It’s tough to get a handle on the Spinanes. Guitarist/singer-songwriter Rebecca Gates is the only permanent Spinane, but she sees the contributions made by an ever-changing cast of players as essential to her sound. So is the glorious pop-rock collective a band or a solo project? In Gates’s opinion, it’s…
Korn Follow the Leader (Immortal/Epic) The words dispensed here by Korn singer Jonathan Davis are as disturbing as ever: Imagine having to wrap barbed wire around your feet to get better traction on a snowy day and you’ll have an idea of what picking your way through them is like…
“Ninety-nine percent of all the people in prison are going to be released,” says Sammy Town, lead singer of the punk institution called Fang. “And I’m telling you, when you go to prison, you get meaner. You get bitter, you get bigger and more criminalized. And then”–a menacing cackle–“you get…
Dan Wanush is best known as King Scratchie, the twisted, hard-rapping frontman for the sadly defunct Warlock Pinchers. But although Wanush still loves the fusion of hardcore, funk and hip-hop that the Pinchers brought to Denver during the late Eighties and early Nineties, he admits that he’s harbored a secret…
O’Shea Jackson, known to friends and enemies alike as Ice Cube, has a daughter, a son and a stepson whose ages range from four to eleven. But despite their tender years, he sees no reason why they shouldn’t be able to enjoy the furious wit and wisdom he puts on…
In this space last week, Don Howe, local head honcho for Cincinnati’s Jacor Communications, which owns eight powerful radio stations in the Denver-Boulder area, got to crow about problems at KKHK-FM/99.5 (the Hawk), a competitor that went from celebrating its purchase of the Howard Stern show to announcing that the…
“The first thing that defines an artist who is local,” says Montbello rapper Bumpy Chill, “is to do a show without using anyone else’s beats and then see how the crowd reacts.” The Don Kronicals, which pairs Chill with his cousin, Aurora’s L.O., has had no problems passing such tests…
James Lavelle, the 24-year-old founder and president of England’s Mo Wax Records, has an active fantasy life, and movies are his touchstone. The promotional items for Psyence Fiction, a new CD credited to a project he’s dubbed Unkle, include a mockup of the original poster from Star Wars (his favorite…
Elliott Smith XO (Dreamworks) Considering the one-dimensional press Elliott Smith has been receiving of late, you can be forgiven for assuming that XO captures the sound of a strange, homely man sobbing himself to sleep over his acoustic guitar. Not that the album will be mistaken for something by Up…
Harvey Reid looks like your standard-issue new-age guitarist. But when he speaks about the state of the acoustic-music field he works in, it’s clear that there’s more behind his flowing locks than initially meets the eye. “A lot of my guitar compadres are still lost in open-tuning mantra stuff and…
The fourth annual Westword Music Awards Showcase, held September 20 in LoDo, featured music of virtually every description, as well as a special guest appearance by representatives of the Denver police department. Let’s get to the latter situation first. Concentrated Evil, a trio nominated in the Showcase’s Metal/ Goth category,…
If you want to get technical, the Westword Music Awards Showcase guide at the center of this issue is an advertising supplement. But it’s also the most extensive overview of the Denver-Boulder music scene that any area publication will print this year. In addition to a map and a complete…
Massive Attack’s sound, which integrates street life, DJing, music, art and angst, has played a major role in shaping the pop music of the Nineties–and with this accomplishment have come some impressive spoils. Today the group’s Robert del Naja (aka 3D) is as comfortable ordering room service in swanky hotels…
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…
