Music

Aesop Rock is the self-deprecating antihero of indie rap. Amazed that anyone has taken an interest in his music, Aesop, who was born Ian Bavitz on Long Island in 1976, isn’t out to save rap; he’s content just carving out a little niche for himself and his friends at his…

If you’ve ever poked your head in the IDM romper room, the first thing you probably noticed were the petulant children — Autechre, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin — demanding attention, throwing Ritalin-deprived tantrums with their fractured, glitchy logarithms. Meanwhile, over there in the corner, you might have seen those Plaid lads…

Sometimes I wish I were a twelve-year-old girl. I wish I wore flirty fashions my parents hated without realizing how stupid I looked in them. I wish the mere sight of Shia LeBeouf caused my heart to race. I wish Madison Avenue loved me the way it loves every other…

Some day, Van Morrison, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Nick Cave may stroll into Sun Records and cut an intimate session to be dubbed The Next Million Dollar Quartet. While this dream is implausible, Rev. Neil Down’s incredible barroom testament gives hope to the possibility. When a Wrong Turns Right…

Nina Storey doesn’t give a rat’s ass what I think. If you’ve lived in Denver for any length of time and follow local music, you’ve heard of Nina Storey. How could you not? The hype machine went into overdrive minutes after she dropped her debut album, Guilt and Honey, in…

Over the better part of three decades, native Iowan Greg Brown, who headlines at the Boulder Theater on Friday, December 5, has built a body of work beloved by practically everyone who’s heard it. That number is relatively modest as a result of the singer-songwriter’s decision to stick with the…

When the Sad Star Cafe closed up shop late last year, Mark Sundermier and company thought the band would fade into oblivion, allowing its members to embark on the next phase of their lives. Longtime fans, however, wouldn’t let the act go quietly and have been clamoring ever since for…

On October 3, bassist-vocalist Nick Oliveri was slated to shake Denver’s posh Fillmore Auditorium along with his band, Queens of the Stone Age. Two days later, the same group had a headlining slot in Boise, Idaho. That left one day in the middle for the sort of responsibility-free downtime most…

It looks more like Eastern Europe than East 13th Avenue, more Carpathian Mountains than Capitol Hill. The building is straight out of Gothic novel, a Romanesque castle of brick and oak complete with a spire-topped tower straining toward heaven. The front entrance is framed in carved stone, its pointed arch…

I, uh, inadvertently blew up a gas station,” says Drums & Tuba drummer Tony Nozero. Come again? Blew up a gas station? “It was outside of touring,” he says, laughing sheepishly as he tells the story behind the band’s latest release, Gas Up, Blow Up. “I was in New York…

Note to all would-be entrepreneurs with more dollars than sense: Cowtown needs another nightclub like East Colfax needs another hooker. Since this past summer, a half-dozen dance clubs — Rise, Beyond, Garibaldi, Roxx, Avalon and Club Ra — have debuted in the metro area. Soon they’ll be joined by Serengeti…

When they’re not busy logging miles as Nomeansno, an exceptional Victoria, Canada-based prog-punk outfit, founding members Rob and John Wright pound out simple, Ramones-style hockey anthems as their dim-witted alter ego, the Hanson Brothers. Inspired by the knuckle-dragging trio from 1977’s Slap Shot (a classic sports satire in which a…

Despite what VH1 would have you believe, there’s not much to love about the ’80s. Take the clothes, for example: leg warmers, parachute pants, Members Only jackets, bolo ties, jazz boots and stretch pants — talk about a fashion disaster. And the music, well, it was just as ill-conceived. The…

Epiphanies are like assholes: Everyone has one, most stink and not even surgery can purge them. Consider as a case in point the 33-year-old, New Jersey-bred punk songwriter Ted Leo. The first record he ever owned was “It Never Rains in Southern California,” by Albert Hammond. His first concert, at…

It’s not easy getting into Jay-Z’s recording home at Bassline Studios, tucked away on West 26th Street in Manhattan. I have to sneak in behind a woman walking into the building, take an elevator to the eighth floor, then knock on a pair of glass doors before a security guard…

“I can body-slam a 250-pound person.” Amber Valentine is not making a threat; she’s just stating the facts. After years of hauling gear in and out of clubs, the woman is just plain strong. And the diminutive yet domineering guitarist/vocalist for space-sludge-noise rockers Jucifer is rightfully proud of the physical…

“I’ve done it all, honey/I’ve worked, I’ve walked, I’ve danced, I’ve pranced/I’ve seen it all, sweetie, but I’ve never seen you/I am legendary. You are not.” Hungry Wives’ Andy Salzer insists that the preceding sample, from Keoki’s “Cup of Tea” mix of the Wives cut “It’s Over,” is the voice…

So you were wondering why the vaunted return-of-rock movement still can’t get much commercial traction? Why at least two years of merciless hype from pop journos sick of writing Christina Aguilera features hasn’t convinced the masses to give a damn? Why next-big-things that matter are currently rarer than hair follicles…

It’s often easy to dismiss Sun Ra (aka Herman Sonny Blount) as an anomaly on the jazz scene, a mischievous prankster who dressed up as an outer-space pharaoh to sell records and fill shows. Often overlooked is the fact that the man could play a piano — like a demon…

There’s death in the undergrowth, black and loamy. It crouches beneath broad green leaves like puddles of shadow, sucking at wet roots and bare feet, insulating the banks of the Cumberland and the Monongahela with the muffled, hollow hush of decay. The Appalachians ache with it. So does Jolie Holland…