For a simple idea to last rather than annoy, it’s got to be a mighty good one — like, for instance, the concept behind Shonen Knife. Since the early ’90s, when the band regularly opened for Nirvana, sisters Naoko and Atsuko Yamano have built their music upon rock and punk…
According to legend, Ian Astbury disbanded Southern Death Cult because of overwhelmingly positive press. Fact or fiction, it does explain how he and longtime sparring partner, guitarist Billy Duffy, have methodically alienated their fan base several times. The Cult abandoned gothic frippery for metal at a time when Ministry’s Al…
Youssou N’Dour gives world music a good name. For almost thirty years, the Senegalese musician has been blending traditional sounds and instruments with influences as far-ranging as American jazz, Afro-Cuban dance rhythms and Western pop music, arriving at something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. Known in his…
What made so many of the rap-rock bands of the past fifteen years so risible is the fact that their music often wasn’t a genuine mixing of genres. In recent years, however, artists like Why? and M.I.A. have employed sounds from a wide variety of styles to craft hip-hop rooted…
Sorry, ’80s nostalgists, but Duran Duran was never a great band, or even a particularly good one. The Duranies gained fame as sleek, sleazy showmen with a strong visual sense and the ability to transform other people’s ideas into garish pop readymades. “Girls on Film,” “Hungry Like the Wolf” and…
In Defense of the Genre, Say Anything’s 27-song, two-disc quasi-concept album — which is twice as long and nowhere near as good as its predecessor, 2004’s Is a Real Boy — is about Max Bemis’s struggles with drug abuse and his very public bipolarness. (He was busted in NYC last…
Sebastian Bach, Angel Down (Caroline Records). This long-overdue slab of meathead metal from the former Skid Row singer sounds like it could easily be a totally forgettable record. It’s not, though, because Bach somehow got his current BFF Axl Rose to sing on it, and the pair’s duet on Aerosmith’s…
Two autumn releases offer glimpses into the folkie-infested Boulder of the ’60s and early ’70s: Karen Dalton’s Cotton Eyed Joe, a collection of live material recorded at the legendary Attic, and a deluxe reissue of Propinquity’s sole LP from 1972. Emerging from Sing-In Boulder, an annual “high school folk music…
As Beasts of Burden’s title implies, Workhorse, which joins Front-side Five and Pitch Invasion at the Bluebird Theater on Friday, November 30, is no pretty filly. Rather, it’s an animal willing to do the heavy lifting — emphasis on “heavy.” “Moonshine Mayhem,” the first track, opens with modified calliope music…
I was one of a few hundred people to see Radiohead at the Mercury Cafe in June 1995. To be honest, I don’t remember a damn thing about the actual show; I can only recall brushing up against Thom Yorke, the group’s singer, on the way out of the building…
The music of Brett Johnson is wholly and joyously electronic. There’s never a question of whether the player is live on his records or mixes; the tonalities are purely electronic. While this might seem like a limitation, Johnson manages to find plenty of variety without ever leaving the circuit boards…
Writing in 5280, Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer declared that singer-songwriter Jeff Finlin, who headlines at Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret on Friday, November 30, “might be one of the finest American troubadours since Bob Dylan.” That’s a bold statement, which Moehringer backs up with references to fans such as Bruce Springsteen…
The new one from Hot Chip doesn’t hit stores until next year, but thankfully, the London act is throwing its fans a bone. Put that secondary e-mail address to good use and sign up for the band’s mailing list at its MySpace page (www.myspace.com/hotchip). In return, the Chip will reward…
More than two years have passed since Team Sleep last toured, and it’s likely that just as much time will go by before the group ventures into venues again following its current jaunt. After all, says Chino Moreno, the Deftones frontman who captains the Team, “We’re not putting out a…
Two years ago, Seattle singer-songwriter David Bazan retired the Pedro the Lion moniker and embarked on a solo career under his own name. Practically speaking, the switch wasn’t that significant. For a decade, he was Pedro the Lion, writing all the indie-rock outfit’s material, recording and touring with an ever-mutating…
Fuck Man Law. You know what I’m talking about: those now-canceled Miller Lite commercials where a panel of dudes drunk on their own testosterone decided what was manly and what wasn’t. Examples: When toasting with beer, the bottoms of bottles should be clinked because clinking the tops would swap saliva…
There are certain spots that I just don’t think of as places to eat. The Rio, for example. Although I know a lot of people who for some reason like to eat there, for me, the drinks and the drinkers are the draw. Just a couple of blocks away from…
When the people behind Prime 121 decided to bring yet another steakhouse to this crowded cow town, they were taking on quite a challenge (see review). But it’s been done very successfully a couple of times in the past few years, by operations that managed to jam yet another top-shelf…
I’ve heard it said a thousand times, by tourists and by natives, by local chefs and national food writers — said ironically, in jest, in cold seriousness, in rage. When your new, million-dollar French-Asian fusion restaurant goes under in a flood of bad debt and worse reviews, it’s what you…
Artisans & Kings. For its first extravaganza of the season, the Denver Art Museum has unveiled a sprawling blockbuster in the Frederic C. Hamilton Building that focuses on the royal collections from the Louvre. You don’t have to know much about art to have heard of the Louvre, so Artisans…
The Dairy Center for the Arts (2590 Walnut Street, Boulder, 303-440-7826, www.thedairy.org) is an impressive facility, but the building definitely needs some work to make it more appealing and less gloomy. Maybe now that Judy Hussie-Taylor, the former deputy director of the Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver, has taken over as…
I’m wary of art with political subtexts, because it’s usually pretty bad, and the shows that feature it are often long on explanatory text and documentary videos and short on artistic content. So when I walked into the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art to view the enormous eco-themed Weather Report:…
