Trumpeter/flugelhornist Brad Upton prefers contemplation to fireworks, and his new release, Dragon, recorded in Boulder in May 2001, reveals a musician deep inside his thoughts. Of the eight Upton originals collected on the disc, four are dedicated to Buddhist teachers important in his spiritual life, one is for his eighteen-year-old…
New Rock Regime opens with a sloppy, R2D2-sampling piss-take of a techno song; thirteen tracks later, it closes with a cover of CCR’s “Fortunate Son.” Somewhere in the middle, Ozzy’s “Crazy Train” is plagiarized. Of course, this all gives no indication as to what Five Day Messiah itself actually sounds…
Chris Dellinger has seen the future, and he’s pretty sure it involves big things for his band, Blister 66: record contracts, sold-out shows, huge tour buses stuffed with video games and attractive female fans. In the late ’90s, when Blister was the region’s reigning rap-metal hybrid, in lockstep with Limp-centric…
In a weird twist of semantics, the word “authentic” has almost come to mean its exact opposite: fake. In this sense, 20 Miles, playing Tuesday, February 25, at the Larimer Lounge, with the Speeks and the Swayback, could be considered the most authentic blues band in the world. Of course,…
As audiogenic as she is photogenic, Marcy Baruch makes the best of country and blues influences while following her own introspective muse. Sultry, powerful and resilient, her voice shifts seamlessly from soothing and simplistic to bawdy and brash. With her 2001 release, Clearly, Baruch entered Denver’s already crowded singer-songwriter pool;…
DJ, producer and remixer Paul van Dyk got the itch to spin records behind the once-drawn Iron Curtain of East Berlin, at a time when DJs were considered “freaks in the corner.” Even cooler than this international cachet is his recent court victory over the now-defunct MFS Records, which secured…
Like its two predecessors, the album Will the Circle Be Unbroken, Vol. III features the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band performing songs with an all-star cast of musical legends. This time, the guests include Johnny Cash, Taj Mahal, Jimmy Martin, Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris and Doc Watson. Given such high-caliber company,…
DJ Z-Trip has a trademark sound that’s been forged by experimentation — as well as by an unbreakable will to do things his own way. So, at 31, he doesn’t mince words when talking about his ability to shake up hip-hop. “Where am I going? To the fuckin’ top,” says…
God’s Son is the creative by-product of a tumultuous period for Nas: The last year brought battles with everyone from Jay-Z to the on-air staff of New York’s Hot 97. After dropping a certified classic with 2001’s Stillmatic and then giving fans some great leftovers in Lost Tapes, he returns…
A choir of angelic voices followed by violently lovely orchestral bombast precedes “The Light Before We Land,” the opening track on the Delgados’ fourth album, Hate. It’s a rather incongruous beginning to an album born of personal tragedy and deep, black sadness, but it works. And how. Formerly reliant upon…
Among the more enjoyable offspring of the electro-dance movement is chill-out music — sounds that help bring a listener down from the ecstatic highs generated by house and other club-friendly styles. But as the form’s popularity has grown, so, too, have the number of chillers-come-lately who seem to think their…
The City has weighed in on the Skylark Lounge saga, and, from the looks of it, owner Scott Heron’s bird shall sing: On Tuesday, Department of Excise and Licenses director Helen Gonzales approved Heron’s application to transfer the bar’s tavern and cabaret licenses to a new space on south Broadway…
When talking about Rainer Maria, it’s easy to become effusive over all the ten-cent words: Quote some lyrics from the trio’s 2001 album, A Better Version of Me (“Why is this technology/An anathema to me?”), mention that singer/bassist Caithlin de Marrais and guitarist Kyle Fischer met in a poetry workshop,…
A seedy barroom staple since the mid-’80s, when he performed solo and with a band called Luke the Drifter and the Lonesome Saddle Tramps, Joe Vasquez certainly isn’t a household name in Nashville — not that he ever aspired to be one. But ’round these here parts, the man with…
Landing smack in the middle of the week, Soma’s Swell Wednesdays series makes hump day easier to get over. Jimmy Van M, who’s often linked with Sasha and John Digweed, shows up to help out on February 19. Inspired by Florida DJ legend Dave Cannalte, Van M dug the acid-house…
Your leader and our lapdog” is how Paul Weller describes President George W. Bush and British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair is the youthful liberal who seems to be the only world leader dumb, or crazy, enough to back Bush unconditionally in his imminent war against Iraq. “It took eighteen…
In 1981, Hall and Oates dispatched their private eyes, Olivia Newton-John wanted to get physical, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts loved rock and roll, and Ben Lev Kweller was born in Greenville, Texas. Twelve years later, when most of his peers were primarily concerned with the weird shit going on…
Raw exuberance matched with a burning desire to change the world is the hallmark of enlightened youth, often leading to embarrassing clothing buried in attics and repressed memories of auctioned-off idealism. But on occasion, a rare alignment of planets can turn such bright-eyed passion into a more permanent contribution –…
Jonathan Bates’s claim that his major-label debut was “lovingly recorded in a bedroom” is slightly misleading: With his solo career in a fledgling state, Bates caught the attention of Tony Berg, an A&R executive who signed both Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Beck. Soon after, the magic of studio-enhanced remastering…
Having established itself as one of the most talented of an ever-expanding crop of jam bands, twelve-year-old moe. is navigating middle age just fine. The band grooves with more of its signature neo-hippie fare on Wormwood, a healthy fourteen-track effort. Low-end man Rob Derhak propels the group through a guitar-laced…
As a “content provider,” Backwash feels a moral obligation to shun reality programming on TV, and I await the day when American networks exhaust the public’s appetite for ready-made voyeurism and have to start hiring actual writers. But I gotta confess, I love American Idol, which entered its second season…
In far tougher economic times than these, American homesteaders often burned their houses to the ground just to retrieve the nails — then moved somewhere new with the hopes of rebuilding. Catherine Irwin, co-leader of the Kentucky-bred roots outfit Freakwater, borrows this idea of hardscrabble existence as a metaphor for…
