Could the dueling initiative proposals be a coincidence?
"I think [Ship's] work against CityLights has had something to do with it," concedes Jimenez. "I got tired of hearing him complain about CityLights and competition and all that. The Paramount Foundation -- if you look at the books, we're exceeding expectations. We just need our landlord to pay attention to the building and treat it as something more than a business investment."
"We have no dispute with his right to do what he's doing politically," Sprinkle says of his landlord. "But we also know that what he's doing has got to require a lot of money. It's hard to reconcile when the Paramount needs so many things: some new carpet, a new coat of paint. We don't want to perpetuate an argument, but we have questions and we have worries."
Last week, the Aurora-based heavy-metal outfit Apathy learned that there is indeed such a thing as bad publicity -- especially when it involves a case of mistaken identity.
Following the arrest of Luke John Helder, the 21-year-old Minnesota man accused of dropping pipe bombs around the Midwest, newspaper readers and Web surfers learned that the troubled fellow was a fan of punk-rock music, "loved the grunge band Nirvana and was preoccupied with Kurt Cobain." (For his first court appearance, a defiant-faced Helder wore a black-and-pink Nirvana T-shirt that looked as though it had come from Spencer Gifts at the Mall of America.) Apparently, Helder has musical aspirations of his own: Prior to his smiley-faced bombing antics, he played guitar and sang with a punk band also named Apathy -- a fact that led several people to leave irate postings on that band's message board after news of Helder's arrest began to spread. The FBI eventually shut down the Web site, but not before more than 400 angry notes were posted.
Colorado's own Apathy has received a few explosive messages, too, in its digital mailbox as well as in its online guestbook. One, from a visitor identified as "none of your business," conveys the general tone (and grammatical acumen) of the missives mistakenly posted on the Aurora band's site (www.apathysux.homestead.com): "Wow...u guys must feel pretty good about yourself right now, you punk bastards. what the hell did u honestly think u would accomplish by placing bomb's in innocent people's mailboxes? u are the 2nd biggest pussy this world has ever seen. P.S.- be sure to spread those cheeks nice and wide for your new friends in jail."
Surely the Aurora band -- a hard-core four-piece that frequently appears in local metal spots like the Iliff Park Saloon and Sportsfield Roxxx -- wasn't the only apathetically monikered outfit to receive misdirected Helder mail. Currently, there are seven bands named Apathy -- not including Helder's -- registered on bandnames.com (among them ApaTHY from Colorado Springs), and more than ten others that make some sort of play on the word. Backwash is particularly fond of the United Kingdom's Apathy Brothers: If you must be bored, listless and without care, why not do it with your sibling?
We suggest all of the unfairly targeted Apathys change their names to the Really Pretty Butterflies in order to avoid any further confusion.
When Andy Ard and Rachel Simring, the acoustic duo formerly known as Rachel & Andy, divorced last year, no one partner got all the talent in the split. Simring, who is nominated in the singer/songwriter category of this year's Westword Music Showcase, has been keeping busy with Rachel's Playpen, backed by a lineup that includes players from a diverse array of local acts, including Hamster Theater and El Fiend. But her former hubby has adjusted to the musical bachelor life just fine: Ard's joined up with a band that includes former Eric Shiveley bassist Chuck Hwang and guitarist/vocalist Al Fitzgerrell in a new project known as Andy Ard and the Meantime.
While Simring's voice was arguably the dominant performance element in Rachel & Andy, Ard served as the primary songwriter and penned some fine songs for the duo: His style was harmonic, strummy and classic, with a Buddy Holly kind of pop sensibility and Americana-style melodicism. Though the Meantime has yet to commit anything to a recording (Ard expects to release a full-length album, Okay Now Really, in November), the band's live shows indicate that Ard hasn't strayed too far from the course he charted with Rachel & Andy, though he's filled out the instrumentation and roughened up the edges this time around.
That roughness may come in handy this week, when his band participates in the latest Maris the Great-produced show at Sportsfield Roxxx: On Thursday, May 16, Ard and the Meantime will appear alongside Hat Trick, Centebury Lane, Man in the Shade and Taco as part of the perverse zombie's "Stupid Mortal Bands That Will Die" series. (See www.maristhegreat.com's "Noose & Abuse" section for more info on just how and why these bands will meet their doom.)
Not all of the bands that perform this week must die. Which is a good thing, considering there are so many of them. Some highlights:
