Mark Spiewak is hard of hearing. You might say he’s half deaf, though no doctor has ever diagnosed him as such. He doesn’t like doctors, he won’t investigate the fancy new hearing aids on the market, and he’s sure as hell not going to learn sign language. He just prefers…
About a year ago, an editorial about a group of musicians appeared in the Tucson Weekly, a newspaper much like this one, in which it was suggested that prior to being allowed to form yet another local band, the players in question should be forced to take a written test…
As much as any band, The Wailers, Thursday, January 20, at the Fox Theatre, must truly be enjoying Y2K and the renewed prominence it’s brought them. The BBC chose Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “One Love” as the theme song for its millennium broadcast; Time declared Exodus the best album…
Wojo, Friday, January 21, at Nick’s, plays rock-fortified funk that could get even the geriatric booty of Barney Miller stalwart Abe Vigoda shaking like a Turkish fault line. Formed in 1993 by guitarist/vocalist Jake Cameron, bassist Paul Kirby and brothers Randy and Greg Morgan, who handle guitars and drums, respectively,…
Dancing, drinking and mugging for a camera — no, it’s not a taping for MTV, it’s a model scout at Sevilla at the Icehouse, the LoDo club with a strong Latin flavor. Working with a national online casting company, the club will offer visitors a chance to be discovered while…
The first time Paige O’Meara met film director James Merendino in a Salt Lake City dive bar, he was convinced that the square-looking guy swilling beers behind Buddy Holly specs was, to put it delicately, full of shit. “I’ve met a lot of delusional people,” O’Meara says. “I met this…
Very rarely does a musician, in his or her experiments with new sounds, come along and flip the script in a way that helps create a whole new genre of music. QBert, the Bay Area-based super DJ, is an artist who has done just that. Drawing from the rudimentary scratch…
At times this column seems like an obituary page for local bands. And so it goes as another area outfit calls it quits, at least temporarily: Chief Broom, at the approximate age of 3.5 years, suffered from self-inflicted disbandment after a final show at Quixote’s True Blue on Sunday, January…
The members of Blackfire, Friday, January 14, at the Bluebird Theater, are among a new breed of young Native American artists breaking from the more traditional musical styles associated with tribal culture to speak the universal language of visceral rock and roll. But that doesn’t mean that these siblings from…
All, with Wretch Like Me, Tanger, Someday I… and Bill the Welder, Saturday, January 15, at the Bluebird Theater, headlines this showcase for the Fort Collins-based Owned & Operated record label. All has transcended its heritage as a Descendants spinoff (most of its members are former members of that seminal…
A Night in Velvet, Thursday, January 20, at the Boulder Theater, promises an evening of glamour that should obliterate the notion that Boulder is the sole domain of earth muffins and hippie harmonists. A fabulous fashion show offered by House of Frog Presents, Velvet is shaping up to be as…
Ten years ago, most Denverites wouldn’t have known a rave from a Broncos tailgate party. Yet over the course of the past decade, the city’s rave scene has slowly morphed into one of the more vibrant — and respected — in the country. The average citizen might not realize this…
Cindy Bullens has earned a reputation as an artist whose concerts are a one-of-a-kind experience, but the rock-and-roller’s upcoming performance as part of an E-Town taping will have its own unique significance. The Denver area has played an important role in the development of her vision over the past year…
With A Tribe Called Quest on the shelf, Q-Tip is on his own, more or less, yet he brings with him some important equipment: a readily identifiable musical style (jazzy, keyboard-heavy rhythms, beats that are more about precision than posturing), a unique voice (a rather light, nasal tenor) and a…
Brooklyn-bred John Linnell is one half of perennial chess club/nosebleed favorites They Might Be Giants — the nasal-sounding, accordion-and-sax-playing half, that is. And with his ongoing “Fifty State Songs” project (which began with 1994’s State Songs EP, available through Giants partner in crime John Flansburgh’s subscription-only Hello CD club), Linnell’s…
For my money, the sounds of the 21st century were best created about twenty years ago — from the blips and bleeps of video games and the cold, sterile emanations of analog synthesizers. Unapologetically artificial, they connoted a promising future filled with jet packs, moon vacations and dinner in tablet…
Mike Jerk, of Denver’s Soda Jerk Records, and Jason Cotter, singer for local punk outfit the Family Men (who perform this Friday night at the 15th Street Tavern), are the two-man force behind the fantastically understated punk-rock mecca that is The Raven (2217 Welton). Unapologetically ramshackle, the ornithologically monikered club…
The Teenage Frames, with Hemi Cuda, Saturday, January 8, at the 15th Street Tavern, capture the snarled-lip attitude and punk posture of the Clash, New York Dolls and Ramones — not to mention their guitar licks. With the help of Steve Albini and Mike Hagler manning the boards, the latest…
The Dave Watts Motet, with Jive and Los Guarancheros, Saturday, January 8, at the Boulder Theater, celebrates the release of its new CD, Breathe, as well as the joys of life in a band that jams more than Smuckers. Led by the impressive drumming of Boulder’s Watts, who’s done time…
Elvis’s Retirement Bash and 65th Birthday Party, Saturday, January 8, at Dick’s Last Resort, celebrates what would have been the King’s official entry into his golden years and Social Security eligibility with an evening of food, music and enough pelvic gyrations to steady a space station. Consider the pork chop,…
1999 may not have produced the one great record that will forever define the last year of the century, but it did manage to offer a substantial slew of good-to-great ones in every genre. And with all of the major-label conglomerations and roster-slimming seen in the past twelve months, we…
Gwarmageddon is upon us, and since the battlefield of Armaged’don (Revelation 16:16) comes ready-prophesized as “overwrought with a rabid gathering of Neil Diamond fans,” the Ogden Theatre beckons a much safer place to be this New Year’s Eve. Oderus Urungus and his band of foul-mouthed space pirates are bringing their…
