Judging by what he’s seen and heard from his local and national contemporaries, Tony Achilles, a 25-year-old singer/guitarist with the Denver folk-rock quartet Sweetwater Well, says, “Everybody’s into being depressed.” But while other Generation Xers appear convinced that pain sells, Achilles and his bandmates–guitarist/vocalist David Jackson, drummer Chris Helvey and…
The new Steel Pulse song “Back to My Roots” contains an admission most musicians would never make. “We took that commercial road/Searching for some fame and gold,” sings lead vocalist David Hinds. “And gained the whole wide world/And almost lost our souls.” This verse is no fantasy scenario; it’s the…
Tenderloin, with Reverend Horton Heat and Useless Playboys, Friday, December 2, at the Boulder Theater, and Saturday, December 3, at the Ogden Theatre, is well named, for this group from Lawrence, Kansas, is meaty and quite possibly bad for you. Still, that’s no reason to stay away. The foursome, together…
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Orange (Matador) Those of you who pick this up expecting an actual blues album likely will have a heart attack and die before the end of the first song. The blues idiom does make appearances here–almost every song uses the genre’s standard progressions–but Spencer, drummer…
“I think there’s an art involved in bringing all of these people together under the Pigface umbrella,” says Martin Atkins, drummer and founder of the industrial supergroup called, yes, Pigface. Fighting to be heard over the buzz of a bad connection (he’s calling from a pay phone on a pedestrian…
We all know how swiftly and confidently time flies. Yet within the big picture, there are an infinite number of slower scenes capable of yielding riches if given the wise, insightful, detailed treatment they deserve. Such is the hunting ground of singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Eitzel and his band, American Music Club…
In response to the assurance that his impending fortieth birthday doesn’t mean he’s at death’s door, pedal-steel guitarist and African music enthusiast Glenn Taylor laughs: “But it is. I think turning forty is a milestone–like this stone around your neck.” He’s more serious when he adds, “Of course, it’s an…
Like Hank Williams, the acknowledged king of country, George Jones tried to drink, carouse and good-time his way into an early grave. Unlike Williams, he didn’t succeed. And now, with a still-vital Jones on the north side of sixty, the country-music establishment is trying to figure out how best to…
Paula Cole is standing on stage at Fez, a cramped, rectangular bar inside a Moroccan restaurant in New York City’s Greenwich Village. When addressing the audience on this cold November evening, she apologizes for the somber nature of much of her material. “I go to a really dark place when…
Barbra Streisand The Concert (Columbia) Streisand has dedicated at least the most recent ten years of her career to trumpeting her own greatness, and The Concert–exceedingly portentous title–is no exception. The CD’s jacket is dominated by rave reviews of her recent tour (“The Way Streisand Is–Sensational!” gushed USA Today) and…
Pianist/vocalist Kelley Hunt speaks in an unhurried, no-pretenses manner, as if she’s chatting with the girls down at the beauty shop. The personality of this native of Lawrence, Kansas, shines through tasty and sweet–and so does her music, which constitutes the freshest slant on classic R&B and boogie that you’re…
“Yes, we have been to Tennessee,” says Mike Taveira, lead guitarist for the Denver-based rockabilly band the Tennessee Boys. “We have been to the airport there.” He’s smiling, but a second later, his brow furrows. “No, we have not been to Tennessee,” he amends. “It was Texas. We have been…
To put it succinctly, the music of certain artists is primarily intended for fucking. Yeah, you can listen to it in your car when you’re alone, but you won’t get the most it has to offer unless it’s playing on the stereo while you’re doing the grind with someone not…
Esquivel! Space-Age Bachelor Pad Music (Bar/None) I’m more than a little doubtful about the staying power of the new cocktail movement; if you have one Love Jones record, you probably don’t need another. But any trend that raises the profile of late Fifties/ early Sixties exotica is jake by me…
Ani DiFranco, Wednesday, November 9, at the Mercury Cafe, and Thursday, November 10, at the Fox Theatre, can do more with three chords and a complaint than an entire busload of weekend anarchists–and she does it with nothing more than an acoustic guitar and a stool. On Out of Range,…
England’s Pale Saints believe that much of today’s music is the aural equivalent of junk food: simple, predictable and with little nutritional value. By comparison, the Saints’ body of work is subtle yet sublime, artsy yet unpretentious–and all but impossible to categorize. “It gives me headaches to try to analyze…
The year was 1988, the group was Public Enemy and the album was It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, as incendiary a blast of politicized bile as had been spewed by any band since the Sex Pistols. Lead rapper Chuck D, whose band had made a…
When singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley talks about his music, he doesn’t mess around. “I’d say my songs fall into of twentieth-century American,” he notes, “because that definition encompasses so much. Pop art. Even the Flintstones. It could be Gershwin. It could be Rodgers and Hart. It could be John Cage. It…
It’s probably not a good idea to take literally singer-songwriter Lisa Germano’s claim, “In the beginning, I was thinking I was going to do a happy record.” After all, her terrific 1993 disc Happiness balanced gallows humor with material that was about as upbeat and chipper as your average funeral…
The members of Denver’s Blue City 5 take a philosophical approach to their work. The performers feel that their music is not going anywhere and doesn’t come from anywhere, either. It simply exists in eternal space and time. This theory might seem hard to swallow, particularly for an act described…
Soul Coughing Ruby Vroom (Slash/Warner Bros.) If you had any doubt that lead vocalist M. Doughty used to review music (for the New York Press), check out “Sugar Free Jazz,” in which he needles acid-jazz trendies with the line “Put your fake goatee on” over a beat that probably wouldn’t…
Right now, most alternative musicians seem to think that it’s hip to be depressed. But according to Nicholas Hexum, the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the funky, danceable group 311, happiness is the best policy. “It seems like you could get caught up in the drama of lamenting about…
