Page 27’s John Gross recalls angering a man with a peg leg at a show

At this point, John Gross and John Rasmussen are the godfathers of the Denver noise scene. Since starting their long-running noise project Page 27 in 1994 while still in high school, and running their old zine, Lady in the Radiator, Gross and Rasmussen have worked with various collaborators, including, in…

Vitamins

Vitamins has never sat idle for long, and this EP is proof of that. At first, “No Notion of Anything Only Whatever Is What” sounds like the kind of breezy indie pop that the group did so well on its last album, 2008’s Calliope — except it also appears that…

Crank Sturgeon

Crank Sturgeon sounds like one of those band names that came out of a classic episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. But this act isn’t really a band at all. It’s a guy who wears a fish-like costume with contact microphones hidden (or not so hidden) all over. When he…

Tyler Despres’s Science Partner plays April 23 at the Meadowlark

If you’ve seen Tyler Despres play around town, on his own or with Dualistics, you’ve been exposed to his cleverly sarcastic sense of humor; it’s one of his hallmarks. That sardonic persona is on display, at least partially, with Science Partner, his latest endeavor, whose most recent effort is humorously…

Space in Time

It should come as no surprise that this band did a cover of Uriah Heep’s classic “Easy Livin'” from, appropriately enough, 1972’s Demons and Wizards. What is surprising is that Space in Time’s version is superior to W.A.S.P.’s 1986 take on the same song. Sure, this collection of tunes might…

Mingo performs on April 16 at Art Network

If you grew up in the Midwest during the ’80s and ’90s and you were a little different, chances are you had a brush with all that groundbreaking electronic and experimental music that came out on Wax Trax Records. Mingo — due at Art Network (878 Santa Fe Drive) on…

Ryat on its improvisational roots, its collaborations and Avant Gold

Philadelphia’s Ryat (due tonight at Rhinoceropolis) started as a solo project for multi-instrumentalist avant-garde songwriter Christina Ryat before Tim Conley joined the sonic adventure that is making music in this unit. With both Ryat and Conley benefiting from backgrounds in improvisational and experimental music, their collaboration has produced a richly…

Woodrose

Somewhere along the line, Jonny Woodrose & the Broken-Hearted Woodpeckers transformed into Woodrose. Along with the change in name came a marked shift in sound. Rather than the poetic Americana of Jonson Kuhn’s previous efforts, this album comes straight out of a run-down honky-tonk frequented by Woody Guthrie and Pete…

Reading Rainbow

LeVar Burton, the man most readily associated with the children’s program Reading Rainbow, is probably unaware of this Reading Rainbow, which presumably lifted the name of that show for its musical experiments. Sarah Everton and Rob Garcia built this project out of the pieces of their old band, Forensic Teens,…

The Shrapnelles

With a name like the Shrapnelles, you might expect a reverb-drenched garage-rock band with a penchant for all things Phil Spector — and you wouldn’t be too far off the mark. This all-female outfit from Calgary plays shimmery guitar pop with one foot firmly planted in classic R&B, as evidenced…

Sin Desires Marie reunion show, April 9 at the hi-dive

At the end of the ’90s, before almost every form of music had been completely compromised, colonized and commercialized, the Pauline Heresy formed and wrote emotionally raw, lyrically confessional music that might have been lumped in with emo two years later. But before that could happen, two of the band’s…

The Inactivists explain the War on Jazz Hands

Depending on what you think the proper role of a real musician might be or what a real musician is or looks like, the Inactivists (due at the Walnut Room tonight) might either be the ultimate novelty act or an inspired conspiracy of talented artists with a shared love of…

Michael Sempert of Birds & Batteries on Panorama and San Francisco

San Francisco’s Birds & Batteries may be essentially a pop band, but the lushness of the act’s songwriting and the ability to evoke and articulate complex emotions with poetry and intensity is a rare talent these days. The group’s latest album, 2010’s Panorama, lived up to its title as a…

Pure Sunshine at the Bluebird, 3/26/11

PURE SUNSHINE Overcasters • the Buckingham Squares • the Purple Fluid The Omens • The Geniuses • Git Some 03.26.11 | Bluebird Theater Git Some kicked off night two of Pure Sunshine last night at the Bluebird Theater. The act’s lyrics are often washed out by the torrent of guitar…