For three decades, two words have described saxophone playing at its funkiest: Maceo Parker. Parker joined James Brown’s back-up band in 1965, and before long he’d created the immortal, punchy riffs that dominate Brown classics such as “Poppa’s Got a Brand New Bag,” “Popcorn,” “Lickin’ Stick” and “Cold Sweat.” Along…
“Forward is the key,” proclaims Winston Rodney, better known to the reggae-loving public as Burning Spear. “You need to look forward. But sometimes in life, you have to look at the past, also–look at the past, and at the present, in order to move into the future. That way, everything…
John Vecchiarelli, Thursday, August 31, at the Mercury Cafe, with 40th Day and Idle Mind, won’t be here to kick around much longer; the Boulder-based singer-songwriter is moving to San Francisco October 1 in an effort to further his career. So this show is one of your last chances, at…
Infectious Grooves, Sunday, September 3, at Fiddler’s Green, headlines Gra-fx, one of the last shed-sized alterna-festivals of the season (also on the bill are Voodoo Glowskulls, Stanford Prison Experiment, Sincola, Sinister Dane, Lord of Word & the Disciples of Bass, Sick, El Dopa, the Reejers, Da Bush Babies and Love…
According to bassist Darien Waldhoff, he and the other members of Denver’s industrial/ goth act Filmstrip “should just get exorcised and get it over with.” The musicians (Waldhoff, singer/programmer Brendan K. Russell and keyboardist Ruth Saringer) can’t say for certain that they were born under a bad sign, but there’s…
What was probably this summer’s most anticipated modern-rock amphitheater show proved conclusively that the music’s not just for punks anymore. In fact, the August 23 Red Rocks performance by Live, a young Pennsylvania act whose latest disc, Throwing Copper, has sold 5 million copies, was not just pleasant, tuneful and…
Foo Fighters Foo Fighters (Capitol) First off, let’s make one thing clear: This debut long-player from former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl’s new band isn’t the “new Nirvana album,” as many of the rock geeks out there have been claiming. Nor is it one of those alternative “supergroup” things that have…
Singer Clarence Fountain was already a member of the Five Blind Boys of Alabama when the group–perhaps the greatest gospel ensemble to emerge this century–turned professional in 1944. Within three years he would become the pilot of the crew. Nearly fifty years later, Fountain, 66, says the act has survived…
Charlie Hunter, a guitarist whose self-named jazz trio has become an unexpected favorite of the nose-rings-and-tattoos crowd, doesn’t like being painted into a corner. When asked about attempts by some jazz purists to define what is and what isn’t jazz, he replies, “That’s totally limiting. It’s limiting for us, and…
In Boulder’s neohippie scene, there’s a thin line between playing original music and merely regurgitating a popular sound. However, the members of Aquarian Voodoo have found a way to skirt this problem–by doing both at once. The performers (lead singer/guitarist Chris Leonard, mandolinist/harmonica player Bill Browning, guitarist Chris Melia, drummer…
P.J. Harvey, with Live and Veruca Salt, Wednesday, August 23, at Red Rocks, is a rarity in contemporary pop music: an artist whose integrity and love of creative risk are virtually unassailable. As demonstrated by recordings such as Rid of Me and last year’s thrilling To Bring You My Love,…
Sympathy F, with Genuine, X LuLu, Terminal Hinge and Spoon Collection, Wednesday, August 23, at the Mercury Cafe, certainly deserves to have been chosen as one of five area finalists to compete in this, the Denver edition of the third annual Ticketmaster Music Showcase Tour. The bandmates have overcome an…
It’s unlikely that every allegedly autobiographical story recounted by Tim DeLaughter, guitarist and vocalist for the Dallas-based band Tripping Daisy, is true. But he tells his tales with such conviction and with so much twangy, ingenuous charm that it hardly matters. Take, for example, the anecdote that DeLaughter claims inspired…
Maids of Gravity, with Chaos Theory, Saturday, August 19, at Cricket on the Hill, features two members–vocalist/guitarist Ed Ruscha and guitarist Jim Putnam–who were part of Brad Laner’s visionary band Medicine in 1991 and 1992. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Maids, represented by a groovy, self-titled…
Vivid Imagination, with No Such Thing and Gothic Frog, Wednesday, August 16 at Cricket on the Hill, is filled with performers who are overqualified to entertain. After all, they’re not just musicians, they’re amateur sociologists, too: They spend hour upon hour absorbing all the stuff kids these days are supposed…
You’d be hard-pressed to find a more relentlessly upbeat person than Philip Bailey. Give the 44-year-old Denver native a chance to gripe about the press, record companies or practically any topic into which most of us would love to sink our teeth, and he’ll likely respond with the glass-is-half-full homily…
“I tend not to read my own press,” says singer-songwriter/guitarist Kevin Salem, from a standard-issue room at a Motel 6 somewhere in North Carolina. “That’s death for musicians. To read articles about yourself is a little bit stifling and unproductive. It’s like spending all your time staring at a picture…
Sonny Kay is as punk rock as anyone in Colorado. Ask him if he agrees, however, and he’ll deny it. “No matter what, we’re always going to be considered relative to punk,” he says of his band, the VSS. “But just for me, personally, what’s considered punk now not only…
Red Aunts #1 Chicken (Epitaph) Brutal Juice Mutilation Makes Identification Difficult (Interscope) The first thing you notice about the artwork for these discs is the blood: Red Aunts Angel, E.Z. Wider, Cougar and Sapphire are covered with it in the various mock-crime-scene shots that accompany #1 Chicken, while the Brutal…
Ashley Kirby, the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for Boulder’s Zestfinger, insists on setting the record straight. “We love to jam, but not hippie jam,” he asserts. “Our sound is very jazz- and funk-oriented. No trace of Jerry Garcia here.” Kirby’s disclaimer is a necessity, since a cursory reading of…
When VH1 went on the air ten years ago, the network was rightly seen as a graying version of its sister channel, MTV. Programmers there attempted to endear the service to upscale baby boomers (as opposed to MTV-targeted upscale youth) by focusing on cautious “adult rock” and relatively sedate video…
Gray Parade, with Lithium Grin and Bustopher Jones, Tuesday, August 15, at 13th Avenue Bar and Grill, isn’t a band that’s going to bludgeon you into submission with its sound. Instead, the group specializes in swirling, hypnotic psychedelia–mood rock that pays tribute to influences like the Velvet Underground (initially, the…
