Dallas Band Releases Album That Feels Like An Instant Classic

Our daily roundup of Texas headlines.

By Becky Fogel August 18, 2016 11:03 am

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting, sometimes irreverent, and breaking news stories from all over the state.

An album called “Texas Rock Bottom” is out this week by the Dallas band Rangers. For our Thursday new music series, “Cut In,” KERA Art&Seek writer Lyndsay Knecht says this could be the state’s breakthrough album for 2016:

Joe Knight always works alone. His first tapes in 2008 were scraps rescued from a storehouse of hooks and sounds he made. Under the name Rangers, Knight was a collagist of his own personal archives.

Straight-ahead pop songs come naturally to him, though. New York-based label Olde English Spelling Bee has put some of them out but Knight keeps a low profile. He’ll have a harder time doing so with “Texas Rock Bottom,” a collection of brutally honest guitar-driven, post-punk influenced rock songs that feel like instant classics.

This song’s called “Never Again,” a downer that’s cathartic in its ability to face tough times head on – and maybe with the windows down, driving to somewhere roots don’t trip you up.




A state court has tossed out Laredo’s plastic bag ban. The Fourth Court of Appeals sided with merchants over city officials hoping to pretty up the city and reduce waste. The Texas Tribune reports Laredo used to go through an estimated 120 million plastic bags per year.




Recently the Texas Rangers were considering the possibility of constructing a massive shade canopy to cool off Globe Life Park. They ultimately called for a new stadium instead.

But before pitching that plan, they looked at yet another option – one with Olympic overtones. Max Baker covered the story for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He says one abandoned possibility for revamping the stadium involved something called a concentric ring.

“And the concentric ring is a modern-style looking thing that you see at a lot of Olympic stadiums and the team decided that would look funny on a traditionally designed ballpark,” Baker says. “And even though it was much cheaper discarded that idea.”

Baker says plans for a space-age ring or massive shade structure didn’t stick in part, because they’d change the current stadium’s character too much.

“The residents of Arlington and the fans of the baseball team love the current ballpark,” he says. “And I think the Rangers have run into a lot of negative feelings about the fact that the public loves this ballpark and the way it looks and they have fond memories of it.”

Arlington voters will decide whether to finance a new ballpark this November.