If any band typifies the Colorado approach to contemporary bluegrass, it’s Yonder Mountain String Band. The quartet built up its chops playing in venues in Boulder, Nederland and beyond in the late 1990s, and its fusion of traditional instrumentation and progressive musical structures resonated with local crowds. The quartet has…
It felt pretty safe to make a prediction about the winner of Channel 93.3’s Hometown for the Holidays contest by the time My Body Sings Electric finished their set at Cassleman’s on Saturday night. It wasn’t as if Monroe Monroe hadn’t delivered some dynamic moments during their forty-minute set, and…
CLUTCH @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM | 12/21/12 Neil Fallon was happy that the Mayans were wrong about the end of the world. The Clutch frontman spelled out his reasoning to the crowd that packed the floor and the wings of the Fillmore on Friday night, taking a rare break between tunes…
ZAPPA PLAYS ZAPPA @ FOX THEATRE | 12/15/12 “Still, nothing sounds like that,” Dweezil Zappa marveled after his band had made its way through “Who Are the Brain Police?” the feedback-laden, surreal anthem from the 1966 Mothers of Invention album Freak Out!. Dweezil and the rest of the Zappa Plays…
Dweezil Zappa is on a mission, and it’s a pretty personal one. Since 2006, the son of the late guitarist/composer/bandleader Frank Zappa has toured the world, playing his father’s music in an effort to attract and educate a new generation of listeners. In leading the Zappa Plays Zappa project, Dweezil…
Beth Gadbaw and Margot Krimmel’s holiday album, Icy December, melds familiar Christmas songs with Celtic instrumentation and features some well-worn holiday staples. But the musical treatment — via Krimmel’s Celtic harp and pedal harp, driving forces of the album along with Gadbaw’s Irish bodhran drum — doesn’t feel at all…
It’s not that tough to get Todd Snider to tell a story. The folksinger/guitarist is all about the power of a good narrative, and it’s no wonder, considering his influences. Even before issuing his 1994 debut album, Songs for the Daily Planet, Snider followed the path of legendary folkies like…
“The first time I dealt with a major label, I thought I had all the answers,” recalls Tyler Ward. “I thought I was so good at what I did that they couldn’t tell me what was going on. There were two or three offers on the table, and I said,…
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND @ PEPSI CENTER | 11/19/12 Bruce Springsteen asked for silence, and a crowd of thousands obliged. Springsteen and the E Street Band were eight songs deep into their three-hour, 26-song set at the Pepsi Center on Monday night, and the mood had suddenly…
Twenty years hasn’t done much to mellow the pure weirdness of Pure Guava, Ween’s third studio album and major label debut from 1992. Like 1991’s The Pod, Pure Guava includes plenty of sound experiments and bizarre conceptual flights of fancy. But the album – released twenty years ago today -…
JACKSON BROWNE @ PARAMOUNT THEATRE | 11/15/12 Very early into his set at the Paramount last night, Jackson Browne thanked the capacity crowd for putting up with the video cameras stationed in the balcony, at the exits and on the stage. A live concert special for AXS TV was being…
“The first time I dealt with a major label, I thought I had all the answers,” recalls Tyler Ward. “I thought I was so good at what I did that they couldn’t tell me what was going on. There were two or three offers on the table, and I said,…
AARON FREEMAN @ FOX THEATRE | 11/2/12 Aaron Freeman’s set at the Fox felt decidedly familiar. The former Ween frontman may have officially shed the musical alter ego of Gene Ween since his last appearance in Colorado, but a lot about his act has stayed pretty much the same. That…
PETER GABRIEL @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE | 9/30/12 Shortly before launching into an epic set that spanned nearly three hours at Red Rocks last night, Peter Gabriel took the tack of a well trained maître d’, explaining that the program would come in three courses, kicking off with a four-song…
When Tim Bruns and Mike Morter came together with the other members of Churchill — drummer Joe Richmond, bassist Tyler Rima and pianist/vocalist Bethany Kelly — their goals were rather humble: They just wanted to play at the hi-dive and then eventually make music for a living. “Right away,” says…
Someone said to me, ‘It seems that on an A-to-Z journey, you guys are on N right now,'” relates Fierce Bad Rabbit frontman Chris Anderson of the band’s rapid trajectory thus far. “And I said, ‘Well, M was a real bitch.'” The members of Fierce Bad Rabbit have stuffed a…
CAKE @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE | 7/28/12 See Also: – Slide show: Cake at Red Rocks, 7/28/12 – The Lumineers shed light on life in Denver and their evolving sound The capacity crowd at Red Rocks on Saturday seemed determined to defy the elements. Overcast skies, steady sheets of rain…
The image is stark and simple: a vintage truck painted a deep indigo, a battered brick wall behind, and the words “Better Days” spelled out in simple fonts above. For Chris Daniels, the cover art for his latest solo release is open to interpretation. “That’s my old truck. I got…
Seated in front of the soundboard at his home studio in Castle Pines, Mike Paul Hughes reveals telltale signs of his day job as an engineer. There’s his rapid-fire technical talk about the basic elements of sound and recording — details about megahertz and latency issues. But the signals go…
The drama of high school, the heady elation of a recording contract with a major label, the premature death of a childhood friend from a drug overdose — all of these elements have figured into the music of Brendan Hill, who’s served as the drummer for Blues Traveler since the…
Colin Stranahan (due with Stranahan/Zaleski/Rosato at Dazzle for the Westword Music Showcase tomorrow and on Sunday, June 24) isn’t comfortable with labels. Since launching his professional career as a jazz musician at the age of seventeen, Stranahan has earned critical acclaim and professional kudos for his explosive and nuanced skill…
Black Joe Lewis (due tomorrow at the Westword Music Showcase on the mainstage) isn’t one to make fancy comparisons to the musical legacies of blues giants and soul progenitors. Lewis and his band, formerly known as the Honeybears, have earned comparisons to everyone from Howlin’ Wolf to Muddy Waters, and…
