Lots of folk lean on religion when they’re trapped and desperate — an inmate facing thirty hard ones, for instance. Nick Cave is a prisoner of sorts, only his cell comes without concrete walls. And he, too, has leaned on Christianity, only recontextualizing its core doctrine to jibe with his…
With its latest release, R.E.M. has perfected a two-part strategy for earning glowing reviews. Step A: Issue tepid to dreadful albums for at least a decade. Step B: Put out a decent CD and watch it be hailed as a Work of Genius! That’s pretty much the story with Accelerate…
Hillstomp’s bucket thumper and washboard scraper John Johnson once said, “The blues isn’t really about being sad,” but about using the music as a celebration, to bring yourself up and out of something. Johnson and guitarist/singer Henry Kammerer know a few things about lifting up spirits with their punk-infused, backwoods…
The second Raconteurs album, Consolers of the Lonely, is getting more pub for the way it was released — quickly, mere weeks after its completion, with little prep time for marketers or retail outlets — than for the music it contains. That’s appropriate, though, since the best of the new…
No one can accuse Dale Watson of not being country enough. The Austin-based singer-songwriter, supported on this bill by Jim Dalton and Tony Nascar, has a bottomless bar-room voice, a wonderfully baroque delivery, and a pronounced ornery streak he proudly displays on “Country My Ass,” in which he attacks watered-down…
Just having been in the Wu-Tang Clan automatically affords you a certain level of credibility, even when it isn’t warranted (yes, we’re talking about you, U-God). Even that, however, isn’t necessarily enough to earn you shine. Good thing for GZA, then, that he has more going on than just that…
Rjyan Kidwell started up Cex in 1998, when he was just sixteen years old. At seventeen, he launched the influential Tigerbeat6 label with Kid 606. By the time he was out of high school, the guy was already something of a well-known figure in underground electronic music. His early material,…
Pharrell Williams is so in-demand as a producer that every time he tours with N.E.R.D., his most consistently weird project, he probably costs himself money. But in the days before the release of his latest gun-for-hire superstar collaboration, Madonna’s Hard Candy, he’s on the road again, for reasons that make…
Most musicians aspire to perform before ever-growing crowds — and singer-songwriter Colin Meloy certainly doesn’t bellyache about the burdens imposed by the large throngs that regularly gather to check out his longtime band, the Decemberists, these days. Still, he harbors a certain nostalgia for the old days, which he revisits…
In the metal world, it seems that everything old is new again. Hundreds of bands are mining the rich ore of melodic British icons like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and combining it with the sludgy doom of Black Sabbath and Pentagram — with varying degrees of success. Austin’s the…
I’m a little under whelmed, Denver. You claim you like Art. You claim you like the nightlife. Even our mayor loves the rock and roll (his favorite band is X!). So where are you?…
Reunion season looks to be in full-swing in the Mile High City. Hard on the heels of last week’s news that Yellow Second is reconvening for a show at the hi-dive, comes word that the original members of another beloved, bygone band from the not too distant past, Sick, are…
Pharrell Williams, the subject of an April 24 Westword profile, is as busy a producer as any on the planet; among his most recent projects was Madonna’s Hard Candy, which reaches retailers on April 29. Still, he managed to squeeze in an interview to promote an upcoming appearance by N.E.R.D.,…
The Pharrell Williams Q&A published in conjunction with an April 24 article contains a mention of Westword’s previous N.E.R.D. interview – one conducted back in 2003 with Chad Hugo, Williams’ partner in the band and the Neptunes production duo. The earlier piece, which appears in its entirety below, provides greater…
The following Q&A with Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy, staged for an April 24 profile timed to an upcoming solo appearance, got off on the wrong foot, unlike a 2004 quiz session that can be accessed here in its entirety. And yet Meloy’s professionalism and smarts make the conversation fine reading…
At this writing, Colin Meloy, leader of the Decemberists, is on a solo tour; he appears at the Boulder Theater on Saturday, April 26, with singer-songwriter Laura Gibson opening. A recent Q&A is accessible here – but an interview conducted for a March 11, 2004 Decemberists profile provides additional context,…
Slide show with photos by Brian Folkins Savage Henry’s Wish We Were Floyd Friday, April 18, 2008 Gothic Theatre Better Than: Sparking a fatty and synching up Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz. Dead on and flawless. That’s about the most fitting description I can come…
The Communikey Festival this weekend brought together one of the largest gatherings of electronic arts purveyors this side of the internet. Slide show review by Cory Casciato…
Colour Revolt Plunder, Beg and Curse Fat Possum Records 02:00-02:45 of “Ageless Everytime” Every once and a while someone gets the late ’90s right. Colour Revolt seems to capture the sounds of bands like Cop Shoot Cop, Shiner and Hum in all the right ways to make what appears to…
Here’s a selection of the best of last week’s music blogging from around the Village Voice chain: Sometimes, you can judge a book by it’s cover — or an album, at least. A look at thirteen soul-blues albums, a genre that’s mastered the art of capturing the record’s flavor with…
The bouncer on stage did a decent Axl Rose impression — complete with bandanna. “All we need is just a little patience,” he sang into the karaoke mic. In the room next door, a DJ mixed Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” with “Sweet Child O’ Mine.” It could only be…
Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me. Uh, yeah, there’s at least one recently deceased 27-year-old rapper who’d probably beg to differ with that adage after an MC battle turned deadly earlier this week in the Motor City. Having witnessed countless battles in my…
