Music

Most articles about Dressy Bessy suggest that singer/guitarist Tammy Ealom is as bubbly as the hook-o-rama tunes she pens — and in conversation, her easy laughter and occasional giddiness seem to confirm this impression. But she also displays a steely tone at times, making it clear that despite her fun-loving…

When I was in middle school, I had a Vision Gator skateboard named after Mark “Gator” Rogowski, a superstar skater in the ’80s. The last time I was on that board, I was holding on to the bumper of my friend’s car when I hit a patch of Seventh Avenue…

On first blush, the music these guys make sounds a whole lot like a poppier version of the melodic hardcore we’ve heard in this town for the past decade and a half-plus. One song into the band’s set, though, it dawns on you that what you’re hearing is not just…

Colder Than Fargo has never released a less than excellent record, and Gentlemen Please! is no exception. Displaying a notable level of maturity, the album is marked by songs with surprising depth and inventive textures. Deftly sidestepping subgenres, Fargo tastefully borrows from its influences — particularly on tracks such as…

Robert Betts, aka Recone Helmut, who’s presently splitting his time between Denver and Brooklyn, has been fiddling about with electronics since the ’90s, first with LD-50 and then under the pH-10 banner. But on largely instrumental numbers such as “Serious Delirium,” his formula — heavy grooves interspersed with vocal samples…

Here’s a dirty little critical secret: Many times when reviewers describe an album as being a veteran band’s best since fill-in-the-blank, they remember zilch about the discs that appeared in between. That’s certainly the case for me when it comes to Oasis, which has been stylistically consistent to the point…

You’d be justified in being hostile toward all releases bearing the words “electro-pop” in their description, just for the sheer enormity of hacks working under a genre title that means basically “got ripped in my bedroom and decided I could be an Internet sensation.” But Larytta works the same musical…

Conor Oberst has always been a solo artist despite his reliance upon a handle more suited to a band: Bright Eyes. For that reason, his decision to release his latest album under his name (and to use his moniker for its title as well) doesn’t mean he’s stripping away the…

When her songs first reached the public ear, Kaki King, who shares this bill with the Mountain Goats, seemed on the road to becoming that rarest of birds: a female guitar virtuoso. Albums such as 2004’s Legs to Make Us Longer are built upon complex, primarily acoustic instrumentals in which…

Early on, Matthew Sweet had the good fortune to team up with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, as well as with his sister Lynda’s band, Oh-OK. But being a sideman wasn’t really Sweet’s destiny. 1991’s Girlfriend, released at the height of the alt-rock era, made a splash with its superb songwriting, which…

A North Carolina-based outfit intent on keeping the Southern sludge-doom sound of Eyehategod et al. alive, Sourvein hasn’t released a full-length CD since 2002’s The Will to Mangle, but despite revolving-door lineup changes (vocalist Troy Medlin is the only original member left), the band has managed to record three four-song…

Cheap Trick, Budokan! 30th Anniversary Edition (Epic). Cheap Trick has a few better-than-average songs. Without this legendary live album, though, the act would mostly be thought of in the context of those “Where are they now?” programs. With never-released video footage and new band interviews, this anniversary set finally provides…

M.A.N.D.Y. is the somewhat unwieldy name (what’s with all the periods, guys?) of DJ/production duo Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung. These German dance mavens are close friends and frequent collaborators with Booka Shade, an act with a similar sound: bright, perky, techno-inflected house workouts with a tendency to incorporate strange…

The Black Angels are a trip to see in concert. The last time they played the Bluebird, they opened with “Manipulation” — a twisted love song from their 2006 cult hit Passover — in the cover of almost total darkness, with lead singer Alex Maas stalking the stage like a…

The origin of the Legendary Pink Dots reads like some mythical tale: Three people staying in separate tents at Stonehenge get up at the same time in the middle of night and walk through a mist, where they see a band playing. The mysterious musicians are so completely enthralled by…

Dressy Bessy circa 1999, the year after their initial Westword profile. The latest Westword profile of Dressy Bessy, which arrives in advance of an October 18 CD-release party at the Bluebird Theater, comes ten years after the first article about the band — a fact singer-songwriter Tammy Ealom talks about…

Conspiracy Assassin, who’s currently in the midst of putting the finishing touches on a new EP, has announced plans for its CD release/farewell show. That’s right: The band is planning to call it a day after its show on Saturday, November 15 at Arvada’s 12 Volt Tavern, which means its…

If any of your out of state friends ever ask you again why you choose to live in a place like Colorado instead of, say, New York or LA or, hell, I don’t know, Dubuque, Iowa, save the effort of trying to come up with some compelling diatribe about the…

Hello Kavita, profiled here this past April, has partnered with Grant Blakemen’s burgeoning Backstage site to give away three tunes from the band’s latest effort, the fantastic And Then We Turned Sideways. If you don’t already have a copy, get on it. (In fact, what are you still doing reading…