The ‘Vengers, Boulder’s premier ska group, don’t do much soul searching when it comes to their music. “I think the bottom line is, it’s not an attitude thing,” says bassist/vocalist Chris “Limey” Welsh. “You get a lot of musicians who stand there and say, `Right, we’re technically brilliant. Look at…
The New Bomb Turks, Saturday, November 11, at Mammoth Events Center, with Lag Wagon, Samiam, No Doubt, Pietasters, Teengenerate, Strung Out, Buck-O-Nine, Slapstick and the rest of the participants in the Board As Usual ’95 festival, hail from Columbus, Ohio, a sleepy university town known primarily for being, well, home…
Jux County, with Jonny Rocket, Friday, November 10, at the Bluebird Theater, stars Andy Monley, a performer who understands how the rock-music game is played but chooses to operate by his own set of rules anyhow. And that’s good, because his singular approach to music has made the Denver scene…
For decades the USSR officially denied its citizens the small pleasures afforded by “decadent” Western rock and roll. But in recent years, pop-culture-starved Russians were subjected to something worse–visits from bland stars such as Billy Joel and UB40. Now, however, residents of the land of the czars are at last…
The last time Mercury Rev guitarist Jonathan Donahue saw Denver, it was in the rear-view mirror of a bus speeding out of town. Flash back to summer 1994 and Mercury Rev’s appearance on the second stage at Fiddler’s Green as part of the annual Lollapalooza festival. At first the combo’s…
Hugh Swarts, one fifth of Oakland, California’s Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, is having a tough time adjusting to the digital age. In fact, the guitarist/vocalist/percussionist hasn’t even purchased his first compact disc player yet. “I’m kind of atavistic in that way, I guess,” he concedes. “I don’t really like…
The music made by the eclectic quintet Laughing Hands can’t be confused with that of most other Denver-area groups: Its folk-meets-worldbeat sound is like an exceedingly enjoyable course in ethnomusicology. But string bassist Tim Cross, who’s been part of the band since its inception over five years ago, points out…
At most record stores, Eagle Dances With the Wind, the Canyon Records debut by the Denver-based Native American duo Red Tail Chasing Hawks, is filed in the new-age section. And that’s too bad, because, as Hawks pianist James Torres points out, there’s nothing particularly new-agey about it. “We try to…
“A lot of motherfuckers are like me–they listen to old shit,” says the 21-year-old soulster who calls himself D’Angelo. “That’s my music, those are my jams. Because a lot of the new music that’s coming out, it isn’t cutting it on an artistic level. Some of the new songs will…
Bjork Gudmundsdottir insists that she has her down moments, but her claim is unconvincing. After all, she makes this statement from an airport in Reykjavik, Iceland (her hometown), that’s being pounded by a massive snow storm: “You look out the window and all you see is white,” she reports. Rather…
Hazel Miller, Saturday, November 4, at the Beacon Grill, may look like somebody’s kindly aunt in this photograph, but put a microphone in her hands and she’ll belt out a blues mean enough to peel the skin off your arms. A sizable percentage of Denverites understand this already–she received more…
Supersuckers, opening for White Zombie and the Toadies, Thursday, November 2, at McNichols Arena, began making tuneful, relentless punk rock back when the members of Rancid had to ask their moms to drive them to the arcade, and they still do it better than practically any other current band. Sacrilicious,…
Many professional musicians feel that music instructors teach because they’re not adequate performers. In some instances this is true–but not when it comes to Lynn Baker. The director of Jazz Studies and Commercial Music at Denver University’s Lamont School of Music is also a daring saxophonist and composer who stands…
Yeah, every performer with vocal chords and half a clue talks about artistic integrity–about making music that quenches his or her creative thirst without regard to the marketplace, which by its very nature dilutes and diminishes the purity and impact of one’s aesthetic. Living up to these words is quite…
Spiritualized, Wednesday, October 25, at the Mercury Cafe, works in textures: oscillating notes or aural phrases piled atop each other or blended together until they beget a fuzzy, moody sound deep enough to wallow in. Jason Pierce, aka J. Spaceman, first worked this territory while piloting the cult favorite Spacemen…
Little Fyodor and Babushka, with the Wryeteous Py Bayk Jammbory, Saturday, October 28, at Penny Lane in Boulder, were nominees for this year’s Westword Music Awards–and you can bet that no one was more dumbfounded by this turn of events than Fyodor, who since the early Eighties has been making…
Until his band began receiving attention, Danny Amis, songwriter and lead guitarist for rock instrumentalists Los Straitjackets, worked as a stage manager and soundman at a Nashville television studio. And he doesn’t want you to know which one. “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t say any more about it…
If you really want to frighten the hell out of Mr. Dalvin, one of the four youthful, testosterone-spewing love machines in the R&B steamroller Jodeci, all you need to do is mention one word: marriage. “That’s scary, man,” he chatters. “Maybe when I get older I’ll take that kind of…
Various Artists Randy Newman’s Faust (Reprise) Haven’t seen the stage version of this piece, but the disc is just the kind of mild disappointment that’s to be expected from a concept this goofy. Newman is certainly among our greatest living songwriters, and nothing in his satirical deconstruction of Goethe’s signature…
Shaggy isn’t your typical performer. After all, how many dancehall-reggae artists can you name who fought in Kuwait as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps? Of course, armed conflict with Iraqi soldiers wasn’t part of the plan when Shaggy–born Orville Richard Burrell–enlisted in the Corps. “I thought it would…
The Reejers, with Baldo Rex, Wednesday, October 18, at the Fox Theatre, had the poor manners to leave their Boulder home for Chicago–but the players (Dave Houghton, Nick Iurato, Dan Tomczyk and Jon Ellison) are making amends with this date, which is free to all comers. More important, they’re bringing…
Letters to Cleo, Sunday, October 22, at the Bluebird Theater, is built around the girlish, quirky, pissed-off voice of singer Kay Hanley–an instrument that contrasts nicely with Hanley’s pin-up looks and Gidget-style pigtails. As for the band’s music, it’s marked by the kind of full-bodied guitar hooks and clever riffs…
