Sleater-Kinney Dig Me Out (Kill Rock Stars) When a band has been hyped as relentlessly as this one has, there’s always a risk that heightened expectations will lead to profound disappointment. After all, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, Corin Tucker and Janet Weiss aren’t doing anything that won’t be done tonight at…
Long before the word “Americana” defined a radio format, guitarist Dave Alvin was leading a musical cattle drive whose path is still being followed by performers caught up in the current alt-country groundswell. The Blasters, which Alvin formed in 1980 with his brother, vocalist Phil Alvin, delivered rousing romps that…
Whether you love him or loathe him, you can’t deny that South Africa-born Dave Matthews has become one of the most popular performers in contemporary music, inspiring the sort of fanatical support that has led to comparisons of his self-named band with the grandfather of all cult acts, the Grateful…
The most recent Denver appearances by Spell, including a June 28 date at Seven South, were the band’s first as a free agent in quite a while. Which means, as you might have guessed, that the act’s relationship with Island Records is over. Guitarist Tim Beckman, who plays with bassist…
The artistic history of the twentieth century is dominated by the transformation of low art (creative enterprises that deliberately or unintentionally break the rules of the established order) into high art (types of expression that are regarded by members of the intelligentsia and other ministers of culture as timeless, spiritually…
Joey D’Ambrosio makes no bones about his band’s place in music history. “We were the first rock-and-roll band to ever be signed to a major label, and the first rock-and-roll band to ever have a hit,” he says. “We were also the first to have a song in a feature…
“We’re not rock stars,” contends Bill Buffo, drummer for Kindred, a collection of teenage rockers based in Louisville. “We don’t, like, walk around all cocky and stuff like we’re these big musicians, you know?” Vocalist Cody Qualls seconds Buffo’s emotion. He maintains that he’s “a dork” at Fairview, the high…
When Under the Table and Dreaming first appeared in 1994, it garnered mostly positive reviews: People hailed it as sporting “a beguiling sound all its own,” while the New York Post dubbed it “hypnotic.” But within a matter of months, all that changed. In the years since, People called Matthews’s…
Last year, Jason Thirsk, onetime bass player for the Los Angeles-based punk quartet Pennywise, shot himself in the head and died. It was the kind of terrible event from which many groups never recover. But as Pennywise vocalist Jim Lindberg tells it, the other members of the band were determined…
This week’s Playlist (see page 82) looks at three veteran entertainers–Paul McCartney, James Taylor and John Fogerty–who see new recordings as the best way to keep themselves in the public eye. Other folks with decades of stagework under their belts prefer to accomplish this goal via live appearances. After all,…
The year was 1982, and Andy Partridge should have been on the cusp of stardom. Although the albums Drums and Wires and Black Sea (issued in 1979 and 1980, respectively) did not earn planetary fame for his band, XTC, they attracted a sizable cult following that seemed likely to grow…
As he prepares to perform at Thornton Fest, an annual event in the metro-area suburb, Denver’s Bob Haworth, clad in patriotic garb that includes a stars-and-stripes stovepipe hat and red, white and blue boots, quickly inventories the weapons in his musical arsenal. “There’s one,” he says, kicking his leg to…
John Fogerty Blue Moon Swamp (Warner Bros.) James Taylor Hourglass (Columbia) Paul McCartney Flaming Pie (Capitol) With rock and roll well past its fortieth birthday by now, the notion of the style being exclusively the province of the young is pretty much dead. But whether those of us who have…
Link Wray is American to the bone. “I’m half Shawnee Indian, you know,” he declares, his heavily accented voice imprinted with the unmistakable twang associated with his hometown of Dunn, North Carolina. But even though his guitar playing on his trademark Fifties instrumental, “Rumble,” laid the groundwork for hard rock,…
Throughout his remarkable career, Tito Puente–the Magnificent Timbalero who at age 74 is the undisputed king of Latin music–has made music shot through with joy. But he has seldom exhibited such effervescence to the media. Legions of journalists floored by his impatient manner have branded him a terrible grouch, a…
A lot of folks have tried to stop Foreskin 500 over the years. Club owners occasionally refused to book the band, guardians of taste frequently dubbed it offensive, and selected police officers seemed determined at times to use the law to stop the music (see Feedback, March 6). But in…
“Many people consider fetish to be wearing leather, latex and rubber outfits, or something basic like that–but fetish is much more than a costume,” says Jamie Goldberg, one of the men behind “Whip It II: The Ritual,” a fetish party that’s returning to Rock Island for its second year. “It’s…
Hans Buenning is best known as one fourth of Acrobat Down, an ultra-catchy Denver-based combo. But Buenning is more than just an accomplished musician; he’s also a dance-floor superfreak who recently invented his own trademark step. “It’s called the ‘Prairie Dog,’ and it’s the perfect dance for big, empty concert…
The cover of Baltimore Pearl Crescent White Admiral Sister Meadow Painted God Will Visit You, the latest CD from the Lords of Howling, is cut from old vinyl records, the obsidian sheen sanded and imprinted with intricate designs. Moreover, the rest of the package is literally crafted from trash–but it’s…
If I claimed that I would like not to bury John Tesh but to praise him, I would not be entirely truthful. But I do have to give him at least a modicum of credit for grace under fire. He knows as well as anyone that the most prominent items…
It was due in stores by July, but a lifetime of memories does not come easy to a man whose first hit came 41 years ago, when he was a member of a Sun Records roster that included Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and a boy named Elvis. So the…
Keeping up with the doings of Colorado Public Radio (CPR) is like tracking a major corporation in a perpetual acquisition mode. The statewide system of stations, overseen by Max Wycisk and run from the Denver offices of KCFR-FM/90.1, is forever looking for ways to add members to its family, whether…
