Damieon Hines is taking peeps to school. The DJ and Future Jazz Project drummer launched Sound College a couple of weeks ago at La Rumba with that idea in mind. Every Wednesday, the theme focuses on a different style of music; the concept is to explore funk, hip-hop, soundtracks and…
There’s a trio of heavy hitters anchoring this year’s edition of JazzFest Denver (taking place on Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24, at the Sherman Events Center). Kevin Mahogany possesses one of the smoothest voices on the jazz scene and has a resounding baritone that recalls Joe Williams and…
By eponym alone, Left on Lincoln makes sense only if you’re coming from a higher-income bracket — that is, the west or even the southwest (aka the ‘burbs). The bar just opened in the former Donkey Den bar/patio space in the building at 1109 Lincoln that also now houses the…
I’m no Mark Pellington or David LaChapelle, so take this for what it’s worth: The new Laylights video looks like a million bucks. “I know,” marvels Laylights frontman Tyler Hayden. “That’s why we were so excited about it.” The Laylights paid the Lockerpartners (Emily and Mary Grace) less than you’d…
Anita and Kevin Robinson, the happily wedded couple behind Portland, Oregon’s Viva Voce, are partners in life, “but we’re also musical partners,” Anita says. “We have been since the moment we met. I just respect the hell out of him as an artist, and I think everything he does is…
James Wellensiek may be one of the scene’s elder statesmen, but you’d never know it. Granted, today he hardly resembles the lean, sneering punk heartthrob on the inside of Pinhead Circus’s Fall in Love All Over Again (he has, ahem, more facial hair now), but the guy’s got the vigor…
For all intents and purposes, Sparklehorse is Mark Linkous. And yet, despite a welcome move to a western North Carolina mountaintop and noteworthy assists from Tom Waits, Danger Mouse and the Flaming Lips’ Steven Drozd, his latest release, Dreamt for Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain (full of…
Although Fall Out Boy lyricist/dreamboat Pete Wentz is inveterately verbose, his words don’t mask profundity, and that’s a big reason for his band’s success. A lot of emo acts have a limited audience due to all that freakin’ emotion. But instead of turning songs into platforms for pain, Wentz eschews…
If Fergie required an artistic answer (aside from “Uh, no, thanks”), MC Romy Hoffman, aka Macromantics, would be the perfect nuclear-blast reply. Rather than dangle her pussy like car keys, Hoffman cuts verbal territory in back-flipped knots of Mad Hatter intellectualism. Moments in Movement builds its grooves off jagged edges…
Colder Than Fargo There’s no pretense in Dogs and Tumbleweeds, the third Colder Than Fargo recording. The group, which celebrates the disc’s release on Saturday, February 17, at the Larimer Lounge alongside deadbubbles, Januar, Killfix and Sonatine, favors straightahead playing and frills-free arrangements whose simplicity and sincerity more than compensate…
Constellations has pushed itself out of the shadow of danceable post-punk, thanks to the addition of experimental noise auteur (and second percussionist) Corey Brown, who’s taken on some of the songwriting duties. Necrogeister begins with the ominous yet lively title track, which initially sounds familiar, then takes a turn into…
Chimp Beams, Menina (Consent Productions). Almost mellow enough to get boring, Menina’s spaced-out dub instrumentals would benefit greatly from more guest vocals. The New York-based Japanese trio adds experimental jazz, hip-hop and house to its approach, resulting in a lighter flavor than that found on its 2004 debut, Vibrato. Operating…
The Shins’ third and newest album, Wincing the Night Away, was readily available on your favorite illegal file-sharing service early last November, a full three months before its official release. The fact that Wincing went on to debut at #2 on the Billboard album charts — with a whopping 35,000…
Texas-based Fair to Midland isn’t beginning its climb up the ladder of success on the bottom rung, and Serj Tankian is the reason. The System of a Down frontman has signed the combo to his Serjikal Strike imprint and is listed as the executive producer on The Drawn and Quartered…
Like Eskimo, the Zs have a quirky playfulness about them that is confounding and amazing in equal measure. Part rock band and part chamber ensemble, with a whole lot in between, the Brooklyn-based act displays a frenetic dexterity that evokes a sense of controlled chaos — like pistons pumping furiously,…
Music marketed to jam fans can seem interchangeable, but a wider variety of acts fit under the genre’s umbrella than most outsiders realize. Take Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle, a band that touches upon a lot more than the two club styles referenced in its name. As implied by Dillon’s eclectic…
Wiping her nose on her sleeve, spitting a lung cookie into the crowd and grabbing the microphone stand with equal parts disgust and delight, Coco — the uni-monikered lead singer and guitarist for garage-punk power trio the Ettes — rocks the front of the stage like the demon seed of…
For hip-hop heads seeking to escape cookie-cutter club nights, DJs Sounds Supreme and Low Key have the solution. A few Fridays ago, the pair launched a weekly night at Milk Bar called — you guessed it — The Solution. “We’re not trying to be too outside there,” Low Key says,…
Equal parts Bernard Herrmann, John Zorn and Jim O’Rourke, Strangers Die Every Day makes cinematic, esoteric chamber punk that never forgets to rock. Bassist Stirling Myles and drummer Lawrence Armstrong thunder away like an indie-rock rhythm section that fell into the orchestra pit, while violinist Scott Wilkinson and cellist Jessie…
What kind of assholes get access to the VIP section? Very important assholes, obviously, and although the importance of Club Scout is debatable, I’m confident in my ability to make an ass of myself. So last month I jumped at the chance to live it up on the other side…
Just over four decades ago, actor Peter Sellers presented the Beatles with a Grammy they’d won for the song “A Hard Day’s Night.” In a film of this event that was shown during the 1965 Grammy telecast, Sellers referred to the prize as a “Grandma award” — and his joke…
The drive into work this morning was a thing of absolute beauty. A heavy fog was draped around the city like a thick winter coat, and Born in the Flood’s latest (specifically “In Debt to the Heart”) was on my iPod. I was staring out the window as the 122x…
