Well, Andy Thomas and I — with the help of Jon Solomon, who sat in with us for the second half of the show — made it through the second edition of Mile Hi-Fidelity, our new local show on 101.5 FM. Aside from some novice board-op flubs on my part…
Every week, I receive several friend requests on MySpace. About 70% of them are from siphylitic spambots, masquerading as hot, lonely, Russian jailbait. Another 20% are from bands I’ve never heard of, who live in cities I’ve never heard of, and make music I’ve never heard of. The final 10% come from bands that live right here in Colorado. And a shocking percentage of these are completely new to me.
That’s something we’re trying to shake,” says Yerkish frontman Tim Kaminski. “We don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, the monkey band,’ because you either think that it’s a band of monkeys, which has been done before, or you think it’s just some band that plays silly music. We try to…
The sign outside still reads Cafe Cero, but 1446 South Broadway is now officially The Open Tap & Grill. After taking over the place two months ago, Linda Sarace overhauled the kitchen; she now has people painting the interior walls. After she gets the bar and dining room refurbished, she…
We were driving toward Hollywood to catch Shwayze at the Roxy. Atmosphere was playing in the background, and my son was grumbling about Denver, futilely trying to sell me on the virtues of living in L.A., the sunshine, the palm trees — second-verse-same-as-the-first. I was trying just as futilely to…
This project has all the hallmarks of something conceived alone in someone’s bedroom. And on stage, Brad Turner solo with his laptop is hardly the stuff of which rock-and-roll legends are made. But anyone with the nerve to get on stage in the first place knows it takes guts to…
No matter what the endeavor, playing with others can yield some great results. For example, take a twenty-year-plus veteran of dance music who’s been there for everything from piano-driven, post-disco proto-house to the current-now sounds of minimal and electro house, then pair him with a hot, rising star with a…
Ryan Hendrix and Nick Turner, the founding partners of Colourmusic, aren’t cut from the same cloth. Hendrix is an Oklahoma native who worships at U2’s altar, while Turner is a Brit by birth who much prefers My Bloody Valentine’s oeuvre to anything by Bono and company. No wonder that when…
Dan Deacon’s name should be familiar to anyone keeping an ear to what’s going on in American underground music. As one of the founders of the Wham City collective, Deacon is one of the pillars of the modern DIY movement in Baltimore. Deacon’s exuberantly playful electronic music bears none of…
How much do you like tasty solos and long, groove-working instrumental breaks? If that sounds tiresome, you’ll want to steer clear of Kinetix’s Talking to Faces album. If, on the other hand, it sounds like a killer time, prepare for a treat. There’s plenty of impressive instrumental prowess here, especially…
The cover of this album, which depicts a group of Aborigines chained together by some corny colonial type, sitting in a sunset-colored sky over a caricature of the Denver skyline, suggests the arch and subversive music within. Rapper Ancient Mith’s level of sonic appropriation is truly impressive on this release…
I know what you’re thinking: The world needs another sensitive singer-songwriter like it needs more layoffs and higher gas prices. But those with an affinity for the style will find some worthwhile material on Upstairs, Downstairs. The poppier numbers, such as “Twentysomething” and “Angels in the Attic,” are accessible and…
In the shadow of Five Iron Frenzy, Brave Saint Saturn seemed a quaint, tuneful distraction. With the former now laid to rest, the music of these former FIF cohorts can be assessed on its own merit. To that end, Brave Saint Saturn proves to be a viable entity on this…
Leaving the Flaming Lips on the cusp of commercial success only to rejoin Mercury Rev — a group he was a part of in the late ’80s — may have, in retrospect, seemed like a career blunder for Jonathan Donahue. That move, however, has resulted in some of the most…
When the Black Crowes first went national, around 1990, the band became a walking/talking critical argument. Were Chris and Rich Robinson inspired revivalists, introducing rock and blues verities rendered with credibility and conviction to a new generation? Or were they figurative grave defilers, cynically cornholing the corpse of rock glories…
Jeff Hamilton has quite an impressive pedigree: In his twenties, the drummer played with jazz heavies like Lionel Hampton, Monty Alexander and Woody Herman. In his thirties, meanwhile, he performed with Ella Fitzgerald, the Count Basie Orchestra and Rosemary Clooney, and has since toured with Oscar Peterson and the Ray…
It’s not easy to travel fast by taking the conscious hip-hop route, as Pharoahe Monch knows from personal experience. He earned acclaim but no platinum as half of the ’90s-era hip-hop duo Organized Konfusion, and while his 1999 solo debut, Internal Affairs, became a favorite of the rap intelligentsia (and…
Just got word that Born in the Flood will be previewing material for a new album on Friday, December 12, at the Bluebird. That show was already looking like a can’t-miss proposition (Born in the Flood, Ian Cooke, Iuengliss, Bad Weather California are only about half the highlights of the…
There’s always an interest when like-minded solo artists come together to collaborate on a project. So when Colorado emcees Whygee and Sunken State announced they were releasing a seven-song EP called Suicide Watch, those who follow the local scene were excited to hear the results. To add to the excitement,…
My first interview with Ryan Hendrix, one of the co-founders of Oklahoma’s Colourmusic, didn’t happen for one reason or another. But he more than made up for it the second time around. He was incredibly generous with his time, and extremely interesting and honest, too. These qualities come through in…
The Wu-Tang Clan plays the Ogden tonight. You should go — but you should also know that Wu fans are pretty rabid, and would like to know that you are as rabid as they are. So, here, a handy guide to making yourself look like you deserve entrance into the…
As Matthew Wilder once said, “Last night, I had the strangest dream.” I was at some sort of educational and/or military compound, and in the main dining hall there was a musical performance. My friend, a local photographer, was with me, and we were excited about the show. In some ways, it could have been any Friday night at one of my favorite Denver venues, but this space was large, and it was not unlike the mess hall in MASH. When it came time for the show, it turned out it was the Killers, except, as dream logic would have it, this band looked nothing like the Killers.
