Two weeks ago, an item in this column mentioned that Mike “Big Mike” Colin plays bass with the excellent hip-hop and free-jazz collective, Ratiocination, a band with almost enough players to line a dugout at the World Series. Now, it appears, Colin can scratch Ratio duties off an already overfull…
San Diegos Pinback, Friday, October 13, at the 15th Street Tavern with Acrobat Down and Oer the Ramparts, combines the considerable talents of Armistead Burwell Smith IV (aka Zach), who served as the heart of Three Mile Pilot, and Robert Rulon Crow Junior. Yet unlike the heavier sounds that emanated…
Hugh Ragin is just one of the local jazz luminaries who will light up the stage at Vartans Jazz Club and Restaurant on Friday, October 13. The expressive trumpet player (and recent nominee for Best Jazz Artist in Westwords Music Awards Showcase) will be joined by excellent concert pianist Joe…
A drum! A drum! Macbeth doth come. Well, sort of. His tragedy has become a comic farce in Kevin Harts McBeth, playing at the Bovine Metropolis Theatre through November 5. Dont look for Claire or Leonardo in this Shakespeare re-do — try line cooks, clowns and trailer trash. And what…
For many musicians, having fans hear their decades-old music is as scary as having a potential partner view long-out-of-fashion high school photos: There are some things that are best left buried in the past. But for Chris Daniels and the Kings, looking back on past endeavors has never been so…
Genuine musical objectivity is tough to come by, since most listeners, try as they might, can’t help but bring biases to what they hear. Sometimes these predispositions are personal; for instance, my beloved can no longer listen to the Beach Boys’ “Help Me, Rhonda” without displeasure, because it was playing…
Given that Ray of Light, Madonna’s last studio release, was both a big seller and the best-reviewed album of her career (its quality briefly forced all but the most obtuse critics to consider her as an artist first and a cultural icon second, rather than the other way around), it’s…
It’s always fashionable in music circles to lament the plight of reggae’s gods: They were exploited, misunderstood, ahead of their time. But Peter Tosh has only himself to blame. Aside from the 1998 boxed set Honorary Citizen, there’s a scarcity of recorded material with which to canonize him. This is…
For the better parts of rock history, a variety of jokers have gone to great lengths to prove just how deranged they are, whether they bit the heads off of doves, waved their penises around on stage or murdered a junkie girlfriend. Maybe that’s why the Sick Bees’ understated imbalance…
So far, it’s been a busy, not to mention fruitful, year for America’s entertainment lawyers, a group that is probably alone in its enjoyment of the current climate of squabbling — and litigation — over music-ownership issues (cocaine dealers the world over are probably already scrambling to fill orders in…
Bettie Serveert, Thursday, October 5, at Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre, with Counting Crows and Live, has spent the last couple of years outside of the indie spotlight cast upon it following a series of well-received outings for Matador; after being dropped from the label, the Dutch band has finally released Private…
How blue is your grass? Niwots own Pete and Joan Wernick, who perform in free concerts on Saturday, October 7, and Sunday, October 8, at the Denver Performing Arts Complex, combine masterful acoustic pickin with heartfelt vocal harmonies; its a one-two punch that has earned the pair the honorary distinction…
Good news for University of Colorado students–and all other Coloradans –looking for something slightly more refined than the bar/rioting scene: The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts summer After Hours series was so popular that the museum has decided to continue it through the fall. Every Thursday from 5 p.m. to…
There are several versions of exactly what happened inside the Cricket on the Hill on Saturday, September 8, at 12:30 a.m., but the popular version goes like this: The guy from the Volts got on stage, threw beer bottles at people and then got beat up outside. The Pin Downs,…
Each year, the annual Country Music Association awards broadcast holds a few surprises, little drama and zero controversy. Unlike the Grammys or the Academy Awards, where viewers can expect at least a little bit of from-the-podium pontificating on current events or artistic issues, the CMA’s are typically safe, self-congratulatory shmoozefests…
In the liner notes of Faith, Hess, who’s been among the saving graces of Colorado jazz for a generation or so, makes an unexpected admission. “While we’re not quite ready for a leisured retired life on the golf course,” he allows, “the music does speak our age. Maybe that’s what…
The monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein spoke French, ate nuts ‘n’ berries and became the Victorian era’s most romantic fugitive-on-a-dogsled. New Jersey’s walking dead should be so lucky. Brothers Sal and Dan Canzonieri recently discovered some old demos under their bunkbeds that they wanted the world to hear: seventeen “rarities”…
This heartfelt tribute to the man known as the father of bluegrass is at its best when the performers involved manage to infuse Monroe’s material with new vitality without trampling the compositions’ stark and subtle charms. The best example of this balancing act is Dwight Yoakam’s rendition of “Rocky Road…
More than any other city, Chicago is ground zero for the alternative-country movement. It’s home to Wilco, Bloodshot Records and a vibrant music scene that regularly produces talent like Chris Mills, who is among the finest of the second generation of alt-country singers. Just 25 years old, Mills grew up…
Now that Keanu Reeves has inked a deal to make two more Matrix movies, the chances of getting another fix of Bill and Ted’s Wyld Stallyns looks pretty slim. Though Reeves shelved his stoner alter ego for more serious work, he hasn’t kissed off the rock-and-roll fantasy just yet –…
Good people of Denver, Backwash would like to reintroduce you to Mike Colin, the former leader of proto-punk/funk locals Phantazmorgasm (later Phantasmorgasm), who respectfully bowed out of the local scene roughly two years ago. Before doing so, the multi-instrumentalist and producer oversaw some of the area’s more original and definition-defying…
Mingus Big Band, Saturday, September 30, at the Boulder Theater, is an ideal jazz band for the new millennium. It swings with the class of the Duke Ellington-era crews without sounding quaint. It blisters through the avant garde without going off the deep end. It melds sophisticated ensemble work with…
