Over the years, Otis Taylor (due at the Oriental Theater on Thursday, March 1, and Nissi’s on Friday, March 2) has racked up accolades for shaking up the blues idiom with lyrically unique and instrumentally inventive interpretations of the rootsy form. On his latest effort, he extends his pensive creative…
Joey DeFrancesco, Live: The Authorized Bootleg (Concord). This set, recorded last year at Yoshi’s in Oakland, was as much George Coleman’s as it was Joey DeFrancesco’s. Coleman’s tenor sax tone is gutsy and full-bodied as ever, while DeFrancesco takes command of his Hammond B-3 and beautifully maneuvers through a handful…
Too $hort is an anomaly in the rap world, where only a handful of artists have experienced any sort of career longevity. He’s one of the rare individuals who have fruitfully navigated the shark-infested waters of the music industry, and he’s done it on his own terms, without getting chewed…
Longtime Wilco fans have occasionally gotten frustrated with leader Jeff Tweedy when he’s pushed the group into avant-garde territory. But by the adventurous standards of Glenn Kotche, who landed in Wilco’s drum chair during the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot period, Tweedy’s a piker. Kotche, who’s joined at the Larimer Lounge by…
I like My Chemical Romance. And not under the façade of ironic hipsterdom or as a means to get into the pants, er, minds of sixteen-year-olds, but in a totally legit go-ahead-and-out-me kind of way. Of course, with that scary-boy makeup and those live theatrics, it’s easy to discount the…
If Billy Corgan had eschewed his whiny angst or chased his muse into fields of dream pop rather than ’70s rock, Smashing Pumpkins might have ended up sounding more like Silversun Pickups. Although the act’s ethereal yet driving guitar lines recall early Ride or Loveless-era My Bloody Valentine, its catchy…
Literally translated, “Bon Savants” is French for “good scientists.” That said, could there be a more fitting moniker for a band fronted by a guy who traded in a gig as an MIT research scientist to become versed in the dynamics of playing indie rock and Brit pop? The answer…
It’s one thing for jazz players to work on scales, modes and chord voicings on their own. To really put all of that theory into practice, though, it helps to have other cats to jam with and a place where you can hone your chops. Fortunately, Denver has a couple…
Andrew Novick is at it again. He’s on a mission to make our fine city a more fun and colorful place with his latest project, Get Your Going. Once upon a time way back in the ’90s, the arch-genius prankster supreme and his cohorts outraged many as the Warlock Pinchers…
I am at Tryst Lounge, and my roommate is yelling to me over the thumping club music, “I am the Jordan Catalano of this bar!” Which, with his worn leather jacket and long hair, is kind of true. Against tonight’s backdrop of crewcuts and erect polo collars, he is the…
Frank Swider Kirk Rundstrom tearing it up at SXSW Just received word that Kirk Rundstrom passed away today. Though Rundstrom was not from Denver, his main band, Split Lip Rayfield, passed through here often enough that, to many, he and his crew felt like locals. Last spring, he was diagnosed…
I feel bad about not liking Rob Drabkin’s music. I really do. He seems like such a quality individual. It would be so much easier if he were a narcissistic asshole or something. But he didn’t come across that way to me. Between sets last Thursday night at Dazzle, the…
Jeff Wood is interested in three things: banging chicks, eating pussy and looking at tits. I know this, because he’s spent the last forty minutes on the phone explaining it to me in graphic detail. And so when he asks me what I look like, I’m not really surprised. “I’m…
Kneebody has had many labels thrown at it, but none seem to fit. That said, the members of the transcontinental quintet (whose new album, Low Electrical Worker, is due next month) haven’t exactly gone out of their way to make it easy for folks to pin down their shapeshifting sound…
You don’t have to have supernatural powers to sense which direction the industry is headed. With that sentiment in mind, we’ve put together a brand-new feature called On the Download. Each month, we’ll sort through the riffraff of the digital universe and provide you with links to the best in…
Aubrey O’Day isn’t terribly convincing when she argues that her combo, Danity Kane, “has struggled and overcome a lot to make it to the top,” and not just because she makes this claim as she and cohort Dawn Richard are being chauffeured around Los Angeles in advance of the Grammy…
The DIY success of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in 2005 instilled garage bands and dudes with nasally voices with a newfound faith in the can-do spirit. Clap’s latest effort finds the band remaining label-less, and record labels breathing a sigh of relief that they didn’t plunk down anything for…
Alright is a love-loathe proposition. Plenty of listeners will be enchanted by Allen’s defiantly casual singing, cool-girl vocabulary and taste for hybrid pop, while others are sure to find these attributes irritating in the extreme. As for the MySpace phenom in the spotlight, she doesn’t appear to care what reaction…
Dent is one of the best rappers in the state, and he proves it by periodically putting out great tunes and consistently finishing at the top of any battle he enters. To hold us over until he drops his official debut, the MC has blessed us with Blunt Sessions 101,…
“Are you ready for an action packed thrill ride?” the members of this group wonder in their brief “theme song” — but instead of belting out the inquiry in belligerent tones against a strident backdrop, they warble with inebriated brio over a straggling guitar strum. That’s called irony, my friends,…
Hard-ons, Most People Are a Waste of Time (Bad Taste Records). Like a Twinkie filled with dog poo, these seemingly innocuous pop confections serve as an odious delivery system for caustic messages. Sure, the Hard-ons sound like Jan & Dean, but try hassling one of their girlfriends and they’ll drown…
With his third and most recent album, Nightcrawler, Pete Yorn firmly established himself somewhere between Zach Braff and Bruce Springsteen on the New Jerseyan artistic continuum. A post-modern pop-rocker, Yorn makes songs that are accessible to the masses, even if they don’t directly speak on their behalf. His 2001 debut,…
