Last week, artist Shepard Fairey completed a series of murals in West Dallas and at the site of the Dallas Contemporary, which brought the artist to Dallas for the project. Fairey is perhaps most well known for his iconic “Hope” poster of Barak Obama, which became a calling card for the 2008 presidential campaign and also landed Fairey in a legal battle over copyright with the Associated Press. Fairey is used to legal controversy, not only because he has been ..read more

When Hockaday grad Lisa Loeb’s first single, “Stay (I missed You),” rode the momentum of Ben Stiller’s nineties-defining movie phenomenon Reality Bites to the top of the charts, the song made headlines for being the first number one hit by an artist without a major label contract. That made Loeb an instant indie darling in a decade that coined the word “alternative rock.” It also made the singer-songwriter from Dallas something of a canary singing in a mine of a ..read more

It is easy to get lost in the biography of Mark Bradford when looking at Mark Bradford’s art, on view in a new exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art. That is because Bradford puts it there. The artist’s story, growing up in Los Angeles, helping out in his mother’s hair salon in South Central, the textual debris of the street, the maps of his neighborhoods, his time in New Orleans: all of these things are made present in his ..read more

Tomorrow, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest movie, Drive, hits theaters. Staring Ryan Gosling, the film is a astute and intense thriller, dripping in stylish eighties throwback appeal, leavened by pulpy flair, and driven by a pounding soundtrack. We spoke with Refn about his new movie, honing its tone, Gosling, and how Hollywood is like “having sex with the greatest call girl in the world.”

Confession time: this interviewer has never seen Freddy Got Fingered.  That didn’t stop us from making a long distance call to Edinburgh to chat with Tom Green, finishing up the international leg of his tour ahead of his shows at Addison Improv this weekend. Luckily, the comedian, who is a master of understatement, is also familiar with at least one of our most eligible residents.

FrontRow: You toured the US then went across the pond. Is there a difference in the audiences?

Tom Green: The similarities are more of a surprise to me. Whether it’s Australia or Canada or the US or Britain, there’s always…it’s always amazing how far certain ideas of things have kind of traveled over the years, and how people are aware of references to so many things that I’ve done. People do really laugh at the same things around the world now.

FR: What or who makes you laugh?

TG: I always like people and movies and films and television that approach comedy from a different perspective, a different angle than I guess is normal. I like things that are a little off beat. Many of the great comedians of the world that I’ve enjoyed watching over the years, and before a fan of the more I do stand up, the more I enjoy looking back at Richard Pryor and George Carlin. And I always enjoyed talk shows, and Johnny Carson…it’s so great now with the YouTube, you can get lost in the world of looking at great comedy routines and shows from the golden age of television.

FR: What about when no one laughs? Have you ever heard crickets? What do you do?

TG: Tell another joke. And you learn pretty quickly how to make that a seamless experience…that really only happens when you’re trying out new ideas and new jokes….And if I ever told a joke that didn’t work I’d probably A) probably never tell that joke again, and try something just keep it moving. You can’t really get too upset about it. You know, people want to see things…people want you to experiment. That’s what stand up is. But that’s not really something that happens that often, to be honest. I have a pretty good idea of what’s funny, how to structure it and tell a joke before I’ve even said it for the first time.

FR: Tell me about growing up— you grew up on a Canadian Army base. Do you remember the first time you got a reaction from someone for something you said or did?

TG: There’s probably something in one those first days of school, you’d always be the new kid in class when you move around. In the military you move every year and I’d always be the new kid every year and I’d have to make new friends. I sort of found pretty early that I liked pushing the buttons of the teacher and causing mild disturbances in order to essentially get a laugh out of my classmates. I used to like crashing into garbage cans for no reason. Just walking down the hallway and crashing into garbage cans, stumbling over things on purpose. I was doing that when I was seven years old. I loved being a goofball.

FR: Were you always outrageous?

TG: I think when I was kid I was more silly and hyperactive. As I got older, I started wanting to actually document some of this stuff and put it on television, on public access TV in Canada where I started my show. That’s when we got a little more edgy and dark with some of it. And it just always appealed to me to get a reaction from the audience. The most important thing was to get the reaction.

FR: Are you surprised that Freddy Got Fingered has such a devoted following now?

TG: It’s amazing. I just realized that this movie has grown into this monster cult hit. People all around the world know every line from the movie and come running up to me on the street, quoting lines from the movie. It’s really been quite…a really fun thing to have made such an outrageous movie and see that it’s living on like that and people are discovering it every day. It’s in its whole other life. It’s been a good time, and part of touring is that I get to connect with people who responded to that crazy movie and enjoyed it.

