area, and it’s much appreciated.

Big week around these parts folks, take a look at the shows, and start making plans to go out.

Fight Night Followup interview

Charlie Hunter runs Denton DIY venue The Schoolhouse, along with I ♥ Math Records. On Saturday the Schoolhouse was ground zero for Fight Night, and I decided to ask Charlie exactly what the hell happened.

The Week in Music….er Videos: 7/13 to 7/19

Changing it up this week, instead of mp3s, we’re doing videos.

Breakdown: RTB2- In The Fleshed EP

To be honest it would be quite easy to take any conversation about Denton’s RTB2 into the White Stripes, Black Keys area of music. While they do have that air of minimalistic electro-blues permeating through most of their songs

Rundown: 7/13 to 7/19

Just got home from seeing Bruno, and there was a certain vignette in the film that struck a chord with me,towards the end of the movie Sacha Baron  Cohen attacks a current American obsession MMA. I fucking hate MMA, something about watching to tweeked out men in short shorts roll around on the ground mounting each other fails to impress me. It feels as if the continued dumbing down of America is at a nadir when any of these events come around, and really nothing about this “sport” could ever touch the cultural impact some boxers had, namely the ground broken by Jack Johnson, Joe Louis and Ali. So, it’s hilarious when British comediene (that’s me trying to be clever) shines a light onto something so deplorable, of course my lack of Affliction t shirts, and energy drinks could be behind this line of thinking.

Anyway, music showcases, EP release shows, and interviews and reviews all await you this week. Enjoy.

Rundown: 5/25 to 5/31

Having a last.fm page makes me self conscious.  I took a look at my page today, and noticed that the songs they list as my top tracks are mostly music  I never listen to.They just pop up a lot because I keep my itunes set on random, unless I’m reviewing an album. So, while yes I do listen to The Beatles quite a bit, I rarely listen to CYHSY, and that Killers’ track they did with Lou Reed is my own personal enemy, it constantly pops up out of nowhere to annoy the fuck out of me. I wish they monitored your plays based on if you finished the song, not just if it came on.

Anyway, we have a show this week if you haven’t noticed, and though I’m going to be incessantly talking about it there are a few other things going on this week you should check out.

Rundown: 4/27 to 5/3

At some point I need to realize that copious amounts of drinking are a terrible idea, that always leads to me doing something foolish like getting too hyped to do shots soundtracked by Prince‘s “7″, any and all forms of dancing dancing, or allowing myself to be talked into multiple keg stands. Anyway, my point is we all do embarrassing things from time to time like falling down while dancing, falling down post keg stand, agree to be the opener for Dave Matthews, everyday of Billy Corgan’s life. But, none of that really matters in the grand scheme of things, what matters is that you actually put your self in situations that allow for the chance of embarrassment.

Okay, I admit it, I’m just making an excuse for this.

Anyway, we’ve got another decent week round these parts with a hipsterpolooza going down on Monday and a steady build to the rest of the week, to a what looks like a pretty decent weekend. We’re putting up two interviews this week(hopefully) and a few other things.

Record Store Day pickups

So, Saturday was Record Store Day which if you’ve been reading you knew meant free shows, exclusive records and if you were lucky free beer. I found myself determined to make the most of the day, and  after what seemed like forever a friend of mine made it up from Austin, and we made our way to Good Records for their second annual birthday party/RSD celebration.

When we got there it was fucking packed with a literal who’s who of local talent everybody from people on the bill, to various local music bigs like store owner Tim Delaughter, and as per usual a ton of kids (something about Good Records brings out the hip parents in number, when we were walking up we shared the sidewalk with a mother of 4 who had at least 2 dozen tattoos) anyway once we first paid our 5 bucks for a cup we quickly chugged a beer, refilled, and then ran inside to pick through the limited edition RSD special releases.

After about 20 minutes of looking, and dealing with the lost opportunity to score the Neil Young box set. I decided to continue my weird My Morning Jacket vinyl obsession and picked up Celebration De La Ciudad Natal, and one of the guys working the counter managed to talk me into the Black Kids, Pitchfork approved, Wizard of Ahhhs EP. While my buddy, dead set on dropping at least a $100, picked up the Bob Dylan single, The Gaslight Anthem live EP, the Grizzly Bear live 7 inch and the OH MY GOD this is awesome limited edition This LP Crashes Hard Drive vinyl.

After a few hours spent drinking way too much, and talking to the St. Philistine guys, we ended up in some weird adventure that resulted in us rescuing a dog, and eventually helping the Good Records guys set upsome gear in the vacant bar next door, because someone (I’m just assuming it was this guy) kept calling in noise complaints. Anyway, after getting our fill of drink, records and sun we decided to take off for Denton to catch the Record Hop/RTB2 show.

All the day was a success, Good Records was packed, the bands were great, we found some quality purchases, and that night RTB2 and Record Hop blew us the fuck away. (Fun side note of a story, I talked to Ryan Thomas Becker of RTB2 after his set  that night, and mentioned how I saw him earlier at the RSD festivaties, when he let me know what he got he proved he’s infiantly cooler then I am.)

My Morning Jacket- Highley Suspecious (live from Celebration De La Ciudad Natal)

My Morning Jacket- Evil Urges (live from Celebration De La Ciudad Natal)