My collection of albums, EPs, singles, and promotional discs from local and Texas-based artists numbers over 500 items as of this writing. While the majority of these run the gamut from average to ho-hum to downright awful, there are some gems sprinkled throughout that are worth having and worth listening to in 2024. Here are twenty-four of my favorites, albums I don't have just because I happened to pick them up in a secondhand store or acquire them at a show, but because they are genuinely good with a collection of good to great material.
My one and only Bobgoblin live experience came in August of 1997, when they headlined a show at Trees in Deep Ellum. Jet, their first album release, is next to impossible to find today, but you might be lucky enough to find its successor The Twelve-Point Master Plan in the used market. It has nearly all the same song selections, beefed up by a much slicker production made possible by major-label backing and money, and it actually features better performances than what you'll find on Jet. However, being a major label release via MCA Records, Master Plan is ineligible for this ranking, and I'm therefore going with its indie predecessor. This earlier effort thankfully lacks the annoying sound clips which serve as lead-ins to most of the songs on its successor.
Mark was an occasional performer at my Lost Art Open Mic and at other open mics in the area. Mark impresses with both his technical skill and songwriting abilities, and also with his sometimes blistering picking (all the more remarkable when you consider that he is a natural left-hander playing right-handed). The CD release show for Daybreak featured an instrumental rendition of "The Rain Song" accompanied by cellist Brianne Sargent that brought down the house with uproarious applause (sadly, this cover does not appear on the CD). Mark is the real deal when it comes to classical guitar greatness. Daybreak can be found in a streamable version on Amazon Music.
Circa 2011, Katie Carroll was a semi-regular performer at my Lost Art Open Mic, which is how I came to acquire a copy of this album. Admittedly, I didn't really listen to it until 2023, but when I did I was glad to have finally given it a chance. Paper Girl seems to be completely out of print now, with Katie's only offering on Bandcamp being her subsequent 2012 album Desperada, also a solid effort with a slightly more pop vibe to it and a greater amount of live instrumentation. Paper Girl can currently be streamed via Amazon Music. Katie seems to have gone off the grid musically since starting a family, but perhaps one day she will make a return.
The Dixie Chicks had a total of three independently released albums before their big major label break with Wide Open Spaces in 1998. Shouldn't a Told You That is the third and final of these, with a much more contemporary sound that departs from the more bluegrass-infused stylings of their first album. It's also the final Chicks album to feature original lead singer Laura Lynch, who parted ways with the group in 1995, three years after Robin Lynn Macy, the group's other original lead singer, had left due to differences in musical direction. Shouldn't a Told You That was released on CD and cassette in 1993 through Crystal Clear Sound in Dallas, via their in-house record label through which artists could choose to release and distribute their material. As the Erwin sisters (the two remaining original Chicks members) own the rights to this album, it seems unlikely that we'll see a re-release any time soon, if ever. According to Sam Paulos of Crystal Clear, less than a thousand copies of the compact disc were ever produced. It's well worth a listen if you can manage to find it, especially if, like me, you gravitate toward a more "country" and less "pop masquerading as country" sound.
Emmeline is an artist I've known for over a decade as of this writing, having met her in 2010 during my time in the open mic scene. I even made the live recordings for one of her digital "pay what you want" albums on Bandcamp. Of all her releases thus far, this one has always been my hands down favorite, as it captures the sound I remember from her live performances better than any of the others with their studio arrangements and embellishments. Beautiful Scars presents Emmeline in her barest form, her vocals accompanied solely by her keyboard. It also features two of my favorite songs of hers, "Siberia" and "One, Two, Three." The physical disc is out of print, but digital downloads are still available via Bandcamp. Highly recommended.
Featuring the music and lyricism of singer-songwriter Camille Cortinas accompanied by her four piece backing band, this 2006 release is worth a listen for fans of breezy, soothing vocals and bright, sunny, acoustic melodies. While I'm not completely happy with Ms. Cortinas for once refusing to autograph my copy of one of her solo albums after I purchased it, I do think this is collection of tunes worth having if you can find it. Cortinas would later drop the "Fishing With Comets" moniker in favor of her own name, reasoning that this was always really her musical project anyway. Today, Scattered Among the Archipelago can be found available for streaming on Amazon Music.
Released in 2022, and as of this writing the latest metal release I've heard that's worth spending money on, this five song EP is a sorely needed shot in the arm. In my opinion, the DFW metal scene as a whole has long stagnated, populated by an annoying number of Pantera wannabes, generic "Southern Metal" acts and Cookie Monster-styled vocals that are little more than barely intelligible grunts and growls. A million forgettable riffs are too often crammed into a single song in a monotonous sonic assault, with most if not all songs eventually running together into a long stream of soundalike noise that quickly wears out its welcome. The key elements necessary in any good music, actual melody and musicality, seem to get lost. Fugitive, a stalwart group of local metal scene veterans, bucks this trend with a series of powerful hooks and ferocious vocals, and (in a throwback to earlier days of metal), true melodies in their songs. The entire EP is a breath of fresh air, and the production - by today's standards - is actually quite good. As of this writing, vinyl copies of Maniac are still available via 20 Buck Spin, or you can get a digital copy via Bandcamp.
