For the past thirteen years, Mojo Nixon has waged a butt-rockin’ assault on some of the more significant ills of society while touting the pleasures to be found in America’s underbelly. Once upon a time in the Eighties, this vision infiltrated the mainstream: The video for the song “Elvis Is…

According to Denver-based guitarist Darren Curtis Skanson, being a graduate of the Do-It-Yourself School of Music has its drawbacks. “If a girl comes up to my friends in a bar and asks them what they do, it’s easy for them to answer the question,” he says. “But if she asks…

“I think there’s a certain amount of the Southern myth that’s true,” says Tom Maxwell, vocalist, guitarist and sax man for the hippest “hot jazz” revivalists going, North Carolina’s Squirrel Nut Zippers. “And I think we’re a Southern band in many ways.” How so? According to Maxwell, “We talk different,…

Most times when Les Cooper is on stage, he’s singing with the band he fronts, Denver’s Dalhart Imperials. But on this evening, he and his wife, Joan, are teaching dance steps to an attentive crowd whose members seem to have stepped straight from The Wild One. Men with greased hair…

If you talk to Wally Collins about Boulder’s New Wizard Oil Combination, the musical aggregation he formed more than a quarter-century ago, make sure you get your lingo straight. “It’s not a band,” he says a bit testily. “We’re a group or a choir, but we’re not a band. ‘Band’…

Denver musician Eric Bard’s goals are humble. “Basically, what I’m after,” he says candidly, “is a cheap laugh.” The means by which Bard achieves his ends are certainly novel: He uses drums and a saxophone, often played at the same time, to complement his wry brand of beat poetry. This…

“Country music is like Spam,” claims disc jockey Rich Beall. “A lot of people don’t want to admit to it, but they sure do like it.” He pauses before adding, “Some people just don’t want to come out of the closet and say, ‘I like classic country.'” While Beall doesn’t…

Many of the performers whom Flat Duo Jets singer/guitarist Dexter Romweber numbers among his heroes were either long in the tooth or dead by the time of his 1966 birth. So it’s fairly strange to hear him commenting on something he seldom watches: MTV. As Romweber tells it, he turned…

It’s a rainy Monday night in Denver, but a small crowd has braved the elements to hear a local legend. Denver Joe Vasquez, wearing a black broad-brimmed hat, black shirt, blue jeans and boots, steps to the microphone and delivers his trademark greeting to the faithful: “We want to remind…

“I play keyboards, guitar, harmonica and bass,” mentions Jeffrey Marshall from the balcony of his downtown Denver apartment. This in itself is impressive but hardly unparalleled; many musicians can lay claim to multi-instrumental talents. But it’s unlikely that anyone else is able to duplicate Marshall’s unusual performing approach. After all,…

On August 16, 1977–nineteen years ago this week–Elvis Presley died. But while the general public believes he’s at rest on the property of Graceland, his Memphis home, Carol Downey, perhaps Denver’s most devoted Elvis booster, knows the truth. “I don’t think he’s there,” she says. “I don’t think they moved…

Life on the road can be fun for a traveling rock-and-roller–but according to Ned “Hoaky” Hickel, bassist for New Orleans-based Dash Rip Rock, it’s not without its drawbacks. “With all this traveling we’ve been doing,” he laments, “there’s no time for fishing.” Hickel and his mates (drummer Chris Luckette and…

It’s Saturday night at the Knights of Columbus hall in Brighton, Colorado, and about 250 people are mingling near the stage, waiting for the band to strike up. Their patience is soon rewarded: Mike Gaschler counts to three, then gives his accordion a hearty squeeze. Another set by the Polka…

Rick Miller, guitarist and frontman for Southern Culture on the Skids, has just returned from a European tour, and he’s got trouble. “I’ve got to get all this cheese out of my system,” he says. “People over there eat cheese with everything.” To make matters worse, “what they call sausage…

It’s a Tuesday night in downtown Denver, and Chuck Shockney, music instructor, organ salesman and part-time musician, is preparing for another gig. He sits down at his keyboard, turns on his rig and slides into a tune for the usual audience of…50,000 people. Shockney, the 51-year-old organist for Coors Field…

At eight o’clock at night in an Englewood industrial park, a single streetlight casts a milky glow on a simple wooden sign. It reads: “Ralph’s Top Service.” Although Ralph’s, at 2890 South Zuni, is a custom counter and cabinet shop, the scene inside this evening has little to do with…