Email Author Michael Roberts

Awards

• 2009 - AAN AltWeekly Awards, published December 11, 2008

  "The Rocky Mountain News is Going Down"

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1997 Stories by Michael Roberts

• And the Winners Are ...

  published December 25, 1997

  Readers angry at me for giving negative reviews to their favorite bands regularly accuse me of not liking anything. This charge is amusing in part... More >>

• Feedback

  published December 25, 1997

  Concerts get called off all the time, for a variety of reasons: illness, poor ticket sales, freaks of nature like the blizzard that hit the region... More >>

• After Further Review

  published December 18, 1997

  Metallica Reload (Elektra) To put it as plainly as possible, the last Metallica album, 1996's Load, made me angry: To see a band... More >>

• Feedback

  published December 18, 1997

  It's not all that uncommon for musicians and/or fans to found their own independent labels. But Owned & Operated, a new imprint out of Fort... More >>

• Feedback

  published December 11, 1997

  Country artist Tim O'Brien, who appears on Saturday, December 13, at the Houston Fine Arts Center in the company of Mollie O'Brien, the O'Boys and... More >>

• Music for the Holidaze

  published December 11, 1997

  Do folks actually buy new Christmas albums annually? Many must, because each year brings with it a pile of recordings intended to exploit the... More >>

• Obscene and Heard

  published December 4, 1997

  Click. On KBPI-FM/106.7, morning DJs Rick Kerns and Kerry Gray are trying to determine why Kerns is having such a tough time getting... More >>

• Feedback

  published December 4, 1997

  If you think that the content of many Denver radio programs flies in the face of political correctness (see "Obscene and Heard," page 81),... More >>

• Feedback

  published November 27, 1997

  The recent death of John Denver seemed to leave Colorado without a pop star whose resume included liquor-related arrests. But as it turns out,... More >>

• A Fish Tale

  published November 27, 1997

  When dance-music innovator Moby was first profiled here ("The Beat Goes On," January 20, 1993), what is now called electronica was about as... More >>

• The Revenge of Guilty Pleasures

  published November 20, 1997

  At the conclusion of "Guilty Pleasures," an article that appeared in our October 30 issue, I invited readers to send along guilty musical... More >>

• Feedback

  published November 20, 1997

  As you know, the current music scene is in the doldrums: Little new ground is being broken, and the bands receiving the most popular acclaim are... More >>

• Feedback

  published November 13, 1997

  When last we heard from Vartan Tonoian (Feedback, May 8), the Russian-born entrepreneur was exulting about the closing of his namesake venue,... More >>

• Behind the Doors

  published November 13, 1997

  The mythology surrounding the 1969 appearance by the Doors at Miami's Dinner Key Auditorium is as thick and obscuring as smoke from a magician's... More >>

• Playlist

  published November 13, 1997

  The London Symphony Orchestra Paul McCartney's Standing Stone (EMI) Our nation's classical-music critics have gone after this... More >>

• Feedback

  published November 6, 1997

  The first words spoken by Stevie Nicks to the capacity crowd at McNichols Arena on October 29 for the Fleetwood Mac reunion tour were, "Welcome to... More >>

• United They Stand

  published November 6, 1997

  If a visitor wanted to find out about the latest in Colorado hip-hop, he'd have a difficult time learning anything from the most readily... More >>

• Feedback

  published October 30, 1997

  Regular perusers of Westword's Letters column may have noticed that I occasionally come in for criticism from a percentage of this publication's... More >>

• Guilty Pleasures

  published October 30, 1997

  Seven years ago this month, Westword published my list of the 100 worst hit songs of the rock era ("The Scum Also Rises," October 24, 1990). But... More >>

• Feedback

  published October 23, 1997

  Rumors. Without them, there might be a lot of empty space in this column every week. But, as even I have to acknowledge, they're not always... More >>

• Variety, Country Style

  published October 23, 1997

  Folks trying to fathom commercial country music in 1997 need to look no further than this summer's presentation in New York City's Central Park by... More >>

• Feedback

  published October 16, 1997

  Our hard-hitting media colleagues have spent the past several days eulogizing John Denver, who died in a plane crash last weekend at the age of... More >>

• Playlist

  published October 16, 1997

  Steve Earle El Corazon (Warner Bros.) When the country-music establishment turned its back on Earle, a reformed junkie and... More >>

• System's Abnormal

  published October 16, 1997

  The musical explosion that took place in the Pacific Northwest during the late Eighties and early Nineties wasn't exactly a secret; if memory... More >>

• Feedback

  published October 9, 1997

  A lot of observers out there still don't believe that the Denver-Boulder area has a dance scene, and Hardy Kalisher of Boulder's Sol Productions... More >>