Saxophonist Marcus Strickland was listening to John Coltrane, Stevie Wonder, Parliament and Jimi Hendrix before he was even born. While Marcus was still in the womb, his father, a DJ and classical percussionist, played tunes on a open reel deck and placed a speaker near his mother’s belly in hopes…
I probably listen to more Tom Waits songs in November than in any other month. “November,” with its somber imagery of dead leaves, shiny black ravens, cold rain and a moon that’s the color of bone. And “Martha,” which always tears me up not only because it’s incredibly poignant, but…
You know that scene in The Mask where Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz are swing-dancing to the rumbling tom-tom beat of “Hey Pachuco,” the song by Royal Crown Revue? Well, that clip was showing on a bunch of TVs at Maloney’s Tavern (1432 Market Street), which had its grand opening…
Steve Schalk, owner of the Gothic Theatre (3263 South Broadway), had been eyeing the nearby Sport Bowl Lanes & Billiards for a long time before he finally bought it in August. By then, he knew just what he wanted to do with the joint. An ardent Star Wars fan, he’d…
The opening song on Sea Wolf’s debut, Leaves in the River, is a tale of a guy who meets a girl on Halloween. He was drunk, she was lost, and it was cold, dark and raining. The song sets the tone for the album. Sound like an ideal soundtrack for…
Swallow Hill has long been Denver’s main haven for folk, roots and acoustic music. But Chad Johnson, who’s been giving private drum lessons there for the past seven years, is throwing something a little heavier into the equation with Rock Academy, which he started in August. He wanted to teach…
About three years ago, Jimmie Lee Smith and his wife were having sandwiches and coffee at the cafe in New York’s Angelika Film Center. They wanted to take the sandwiches into the theater, but they weren’t allowed. Although Smith — a Denver native who spent sixteen years in New York…
So I’m driving up that hill on McCaslin Boulevard just before South Boulder Road, and this guy in a station wagon is merging into my lane, only he’s not really merging — he’s speeding up when he should be putting on the brakes and letting me pass. I move over…
While Amy Winehouse mined the albums of ’60s girl groups and Phil Spector for inspiration on Back to Black, the three gals in the Pipettes take a much more playful approach to that era. On its debut, We Are the Pipettes, the British group takes a few vocal cues from…
Before Argentinean Federico Aubele began working on his latest release, Panamericana, he realized that most of the music that influenced him, particularly reggae, hip-hop and tango, came from the Americas. So the Pan-American Highway, a network of roads that runs from the tip of Argentina to Alaska, became the ideal…
While watching four middle-aged guys run through Free’s “All Right Now” at Hicc Ups III (1541 Cortez Street), which opened last month, I started thinking about what makes a good cover band. It was a solid version of the song, pretty damn close to the original. Then they went into…
The members of Architecture in Helsinki wrote their latest effort, Places Like This, via instant messages. Late last year, Cameron Bird, the band’s singer and founder, moved to Brooklyn, while his bandmates, who are now scattered across the globe, stayed behind in Melbourne, Australia. The six sent demos back and…
What is it about these indie folksters using pseudonyms? Samuel Beam goes by Iron and Wine, and Will Oldham has recorded under Bonnie “Prince” Billy and various Palace monikers. Then there’s Matthew Houck, who’s been recording and performing as Phosphorescent for the past seven years. Fittingly enough, Houck’s latest effort,…
Last New Year’s Eve, Charles Trujillo and Paul Piciocchi opened the sleek and sexy Sutra Room at 1109 Lincoln Street, and soon followed it up with Left on Lincoln, which took over the front portion of the building as well as the patio. They were essentially separate clubs under the…
Plenty of jazz musicians and aficionados think Kenny G is the Antichrist. Still, there are millions of people who think he’s a godsend. Those same people would hate the Dead Kenny G’s, whose music is a far cry from the sappy drivel dished out by its namesake. Skerik and Mike…
Jake La Botz has a lot of tattoos — so many he’s not even sure how many he has anymore. “It starts getting blurry when your whole back is covered,” he says. He also has a lot of friends in the tattoo business. And it also turns out that a…
“Tonight I Have to Leave It,” the opening track on the Shout Out Louds’ latest release, Our Ill Wills, sounds like it could have been a B-side from the Cure’s 1985 album The Head on the Door. The buoyant tune bears a striking resemblance to Robert Smith and company’s “In…
One of the scummiest dives I ever drank in was the Mars Bar, just around the corner from the now-defunct CBGB on New York’s Lower East Side. It was a tiny, filthy, narrow joint with maybe a dozen stools at the bar and a motley crew of regulars, everyone from…
Chemistry is key when it comes to being in a band. For the guys in White Rabbits, it’s everything. Since moving to New York from Columbia, Missouri, two years ago, all six members have lived together in a loft that doubles as their rehearsal space. Kindred spirits, the guys all…
It’s hard to avoid sexual innuendos when discussing That 1 Guy, the alter ego of Mike Silverman. For starters, he calls his instrument his Magic Pipe, which is made up of two six-foot steel pipes (dude’s seriously packing) wired with a single bass string. The thing looks like a Blade…
“You know where a guy can find a good drink?” said the guy wearing the T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. The lanky bartender looked at him for a moment, then said, “You don’t ask a bartender that kind of thing.” “Give me a Shirley Temple,” the guy said with…
It’s hard to avoid sexual innuendos when discussing That 1 Guy, the alter ego of Mike Silverman. For starters, he calls his instrument his Magic Pipe, which is made up of two six-foot steel pipes (dude’s seriously packing) wired with a single bass string. The thing looks like a Blade…
