Just because the word “swing” frequently accompanies descriptions of Money Plays Eight’s music doesn’t mean the members of the group are happy about it. “We wouldn’t even describe ourselves as swing,” insists singer James Leo, one of two imposing frontmen for the nine-piece ensemble, a nominee for this week’s Westword…
Barry Adamson As Above, So Below (Mute) With this disc, the criminally underrated Adamson takes a risky plunge off his ivory tower of instrumental ambience. This composer, arranger and multi-instrumentalist has compiled a decade-long discography as emotive as anything produced by the planet’s foremost musical anti-heroes, yet the verbal explorations…
Pianist Forrest Meyer is the leader of a group that specializes in big-band music–a style that’s hotter today than it’s been in decades–and whenever he plays live, he draws large and appreciative crowds. But while most of his peers work their brand of brassy magic in smoky nightclubs or theaters…
Aceyalone A Book of Human Language (Project Blowed) Why do so many artists choose to take the path of least resistance? The current plight of rapper Aceyalone offers an answer. Born E.M. Hayes Jr., Aceyalone was part of the Freestyle Fellowship, a West Coast act that incorporated jazz sounds every…
The building at 2401 Broadway in Boulder doesn’t blend into the scenery. Designed by the late architect Charles Haertling, whose “mushroom house” made a guest appearance in Woody Allen’s 1973 sci-fi comedy Sleeper, it’s very large, very white and very space-age. Locals say it looks like a rocket–which makes it…
Howard Stern is capable of turning a radio market upside down faster than any other single on-air personality. Although he’s been involved in big-time media for ages, he continues to inspire the ire of the Federal Communications Commission (the fines levied against him throughout his career have been astronomically high),…
Hole Celebrity Skin (Geffen) When a colleague of mine who’d heard an advance copy of this disc told me that it was essentially a Go-Go’s record, my first reaction was relief: Thank God it’s not a heartfelt screed about how Courtney Love really didn’t kill Kurt Cobain, I thought. But…
Bernie Worrell knew that listeners outside the United States had long treated classic American music more honorably than had those within it. Likewise, he’d heard plenty of stories about veteran jazz, country or rockabilly artists who’d either moved to foreign locales or made most of their money overseas. But as…
Turntablists–DJs who turn mixing and spinning into hip-hop performance art–have made a big noise in San Francisco and New York, but they’re just now getting the attention they deserve in many other cities. As a result, most locals don’t realize that Denver DJ Jam X is widely regarded as one…
The past twelve months have been very, very good to A.J. Salas. Since last summer, the blues-and-boogie-woogie pianist has composed and arranged a piece for the Colorado Symphony Orchestra and wowed large crowds at the People’s Fair, the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and several other big-time local events. He’s also…
The January 15, 1998, edition of this column introduced you to Big Pauli & Mr. V-Lo, a spinoff from the Denver hip-hop act Deuce Mob (“Join the Mob,” February 14, 1996). The Mob’s breakup, which took place after the group opened for the Ice Cube side project Westside Connection in…
Those of us who grew up as fans of punk and alternative music always have our radar up, and as a result, we can sense a sellout a mile off. When, for example, David Bowie claimed before a tour a few years back that he was playing his old songs…
Earlier in their careers, Madonna, Liz Phair and Tori Amos routinely prescribed megadoses of overt female sexuality, and since their musical pills were alternately sugared with disco beats, indie minimalism and highfalutin piano classicism, large numbers of fans eagerly swallowed them. Recently, however, these high-profile women, each of whom came…
Most local gay nightlife languishes in self-imposed mediocrity that couldn’t be further removed from the exciting club milieu invented by queers back in the Sixties and Seventies–which is why Kim Fronapfel, aka DJ Sentiment, is such a valuable part of the community. By blending funk, jazz, R&B and rap from…
For President Bill Clinton, the attention being paid to Monica Lewinsky these days has meant plenty of trouble. But Candye Kane, a jump-blues singer whose new single is titled “200 Pounds of Fun,” sees the rise of the big-boned former White House intern as a personal blessing. “She probably weighs…
HOUR ONE: It’s 3:20 p.m. on August 23, and within seconds of arriving at Fiddler’s Green, where the Lilith Fair is taking place, the phrase “odd man out” leaps to mind. There are women everywhere–women alone, women in pairs, women in clusters–and although I’m hardly the only person in the…
On page 88 of this issue, you’ll find the first ballot for the 1998 edition of the Westword Music Awards Showcase, which takes place at seven venues in lower downtown on Sunday, September 20. (Duplicate ballots are scheduled to appear in each issue through September 17, when our Showcase guide…
It’s the Fourth of July, and Nina Storey is playing the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. As her band sets up under a cavernous white tent whose lax corners flutter gently with the breeze, a crowd begins to gather: hot, tired women wearing florals with straw hats, and sunburned men in…
Neko Case may be the lone country artist on a portion of this year’s Lilith Fair tour, but she has no interest in leading a women-must-twang-together campaign. “That would be preaching to the choir, wouldn’t it?” she asks. Too bad, because Case would make a fine spokeswoman for such a…
“I studied the American language program at Columbia University and was planning on becoming an English teacher,” says Alpha Blondy, who was born in Timbokro, on the African Ivory Coast. Blondy never accomplished this goal; instead, he became one of the world’s most successful reggae stars. But he still uses…
In the 1950 film classic All About Eve, a critic pays homage to Bette Davis’s aging Broadway star. “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity,” he fawns. “You’re magnificent!” The same can be said of Atlanta’s Rock*A*Teens, who over the past four years have squeezed out three long-players and one EP…
“People are just really thirsty for straightforward fuck-you rock,” says Rick Sims, former member of the Didjits and the Supersuckers. And with his new project, the Gaza Strippers, that’s precisely what he delivers. He describes the group’s previous headlining gig in Denver as “a borderline fucking riot,” which was just…
