You must pay tribute,” says Jason Russell, gently grasping the base of a coconut adorned with red hair and fake eyeballs, “to the monkey head.” The head in question hangs from the rafters of a northwest Denver garage, the practice space for the Orangu-Tones, a quintet bent on reliving the…
Many an artist has enjoyed an entire career — and a lifelong income — from the lasting appeal of one smash, a single tune that somehow buried itself in the minds of listeners like a fiddler crab tunneling into sand. Unfortunately for Dale Hawkins, he’s not one of those artists…
Ask anyone involved in the underground rock scene what the future portends, and there’s a good chance they’ll sing the praises of emo, post-rock, post-hardcore, or whatever names happen to be in vogue at the moment. Call it what you will, indie rock — and all of its outgrowths –…
Most odds-and-ends collections aren’t nearly odd enough, and they generally don’t end well, either; remembering anything from the average leftovers compilation is about as easy as listing all the characters from War and Peace in alphabetical order. But there are exceptions, and this is one — a timely deck-clearing for…
Producer Joel Dorn, who founded the superb revival label 32 Jazz, is giving jazz collectors two more shots of the real thing (and the rare thing) with his initial releases on Label M. From the dusty archives of Baltimore’s old Left Bank Jazz Society, he’s plucked a wealth of jazz…
Whiskeytown is known primarily for lead singer Ryan Adams’s raw, emotional songs and often cocky swagger. Yet the question of whether that will change after the release of the band’s new album will remain unanswered until at least next year: Tied up in the Interscope/Geffen merger, the completed album is…
Two weeks ago, an item in this column mentioned that Mike “Big Mike” Colin plays bass with the excellent hip-hop and free-jazz collective, Ratiocination, a band with almost enough players to line a dugout at the World Series. Now, it appears, Colin can scratch Ratio duties off an already overfull…
San Diegos Pinback, Friday, October 13, at the 15th Street Tavern with Acrobat Down and Oer the Ramparts, combines the considerable talents of Armistead Burwell Smith IV (aka Zach), who served as the heart of Three Mile Pilot, and Robert Rulon Crow Junior. Yet unlike the heavier sounds that emanated…
Hugh Ragin is just one of the local jazz luminaries who will light up the stage at Vartans Jazz Club and Restaurant on Friday, October 13. The expressive trumpet player (and recent nominee for Best Jazz Artist in Westwords Music Awards Showcase) will be joined by excellent concert pianist Joe…
A drum! A drum! Macbeth doth come. Well, sort of. His tragedy has become a comic farce in Kevin Harts McBeth, playing at the Bovine Metropolis Theatre through November 5. Dont look for Claire or Leonardo in this Shakespeare re-do — try line cooks, clowns and trailer trash. And what…
For many musicians, having fans hear their decades-old music is as scary as having a potential partner view long-out-of-fashion high school photos: There are some things that are best left buried in the past. But for Chris Daniels and the Kings, looking back on past endeavors has never been so…
Genuine musical objectivity is tough to come by, since most listeners, try as they might, can’t help but bring biases to what they hear. Sometimes these predispositions are personal; for instance, my beloved can no longer listen to the Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” without displeasure, because it was playing…
Given that Ray of Light, Madonna’s last studio release, was both a big seller and the best-reviewed album of her career (its quality briefly forced all but the most obtuse critics to consider her as an artist first and a cultural icon second, rather than the other way around), it’s…
It’s always fashionable in music circles to lament the plight of reggae’s gods: They were exploited, misunderstood, ahead of their time. But Peter Tosh has only himself to blame. Aside from the 1998 boxed set Honorary Citizen, there’s a scarcity of recorded material with which to canonize him. This is…
For the better parts of rock history, a variety of jokers have gone to great lengths to prove just how deranged they are, whether they bit the heads off of doves, waved their penises around on stage or murdered a junkie girlfriend. Maybe that’s why the Sick Bees’ understated imbalance…
So far, it’s been a busy, not to mention fruitful, year for America’s entertainment lawyers, a group that is probably alone in its enjoyment of the current climate of squabbling — and litigation — over music-ownership issues (cocaine dealers the world over are probably already scrambling to fill orders in…
Bettie Serveert, Thursday, October 5, at Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, with Counting Crows and Live, has spent the last couple of years outside of the indie spotlight cast upon it following a series of well-received outings for Matador; after being dropped from the label, the Dutch band has finally released Private…
How blue is your grass? Niwots own Pete and Joan Wernick, who perform in free concerts on Saturday, October 7, and Sunday, October 8, at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, combine masterful acoustic pickin with heartfelt vocal harmonies; its a one-two punch that has earned the pair the honorary distinction…
Good news for University of Colorado students–and all other Coloradans –looking for something slightly more refined than the bar/rioting scene: The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts summer After Hours series was so popular that the museum has decided to continue it through the fall. Every Thursday from 5 p.m. to…
There are several versions of exactly what happened inside the Cricket on the Hill on Saturday, September 8, at 12:30 a.m., but the popular version goes like this: The guy from the Volts got on stage, threw beer bottles at people and then got beat up outside. The Pin Downs,…
Each year, the annual Country Music Association awards broadcast holds a few surprises, little drama and zero controversy. Unlike the Grammys or the Academy Awards, where viewers can expect at least a little bit of from-the-podium pontificating on current events or artistic issues, the CMA’s are typically safe, self-congratulatory shmoozefests…
In the liner notes of Faith, Hess, who’s been among the saving graces of Colorado jazz for a generation or so, makes an unexpected admission. “While we’re not quite ready for a leisured retired life on the golf course,” he allows, “the music does speak our age. Maybe that’s what…
