In an age when rock and roll strikes some observers as increasingly passe, the members of Denver’s Boss 302 still believe it’s worthy of praise. Lead singer Rich Groskopf takes every available opportunity to call rock “the premier music genre.” Later, when Groskopf and the other Bosses (guitarists Garrett Brittenham…
R.E.M. Monster (Warner Bros.) Anyone who assumed, after perusing the ink already spilled over this, that Monster would sound like a less accessible version of Metal Machine Music can be forgiven for being somewhat underwhelmed by the reputed noisiness of the twelve ditties contained herein. “Star 69,” five numbers into…
These days, heavy guitars and macabre imagery seem as closely associated as chocolate and peanut butter. The horror-obsessed riff-slingers in Cannibal Corpse, Slayer and Genitorturers have transformed certain sections of the world’s record bins into pus-soaked morgues, thanks to their sordid tales of decapitation, dismemberment and disembowelments. The problem is…
Inside the Bluebird Theater on Thursday evening, October 6, not everything was quite ready to go. A by-invitation-only audience–consisting mainly of music-biz scenesters, suit-wearing politicos and just plain folks from the Capitol Hill area–was admiring the building as a combo led by Ron Miles blasted out challenging jazz riffs. But…
Dave Shirley, the rapper, keyboardist, percussionist, full-time humorist and co-frontman for Denver’s Red Yak, offers a succinct review of his group’s early work. “We sucked forever,” he says. While Shirley and his fellow Yaks (bassist Darren Lawless, guitarist Bob LaBarge, drummer Aarek Moore and singer Kirk Anderson) rightly feel that…
Either/Orchestra, Saturday, October 15, at the Bluebird Theater, is the odd, eccentric, precocious (but dearly loved) brainchild of composer/ saxophonist Russ Gershon. And a hardy youngster it is, for the Boston-based ten-piece jazz ensemble is now celebrating its ninth year of life. This longevity is quite an achievement: Aside from…
Sinead O’Connor Universal Mother (Chrysalis) This album is so incredibly bad that it’s actually something of an achievement. O’Connor is a performer known for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but on Universal Mother, her heart’s everywhere–and a frighteningly self-pitying organ it is. Hardly a song goes by without her…
The career of the Psychedelic Furs followed a predictable pattern: two striking albums, two okay albums, two tremendously dull albums, breakup. What’s surprising is that Richard Butler, the Furs’ ex-leader now fronting a combo called Love Spit Love, agrees with this characterization. “By the time we got to the Midnight…
Boulder poet Benjamin Porter Lewis isn’t your average mountain-town java-joint junkie. If his streetwise delivery and frizzy near-dreads don’t make that point abundantly clear, his sublimely untutored rants against political injustice and racial prejudice tend to do so in a hurry. For example, a piece titled “Censorship” opens with the…
Storyville, Friday, October 7, at the Boulder Theater, is a Texas quintet that offers a fresh take on the music of the Lone Star state by coupling its blues base with passionate punk and soul influences. The band, which borrowed its name from New Orleans’s fabled and glamorous red-light district,…
Improvisational wizard Bill Frisell is known worldwide for his ethereal, thinking-man’s work on the guitar, which he transforms into a stringed soulmate to wind instruments. The breathy, electrified tone that he produces with the help of volume pedals and other technological tools is simply splendid, as is his unplugged playing…
Liz Phair Whip-Smart (Matador) Rock-critic types have treated the release of Whip-Smart with reverence suggestive of the second coming, which in some ways is appropriate–like Exile in Guyville, Phair’s slobbered-over debut, this sophomore offering doesn’t skimp on the orgasms. Unfortunately, I suspect that this songwriter’s focus on the various uses…
Oasis, Tuesday, October 4, at the Mercury Cafe, arrives in Colorado intent on substantiating the beliefs of those who feel the band is the next big thing to come out of Manchester, England. The Epic release Definitely Maybe features “Shakermaker,” a sardonic twisting of the old Coke jingle “I’d Like…
A few years back (forever, in pop-culture time), tribute discs were mainly devoid of irony. Collections in which various vocalists or groups presented versions of songs associated with a particular singer or songwriter were produced to make money, of course, but also to laud worthy peers or raise funds for…
Musician/publisher/writer/mother-to-be Lisa Crystal Carver is tired of Generation X and its dysfunctional rantings. In fact, this Denver immigrant would like nothing better than to see the twenty-something crowd exposed for what it really is–a pack of lazy whiners. ” are a bunch of spoiled people who are used to having…
Ted Hawkins, age 57, has lived one hell of a life–and he’s not finished yet. If Robert Johnson hadn’t cashed in his chips at so young an age, his tale might have sounded a lot like this one. It’s a story that, understandably, Hawkins doesn’t much like telling. After decades…
Eric Clapton From the Cradle (Reprise) This blues tribute disc was a good idea for three reasons: Much of Clapton’s best work has been in the idiom; following up the incredibly successful (and massively overrated) Unplugged with an album of covers automatically lowers expectations; and the format ensures that nothing…
Let’s face it: Most rock-and-roll musicians aren’t exactly nuclear physicists. So on those rare occasions when a band of savvy rock musicians emerges, reporters usually pounce on them like a mob of doting grandmothers. For proof, look no further than the indie-rock prodigies in Pavement. The group’s members (currently Steve…
Shatta Mejia is a teacher–in every sense of the word. A high-school-level instructor for the past three years, he works in an alternative program under the umbrella of the Boulder Valley school system with “at-risk” students. “About 90 percent of them have really serious issues–they have criminal records, or they’ve…
When saxophonist/composer David Murray attended his twenty-year high school reunion last year, he won an award for having the most unique profession–or, as Murray puts it, “the strangest career.” Given Murray’s past, it couldn’t have been much of a contest. After all, very few people have achieved the significance in…
Stone Temple Pilots Stone Temple Pilots (Atlantic) It seems a little unfair to rag on the Pilots. I mean, there are ripoff artists in every style of music, and many of these performers wind up being more successful than the true innovators of the form. Which isn’t their fault, really:…
Love Jones, Tuesday, September 20, at the Mercury Cafe, is a collection of performers who like their martinis almost as dry as their wit. Along with Chicago’s Coctails and Boston’s Combustible Edison, the band is part of the burgeoning movement known as “Coctail Nation”; its latest album, Here’s to the…