On Sunday, western swing band Asleep at the Wheel will play the Dallas Arboretum’s Labor Day picnic. We caught up with Ray Benson, the group’s founding member, fresh from a production of his Bob Wills’ tribute musical A Ride With Bob in Ruidoso, New Mexico. Their concert Sunday is the last you’ll see of AATW until December, and if you miss guitarist Elizabeth McQueen, don’t worry. Benson says she’s had her baby, doing well, and she’ll be back on tour in a month.

FrontRow: You’ve played for quite a few notable figures over the course of your career. What’s your proudest on-stage moment?

RB: I would say, many moments with Willie Nelson. Whenever we would do stuff together. That would be my proudest, because I think so highly of Willie. We’ve done hundreds and hundreds of appearances.

FR: What’s it like?

RB: He’s a good friend and a collaborator, so it’s just fun. I really couldn’t put words to it. It’s fun. All I can say is when you’re on stage with someone who you love, respect, and enjoy the music that they make, it’s the best.

FR: And when you’ve been doing something as long as you have, is that how you keep things fresh?

RB: I enjoy playing music. People ask that a lot, like, wow, you must be tired of it. But when I sit at home, I play music. So it’s kind of like, I don’t get tired of it. Sometimes I get tired of the travel. Sometimes I get tired the gig, they want you at this time and you’d rather be doing it another time…the sun’s too hot or…as far as playing music, I always love to pick up my guitar and play the guitar and sing. And that’s how you do it. Otherwise, no, you don’t stick around for 41 years if you don’t love doing it. Because  there are other ways to make a living, and there are other things that this keeps me from doing. You gotta love it, or you’re going to be frustrated.

FR: Is there anything else you could imagine yourself doing?

RB: No, I don’t think so. I started out…I was going to be a doctor, and that lasted about three months. I produce records, but it’s all about music. And I do some acting…but it always come back to, I’d rather be playing music.

FR: Is there anyone that you’d like to work with that you haven’t?

RB: Tony Bennett. And I’ve tried. His manager doesn’t know who I am. I met him once, just very briefly at the Grammy Awards. But he’s one of the guys I’d just really love to work with.

FR: Why?

RB: I’ve just been a fan of his for years, even before his quote resurgence. He’s a singer’s singer. He’s one of those guys…and I love jazz as much as I love country music and western music. He’s a singer’s singer. I just love the way he phrases and love his attitude.

FR: You do a lot of Bob Wills’ music and you’ve done a tribute to him. How do you feel about Texas declaring western swing the official state music?

RB: Well, it’s a double edged sword. As I said to the fellas, I said…I’m greatly honored that you feel the same way as I do about it but Texas has produced so many  kinds of music that I’d hate to make one the official music. I’ll put it this way, I think the legislature did a bunch of stupid things this year. So although I was honored that they recognized the kind of music that I play…what about blues what about jazz what about rock and roll,, Van Cliburn, classical music. This state is too big for one kind of music. And western swing is definitely born and raised in Texas and Oklahoma. If they know their western swing history…Bob Wills had to leave Texas because the governor ran him out of Texas. So Oklahoma is just as viable a home…a birthplace of western swing as Texas. So those guys just don’t know their history. But then again, like I said, I don’t have a lot of respect for the legislature. But in terms of how I feel, I feel very honored that the kind of music that I make has been honored that way, but they should honor all the music. And the other point is, western swing is the conglomeration of western music country music, blues, jazz swing, so how can they…it’s a complicated issue.

FR: Do you have a new album in the works, any new music?

RB: The last album we had, which was only six or seven months ago, was with Leon Rausch, a former Texas playboy who lives in Fort Worth and is 83 years old and still singing great. We did a whole album with him, called “It’s a Good Day.” But what we’re working on right now is a documentary film about the last 41 years. And that’s taken up a lot of time, so we just say hey, we’re not going to make an album for awhile.

FR: Anything about Sunday you’re particularly looking forward to?

RB: Oh yeah. I’ll tell you what, I’m looking forward to it being below 100 degrees. This year, that’s all I care about. Why don’t we dip the temperature a little bit, and everything will be fine.

Local musician and documentarian Ryan Giesecke has been recording most of the shows he’s attended for about a decade now. As such, he has quietly amassed a rather impressive collection, which only continues to grow in value, due to the fact that a large number of these acts and the places in whey they performed don’t exist anymore. Giesecke diligently maintains a blog called Sounded Like This that is, in some cases, one of the only places where you can see or hear certain chapters of DFW music history. Lately he has contributed by way of opening up the garage at his Lakewood residence to both artists and fans. Just a few days ago he hosted a show that featured True Widow. Giesecke recently spoke to FrontRow about his recording activities, his motivations, and how Dallas-Fort Worth music has changed and how it’s stayed the same.