Ghoultown is one of those musical treats best served up in generous helpings. None of the group's studio albums have ever managed to capture the intensity and excitement of their incendiary live performances, so it stands to reason that a live album would be the next best way to experience their brand of psychobilly if you're unable to make it to one of those rare live shows. Although the production on this album leaves much to be desired (it's mastered WAY too loud and is brickwalled to hell), the performance on offer is absolutely solid. As of this writing it's still available for purchase through the band's official website, albeit only as a digital download.
This is doom metal at its finest, as interpreted by my friend Jason Gully's band back in 2010. The album was recorded live at the long since closed Skillman Street Pub in Dallas and engineered by James McWilliams. During my time in the local music scene, James was recognized as one of the best live sound guys in the area, able to make any venue sound great. This was no less the case with the Pub; even though it took a few months to get there, the Pub under James eventually boasted a great live sound and vibe, producing accordingly great off-the-soundboard recordings. One such board recording became the basis for Doomed in Dallas, which showcases Kin of Ettins in their performance prime. If you're a doom metal fan, this one's for you. It's long out of print, but three of its four songs (for some reason "Echoes in the Deep" is omitted) are streamable via SoundCloud.
One of the first local bands I followed upon my entrance into the local music scene in 2007, I found Meat Goat via a December 2006 Club Clearview show put on by the Deep Ellum Enrichment Project. It was through that event that I first made the acquaintance of the group. Republik represented the first official album release of material that the group had released over and over again on various sampler discs and EPs, and consequently features the best available versions of signature songs "Trigger," "Psycho," and planned single "The Dark." The original release of this album is long, long out of print, but a "remastered" version of it has been uploaded to Amazon Music.
In my opinion the best by far of Miller's three albums, this collection of mostly acoustic tunes represented her first foray into professional recording. Although she would later come to disparage her experiences working with the label as essentially controlling and manipulative, none of that comes through in the music, with tunes that run the gamut from sweet acoustic melodies ("11:11" and "Space Out") to more brooding character studies ("Humanly") to the plain silly ("Food Song"). Released in 1992 on Austin-based label Doolittle Records, Bob has been out of print forever, and to my knowledge the only way to hear it now is via streaming on Last.fm (entire album) or SoundCloud (incomplete). Good luck finding a physical copy, though one did sell via Discogs in June of 2023.
Singer Tracy's vocals are the standout in this mid-2000s effort by a band I initially found on Myspace (yes, it was that long ago). Clocking in at barely over thirty-one minutes, this mid-2000s effort deftly alternates between sometimes soulful, sometimes haunting lyrics and melodies, and more traditional hard-edged metal. A metal album with actual singing, lyrics rooted in real life, and with potential appeal outside the genre isn't something we see enough of these days. Softer takes such as "Simplicity" and the opening verses of "Only One" provide a nice counterpoint to the bolder aggressiveness of such cuts as "Hollowed Out" or "I Suffer You." Sadly, I never managed to get satisfactory photos of this band during my time shooting the local music scene; in 2007 and 2008 I was still trying to learn the ropes, and this band just didn't seem to play very often at all (I did eventually get photos of Tracy's later all-female outing Faded Grace some years afterward). Unfortunately, For the Life of Me is another one of those albums with great material but absurdly loud mastering levels, exemplifying the "brick wall" mentality that mars nearly all popular music being recorded and released nowadays and rivaling anything you'll ever hear on Metallica's Death Magnetic. The guitars in particular sound way over-distorted, and I'm not talking about the kind of distortion you get by using an effects pedal. All that being said, the music on offer is top tier, and this one comes highly recommended if you can find it. Six of the album's seven tracks seem to be available via last.fm, along with a few additional non-album cuts.
Mourning Fury was another of the bands whose acquaintance I made during my earliest days in the local music scene. My first encounter with singer Chase Ditto and his girlfriend (now wife) Vivi took place following the band's performance at the Galaxy Club in February 2007, and over the years I would photograph not only Mourning Fury but also Chase's subsequent projects Embrace the Embers, Storm the Sun, and Stelae. I would remain in touch with the Dittos for several years (even being an invited guest at their wedding) until we completely lost touch in 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Embrace the Embers and Storm the Sun were more than competent metal bands, and Stelae was a unique acoustic offering, but it's always been Mourning Fury's sole studio release The Far Side of Yesterday that has struck the deepest chord with me. It's all here - the riffs, the vocals, and the songwriting - and the overall listening experience runs just long enough to leave you feeling fulfilled as a listener without ever wearing out its welcome. After being out of print for a really long time, five of this album's six songs were finally made available to stream via Amazon Music in 2023.
