If Stabbing Westward has a guiding muse, it’s a donkey named Eeyore. According to lead singer Christopher Hall, “I was depressed a lot growing up, and I just thought I was this miserable Eeyore-ish person.” By way of underlining his claim, he adds, “I think I got that word out…
Country music in the Nineties is Alan Jackson inexplicably hyping Ford trucks via a rewritten version of “Mercury Blues,” a venerable number covered during the early Seventies by Steve Miller (a space cowboy rather than the ropin’ and ridin’ kind). It’s Shania Twain, a singer whose producer/husband/Svengali, Robert “Mutt” Lange,…
You’ve heard it before: Howard Stern is coming to Denver. But this time, it may actually happen. Stern’s controversial show, which originates in New York City, is set to begin filling the morning slot at KXPK-FM/96.5 (The Peak) at 6 a.m. on Monday, November 30, and the station’s interim program…
Sheryl Crow The Globe Sessions (A&M) A friend of mine hears the Rolling Stones in Sheryl Crow’s new disc. But at the end of the twentieth century, any rock-and-roll album featuring bluesy, four-quarter-time, guitar-driven social commentaries in which a singer yells lines like “All the white folks shake their asses”…
Vamp Dogg may sound like a gangster, but he insists that he doesn’t make gangsta rap. “I’m not into that shoot-’em-up, bang-bang kind of stuff where you’re pretty much killing through the album,” he says. “That’s fake. If you walk into the bank and kill everyone or shoot some cop,…
Like Burt Reynolds, Depeche Mode tends to be viewed as either comically irrelevant or deserving of more praise than it usually receives. But no one denies the staying power of these doomy dance-pop veterans. The band has been around for eighteen years, yet the act’s current worldwide jaunt in support…
Delbert McClinton has delivered close to forty years of all-American rhythm and blues and roots rock, and he’s penned more than his share of moneymaking songs. But when it comes to his relationship with labels, he’s snakebitten. “Every record company I’ve ever been with since 1973 has folded except one,”…
Liz Phair Whitechocolatespaceegg (Matador) To set the record straight: Liz Phair (who headlines the Ogden Theatre on Sunday, November 22) was never my blow-job queen. That white upper-middle-class girls wanna get freaky and then dissect their conquests after the fact was hardly a titillating discovery. Nonetheless, Phair still struck me…
In all likelihood, my November 5 article on Rick James had nothing to do with his recent hospitalization–but just in case it did, I’m sorry. Really sorry. To fill in the gaps for those of you who pick up Westword mainly to read the personal ads: The profile in question…
“Let’s face it–negativity sells records,” says Taboo, one of the three emcees behind Black Eyed Peas. “It’s wack, but it does. Negativity sells movies; violence sells a lot of things. Sex and violence are two of the biggest things that turn humans on.” That may be true, but the men…
“We’re waging a war against the disappearance of the full-service gas station,” says Tarmints drummer A.J. Hathaway. “It’s the same thing we’re doing with records, man. You pull up to my door, you know what to expect. I’m delivering you quality. You know it, I know it–no problem. You’ll come…
It’s a local-recording blitzkrieg. Look out below. Grace is a project built around the songs of longtime Denver scenester Tom Mestnik and his compadre in Moot, bassist Bob Gumbrecht. The band’s CD, Music With Knives, feels like an early Genesis album, what with consecutive songs that mention lambs (“Grey” and…
Bob Mould The Last Dog and Pony Show (Rykodisc) With enough sweet hooks to gaff a pod of whales, The Last Dog and Pony Show delivers everything that a clever record should. Unlike Peter Murphy and Morrissey, two other cutting-edge lead singers whose work since leaving their groundbreaking Eighties groups…
The house owned by blueswoman Mary Flower looks like it could belong to practically any young musician. The living-room walls are adorned with onstage photos of Flower and her musical heroes, along with a small collection of oddball and cheapo guitars; the bedroom contains more axes–a steel-bodied National Tricone and…
Dave Wyndorf, the lead singer for Monster Magnet, has heard the snickers from snooty, pretentious reviewers who dismiss his band as the real-life Spinal Tap. And he wants such Poindexters to know that they’re on to something. “My whole life in Monster Magnet, and pretty much my whole life in…
The B-Movie Rats may reside in Los Angeles, but according to Derek Christensen, lead vocalist for these rock brutes, their hearts live in Cowtown USA. “We love Denver,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s all the people who I meet there, or the girls, or the altitude–I drink two…
The 1997-98 Denver concert-promotion war has led to a handful of casualties: For instance, booker Jeff Krump lost his position at Jacor Concerts when the folks at Jacor’s radio wing decided to shrink the size of the financially tentative operation (Feedback, October 1). At the same time, however, another new…
What’s in a name? In the case of Michael Colin, plenty. Colin, who also answers to Big Mike, is best known for his work with Phantasmorgasm, a group that made some of the most aggressive music heard in Denver during the late Eighties and early Nineties. But he’s also performed…
When Rick James was at the height of his fame, he was a super freak. When he was addicted to cocaine and crack, he was a super freak, too–so freaky, in fact, that he wound up in Folsom Prison for an extended stretch. But is James still a super freak…
In the bluesy cult duo called Doo Rag, Bob Log III handles guitar and vocal duties while his twisted partner, percussionist Thermos Malling, pounds on everything in sight. Malling, however, isn’t part of Log’s current solo tour–and Log admits that keeping a beat without him has proven to be a…
At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, people in Denver and Boulder will find another choice on their radio dials. KVCU-AM/1190 (aka Radio 1190), a new station associated with the University of Colorado-Boulder, is set to make its long-awaited debut at that time–and early indications are strong that the outlet…
Bang on a Can All-Stars Music for Airports (Point Music) When Brian Eno stuck the “ambient” tag on Music for Airports back in 1978, he unwittingly helped create new sonic ventures that would morph into new-age music, along with the chill-out/ambient/electronica extension that followed. The four untitled instrumental pieces that…
