Email Author Michael Roberts

Awards

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

  "The Rocky Mountain News is Going Down"

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2002 Stories by Michael Roberts

• Inside the Temple

  published August 1, 2002

  For the first two years of this column's existence, John Temple, the editor, publisher and president of the Rocky Mountain News, was about... More >>

• Pack Mentality

  published July 25, 2002

  Dave Kopel is accustomed to pissing people off. As the research director of the Independence Institute, an area think tank that generally... More >>

• Playing It Cool

  published July 25, 2002

  In Say It Loud!, an ambitious VH1 documentary about the musical accomplishments of African-Americans during the past century, LL Cool J... More >>

• Scorched Earth

  published July 25, 2002

  Even before my first spin of Fed to Your Head had ended, I sensed that the album would inspire strongly contradictory feelings, and a brief... More >>

• Dialing for Differences

  published July 18, 2002

  Tim Brown, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Newspaper Radio Corporation, defines himself simply. "All I am," he says,... More >>

• DJ Spooky

  published July 18, 2002

  Optometry is hardly the first album to mingle jazz, hip-hop and DJ culture. It's not even the first platter to do so on Thirsty Ear: In... More >>

• The Name Game

  published July 11, 2002

  Although he's been retired for years, former Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway has certainly scored his share of headlines lately. But... More >>

• Video Obscura

  published July 11, 2002

  Joel Haertling doesn't lack high-art credentials. A slight, brisk-mannered fellow with a weakness for vintage suits and snappy fedoras, he's... More >>

• DJ Shadow

  published July 11, 2002

  In some ways, artists whose debuts are lousy, or competent, or fairly strong but not fabulous, have an easier time of it than do performers who... More >>

• The Times of Our Life

  published July 4, 2002

  From the beginning, proponents of the joint operating agreement between the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News maintained that... More >>

• So Happy Together

  published July 4, 2002

  Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock were once known as the Flatlanders. But truth be told, they've hardly used the name since 1973,... More >>

• A Brewing Disagreement

  published June 27, 2002

  Newspapers love advertising -- that's a universal publishing truth. But Out Front Colorado, Denver's best-known gay-oriented newspaper, was... More >>

• Polo Montañez

  published June 27, 2002

  Record companies specializing in musical subgenres regularly market certain releases to tourists, literal and otherwise. For instance, blues... More >>

• PAC-ing a Punch

  published June 20, 2002

  If a company can be said to have reached the big-time when it becomes the subject of jokes, then Clear Channel, the largest owner of radio... More >>

• Bridge to the Future

  published June 20, 2002

  Mayor Wellington E. Webb's Music Festival at Red Rocks features a couple of big names in the jazz field -- veteran vocalist Al Jarreau and... More >>

• Critic's Choice

  published June 20, 2002

  When it was launched in 1995, the Warped Tour was one of many multi-band bashes -- from H.O.R.D.E. to the Lilith Fair -- that emerged in... More >>

• Hot Spots

  published June 13, 2002

  You don't have to be a soothsayer to realize that wildfires will be the biggest story in Colorado for months to come. Remember the so-called... More >>

• Diamonds Are Forever

  published June 13, 2002

  Early on a Sunday morning back in 1985, I was working at Tower Records on Los Angeles's Sunset Strip when the air became heavy with the scent of... More >>

• Various artists

  published June 13, 2002

  One of the least-used compliments in the average critic's vocabulary is the word "consistent"; few scribes come out of a great concert exclaiming,... More >>

• Grime Pays

  published June 13, 2002

  At various points throughout The Cold Six Thousand, a vivid riff on the cruelest events of the 1960s that's just been issued in paperback,... More >>

• Not-So-Funny Business

  published June 6, 2002

  Kirk Montgomery, entertainment reporter for Channel 9, didn't hear the routine about him on KOA radio a few weeks back. But he certainly... More >>

• Flight Plan

  published June 6, 2002

  Over the past several years, Americans have grown accustomed to hearing rising stars on the British music scene make pompous pronouncements about... More >>

• Post Mortem

  published May 30, 2002

  On May 12, two days after his departure from the Denver Post, longtime columnist Chuck Green told KHOW talk-show host Peter... More >>

• Twin Towers

  published May 30, 2002

  Writing about band names is one of the great cliches in rock journalism. Every group with an off-kilter appellation has an allegedly amusing or... More >>

• Weezer

  published May 30, 2002

  Back in 1994, during an interview with Westword, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo blamed his dislike of promotion on a pre-record-deal gig selling... More >>