The Creative Music Works Orchestra took its name from the small, nonprofit presenter of concerts and educational workshops that sponsors it, Creative Music Works. But the appellation could not be more appropriate. By presenting relatively obscure songs that have been meticulously dissected and then reassembled in imaginative ways, saxophonist Dr…
Luna The Days of Our Nights (Jericho) Someone in ad land saw the commercial viability of Luna’s Dean Wareham, at least in his previous incarnation as the frontman for Galaxie 500: Late last year, the band joined Curtis Mayfield as a soundtrack provider for a national car commercial. Meanwhile, middle…
Neko Case & Her Boyfriends Furnace Room Lullaby (Bloodshot) Maybe it’s a by-product of “artistic growth.” Maybe it’s just that some young women aren’t satisfied with only singin’ hard country music. Whatever the cause, Neko Case — whose The Virginian was arguably the ultimate female country recording of 1998 –…
Kid Loco Kid Loco Presents Jesus Life for Children Under 12 Inches (Atlantic) Trip-hop never quite caught on in the U.S., in large part because of its subtlety; the boom-bap of hardcore rap provides immediate gratification, while the sonics associated with its more psychedelic cousin take time to blow minds…
Tommy Womack Stubborn (Sideburn Records) On Stubborn, Tommy Womack’s fine followup to his remarkable 1998 debut, Positively Na Na, every last thrilling lick and inflection is wholly received. “She Likes to Talk,” for instance, sounds like Keith Richards singing the best Paul Westerberg song in a decade; elsewhere, folk and…
Fine Line Pictures is getting ready for next month’s West Coast premiere of The Filth and the Fury, a documentary on the career of the Sex Pistols. Yet for anyone who’s likely to give a spit, the story is already familiar. The band’s rise — and the oh-so-loving affair between…
For those about to rock, look no further than to the Murder City Devils, with American Steel and the Down-N-Outs Friday, March 10, at the 15th St. Tavern. Now that Mötley Cre, Metallica and the other dope, guns and fucking bands of the ’80s seem about as threatening as Scott…
Colorado Springs’ Lost Creek, Sunday, March 12, at Swallow Hill, answers the call to lead this month’s monthly jam sponsored by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society. A traditionally composed five-piece bluegrass outfit that includes Jeff Back on mandolin and Mickey Stinnett on dobro, the Lost ones perform both strictly defined…
Delta blues legend Robert Johnson gained his guitar licks — or so the story goes — by cutting a deal with the Devil. The arrangement brought him skills and a mythical rep that will live for generations, but at a costly price: chops from hell for an afterlife in hell…
David Crosby wasn’t on-camera during the pre-Grammy Awards program aired February 23 on both VH1 and CBS; along with mates Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young, he was headlining at Denver’s Pepsi Center that evening. But he was an unmistakable presence on the show thanks to the shticking of…
Dannell McNeil is a rapper, singer and soon-to-be music mogul with ambitions as stratospheric as Don King’s hair. As the point person for his own record label and production company, W&D Productions/Risk Entertainment, McNeil has set some lofty goals, and he pulls no punches when naming them. “I want to…
The calendar says that Gaucho, the last album of original material by Steely Dan, came out just over twenty years ago, but Two Against Nature suggests that it’s really been about ten minutes. The same musical miscalculations that made the outfit’s 1979 faux swan song so sonically vapid are very…
Multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Eric Gaffney is, with Lou Barlow, a founding member of the erratic, prolific and inexplicably popular Sebadoh. With that affiliation working overtime, indie-rock diehards will no doubt give Brilliant more attention than it would otherwise generate. Fortunately, this release demonstrates that a little Gaffney favoritism is actually…
Writer/producer/multi-personality rapper Deric Angelettie made an unforgettable impression as the hilarious Madd Rapper on the Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death. His talk-show-style grandstanding for a record deal spoke for every artist who’s found himself frustrated with the industry machine. Angelettie’s alter egos — D-Dot, an articulate player, and the Madd…
A pulsating platter of cock rock with a conscience, Little Steven’s latest is a sometimes glorious study in self-indulgence. From the left-wing political sentiments that the prodigal E Street Band member wears on his now-tie-dyed sleeve to the impassioned, if technically unimpressive, string-bending that stretches many of the tunes well…
The great Seattle explosion of the early ’90s did much to reinforce the belief that geography can be an important factor in furthering a music scene. In the Emerald City, it seemed that the concentrated mix of rainy days, heroin and disgruntled people (many of them on heroin) was conducive…
The Dismemberment Plan, with Planes Mistaken for Stars and Tanger, Thursday, March 2, at the Raven, hails from Washington, D.C. — land of a thousand emo-punks — and moves in circles with the likes of Burning Airlines and Juno. Since forming seven years ago, the band has proved to underground…
Michelle and the Book of Runes, with Deluge, Wednesday, March 8, at the Bluebird Theater, begins another chapter with the addition of four new bandmembers who, while new to the Runes, might be familiar to local audiences from their work with previous outfits. Bassist Mike Ballard, drummer Michael Czubik and…
New Orleans’s French Quarter may be a little too far away to make it a viable party option for Denverites celebrating Fat Tuesday, which falls on March 7 this year. But the Big Easy isn’t the only location in America where folks need a cathartic evening of bacchanalia. The unofficial…
They say girls mature faster than boys. Shannon Curfman, however, is maturing faster than everyone. At fourteen, she’s doing her schoolwork on the road while touring behind her major-label debut, Loud Guitars, Big Suspicions. Her turns in the spotlight haven’t come in the school auditorium but on Late Night With…
The complaint most frequently levied against Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a conceptual one. Putting up a tourist-friendly, mainstream memorial to what began as anti-establishment music, critics of the Hall say, is the best possible way to snuff out any sense of danger the form…
Steve Blakley has never attended a job interview. He’s never owned a power suit, never riffled through those How to Answer the Right Questions and Land the Right Job books so familiar to many twentysomethings attempting to enter the job market. It’s not that he relishes the trappings of slackerdom…
