When talk turns to Fort Worth’s best musical exports, one name near the top of the list (if not at the top) is Burning Hotels. Over the past decade-plus, co-songwriters and -frontmen Chance Morgan and Matt Mooty have produced more than a handful of cosmopolitan rock songs that in a perfect world would have achieved U2/Coldplay-like status by now. Alas …
Frontman, founder, and co-songwriter Tim Locke has pretty pipes, crazy-good guitar chops, and the ability to pen often poignant, mostly wry lyrics. With co-songwriter Jordan Roberts, Locke has transformed Calhoun into a must-see –– and -hear –– regional experience. A new recording, Paperweights, is on the way. A mostly post-rock group, Cleanup delves into jazz and prog but always keeps melody at the fore, and there are more than a few moments of loudness. The band’s debut recording, Whatever Your Place Might Be, is a nominee for EP of the year.
After years of plucking out folk noir as mainly a solo act, Clint Niosi got some badass backing musicians, picked up his hollow-body Gretsch, and plugged in. Enter: The Unaccountable. His dark and often darkly comic material hasn’t lost any of its bite, though.
Constant Seas create swirling, atmospheric, and sometimes bombastic soundscapes that call to mind the handiwork of post-rock giants Tortoise and occasionally the formerly Fort Worth-based American Analog Set.
FORT WORTH WEEKLY MUSIC AWARDS feStIvAl 2013 11