One of the scummiest dives I ever drank in was the Mars Bar, just around the corner from the now-defunct CBGB on New York’s Lower East Side. It was a tiny, filthy, narrow joint with maybe a dozen stools at the bar and a motley crew of regulars, everyone from…
If rap was the new punk in the late ’80s when Public Enemy, NWA and Boogie Down productions came along to give it a real edge, then the latest incarnation of experimental electronic pop may just be the new indie rock. Thundercade (due at the Meadowlark on Friday, October 12),…
Vocal house doesn’t always have to be diva-tastic, and John Creamer and Stephane K. have done their best to prove that. After a series of remixes for everyone from Satoshi Tomiie to Sinéad O’Connor pushed the pair into the top strata of remixers, John Digweed recruited them to produce a…
Ken Andrews has worked hard to make certain he could never be called a Failure, even though that was the name of his best-known band. Formed in 1990, the group released three well-regarded albums, gigged extensively with Tool and other heavyweights, and even performed on Lollapalooza’s main stage prior to…
Upon moving to Denver from Detroit in the ’90s, Jim Paul joined the Christines. And when that atmospheric power-pop band moved to San Francisco — where, in true Denver fashion, it broke up shortly thereafter — Paul found himself drawn to New York City. He headed to Brooklyn, a place…
In a July interview with Pitchfork, Bill Callahan goes on at length about the reasons he decided to start performing under his own name rather than Smog, the handle he’d used throughout his recording career. He speaks about a “transformation of some sort, an upheaval” — one he decided to…
“Tonight I Have to Leave It,” the opening track on the Shout Out Louds’ latest release, Our Ill Wills, sounds like it could have been a B-side from the Cure’s 1985 album The Head on the Door. The buoyant tune bears a striking resemblance to Robert Smith and company’s “In…
The frenetic pace of hardcore, the combination of outrage and adrenaline, isn’t conducive to longevity. Fact is, most punkers mellow as they age. They take “real” jobs, get married, have kids — in other words, they become the people they hated when they were young and raging. This didn’t happen…
The October 11 profile of Dallas Taylor, lead singer of Maylene and the Sons of Disaster (seen above in a graphic photo from the new Sons’ CD II), was drawn from the following interview. It’s a freewheeling and revealing look at a man who believes that bloody tales of mayhem…
Eric Shiveley is quite the character. Several years ago, a week or so after he’d appeared in my column with a brief one-line mention of how I’d dug his music and everything he’d had a hand in producing at that point, he sent me a note (which I still have…
Okay, we’re not quite as quick as Annie Zaleski, whose early morning review of the new Radiohead recording In Rainbows can be found here. But below, find a couple of additional takes from two regular Backbeat Online contributors, Sean Cronin and yours truly. The rules were simple: Jot down your…
You know, Radiohead, I was just about to go to sleep when I checked my email one last time. And lo and behold, the download code for your new CD, In Rainbows, popped up in my inbox. *sigh* I didn’t need sleep anyway. Since the rest of the blogosphere is…
Gito Gito Hustler is as fun to say as the band is fun to watch. Check this slide show from their Sunday, October 7 show at Benders…
The Wheel, Gregory Alan Isakov, Porlolo and Bela Karoli Bela Karoli CD Release Party October 6, 2007 hi-dive Denver’s singer-songwriter scene currently enjoys more support and recognition than it has seen in many years, and Saturday night’s Bela Karoli CD release party was further proof. A sold-out show without a…
The Klaxons and Hot IQs Fox Theatre October 4, 2007 Better Than: The Klaxons turning out to be some fucking rave band. There’s something adventurous about going to a band’s show that you know nothing about. I guess adventurous for me qualifies as about anything that doesn’t involve TiVO Boggle…
“Did you bring it, by the way?” asks Julie Davis, glancing at Brigid McAuliffe. McAuliffe, sitting across from Davis on the Thin Man’s patio, shakes her head no. “Oh, you suck!” McAuliffe, who sings and plays accordion with Davis in Bela Karoli, recently borrowed her digital recorder. She’s had it…
New Orleans-based Mute Math has traveled a long road to reach the seemingly sudden success of its major-label debut. Vocalist/keytarist Paul Meany, drummer Darren King and bassist Roy Mitchell-Cárdenas have played together for more than seven years. After the demise of their Christian rock group, Earth Suit, King and Meany…
Just as his career as DJ and producer was taking off, Denmark’s Anders Trentemøller made the unorthodox decision to stop making music. “I was suddenly not so much inspired anymore,” he says. “I felt I hadn’t found my own sound, really. I could see myself trying to spend more time…
How easy is it to manipulate popular culture? Ask Klaxons’ Simon Taylor-Davies. Long before the British guitarist and his cohorts, vocalist Jamie Reynolds and keyboardist James Righton, were musically proficient by his standards, they announced that they’d created a sonic style called “new rave” — and the term quickly seized…
Magic is being hyped as Springsteen’s rocking return to his classic period, and that’s understandable: The album contains lotsa familiar musical totems, not to mention lyrics about driving a highway until the road turns black, and a diner on the edge of town (bet it’s dark there). But while Boss…
Songs About Girls is derivative, repetitive, insipid, insincere and pandering. Oh, and if that weren’t enough, it also has the worst insert booklet in recent memory: seven pages of will.i.am mugging in a checkered suit. Actually, the first song, “Over,” a lover’s lament featuring a sample from Electric Light Orchestra…
Solpowa has put in work in the local hip-hop scene for more than a decade, mostly as part of the RRAAHH Foundashun and as a producer for hire. Now he’s stepping out on his own with his solo debut, Da Ace of Clubs. Expectedly, the album showcases Sol P’s production…
