Dallas

Rewind Music and More-Dallas, TX

Blues, Dallas, entertainment, Gospel Music, Hip Hop, music, rap, Record Stores, Shopping

Rewind Music and More is one of Dallas’ premiere stores for hip-hop, gospel and blues CD’s and mixtapes. After a number of years in Oak Cliff’s Wynnewood Village, they have relocated to a store front at 3823 Ross Avenue just northeast of downtown Dallas. They’re definitely worth a visit for any fans of Texas rap. And remember, there’s no experience quite like visiting an independent record store. 

Kottonmouth-Dallas Hardhitters

Albums, Dallas, entertainment, Hip Hop, music, rap

From his beginning as one-half of the legendary Texas rap group P.K.O., Kottonmouth has been a consistent figure on the Texas rap scene. Now he returns with a new album Dallas Hardhitters, featuring appearances from Tum Tum, Lil Keke, Trae and Mr. Pookie, which will hit stores on February 21. This is not an album to be missed.

08/30/08: Texas Summer Music Conference, Dallas

Dallas, entertainment, events, Hip Hop, music, Music Conferences, rap

Wes had to speak at a morning panel at 10 AM, so I decided not to leave the hotel for breakfast, and Doc and Hood met me down in the lobby and we went to the 619 North bistro in the hotel for breakfast, and soon Wes joined us. The food was good, but overpriced, and Wes’ panel was postponed because nobody got up early enough, since they had been up at clubs until at least 2 AM.
When it finally got underway, Jeremy Miller spoke at length about The Source magazine, and then he headed out to his son’s football game in Oklahoma City. I had been headed to lunch at Goff’s Charcoal Broiled Hamburgers, but Wes talked me into eating lunch at the hotel restaurant instead.
I spent much of the afternoon in bed with a headache, but I felt better later and got back up, and Wes decided to drive out to Houston to meet with Chaney Welch. I got with Doc and Hood, and they decided to ride out with me to Pappadeaux’s on Oak Lawn Avenue, where we ate dinner. I had the shrimp en brochette for the first time, and it was really good.
After stopping by Cafe Brazil for coffee, we headed back to the hotel, and they rode out to the lingerie party downtown. I decided to hang around the hotel since it was too late to ride the Trinity River Express train to Stars Jazz Club in Fort Worth, and a rapper from Waco drove up to meet with me, but he didn’t get there until 2 AM. It was finally 3 AM when I got to bed.

08/29/08: Texas Summer Music Conference, Dallas

Dallas, entertainment, events, Food, Hip Hop, Memphis, music, rap, Restaurants, Travel

I checked out of the Hyatt Regency since this was the first day of the Texas Summer Music Conference, and I drove up Cedar Springs to Cafe Brazil for breakfast. Then I drove down to the Westin City Center Hotel on Pearl Street to register for the conference, but they had not opened the conference registration yet. So I sat in the lobby networking and talking with labels, and I called the Presidential Trap House people from Oklahoma City who had left posters in the lobby.
Once I did get registered, I learned that the conference had provided a hotel room for me and another hotel room for Wes Phillips, who was driving in from Jackson, Mississippi and had called me from Tallulah, Louisiana. While sitting in the lobby, I ran into Doc and Hood, the rap duo from Oklahoma City that had impressed me so at the Oklahoma Music Conference back in 2006, and I was sorry to learn from them that BJ, the founder of that conference had been killed a couple of months before.
Wes arrived in the early evening, but I got caught by Mike the conference organizer and was corralled into the opening showcase of the music conference, which I wouldn’t have minded except that I was so hungry. The talent was better than average, however, and especially impressive was a little boy from Dallas called Bentley Green, who rapped three songs from his upcoming album, and who had been rapping since he was three years old. I finally left the hotel and drove over to Lower Greenville to Daddy Jack’s, but I was fairly disappointed at the limited menu. I finally chose a broiled lobster tail, and it was very good, but also quite expensive. Then I drove out to Cafe Brazil for coffee and dessert, and then I headed back to the hotel, networking and interacting with the conference attendees.
The hotel was also really neat, sitting on one side of a vast plaza, complete with ice-skating rink, and with the meeting rooms on the opposite side of the plaza. There was no real exhibit hall area, only a few tables set up outside the main ballroom, so people tended to gather and hang out in the lobby, and in the restaurant/bar. I met with the Presidential Trap House label there in the restaurant, and then later the hotel began serving pizzas and sodas in the lobby. There had been some sort of modeling event at a downtown club, but I stayed at the hotel and got to bed around 2 in the morning.

8/27/08: The Freddie Jones Quartet at the Brooklyn Jazz Cafe, Dallas

Bands, Dallas, Drummers, Drums, entertainment, events, Food, Hip Hop, jazz, Memphis, music, Music Conferences, rap, Record Stores, Restaurants, soul, Travel, Vinyl

The Cupboard in West Memphis had started selling breakfast, so I stopped there on my way out of town, and then I continued west on I-40. It was National Truck Drivers Week, and in honor of that, a truckstop in North Little Rock was giving away free lunches, a fact which had created a major traffic jam at Exit 161.
I had miscalculated the start of the Texas Summer Music Conference, and had taken a day off work that I probably hadn’t needed to, but since I had already made my plans, I had gone on Priceline.com and booked a hotel room in Dallas for Wednesday and Thursday nights (they had put me in the Hyatt Regency Reunion), and I reasoned that this would give me a free day in Dallas on Thursday to go around to the record stores with posters and promotional CDs.
Below Little Rock on I-30, I began having a problem with drowsiness, so, at Texarkana, I stopped at a Starbucks, and then I headed on into East Texas, stopping at Greenville to go by a Hastings Music in the hopes of finding CDs by The Southern Sea or Tree With Lights. Unfortunately, they had neither of them there.
I had considered eating dinner at Culpepper Cattle Company in Rockwall, but after checking their menu on my iPhone, I learned they had both remodeled and increased their prices dramatically, so I decided to eat at the Saltgrass Steakhouse there instead, and it was quite good. The sun was beginning to set over Lake Ray Hubbard as I stopped at a Starbucks after dinner, and then I headed on into Dallas.
I headed first to Good Records in Lower Greenville, where I found a couple of Numero Eccentric Soul reissues that I didn’t have, as well as CDs by the Sound In Action Trio and the Papercuts. Then I headed over to South Lamar Street, and stuck my head briefly into Bill’s Records before heading down the street to the Brooklyn Jazz Cafe, where the Dallas Observer had said the Freddie Jones Quartet would be playing. The cafe was large, nearly a block long, and was full of people. Freddie Jones proved to be an excellent trumpeter, and his quartet was exciting, if a little funk-oriented. I am not usually a fan of R & B-influenced jazz, but this group was exciting, particularly the drummer and bass-player. At an intermission, I met the trumpeter, and learned that he was originally from South Memphis-it’s a rather small world after all. During the rest of the night, he used two other drummers, and I tried to buy a Brooklyn Jazz Cafe T-shirt, but the owner had taken the key to the shirt-case with her when she left for the day.
I had worried about finding the Hyatt Regency Hotel, but I had no difficulty finding it once I drove into the Reunion area, and once I got checked in, the pool was closed, so I headed up to my room.