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Paramount+ has dropped the first teaser trailer for Lawmen: Bass Reeves, the Western drama from Yellowstone creator Taylor Sheridan that's been filming around North Texas for months, and it seems "wicked days" are ahead.

Sheridan's new series stars British actor David Oyelowo as Bass Reeves, a former slave who became one of the first Black U.S. deputy marshals west of the Mississippi River in 1875. Reeves is believed to have been the inspiration for the fictional character the Lone Ranger.

Originally announced as a Yellowstone spinoff called 1883: Bass Reeves, the title has changed, and it's now not considered part of the Yellowstone universe, a rep for the show says. None of the Yellowstone/1883/Dutton family characters will be in the show.

In the 20-second teaser, Oyelowo rides a horse across a field and introduces himself as Reeves in a voiceover. "I'm the law of this land, I'm Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves," he says. Then he then looks directly into the camera and declares, "and your wicked days are done."

There are flashes of guns shooting, cannons firing, and a house burning. A tagline reads: "The legend you know. The truth you don't."

According to Vanity Fair, Lawmen: Bass Reeves will be an eight-part anthology series that will premiere later this year on Paramount+. Sheridan and Oyelowo are executive producers.

The cast includes Dennis Quaid, Donald Sutherland, Mo Brings Plenty, Lauren E. Banks, Demi Singleton, Forrest Goodluck, and Barry Pepper.

Fort Worth mayor Mattie Parker announced in September 2022 that Bass Reeves filming would be coming to Fort Worth, following Yellowstone prequel 1883, which filmed around the city in 2021. Sheridan is an honorary Fort Worthian who attended Pascal High School and lives on a ranch in Weatherford.

Shooting for Bass Reeves started in early 2023, and many locals were cast as extras. The production was based in Fort Worth and scenes were filmed in Weatherford, Waxahachie, Stephenville, and Palo Pinto County.

"We were honored to have this production based in Fort Worth during filming and are looking forward to the series premiere later this year," the Fort Worth Film Commission posted on Facebook with a link to the trailer.

Photo courtesy of Paramount+

Paramount Network to air all 10 episodes of North Texas-filmed 'Yellowstone' spinoff '1883'

Revisiting 1883

Fans of 1883, circle Sunday, June 18 on your calendar: Taylor Sheridan's Dallas-Fort Worth-shot Yellowstone prequel is coming to Paramount Network for an encore performance.

According to Deadline, the special broadcast of Episode 1 (set in Fort Worth) begins at 7 pm Sunday, June 18, with subsequent episodes airing each week. All 10 episodes will include extended featurettes at the end of each episode.

Again, this is Paramount Network (home to Yellowstone) and not the streaming service Paramount+, so non-streamers who missed out on the award-winning series the first time around can catch this go-round through their cable provider or any other way they access cable networks.

Yellowstone and 1883 follow the lives of the Duttons, first with the modern-day Western drama of the John Dutton family, then with the late 19th-century story of James and Margaret Dutton’s move west across the U.S.

Parts of 1883 were filmed in around Fort Worth, Granbury, and Weatherford in late summer of 2021 - convenient for Sheridan, who lives on a ranch in Weatherford.

The series stars country supercouple Tim McGraw and Faith Hill as patriarch and matriarch James and Margaret Dutton; Hollywood legend Sam Elliott as Shea Brennan, Billy Bob Thornton as U.S. Marshal Jim Courtright; and Isabel May as the Duttons' teenage daughter and the series' narrator.

1883 debuted in December 2021 on Paramount+ and reportedly set a premiere record of 4.9 million households. Elliott earned a Screen Actors Guild award for Outstanding Performance by Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his role.

While 1883 did not get renewed for a second season, Sheridan moved on to 1923, starring Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren. Yellowstone's newest spinoff, 1883: Bass Reeves, is currently being filmed in North Texas.

And there's a new Texas connection: Actor Matthew McConaughey is starring in yet another spinoff, as Yellowstone is expected to end after the current season.

Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Texas' Matthew McConaughey in talks with Taylor Sheridan for 'Yellowstone' spinoff, report says

'Yellowstone' news

The Dutton family drama has come to Texas again - this time, off screen.

According to a February 6 report by Deadline, Matthew McConaughey is in talks with Taylor Sheridan for a Yellowstone spinoff. Neither the Austin-based actor nor the Weatherford-based series creator has confirmed the report, but Deadline typically gets its Yellowstone scoops right.

Exactly WHY McConaughey may enter the Yellowstone world, however, has whipped media and fans into a frenzy. Deadline says it "understands" that Sheridan will end the show after this season due to scheduling conflicts with star Kevin Costner. Costner just won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of family patriarch John Dutton but also is directing and starring in the Western series Horizon.

