inmemoryofradio

Ventured out to Deep Ellum for the first time, I think, since the Gypsy Tea Room closed. God, are we really coming up on a year since that? Anyway, I’d never been to the All Good Cafe, but I figured a great pairing like Sarah Jaffe and Doug Burr was reason enough. Both Jaffe and Burr have become sort of local phenoms of late. Burr is promoting his second full-length, ‘On Promenade’, a good dose of textured Americana which has garnered him both local and national praise. He was nominated in the Dallas Observer Music Awards and was included in Paste magazine’s ‘Four To Watch’ column including a song on the cd sampler.

Sarah Jaffe is still working on her first recording, but has wowed her myspace friends with beautifully plucked rhythms and old soul songwriting chops. Here’s a video of Doug Burr’s “In the Garden” from Saturday’s show as well as an mp3 from Sarah Jaffe’s demo.

Doug Burr – In The Garden

Sarah Jaffe – Watch Me Fall Apart

So, yesterday I as well as thousands of dedicated Counting Crows fans (stop snickering) received emails alerting us to the ‘Free Digital 45′ download form www.countingcrows.com. The Digital 45 contained a couple of tracks from the forthcoming Crows release Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. The album is supposed to be a double album with each side corresponding to a sort of mood alluded to in the title. Saturday Nights is the charged-up rockin’ side with Sunday Mornings being the laid-back acoustic affair. The tracks released yesterday seem to be one from each side.

Let me say a couple of things first as by the end of this post I will likely be branded an asshole critic, crows-basher. I’ve been a huge Crows fan from the beginning. I mean I was on AOL bulletin boards back in ’95 talking about the Crows. I own, physically own, every album, tons of singles, live albums, etc. I’ve been to an uncountable number of Crows live performances, gotten tons of autographs. So, yes. I’m a fan. Which is why what I’ve got to say now is so painful.

I think the new stuff SUCKS. In actuality it probably doesn’t suck as bad as say, every Britney Spears single, but the stark mediocrity blaring against moderately high expectations gives it such distasteful pallor that I think I know now how Elvis fans felt when he got fat and started doing Vegas. The first track they released, “Cowboys”, wasn’t too bad. Definitely hinted back at the glory that was Recovering the Satellites, but seemed to come up short like a left over track that didn’t make RTS. I wasn’t too thrilled either by the jammy ‘Come Around’ that was let out about the same time. ‘Oh well,” I thought. “These are just a couple of throwaways they put out to wet everybody’s appetite.” It appears that I may have been drastically wrong in that assumption.

After listening several times to the downloads offered up on Wednesday, ’1492′ and ‘When I dream of Michelangelo’ I am so disappointed. I mean, ’1492′? That was one of the songs they paraded around live only to leave it off of the Hard Candy album. Well, at any rate, the songs sound more derivative and lyrically strained than a Velvet Revolver ballad.

I don’t want to do too much bashing because, trust me, this hurts me more than it hurts the Crows. I hope, nay, PRAY that the rest of the album is much better than what we’ve been shown. As always, I’ll be there on March 25th to pick up my copy the day it comes out. I’ll post yesterday’s songs so everybody can form their own opinions.

1492

When I dream of Michelangelo

Looks like Race St. over in Riverside is getting some more of the urban village treatment. Good to see the old neighborhood shaping up. I’ve been proud of all the restaurants that’ve been going in there.

Urban Race Street Fort Worth

From Make:

I know it’s extremely early, but THIS is what I want for Christmas! Unfortunately it’s not on the market, but Peter Bennet’s super intuitive device may be quick to appear in stores in one form or another.

Thanks to Kevin over at FortWorthology we have us a brand new non-fuzzy map of the prospective retailers setting up shop in Museum Place. Some are still just placeholders, all of them could change tomorrow, but nice to see an Apple Store plopped in a couple of blocks from work!

Despite the hoaky use of colloquialisms and a penchant for cliche it’s nice to see it printed nationally that Fort Worth is better than Dallas.

25 Reasons we Love Fort Worth

Was lucky enough to catch Kathleen Edwards at the ultra cozy Bend Studio in Dallas Saturday night. Kathleen was glowing as usual as the intimate candle-lit setting complemented her brand of Folk-Americana perfectly. Check out the video of ‘Sweet Little Duck’ below and the linked video of ‘Hockey Skates’ with it’s amusing anecdote.

Kathleen Edwards – Hockey Skates