When Denver bluesman Otis Taylor first played the songs he wanted to include on his latest CD for Kenny Passarelli, his producer and bandmate, Passarelli was caught off guard by the dourness of the material. “He said, ‘This is so dark,'” Taylor remembers. But for Taylor, softening the tone wasn’t…
It’s Monday night — prime time — and Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and other stars glide across a Los Angeles stage, picking up trophies during the American Music Awards broadcast. Out in the audience, small clusters of songwriters become ecstatic with each announcement. In addition to feeling the rush of…
Original-recipe Rage was one of the greatest live acts of the past decade, and its handful of recordings over that period had plenty of juice in them, too — but there was always the sense that these guys needed to seriously loosen up. They’ve been called “the American Clash” so…
British birdwatcher Alison Goldfrapp digs spaghetti-Western soundtracks and can sing and whistle to beat the band. After providing vocals for both Tricky (Maxinquaye) and Orbital (Snivilisation), she expands Bristol’s artsy acid-jazz scene with a remarkable debut — one that waxes pure nostalgia for sultry torch songs (think Eartha Kitt, Sarah…
In its twenty-plus years of history, punk rock sure has undergone some drastic changes. Today, holding up Johnny Rotten’s lethal screams of “No Future!” against Blink 182’s poo-poo pee-pee jokes gives a muddled picture of the genre’s direction. If there’s a band that could be punk rock’s Rosetta Stone, it’d…
If you listen to commercial radio in Denver, you might be inclined to think that there were only about seventeen new albums released in the year 2000. (How else could the curious state of local playlists be explained?) But actually, the approximate number of CDs released in the United States…
Punk or dub? Dreadlocks or Mohawk? Spiked leather or braided hemp? Can’t make up your mind? Don’t: Just head over to the Soul Brains show, Saturday, February 3, at the Ogden Theatre. There you can mosh and praise Jah in one fell swoop. The Soul Brains — aka the original…
Marca Cassity, Thursday, February 8, at Denver’s Hard Rock Cafe, is a truly busy musical bee. Two years ago, Boulder’s infamous Women From Mars series — in which she plays a vital role — expanded to a weekly radio show of the same name on KWAB/AM 1490. As the show’s…
In the rap world, Long Beach, California, carries with it a certain stylistic connotation. When most hip-hop fans think of the town on Los Angeles’s southern edge, they think of hard-edged rappers laying down rhymes about gangster life set to that classic laid-back G-Funk sound. Not surprisingly, the all-white rap…
As anyone who’s ever suffered through a band audition can confirm, good musical help is hard to find. Players who are tolerable in confined spaces like tour vans and recording studios are scarce enough, never mind details like the compatibility of musical visions and styles. Of course, if you are…
Listened to at low volume, with attention focused on sounds — not words — Natural Selection makes what sounds almost like normal music. Permanent Teeth, its debut recording, abounds with airtight, verse-chorus-verse melodies that fit the pop-song formula with airtight precision. But listen more closely. Amid the electric, acoustic and…
Denver may not have all the urban accoutrements of the cultural meccas on the West and East coasts, but it does appear to be cultivating a substantial DJ-per-capita ratio; viewed from the sky, you can see them huddling in little flocks, turntables in one hand, headphones in the other, gathering…
The Causey Way is not a cult. Or so says this five-piece (give or take) from Gainsville, Florida. You can decide for yourself on Tuesday, January 30, at the 15th Street Tavern, when the band hits Denver to spread its “good word,” all in the name of converting wayward souls…
Denver-based trio Pure Drama takes center stage with the release of a second full-length album, On the Surface, to be celebrated with a multimedia fete on Friday, January 26, at Rock Island. The album’s twelve tracks work toward conveying emotion and energy through the often-dreamy beats and lyrics. Pure Drama…
Morgan Lander, lead singer/ shrieker for the metal act dubbed Kittie, calls it “Feline Association Disease” — the inability of journalists to write about her band without making endless, and endlessly banal, references to its name, thereby relegating Lander and her fellow daughters of destruction (guitarist/vocalist Fallon Bowman, bassist Talena…
Some musicians consider the stage a bully pulpit for pounding ideas into people’s minds. Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine are two groups who’ve often used their stage time to rail against the evils of capitalism and the corporate structure — while reaping the benefits of both. But, while…
Xzibit’s highly anticipated third album, a messy stew of multiple producers and room-crowding guests, neatly sums up both the pleasures and the limitations of today’s chart-topping hip-pop. Trouble is, though this Angeleno (by way of Detroit) hangs with Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre and Eminem (fellow travelers on this year’s biggest…
Whittle them down to their respective marrows, and the meaningful difference between shlock country and the alt stuff becomes clear: intellect. Done right, killer country fuses smarts with C&W’s all-American charm for a deeply rooted music that tickles the senses instead of insulting them. That hard-to-forge alchemy is in full…
Before it opened its doors as a concert venue in 1994 under the direction of a then-newish local promotional company called nobody in particular presents, the Bluebird Theater was empty, old and mildew-ridden. But back in the day, this space on East Colfax enjoyed an existence as a movie theater…
DJs Eric Morillo and “Little” Louis Vega (right) are hitting the turntables at Vinyl on Thursday, January 18 — and bringing a taste of deep and funky house to the Mile High City. Part of a much-needed renovation of the Broadway club’s talent lineup, the two Manhattan mix meisters’ Denver…
When they first got together roughly two years ago, Denver’s Breezy Porticos, with Kudzu Towers and Hyacinth, Saturday, January 20, at the Lion’s Lair, were already courting supergroup status. The trio’s foundation includes former Cavity drummer Eric Van Leuven and guitarist Andy Falconetti, formerly of the blissfully garagey local staple,…
More than thirty years ago, when he discovered the traditional route to success in America was more like a dead end, U. Utah Phillips set out on new path. With a guitar in his hand and a batch of folk songs and stories in his head, he carved himself a…
