The late Christopher Wallace, who went by the names Biggie Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G., is represented on the Billboard roster of best-selling albums by Life After Death, which at this writing remains the third most popular recording in the country nine weeks after its release. “Hypnotize,” the lead single…
Vince Clarke, the instrumental ringleader of the pop duo Erasure, has cast a large shadow over the field of electronic music. As a founding member of the seminal Eighties electro-bands Depeche Mode, Yazoo (aka Yaz) and the Assembly, he used his formidable musical abilities to create a genre that led…
Even musicians who’ve played hundreds of concerts can usually cite a single show that was pivotal to their careers. The members of Colorado’s Fiddlin’ Foresters are no different–but their definitive gig certainly was. “One of the big turning points for us that really helped us gel,” notes Foresters guitarist Jane…
With the programmers at MTV playing far fewer music videos than they have in years past, simply getting a clip onto the network is a victory of sorts for young bands on the rise. But for the ska-punkers in Detroit’s Suicide Machines, breaking onto the airwaves has been a mixed…
Amanda Rootes, the aptly named platinum blonde who fronts the English punk outfit Fluffy, has something important on her agenda. She reveals, “We’re just about to get our wigs done.” Do any of you punk-rockers have a problem with that? If so, you’re hereby instructed to share your feelings with…
Prior to Beck Hansen’s May 22 appearance at Red Rocks, I had seen him give two of the worst performances of all time–the first in April 1994 at Boulder’s Ground Zero, the second in July 1995 at Fiddler’s Green as part of that year’s Lollapalooza festival. These shows were dreadful…
The Holmes Brothers Promised Land (Rounder) Most of the CD stores that stock material by the New York-based Brothers Holmes–and not nearly enough of them do–place it in the blues section, as if that’s the only kind of music that three African-Americans of a certain age could possibly be making…
Scott Willhite is a man of many moods. He’s best known in these parts as the guitarist for Turnsol, an overtly accessible modern-rock aggregation that’s built up a sizable local following (the band opens for Zeut at the Bluebird Theater on Saturday, May 24). But he also possesses (or is…
“I don’t want punk credibility,” intones Henry Rollins, “because that would mean I’d have to have a heroin habit, shitty hair, no muscle tone and a girlfriend with pins hanging out of her tits.” No question about it: Rollins, 36, gives good quote–and he’s parlayed his way with the English…
Punk icon turned burly entrepreneur Henry Rollins claims not to care what journalists think about him or his most recent album (see page 79). But his comments about Beck, arguably the most critically acclaimed pop musician of the past several years, suggest that he might harbor a certain resentment for…
Beck Hansen is tired. He’s in England, a country where hot American acts are routinely vilified by reviewers who are suspicious of any trend that did not get its start from them. Beck, however, has somehow been spared this treatment. Since his arrival in Britain, he has been lauded, feted,…
At a recent battle-of-the-bands contest sponsored at Lafayette’s Centaurus High School by the community’s police department, the five local teenagers known collectively as the Gashcats were subjected to unseasonably cold temperatures, stinging winds and no fewer than four power outages. But what drummer Sean Merrell, singer Adam Beckley, lead guitarist…
Notes from the local underground. The first thing you hear on pianist David London’s new CD is London himself, sounding like a homegrown Fabio. “My name is David London,” he says over a lush backing track, “and this is my creation, Music on the Rocks. My main reason for writing…
The song that introduced Carol van Dijk, vocalist and guitarist for Bettie Serveert, to the pop-music audience as a whole was 1992’s “Tomboy.” The tune’s title is an appropriate one; on it, the singer’s voice exudes a friendly, genderless, Huck Finn quality. Dust Bunnies, her band’s latest album, indicates a…
“I guess you could call us a garage-punk band,” says Mike Maker, vocalist and spokesman for Spokane, Washington’s Makers. “I could see why some people would think that, because of the way we look and the way we sound. But I hate to call ourselves that, because I hate most…
Like countless groups before it, Denver’s Electric Summer formed on a university campus. But there’s a difference between the average college combo and this punk-rock quartet. You see, the school in question is Teikyo Loretto Heights University, a southwest Denver institution that’s primarily populated by students who are natives of…
Radish Restraining Bolt (Mercury) Hate to break it to you, Kurt, but this is what the movement you popularized has come to–imitations of you by a fifteen-year-old kid from Texas. Ben Kweller is his name, and he’s got your style nailed. The throaty vocals, the distorted guitars, the punchy songwriting,…
When asked why he plays the music he does, blues singer-songwriter Guy Davis quotes a line borrowed from Son House: “The blues chose me.” When he elaborates, however, his words are his own. “In whatever I do, I intend to continue to play the blues. It’s just a part of…
Okay, I admit it: I’ve never understood the appeal of Rush. When friends would tout the instrumental gymnastics and lyrical insights of bombastic discs such as 1976’s 2112 (largely inspired by the writings of–gulp–Ayn Rand), I’d respond with a shudder and go back to my Clash albums. But a funny…
Craig Christensen, aka DJ Craig C, has been spinning dance records at Denver nightspots for five years–an eternity by late-night standards. But he shows no signs of slowing down. He and his frequent partner, DJ Dealer (ne Greg Diehl), have become nationally known remixers; their revision of Joi Cardwell’s “You…
Hubris: an overweening self-confidence that can lead to calamity. Many a hero in Greek literature met a grim fate as a result of this failing, and in virtually every case, their collapses were richly deserved. These characters weren’t merely examples of the how-the-mighty-have-fallen concept that gives many of us common…
“There are questions I’ve tried really hard not to ask myself about my own music–what lifestyle does it reinforce, what niche does it fit into,” claims accordionist David Willey, the creative force behind Denver’s Hamster Theatre. “Because I’m operating, under the guise at least, that I’m following my heart.” If…
