It’s often thought that those without the skill to write moving, personal songs forgo the singer-songwriter route to concentrate on pop. While a good pop sensibility and poetic songwriting don’t always overlap, with Steady Pull, Jonatha Brooke proves they’re not mutually exclusive. On her first independently released studio album, Brooke…
When artists make a conscious effort to strike out and do something different, they are sometimes led into the fertile fields of creativity. But they often wind up in the same sonic cul-de-sacs already ruled by other, more interesting bands. For every Beatles, Talk Talk or Moby — each a…
The early line on Standards — that the disc would prove to be Tortoise’s most accessible release thus far — caused the heart of this particular fan to sink faster than stocks in the high-tech sector, and for good reason. The joys inherent in the soundscapes created by this thorny…
A couple of weeks ago, Backwash lamented Rock Island’s decision to stop hosting live local music on Thursday nights — among other things, owner David Clamage cited the difficulty of drawing music crowds to LoDo, an area now more associated with sports and dance clubs than with rock bands in…
Erykah Badu, Friday, March 16, at the Fillmore Auditorium, with Talib Kweli and Musiq Soul Child, arrived on the public stage in 1997, and since then her influence has been seen in established performers — the solo Lauryn Hill frequently displays the lessons Badu taught her — and worthy new…
The Indulgers really have impeccable timing. Soon after the release — and overwhelming response to — the band’s debut recording, In Like Flynn, the Celtic band began work on a followup; this month, when all the world turns its thoughts to the Green Isle and its many yummy beers, head…
Some bands want to change the world, and Dressy Bessy is no different. But the group’s methods don’t involve any force-feeding of philosophy: The only thing the players might shove down your throat is a candy cane. The band’s psychedelic cyberspace home, at dressybessy.com, vividly illustrates this point. Vocalist/songwriter Tammy…
England is just a weird place geographically,” says Paul Ortiz, aka DJ David Watts, attempting to pinpoint why the U.K. is so alluring to music-hungry Americans. “It’s an island that’s not really a part of Europe. And it’s a really small place, but they have all this wealth and power.”…
Twice a year, like clockwork, Red Holloway surfaces at El Chapultepec, the beloved wreck of a jazz club at 20th and Market streets. Denver musicians — especially saxophonists — always drop by for another dose of Holloway’s powerful, blues-inflected playing, a spread-wing style that reflects his past collaborations with everyone…
Upon its emergence in the early ’90s, the Dave Matthews Band was either critically ignored or dismissed by reviewers as yet another in a seemingly endless string of sincere, acoustic-oriented jam acts then headlining clubs in every college town in America. And even the decent numbers racked up by the…
El Toppo borrows precious little from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wildly fantastic Western of the same name, a gun-slingin’ cinematic nightmare with a cast of midgets and amputees. Not that it should. What you get instead is a succinct, catchy and likable album — the followup to 1999’s debut Dead Letter Chorus…
It shouldn’t be an unusual experience to be truly moved by a piece of music. At its most basic level, that is what music is supposed to do. But even as Backwash hears more and more of the stuff — literally hundreds and hundreds of recordings line the shelves, nooks,…
Britt Daniel, the frontman for Spoon, scheduled to arrive at the 15th Street Tavern on Friday, March 9, has watched the indie-rock growth cycle from point-blank range. His Texas-based group emerged during the mid-’90s, when the genre was really buzzing. Spoon put out one fine disc after another on a…
With Welcome to Nowhere, The Fairlanes mark their official entry into the world of full-time bandship. Following the CD’s release party on Friday, March 9, at the Ogden Theatre, with the Gamits and Qualm, the members of the (mostly) Denver-based band plan to head out on the open road full-time…
It’s a balmy, hazy afternoon in Southern California, and the ocean is beckoning. The year is 1960. On this day, the Ventures have a number-two hit called “Walk, Don’t Run” in heavy rotation on AM radio, and surf music is just about as bitchin’ as it gets. From a garage…
The killer awoke before dawn. He put his boots on. He took a face from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down to the mall. Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, he came to a CD outlet between Orange Julius and Dress Barn. He looked inside. “Father?” he…
There’s something reassuring about metal. No matter what member of the Bush family is president, or what member of the Clinton family is in office, or what hairstyle or clothing style or body-art style or circumcision style is in favor at any given time, metal is always there — drums…
For the French, it’s not enough to love music; one must embrace it with the co-dependent disgust of a couple verging on a murder/suicide. The French avant-rock group Ulan Bator clearly loves the pop tradition in this way. Listening to the trio’s first American release (and fourth overall) is like…
Los Angeles imprint Priority Records has snatched up a two-year-old recording by JS16, the hip and sexy handle for Finnish tech-head Jaako Salovaaro. The twenty-something knob-twiddler has loaded Stomping System, his stateside debut, with ten tracks of get-on-up-and-dance music. The tracks here are grown primarily on simple tribal house programming,…
Last year, scores of mask-wearing, partially clad Denverites converged on the Wonderground warehouse space to wish a bon voyage to Cindy Wonderful and her multi-hued Rainbow Sugar posse; following that last great fete, Wonderful, Amy Fantastic and Germaine Baca boarded up their art-and-performance space in northwest Denver and headed off…
The Old 97s return to Boulder Friday, March 9, at Tulagi, with a new album, Satellite Rides (Elektra), that itself represents a return of sorts. The band has always skirted the line between the rough-hewn alternative country of 1997’s Too Far to Care and the melodic pop that marked 1999’s…
David Booker and the Swingtette, Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3, at Sambuca, are arguably D-town’s reigning kings of swing, jump and blues. For more than twenty years, Booker’s played more local gigs than any artist of a similarly blue hue, making his surname a deserved one. Sure, he’s…
