Once there was this little group from suburban Illinois that somehow hit upon a brave new sound. It was an amalgam of the edgy, aggressive rock that came before and the vulnerable, melodic pop that had grown up alongside it. In accordance with this dichotomy, the four bandmembers were a…
Country-music purists often gripe about the watering-down of the genre — and Tim McGraw is as good a symbol as anyone of why it’s happened. McGraw is a good-lookin’ guy hitched to a good-lookin’ gal, Faith Hill, and he’s got an interesting backstory, too, since he was neglected by his…
James Cagney and Sham 69 might seem like oil and water, but both the venerated actor and the legendary punk group have worked on projects called “Angels With Dirty Faces.” Add Manda and the Marbles (above), whose new album is so titled, to that list — just don’t expect any…
Put another dime in the jukebox, baby: Joan Jett’s coming to LoDo. First Vixen of rock and roll Jett (aka Joan Larkin) and her all-girl band of Runaways were around long before today’s so-called grrrrls ever had a period to moan about. Spiked, edgy, yet undeniably feminine, Jett owns the…
After seven grueling years of personnel changes that took the band from a modest trio to a sprawling octet, Askimbo (which takes its name from a nonsense word coined by former guitarist Geoff Orwiler) finally stopped wandering the wilderness and settled on four permanent members: brothers David and John Simpkins,…
If drum-and-bass were the Mafia, then Scott Bourne, better known as Red One, would be the underboss of one of the most notorious families at large. Red runs the day-to-day operations of Ram Records along with Ram affiliates Liftin Spirits, Frequency and Ratio. Ram is one of the best and…
I have to let the world know that if it wasn’t for D12, there wouldn’t be a Slim Shady,” says Swift of his infamous D12 cohort, Eminem. “The name ‘Slim Shady’ stems from the creation of D12, and that’s what he introduced to the world in ‘Hi, My Name Is…’…
As a kid, Edward Ka-Spel endured his share of creepy bedtime stories — along with horrible nightmares that hounded him until the age of ten. “They were there, yeah,” the fey frontman for the Legendary Pink Dots recalls with a laugh. “But I’m also English, so just a simple nursery…
Erick Sermon earned gold plaques with every EPMD album in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Since going solo in 1994, however, he has yet to see any shiny stuff. Although he’s enjoyed a few modest hits in the past five years — most notably, 2001’s “Music” and 2002’s “React”…
It’s not surprising that Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy recently completed rehab for painkiller addiction; the man who summoned A Ghost Is Born is clearly haunted. After ambitious stabs at a history-of-rock concept album and a summery pop record culminated in 2002’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot — a post-9/11 rumination on the…
Satisfaction doesn’t become Ms. Harvey. Her last CD, 2000’s Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, was her most upbeat, but while critics gushed over it, many fans missed the rabid qualities that marked her best work. This time around, the nastiness is back, and thank goodness — although…
One of Christianity’s virtues is misericordia: mercy of the heart, a sense of pious compassion for your fellow human being. Seeing as how Pedro the Lion’s (due at the Bluebird Theater on Tuesday, July 6) David Bazan is a self-confessed Christian, it’s a sin that he doesn’t take more pity…
Are you sitting down for this? The members of Matson Jones are. Or at least three-quarters of them are: Unlike the typical rock lineup of leg-kicking pose-strikers or pigeon-toed emo wusses, they’ve got their asses planted in chairs. That’s because both of Matson Jones’s singers — Martina Grbac and Anna…
Usually when musicians name their band after a song, said number is the best they’ve got at the time, or damned close: “Black Sabbath,” co-written by Ozzy Osbourne, is a good example. Singer-songwriter John Nichols must feel likewise about “You Are the Birthday Girl,” since he made it the title…
It’s Saturday night, and the tenth annual Westword Music Showcase has just come to a close. I’m sitting on a ledge at Ninth Avenue and Lincoln Street, downing Gatorade and thumbing through my notebook. An old Journey song keeps running through my mind. “Why Can’t This Night Go On Forever?”…
Born Alexander Coe, Sasha (below) has earned a glowing reputation as a spinner and mixologist via a series of influential collaborations with John Digweed; the impressive Northern Exposure series went a long way toward defining the template of late-’90s dance music. But like many a superstar DJ before him, this…
Broncos vs. Raiders. Blur vs. Oasis. Bush vs. Kerry. Us vs. Them. All of these pale before Bear vs. Shark. Like a tightly packed bundle of nerve endings trying to burst in five directions at once, this Michigan-based quintet is at war with itself. The territory being fought over is…
Jared Southhard’s grandmother had an owl fetish: clocks, salt-and-pepper shakers, you name it. And while such seemingly well-mannered knickknacks often embody the qualities of wisdom and patience, who’s to say they won’t suddenly fly into your windshield late at night and shatter a thoughtful moment? For the bird-watching frontman of…
You can plan it on your calendar. It happens every year at this time. It’s become as routine as Big Head Todd’s New Year’s Eve concert. As the sky starts exploding and everyone around you becomes a lawn-chair patriot, John Popper and his crew roll into Mootown to celebrate freedom…
Somewhere deep in the swampland of New Orleans, a diabolical, bayou-spawned shaman begot the ultimate rock-and-roll voodoo doll. Angus Young’s broken guitar picks became its eyes; Gene Simmons’s used condoms became its skin. And then, in a fit of unholy transfixion, this high priest of the occult emptied out one…
Metal Church is the perfect representation of ’80s-era speed metal. Even the group’s logo, its thick crimson letters peaked with jagged edges, remains quintessential ’80s. The Church has had several leaders over the past two decades, and its members have changed over time, but the music remains the same. Founding…
Eric Lowe’s tenure as a Denver musician has been a quest for essence. Starting with his ’90s stints in the warmly remembered pop-rock bands the Christines and Honeydew, the singer/guitarist has been paring down and laying bare the hidden, pulsing heart of classic songcraft, digging for that raw pulp at…