(more…)

When director Stan Wojewodski, Jr., first heard of Dallas’ Undermain Theatre, it was nearly 20 years ago and he was 2,000 miles away in New York. “It was the theater in Dallas that we all knew about.” Most of the the writers he was working with had already had their plays produced in the funny space down South, and they would talk, he says, about the Undermain and “how it championed really adventuresome writing.”

When Wojewodski came to town for the first time in 1995 for a Dallas Theater Center production, he stopped by. He continued to do so whenever his job as artistic director of Yale Repertory Theater (and the dean of the Yale School of Drama) or friendship brought him back this way. Wojewodski never had much intention of settling here, or anywhere really, after leaving Yale in 2002. After 25 years of being an AD, he was “merrily freelancing” right up until his 2004 production of The Importance of Being Earnest. It was, of course, at the Dallas Theater Center. And he was, inevitably, asked to give a talk at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts.

(more…)

This is the first in summer series focusing on the real characters behind Dallas’ theater scene. To read other installments in this series click here.

Lee Trull woke up at thirty, realized he needed glasses and he was going to die one day.

An aspiring actor in his twenties, for Trull, mortality had not been something he had the leisure to consider. Death was a line in a script; he was invincible. He had to be. As an actor, he lived in expectation of rejection, and becoming unbreakable, Trull says, was “just part of it.”

Now 32, the Associate Artist, Casting Director, and member of the Diane and Hal Brierley Resident Acting Company at the Dallas Theater Center admits it takes a certain kind of person to deal with the type of rejection that comes from endless auditioning. To walk into a room and hand someone a picture of yourself, show them your most vulnerable self only to be told “no thank you” is demoralizing, to say the least.

(more…)

Richmond Punch picked up a violin at the age of five and has yet to put it down. He attended Dallas’ Booker T. Washington School of Performing and Visual Arts, conquered Juilliard, and went on to get a Masters of Music at Yale. After spending time traveling both nationally and abroad, Punch now resides in Dallas and is owner of Richmond Punch Productions and is the Artistic Director of the Dallas Uptown Youth Orchestra. We caught up with Punch, who spoke about Dallas’ past and future, his non-profit program, and why we should have faith in the student generation.

(more…)

Brandon Freeman grew up in Longview, TX, he went to the University of Texas and then Southern Methodist University for law school. But while he always had an interest in movies, his career took him down a path of high-stakes finances, working for venture capital firms at the height of the dot com boom and then starting his own businesses and managing multiple funds. Then, in 2008, he urged his brother, actor Heath Freeman, and friend from Austin, director Anthony Burns, to finally sit down and write the script they had always talked about. That launched a rapid paced writing process that found the brothers shooting their East Texas in 1983-based script, called Skateland, by the fall, premiering at Sundance a little over a year later.

We spoke to Freeman at his Dallas office about making the film and the mood of the place and the time period he set his first film.

(more…)

With the current show, Barry Whistler celebrates his 25th year operating his Deep Ellum gallery. We spoke with Whistler about opening and staying open, the changes in Dallas taste and collector base, and how the local art scene has changed in the past 25 years.

FrontRow: So why did you open a gallery?

Barry Whistler: I was working with Laura Carpenter, and she had opened a gallery in New York, and she later moved to Santa Fe. But she was kind of ..read more

At last year’s Dallas International Film Festival, D Magazine sat down with Brotherhood filmmaker Will Canon and the film’s star Trevor Morgan to discuss their film and Texas filmmaking. The film opens at the Angelika this weekend.

To read the review of Brotherhood, go here.

It’s safe to say that The Gonzalez Family (Father Dennis, and sons Aaron and Stefan) is something of an institution in Dallas, one that bridges the gap between the “high” and “low” cultures of jazz and the extreme hardcore found at house shows and DIY spaces.  Indeed, the family’s openness to many different styles of music is the ultimate critic muzzler. On the one hand, if someone found the racket that the two brothers made in Akkolyte too abrasive, then the boys could counter that they toured in Europe playing jazz with their father. Or since free jazz can be a bit on the cerebral side for some audiences, it could be countered that the brothers also spent a lot of time honing the cathartic blasts that makes up the work of Akkolyte.

As Akkolyte approaches the third decade of existence, I thought it would be helpful to take a step back and consider the career thus far of one of the most influential acts in local music. I asked Aaron about the band’s beginnings, the evolution of Dallas’ underground scene, the troubles that have plagued their recording and release process, and his brother Stefan’s recent move to Austin.

(more…)

Painter Erik Parker had an unconventional introduction to the world of art. When the San Antonio-native ran into some legal trouble in high school, the judge offered him an option: get his GED and receive half probation, enroll in a community college and have his probation wiped out. Parker jumped on the opportunity, and while at community college in San Antonio, he began taking art classes. That twist of fate eventually led him to the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied with psychedelic surrealist pop artist Peter Saul, and graduate studies at SUNY Purchase. When he hit the New York art scene in the early-1990s, he was a quick sensation, creating street-inspired work that pieced together the ecology of the New York scene by combining images and text on canvas.

