Becoming a critics’ fave can be like moving into a posh but virtually inescapable prison cell, and Chambers is apt to wind up with such a sentence. After all, her music is often described as “alternative country,” which has proven to be as big a turn-on for mainstream record buyers…
With Ryan Adams currently anointed as the commercial savior of roots rock, can Hoge’s ascension be far behind? Since taking up music professionally in the late ’90s, the singer has already evoked favorable comparisons to Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and every other sweaty bar-room bard to come before or after…
Madame Andrews possesses a heavenly voice that’s mightier than Goliath yet as supple as Halle Berry’s skin. Known as the “Gospel Queen of Denver” — a title that she says was bestowed upon her by the Lord through a divine communiqué — she has spent a couple of decades as…
Leftover Salmon fans have done their band proud. When word spread that banjo player Mark Vann had lost his bout with cancer on March 4, the band’s post office box in Nederland began to swell not only with cards of condolence, but with checks and other pledges of financial support…
Lake Trout bewildered audiences full of jam-band fans when it asked Marky Ramone and Jerry Only of the Misfits to join the band in a performance at Relix Magazine’s Jammy Awards in New York last year. The Baltimore five-piece has been named as a co-conspirator in the electro-jam movement, along…
An underground East Coast MC made good, Talib Kweli has rightfully earned his title as a hip-hop headliner. But before the rapper takes over the Glenn Miller Ballroom in Boulder on Saturday, March 16, some local groups will show that Colorado doesn’t have to import talent in order to put…
Daniel Johnston has just returned from his first British invasion — a transatlantic journey that had all the personal importance of a trip to Mecca. “I just got back from London, home of the Beatles,” he says over the phone from the house he shares with his elderly parents in…
A bohemian former model and current It Boy on the local gay-club circuit, Ben Fowler has spent half his life abroad and has a Euro suaveness that renders him a teensy bit out of his element in Denver. He’s one of those creative types who bubble up in the cultural…
As far as underground hip-hop goes, DJ Babu has got all the bases covered. He makes mixed tapes, produces records, collects vinyl and bangs around in clubs, both as a solo artist and as a member of a couple of stellar crews. At the moment, however, he’s homed in on…
The Blasters, the pioneering roots-rock band from blue-collar Downey, California, were part of the early-’80s L.A. punkabilly scene that also spawned Los Lobos, X, the Germs and others. Led by brothers Phil and Dave Alvin and famous for their incendiary live shows, the Blasters recorded just three studio albums and…
Harvey Sid Fisher is not the sort of performer who usually turns up on the 15th Street Tavern stage on Saturday nights. For starters, he’s in his sixties — a proper gentlemen with a wildly fluffy, mad-genius-style coif who wears suits (preferably of the powder-blue variety) to his gigs, likes…
The idea of artists overcoming adversity is a modern theme du jour, with dreary storylines custom-made for television documentaries. Yet it’s hard to imagine any comeback more unlikely than the one achieved by Steve Earle, who appears in a solo acoustic set at the Fox Theatre on Thursday, March 7…
Boubacar Diébaté was, literally, born for music. The native of Senegal, West Africa, is part of a family of griots — traditional musicians who view music as the most important tool of communication and cultural preservation. Now he’s a drummer and master player of the kora, a harplike instrument that…
DJ Ty Tek sits in the back room of Casa Del Soul, the modest yet packed retailer that hawks albums, clubwear and other gear to aspiring Denver spinners. The scene is part vinyl hot spot, part mini-Warhol Factory for the turntable set: A booming house track plays noisily in the…
In spite of a half-minded president, a slew of bad haircuts and a Me-centric mindset, a few memorable and artistic things managed to slip through the conservative cracks of the Reagan era. Confoundingly, much of the substantive musical activity of the ’80s came out of Minnesota, a frigid and often…
While past Jonathan Richman albums have revealed the singer to be many things — Velvet Underground groupie, interstate situationist, champion of affection, eater with gusto — his newest release adds another entry to that resumé: artist. The back cover sports his scrawled pastel depiction of an elfish figure seated on…
The members of Mushroomhead want everyone to know that they had the idea first: cluttering a stage in goofy masks to usher in the end times with mediocre metal. And while fans of Des Moines’s abrasive Slipknot howl from the balconies of hardcore injustice — accusing Mushroomhead of being a…
Tracing the arc of Richmond Fontaine’s career, you can’t help but notice that while the band’s sound has evolved from brash to more subdued, confessional-style country rock, its subject matter has essentially stayed the same. Fontaine’s ethos was captured best by the title of a live album the band released…
There’s a deliciously distorted sound to the guitars in most of Dressy Bessy’s songs. It’s still sweet, with rich, grinding tones that are somehow warm and aggressive at the same time. It’s just twisted, like razors filtered through a candy sieve. Continuing in the same sugarcoated vein as Pink Hearts…
Just over a year ago, when U2 was in danger of losing its constituency, the group returned to its roots with All That You Can’t Leave Behind, and — voilà! — the pop-music world responded with a spate of ring-kissing that still has cash registers chiming. Today the lads have…
Backwash likes to play a little game at the Fox Theatre: When the music begins, we head up to one of the raised railings that extend from both sides of the stage, set a pint on the ledge, and watch the foamy liquid in the glass pulse along with the…
The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs are slated to prowl the 15th Street Tavern on Saturday, March 2, in the company of Hemi Cuda and Jet Black Joy — and the choice of the verb “prowl” isn’t simply a failed attempt at cleverness. (Actually, it probably is, but bear with us.) As demonstrated…
