18 July 30 - August 5, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents a heartbroken groom become a ballad. Then he sent it out into the world and let some serious talent fingerprint it. The record was co-produced in Montreal with Kid Koala — celebrated turntablist, pro- ducer and one-third of Deltron 3030 — who cut tracks to vinyl, scratched them back in and ran everything through vintage drum machines until the songs had a lived-in crackle. Mark Glick of AJJ added cello. Matt Pence (Shakey Graves, Centro-Matic) han- dled drums and mixing. Mastering engineer Matthew Barnhart, whose credits span records by the Mountain Goats, Superchunk and the New Pornographers, brought it home. The result swings between stripped- down piano confessions and high-energy, theatrical indie-pop with a driving locomo- tion rhythm — the sad and the happy hold- ing hands the whole way through.Michener is aware, painfully aware, that “Denton weird” can curdle into shtick if you’re not careful. It keeps him honest. “I have to make the music good,” he said, “or it is all just a gimmick, right?” He needn’t worry. The album lands its emotional gut-punches precisely because the quirk earns them. By the time you reach the closing benediction — “If you tell some- one they’re brave and you look them in the eye, do not be surprised when one day you look to find their courage multiplied” — the whole record snaps into focus. It’s not a con- cept album about neighbors. It’s a working theory of how kindness compounds. Texas heat: 1, secret front yard show: 0 Michener has grown allergic to the usual venue routine — the rising costs, the pre-sales, the sense that a room could hold any band on any night. So, he set out to throw that model out entirely, with plans for a secret front yard performance that felt ripped straight from the album’s own final chapter — a neighborhood gathering beneath a barbed-wire arch with a keyboard perched on a repurposed nativity manger, the story literally eating its own tail. The front yard version, we’re told, will hap- pen when things cool off. For now, Michener will perform “Bravest Neighbor” solo, front to back, for the very first time — narrating the complete story as he goes, in a room lined with used records and books. It’s a different kind of perfect. It’s still a Fishboy show: one night only, unrepeatable, exactly weird enough.”I very much enjoy playing shows where you get the sense that, oh, this show is only going to be this way once,” he said. The show is free for all ages. It’s also your first chance to grab the new CD, the vinyl and Michener’s original artwork. And keep an eye out for the “Brave Bunny” merch — hand- made by his wife, an art teacher, who’s been surprising him with everything from stitched goods to a giant sewn balloon. “This album isn’t even a hit yet,” he laughed. “We don’t know if people want the Brave Bunny stuff.” (Reader, we suspect they will.) There’s also a 200-page, hand-illustrated read-along graphic novel in the works to accompany the whole thing, because of course there is. Photo provided by Adam Neese Fishboy’s Eric Michener Gone Fishin’ from p17
