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…
Derrick Stewart, aka Fatlip, is not about to explode any myths. The members of his group, the Pharcyde, have a reputation as crazy, good-humored hip-hop stoners, and Fatlip–in conversation, at least–fits this description to a T. As he puts it, “What was your question? What was I talking about?” Actually,…
Saxophonist Roy Nathanson, co-founder of the Jazz Passengers, is frequently described as quirky–and he’s earned the term the old-fashioned way. According to Nathanson’s partner, trombonist Curtis Fowlkes, “You look up `quirky’ in the dictionary, and Roy’s picture is next to it.” As judged by the music they make together, Fowlkes…
Wallace Roney, Saturday, August 12, at the Bluebird Theater, came to the public’s attention in 1981. Then a 21-year-old Berklee student with no trumpet of his own, he auditioned for Wynton Marsalis’s old seat in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, armed with little more than ambition and talent. But that was…
The songs played by Kandombe, a Boulder-based percussion ensemble, represent musical freedom in its truest sense. The performers believe their music cannot be contained or categorized, because the sounds they make are not modeled after various styles or genres. Rather, they derive from the basic rhythms of life. “We put…
Charlie Haden, Thursday, August 3, at the Denver Botanic Gardens, has quietly had one of the most distinguished careers in the short history of jazz. As a key part of Ornette Coleman’s most famous combo, he contributed the sonorous bass lines that held together The Shape of Jazz to Come,…
The music that makes up John Coltrane: Heavyweight Champion–The Complete Atlantic Recordings, a six-CD boxed set due for release in mid-August on the Rhino imprint, was cut over the course of a relatively brief period of time. Coltrane, fresh from several years spent as a member of bands led by…
In Craig Wedren’s world, people really listen–not only for noises but for the spaces that separate the sounds. “Silence is the ultimate dynamic,” says the singer of Shudder to Think. “It’s polar to what most bands do, but it can be a beautiful reminder. There’s so much to listen to…
You might expect a female performer with a hit single entitled “I Kissed a Girl” to be an ardent advocate of the lesbian lifestyle. But singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, who co-wrote the tune with collaborator Robin Eaton, hasn’t used the song’s success (it’s spent nearly three months on the Billboard Hot…
J. Ryan, leader of Six Finger Satellite, from Providence, Rhode Island, has a message for Westword readers. “When we were in Denver, I saw a lot of people in fuchsia-colored Jaguars with hippie crap all over them,” he grumbles. “I’d like to tell them to get their heads out of…
Although ska may be an exceedingly vibrant and energetic force, it’s not a new one. In fact, the roots of the music are practically the same age as Tommy McCook, the fiftysomething leader of the Skatalites, one of Jamaica’s earliest ska bands. But while McCook isn’t personally in great shape…
Everclear’s Art Alexakis doesn’t buy into the tortured-rock-star syndrome. “A lot of bands are kind of whiny, if you ask me,” says the vocalist/guitarist. “If you’re playing guitar and getting paid for it, that’s a pretty good job, I think. I’ve worked plenty of jobs, and I know a good…
“That movie The Mambo Kings? That was a lot of Hollywood bull,” says Andy Gonzales, bassist and musical director for Latin music purveyors Manny Oquendo & Libre. “And I didn’t like the book, either. Maybe for the poetry committee it was all right. But I thought it was full of…
Foetus, Wednesday, July 26, at the Mercury Cafe, makes music far more dangerous than your parents could imagine: It’s morbid, electric, ungodly. Jim Foetus has been pumping out material of this description since 1980, and his dense collections of loud, aggressive, methodical songs have influenced such modern-day pseudo-industrialists as Nine…
Denver-based guitarist Janet Feder didn’t expect to be featured in the July issue of Guitar Player. After all, the publication is devoted to electrified music–and Feder performs her classically based material on an acoustic instrument. “I couldn’t believe it,” Feder says about the item. “I was stunned, truly stunned, because…
Soul Asylum Let Your Dim Light Shine (Columbia) Back in the days when Say What You Will… and Made to Be Broken (from 1984 and 1986, respectively) were new, a lot of us had high hopes for this band: Its loud, fast numbers weren’t all that distinctive, but they were…
Kansas senator Bob Dole’s recent attack on popular culture has garnered largely favorable responses despite his blatantly political motivations (the man would give his good arm to be President) and numerous proclamations that were utterly nonsensical (if Dole thinks the bloody Arnold Schwarzenegger flick True Lies is “family friendly,” as…
Boulder-based singer-songwriter Dave Gershen isn’t shy about making grandiloquent statements. For instance, he says, “A couple of years ago, I had a spiritual awakening. I realized that it was time–that I was sitting on a gift that was too strong, too much a part of me, not to be sharing…
With KTCL, the Peak and what’s left of KBCO all attempting to bend the ears of listeners who went to college during the early Eighties (and apparently lost their taste for musical adventure immediately thereafter), Denver’s airwaves hang heavy with the work of artists who came to prominence when Ronald…
Truman’s Water Milktrain to Paydirt (Homestead) You can’t describe Truman’s Water as just another punk band–not when the closest thing to an influence you can scratch out of cuts like “Unitraction Bath” is Captain Beefheart. Most of these songs include a modicum of structure (even the ones that dissolve into…
