Known worldwide for his hypnotizing progressive-house live sets and adventurous, award-winning mixes, Sander Kleinenberg brings his “underground soul” to The Church on Tuesday, May 28. Kleinenberg began ascending in the Netherlands dance world following the release of his 1993 debut single, “Bombay,” which was issued on Belgium’s Wonka label. A…
On the cover of his first solo record, Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections, Thomas “Cee-Lo” Callaway — flanked by a church-style pipe organ and wearing a psychedelic top hat — looks a little like a diabolical Buddha, or maybe a shaman, putting on a funhouse magic show. Light refracts…
Rock-and-rollers once distressed Middle America with a few pelvic thrusts and a smattering of suggestive lyrics. This phenomenon evolved into a penchant to outdo the competition with the most outlandish psychosexual and/or Satanic imagery available. Then punk, metal, thrash, hardcore and countless other genres and subgenres took turns pushing the…
Seriously strung-out jazz fiends — you know who you are — will never confuse Denver with the Big Apple or the Big Easy. But America’s native art form purrs along quite nicely at 5,280 feet, thank you very much, and the jazz-and-cocktails faithful here needn’t endure New York’s break-the-bank cover…
Over the course of two self-released records, Minnesota songwriter Mason Jennings has become the critical darling of the Twin Cities, and it’s easy to see why. The soft-spoken balladeer possesses a unique drawl that’s world-weary beyond his 27 years. His vocals provide a fitting vehicle for his lyrics, which illuminate…
Randy Ship’s opponents have had enough. Ship, the Paramount Theatre’s leaseholder, launched a campaign earlier this year to torpedo CityLights Pavilion, the Kroenke Sports/Clear Channel Entertainment-operated venue that’s slated to open in the Pepsi Center parking lot in June. Along with signatures on petitions — which Ship hopes will land…
For many people, Sasha and John Digweed, who appear Friday, May 17, at the Fillmore Auditorium, define the clubbing experience. As evidenced by their live performances, both are masters of taking classic house records and weaving them into a nearly perfect web of more progressive grooves. Newly free from a…
Wendy Woo wants to connect with you. She’s also feeling a little bit saucy these days, judging by the title of her new CD, Gonna Wear Red. The bold, Boulder-based chanteuse and guitarist (who is nominated in this year’s Westword Music Showcase) unveils material from the release in a series…
Have a predilection for things that go bump in the night? The Denver Dark Arts Festival will gather them for you on Saturday, May 18, in a daylong celebration that begins at noon and continues until well past the witching hour. The goth-centric entertainment, which will spread from Cafe Netherworld…
If the radio charts were the only indication, black music would be all about the booty, not the brain. It’s about shakin’ it, not about delirium tremens; it’s about rollin’ in the Benz, not about rolling in the gutter. Contemporary black music, at least as the industry conceives it, traffics…
Making babies and playing rock-and-roll music don’t really seem like compatible endeavors, even though the process of making babies is one of the genre’s most well-celebrated themes. Raising a child requires a certain settling of one’s more raucous instincts: How can you party till dawn in a nihilistic, depraved fever…
Roz Brown is the ultimate oldies act. “Let’s go back to 1905 for this one,” says Brown, his blue eyes gleaming from beneath a dusky hat. Sitting on a bar stool in an assisted-living center in south Denver, he gently strums an autoharp, filling the room with the sonic sweetness…
The difficulty with keeping it real in punk lies in the danger of repetitiveness. That’s where bands like Sweden’s Hives come in. Singer Howlin’ Pelle Alqvist has got the squealing, hell-bound, late-adolescent shriek of Johnny Rotten before he went MTV, and the band grinds out a dozen or so songs…
During a recent segment on Today, host Matt Lauer asked Celine Dion about her claim in a previous interview that she enjoyed changing the diapers of her first child, René-Charles. Dion replied that this was definitely the case, in part because when she opened up the wrapper encasing her tot’s…
Before Sidetracks is half over, Steve Earle’s assertion that its thirteen tunes are not outtakes but underexposed gems is as credible as an Enron annual report. While there’s plenty of good stuff here, the hit-and-miss quality of the collection makes clear that it’s less a creative outpouring than a contractual…
We all know that wine can make even the best music sound that much better. But thanks to some party-pooping liquor-code policies, vino has been vetoed from the list of picnic items that concert fans can pack in for this summer’s outdoor performances at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Those who…
Will Britain’s Ed Harcourt, Saturday, May 11 at Tulagi, make you sell all your Jeff paraphernalia on eBay? Nope. But Here Be Monsters, Harcourt’s much-buzzed-about debut, delivers groovy, gauzy ballads for you lovesick dreamers. The tunes are notable for their piano-driven soft-rock arrangements dressed up with horns, woozy backup vocals…
Vocalist and guitarist Pete Vincelette recorded the bulk of Twilight Motel’s CD, One in the Oven, all by himself in the basement of his home. Only later did he add the work of drummer Rick Arsenault, bassist Eric Taylor, violinist Joel Denman and mandolin/lap-steel player J.T. Saint on four of…
Few DJs have the reputation and name recognition of Doc Martin. From his stint as opening act for Deee-Lite’s world tour in 1994 to his recent studio work remixing A Tribe Called Quest, the dance-club superhero keeps bulldozing his way to the top. Martin’s innate ability to combine a plethora…
Lawrence Golan knows firsthand that classical music can be a tough sell. As a professor of conducting and director of the Orchestral Studies program at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, Golan spends his time teaching the classics to music students and conducting the school’s orchestra. Along the…
As “She Don’t Care,” the first cut on Will Hoge’s debut studio album Carousel, roars to life, it sounds very similar to something by those ’80s rabble-rousers the Georgia Satellites — with a much better singer. Hoge’s sinus-headache-hangover verses give way to a full-throated Van Morrison wail of a chorus,…
The Band’s 1976 farewell concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Arena was an extravagant affair, complete with turkey dinners for the show’s 5,000 audience members, each of whom had paid the then-exorbitant ticket price of $25 to attend. Produced by legendary promoter Bill Graham, the Thanksgiving show, billed as “The Last…
