Though they’re unabashedly spunky and devoid of pretense, the Dinnermints’ brand of bubble-punk still has its artistic leanings: The band sprang from the obtuse, intentionally difficult ambient project called the Twins, which enlisted ‘Mints singer/guitarist Sarah Mesmer and drummer Peter Carnovale. No surprise, then, that the guitar- and hook-heavy trio…
Oscar-nominated Alfre Woodard chooses to call herself an actor rather than an actress, because “actresses worry about eyelashes and cellulite, and women who are actors worry about the characters we are playing.” Adapting that comparison for a discussion of female musicians, let’s say that a pop diva is more concerned…
This year, in particular, many of us can use the sort of reassurance that traditional music offers, which is why seasonal CDs will likely appeal to more people than ever. But all Christmas platters aren’t created equal. Several of the newest albums deserve a spot under practically anyone’s tree, whereas…
The kids, it appears, will be all right after all. On Monday, December 17, Denver City Council is expected to approve a new type of cabaret license that allows patrons under 21 — under 18, for that matter — to regularly attend concerts and shows in most clubs and venues…
Pigface is: a) a deviant sexual practice akin to the “Cleveland Steamer”; b) the newest Denny’s breakfast special; or c) a loose-knit industrial-music collective based around former Ministry drummer Martin Atkins. Well, it’s mostly c), depending on what you’re into. The rotating cast that Atkins periodically assembles has included Frank…
Brenda Harp helps ring in the season, community style, as one of the musical guests at the Colorado Music Association Holiday Celebration at the Soiled Dove on Sunday, December 16. The Denver-based Harp seems a fitting choice for such an event: As a guitarist and vocalist, she brings a probing,…
A couple of years ago, Richard Buckner’s wife was fumbling through the Toyota truck in which Buckner regularly logs 70,000 miles a year touring, when she came across a curious-looking cassette tape and popped it into the deck. The tape held five bleak, chillingly Gothic tracks sung by her husband…
In 1964, a 22-year-old college dropout named Peter Rowan joined Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys for what would turn out to be a three-year stint playing guitar and singing lead vocals. Thirty-five years later, it’s clear that the father of bluegrass left an indelible impression on Rowan, even if his…
Paul Ramsey has what his fellow men of the cloth might consider a strange definition of religious music. “I think ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is a gospel song,” says the Denver-based minister and vocalist. “I would say maybe more than anybody else, the Rolling Stones are my biggest influence because,…
Presiding over a press conference in the mayor’s office last Tuesday night, Theaters and Arenas director Fabby Hillyard gushed that she was “pleased to see that we’re all sitting at the same table.” It was quite the understatement, considering the congregation she was addressing: Seated around a large table were…
Virgil Shaw, who opens for Angels of Light on Tuesday, December 11, at the 15th Street Tavern, is what you might call an unsung singer-songwriter. He’s not exactly well-known for his work with Dieselhed, a first-rate California roots band that’s still striving to reach Wilco-like cult status after twelve years…
Shoegazers sometimes get a bad name. There’s something to be said for bands that investigate the more restrained spaces of ethereal, dreamy pop — rather than attempting to shatter the passageways of their listeners’ inner ears — while contemplating issues of the heart. On its self-titled debut CD, Breathing Eve,…
About 24 hours before arriving at a friend’s home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a rare day off following a string of live dates in the northeastern United States and Canada, Dan Bern is happy about a couple of things: that he’s touring behind his fourth and best album, the…
Harlan Hendrickson has issued a challenge to all the closet lovers of ’80s metal: It’s time to step up — fist held high, pinkie and index fingers extended — and get ready to rock. “There’s no need to be embarrassed any- more for loving Mötley Crüe,” he says proudly. Grab…
It’s probably safe to say that no one really predicted a second generation of pleasant lo-fi bands that emulate heroes such as Elliott Smith and Built to Spill. You start a band in hopes of becoming the next Beatles or Rolling Stones, not the next Death Cab for Cutie. And…
Back in the 1980s, singer Shelby Lynne was supposed to be Nashville’s Next Big Thang — she even recorded a duet with George Jones — but the girl from Alabama never quite jibed with Music Row’s by-the-numbers approach to music-making. After putting out five critically acclaimed but poorly selling albums,…
While Julie Andrews twirled around the Swiss Alps as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s favorite singing fräulein, little Lord Bertrand Burgalat, the son of a minor government official, languished in Corsica. Forced to learn classical piano under the threat of constant Brie, he grew up to not only dazzle jet-setting Euro-hipsters, but…
If that heart attack several years back wasn’t proof that the Hoosier half-pint is running out of steam, this CD is. Clocking in at just over forty minutes, Heads suffers from a navel-gazing focus that a successful 53-year-old artist such as Mellencamp should have outgrown by now. Usually at his…
There’s something immediately arresting about David Bazan’s vocals, though nothing particularly dramatic is going on. His words are almost always delivered in a slow, off-hand lope. Bazan sounds somewhat congested, as if he barely has the strength to form the words and tap out a somnolent rhythm with one drumstick…
For more than two months, the American powers that be have given us plenty of indirect warnings that Westerners who dare set foot on certain soils in certain parts of the world will be immediately jailed, dismembered or at least diabolically scowled at. Yet all of the shadowy imagery that’s…
Candye Kane, Thursday, December 6, at the Boulder Theater, is a bisexual ex-porn vet, a poster girl for the pleasingly plump and an entertainer extraordinaire. Kane miraculously incorporates her charmingly candid perspective on various vices into one of the most uplifting rhythm-and-blues shows imaginable. Her difference-destroying performances have made her…
If you were to imagine folk music made on a faraway planet called Aquatari — where Sonar’s Captain 69, Commander Colt 44, Commodore 64 and Doctor NC 17 claim to hail from — you might expect a robotic kind of electronic music, with lots of erratic little Jetson-y space noises…
