It’s a Tuesday night in downtown Denver, and Chuck Shockney, music instructor, organ salesman and part-time musician, is preparing for another gig. He sits down at his keyboard, turns on his rig and slides into a tune for the usual audience of…50,000 people. Shockney, the 51-year-old organist for Coors Field…
They’ve got the local music in them. Flesh Blanket, by Zoon Politikon, is not a punk album in the contemporary, major-label sense–meaning that it sounds nothing like Green Day. Instead, the act, as captured by producer Tim Beckman, gives you an idea of what early Eighties X might have sounded…
“Have you noticed how a majority of the musicians around here are about a generation behind in the way that they play?” asks Sam Coffman, a composer/pianist who leads the Denver jazz act Cat Unit. “And hey, it’s not just around here; I think it’s a common problem everywhere. But…
Madonna’s baby-to-be (reportedly a girl to be named Lola, after the Marlene Dietrich character in 1930’s The Blue Angel) is a star even before sticking her head out of her mom’s well-publicized womb. But will she stay one? It’s not easy, as the offspring of the famous performers below can…
“In a way, it’s almost a privilege not to be played on the radio,” singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa says with a laugh. “Sure, I’d love to have radio success–I’d be lying if I didn’t say that. But the quality and content of the music are just as important to me as…
Thus far, videotape shot during the aftermath of the punk-rock-show-turned-riot at a Denver VFW hall on May 18 (Feedback, May 23) hasn’t caused the stir many attendees were hoping, in part because of its highly variable quality. Dave Paco, bassist for the band Four, says much of the footage he…
Howlin’ Maggie Honeysuckle Strange (Columbia) Who’d a thunk that in 1996, one of the hottest sounds in the United States would come courtesy of the Rolling Stones? Not that the Stones are suddenly enjoying a personal revival; while catalogue sales are keeping them in beer and blood transfusions, their most…
If the members of Denver’s Eleventh Hour appear to be suffering from an identity crisis, you can hardly blame them. According to Howard Bridges II, drummer for the youthful combo–which also includes lead vocalist/guitarist Shane Ewegen, bassist/ vocalist Brian Long and self-proclaimed djembe “intern” Nathan Frank–the people who attend the…
One expects even those rock musicians inclined toward experimentalism to eventually embrace the four-minute pop song, or to otherwise marry the gems of their wanderings to our culture’s more prominent musical conventions. But thus far, John Herndon, one of the five multi-instrumentalists who make up the Chicago-based Tortoise, has resisted…
The mainstream-media coverage of the so-called melee that took place Saturday, May 18, at a punk show staged at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall was, in a word, typical. The television news accounts that I saw immediately following the incident–which involved the arrests of seventeen people and the participation…
Rage Against the Machine Evil Empire (Epic) Why are so many left-wingers humorless? Sure, there are terrible things happening on this little globe of ours–war, torture, rape, racism, discrimination, deforestation–and anyone willing to batter against such obstacles deserves props. But I humbly submit that the harangue is seldom the best…
Shortly after moving from Japan to the United States in the late Eighties, Yuka Honda landed a job writing about American food for a Japanese magazine. On the surface, the position seems to have little in common with her current role, as half of a resolutely eclectic band known as…
Very little unnerves Leslie Mah, guitarist for San Francisco’s Tribe 8. But she admits to being a bit nervous about playing her first show in Colorado since moving away from her home state seven years ago. “It’s going to be a little weird, because I haven’t been to a show…
Six years ago this month, Cristofer Lix was admitted to a hospital with a severe headache, the result of a pharmacist’s misreading of his prescription for sinus medication; for two days he had been inadvertently taking a drug for high blood pressure at an unusually high dosage. But after having…
At the Academy of Country Music awards presentation in late April, a slew of country stars were rounded up for a tribute to Merle Haggard, the designated recipient of a lifetime achievement statuette. Clint Black, wearing his trademark chapeau, introduced the segment with heartfelt superlatives that were echoed by several…
Paul Westerberg Eventually (Reprise) You’ve got to feel bad for Westerberg. As the mouth behind the Replacements, the man practically invented what’s now known as alternative rock, but pretty much the only thing he got for this achievement was critical acclaim–and we all know how much that contributes to your…
Splayed across the floor of Fort Collins’s Blasting Room studio, Jon Snodgrass–guitarist/vocalist for the punk band Armchair Martian–is fervently expounding on the virtues of one of his favorite musicians. But while Snodgrass is a modern rocker through and through, the object of his affection isn’t Kurt Cobain or Dexter Holland…
With washed-up bands from the Seventies reuniting faster than you can say “Fiddler’s Green,” perhaps it’s only fitting that Modern English, a seemingly washed-up band from the Eighties, should also be in search of a nostalgia wave to ride. But unlike many of his classic-rock predecessors, Robbie Grey, the only…
Local consumers interested in picking up the latest music by area artists know they can find it at a handful of locations, including Wax Trax, Twist & Shout, Albums on the Hill and Jerry’s Record Exchange. Beginning next week, however, a new outlet should be added to the list: King…
While recently flipping through a copy of the Denver Post, Neil Slade, a fixture on the local music scene, stumbled across an advertisement for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. Under the heading “Notes for the Symphony,” the ad featured this pitch: “Write musical history. Buy a note of music for $10…
Hootie & the Blowfish Fairweather Johnson (Atlantic) Listening to this album put me in mind of a line from an episode of the Seventies sitcom Sanford and Son. In it, Fred, played by Redd Foxx, describes a particularly bland meal. “After dinner,” he adds, “I belched and it tasted like…
Miki Berenyi, the lead singer of England’s Lush, would like to light a fire beneath the rather placid audiences she’s encountered of late. “A lot of people who’ve been coming to see us in America are 4AD fans,” she says, referring to Lush’s label, an imprint known for the ethereal…
