While perhaps not breaking a whole lot of new musical ground, these local jam bozos are dedicated to playing as much psychedelic-inspired fare as humanly possible, which is laudable for a bunch of aging working stiffs trying to make good — or at the very least trying to forget about…
If you’re looking to score a quality bump, try a little Crystal Method. Last year’s compilation disc, Community Service, gave us all a peek at Method’s mad mixing skills, as the chart-topping electronic act cut tracks of pure energy. Method deals from behind the decks on a DJ tour, giving…
Hip-hop is everything that surrounds us,” declares Selecta Roswell (aka Sean Ryerson), whose pseudonym references the infamous New Mexico town where a flying saucer allegedly crashed in 1947. “And if some gray aliens leak out of my head and onto my computer, they are just as hip-hop as Ol’ Dirty…
DJ Rap (born Charissa Saverio), perhaps the only electronic artist in the world who holds an orange belt in ninjitsu, has moved from California to Chicago to finish the followup to Learning Curve, her debut album. And when she’s not laying down tracks, Rap is spinning on the PlayStation 2…
You have the right to remain silent, and for chrissakes, Tammy Alverson should have taken advantage of that. The Rock In’ Freak Fest at Fat City officially ended at 5:30 a.m. November 1 — but the riffs keep coming. When I rolled into the office last Monday morning, I was…
Motor City has a new madman. Move over, Nuge: Make room for Obie Trice. A product of his environment — the same battlefield that produced Eminem — Trice is as real as the name his mama gave him. Known as Obie-Wan until Proof from D-12 convinced him to use his…
The old rock-and-roll cliche dictates that aspiring musicians head to New York or Los Angeles if they’re halfway serious about taking a shot at the bigtime. But when Melissa Ivey officially reached adulthood, she fled the oversaturated Southern California scene and headed to Denver, where she’s been plugging and gigging…
Doesn’t it warm your heart when the son of two prison inmates makes good? Raised by Grandma while the folks were doing hard time, former Bay Area resident Baby Bash broke into the scene after moving to Houston and working with South Park Mexican’s Dope House label. Bash, also called…
Music city got a fat lip early last Saturday, when Riff magazine’s Rock In’ Freak Fest at Fat City ended with emcee Greg Stone (aka Uncle Nasty of KBPI) being charged with third-degree assault and Riff’s marketing manager, Darrell Hughes, leaving with a splitting headache. According to the summons filed…
Closer, the latest CD by Plastikman (aka Richie Hawtin), released October 21 on his own novamute label, is being heralded as the techno album of the last twenty years. Closer is not just the first Plastikman disc in five years; it’s also the first to add vocals to the music…
At first, Westword’s music editor didn’t want you to see this article. He felt the quality of Junior Senior, a Danish duo that recently hit in Europe and beyond with the boogie manifesto “Move Your Feet,” couldn’t justify the cost of the ink required to print a profile. Most of…
I never saw any relation between my upbringing and the art that I do,” says j.frede, the former Denver aesthetic agitator who now resides in Los Angeles, where he has been making a name for himself as a composer and performer of experimental music over the past two years. “I…
Psychedelic space rock and panoramic expressions. Gospel choirs and eighteen-month mixing sessions. Hundred-piece orchestras with their sweeping strings. These are a few of Jason Pierce’s favorite things. Until now, that is. A major departure from 2001’s ambitious, massively orchestral Let It Come Down, Spiritualized’s fifth studio album (which arrives barely…
Perhaps the best way to describe the lyrics of the Weakerthans’ frontman/guitarist John K. Samson is “relentlessly clever.” The former Propaghandi bassist has eschewed the ranting agit-punk of his former band to carve out a more meditative, inward-looking stance that allows him to tell tales that amuse, confuse and elate…
Singer-songwriters willing to figuratively stand naked before the world do so at considerable risk. Allowing the occasional flaw to slip past quality control can infuse songs with just the right touch of humanity, but preserving every flaw may cause the average audience member to seek out CDs whose edges are…
Sometimes in life, if we are fortunate, a moment or an event occurs in which our faith in the world around us, and even in ourselves, is entirely renewed — a defining moment in which lives are changed and philosophies redefined, a moment that transcends cultural and spiritual boundaries, breathing…
“What if the Devil stole your president? Would you wait for Dan Rather with a clown nose and his hair on fire? Would you trust him like George Washington with your credit card and PIN? Or do you cut a hole in the roof of hell and milk a star-spangled…
Mike Villano is one audacious and tenacious cat. Long before Fred Durst introduced Britney to his Limp Bizkit, the flamboyant former frontman of Chaos Theory was at the forefront of the ill-conceived mid-’90s rap-metal explosion in the Mile High City — just waiting to become a household name. When that…
It’s a hazy Saturday afternoon at the end of August. A white Ford F-350 Powerstroke with Colorado plates whizzes down Interstate 15, en route from one legendary strip to another. The vehicle’s occupants are high as hell, almost as if they’ve buried their faces in mountains of coke, Tony Montana-style…
Mark out the points! Build the pyre! Assemble different drummers! Light up the fire! Put on your masks and animal skins!” Dictums for an ancient pagan ritual? Canons handed down by a Druidic high priest during Samhain, the Celtic precursor to Halloween where worshipers draped themselves in costumes and the…
There’s a fairly simple theorem that almost universally applies to confessional singer-songwriters: The degree to which they open their troubled souls on an album is directly proportional to how closed off they are in person. For instance, speak with an artist who’s just dropped the most sincerely revealing collection of…
Yeah, I jumped off a cliff, but let’s talk about something else,” Elliott Smith told me in1997. It was shortly after the release of his breakthrough album on Kill Rock Stars, Either/Or, and Smith had recently attempted suicide by throwing himself off a cliff, suffering only minor injuries. Long before…