"For the second batch of episodes of the current, fifth season of Yellowstone, the actor ... only wanted to spend a week shooting," the magazine says. "This has been a source of frustration for Sheridan and it is understood to be causing morale problems for the other stars of the show."

Deadline's sources tell them that Paramount Network has declined Costner’s most recent proposal and "instead has made the decision to move on to the other show."

Enter McConaughey, the cowboy-hatted hero, riding in on his horse to save the day. Sheridan will write McConaughey in as the star of the new franchise; they're in negotiations now, reports say.

In response to Deadline's reporting, Paramount Network issued a "hold your horses" statement: "We have no news to report," they say. "Kevin Costner is a big part of Yellowstone and we hope that’s the case for a long time to come. Thanks to the brilliant mind of Taylor Sheridan, we are always working on franchise expansions of this incredible world he has built. Matthew McConaughey is a phenomenal talent with whom we’d love to partner."

It's not known where the McConaughey-led series would be set, or where it would be filmed.

North Texans, of course, will vote for North Texas.

DFW is already the home of Taylor Sheridan’s upcoming Paramount+ limited series about Bass Reeves, the once-enslaved man who became a famed federal marshal; the series is reportedly filming in Waxahachie later this month. Sheridan's Yellowstone prequel 1883 also was shot in Fort Worth.

Texas, as a whole, is home to five of the top 25 best cities for filmmakers, according to MovieMaker Magazine.

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New burger joint in McKinney with chef toppers and full bar is a sizzler

Burger News

McKinney has a new burger joint that is already lighting up the Collin County foodie scene. Called Loyo Burger, it's part of the Local Yocal empire, and is newly opened in downtown McKinney at 216 W. Virginia St. #102, in the space next to Sugarbacon that has had some turnover (it was one a location of the Mad For Chicken chain).

The Local Yocal empire starts with Local Yocal Farm to Market, the artisanal butcher shop founded by rancher Matt Hamilton in McKinney in 2010. That was followed Local Yocal BBQ and Grill, a steakhouse and BBQ restaurant he opened in 2018.

Now comes Loyo - an abbreviation culled from Local Yocal - featuring a chef-driven menu of burgers with bold toppings, and featuring patties made from a blend of Wagyu ground beef, supplied by the butcher shop.

According to the restaurant team, Loyo was inspired by the best selling burger at Local Yocal BBQ & Grill. It's a gourmet cheeseburger with Tillamook cheddar, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, and sauce - but with ingredients made from scratch including house-made pickles and house-made sauce.

Loyo is similar to "better burger" concepts like Hopdoddy Burger Bar, with a lineup of burger options, most made from beef but also chicken, salmon, and veggie, as follows:

  • Spicy Vaquero with jalapeño, caramelized onion, tortilla strips, tomato, smashed avocado, ghost pepper jack, and chi mayo
  • Berry goat with a mixed berry bacon onion jam, goat cheese, and arugula
  • Cowboy breakfast with bacon, fried egg, smashed tots, American cheese, and charred jalapeno/tomato jam
  • Wagyu Yaki, with coffee rub, grilled pineapple, Tillamook cheddar, fried onion, arugula, bourbon teriyaki, & Fresno Chile mayo
  • Crispy chicken thigh sandwich with pickles & Nashville hot sauce
  • Salmon patty with roasted tomato, capers, kalamata olive, arugula, and dill mayo
  • Dan burger, a quarter-pound patty with mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, & Duke’s mayo

The name of their veggie burger is amusing: It's called “Necessary Evil” and consists of a housemate patty with avocado, tomato, Bibb lettuce, and crispy onions.

Sides include fries, garlic & sea salt tater tots, sweet potato fries, onion rings, fried pickles, and pork rinds. Fries are hand-cut, not too thick but not too thin, and onion rings are large and crunchy.

To get an idea of how exacting it all is, here's the description for their fried pickles: "Housemade Fried Pickles - Kirby cucumbers pickled in-house, breaded in a scratch-made batter, fried and served with our housemade ranch."

There are also two salads, a house salad and a Greek, with an ice cream sandwich for dessert.

Prices run from $11 to $14 for the burgers, and sides are $3 to $5. They also have a full bar, although a spokesperson says that for now, they have cocktails and beer only; wine is still TK.

It's a handsome space with a rustic vibe featuring wood tables and shiplap on the walls. Service is streamlined: You place your order sy a kiosk and they bring the food to you.

Queens of the Stone Age add 8 dates to winter tour including Dallas

queens of rock

Calling all Teenage Hand Models, Little Sisters, and Carnavoyeurs. Queens of the Stone Age are coming to town.

Joshua Homme and his bandmates have added eight new stops to their “The End is Nero” tour and that includes the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving on December 10.