Power Metal is very much a transitional album, capturing an era of Pantera when the band had one foot in '80s hair metal and the other in the developing groove metal sound that would soon become their trademark. If, like me, you're a fan of Cowboys from Hell, you will find plenty to like on this earlier release, particularly in the songs "Over and Out," "Death Trap," and "Hard Ride." This was the first Pantera album to be (legitimately, at least) released on compact disc, and there are still copies of it floating around in the secondhand market. Even if you can't find an original, there are plenty of high quality bootlegs also out there... which is a good thing given that this album will probably never see an official re-release.
The Razorblade Dolls were one of the premier industrial metal bands in the Dallas music scene for more than a decade, beginning with their formation in 2007 out of the ashes of predecessor group Trendkill Clinic and carrying on through to their final performance in November 2019. For me, their heyday was definitely the period from 2007-2013. After 2013, the band would carry on with a diminishing overall presence in the scene, their longevity punctuated by significant interruptions for other projects (most notably the Designed in Kaos project) and, ultimately, some very significant lineup changes. Of their two studio albums, it's a toss up as to which is better, but I'm going with the earlier, self-titled release from 2008 as my favorite. It includes the most essential Dolls track, "They Kill" ("Run motherfucker!!!") and features most of the group's original lineup. Nowadays you can find it available on Bandcamp as a digital download.
Red Pyramid was a case of a band's music and live performances being markedly more arresting than either the band itself or the personalities within it. Live, the group was absolutely killer, with incredibly tight playing and exceptional vocal performances that fully complemented the driving intensity of the music. Some of the band members themselves, however, were in my experience quite unpleasant to be around. Though I photographed their first ever live show as part of an arrangement to cross-promote, I always found one member in particular to be exceptionally arrogant, smug, and elitist, and another to be quite off-putting, disagreeable, and sanctimonious. It was thus not a great shock to me when Red Pyramid dissolved, with three of the four members going on to form White Elephant the year after this album was released. Fortunately, this 2010 collection of material exists to capture all that was the best about Red Pyramid while they were still together as a unit. The sound is not at all great - it's absurdly brickwall limited and compressed, lacking all the "punch" that was inherent in the group's live performances - but the quality of the songwriting is there. The entire album is streamable via last.fm.
Rigor Mortis's self-titled debut on Capitol Records in 1988 is a certified metal classic. But before they got their label deal, the guys in the band recorded a seven song demo cassette that showcased their particular brand of horror-influenced thrash steeped in gore. The tape's opening track "Reanimator" was so powerful that it convinced Longhorn Ballroom promoter/booking agent Jeff Liles to move a previously booked act off a slot opening for Megadeth, giving it instead to Rigor Mortis. Liles eventually became the band's manager and ultimately helped guide them to their 1987 record deal with Capitol. In addition to being arguably more intense than its studio successor due to the inherent rawness of its recording and performances, the 1986 demo also includes three songs ("Foaming at the Mouth," "Six Feet Under," and "The Troll") that didn't make it onto the band's major label debut two years later. While previously available as a CD reissue through the band's official website, Demo '86 unfortunately went out of print in 2023. If you want a physical copy today, you either have to get extremely lucky and stumble across one somewhere, or you have to pay outrageously inflated prices demanded by sellers on eBay or Discogs. I'm normally loath to recommend potentially unofficial sources, but at this point your best bet is to listen to this off one of the uploads on YouTube.
This 2005 EP, despite lacking seminal, essential (but later) Rivethead cuts such as "Regret," "Stay Alive," "No Remedy," and "Difference" (my all time favorite Rivethead song), packs a mighty strong punch into its five song tracklist. It's an all out assault that comes at you right out of the gate with album opener "Another Day," barrelling onward through its too-short runtime to brutally smack you upside the head with the tenacious yet impatient intensity of "Wait," which closes the album a mere four songs later. The bass riff on "You're So Cold," featured so prominently on this second of five tracks, is a standout for me. There are no weak tracks on this release, no filler, and no punches pulled, and the entire experience doesn't fail to leave you as listener fully amped up. Steve Page and Co. have released a great many Rivethead albums over the project's now decades-long history, and I have all of them, but this one still remains my favorite. It unfortunately seems to be entirely out of print now and unavailable via any streaming services. Your best bet would be to reach out to Steve and see if he still has any copies left, or perhaps look for a copy of it via eBay or Discogs as a last resort.
This is Southern Metal at its finest, by what is in truth one of the only Southern Metal bands I've ever had any liking for. The Weak Is Broken represents a second recorded outing for SiK, with much of the same material having appeared the previous year on the self-produced and self-recorded CD Final Beginning. While Beginning was a valiant effort, it took this studio-produced album to really present SiK's material at its fullest potential. I remember meeting drummer Keith Wilson not long after this album's release, and finding him to be a very personable and genuine guy with a definite passion for his music. The Eliminate the Weak five song EP, released alongside this album, is also worth a pickup, but I'm giving my one recommendation to the longer, eight song Weak Is Broken. It can be listened to today via Spotify.
