Buddy, let me tell you what: These here Railbenders are the real McCoy. For my money, these urban cowboys play some of the most authentic honky-tonk this side of Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys. And Showdown, their third full-length and first for the Texas-based Stag imprint, is by far…

Brian Howe is making a big noise as a Denver DJ — even if he lives in Loveland, a quiet backwater better known for its Valentine’s Day postage seal than its thriving electronic scene. Howe moved to northern Colorado from the Bay area a year ago. “I really just kind…

Everything’s coming up Roses these days for Nate Barnes and brothers Jake and Daniel Sproul. Three years after they banded together as Rose Hill Drive, they finally have a recording contract — a joint deal with SCI Fidelity Records, the label founded by Madison House and the String Cheese Incident,…

Duncan Sheik emerged in the mid-’90s as the hyper-sensitive balladeer responsible for the inescapable, saccharine-drenched lite-rock staple “Barely Breathing,” which contained the shmaltzy refrain “I only taste the saline when I kiss away your tears.” Sheik was Howie Day before Howie Day. After that, by all conventional wisdom, Sheik should…

Todd Park Mohr is done making albums. Take it easy: That’s albums, not music. In fact, Cabeza Grande’s recent output has increased dramatically, as a visit to Big Head Todd and the Monsters’ website will attest. Back in November, Mohr and company — bassist Rob Squires, drummer Brian Nevin and…

Three years ago, Aubrey Collins appeared to be on the fast track to superstardom. On Back to Me, her 2002 debut, she displayed a talent and maturity far beyond her fourteen years, turning the heads of many Nashville execs and filling them with visions of LeAnn Rimes. But then Collins…

Urban Folk Scarf Rock: That’s how Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s were billed at last fall’s South Park Music Festival. Someone was being cheeky — there’s no way that anyone who’d heard this Indianapolis-based act could genuinely claim that it had crafted a new, wholly unique sound that…

After roaring out of the gate a few years back, The Last Seen (due at the hi-dive on Thursday, January 12, with Matt Boyer of Sun Kil Moon and Triplight) kept a pretty low profile for most of 2005. If their recently completed three-song effort is any indication of things…

Gooch was a sight for sore eyes when he showed up on my doorstep on New Year’s Day. The two of us have been best friends since grade school. But we’re more than that, really; we’re musical soulmates. At least, we were until we hit the proverbial fork in the…

Approximately 67,518 discs were issued in 2005. Of the thousands I managed to listen to, fewer than fifty truly moved me — but among those, I kept coming back to the following albums: The Mars Volta, Frances the Mute (GSL/Universal). When the Mars Volta played before an intimate crowd at…

A couple of Christmases ago, in a now-infamous installment of the Beatdown (December 18, 2003), I wrote some pretty harsh shit about Blister 66 frontman Chris Dellinger. I accused him of aping every trend for the past decade, said that Vanilla Ice and Jonathan Davis had called asking for their…

Robert Salyers is a geek. Most people would be put off by this designation, but not Salyers. He wears the title like a badge of honor, proclaiming his geekiness on the website (www.pcfdp.com) that he maintains with his buddies, who also happen to be geeks. “We’ve got some pretty geeky…

Mike Landers and Alan Johnson are driven. In February 2003, the Deux Process partners in rhyme — aka Vice Versa and Chief Nek — moved to Los Angeles, determined to land a record deal. It was a gigantic leap of faith for the Colorado Springs-bred MCs, who’d performed as Deux…

People don’t know what they like. They like what they know. A program-director friend of mine once shared that axiom with me as he tried to explain why listeners gravitate toward some songs as opposed to others. People are essentially sheeple, he asserted, creatures of conditioning. I’ve always thought this…

For more than a decade, Jeff Campbell, aka Apostle, has been a cornerstone of hip-hop in Denver. This spring, however, if all goes according to plan, he’ll be leaving the Mile High City to join his Heavyweight Dub Champion bandmates in Northern California. While this news is likely to send…

“I’m actually not really a Grateful Dead fan,” confesses Polytoxic frontman Tori Pater. “I don’t tell many people this.” Understandably. Even I am stunned by Pater’s admission — and I have about as much use for Jerry Garcia and company as I do for a hairstylist. To hear such a…

Chris Sauthoff sounds like a stoner. Explaining how his new band, U.S. Pipe and the Balls Johnson Dance Machine, got its name, he punctuates the anecdote with laconic bursts of laughter. “I was on the way to a gig with P-Funk,” recalls Sauthoff, who’s worked as that act’s stage manager…

When mook rock’s prime minister, Fred Durst, vacated his seat and took up residence in Barelyhasbeenville, the Dude contingent was minus a mouthpiece — and, like, completely bummed, bro. No worries. Now another misogynistic miscreant has happily assumed the role of pied piper. Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger likes to drink,…

Inside Littleton High School’s gymnasium, Craig Finn looks enchanted as he admires a wall-sized collage containing lyrical bits and photo interpretations of his songs. The elaborate montage was assembled by a group of ninth-graders who’ve spent the past few months studying Finn’s New York-based outfit, the Hold Steady. “We’ve had…

The Trampolines’ no-frills brand of acoustic rock is as indistinct as it is predictable: The songs swell and crescendo on cue, the lyrics follow an earnest singer-songwriter template and the guitar lines are melodic but routine. So it’s easy to beat up the act’s self-titled debut — but like a…

“It’s almost like it goes in one ear and out the other,” says Chris Cory, flashing a grin as he describes the irony of what happens when people learn he suffers from tinnitus. “It doesn’t really make too much sense to them — it’s something that doesn’t get better. They’re…

Talk is cheap. Well, not that cheap, according to Brice Hancock, guitarist for Rubber Planet. He just bought DenverMessageBoard.com — lock, stock and flaming posters. And while Hancock won’t divulge the actual purchase price, he does say that in order to close the deal, he had to take out a…