They'll also stop at the Moody Center in Austin on December 8 and Houston’s 713 Music Hall on Saturday, December 9. British rock band Spiritualized will open.

QOTSA is touring behind its latest album, In Times New Roman. Released in June, the album went to number one in four countries, including six charts in the U.S. — Vinyl, Independent, Alternative, Digital, Rock, and Hard Music album sales charts. Hailed as a return to the band’s hard rocking roots, it deals with such light-hearted subjects as Homme’s divorce from Distillers founder Brody Dale.

The tour launched on August 3 in Michigan and has the band criss-crossing the U.S. before heading to Europe for the month of November.

Judging by intel from the band’s recent stops, fans should expect a setlist that pulls from QOTSA’s entire, 20-plus year history, including fan favorites such as "No One Knows," "Little Sister," and "A Song for the Dead."

Tickets go on sale Friday, September 22 via livenation.com. Various pre-sales are also available.

Newly announced dates for The End is Nero Tour include:

12/05/23 - Phoenix - Arizona Financial Theatre
12/06/23 - El Paso - Abraham Chavez Theatre
12/08/23 - Austin - Moody Center
12/09/23 - Houston - 713 Music Hall
12/10/23 - Irving – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
12/12/23 - Albuquerque - Revel ABQ
12/15/23 - San Diego - Viejas Arena
12/16/23 - Los Angeles - Kia Forum

Dallas choral group Verdigris Ensemble promises multi-sensory new season

Season Announcement

A mere month after announcing the hiring of its new executive director, acclaimed choral group Verdigris Ensemble is lifting the curtain on its seventh season.

It centers on the theme of “Regrowth,” with each multi-sensory performance telling a Texas-based story focused on both challenges and opportunities for environmental justice and community renewal.

To actually walk the walk, every ticket purchased this season will support Texas Trees Foundation’s planting efforts in the state to deliver on the promise of regrowth.

The season opens with The Endangered, a synergistic collaboration between Verdigris Ensemble and Dallas Contemporary Museum of Art.

This vocal and orchestral experience combines with movement and projections to look honestly and compassionately at natural preservation. The work is firmly planted in Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for The Endangered, with a libretto by poet/writer Nathaniel Bellows.

Text from five Dallas poets is set to music by five regional composers. It runs October 27-29, 2023, at Dallas Contemporary.

The second performance series, Beautification, continues at the Dallas Contemporary December 1-3, 2023, and celebrates a unique collaboration inspired by site-specific work with visual artist Bianca Bondi.

Commissioning 8-10 composers, this work weaves together a narrative of Ladybird Johnson’s Highway Beautification Act and the native flowers of Texas. The Act was passed in 1965 and created restrictions on highway billboards that detracted from the natural beauty of Texas landscapes, and seeds of native flowers were distributed to bring native beauty to road travelers.

Projections of individual flowers envelop audience members in an experience much like driving a car on a highway. Iconic audio pieces of Ladybird’s speeches make the program a cohesive experience.

Dust Bowl, the season’s third performance, combines a unique medley of bluegrass band, video projection, and choreographed movement. The work shares stories from the period of the Dust Bowl through previously unexplored mediums and confronts questions of what caused this ecological disaster and what was learned from it.

This fan favorite debuted in 2020 and returns to Dallas in 2024 with an original libretto and added musical material.

The Dust Bowl began in 1931 and lasted for almost a decade, displacing entire populations in the Southern Plains region of the United States. Setting texts from newspaper articles, diaries, and oral accounts of survivors, the work pieces together a period of human struggle, hopefulness, and perseverance in the face of constant catastrophe. It runs February 23-25, 2024, at the Wyly Theatre' Potter Rose Performance Hall.

The season finale, Mis-Lead, is composed by Kirsten Soriano and premieres featuring 16 vocalists and basic percussion instruments found in factories that resonate throughout the production.

In 1934, a lead smelter was opened in West Dallas, resulting in toxic byproducts being dumped into nearby landfills and around people's homes. For over four decades, residents suffered consistent symptoms resulting in chronic diseases and death due to higher-than-normal levels of lead in their bodies.

This artistic piece brings attention to these communities, documenting the facts to prevent similar events in our future, while fostering human connection from all sides of the cultural spectrum. It runs April 5-7, 2024, at the Kalita Humphreys Theater.

Founded in 2017, Verdigris Ensemble is a Dallas-based professional choir dedicated to bringing choral music to the modern audience through creative concert programming, unconventional use of space, and collaboration.

Focusing on story-driven musical narratives, Verdigris Ensemble commissions new works, collaborates with interdisciplinary artists, inspires new audiences, and invests in the next generation of musicians.

Tickets may be purchased at www.verdigrismusic.org. Discount pricing is available for students.