Silver Loves Mercury evolved out of the ashes of an earlier project called kittyviolet, and consisted of producer and multi-instrumentalist J.T. Longoria on guitar, Screaming Red singer Andrea LaRue (aka "Roxi") on vocals, and an ever-revolving door of bassists and drummers filling out the rhythm section. This studio release combined new material with old kittyviolet songs, resulting in a collection with slightly less of a punk edge than the earlier projects, but whose material evinces a greater range of styles and musical vocabulary overall. Andrea's vocal performances in particular showcase a greater artistic fluency than those of her kittyviolet predecessor Scarlet or even her own on Screaming Red's 2008 album Kick in tha Face. Album closer "OWell" is my favorite Silver Loves Mercury song, and standout cut "Calluna," with its sweet acoustic guitar and dreamy vocal performance, provides a musical counterpoint to more straightforward punk rockers like "Armageddon." This CD is long out of print, but the album can be streamed via Spotify.
Let Your Mama Drive is the second, and greatest, release by another one of those amazingly talented musicians who just never go on to release enough material. As of this writing, Cricket has issued a total of only three full-length albums over the past thirty years, and all of them are a bitch to find today if you weren't there for their initial releases. I met Cricket around 2011, when she graced us with some bluesy guitar and vocals one night at the Mad Swirl Open Mic. At the time, work was proceeding on her then-current musical project The Electro-Magnetics, which featured local jazz fusion drummer Gerard Bendicks and former New Bohemians guitarist Kenny Withrow on bass. I once lent one of my concert photos of Cricket to promoter Big Gilson for a show of hers in South America, and Cricket herself graciously gifted me an autographed copy of the Electro-Magnetics' album Dirty at the Sons of Hermann Hall CD release. Sadly, Cricket seems to have pulled nearly all her music off the internet, so this 2001 effort is going to be a very tough album to find. If you do happen across a copy somewhere in the secondhand market, be sure to pick it up.
I made my first acquaintance with this band in 2007, and it eventually became one of the two with which I was most closely associated as a concert photographer. I'm still in touch with former members of With These Words to this day, having been a guest at one band member's wedding and even having written the promotional bio for singer Jessi Golden following her 2011 relocation to the state of Michigan. But don't assume I'm including their album here just because of that relationship, as it's a very solid collection of pop-punk tunes recorded in a good studio and released with top notch production values and packaging. It can be streamed via Spotify.
I discovered this album during the research phase of my Ghosts of DFW Music History blog series. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (not to be confused with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a completely different band from New York City) was fronted by Barry Kooda, a long time fixture of the Dallas scene with a long list of musical credits to his name. From his time playing punk with the Nervebreakers, to his rockabilly stint with The Cartwrights, to his alt-country performances both with The Mutineers and as a solo artist, Kooda's Dallas music credentials are lengthy, varied, and unimpeachable. This particular musical outing showcases a rockabilly/punk style in the vein of a greatly improved Reverend Horton Heat, with much better riffs, performances, and material. The cassette is of course long out of print as of 2024, but you can find a digital release of the album on Bandcamp.
Live at the Hot Klüb is an aural snapshot of a seminal period in Dallas punk music history, featuring early stalwarts of the scene such as The Telefones, Stickmen With Rayguns, and the great Non Compos Mentis (aka NCM). NCM was of course fronted by Neil Caldwell, founder of VVV Records and someone who played a pivotal role in the promotion of the local punk and New Wave scenes in the 1980s. While side two of this album is decidedly weaker than side one, this very long out of print LP is worth having, and your best bet for finding it today is via a secondhand retail platform such as eBay or Discogs. I purchased a sealed copy of the LP in April 2024 from a seller on eBay.
Before I begin, a few important points need to be made. I'm including only offerings that were either self-released or that were released on local, homegrown labels, not albums that saw any kind of release on a major label. This means that acts like Edie Brickell & New Bohemians are out. Major label offerings by groups such as Pantera and the Dixie Chicks are also out of the running, though their earlier, independent releases are fair game. And albums like the Reverend Horton Heat's releases on Sub Pop Records (a Seattle-based label) are also out, though anything released locally is still eligible (as it turns out, I'm not a huge fan of the Rev, but the point still stands). I'm also leaving out regional but non-local efforts from other music scenes such as Houston or Austin, which means no Idgy Vaughn, Ruthie Foster, or Emily Bell make the list. As best I can, I've provided links to where the items below can be obtained or at least heard in 2024, as virtually all are long out of print today in their physical forms. And finally, to keep the playing field more even, only one release per artist is presented. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to offer any feedback or commentary via a reply at the end of the post.
This list is admittedly more than a little metal-centric. This isn't a reflection of a musical taste that's defined by heavy music, but more a reflection of the reality that my days photographing local musicians (which exposed me to many of the artists featured here) centered principally around that type of music. My musical tastes are considerably more wide-ranging than what's presented here. To clarify, this is not an exhaustive list of local releases I deem worth checking out; it's just a selection of proven favorites that I'm choosing to spotlight.
