Email Author Michael Roberts

Awards

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

  "The Rocky Mountain News is Going Down"

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2005 Stories by Michael Roberts

• M.I.A.

  published February 17, 2005

  London's Maya "M.I.A." Arulpragasam has received one of the most dubious honors in hip-hop: A two-page piece about her recently appeared in the... More >>

• Antônio Mello, Dexter Payne & Thiago de Mello

  published February 17, 2005

  Why is a CD-release party taking place for an album that originally came out in 2003? Because Inspiration, which is being celebrated by... More >>

• Beep Beep

  published February 17, 2005

  Omaha's Saddle Creek Records is getting loads of attention thanks to Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, who's lately inspired the sort of gushing capable... More >>

• On the Rocks

  published February 17, 2005

  For Koren Zailckas, writing Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood was a sobering experience. "I've spent the last year thinking... More >>

• The Message

  published February 10, 2005

  The creative forces behind Bias, a proposed multimedia venture aimed at young adults, seem convinced that there's nothing more hilarious than... More >>

• Various Artists

  published February 10, 2005

  Today's Grammy Awards are much more credible than they were in the bad old days, when nausea-inducing performers such as Christopher Cross were... More >>

• The Chemical Brothers

  published February 10, 2005

  With 1997's Dig Your Own Hole, the Brothers Chemical -- Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons -- kicked up dust via a hybrid of big-beat production... More >>

• The Fred Hess Quartet

  published February 10, 2005

  Saxophonist Hess doesn't do reviewers any favors. Rather than create discs that vary wildly in terms of quality, he produces consistently strong... More >>

• Eisley

  published February 10, 2005

  On the face of things, Eisley ought to be the shittiest group ever. After all, the group features siblings Chauntelle, Sherri, Weston and Stacy... More >>

• The Del McCoury Band

  published February 10, 2005

  The fact that three venues in the Denver-Boulder area have booked Del McCoury over a four-day period speaks to his genre-spanning,... More >>

• The Message

  published February 3, 2005

  The theory that faith and family values, red-state style, were the determining factors in the 2004 election may be overly simplistic, but local... More >>

• Vanishing Act

  published February 3, 2005

  In 1996, when she was just 22, jazzy vocalist Madeleine Peyroux issued Dreamland, a disc on Atlantic Records that earned solid sales, a... More >>

• Sage Francis

  published February 3, 2005

  Alternative hip-hop has developed into a de facto criticism of the form that spawned it, with artists like Sage Francis delivering the sort of... More >>

• Flat Earth Society

  published February 3, 2005

  Since deciding that he didn't want to be a rock star, Mike Patton, of Faith No More fame, has turned his record label, Ipecac, into a shelter for... More >>

• Black Pegasus

  published February 3, 2005

  On "Club Killah," Robert Houston, aka Black Pegasus, attacks radio programmers for ignoring his music. Most MCs avoid dropping such rhymes out of... More >>

• Split Lip Rayfield

  published February 3, 2005

  On the surface, bluegrass seems to have little in common with punk. After all, the former is traditionally acoustic, not electric, and many... More >>

• Clair de Lune

  published February 3, 2005

  Genre bands don't need to sound wildly dissimilar from other groups of their type to stand out from the pack. A few key distinctions are enough,... More >>

• Critic's Choice

  published February 3, 2005

  The best mainstream acts can accomplish a couple of important tasks along the road to success: Their members become skilled enough to effectively... More >>

• The Message

  published January 27, 2005

  Many daily-newspaper sports columns read as if their authors injected adrenaline directly into their hearts before sitting down at the keyboard.... More >>

• Setting Moon

  published January 27, 2005

  Although singer-guitarist Dean Wareham and the other members of Luna agreed that bringing their moody, evocative group to an end after twelve... More >>

• The Game

  published January 27, 2005

  Dr. Dre has discovered a foolproof method for creating superstars. First he casts an unknown with the right profile -- in this case, Jayceon... More >>

• Mario

  published January 27, 2005

  Why are adolescent R&B specialists generally more tolerable than their pop-tart counterparts? Because performers like Mario, a teen who's already... More >>

• Bowling for Soup

  published January 27, 2005

  A friend recently dismissed Bowling for Soup (below) with the sneering comment "They're punk rock for girls" -- by which he meant preteen... More >>

• The Wrens

  published January 27, 2005

  The Wrens' "Authorized Biography (of Sorts)," accessible at www.wrens.com, tells the kind of music-biz story... More >>

• The Message

  published January 20, 2005

  So great was the destruction caused by the December 26 Asian tsunami that even Americans who previously didn't know Sri Lanka from Casablanca were... More >>