Music

This year, more and more listeners beyond Colorado’s borders have discovered what area fans have known for a long time: There are some damned fine performers here. But for every act that’s receiving a national push, there are a lot of others making music that deserves to be heard by…

Don’t downgrade musicians just because they live somewhere other than Colorado. It’s not their fault that their parents or guardians raised them in different states, or even foreign countries. Many of them would have objected if they’d been old enough to talk, no doubt, but by the time they’d mastered…

Sometimes people get lost in circumstances that don’t quite make sense, and they’re left to wander through time in a search for meaning. Individuals in such situations will undoubtedly relate to The Reals, whose members force dreamy alt-country through their guts by way of documenting their own philosophical wanderings. Vocalists/siblings…

Yahel Sherman, who hails from Israel, is one of the more popular artists to rise from the emerging psy-trance scene. Along with his fellow Israelis in Infected Mushroom, DJ Yahel has spent the past few years traveling the globe and spreading his sound to ravers and clubbers alike; in addition,…

Counting the similarities between the Mansfields and the Ramones is like going down a list of Lincoln/ Kennedy coincidences. Primal pop-punk anthems? Check. Oldies covers? Check. Members who take the same fictitious last name? Check. Drummers called Tommy? Check. But there’s another list they could be associated with — the…

Robert Salyers is a geek. Most people would be put off by this designation, but not Salyers. He wears the title like a badge of honor, proclaiming his geekiness on the website (www.pcfdp.com) that he maintains with his buddies, who also happen to be geeks. “We’ve got some pretty geeky…

Neil Diamond’s 1966 debut single was “Solitary Man.” Since then, though, he’s been anything but. While there’s no denying the chart giant’s ability to appease the hoi polloi, he’s relied on everyone from Robbie Robertson to Burt Bacharach to revive him whenever his career started to flatline. For 12 Songs,…

A couple of Christmases ago, in a now-infamous installment of the Beatdown (December 18, 2003), I wrote some pretty harsh shit about Blister 66 frontman Chris Dellinger. I accused him of aping every trend for the past decade, said that Vanilla Ice and Jonathan Davis had called asking for their…

In an unfortunate confluence of the Hebrew and Christian calendars, Hanukkah begins at sundown on December 25, which means that we Jews will have to deal with the ol’ “Hanukkah? Isn’t that the Jewish Christmas?” thing from those unenlightened goyim a lot more than usual this year. Still, when it…

Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly has been yammering for months about a “war on Christmas” being waged by politically correct zealots who want to strip all mention of the holiday from the marketplace. Yet there’s zero evidence that the music industry is participating in this alleged campaign. Only two of the…

Despite Grammy nominations and Prairie Home Companion appearances, Greg Brown has mostly flown under the radar, like Townes Van Zandt before him. The folksinger’s fan base, however, is stacked with high-profile admirers like Shawn Colvin, Jack Johnson and Joan Baez. The devotion speaks to Brown’s knack for creating perfect arrangements…

Over the past several months, the Radiators have received more national and international exposure than at any point since their late-’70s launch — but the attention has come at a heavy price. The bayou-rock band calls New Orleans home, and after that city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, reporters sought…

Unlike the Radiators, Halifax didn’t need a natural disaster to capture MTV’s attention. The Southern California quintet had issued just one disc, the 2004 EP A Writer’s Reference, when the network offered the group a plum role on The Real World: Austin. As one of their “jobs,” cast members such…

There are two types of DJs: battle DJs and club DJs. Usually, the nimble-fingered scratch junkies who spend months perfecting precise battle routines are either uninterested in working clubs or don’t have the ear for matching up tracks. Miami’s DJ Craze, a three-time winner at the DMC world DJ championships,…

Chicago’s Jason Chasko is no stranger to backing up bold frontwomen. The guitarist co-wrote and played on Liz Phair’s underrated Whitechocolatespaceegg before bolting to the bigtime of New York; it was there that he founded Suffrajett with lead singer Simi, whose voice falls somewhere between the predatory howls of Karen…

Reality TV ain’t got nothing on the true-to-life biography of Year Long Disaster. It begins with the Kinks, takes a drug-addled turn with Speedealer and somehow ends up at Third Eye Blind. Frankly, it doesn’t make any sense at all. What is discernable is the outright rock and roll pouring…

Music nerds know two things: how to make best of/worst of lists and how to put together excellent mix tapes. Some call the self-directed compilation an art form, but it’s likely just a fanatical cry for companionship. It’s a way to reach out to each other and perk up new…

Tiefschwarz is the brainchild of brothers Basti and Ali Schwarz. Hailing from Stuttgart, Germany, the two have been in the electro dance scene for close to fifteen years. The name “Tiefschwarz” is a play on the brothers’ surname and literally translates to “deep black” — which, by no accident, is…

In late 1995, Portland, Oregon’s Dandy Warhols were generating big buzz for their debut disc on the independent Tim/Kerr imprint, but they didn’t yet qualify as rock stars. During a chat with Westword, however, Courtney Taylor, the band’s frontman, showed that he was well on his way to becoming one…

Mike Landers and Alan Johnson are driven. In February 2003, the Deux Process partners in rhyme — aka Vice Versa and Chief Nek — moved to Los Angeles, determined to land a record deal. It was a gigantic leap of faith for the Colorado Springs-bred MCs, who’d performed as Deux…