So its lead singer has long hair, its grabbiest instrumentalist is a female violin player, its CD sports a secret bonus track and its live shows attract dozens of flannel-adorned air guitarists. Does that mean Boulder’s Sponge Kingdom is just another hippie band? Not so fast. Beneath the exterior of…
“My balls are smokin’, my ass is on fire,” sings ex-Throttlemen leader Rex Moser, who’s fronting a new band, Jetredball. “Hot chili, it’s you I desire.” If the first image this lyrical slice from the song “Hot Chili” arouses in you is a smiling portrait of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, you’ll…
The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Association Telethon gets no respect. Although most daily newspapers carry a perfunctory paragraph or two about fundraising totals following the annual Labor Day event, the Telethon receives far more ink as a result of demonstrations staged by dystrophic protesters who feel demeaned, marginalized or otherwise…
Those flyers referring to Spell’s Friday, August 30, date at the Bluebird Theater (with the Apples, Space Team Electra and Social Joke) as the act’s last Denver gig are a bit overstated–but only a bit. The trio, which features drummer Garrett Shavlik, guitarist Tim Beckman and bassist Chanin Floyd, hasn’t…
Diversity is a goal that many in the Boulder music scene try to achieve. But rarely is so much of it found in one person, as is the case with Beth Quist. A connoisseur of sound, she sports a resume that seems more like a U.N. mediator’s than an entertainer’s…
Now in his mid-fifties, country blues guitarist/ vocalist John Hammond has held up well. His thick crop of hair shows no traces of male-pattern baldness. His figure, often accented by stylish suits, remains svelte. And his voice has never sounded better–which is remarkable given the fact that he’s spent a…
There’s a good reason why Al Green, perhaps the greatest male soul singer still among the living, appears on so many late-night television shows but is seldom interviewed by the programs’ hosts. While his performances are instantly accessible, his conversations are determinedly non-linear. He’s unfailingly chipper and pleasant, but he…
“My vibe switch is on right now,” says Busta Rhymes, one of the most vital personalities to break out of the hip-hop scene in eons. “So I can’t stop. Because when your vibe switch is off, you can’t do shit about it until the vibe comes back and you can…
Consider the plight of America’s small-town punks. Over the past two decades the punk-rock subculture in cities and media centers has grown from a snot-nosed, nihilistic infant to a bratty but terribly trendy adult. But as recently as a few years ago, high school outcasts from the heartland were still…
As an act becomes more successful, its relationship to music critics mutates in tangible ways. Take the frequency with which artists do interviews with the print media, for example. New performers trying to make a name for themselves will talk to anyone, anytime: high school students putting out mimeographed fanzines,…
Twenty-something singer-songwriter Dar Williams confesses, “I’m probably getting a little more hype than I’m worth.” This becoming display of modesty is prompted by a line from a recent edition of Stereo Review; a critic there dubbed her “the Great Folk Hope.” To Williams, this designation is flattering but somewhat premature…
These notes are for you. Tippy, from the cranium of Denver’s Neil Slade, reminded me of Seventies-vintage Todd Rundgren in its juxtaposition of pure pop melodies, sometimes arch lyrics, challenging structural conceits and substantial ambition. “Shauna,” “Couch” and several others are extremely hummable, yet they also ask for (and reward)…
Nas It Was Written (Columbia) The reported death of gangsta rap has been greatly exaggerated: It Was Written entered the Billboard sales charts at number one, and three weeks later, it’s still there. But although this album contains the usual verbal allotment of niggas, bitches, gats and gunshots (as well…
On August 16, 1977–nineteen years ago this week–Elvis Presley died. But while the general public believes he’s at rest on the property of Graceland, his Memphis home, Carol Downey, perhaps Denver’s most devoted Elvis booster, knows the truth. “I don’t think he’s there,” she says. “I don’t think they moved…
In May, I derided Denver’s electronic media and the folks at our fair city’s daily newspapers for their hysterical coverage of an altercation between kids and cops during a punk-rock show at an area Veterans of Foreign Wars hall. Well, the coverage of the ruckus in Morrison on August 5,…
“Our style of music is called garage punk,” says Michael Daboll, lead singer and guitarist for Denver’s Element 79–and he’s glad to elaborate. After all, Daboll and his brethren (bassist Mike Gilligan and drummer Jeff Learman, supplemented by Dancin’ Boy Wade Morse, “the only male go-go dancer in a five-state…
Willie Nelson is right where you’d expect to find him: on a tour bus, heading from one show to the next. He’s 63 years old and wears every one of his adventures on his leathery features. But he still has a guitar and a voice, and he fully intends to…
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Chaos and Disorder (Warner Bros.) Spite is often overlooked as a spur to creativity, but it’s as capable of providing artistic inspiration as love and beauty–something that Chaos and Disorder amply demonstrates. Prince, you see, has been sniping at his mega-label for years–but rather…
Life on the road can be fun for a traveling rock-and-roller–but according to Ned “Hoaky” Hickel, bassist for New Orleans-based Dash Rip Rock, it’s not without its drawbacks. “With all this traveling we’ve been doing,” he laments, “there’s no time for fishing.” Hickel and his mates (drummer Chris Luckette and…
In September 1994, I scribbled an article for this publication entitled “Come Together–Again”; it was intended to lampoon then-current supergroup reunion tours by acts such as the Eagles and Steely Dan via a supposedly fictional list of other outfits considering get-togethers. Among them was the Sex Pistols, about whom I…
I park my car along the side of a narrow road at 7:10 Sunday evening, August 4, and begin running up the incline toward Red Rocks, where the Vermont phenom Phish is due to take the stage in less than twenty minutes. My speed and technique certainly don’t put Michael…
It’s not uncommon to hear stories of a reggae star’s rise from the ghettos of Jamaica to international fame. But few performers have endured as much or struggled as hard as the harmony trio Israel Vibration, whose members are all survivors of polio. “I didn’t get no chance, no job,…
