With all of the upheavals in the Denver radio market these days, the climate of competitiveness seems to have everyone ready to launch a defensive strike — even if it’s at the wrong target. On Thursday, October 5, in addition to representatives from the House of Blues and RCA Records,…
Hugh Ragin is just one of the local jazz luminaries who will light up the stage at Vartans Jazz Club and Restaurant on Friday, October 13. The expressive trumpet player (and recent nominee for Best Jazz Artist in Westwords Music Awards Showcase) will be joined by excellent concert pianist Joe…
San Diegos Pinback, Friday, October 13, at the 15th Street Tavern with Acrobat Down and Oer the Ramparts, combines the considerable talents of Armistead Burwell Smith IV (aka Zach), who served as the heart of Three Mile Pilot, and Robert Rulon Crow Junior. Yet unlike the heavier sounds that emanated…
Two weeks ago, an item in this column mentioned that Mike “Big Mike” Colin plays bass with the excellent hip-hop and free-jazz collective, Ratiocination, a band with almost enough players to line a dugout at the World Series. Now, it appears, Colin can scratch Ratio duties off an already overfull…
Bettie Serveert, Thursday, October 5, at Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, with Counting Crows and Live, has spent the last couple of years outside of the indie spotlight cast upon it following a series of well-received outings for Matador; after being dropped from the label, the Dutch band has finally released Private…
So far, it’s been a busy, not to mention fruitful, year for America’s entertainment lawyers, a group that is probably alone in its enjoyment of the current climate of squabbling — and litigation — over music-ownership issues (cocaine dealers the world over are probably already scrambling to fill orders in…
Good people of Denver, Backwash would like to reintroduce you to Mike Colin, the former leader of proto-punk/funk locals Phantazmorgasm (later Phantasmorgasm), who respectfully bowed out of the local scene roughly two years ago. Before doing so, the multi-instrumentalist and producer oversaw some of the area’s more original and definition-defying…
If you frequent upscale coffeehouses or shopping malls or listen to a lot of public radio, its possible that you have heard the music of Darren Curtis Skanson — Friday, September 22, through Sunday, September 24, at FlatIron Crossing — without even realizing it. The classical guitarist, who formerly served…
Things seem a bit peculiar over at nobody in particular presents, the local promotions house you no doubt recognize from all of those ticket stubs on the floor of your car. Last week, Russ Austin, who was then serving as NIPP’s local booking agent, was informed that his services were…
Those performers who toiled in vaudeville and burlesque circles after the turn of the century knew you had to have a gimmick — hence the introduction of battery-operated lingerie and fetishism to striptease. Around the World in 80 Girls, Saturday, September 16, at the Gothic Theatre, continues the tradition by…
Apoptygma Berzerk, Tuesday, September 19, at the Gothic Theatre, with VNV Nation and Noxious Emotion, is proof that Norway has a sinister side thats barely hinted at in all that Viking lore. Bearing a moniker that translates to dead man moving,: the abrasive, beat-heavy industrial band springs from the prolific…
Christian missionaries have long believed that of the many requirements that must be met on the road to salvation, converting the savage masses is pretty high on the list. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club — whose lyrical preoccupation with the Good Book can be viewed as either a stern insistence on…
You have only one night — Thursday, September 7, at the Boulder Theater — to absorb The Theory of Everything. The evening of improvisational music mates five of Boulders favorite genre-jamming sons: Kyle Hollingsworth (pictured) and Michael Kang of the String Cheese Incident; soon-to-be-departed Leftover Salmon bassist Tye North; Tony…
The secret is out. After two years without an American record label to call its own, 16 Horsepower is releasing Secret South on the New York-based major-minor Razor & Tie on Tuesday. Though the release has been circulating and selling well in Europe since April — shortly after David Eugene…
Documentary filmmakers view rock and roll as an inexhaustible well of material, and their efforts to chronicle important musicians have resulted in some mighty fine cinema, including Dont Look Back (1967), which managed to show a young Bob Dylan as both a genius and a brat, and Gimme Shelter (1970),…
The sometimes-shlong-bearing Kevin Bacon (remember Wild Things?) really screwed up cocktail hour for a nation of stoned cinemaphiles and desperate party hosts with his recent appearance in the inexplicably stinky flick Hollow Man. Starring alongside an invisible person kind of complicates the playing of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” Think…
Raw Material 3, Friday, August 25, and Saturday, August 26, at the Banyan Market, provides a variation on a familiar expression by proving that, in the world of experimental, electronic music, everyone dances to his own drum machine. The third event of its kind sponsored by Ancient Desert Sounds and…
If you are not a member of the swelling crowd of beautiful people who frequent local raves and dance clubs, the first annual Colorado Dance Music Awards held last Friday night at the Ogden Theatre might have left you feeling as though you’d accidentally stumbled into an outtake from Blade…
Maybe law enforcement’s resistance to the idea of increased rave activity on the Front Range is due to a simple matter of taste (and a generation gap). After all, sheriffs are people, too, and they just might find the events less threatening if the music wasn’t so strange. (Arapahoe County…
Rocky Mountain News society scribe Dahlia Jean Weinstein recently made a discovery that doubtlessly caused followers of the lively local electronic dance music scene to accidentally let the baby pacifiers in their mouths drop to the floor along with their jaws: Apparently, Weinstein reported in a full-color spread in the…
Once upon a time, deejaying was considered the sole province of menfolk. Recently, however, a crop of female turntablists have put their own spin on that perception and emerged as creative and progressive practitioners of the craft. FIRE (Female Ingenuity Redefining Energy), Friday, August 18, at Rock Island, aims to…
The life of Ohio’s Brainiac came to a sharp, sad and unexpected close in 1997: Vocalist/keyboardist Tim Taylor was killed in a car accident just as the band he helped start was accelerating its experiments with avant-garde indie noise pop. Led by Brainiac guitarist John Schmersal, Enon, Wednesday, August 23,…
