For two decades, lead singer Greg Graffin and his troops have been soldiering on, watching waves of trends break off the Bad Religion bulwarks as they fortified a melodic hardcore formula. Sure, their music is fast, loud, and hummable; it is pop-punk, after all. But Bad Religion has always cast…
In 1974 and 1975, when the dynamic arranger and bandleader Gil Evans set out to reinterpret the music of rock icon Jimi Hendrix, jazz purists cried foul. What in the world was Miles Davis’s brilliant collaborator, a man who’d written songs for Peggy Lee and conducted albums for Kenny Burrell,…
Lexington, Kentucky, is a smallish city smack dab in the middle of the South. It is home to the University of Kentucky, several Civil War museums and a whole lot of horses, hence its nickname: The Horse Capital of the World. At last count, the population was 260,512. Get ready…
The Brooklyn-based rap quartet Anti-Pop Consortium, Tuesday, April 16, at the Bluebird Theater, cites influences as diverse as goth rockers Bauhaus, Joy Division and the King of Pop himself, Michael Jackson. This eclecticism and willingness to transcend musical boundaries have endeared the group to Thom Yorke, who asked the Consortium…
“Just when you thought it was over, it happens again.” So sings Eliot Zizic on Auditory Crash Course, the debut EP from Denver’s DeNunzio. Truer words were never spoken — especially for this young group, made up of three members of the late, lamented local staple Acrobat Down. Zizic, Jason…
Begun as a collaboration with guitarist and songwriter Stephen Taylor, Wovenhand currently serves as a sort of creative repository for David Eugene Edwards, the enigmatic leader of 16 Horsepower. With Wovenhand, Edwards strips away the dense and dark instrumentation that characterizes his regular band to offer a more full glimpse…
Does Robert Schneider have ants in his pants, or is he merely a preternaturally active guy who just can’t stop making music? The Apples in Stereo frontman, producer, guest-star extraordinaire and intermittent cartoon character will provide audiences a chance to decide for themselves on Thursday, April 4, at the Lion’s…
Over the past four years, the Faint has been quietly developing a new-wave sound that harks back to the golden era of ’80s pop, all analog synthesizers, danceable beats and snotty lyrics. Some who’ve followed the band’s progression — from an unknown Omaha act to an indie phenomenon currently selling…
For many of the performers who shlep down to Austin for the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival each year in search of that elusive label deal, the effort rarely amounts to more than a long journey back to Mississauga, Canada, or Aliceville, Alabama, or Dayton, Ohio, or Vienna,…
True confessions time: I found 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, Morissette’s blockbuster first album, to be about as much fun as a sesame seed wedged so tightly between two teeth that no amount of flossing can dislodge it. Likewise, the 1999 McNichols Arena concert the warbler headlined in support of disc…
When Hot Rize, the great Colorado bluegrass band, got back together for a reunion concert at the Boulder Theater six years ago, Nick Forster, the group’s bass player, had the foresight to record the show. Then he lost the tapes. Luckily, his wife, Helen, discovered them in a closet of…
With so much music out there, one of the hardest things for a band to do is find an original sound — so more power to those who try diligently to stand apart from everyone else. But there’s also something to be said for continuity, for not turning 180 degrees…
Designed partly to pump up the reputation of Costello’s latter-day compositions, these re-releases backfire by facilitating direct comparisons between the former Declan Patrick McManus at his best and worst. On the “best” side, Aim and Model stand as collectors’ money shots, sporting bonus tracks and demos from as far back…
It’s been a big week for Big Head Todd and the Monsters: The locally bred band released Riviera, its first recorded effort since 1998’s Live Monsters, on Tuesday, March 26. Note for note, the album is as solid — if not more so — than Sister Sweetly, the major-label release…
The Eels have been invisible on the mainstream radar since their 1996 hit “Novocaine for the Soul.” If the appearance of the band’s enigmatic singer-songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett) is any indication, the Eels have had no trouble embracing their status as commercial outcasts: These days, E is rocking a…
Funk’s good name is sometimes tarnished by fusion bands who think all the genre requires is a fat bass line, a funny name and a “Brick House” cover. Buckner Funken Jazz, which appears Friday, March 29, at Herman’s Hideaway with the Funky Babylonians and the Fabulous Boogienaughts, rectifies this situation…
Every young artist must try to climb Olympus, mix it up with the gods and maybe hang around for dinner. For Pat Bianchi, a 26-year-old jazz organist who means to make his mark, the big moment will come this week on funky old Larimer Street, when he plays a concert…
To paraphrase LL Cool J, Nas doesn’t want people to call his return a comeback, since he’s been here for years. But hip-hop addicts don’t see things this way and never have. “Every time I make an album, they’re always saying, ‘He’s coming back,'” grumbles the rapper during a recent…
These days, Tim Rutili is as busy as a one-armed monkey at a flea festival. He’s not only juggling parenthood and the planning of Califone’s three-week tour to the West coast and back, but also overseeing the operations of Perishable Records, a small, Chicago-based indie label that he co-owns with…
When Drag the River’s Jon Snodgrass describes an incident on a recent tour, it sounds a little bit like a David Lynch movie that was never made. During the last leg of the regional jaunt, a broken-down van was the catalyst for a nightmare freak show in a New Mexico…
The rest of the world knows something about Americans that we prefer to deny: We are lazy slouches. We’re good at plenty of things, yes, but we’re generally wary of pursuits that require intensive training, discipline or any physical discomfort. We can’t really be blamed, though. As a culture, we’re…
The Starlight Drifters, Wednesday, March 27, at the Buffalo Rose in Golden and Thursday, March 28, at the Skylark Lounge, separate themselves from the pompadoured pack with one singular force: guitarist Chris Casello, one of the finest pickers in rockabilly/country circles. His immense arsenal of styles brims with snippets of…
