An Indie Scene That Comes With a Texas Twang in Denton

May 11, 2008|Lionel Beehner

WITH its Piggly Wiggly markets and dusty pawnshops, the Texas college town of Denton does not look the part of a Woodstock in waiting. A Romanesque courthouse juts out of the central square, as in that fictional town in “Back to the Future.” And whenever the local college football team plays at Fouts Field, the entire town seems to put on Mean Green T-shirts.

But wander into the Panhandle House, a barnlike recording studio on North Locust Street, and you’ll find Midlake, a five-person band whose music the British newspaper The Guardian has called “a dreamy concoction of Tom Petty and the Yardbirds.” Actually, the band is ensconced in the dingy storage room next door, which they have turned into a makeshift shrine to the 1970s — patchouli incense, wood paneling and vintage vinyl — that befits their retro three-guitar sound.

“We really wanted to create this warmth and ascetic vibe that matched our music, right down to the curtains,” said Eric Pulido, Midlake’s lanky guitarist.

The band was meticulously recording their much-anticipated third studio album, though it was hard to tell on this recent Friday afternoon. The room was littered with empty beer cans, and the recording equipment looked as cheap as a pawnshop special. “We’re definitely not gear heads,” added Tim Smith, the fuzzy-bearded front man.

Midlake may be the current poster boys for Denton’s indie music scene — with gushy write-ups in Rolling Stone and cameos among its members for trendy causes like Al Gore’s We Campaign — but they are not the only ones vying for that title. The town’s lo-fi sound, a mélange of Southern twang and experimental indie-rock that suggests Wilco and Radiohead, has garnered an eclectic following that stretches from alt-country die-hards and college radio listeners to MySpace fanatics and clubbers in Europe.

At last count, more than 100 bands were polishing their sound in the city’s dive bars, rooftop spaces and fraternity basements. Even the local record store, a converted opera house called Recycled, has a section devoted to Denton bands. The bin dividers read like a Lollapalooza T-shirt: Lift to Experience, Centro-matic, Jetscreamer, Vortexas, Robert Gomez, Stanton Meadowdale, Mom, Mandarin, and Matthew and the Arrogant Sea, to name just a few.

Not bad for a college town of 110,000, prompting more than a few music industry insiders to call Denton the next Austin.

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