Photo: Claudia López Bad Weather California, Velella Velella and Hearts of Palm Friday, May 2, 2008 hi-dive Better Than: being profoundly and painfully alone on a Friday night With apologies to the Geto Boys: Damn, it feels good to be in Denver! I know I’ve beaten this dead horse so…
Neither I nor most of the other folks who helped put together the first Westword Music Showcase had the slightest clue what we were doing — not really. It’s nothing short of a miracle, then, that the event — then called the Westword Music Awards Showcase — has not only…
Slide show review by Cory Casciato Punk-fueled ’80s keyboard balladry collided head-on with big-band garage psych at Hi-Dive on May Day when Mark Mallman and the turbo-insanity of Dark Meat set Thursday on fire. More Thursday nights should be like this…
LOCALS ONLY When former Sony exec Adelio Lombardi moved back to Denver several years ago, he had a vision of launching a state-of-the-art recording studio in the metro area for local and national acts. Lombardi officially opened Side 3 Studios last year, and has already seen visits from Bow Wow,…
So, when I first heard the song “Colorado” by the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective with its chorus line of “Run, Colorado! Run, Colorado!”, I thought it was either exhorting illegal immigrants to head towards our fair state or run away from it – a lyric that takes on new meaning given…
Last Night: Oblio Duo, Vitamins and the Pseudo Dates Thursday, May 1, 2008 Larimer Lounge The Pseudo Dates took to the stage with a good-time vibe that was strangely contagious, so contagious that your goodly, cynical bastard reviewer started to feel the urge to dance. With guitarist Nathan and bassist…
Wednesday, April 30, 2008 Pepsi Center Better Than: Anything and everything you could possibly imagine — truly a don’t-miss show. What can I say about Roger Waters playing Dark Side of the Moon last night? To be honest, I’m kind of at a loss for the right words. There’s awesome,…
Indian Jewelry, Portamento, Republic Of Thoronia Wednesday, April 30, 2008, Hi-Dive Better than: A late night game of Legend Of Zelda “Button Mashers.” That is what my buddy Jeff called it while we were having lunch. This was another in a series of long-winded discussions that we have had about…
With “Handlebars,” the first single from Fight With Tools, continuing to surge up the modern rock charts, Flobots are just starting to register on the radars of critics and bloggers nationally. Earlier this morning, as part of a frequent feature it runs called “Corporate Rock Still Sells” in which Al…
The warehouse at 21st and Arapahoe is quiet for the first time in years. The storied space at the edge of the Ballpark neighborhood, known most recently as Kingdom of Doom, has had at least a half-dozen names — the Purple Room, the Wilted Warehouse, the Christie Front Drive Warehouse,…
When these hellions take the stage, it’s almost as though you’re traveling back in time, getting to see the New York Dolls in their heyday, only with shorter hair and a raw songwriting style shorn of unnecessary refinements to match. Dicky Jaguar and the Five Percenters’ sound is a glorious…
If you want quality house music on a Wednesday night, look no further than Full Flavor at Shag Lounge. Hosted by DJ Greg Campbell, a recent transplant from the exotic Midwest, the night is a groovy, funky house-lover’s delight set in a retro-futuristic-themed bar. Campbell spins a mix of deep,…
Using a specially designed keyboard linked to a magnetic-resonance imaging machine, some Johns Hopkins and government scientists recently studied what happens to the brains of jazz musicians when they improvise. Their conclusion: During improv, “their brains turn off areas linked to self-censoring and inhibition, and turn on those that let…
Guilty Simpson, Ode to the Ghetto (Stones Throw). As guilty as the Juice might’ve been, Guilty Simpson is equally culpable of having tons of potential and not doing much with it. Laid back, even smart at times, Ode is Guilty’s debut, and the (sparse) clever wordplay and occasional dope beats…
“Depending on how long you live,” says hard-driving singer-songwriter John Reis, “I don’t think you’re ever too young for a midlife crisis.” Nevertheless, Reis doesn’t attribute his decision to shut down Rocket From the Crypt, the Sultans and Hot Snakes, three groups he’s fronted in recent years, and start a…
When you think of Athens, Georgia, it’s nearly impossible not to hear music. A college town with its own creative ecosystem, the unlikely Southern artistic outpost has churned out a truly remarkable number of great — or at least noteworthy — bands in various genres over the past few decades:…
Tokyo Police Club’s just-released Elephant Shell joins the ranks of highly anticipated release dates marred by early leaks, so Saddle Creek Records decided to up the ante. If you order the Canadian four-piece’s debut full-length directly from Saddle Creek, you’ll get instant access to the MP3s, and the label will…
Yep, it’s another piano-playing female singer-songwriter specializing in intimate pop numbers. What are the odds of that? And yet Andrea Ball manages to distinguish herself from the legions of women tilling the same soil owing to some unusual attributes, talent and quality among them. The instrumentation here is simplicity itself:…
With few bands pursuing a dark muse at the moment, it’s paradoxically refreshing to listen to this unapologetically bleak document of inner turmoil. Ken Keifer’s low baritone is surprisingly musical as he sings and cries out tales of love, betrayal, murder and existential anguish, and Karl Haikara’s hauntingly chiming guitar…
Since his 1979 debut Look Sharp, Joe Jackson has into delved into a variety of genres, traversing through pop, jazz, Latin, even trying his hand at classical. While some of the twenty subsequent albums he’s released have been grandiose affairs, his latest effort, Rain, is stripped to the bare essentials…
For seventeen years, NOFX has been powered by the same white trash, two heebs and a bean, and not much else has changed in that time — including Fat Mike’s unmistakable whiny voice. Still kicking out California-style pop punk with a hearty political bent (and a little more oomph than…
Last fall, rock mags aplenty spilled ink on behalf of the Black Kids, a Florida combo that scribes repeatedly described as a cross between the Cure (thanks to singer Reggie Youngblood’s Robert Smith-like pipes) and the Go! Team (by virtue of pep squad-style chanting). As it turns out, this description…
