Ten years ago, most Denverites wouldn’t have known a rave from a Broncos tailgate party. Yet over the course of the past decade, the city’s rave scene has slowly morphed into one of the more vibrant — and respected — in the country. The average citizen might not realize this…
Cindy Bullens has earned a reputation as an artist whose concerts are a one-of-a-kind experience, but the rock-and-roller’s upcoming performance as part of an E-Town taping will have its own unique significance. The Denver area has played an important role in the development of her vision over the past year…
With A Tribe Called Quest on the shelf, Q-Tip is on his own, more or less, yet he brings with him some important equipment: a readily identifiable musical style (jazzy, keyboard-heavy rhythms, beats that are more about precision than posturing), a unique voice (a rather light, nasal tenor) and a…
Brooklyn-bred John Linnell is one half of perennial chess club/nosebleed favorites They Might Be Giants — the nasal-sounding, accordion-and-sax-playing half, that is. And with his ongoing “Fifty State Songs” project (which began with 1994’s State Songs EP, available through Giants partner in crime John Flansburgh’s subscription-only Hello CD club), Linnell’s…
For my money, the sounds of the 21st century were best created about twenty years ago — from the blips and bleeps of video games and the cold, sterile emanations of analog synthesizers. Unapologetically artificial, they connoted a promising future filled with jet packs, moon vacations and dinner in tablet…
Mike Jerk, of Denver’s Soda Jerk Records, and Jason Cotter, singer for local punk outfit the Family Men (who perform this Friday night at the 15th Street Tavern), are the two-man force behind the fantastically understated punk-rock mecca that is The Raven (2217 Welton). Unapologetically ramshackle, the ornithologically monikered club…
The Teenage Frames, with Hemi Cuda, Saturday, January 8, at the 15th Street Tavern, capture the snarled-lip attitude and punk posture of the Clash, New York Dolls and Ramones — not to mention their guitar licks. With the help of Steve Albini and Mike Hagler manning the boards, the latest…
The Dave Watts Motet, with Jive and Los Guarancheros, Saturday, January 8, at the Boulder Theater, celebrates the release of its new CD, Breathe, as well as the joys of life in a band that jams more than Smuckers. Led by the impressive drumming of Boulder’s Watts, who’s done time…
Elvis’s Retirement Bash and 65th Birthday Party, Saturday, January 8, at Dick’s Last Resort, celebrates what would have been the King’s official entry into his golden years and Social Security eligibility with an evening of food, music and enough pelvic gyrations to steady a space station. Consider the pork chop,…
1999 may not have produced the one great record that will forever define the last year of the century, but it did manage to offer a substantial slew of good-to-great ones in every genre. And with all of the major-label conglomerations and roster-slimming seen in the past twelve months, we…
Gwarmageddon is upon us, and since the battlefield of Armaged’don (Revelation 16:16) comes ready-prophesized as “overwrought with a rabid gathering of Neil Diamond fans,” the Ogden Theatre beckons a much safer place to be this New Year’s Eve. Oderus Urungus and his band of foul-mouthed space pirates are bringing their…
Boss 302, with the Down-N-Outs, Friday, December 31, at the 15th Street Tavern, reunite for the first time since the scrappy quintet officially left the garage for good in March. It’s not a complete reunion, however: Mike Jourgensen of Abdomen and William Hodo (formerly of Missouri’s Steerjockey) will fill-in for…
Back on her first album, 1975’s Pieces of the Sky, Emmylou Harris recorded a song called “Boulder to Birmingham.” Until that album, Harris had been known mainly as the harmony singer for Gram Parsons, the hippie country artist credited with inventing the genre of country rock. But two years earlier,…
Jamal Muhammad has a good falsetto. It’s not quite on the level of Earth, Wind and Fire frontman Philip Bailey, but it’s solid, and this is really unexpected. Because the last time Jamal Muhammad opened his mouth, there was nothing sweet in his voice. That was four years ago, when,…
You’ll learn more about the seven deadly sins watching Gilligan’s Island than listening to Ice-T’s latest sloth-ass mess. Consider this: Each episode of G’s follies features a gluttonous Skipper who gobbles everything in sight, a short-fused Thurston Howell III who blows his wrathful stack like clockwork (he and the greedy…
Our recent holiday CD roundup (“Time of the Season,” December 9) was intended to be as complete as possible, but a handful of Yuletide discs undercut this goal by arriving after deadline. Among them were Kenny G’s Faith: A Holiday Album, which I wasn’t nearly foolhardy enough to spin (a…
The Buenos Aires-born pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has assembled a formidable array of talent for this elaborate bow to the art of Duke Ellington. Arranger Cliff Colnot has deftly adapted classic Ellington/Strayhorn big-band arrangements for a “chamber jazz” group half the size of Ellington’s peerless aggregation, employing sumptuous new…
For some, tickets to Neil Diamond’s not-really-even-close-to-being-sold-out New Year’s Eve performance at the Pepsi Center may seem like a viable gift option for the music lover who has everything — or a really expensive, ironic gift for the malcontents among us. (A simple Charlie’s Angels lunch-box might do the trick.)…
Nicholas Tremulis, with Sonia Dada, Wednesday, December 29, through Friday, December 31, at the Fox Theatre, entered the sometimes seedy world of Chicago jazz and R&B clubs as a performer at the age of thirteen, and he’s been recording music since he turned a wizened seventeen. Tremulis released two rock…
Blister 66, with Sick, Twitch and Dropsound, will headline the first-ever White Trash Christmas at the Bluebird Theater on Thursday, December 23. But this is one holiday party that Mr. Claus might just sail right over, as it’s more than likely that the boys in these bands have been a…
Buzz Bomber and the M-80s know the drill when it comes to blue-collar nights on the highbrow town, pistol-whipping themselves and whoever’s left standing with a crass, beer-fueled brand of punk-spirited music and buffoonery. Playing manic sets like fast-order fry cooks, Bomber and the band offer musical grub that’s both…
As far as the guardians of cool might be concerned, Robert Mirabal has a couple of things working against him: First, his most recognizable accomplishment is his inclusion in John Tesh’s One World video for the Public Broadcasting System, a colorful and accidentally amusing piece of footage that finds him…
