Thanks to MTV, which is using Denver as a backdrop for the current installment of The Real World, our town will be seared into the public consciousness for the next several months. And with two of our most celebrated homegrown acts up for Grammy awards, it’s safe to say that…
Christmas came early this year for the Fray. Unless you’ve been holed up on your couch playing Guitar Hero II for the past week, you’re undoubtedly aware that Denver’s biggest musical export — the pariah of many a vitriolic MySpace-blogging pundit and assorted message-board-posting player haters in the scene –…
Sitting with the members of Electric Side Dish on this Sunday evening in early December, I’m reluctant to utter the dreaded J-word. But as my eyes wander around percussionist John Bunting’s living room, from the burning incense to the framed photograph of Jerry Garcia to guitarist John Tipton’s Widespread Panic…
The Pink Spiders are some cocky dudes. The act’s bio is littered with superfluous and self-aggrandizing words such as “iconoclastic” and “Machiavellian,” and the trio itself, which hails from Nashville, has a larger-than-life bravado about it that makes the hand-clapping, cutesy pop punk it plays seem more important than it…
In honor of Jay-Z and Rocky, who are both out of retirement, a pop quiz to test your boxer-versus-baller acumen. 1. To which upcoming project did Coldplay’s Chris Martin make the biggest contribution? A. Jay-Z’s Kingdom Come (out November 21), with vocals on the foreboding “Beach Chair.” B. Sly Stallone’s…
Hollywood adores making big-budget biopics about rock stars and their eternal struggles with booze, broads and diverse demons. And we love watching them. Some they nailed, others not so much. Jamie Foxx was a respectable Ray Charles, for instance, and Gary Oldman made a fine Sid Vicious. But Joaquin Phoenix…
Holiday songs are a love-hate proposition. At their best, such tunes provide an evocative seasonal soundtrack. However, they’re just as likely to be nausea-inducing, like that cheese log your aunt gave you last year — the one you’re still trying to digest. It’s appropriate, then, that the thirty releases below…
Want some well-done, socially relevant music? If so, you’d better skip the El Vez show at the Bluebird. On the other hand, if what you want is the laugh-till-you-pee type of musical entertainment, then put your butt in the front row at El Vez’s show. Don’t know El Vez? He’s…
Trail of Dead co-stars Conrad Keely and Jason Reece continue to beat the odds. The two have been making music together since 1994, and during that span, they’ve lived in a pair of musically buzzworthy cities: Olympia, Washington, and Austin, Texas. Keely and company were eventually “discovered” at Austin’s South…
Look, dude, it’s the holiday season, so chill with the politics, experimentation and all that pussy shit. It’s time to drink, get stoned and listen to Murphy’s Law — the perfect brain-need-not-apply party band. It shouldn’t seem odd that song topics tend to gravitate toward themes of marijuana and pissing…
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more dynamic, fervid and swaggering singer, male or female, in all of indie-rockdom than Katrina Ford, frontwoman of brambly Baltimore post-punkers Celebration. She’s an arresting, mesmerizing stage presence, and her voice — husky, powerful and neither overtly feminine nor masculine — is the force…
So there’s this whiskey-drinking, truck-driving nun hauling ass down Highway 9. She’s low on cash, so she starts turning tricks for gas at the Flying J. Then, while watching perverts on the street, she has a holy vision… Okay, so right about now, you’re probably thinking, “Get to the punchline,…
Have there ever been two happier humans than Brooklynites Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino? If so, they were probably institutionalized for having such a freakin’ great time. Matt & Kim’s new EP, a self-titled effort on the IHEARTCOMIX imprint, is a cheerful shambles built upon the simplest of sounds: Johnson’s…
Ninety percent silk and ten percent grit, Philadelphia blue-eyed-soul man Amos Lee’s pipes are steeped in both the smooth R&B stylings of Billy Paul and Smokey Robinson and the Seventies singer-songwriter tradition of James Taylor and Harry Chapin. The late-twenty-something schoolteacher turned singer — whose unfussy, jazzy folk-soul tunes and…
Emerging in 2005 from the wreckage of bands like Call Sign Cobra, Pariah Caste and Murder Scene Clean Up Team, Big Timber has waited until the waning hours of 2006 to issue its first full-length. Taking its title from the unglamorous town where it was recorded, Alma (slated for release…
Over the past twelve months, ten very different releases have dominated my personal playlist. And although 2006 still has three weeks left, I doubt that anything coming out in that time will knock off these personal bests. 1. TV on the Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope). Critical consensus suggests…
Imogen Heap has no excuse for being self-deprecating. After all, this British import started improvising classical airs at an age when most of us were still figuring out how to tie shoes, and today, on the cusp of her 29th birthday, she’s a gifted singer-songwriter who’s as comfortable making music…
It’s been five years since Redman’s last album, and although Malpractice is a record that can stand the test of time, fans have been clamoring for new music from Funk Doctor Spock. To hold them over, Red dropped a couple of mixtapes, but they hardly qualified as true Redman albums…
Album of the Year This Week Describing the duration of your morning commute by saying “It’s about the length of a song on the new Joanna Newsom record.” Okay, maybe a song and a half, if you’re taking light rail. This Song Will Change Your Life Willie Nelson’s brash addition…
The members of Boys Like Girls live at home in the suburbs with their parents and write vague, emotionally charged songs sugarcoated with precision pop hooks. Add Martin Johnson’s wavering, pained voice, a requisite ambiguous name and producer Matt Squire (Panic! At the Disco), and the band fits emo to,…
Few believed Jay-Z would actually stay retired, so his return is no surprise. But why come back now? He went out on top, and as president of Def Jam, he’s the head of rap’s premier institution. What more could he want? The Dr. Dre-produced track “30 Something” may provide some…
Love is yet another attempt to entice consumers into repurchasing repackaged Beatles music they already own in various formats. The 26-track disc was mashed up in a massive 5.1 mix specifically designed for the custom-built surround-sound theater at the Mirage, where it will be blasted twice nightly to Las Vegas…