Bobgoblin - Jet (1994)
My one and only Bobgoblin live experience came in August of 1997, when they headlined a show at Trees in Deep Ellum. Jet, their first album release, is next to impossible to find today, but you might be lucky enough to find its successor The Twelve-Point Master Plan in the used market. It has nearly all the same song selections, beefed up by a much slicker production made possible by major-label backing and money, and it actually features better performances than what you'll find on Jet. However, being a major label release via MCA Records, Master Plan is ineligible for this ranking, and I'm therefore going with its indie predecessor. This earlier effort thankfully lacks the annoying sound clips which serve as lead-ins to most of the songs on its successor.
Genre: Alternative Rock
Mark Brandt - Daybreak (2012)
Mark was an occasional performer at my Lost Art Open Mic and at other open mics in the area. Mark impresses with both his technical skill and songwriting abilities, and also with his sometimes blistering picking (all the more remarkable when you consider that he is a natural left-hander playing right-handed). The CD release show for Daybreak featured an instrumental rendition of "The Rain Song" accompanied by cellist Brianne Sargent that brought down the house with uproarious applause (sadly, this cover does not appear on the CD). Mark is the real deal when it comes to classical guitar greatness. Daybreak can be found in a streamable version on Amazon Music.
Genre: Instrumental/Acoustic
Katie Carroll - Paper Girl (2010)
Circa 2011, Katie Carroll was a semi-regular performer at my Lost Art Open Mic, which is how I came to acquire a copy of this album. Admittedly, I didn't really listen to it until 2023, but when I did I was glad to have finally given it a chance. Paper Girl seems to be completely out of print now, with Katie's only offering on Bandcamp being her subsequent 2012 album Desperada, also a solid effort with a slightly more pop vibe to it and a greater amount of live instrumentation. Paper Girl can currently be streamed via Amazon Music. Katie seems to have gone off the grid musically since starting a family, but perhaps one day she will make a return.
Genre: Pop
Dixie Chicks - Shouldn't a Told You That (1993)
The Dixie Chicks had a total of three independently released albums before their big major label break with Wide Open Spaces in 1998. Shouldn't a Told You That is the third and final of these, with a much more contemporary sound that departs from the more bluegrass-infused stylings of their first album. It's also the final Chicks album to feature original lead singer Laura Lynch, who parted ways with the group in 1995, three years after Robin Lynn Macy, the group's other original lead singer, had left due to differences in musical direction. Shouldn't a Told You That was released on CD and cassette in 1993 through Crystal Clear Sound in Dallas, via their in-house record label through which artists could choose to release and distribute their material. As the Erwin sisters (the two remaining original Chicks members) own the rights to this album, it seems unlikely that we'll see a re-release any time soon, if ever. According to Sam Paulos of Crystal Clear, less than a thousand copies of the compact disc were ever produced. It's well worth a listen if you can manage to find it, especially if, like me, you gravitate toward a more "country" and less "pop masquerading as country" sound.
Genre: Country
Emmeline - Beautiful Scars (2013)
Emmeline is an artist I've known for over a decade as of this writing, having met her in 2010 during my time in the open mic scene. I even made the live recordings for one of her digital "pay what you want" albums on Bandcamp. Of all her releases thus far, this one has always been my hands down favorite, as it captures the sound I remember from her live performances better than any of the others with their studio arrangements and embellishments. Beautiful Scars presents Emmeline in her barest form, her vocals accompanied solely by her keyboard. It also features two of my favorite songs of hers, "Siberia" and "One, Two, Three." The physical disc is out of print, but digital downloads are still available via Bandcamp. Highly recommended.
Genre: Vocal/Easy Listening
Fishing for Comets - Scattered Among the Archipelago (2006)
Featuring the music and lyricism of singer-songwriter Camille Cortinas accompanied by her four piece backing band, this 2006 release is worth a listen for fans of breezy, soothing vocals and bright, sunny, acoustic melodies. While I'm not completely happy with Ms. Cortinas for once refusing to autograph my copy of one of her solo albums after I purchased it, I do think this is collection of tunes worth having if you can find it. Cortinas would later drop the "Fishing With Comets" moniker in favor of her own name, reasoning that this was always really her musical project anyway. Today, Scattered Among the Archipelago can be found available for streaming on Amazon Music.
Genre: Pop/Easy Listening
Fugitive - Maniac (2022)
Released in 2022, and as of this writing the latest metal release I've heard that's worth spending money on, this five song EP is a sorely needed shot in the arm. In my opinion, the DFW metal scene as a whole has long stagnated, populated by an annoying number of Pantera wannabes, generic "Southern Metal" acts and Cookie Monster-styled vocals that are little more than barely intelligible grunts and growls. A million forgettable riffs are too often crammed into a single song in a monotonous sonic assault, with most if not all songs eventually running together into a long stream of soundalike noise that quickly wears out its welcome. The key elements necessary in any good music, actual melody and musicality, seem to get lost. Fugitive, a stalwart group of local metal scene veterans, bucks this trend with a series of powerful hooks and ferocious vocals, and (in a throwback to earlier days of metal), true melodies in their songs. The entire EP is a breath of fresh air, and the production - by today's standards - is actually quite good. As of this writing, vinyl copies of Maniac are still available via 20 Buck Spin, or you can get a digital copy via Bandcamp.
