The relaxed, warm vocal style of Glen Phillips can be deceptive. It allows him to tell stories of human depravity, evoking the darkest depths of human emotion, while still pleasing the ear. His innovative folk-rock songwriting was honed during his tenure as frontman for the critically acclaimed Toad the Wet…
Art Lande isn’t afraid to take chances when it comes to playing piano. The guy’s a true musical explorer, and some of his most adventurous playing can be found on the two albums he recorded with the like-minded musicians in the Russian Dragon Band. The Boulder-based group takes its moniker…
During the late ’80s, Neil Young released “This Note’s for You,” a critically praised tune (and accompanying video) in which he defiantly refused to let his music be used for advertising purposes. Today, a performer making a similar declaration would be judged insane by any court in the land, and…
In 1994, before most of America knew who the hell he was, Marilyn Manson told Westword that people who go to extremes “have to be ready to deal with the consequences. And I’m ready.” Lucky thing, since his eager courting of controversy made him both a twisted role model for…
Call it an amendment to Godwin’s Law: As reviews of Vampire Weekend accumulate, the probability that they’ll mention Paul Simon’s Graceland approaches 100 percent. It’s a lazy game of connect-the-dots, really. Graceland traces an MOR-shattering pilgrimage wherein Simon spent seventeen days recording in South Africa, cheesing off the U.N. and…
Jack Johnson would undoubtedly make a wonderful dinner companion. Unlike the average rock star, who might well break the good china, wipe his face on the curtains, call your mom the C-word and violate your Pomeranian, he’d be charming and kind even if he found out you use environmentally unfriendly…
The profile of the Jonas Brothers in Westword’s February 7 issue was culled, sort of, from that most irritating of modern publicity techniques: the teleconference. But in this case, the following Q&A with Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas, the oh-so-adorable co-stars of the Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of…
Helio Sequence Keep Your Eyes Ahead Sup Pop 02:00-02:45 of “Lately” I remember this band sounding totally different. It seems like they used to be sort of electro-pop. Now they sound like U2. I guess they’re just copying U2 in reverse historical order. Anyone remember Pop? Man, that record would…
MGMT and Yeasayer took the stage at hi-dive February 4 and brought out a die-hard crowd in spite of weather that would have sent meeker souls packing. That’s just the kind of rock troopers they are. Slide show review by Cory Casciato…
Here’s a selection of the best of last week’s music blogging from around the Village Voice chain: One man’s quest to make it okay to love Rod Stewart again is awash in booze, bouffant hair-dos and lots of gaudy, tacky-ass clothes in this man-crush love letter/concert preview…
Slide Show The Pink Hawks, BRMPPL, Married in Berdichev and Slight Harp Saturday, February 2 Rhinoceropolis “We’ll be playing fort-building music tonight,” said Yuzo Nieto, the Pink Hawks keyboardist and saxophonist, before the band launched into a half-hour-long exploratory set. Every show the Hawks play is improvised, and Nieto not…
Slide Show Liars, No Age Friday, February 1, 2008 Marquis Theater Better than: Waiting in line to get in. What a night filled with hope! A certain elation was running under my skin. Liars, a magnificent band who has made left turn after pleasant musical left turn over the past…
The ongoing concert promotions battle in Denver just became a little more heated. Just received word from Live Nation that Eric Pirritt has been named Vice President of Booking. Pirritt joins fellow VP of Booking, Peter Ore, and will now go head-to-head with his former associates at AEG Live, vying…
Prior to the creation of the Backbeat Online blog, Westword conducted plenty of Q&As with plenty of rock stars, schlock stars, rising stars and fading stars — and oftentimes only a small percentage of the conversations made it into the finished articles. So in the coming weeks and months, we…
Ever since he started roaming the streets of Denver last year and then putting the footage on YouTube, Maestro Jeff Hughes has been a hot commodity. As Colorado’s own hip-hop violinist, Hughes impresses even the most critical of hip-hop haters by deftly adding a classical touch to hip-hop classics. But…
Ever since, let’s say 1968, people in the music world have just loved talking about DIY – Do It Yourself. If you use the term in the UK, people will think you’re talking about home improvement projects, but here in the colonies, that phrase carries a deep, complex and emotionally…
Fred Frith, Wu Fei, Janet Feder Wednesday, January 30, 2008, First Unitarian Church Better than: Any Eric Clapton guitar solo. Expectations, at least last night, were useless. The venue, a small, yet comfortable church stowed away off Colfax, was not a place where one would expect to see one of…
By my count, there are nearly 600 active bands on the Front Range now — 600! And those are just the ones I’m aware of. With that many acts crowding the landscape, an artist has to be compelling as hell to stand out. But as I marveled in my year-end…
When some bark-eating Boulderites discovered that the Nitro Club (1124 Lawry Lane), a full-on nudie joint, had opened in the alley behind Old Chicago, right off the Pearl Street Mall, they exploded. Plenty of people would like to see Nitro shut down, but I’m not one of them. Hell, I…
Electronic music would not have been the same without the contributions of minimalist pioneers such as John Cage, Steve Reich, Robert Moog and the late Karlheinz Stockhausen. You can hear their influence coursing through the work of artists as diverse as the Velvet Underground right on through to later electro-adventurists…
As Oblio Duo, guitarist/vocalist Steve Lawson and drummer Will Duncan paint dusky yet vivid soundscapes that evoke feelings of nostalgia without the retro aftertaste. As with Oblio’s previous two releases, Nuclear War captures their warm, lushly eclectic vibe. There is still a warmly melancholic tenor to the music, but this…
An Iowan with an inexplicable and inconsistent British accent, Magic Cyclops is one of Denver’s great enigmas. Live, he rarely performs with more than a laptop and a stage set that falls just below the production standards of a kindergarten talent show. The tinny, Casio-dominated production of his recorded works…
