All right, dig it: It’s a Saturday night. I’m at Club Boca (1521 Marion Street) for Disintegration, the club’s weekly goth night. As I walk in, I spy a couple entangled at the bar, laying the groundwork for what will inevitably end in coitus later on. He’s got his arms…

A Russ Meyer girl on steroids, platinum blond and inked from head to toe, Miss Eva von Slut is a whole lotta woman. In a corset, she’s got enough cleavage to bounce a pound of loose change off. And she’s got plenty of curves — dangerous curves, man. So it’s…

Josh Polk knows a thing or two about punk. As the drummer in Whiskey Kiss, he’s well acquainted with the notion that it takes little more than three chords and the truth to get the job done. Booking punk bands, on the other hand, isn’t so turnkey. But that didn’t…

Evidently, seven is Kurt Elling’s lucky number. The jazz singer has seven Grammy nominations under his belt and has earned nods from Downbeat as Male Vocalist of the Year in its annual critics’ poll for the past seven years running. Good fortune, however, really has nothing to with Elling’s accolades…

Ralph Alessi’s latest effort, Look, is his most accessible work to date. A bit of a departure for the trumpeter, the album — which also features Ravi Coltrane (son of John Coltrane) on tenor sax and pianist Andy Milne — exhibits a clarity and focused command in his delivery. Alessi,…

It’s one thing for jazz players to work on scales, modes and chord voicings on their own. To really put all of that theory into practice, though, it helps to have other cats to jam with and a place where you can hone your chops. Fortunately, Denver has a couple…

Literally translated, “Bon Savants” is French for “good scientists.” That said, could there be a more fitting moniker for a band fronted by a guy who traded in a gig as an MIT research scientist to become versed in the dynamics of playing indie rock and Brit pop? The answer…

There’s a trio of heavy hitters anchoring this year’s edition of JazzFest Denver (taking place on Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24, at the Sherman Events Center). Kevin Mahogany possesses one of the smoothest voices on the jazz scene and has a resounding baritone that recalls Joe Williams and…

Damieon Hines is taking peeps to school. The DJ and Future Jazz Project drummer launched Sound College a couple of weeks ago at La Rumba with that idea in mind. Every Wednesday, the theme focuses on a different style of music; the concept is to explore funk, hip-hop, soundtracks and…

Thanks to a clip uploaded to YouTube late last year, Andy McKee has become something of a guitar hero. The video, which features McKee performing a song called “Drifting,” has generated over two million hits, making it one of the most watched music videos on the site. So what’s the…

Kneebody has had many labels thrown at it, but none seem to fit. That said, the members of the transcontinental quintet (whose new album, Low Electrical Worker, is due next month) haven’t exactly gone out of their way to make it easy for folks to pin down their shapeshifting sound…

For hip-hop heads seeking to escape cookie-cutter club nights, DJs Sounds Supreme and Low Key have the solution. A few Fridays ago, the pair launched a weekly night at Milk Bar called — you guessed it — The Solution. “We’re not trying to be too outside there,” Low Key says,…

Like Eskimo, the Zs have a quirky playfulness about them that is confounding and amazing in equal measure. Part rock band and part chamber ensemble, with a whole lot in between, the Brooklyn-based act displays a frenetic dexterity that evokes a sense of controlled chaos — like pistons pumping furiously,…

In the video for “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,” Camera Obscura’s latest single, there’s a guy clad in a blaring yellow shirt, dancing around like the gayest dude you’ve ever seen. He’s with a hot blonde who’s wearing white knee-high stockings and some sort of vibrant pink ’60s get-up…

Organist Reuben Wilson’s releases on the Blue Note Records imprint helped ignite the jazz-funk/soul-jazz movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s. Taking cues from a few other Hammond B-3 players like Jimmy McGriff and Richard “Groove” Holmes, Wilson put enough funk and breakbeats in his trunk to make today’s…

Jonathan Kreisberg’s playing conjures the dualistic essence of New York. The guy’s a badass, burning up the fretboard like Jimmy Bruno, with a swaggering bravado that’s pure Gotham. At the same time, there’s an evenness to his attack in which every note has clear and distinct resonance, lending the material…

A dog can only gnaw on the same bone for so long before it finally dawns on the old boy that he needs something substantive in his belly. Likewise, when the alt-country outfit Slobberbone called it quits in 2004, Brent Best realized he needed something a bit more significant to…

Willie Waldman came alive on Death Row. Upon moving to L.A. in 1994, he was introduced to Snoop Dogg, who enlisted the trumpeter to join him in the studio. Waldman’s work with the D-O-double-G led to subsequent sessions with Tha Dogg Pound and 2Pac. A few years later, he met…

Stanton Moore knows his funk. The Galactic drummer and founder has a knack for grabbing on to a groove with both fists, putting it in a headlock and twisting it into submission. The result is a tight and steady deadlocked funk. Last year, Moore invited guitarist Will Bernard and keyboard…

Bob Dorough. You’ve probably heard him, even if you don’t know him by name. If you were a kid growing up in the ’70s and watched Schoolhouse Rock, for instance, you’re familiar with an infectious little ditty called “Three Is a Magic Number.” That’s his. Or if you came of…

Kayo Dot thrives at extremes. On its Tzadik debut, 2003’s Choir of the Eye, the act creates exhaustive, dynamic backdrops in which dense layers of distortion descend into exquisite, wistful excursions, like chaos dissolving into serenity — or something akin to dropping acid in a tunnel with Marshall stacks blaring…

Erin Bode There’s a montage in Play Misty for Me in which Clint Eastwood and Donna Mills are seen walking on the beach, waves crashing behind them, then frolicking in the woods while Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” plays. The purity and beauty of the…