Genre: Metal
Ghoultown - Live from Texas! (2003)
Ghoultown is one of those musical treats best served up in generous helpings. None of the group's studio albums have ever managed to capture the intensity and excitement of their incendiary live performances, so it stands to reason that a live album would be the next best way to experience their brand of psychobilly if you're unable to make it to one of those rare live shows. Although the production on this album leaves much to be desired (it's mastered WAY too loud and is brickwalled to hell), the performance on offer is absolutely solid. As of this writing it's still available for purchase through the band's official website, albeit only as a digital download.
Genre: Psychobilly
Kin of Ettins - Doomed in Dallas (2010)
This is doom metal at its finest, as interpreted by my friend Jason Gully's band back in 2010. The album was recorded live at the long since closed Skillman Street Pub in Dallas and engineered by James McWilliams. During my time in the local music scene, James was recognized as one of the best live sound guys in the area, able to make any venue sound great. This was no less the case with the Pub; even though it took a few months to get there, the Pub under James eventually boasted a great live sound and vibe, producing accordingly great off-the-soundboard recordings. One such board recording became the basis for Doomed in Dallas, which showcases Kin of Ettins in their performance prime. If you're a doom metal fan, this one's for you. It's long out of print, but three of its four songs (for some reason "Echoes in the Deep" is omitted) are streamable via SoundCloud.
Genre: Doom Metal
Meat Goat - Republik (2008)
One of the first local bands I followed upon my entrance into the local music scene in 2007, I found Meat Goat via a December 2006 Club Clearview show put on by the Deep Ellum Enrichment Project. It was through that event that I first made the acquaintance of the group. Republik represented the first official album release of material that the group had released over and over again on various sampler discs and EPs, and consequently features the best available versions of signature songs "Trigger," "Psycho," and planned single "The Dark." The original release of this album is long, long out of print, but a "remastered" version of it has been uploaded to Amazon Music.
Genre: Industrial Metal
Meredith Louise Miller - Bob (1992)
In my opinion the best by far of Miller's three albums, this collection of mostly acoustic tunes represented her first foray into professional recording. Although she would later come to disparage her experiences working with the label as essentially controlling and manipulative, none of that comes through in the music, with tunes that run the gamut from sweet acoustic melodies ("11:11" and "Space Out") to more brooding character studies ("Humanly") to the plain silly ("Food Song"). Released in 1992 on Austin-based label Doolittle Records, Bob has been out of print forever, and to my knowledge the only way to hear it now is via streaming on Last.fm (entire album) or SoundCloud (incomplete). Good luck finding a physical copy, though one did sell via Discogs in June of 2023.
Genre: Acoustic/Easy Listening/Folk/Vocal
Mod Effect - For the Life of Me (2004)
Singer Tracy's vocals are the standout in this mid-2000s effort by a band I initially found on Myspace (yes, it was that long ago). Clocking in at barely over thirty-one minutes, this mid-2000s effort deftly alternates between sometimes soulful, sometimes haunting lyrics and melodies, and more traditional hard-edged metal. A metal album with actual singing, lyrics rooted in real life, and with potential appeal outside the genre isn't something we see enough of these days. Softer takes such as "Simplicity" and the opening verses of "Only One" provide a nice counterpoint to the bolder aggressiveness of such cuts as "Hollowed Out" or "I Suffer You." Sadly, I never managed to get satisfactory photos of this band during my time shooting the local music scene; in 2007 and 2008 I was still trying to learn the ropes, and this band just didn't seem to play very often at all (I did eventually get photos of Tracy's later all-female outing Faded Grace some years afterward). Unfortunately, For the Life of Me is another one of those albums with great material but absurdly loud mastering levels, exemplifying the "brick wall" mentality that mars nearly all popular music being recorded and released nowadays and rivaling anything you'll ever hear on Metallica's Death Magnetic. The guitars in particular sound way over-distorted, and I'm not talking about the kind of distortion you get by using an effects pedal. All that being said, the music on offer is top tier, and this one comes highly recommended if you can find it. Six of the album's seven tracks seem to be available via last.fm, along with a few additional non-album cuts.
Genre: Metal
Mourning Fury - The Far Side of Yesterday (2008)
Mourning Fury was another of the bands whose acquaintance I made during my earliest days in the local music scene. My first encounter with singer Chase Ditto and his girlfriend (now wife) Vivi took place following the band's performance at the Galaxy Club in February 2007, and over the years I would photograph not only Mourning Fury but also Chase's subsequent projects Embrace the Embers, Storm the Sun, and Stelae. I would remain in touch with the Dittos for several years (even being an invited guest at their wedding) until we completely lost touch in 2021 following the COVID-19 pandemic. Both Embrace the Embers and Storm the Sun were more than competent metal bands, and Stelae was a unique acoustic offering, but it's always been Mourning Fury's sole studio release The Far Side of Yesterday that has struck the deepest chord with me. It's all here - the riffs, the vocals, and the songwriting - and the overall listening experience runs just long enough to leave you feeling fulfilled as a listener without ever wearing out its welcome. After being out of print for a really long time, five of this album's six songs were finally made available to stream via Amazon Music in 2023.
