“We’re not sending no gangsta message,” asserts Denver rapper Nyke Loc. “Like, we’re not claiming anything, because I never claimed nothin’. I never told you I was Blood nor no Crip. I never dissed no set. We make gangsta rap, but without the gangsta mentality. It’s gangsta rap like a…
Dave Self, one of the DJs behind the hip-hop collective called Den One, didn’t grow up in a rap-loving household. “My stepmom and my dad were like, ‘What is this Run PRQ and the Beastie Boys? What is this shit? This is just a fad,'” he recalls. “And I would…
Few acts of rebellion are as defining as imposing one’s music of choice on others. But while most youths who carry out such assaults use current, cutting-edge sounds as their weapons, rockabilly artist Josie Kreuzer waged one such sonic war with music from the past. “I worked at Tower Records…
Neutral Milk Hotel In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Merge) You’ve read a lot in these pages about the Elephant 6 collective and how this shifting cadre of musicians from a number of cities gets together on a regular basis to make weird and wonderful songs under several different banners,…
The current issue of Rolling Stone suggests that Internet radio is worth noticing mainly because it’s providing a new forum for old-fashioned heavy metal. But this implication sells the concept short in a major way. A wide range of stations have popped up of late, and many of them have…
On the way to the Aerosmith concert at McNichols Arena on April 20, I told my beloved companion that the crowd would likely be populated entirely by guys in their forties wearing unfashionably long hair and tattered Harley-Davidson T-shirts. It didn’t quite work out that way, though. True, I saw…
Upon meeting bluesman David Honeyboy Edwards in 1942, musicologist Alan Lomax called him a “genius” who could “make the guitar speak like a natural man.” Part of the reason for his aptitude, Lomax believed, was his dedication to his ax; Edwards kept playing it even as he and Lomax strolled…
“Let me tell you about the Red King’s Kingdom…Picture an island of intense beauty on which a magnificent castle is surrounded by sprawling villages, dense forests, and golden meadows…” So begin the liner notes to When the Red King Comes, the latest offering from Athens, Georgia’s Elf Power. But you…
A block of local reviews that’s totally solid. The Damn Shambles, recently profiled in these pages (“Bar Bands of the World, Unite,” February 19), have a lengthy pedigree: Kurt Jones was in the Tremblers, former drummer Jerry Lee hails from Wanker, and the bassist currently known as Pete was part…
Singer-songwriter Jim White’s life has a made-up quality about it. Among the reasons is his colorful way with descriptions; his anecdotes are sprinkled with metaphors and literary allusions softened by self-deprecating humor that suggests William Faulkner after his first joint. And then there are the tales themselves: admirably curious sketches…
Though the guitar is exceedingly common, Denverite Neil Haverstick’s approach to it is anything but. Rather than using the 12-tones-per-octave scale that links Western music from Beethoven to the Beatles, Haverstick regularly lays his skillful hands upon a custom-built 19-tones-per-octave guitar. The result of efforts like those found on his…
For years, Lord of Word and the Disciples of Bass has been considered one of the local bands most likely to sign with a major label and burst into national prominence–but it’s not going to happen. After shows at Denver’s Bluebird Theater and Boulder’s Fox Theatre on Friday, April 10,…
Singer-songwriter Ben Harper is very serious about his job, and he expects others to feel the same way. Which means that when it comes to dealing with the media, he’s frequently disappointed. “I have two more interviews today, and I’m dreading them,” he says from a hotel room in the…
On the surface, Silver Scooter, an obscure band from Austin, Texas, is little more than a trio of geeky Caucasians squeezing punk pop from a guitar-bass-drums lineup. But although such groups are as easy to slag as generic cigarettes, the archetype obviously has a deep-seated appeal: After all, the roster…
Saxophonist Wayne Shorter has been quoted as saying, “I do what I am, but I am not what I do.” Trumpeter/flugelhornist Roy Hargrove is not as good as Shorter at compartmentalizing. “It’s the music, mainly,” he explains. “The music keeps me going. If it wasn’t for the music, I’d be…
Denver’s garage-music scene owes much of its vitality to guitarist/vocalist Michael Daboll. As a member of the defunct trio Element 79 and a onetime part of 360 Twist! Records, a locally based label that’s issued a series of excellent recordings by worthy international acts such as Billy Childish and Thee…
Colorado has produced more nationally known dance-music figures than many observers inside or outside the state realize. An example is David Winsett, known to the world at large as DJ Swingsett. This former local boy, now a resident of New York City, is a prime mover in the field of…
Mary Lou Lord has a lot of heroes, including Elliott Smith and Shawn Colvin. But the act whose career she would most like to emulate is more unlikely: the Kelly Family. Anyone who has seen the Kellys, a prefab combo of willowy siblings who make the Hanson brothers seem like…
Cappadonna The Pillage (Razor Sharp Records/Epic) Killah Priest Heavy Mental (Geffen) As an experiment, I decided to try analyzing these Wu-Tang Clan spinoffs without paying the slightest attention to the lyrics, and it was a revelation. Suddenly, the voices of Cappadonna, who became part of the family with a cameo…
Each week, record companies of all shapes and sizes release an avalanche of product, and doing so isn’t cheap. The cost of servicing hundreds or even thousands of retailers, writers, Web-page entrepreneurs and the like with promotional items is a staggering cash drain that’s caused firms to look for less…
Red Aunts guitarist Kerry Davis yawns into the phone, then promptly offers a polite apology. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m really tired today, and I just can’t wake up. I’m a waitress, and I just started working nights recently, getting home at like four in the morning. People think that…
The mere sight of Denver blues violinist Lionel Young on stage generates a jolt of energy, whether he’s fronting a trio or an ensemble complete with horns, guitars and electric bass. Smiling, always smiling, he creates a sound that’s sensual and strong, delicate and precise, technically impeccable and emotionally pure…
