What’s in a name? In the case of Michael Colin, plenty. Colin, who also answers to Big Mike, is best known for his work with Phantasmorgasm, a group that made some of the most aggressive music heard in Denver during the late Eighties and early Nineties. But he’s also performed…
When Rick James was at the height of his fame, he was a super freak. When he was addicted to cocaine and crack, he was a super freak, too–so freaky, in fact, that he wound up in Folsom Prison for an extended stretch. But is James still a super freak…
In the bluesy cult duo called Doo Rag, Bob Log III handles guitar and vocal duties while his twisted partner, percussionist Thermos Malling, pounds on everything in sight. Malling, however, isn’t part of Log’s current solo tour–and Log admits that keeping a beat without him has proven to be a…
At 7 a.m. on Wednesday, November 4, people in Denver and Boulder will find another choice on their radio dials. KVCU-AM/1190 (aka Radio 1190), a new station associated with the University of Colorado-Boulder, is set to make its long-awaited debut at that time–and early indications are strong that the outlet…
Bang on a Can All-Stars Music for Airports (Point Music) When Brian Eno stuck the “ambient” tag on Music for Airports back in 1978, he unwittingly helped create new sonic ventures that would morph into new-age music, along with the chill-out/ambient/electronica extension that followed. The four untitled instrumental pieces that…
In the beginning, there was No Doubt. Or maybe it was Sublime. And didn’t I hear something about the Mighty Mighty Bosstones putting out an album before 1997’s Let’s Face It? Thus runs the garbled ska gospel according to many of the new fans attracted by the genre’s most recent…
In conversation, bassist Mike Gordon sounds exactly as a member of Phish should. He’s relentlessly pleasant, and modest, too. Whenever he offers a reply that might be construed as even mildly boastful, he immediately softens it with a little laugh meant to indicate that he usually doesn’t take himself all…
Joel Abell, guitarist for Gina Go Faster, feels that the Denver music scene has fallen to new lows. “It’s pitiful,” he says. “There’s no camaraderie anymore, and we can’t even find anybody to play with. It’s ridiculous. All the bands are gone now, and there aren’t any new ones coming…
“I’m entirely dedicated to the flow,” says Andreas Vollenweider. “I believe that everything constantly changes and flows, and nothing stays the same. That should be part of the musical experience for everybody. At least for me it is.” That’s debatable. The flow on Kryptos, the latest album by the mellowest…
Generally speaking, there is little overlap between the demographic destined to practice medicine and the one whose members are fated to play blistering hard rock for the drunken denizens of shoddy bars. In fact, the Speedholes may be the only evidence that there’s any overlap at all. The band is…
How powerful is Big Jon Platt? Powerful enough to convince rapper and current Rolling Stone cover boy Jay-Z to take time out of the best week of his professional life–a week in which his latest CD, Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life, debuted at the top of the Billboard album charts thanks…
Scott Strong, the interim program director at KXPK-FM/96.5 (the Peak), won’t confirm that the station for which he’s working has experienced a format switch; he refers to it as “a tweak.” But there’s no question that something substantial is happening at the station, which went from being the hottest new…
“You know those records that you can listen to over and over again and you hear something new every time? We’re trying to make records like those,” says Geoffrey Chisholm, bassist for San Francisco’s favorite psychedelic son, Creeper Lagoon. “We want to make the kinds of records that stay in…
Search the Internet for information about the average band and you’re likely to wind up with sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Do the same for Sleater-Kinney, however, and you’ll think you’ve stumbled into the Library of Congress. Since the release of the band’s 1996 disc, Call the Doctor, the…
“Being good at being poor has allowed me to do what I want to do–and it’s allowed me not to be hamstrung by a lot of things,” says singer-songwriter Micah Ciampa. “It’s a good thing, in a lot of respects. If you live like a monk and plan on it,…
Fans of Rancid feel that the group is one of the last real punk bands, while detractors accuse the quartet of being a band of poseurs. But no one ever called the combo a wedding band until this summer, when Rancid members did the unthinkable: They performed at a wedding…
Because of a ticket snafu, a representative of Universal Concerts led me through the bowels of McNichols Arena just before the start of the Family Values show on October 6. While she searched the box office for my passes, I was left for a few minutes in the trauma-care room,…
Low owL remix (Caroline) Songs for a Dead Pilot (Kranky) The three ultra-minimalists in Low (who appear with the Czars at the Bluebird Theater on October 26) are known for music that’s the sonic equivalent of a horse tranquilizer, albeit one with an overtly melodic and stately grace. Acres of…
The Minders are no longer one of the best bands in Denver. Just a week or so prior to the appearance of Hooray for Tuesday, the act’s charming debut for the spinART label, key members/life partners Martyn Leaper and Rebecca Cole decamped for Portland, Oregon. That they fled at such…
Ska: The word can cause the most cynical of sneers to cross the faces of punk aficionados. (It’s the same look you’d get if you suggested to a seasoned skateboarder that his sport is a brother to inline skating.) So why on earth have the eight brave souls in Mail…
Sunny Day Real Estate is less a band than a psychodrama. Decisions aren’t just made; they’re agonized over. Relationships don’t simply end; they shatter. Reunions aren’t merely satisfying; they’re life-changing. With these guys, there are no half-measures. They’re as openly creative and nakedly sincere as their songs–and if that means…
Tacoma, Washington’s Girl Trouble has made some of the kitschiest, trashiest, most entertaining garage rock to come out of the Pacific Northwest since the Sonics hung up their Silvertones for the last time. The trouble is, they haven’t made that much of it. During its fifteen years of life, the…
