“You can have every single thing against you in the entire world, but never give up. Don’t ever compromise,” advises jazz vocalist and pianist Denise Mangiardi. Speaking as much to herself as to her listener, she adds, “I have this continuing argument with people who say that I should be…

Claw Hammer Thank the Holder Uppers (Interscope) Claw Hammer hits the majors with its sound unprettified, thank goodness. “Superthings” tips the bandmates’ hands: sloppy drumming (from Bob Lee), raucous guitar calisthenics (executed by Jon Wahl and Christopher Bagarozzi) and screamed vocals that suggest Robert Plant if someone really were squeezing…

“I feel better the longer I’m alive,” says twelve-string guitar sorcerer Leo Kottke. “I think I was at my most unconscious in my late teens, early twenties. I was completely off. As a result, I didn’t think I felt bad–because I didn’t feel anything. And after that, when I started…

In the number “Smoke Rings,” conceptualist Laurie Anderson intones, “Well, I had a dream, and in it I went to a little town/And all the girls in town were named Betty.” By contrast, none of the members of the oddball trio BETTY sport this moniker. The New York-based act consists…

P.J. Harvey To Bring You My Love (Island) Polly Jean is an uncompromising cuss for the most part, but she’s not obstinate enough to commit career suicide just yet. So when 1993’s Rid of Me, produced for maximum skronk value by Steve Albini, turned off everyone within earshot other than…

Over the past thirty years, plenty of journalists have called drummer Ginger Baker rude and blunt simply because he offers cocky, profanity-laden answers to questions he’s been asked literally hundreds of times before. In responding to these charges, Baker–who’s 55 and lives on a ranch in Elbert County, near Parker–gives…

The seven members of the Scotland-based Wolfstone should be accustomed to the quirks of the U.S. citizenry by now, since they’re currently in the midst of their sixth tour of the country. But vocalist/guitarist Stuart Eaglesham still doesn’t understand the meaning behind a comment Americans have been making to him…

“I think that in jazz as a whole, the musicians have a problem with reaching out to the audiences,” says percussionist Bobby DeLuna of the Bobby DeLuna and Richard Kermode Band. “Audiences just watch a jazz band. They don’t listen.” By contrast, he claims, “We play off the audience. If…

Laurie Anderson, Thursday, March 2, at the Paramount Theatre, has been busy lately: She recently issued Bright Red, her first new recording in five years (another disc, The Ugly One With the Jewels, is due in mid-March); Stories From the Nerve Bible, a book-length retrospective of her career over the…

Little Axe The Wolf That House Built (OKeh/Epic) If you’re a purist, give this sucker wide berth, because it’s sure to piss you off. Yep, Little Axe uses the blues the way Enigma used Gregorian chants–as raw material for atmospheric samples. Which means, friends, that those raspy voices you hear…

Denver-based harmonica player Clay Kirkland is often described as having the fastest tongue in the West–a compliment based less on his style of speech than his atypical approach to blowing the harp. “Some harmonica players form an embouchure with their lips,” explains Kirkland, a Georgia native and son of a…

Pianist, composer and New York-music-scene veteran Robin Connell has very little patience for musicians who whine. In fact, Connell–currently living in Greeley, where she’s working on a doctorate in musical composition at the University of Northern Colorado–has integrated a no-complaints philosophy into her outlook on both life and music. “A…

William Clarke, Thursday, January 19, at Herman’s Hideaway, is a California native and harmonicat who caught the blues bug at sixteen. While his peers were listening to Beach Boys tunes, Clarke was sneaking into Watts dives in order to learn at the feet of Lowell Fulsom and Big Mama Thornton…

Various Artists The Colpix-Dimension Story (Rhino) On first listen, many of these forty cuts sound downright terrible–and they don’t improve with repeated plays. Nonetheless, this collection exerts a certain fascination, if only because it captures on plastic some of the more blatant attempts to put rock and roll on an…

Puppies eventually become dogs. Teenagers bloom into young adults. And jazz guitarist Howard Alden wants people to know that neo-swing players–those young guys who perform with and like the old guys from the original swing era–can grow up, too. “I should hope so,” says Alden, who at 36 is among…

Ice Cube Bootlegs & B-Sides (Priority) I’ve gone back and forth on this character so many times that the only thing I’m sure of in 1995 is that he’s still got the potential for greatness. Hard to describe why–there’s plenty of idiocy sprinkled throughout these thirteen intermittently engaging tracks, which…

Todd Snider Songs for the Daily Planet (MCA) Country A&R guys are certainly feeling their oats these days. How else to explain the signing of Snider, an often jubilant busker who sounds no more country than, say, Loudon Wainwright III? “My Generation (Part 2),” Planet’s opening track, is indicative of…

Denver singer-songwriter Michael Engberg makes a decent living as a solo musician. But if he ever comes up short, he can always earn some extra money the way he once did–by delivering singing telegrams. “I’d say there are three main requirements for doing them,” he theorizes. “You have to have…

Nirvana MTV Unplugged in New York (DGC) Too much is being made of this, and for reasons that are rather hard to fathom: I mean, I can’t be the only person in America to have caught this performance during one of the 10,000 or so times it’s been aired since…

What’s important to Austin-based guitarist Chris Duarte is written all over his body. A case in point is the strange tattoo on Duarte’s chest–a reference to a treasured 1963 Stratocaster. Duarte played the instrument for more than a decade, in large part because it came into being the same year…

Pearl Jam Vitalogy (Epic) This isn’t all that hot, but at least these guys are trying. The problem, as usual, are the songs, which are not exactly dripping with originality. “Spin the Black Circle,” for instance, could pass for an early X track if only Exene Cervenka had added a…

In the Seventies, English blues rocker Robin Trower gained fame in large part for his skill at aping Jimi Hendrix. But Trower feels that he has more going for him than his aptitude at mimicry. “I think my greatest asset is the sheer amount of emotion that I’m able to…