Long before Doc Atkins convinced us to 86 whitey and the boys from the pyramid, beef was a rap staple. Feuds between rival MCs like LL Cool J and Kool Moe Dee, KRS-One and MC Shan have clogged many an artery: Pac taunting Biggie about knocking boots with Big Poppa’s…
It’s been nearly five decades since Bo Diddley wrote “Who Do You Love?,” a rock-and-roll classic that perhaps best sums up youth’s reckless disregard for mortality: “Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind/Just 22 and I don’t mind dying.” Diddley recently celebrated his 75th birthday; needless to say, Papa Bo may…
At its best, rock and roll is a noncompetitive, egalitarian art form, in which like-minded musicians come together to create, communicate and share their souls as equals instead of constructing bloody ladders to superstardom out of the corpses of the weak. Of course, that’s total crap, and for proof, check…
The beat is murder when The Smiths stop by South Park this week. Join Kenny, Kyle, Stan and Eric as…oh, wait, not that South Park. Rather, former Smiths members bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce will join resident DJs Michael Trundle and Tyler Jacobson for Lipgloss this Friday, March…
When a band has a name like Wicked Grin, you expect to see burned-out relics from the Revlon era rockin’ the spandex and skullets, churning out half-baked versions of everyone’s favorite cock-rock anthems. The material this act has chosen to replicate hails from a later decade but is no less…
Hip-hop clubs get a bad rap: Controversy and police scrutiny seem to cling to them. But Soul has a different destination in mind. Dropping into Sanctuary/Butterfly’s old digs at 2040 Larimer Street, Soul has revamped its belly into two distinctive rooms, with swanky VIP quarters wedged in between. One side…
Until February 20 of last year, Jack Russell was best known for one song — a cover of Mott the Hoople’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” performed with a big-haired bravado that made his band, Great White, a momentary star of the ’80s hard-rock firmament. What a difference a year makes…
I don’t think there’s any reason why someone should become a Decemberists fan unless they’re fully prepared,” says vocalist/tunesmith Colin Meloy. “Frankly, I’d rather see a smaller audience, but an audience that is more attuned to the music, than a huge audience made up of moderately interested people.” The Decemberists’…
Hot damn! Another concept album. With recent releases like the Mars Volta’s De-Loused in the Comatorium, Cursive’s The Ugly Organ and Racebannon’s Satan’s Kickin’ Yr Dick In, the gears on this idea are starting to get stripped — as if they weren’t already eroded enough in the ’70s. What saves…
The Autumn Defense’s sophomore disc was just released. It’s brand-new. Really. You can check the date on the back. But if you listen to the record blindly, you’d swear that Circles — with its Burt Bacharach-esque string and horn arrangements, undulating bass lines and delicate vocals — was recorded around…
The long list of worthy artists who have never won Grammys includes the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix. Norah Jones, on the other hand, took home five in one night, most for the 2002 song “Don’t Know Why” — a title that pretty much sums up her sweep…
The Church may get lumped in with other one-hit wonders from the ’80s — its only stateside hit was “Under the Milky Way” from 1988’s Starfish — but the outfit actually has a recording history that spans over twenty years, as well as faithful fans around the world, particularly in…
The last time Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons was in town, back in May 2003, he announced that he’d be bringing one of his famed hip-hop summits to Denver later that year. But 2003 ended without a repeat appearance by Simmons — much less a Mootown summit. This past Thursday,…
Railbenders Segundo (Big Bender Records) For the most part, Colorado’s country-music scene is divided between artists aligned with contemporary Nashville values and acts that pay homage to the twangier, more authentic sounds of yesteryear. The Railbenders (due Friday, March 12, at Herman’s Hideaway) are part of the latter classification, but…
In the iconography of childhood, hearts and stars are crayon-scrawled hieroglyphs symbolizing love, hope and wonder. Fittingly, Heart is the title of the newest album by Canadian outfit Stars, which will appear on Monday, March 15, at the Climax Lounge, with the Dears and George & Caplin. The band’s throwback…
General Populace simultaneously pays homage and pushes parameters in its exploration of the jazz genre. The act’s performances are highlighted by Bec Mhalek’s baritone sax and her unique slap-tongue technique, which peppers select songs with a percussive chirp and pop. Meanwhile, Dave Cieri’s Hammond B-3 organ seems at times to…
Achieving a truly exquisite aesthetic involves mastering space, shape and lines — and when Lotus UltraNightlife opened its doors at 1701 Wynkoop Street this past weekend, it definitely had the lines. A mack-daddy monstrosity of twisting, wriggling striped shirts and short skirts with two velvet-roped heads, the queue separated the…
In a daring move of creative inspiration, Dieselboy brought in live guitars, drums, bass and keyboards to round out the remix of Style of Beyond’s “SubCulture” on his 2002 release, projectHUMAN. Using instruments to play a song isn’t exactly groundbreaking, of course, but in the drum-and-bass world of computerized everything,…
Breasts: Kids love ’em! Grown men, too — and while Ruben Studdard has a nice set, most dudes prefer the ones on women. Why? Chemistry. See that guy across the room from you? His testosterone started boiling the second he first registered the joys of feminine pulchritude, and it probably…
It is an honor and a privilege of mine to say ‘Fuck you, Clear Channel,'” says Sage Francis, the Rhode Island-based rapper/spoken-word artist, as he prepares to embark on a national tour that he brazenly calls the Fuck Clear Channel Tour. “Clear Channel is a company that likes to bully…
This music comes from New York,” says Karsh Kale, a key figure in what has been dubbed the Asian Massive movement, about his music. “It really shouldn’t be treated any differently than any other music that comes from New York.” Born in London to Indian parents and raised in New…
In Andy Greenwald’s lame book Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo, the author unhooks his lips from the gonads of Dashboard Confessional long enough to cite Denver’s own Christie Front Drive as one of the founders of contemporary emo. Granted, that alone is enough to make anyone justifiably…