Perhaps it all came too easy. In the mid-2000s, Parker decided to step away from the art world and focus on developing a new approach to his painting. The fruits of these labors are now on view in the latest FOCUS show at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. We spoke to Parker about his paintings, his early life, and his unmistakable use of color.

Image: Erik Parker, Think Twice (2007) (detail), Acrylic and enamel on canvas, 52×42 inches.

Music in video by Pornophonik PK via archive.org

Interview with Erik Parker from Peter Simek on Vimeo.

Regina Taylor has managed to split her career between the stage and the screen. Born in Dallas, Texas and graduating from Southern Methodist University, over the years she has had a success as a film and television actress, appearing in notable films, such as Lean on Me, and TV series like I’ll Fly Away, for which she won a Golden Globe. She has also written numerous works for the stage, and has enjoyed a long term relationship with Chicago’s famed Goodman Theatre. ..read more

The AT&T Performing Arts Center board of directors has elected a new chairman, D. Roger Nanney, a vice chairman at Deloitte LLP, who has served on the Performing Arts Center’s board since 2002. We sat down with Nanney to talk about his transition into this new role, and the center’s transition from a project under construction to an operating venue for the performing arts. You can read the first part of that conversation here. This is part two.

Front Row: How would ..read more

The AT&T Performing Arts Center board of directors has elected a new chairman, D. Roger Nanney, a vice chairman at Deloitte LLP, who has served on the Performing Arts Center’s board since 2002. We sat down with Nanney to talk about his transition into this new role, and the center’s transition from a project under construction to an operating venue for the performing arts. This is the first part of that conversation. Part two will run on FrontRow tomorrow.

FrontRow: How did ..read more

This Friday, Soprano Ailyn Pérez will take her first bow on the Dallas Opera’s stage in the role of Zerlina opposite baritone Paulo Szot in Don Giovanni but it is by no means an introduction to the company. Her husband, tenor Stephen Costello, is making his fifth appearance on the Dallas stage next week as Lord Percy in Anna Bolena. Costello also appeared as Greenhorn in last season’s Moby-Dick debut opposite legendary tenor Ben Heppner. We spoke with Costello and ..read more

The following report comes courtesy of D Magazine intern Taylor Walker, with photos by People Newspapers’ Christina Barany:

“Don’t go into this profession wanting to be a big star.” That seems to be the message Glenn Close wanted the students of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts to take away from her 30-plus years of experience in the industry.

The five-time Oscar-nominated actress and producer Bonnie Curtis (Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence) took a break from raising funds for their ..read more

One of the most well-crafted, well-acted, and terrifying movies to come out this year is David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom, about a Australian crime family in decline. FrontRow spoke to Michôd about the origin of his movie and the make-up of two of the film’s most memorable characters, the suspiciously intimate mother Janine (Jacki Weaver) and older brother Pope, realized in a Oscar-worthy performance by Ben Mendelsohn.

FrontRow: Where did your story for Animal Kingdom come from?

David Michôd: I grew up in ..read more

Tonight the wonderful documentary about the 2009 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, A Surprise in Texas, will air on KERA. It is the film’s third trip though the area this year, having played at the Dallas International Film Festival this past spring, as well as enjoying a run at the Angelika a few months later. The film is well worth catching, if you have been foolish enough to miss it so far. During the Dallas IFF, I had a chance to speak with the documentary’s director, Peter Rosen. You can watch the interview below.

Earlier today, local music site We Shot JR announced it would discontinue posting in October, after almost five years of turning people onto new bands, turning them away from others, and generally being the honest look in the mirror every music community needs. That’s what I will remember most. Not the criticism of other bands/people, but the championing, passionately, of bands/people they liked.

Sometimes they were jerks, yes. Sometimes they picked on bands I like. Sometimes they picked on me. Almost ..read more

The documentary film Restrepo, which follows a platoon of American soldiers on the front lines of the war in Afghanistan in 2007, opens today at the Angelika Film Center. A few weeks ago we sat down with war photographer Tim Hetherington and Sgt. Maj. LaMonta Caldwell, who features in the film, to talk about making the first hand account of life on the front.

Nash Edgerton’s first feature film, The Square, is by no means the director’s first foray into the movie business. Edgerton has been working as a stuntman since the early 1990s, and has also had numerous acting roles as well as a few short films under his belt. It isn’t surprising, then, that The Square shows remarkable maturity for a first time filmmaker. The movie is a non-stop, nail-biting thriller with a cast of everyday characters who breath a great deal ..read more