What I wouldn’t give to be a greaser. The life’s all about hot rods and hotter broads, pomade and pompadours. I’ve wanted to be a greaser since the first time I saw The Outsiders. Like my uncle used to say, though, I have “wavy hair” — my one hair in…

Three years ago last week, when I became the Backbeat editor of this hallowed fish wrap, I was convinced that I had landed the coolest gig in the music biz, bar none. But now I’m not so sure. After speaking with Alexandra Patsavas, who handles music-supervision duties for such shows…

Donovan Welsh and Bryan Knoebel came together over a blow job. “True story,” says Welsh, Dork’s bassist. “In 2001, I used to live at this house that was just crazy, and Bryan ended up at a party there. I had just bought a guitar that day, and he was playing…

Tool sucks live — if you’re a casual concert-goer expecting all the trappings of a classic rock show that is — because a Tool performance has no pyro, no special effects, no stunning light show or outrageous antics. Last Wednesday night, I was one of more than 2,000 lucky bastards…

One Saturday every June, thousands of people descend on the Golden Triangle for the Westword Music Showcase. For music fans, the Showcase is the most hotly anticipated local-music event all year, every year. And to my continual amazement, that old cliche is eternally applicable: The Showcase just keeps getting bigger…

The name Cinematic Underground sounds more like a movement than a band. And for Nathan Johnson, who leads the international twelve-piece ensemble, it is. Last fall, he and nearly a dozen of his friends and family members decided to devote a year of their lives to living communally — first…

Sitting in a hotel bar overlooking downtown Denver, Vinnie Paul Abbott is stunned that not a single TV is tuned to the hockey game. His boys, the Dallas Stars, are taking an ass-whuppin’ at the hands of the Avalanche — or so Big Vin tells me — and he’d like…

Last Thursday night I caught Kid Rock at the Colorado Convention Center, and all I have to say is, WTF? Talk about a miserable experience. And I’m not referring to Kid’s performance, which was rote but entertaining. Think Coldplay does arena rock by the numbers? You ain’t seen shit. Or,…

Kronow’s new van is an eyesore. There’s a sheet of plywood bolted to the passenger-side sliding door where a window used to be. The vehicle has oxidized so badly that its paint job, presumably once a deep shade of maroon, is now faded like a month-old bruise. If this van…

I’m in love with Melissa Ivey, and I don’t care who knows it. Actually, allow me to clarify that for the benefit of my wife, who’s probably on the phone with the divorce attorney right now: Ivey’s a lovely gal, easy on the eyes and all that, but really I’m…

Ion got its start in 2000 as a side project for former Blister 66 bassist and programmer Joe Sego and ex-Dropsound vocalist Noe De’Leon. By 2002, with the addition of Todd Schlafer, Rocket Ajax’s erstwhile axman, as well as guitarist Nik Lawhorn from Synthetic Delusion and Blister 66 drummer David…

With his spiky, dishwater-blond hair and jade-green eyes, you’d never suspect that Beto Hale is Mexican. But he is. The grandson of a Polish Jew who emigrated to Mexico in 1921, Hale is Mexican by birth, with Polish, French, Welsh, Irish and Scottish ancestry in his blood. He grew up…

Patrick Meese turned a lot of heads two years ago with the release of his debut EP, I Don’t Buy It. But no one was more stirred by the music than his younger brother, Nathan, who was so moved by a single song that he dropped out of college in…

The December Question has come a long way since forming in 2002. Early on, the band’s acoustic-driven pop was largely centered around singer/guitarist Becky Alter (a former Westword account executive), whose raspy, robust vocals recalled Janis Joplin filtered through Melissa Etheridge. Since then, the core duo of Alter and co-founder/bassist…

“The performance and filming are scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. PLEASE BE COMFORTABLY SEATED WITH AN EMPTY BLADDER BY 7:20 P.M.” It’s just minutes before the March 23 taping of the Seven Voices pilot — a series of live DVDs being produced in hi-def by Immersive Studios — when…

Nine — that’s the number of Denver bands officially making the trip to South by Southwest this year. Okay, seven, if you want to get technical, since Uncle Earl is from Lyons and the Great Redneck Hope hails from Colorado Springs. And those are just the local bands that were…

I’m not clairvoyant, but I’ll bet I know what you’re thinking right now. The Fray? The Fray! Enough already! For crissakes, how much more ink are you going to spill on these guys? The answer’s simple: I’ll keep writing about the Fray until the band’s tale ceases to be compelling…

This Holiday Inn parking lot in the heart of Hollywood feels like the surface of the sun. It’s just after 10 a.m. on Wednesday, February 8, the beginning of the Fray’s first national headlining tour. But while the mercury will rise to a record-breaking ninety degrees before the end of…

Who’d win in a wrestling match, Bono or God? Okay, so I ripped off that joke from Airheads, substituting Mr. Hewson for Mr. Kilmister. Nonetheless, judging from his performance Sunday night at the Pepsi Center, Chris Martin already knows the punchline: Bono is God — at least in the eyes…

Nothing about Japan Implosion is what it seems. First of all, Implosion has absolutely nothing to do with Japan: It’s the latest magazine dedicated to documenting Denver’s formidable music, art and cultural communities. And while you can print a PDF of Implosion — whose inaugural issue features profiles on the…

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride: That might as well be Sevendust’s mantra. Although the Atlanta quintet is perpetually on the verge of breaking through, it’s never quite reached the status of past tourmates — Limp Bizkit, Creed, Drowning Pool and Incubus — that have leapfrogged the act both critically…