Despite what VH1 would have you believe, there’s not much to love about the ’80s. Take the clothes, for example: leg warmers, parachute pants, Members Only jackets, bolo ties, jazz boots and stretch pants — talk about a fashion disaster. And the music, well, it was just as ill-conceived. The…
Epiphanies are like assholes: Everyone has one, most stink and not even surgery can purge them. Consider as a case in point the 33-year-old, New Jersey-bred punk songwriter Ted Leo. The first record he ever owned was “It Never Rains in Southern California,” by Albert Hammond. His first concert, at…
It’s not easy getting into Jay-Z’s recording home at Bassline Studios, tucked away on West 26th Street in Manhattan. I have to sneak in behind a woman walking into the building, take an elevator to the eighth floor, then knock on a pair of glass doors before a security guard…
“I can body-slam a 250-pound person.” Amber Valentine is not making a threat; she’s just stating the facts. After years of hauling gear in and out of clubs, the woman is just plain strong. And the diminutive yet domineering guitarist/vocalist for space-sludge-noise rockers Jucifer is rightfully proud of the physical…
“I’ve done it all, honey/I’ve worked, I’ve walked, I’ve danced, I’ve pranced/I’ve seen it all, sweetie, but I’ve never seen you/I am legendary. You are not.” Hungry Wives’ Andy Salzer insists that the preceding sample, from Keoki’s “Cup of Tea” mix of the Wives cut “It’s Over,” is the voice…
So you were wondering why the vaunted return-of-rock movement still can’t get much commercial traction? Why at least two years of merciless hype from pop journos sick of writing Christina Aguilera features hasn’t convinced the masses to give a damn? Why next-big-things that matter are currently rarer than hair follicles…
It’s often easy to dismiss Sun Ra (aka Herman Sonny Blount) as an anomaly on the jazz scene, a mischievous prankster who dressed up as an outer-space pharaoh to sell records and fill shows. Often overlooked is the fact that the man could play a piano — like a demon…
There’s death in the undergrowth, black and loamy. It crouches beneath broad green leaves like puddles of shadow, sucking at wet roots and bare feet, insulating the banks of the Cumberland and the Monongahela with the muffled, hollow hush of decay. The Appalachians ache with it. So does Jolie Holland…
Click, click, click…boom. While you were sleeping last week, a big part of the local music scene morphed into a face on a milk carton — digitally speaking, at least. Just like that. No Amber Alert. No forwarding address. No explanation. Nothing. Those who clicked on to www.DenverLocalMusicScene.com — as…
Paisley shirts. Nehru jackets. Chelsea boots. Gregg Kostelich probably got his ass kicked quite a bit during the 1980s. In the middle of that decade of lasers, silicon and polyurethane pop, he began pumping up the retrogression as the guitarist of Pennsylvania’s The Cynics (who will play Saturday, November 22,…
While perhaps not breaking a whole lot of new musical ground, these local jam bozos are dedicated to playing as much psychedelic-inspired fare as humanly possible, which is laudable for a bunch of aging working stiffs trying to make good — or at the very least trying to forget about…
Hip-hop is everything that surrounds us,” declares Selecta Roswell (aka Sean Ryerson), whose pseudonym references the infamous New Mexico town where a flying saucer allegedly crashed in 1947. “And if some gray aliens leak out of my head and onto my computer, they are just as hip-hop as Ol’ Dirty…
DJ Rap (born Charissa Saverio), perhaps the only electronic artist in the world who holds an orange belt in ninjitsu, has moved from California to Chicago to finish the followup to Learning Curve, her debut album. And when she’s not laying down tracks, Rap is spinning on the PlayStation 2…
You have the right to remain silent, and for chrissakes, Tammy Alverson should have taken advantage of that. The Rock In’ Freak Fest at Fat City officially ended at 5:30 a.m. November 1 — but the riffs keep coming. When I rolled into the office last Monday morning, I was…
Motor City has a new madman. Move over, Nuge: Make room for Obie Trice. A product of his environment — the same battlefield that produced Eminem — Trice is as real as the name his mama gave him. Known as Obie-Wan until Proof from D-12 convinced him to use his…
The old rock-and-roll cliche dictates that aspiring musicians head to New York or Los Angeles if they’re halfway serious about taking a shot at the bigtime. But when Melissa Ivey officially reached adulthood, she fled the oversaturated Southern California scene and headed to Denver, where she’s been plugging and gigging…
Music city got a fat lip early last Saturday, when Riff magazine’s Rock In’ Freak Fest at Fat City ended with emcee Greg Stone (aka Uncle Nasty of KBPI) being charged with third-degree assault and Riff’s marketing manager, Darrell Hughes, leaving with a splitting headache. According to the summons filed…
At first, Westword’s music editor didn’t want you to see this article. He felt the quality of Junior Senior, a Danish duo that recently hit in Europe and beyond with the boogie manifesto “Move Your Feet,” couldn’t justify the cost of the ink required to print a profile. Most of…
I never saw any relation between my upbringing and the art that I do,” says j.frede, the former Denver aesthetic agitator who now resides in Los Angeles, where he has been making a name for himself as a composer and performer of experimental music over the past two years. “I…
Psychedelic space rock and panoramic expressions. Gospel choirs and eighteen-month mixing sessions. Hundred-piece orchestras with their sweeping strings. These are a few of Jason Pierce’s favorite things. Until now, that is. A major departure from 2001’s ambitious, massively orchestral Let It Come Down, Spiritualized’s fifth studio album (which arrives barely…
Perhaps the best way to describe the lyrics of the Weakerthans’ frontman/guitarist John K. Samson is “relentlessly clever.” The former Propaghandi bassist has eschewed the ranting agit-punk of his former band to carve out a more meditative, inward-looking stance that allows him to tell tales that amuse, confuse and elate…
Singer-songwriters willing to figuratively stand naked before the world do so at considerable risk. Allowing the occasional flaw to slip past quality control can infuse songs with just the right touch of humanity, but preserving every flaw may cause the average audience member to seek out CDs whose edges are…