Genre: Metal
Pantera - Power Metal (1988)
Power Metal is very much a transitional album, capturing an era of Pantera when the band had one foot in '80s hair metal and the other in the developing groove metal sound that would soon become their trademark. If, like me, you're a fan of Cowboys from Hell, you will find plenty to like on this earlier release, particularly in the songs "Over and Out," "Death Trap," and "Hard Ride." This was the first Pantera album to be (legitimately, at least) released on compact disc, and there are still copies of it floating around in the secondhand market. Even if you can't find an original, there are plenty of high quality bootlegs also out there... which is a good thing given that this album will probably never see an official re-release.
Genre: Hair Metal/Groove Metal
Razorblade Dolls - The Razorblade Dolls (2008)
The Razorblade Dolls were one of the premier industrial metal bands in the Dallas music scene for more than a decade, beginning with their formation in 2007 out of the ashes of predecessor group Trendkill Clinic and carrying on through to their final performance in November 2019. For me, their heyday was definitely the period from 2007-2013. After 2013, the band would carry on with a diminishing overall presence in the scene, their longevity punctuated by significant interruptions for other projects (most notably the Designed in Kaos project) and, ultimately, some very significant lineup changes. Of their two studio albums, it's a toss up as to which is better, but I'm going with the earlier, self-titled release from 2008 as my favorite. It includes the most essential Dolls track, "They Kill" ("Run motherfucker!!!") and features most of the group's original lineup. Nowadays you can find it available on Bandcamp as a digital download.
Genre: Industrial Metal
Red Pyramid - The Air Between Us Turns to Ashes (2010)
Red Pyramid was a case of a band's music and live performances being markedly more arresting than either the band itself or the personalities within it. Live, the group was absolutely killer, with incredibly tight playing and exceptional vocal performances that fully complemented the driving intensity of the music. Some of the band members themselves, however, were in my experience quite unpleasant to be around. Though I photographed their first ever live show as part of an arrangement to cross-promote, I always found one member in particular to be exceptionally arrogant, smug, and elitist, and another to be quite off-putting, disagreeable, and sanctimonious. It was thus not a great shock to me when Red Pyramid dissolved, with three of the four members going on to form White Elephant the year after this album was released. Fortunately, this 2010 collection of material exists to capture all that was the best about Red Pyramid while they were still together as a unit. The sound is not at all great - it's absurdly brickwall limited and compressed, lacking all the "punch" that was inherent in the group's live performances - but the quality of the songwriting is there. The entire album is streamable via last.fm.
Genre: Industrial Metal
Rigor Mortis - Demo '86 (1986 / 2016)
Rigor Mortis's self-titled debut on Capitol Records in 1988 is a certified metal classic. But before they got their label deal, the guys in the band recorded a seven song demo cassette that showcased their particular brand of horror-influenced thrash steeped in gore. The tape's opening track "Reanimator" was so powerful that it convinced Longhorn Ballroom promoter/booking agent Jeff Liles to move a previously booked act off a slot opening for Megadeth, giving it instead to Rigor Mortis. Liles eventually became the band's manager and ultimately helped guide them to their 1987 record deal with Capitol. In addition to being arguably more intense than its studio successor due to the inherent rawness of its recording and performances, the 1986 demo also includes three songs ("Foaming at the Mouth," "Six Feet Under," and "The Troll") that didn't make it onto the band's major label debut two years later. While previously available as a CD reissue through the band's official website, Demo '86 unfortunately went out of print in 2023. If you want a physical copy today, you either have to get extremely lucky and stumble across one somewhere, or you have to pay outrageously inflated prices demanded by sellers on eBay or Discogs. I'm normally loath to recommend potentially unofficial sources, but at this point your best bet is to listen to this off one of the uploads on YouTube.
Genre: Metal, Demo
RivetHead - SPR Factor (2005)
This 2005 EP, despite lacking seminal, essential (but later) Rivethead cuts such as "Regret," "Stay Alive," "No Remedy," and "Difference" (my all time favorite Rivethead song), packs a mighty strong punch into its five song tracklist. It's an all out assault that comes at you right out of the gate with album opener "Another Day," barrelling onward through its too-short runtime to brutally smack you upside the head with the tenacious yet impatient intensity of "Wait," which closes the album a mere four songs later. The bass riff on "You're So Cold," featured so prominently on this second of five tracks, is a standout for me. There are no weak tracks on this release, no filler, and no punches pulled, and the entire experience doesn't fail to leave you as listener fully amped up. Steve Page and Co. have released a great many Rivethead albums over the project's now decades-long history, and I have all of them, but this one still remains my favorite. It unfortunately seems to be entirely out of print now and unavailable via any streaming services. Your best bet would be to reach out to Steve and see if he still has any copies left, or perhaps look for a copy of it via eBay or Discogs as a last resort.
