Link Wray is American to the bone. “I’m half Shawnee Indian, you know,” he declares, his heavily accented voice imprinted with the unmistakable twang associated with his hometown of Dunn, North Carolina. But even though his guitar playing on his trademark Fifties instrumental, “Rumble,” laid the groundwork for hard rock,…
Throughout his remarkable career, Tito Puente–the Magnificent Timbalero who at age 74 is the undisputed king of Latin music–has made music shot through with joy. But he has seldom exhibited such effervescence to the media. Legions of journalists floored by his impatient manner have branded him a terrible grouch, a…
A lot of folks have tried to stop Foreskin 500 over the years. Club owners occasionally refused to book the band, guardians of taste frequently dubbed it offensive, and selected police officers seemed determined at times to use the law to stop the music (see Feedback, March 6). But in…
“Many people consider fetish to be wearing leather, latex and rubber outfits, or something basic like that–but fetish is much more than a costume,” says Jamie Goldberg, one of the men behind “Whip It II: The Ritual,” a fetish party that’s returning to Rock Island for its second year. “It’s…
Hans Buenning is best known as one fourth of Acrobat Down, an ultra-catchy Denver-based combo. But Buenning is more than just an accomplished musician; he’s also a dance-floor superfreak who recently invented his own trademark step. “It’s called the ‘Prairie Dog,’ and it’s the perfect dance for big, empty concert…
The cover of Baltimore Pearl Crescent White Admiral Sister Meadow Painted God Will Visit You, the latest CD from the Lords of Howling, is cut from old vinyl records, the obsidian sheen sanded and imprinted with intricate designs. Moreover, the rest of the package is literally crafted from trash–but it’s…
If I claimed that I would like not to bury John Tesh but to praise him, I would not be entirely truthful. But I do have to give him at least a modicum of credit for grace under fire. He knows as well as anyone that the most prominent items…
It was due in stores by July, but a lifetime of memories does not come easy to a man whose first hit came 41 years ago, when he was a member of a Sun Records roster that included Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and a boy named Elvis. So the…
Keeping up with the doings of Colorado Public Radio (CPR) is like tracking a major corporation in a perpetual acquisition mode. The statewide system of stations, overseen by Max Wycisk and run from the Denver offices of KCFR-FM/90.1, is forever looking for ways to add members to its family, whether…
Mark Eitzel West (Warner Bros.) Eitzel is one of those guys who could shoot the president and still not end up on the nation’s front pages. He served as frontman for the American Music Club, but the act never achieved anything more than cult status in its eleven years of…
In all likelihood, those of you who’ve not yet joined the computer revolution are blissfully unaware of the entertainment Web site competition that’s heating up online. Digital City Denver, an invention of America Online, was the first to jump into the fray, with a service that provides a wide variety…
The late Christopher Wallace, who went by the names Biggie Smalls and the Notorious B.I.G., is represented on the Billboard roster of best-selling albums by Life After Death, which at this writing remains the third most popular recording in the country nine weeks after its release. “Hypnotize,” the lead single…
Vince Clarke, the instrumental ringleader of the pop duo Erasure, has cast a large shadow over the field of electronic music. As a founding member of the seminal Eighties electro-bands Depeche Mode, Yazoo (aka Yaz) and the Assembly, he used his formidable musical abilities to create a genre that led…
Even musicians who’ve played hundreds of concerts can usually cite a single show that was pivotal to their careers. The members of Colorado’s Fiddlin’ Foresters are no different–but their definitive gig certainly was. “One of the big turning points for us that really helped us gel,” notes Foresters guitarist Jane…
With the programmers at MTV playing far fewer music videos than they have in years past, simply getting a clip onto the network is a victory of sorts for young bands on the rise. But for the ska-punkers in Detroit’s Suicide Machines, breaking onto the airwaves has been a mixed…
Amanda Rootes, the aptly named platinum blonde who fronts the English punk outfit Fluffy, has something important on her agenda. She reveals, “We’re just about to get our wigs done.” Do any of you punk-rockers have a problem with that? If so, you’re hereby instructed to share your feelings with…
Prior to Beck Hansen’s May 22 appearance at Red Rocks, I had seen him give two of the worst performances of all time–the first in April 1994 at Boulder’s Ground Zero, the second in July 1995 at Fiddler’s Green as part of that year’s Lollapalooza festival. These shows were dreadful…
The Holmes Brothers Promised Land (Rounder) Most of the CD stores that stock material by the New York-based Brothers Holmes–and not nearly enough of them do–place it in the blues section, as if that’s the only kind of music that three African-Americans of a certain age could possibly be making…
Scott Willhite is a man of many moods. He’s best known in these parts as the guitarist for Turnsol, an overtly accessible modern-rock aggregation that’s built up a sizable local following (the band opens for Zeut at the Bluebird Theater on Saturday, May 24). But he also possesses (or is…
“I don’t want punk credibility,” intones Henry Rollins, “because that would mean I’d have to have a heroin habit, shitty hair, no muscle tone and a girlfriend with pins hanging out of her tits.” No question about it: Rollins, 36, gives good quote–and he’s parlayed his way with the English…
Punk icon turned burly entrepreneur Henry Rollins claims not to care what journalists think about him or his most recent album (see page 79). But his comments about Beck, arguably the most critically acclaimed pop musician of the past several years, suggest that he might harbor a certain resentment for…
Beck Hansen is tired. He’s in England, a country where hot American acts are routinely vilified by reviewers who are suspicious of any trend that did not get its start from them. Beck, however, has somehow been spared this treatment. Since his arrival in Britain, he has been lauded, feted,…
