“I should not be making a living off of music,” declares Skerik, the mysteriously self-christened tenor saxophonist of Critters Buggin. “Because I can only play music that I like. For me, it’s not a job.” The old joke about free jazz (that it’s called “free jazz” because it’s worth every…
If androids were able to partake of and enjoy psychedelic drugs, that would be Shaggy Robot,” says James Sharpe, den master of the avant-electro monthly theme night at 60 South. The new club — formerly Zu Denver — houses the indie event on the first Monday of each month in…
Get any punk-rocker talking about his roots, and things can get a little ridiculous. Amid the revisionist history that ignores now-embarrassing elementary-school purchases and junior high school identity crises, there are tales of being conceived at an X concert, hearing Minor Threat records played while in utero and other equally…
There have been rock-and-roll record geeks for as long as there’s been rock and roll — but it took the music industry a while to catch on. Back when Elvis Presley was still alive and still the size of an average person, rock compilations focused almost entirely on the hits…
Clear Channel made it pretty clear last week that it isn’t scared of a little ol’ legal spat. In a move that competitors viewed as alternately surprising and downright horrific, Clear Channel revealed that it would soon enter into an agreement with the City of Denver that gives the company…
Bruce Springsteen may be the American heartland’s most enduring musical biographer, but the list of artists who continue to mine the territory suggests that it’s still rich with material. A local example is found in Salute This!, Friday, August 31, at the Boulder Theater, a collaborative, multimedia hodgepodge of a…
It’s been three years since local 3 Da Hardway recording artist Kingdom dropped a jewel from his crown. The game has changed somewhat since the release of his debut record, I Reign Omnipotent, in 1998, but the just-released followup, Life As I Know It, shows why this rapper remains one…
Three years ago, just after her first solo album, The Virginian, made a big (and well-deserved) splash, Neko Case confessed to a reporter, “I want to play the Grand Ole Opry in my grandmother’s lifetime.” That a former punk rocker — she played drums in the all-girl trio Maow –…
No one was very surprised when Tenacious D — the duo composed of vocalist/guitarist Jack Black and guitarist/backing vocalist Kyle Gass — finally made it big. It was clear early on that the D had something special, even if the meager audiences who showed up for weekly open-mike appearances at…
Although its members insist otherwise, my guess is that Tha Alkaholiks changed their name to Tha Liks mainly to ensure that their new disc, X.O. Experience, wouldn’t be rejected out of hand by rack jobbers at Targets and Wal-Marts from sea to shining sea. After all, E-Swift, Tash and J-Ro…
Perhaps the best indication that a band is doing something new and genuinely interesting is when music critics thrash around in desperation looking for other bands to compare it to. Season to Risk has been associated most often with Jesus Lizard — probably because of Steve Tulipana’s growling, howling vocals…
When Gillian Welch’s debut album, Revival, appeared in 1996, some music fans questioned the singer’s authenticity. How, they wondered, could someone who was born in New York City and grew up in affluent West Los Angeles have the nerve to write about being “an orphan on God’s highway” or having…
Although Jimmy Eat World — which performs Monday, August 27, at the 15th Street Tavern with Reuben’s Accomplice — toured last fall, the Mesa, Arizona, band has kept a low profile over the last several months. That’s all come to a screaming halt, as the band has gathered itself, settled…
Honesty in music seems to be a lost quality in an age when pre-fab acts are packaged, programmed and presented by labels that are more marketers than musicians. Just how much of a tart is Britney, anyway? Enter Local 33: four blue-collar guys singing the plight of blue-collar life with…
If anyone should understand the pitfalls of being labeled, it’s DJ and producer Roni Size. Back in 1997, upon the release of his innovative platter New Forms, made in conjunction with a crew collectively known as Reprazent, he emerged as the most public face of the dance music style dubbed…
One day after the sad and grisly details of Kurt Cobain’s suicide first spread across the nation like a rolling blackout, Mudhoney — the legendary Seattle-based underground grunge band that gave neighboring Aberdeen’s Nirvana its first opening slot in the soggy Emerald City — found itself in the most unlikely…
If it weren’t for a trio of sibling bubblegum hitmakers from Oklahoma, Jon Paul Johnson would be more comfortable heading up a family-style rock-and-roll band. But since “MMMBop” has changed all that, Johnson needs to make one thing clear. “We’re not Hanson,” he says. Still, there’s no denying the family-tree…
In one of those ironies with which popular culture brims, Marilyn Manson was tarred with the stain of the Columbine shootings even though the perpetrators of that crime had no interest in his music, while Rammstein, whose noise the killers reportedly admired, largely escaped public scrutiny. The main reason, in…
If the number of times that 1) KTCL plays a dusty Sublime track each day and 2) songs from 40 Oz. to Freedom are blasted out of the back of a Jeep are any way to judge such things, there’s a big void that’s gone unfilled since the death of…
Need proof that the tribute-album concept is as played out as Keith Moon’s life span? This collection offers it in spades. Granted, there are a couple of bright spots. Phish’s “5:15,” complete with a live horn section, provides just the right touch of shagginess accompanied by a swagger that’s as…
Dolly Zander recognizes the mailman making the rounds on the 1000 block of Sherman Street, where we sit drinking coffee on a recent morning: He’s so-and-so, the former guitarist for such-and-such, a band that played around town for a while but dropped from sight years ago. In his regulation blues,…
Rave on the Rocks, the multi-act electronic music fest, dances its way through Red Rocks on August 16 and 17, with a host of dance music’s freshest young acts. This year’s lineup features Crystal Method, back from the dead with its sophomore followup to 1997’s underground hit Vegas. Other performers…