Genre: Metal
SiK - The Weak Is Broken (2008)
This is Southern Metal at its finest, by what is in truth one of the only Southern Metal bands I've ever had any liking for. The Weak Is Broken represents a second recorded outing for SiK, with much of the same material having appeared the previous year on the self-produced and self-recorded CD Final Beginning. While Beginning was a valiant effort, it took this studio-produced album to really present SiK's material at its fullest potential. I remember meeting drummer Keith Wilson not long after this album's release, and finding him to be a very personable and genuine guy with a definite passion for his music. The Eliminate the Weak five song EP, released alongside this album, is also worth a pickup, but I'm giving my one recommendation to the longer, eight song Weak Is Broken. It can be listened to today via Spotify.
Genre: Southern Metal
Silver Loves Mercury - Treasures of Gomorrah (2010)
Silver Loves Mercury evolved out of the ashes of an earlier project called kittyviolet, and consisted of producer and multi-instrumentalist J.T. Longoria on guitar, Screaming Red singer Andrea LaRue (aka "Roxi") on vocals, and an ever-revolving door of bassists and drummers filling out the rhythm section. This studio release combined new material with old kittyviolet songs, resulting in a collection with slightly less of a punk edge than the earlier projects, but whose material evinces a greater range of styles and musical vocabulary overall. Andrea's vocal performances in particular showcase a greater artistic fluency than those of her kittyviolet predecessor Scarlet or even her own on Screaming Red's 2008 album Kick in tha Face. Album closer "OWell" is my favorite Silver Loves Mercury song, and standout cut "Calluna," with its sweet acoustic guitar and dreamy vocal performance, provides a musical counterpoint to more straightforward punk rockers like "Armageddon." This CD is long out of print, but the album can be streamed via Spotify.
Genre: Pop Punk
Cricket Taylor - Let Your Mama Drive (2001)
Let Your Mama Drive is the second, and greatest, release by another one of those amazingly talented musicians who just never go on to release enough material. As of this writing, Cricket has issued a total of only three full-length albums over the past thirty years, and all of them are a bitch to find today if you weren't there for their initial releases. I met Cricket around 2011, when she graced us with some bluesy guitar and vocals one night at the Mad Swirl Open Mic. At the time, work was proceeding on her then-current musical project The Electro-Magnetics, which featured local jazz fusion drummer Gerard Bendicks and former New Bohemians guitarist Kenny Withrow on bass. I once lent one of my concert photos of Cricket to promoter Big Gilson for a show of hers in South America, and Cricket herself graciously gifted me an autographed copy of the Electro-Magnetics' album Dirty at the Sons of Hermann Hall CD release. Sadly, Cricket seems to have pulled nearly all her music off the internet, so this 2001 effort is going to be a very tough album to find. If you do happen across a copy somewhere in the secondhand market, be sure to pick it up.
Genre: Blues Rock
With These Words - The Science of Loss (2008)
I made my first acquaintance with this band in 2007, and it eventually became one of the two with which I was most closely associated as a concert photographer. I'm still in touch with former members of With These Words to this day, having been a guest at one band member's wedding and even having written the promotional bio for singer Jessi Golden following her 2011 relocation to the state of Michigan. But don't assume I'm including their album here just because of that relationship, as it's a very solid collection of pop-punk tunes recorded in a good studio and released with top notch production values and packaging. It can be streamed via Spotify.
Genre: Pop Punk
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! - The Band (1990)
I discovered this album during the research phase of my Ghosts of DFW Music History blog series. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! (not to be confused with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a completely different band from New York City) was fronted by Barry Kooda, a long time fixture of the Dallas scene with a long list of musical credits to his name. From his time playing punk with the Nervebreakers, to his rockabilly stint with The Cartwrights, to his alt-country performances both with The Mutineers and as a solo artist, Kooda's Dallas music credentials are lengthy, varied, and unimpeachable. This particular musical outing showcases a rockabilly/punk style in the vein of a greatly improved Reverend Horton Heat, with much better riffs, performances, and material. The cassette is of course long out of print as of 2024, but you can find a digital release of the album on Bandcamp.
Genre: Rockabilly Punk
Various - Live at the Hot Klub (1983)
Live at the Hot Klüb is an aural snapshot of a seminal period in Dallas punk music history, featuring early stalwarts of the scene such as The Telefones, Stickmen With Rayguns, and the great Non Compos Mentis (aka NCM). NCM was of course fronted by Neil Caldwell, founder of VVV Records and someone who played a pivotal role in the promotion of the local punk and New Wave scenes in the 1980s. While side two of this album is decidedly weaker than side one, this very long out of print LP is worth having, and your best bet for finding it today is via a secondhand retail platform such as eBay or Discogs. I purchased a sealed copy of the LP in April 2024 from a seller on eBay.
Genres: Punk/New Wave
Thanks for this list. I would add a couple of other records. “Shimmer” by Buck Jones (1996, 1 believe) and the Loco Gringos only album. Thanks for documenting Dallas music.