The Nashville Songwriters Association International’s Denver chapter meets the first Monday of every month at the Academy of the Arts. There, good ol’ boys and girls explore the intricacies of songwriting in a friendly setting. Group members come to have their work critiqued by peers, a process that can generate…
Take an oversized Ronald McDonald, Tron-inspired costume design, giant plastic lobster claws, low-budget martial arts and moon boots. Throw in some warped synthetic ditties dedicated to the Atari classic from which it derives its name, and you’re just scratching the surface of the city’s strangest multimedia phenomenon, Mr. Pacman. The…
Skulls, devils and pentagrams are not involved, but the Bobby Collins Death Metal Armada’s fashion sense perfectly complements its spacey, nitrous pop. The Armada’s revolving wardrobe includes jumpsuits, milkman duds, cardigans, cheesy Christmas sweaters, space-age fabrics, 3-D glasses and beanies. Rumor has it that bubble-wrap coveralls might be in the…
If Bio-Bitch doesn’t pique your interest — or at least elicit a chuckle — then the terrorists really have won…
Moving from singer-songwriter-style pop to intricate noise rock, Worm Trouble bridges the chasm between wispy melodies and blistering riffs with ease. A typical set weaves dozens of radically different sonic threads into a slew of textures that range from delicate to explosive, melancholy to sarcastic. Despite its name, there’s no…
Classically trained and jazzically inclined, Teresa Carroll knows her way around a song — almost any song — because she’s lived a few lyrics herself. A graduate of Thomas Jefferson High School, she studied opera in New York in the 1970s and early ’80s, but she was always drawn to…
Move over Hazel, Nina and Lannie. Though she’s not exactly glamorous and hardly a diva, Madame Andrews is in possession of the city’s most divine set of pipes. When the Heavenly Echoes vocalist and host of KGNU-FM’s Gospel Chime sings her joyous, old-school testimonials to faith, she sends skin crawling…
Too many of the area’s soundmen think a successful night on the job means causing tinnitus in the clientele. Shane Hotle knows better. He keeps the wattage in check and fills the Merc’s glorious upstairs room with a smartly mixed, just-below-capacity sound. The result allows auditory indulgence up front and…
For a city of its size, Denver comes up short on compelling, cliche-free blues acts. But David Booker sings a different song. He’s moved crowds here for decades, thanks to an eye for great material and supporting players — not to mention a voice that wraps around standards like a…
Open Road has undergone a few changes in personnel since its acclaimed debut, Open Road, but that hasn’t slowed the band. The acoustic combo from Lyons continues to serve up pure, traditionally spirited music of the finest kind — an approach that’s drawing attention from around the nation. If the…
As a member of Open Road, Brad Folk handles himself as a country gentleman, a stately vocalist in a traditional bluegrass band. When fronting his trio, however, he turns into something else entirely — a restrained, yowling wildcat. His act is real gone, all right, dishing out the meanest early-’50s…
For almost ten years, Les Cooper and his Dalharts have carried the torch for honest-to-gawd country. Good thing they had the patience to stick it out, because the Dalharts have matured into one heck of a fine band. Thanks to Les’s rich bray, Tim Cooper’s sugarcane steel-guitar playing and the…
Run by Andrew Murphy, a spry and indefatigable supporter of homegrown music, Boulder-based Smooch Records has done more than just put out records: The label has helped cultivate an identity for the grassroots network of independent artists who make and record music in the Front Range. The sporadic Smooch live…
Cut live at the Boulder Theater in 1996, So Long of a Journey captures one of the finest acts to emerge from the contemporary bluegrass scene in all its glory: From the traditional favorite “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” to the joyous “Won’t You Come and Sing for Me,”…
The Corvairs never made much of an impact nationwide, but the band was among Colorado’s hottest new-wave acts in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and Denver Sessions ’79 perfectly captures the era. The music can be goofy at times — “T.V.” interpolates the theme to The Munsters — and…
Otis Taylor is among the most ambitious blues performers on the planet, as Respect the Dead demonstrates. Rather than churning out good-timey blues for tourists or mimicking the styles of yesteryear, he uses his compositions to explore issues of love, history, race and justice. Songs like “Ten Million Slaves,” “32nd…
Exposed is about as pure a jazz CD as you’re apt to find: Like all Creative Improvised Music Projects offerings, it was recorded directly onto a computer without compression, echo or any post-production tampering. As a result, listeners can hear every nuance in regularly enthralling performances by saxophonist Fred Hess…
Dotsero bassist Michael Friedman reaches beyond his usual smooth-jazz audience with Swingset Jazz, an album of adaptations of children’s standards like “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Though the album is meant to be educational as well as fun, Friedman may be able to trick kids into thinking it’s just…
We all know the altitude is to blame for everything, from a cheap pop-up at Coors Field turning into a tape-measure home run to the somewhat sorry state of sushi. But since when did it cause locals to become hard of hearing? What else could explain the release of a…
Former Jux County frontman and current Czar Andy Monley released Denver, his first solo CD, in January. A collection of songs Monley wrote in his downtime over a couple of years, the album features guest cameos from a fine group of local players, including guitarist Janet Feder, Mike Serviolo, Monkey…
Those who’ve resisted the charms of Dressy Bessy in the past complained that the four-piece’s music was too cute, too sweet, too cuddly. But on Sound Go Round, too much feels just right. Each ditty here is an irresistible hook-o-rama whose allure is magnified by lead singer Tammy Ealom’s winsome…
Singer-songwriter/guitarist Marc Benning understands that power pop only succeeds when its two primary components are kept in perfect balance — and on Stop, he achieves his aim more often than not. “Get Out Alive,” “Caroline,” “Smoke From a Funeral” and many other tracks here are compulsively hummable without seeming wimpy,…
