Eras, like individual artists, often get typecast. For instance, ask most fans of real country music (as differentiated from the vacuum-sealed, pre-processed kind) what they think of the acts that came out of the genre circa the late ’80s and early ’90s and you’re apt to hear moans of displeasure,…
It’s gotten pretty easy to slide by as a half-assed punk-rocker. Throw down some thickly distorted guitars and lazily attack the usual institutions of government, religion and business, and a ready-made audience pops up, eagerly waiting for the chance to join in the song. There just isn’t much impetus for…
The older Frank Black gets, the less he sounds like himself — something that probably happens to everybody at some point. But ever since Pudge let his monkey go to heaven, he flat out refuses to scream at traffic anymore. Or at the powers that be. He’s like a tired…
Boulder’s Andrew Murphy has proven himself to be one of the hardest-working men in show business — locally, at least, and with all due respect to James Brown. Two years ago he launched the excellent Local Shakedown program on Radio AM 1190, and although Murphy’s no longer a DJ on…
Although hard rock is a genre that’s aimed almost exclusively at guitar worshippers and other testosterone addicts, Cave In, with Planes Mistaken for Stars and Eiffel, Monday, January 8, at the Cat, finds a style that can satisfy the typical long-haired crowd as well as cerebral indie rockers. Though the…
The Geds, Friday, January 5, at the 15th Street Tavern with the Jealous X Lovers and Karol, set the curve for proficient, back-to-basics R-A-W-K with an enduringly simple but effective equation: slam out three tough chords for ninety seconds and repeat. Always repeat. For Spell graduates Chanin Floyd and Tim…
Many of Denver’s clubs are shutting their doors to the 21-and-under crowd, and hip teenagers are stuck either coughing up the $50 for a fake ID or lurking about the city with few options for live music or a decent dance floor. So say a spinning “hello” to Sevilla at…
Looking back on it now, 2000 was kind of a letdown. Despite numerous predictions to the contrary, there weren’t any widespread Y2K-related computer failures, a rare planetary alignment on May 5 didn’t have any perceptible impact on Earth, and a rash of Internet-based music sites didn’t dismantle the record industry…
Time seemed to be on the side of Los Hombres Calientes, who appear Thursday, December 28, at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, when the six-piece Latin jazz band debuted with a fine self-titled release in 1998. While mainstream America was waking up to the saucy possibilities of Latin, Brazilian and…
Over the past two years, Yonder Mountain String Band, Saturday, December 30, and Sunday, December 31, at Boulder’s Fox Theatre, has achieved the kind of success that other new-grass acts rarely gain. In recent months, the band has played its “fully resinated” music to large, giddy crowds and headlined some…
Looking for something fun, free and freezing to do on New Year’s Eve? Join the City’s Denver Millennium Celebration, an evening of outdoor events along the 16th Street Mall. Beginning at 8 p.m., two concert stages at Glenarm Place (Denver Pavilions) and 17th Street and Arapahoe will host performances from…
Any musical uprising worth raising a fist for must have its own battle cry. For today’s alternative-country camp, Robbie Fulks’s anti-Nashville anthem, “Fuck This Town” (from his 1997 neo-country classic, South Mouth), just might be it. But don’t think for a minute that Fulks’s hilarious-but-pointed shlock country diatribe makes him…
Around this time of year, the recording industry slows down and enters a kind of commercial hibernation. With the exception of a preponderance of seasonally themed recordings (see Michael Roberts’s “Holidaze” wrap-up in the December 14 issue for the best and worst of those), release schedules grow slim as most…
Thirty-five years ago, at the height of Beatlemania — the phenomenon, not the stage show — some cynics pooh-poohed the notion that the unprecedented hysteria surrounding the Four Lads from Liverpool would endure. (“What are you going to do when the bubble bursts?” a smug, apparently drunk Tallulah Bankhead sneered…
With his latest release, Dwight Yoakam continues his reign as the King of Contemporary Country. Tomorrow’s Sounds is a brilliant collection of classic C&W filtered through Dwight’s 21st-century cowboy mind. Guitarist/producer Pete Anderson starts “Love Caught Up to Me” with one of his trademark melodic guitar figures, launching the tune…
Most popular composers, no matter how well known they are or how vast their body of work, tend to be remembered for a relatively small number of songs — and that’s certainly the case with Cole Porter. Despite his status as one of the century’s most enduring Broadway songwriters (George…
Alan Greenspan will probably never weigh in on it, but it’s generally understood that the economy for reggae music can bear about one good boxed set per holiday season. Recent years have yielded the excellent Bob Marley set Songs of Freedom, the almost-as-excellent Peter Tosh set Honorary Citizen and the…
Back in October, Mayor Wellington Webb announced the city’s plans for an exhaustive New Year’s Eve celebration that would center on the 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver. He promised that this year, the city would usher in the new year in style, noting that last year’s rather unimpressive public…
Starlight Mints, Friday, December 22 at Tulagi in Boulder, with DeVotchKa, began its life as a kind of skewed seven-piece orchestra — complete with string section — led by singer/songwriter Allan Vest and drummer Andy Nuñez. Though the band is now condensed to a quintet, its second release, The Dream…
Despite a name that might suggest otherwise, Worm Trouble, Thursday, December 21, at the 15th Street Tavern, with Hi Fidelity and the Dinnermints, has much to celebrate these days: The Denver outfit is still riding the creative crest of The Poison Kitchen, an intense, moody album that wouldn’t seem out…
Are you in the holiday spirit but can’t stand the thought of yet another performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker? (There are three productions of it in the city, you know.) How about supporting a jazzed-up approach to seasonal standbys like “We Three Kings,” “Jingle Bells” and “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem”?…
How many versions of “Jingle Bells” does the average person need? Plenty, apparently. Each year, the recording industry unleashes a torrent of seasonal discs, most of them dominated by a humdrum repertoire of tunes — and each year a percentage of them sells well enough to justify a similar deluge…
