Sometimes on Sunday night, I just want to lay on the couch and watch TV, but I can’t because I have to go entertain the people.” Ian Williams laughs as he makes this remark, but the fact is, he can barely find time for himself these days. Speaking via phone…
The tastemakers at Spin treat Florida’s Yellowcard as something of a running gag. As an example, lead singer Ryan Key cites an item about a post-MTV Video Music Awards party that was shut down by fire marshals; in it, the writer expressed surprise that bandmembers weren’t allowed to enter due…
By now, you most likely have fully absorbed Double Up, the latest chart-topping treatise from crazed/brilliant R&B lothario R. Kelly. Which means that, despite the current attention lavished on lead single “I’m a Flirt,” you have discovered the record’s true emotional core: the slo-jam ballad “Sex Planet.” “Sex Planet” is…
At my age,” Jason Walker declares, “I don’t know how to approach a band anymore.” At 28, Walker’s not being glib. He’s spent the last half of his life behind a drum set, sweating it out in cramped practice pads and even tighter quarters in vans while on tour. “More…
Interpol’s major-label debut isn’t as monochromatic as its two predecessors. “Pioneer to the Falls,” which channels the stormy textures of the Cure’s Pornography, is possibly the richest song the act has ever recorded, with death-march piano and a giant quivering mass of strings adding counter-melodies that swell in the mid-section…
Billy Corgan likes being famous. Thinking he could take his popularity wherever he wished, he tinkered with the Pumpkins’ sonics before breaking up the band. But following the commercial failure of a side project, Zwan, and a flop 2005 solo disc, he’s returned to the Smashing moniker even though drummer…
With a lineup consisting solely of two bassists and a drummer, you’d be right to assume that GOP@Riot (aka Go Patriot) is heavy. While skinsman Nate Weaver frenetically abuses his kit, Ben Williams and Sean Inman visit all manner of violence on their instruments. Breaking sticks and strings, the trio…
Banjo expert Pete Wernick, of Hot Rize fame, has never been content to imprison himself within genre conventions, even when the style is bluegrass, a format he loves. What The, the focus of a Friday, July 6, CD-release party at Arvada’s D Note, is a typically off-kilter recording that charms…
John Abercrombie, The Third Quartet (ECM). Abercrombie gets introspective on this gorgeous collection, which comprises mostly ballads, but steps it up on “Banshee” and Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip.” Backed once again by Marc Johnson, Mark Feldman and Joey Baron, Abercrombie sounds more relaxed than ever. — Jon Solomon Roni Ben-Hur,…
Boulder has long been known for spawning talented musical acts — and then inspiring them to move on to more welcoming climates. Maybe Chairlift didn’t exactly flee the People’s Republic seeking musical asylum, but it did relocate to Brooklyn. To call the act indie rock or synth pop is to…
Although singer Dallas Taylor is no heathen, Maylene and the Sons of Disaster, his latest band (which shares this bill with Modern Life Is War and Paulson), represents a rather unholy enterprise, and thank God for that. Taylor once pledged allegiance to Underoath, a Christian metal-core act with a sizable…
Over the past five years, renowned U.K. DJ Danny Howells has built a sterling reputation on the strength of his live sets and mix CDs — which straddle the line between deep underground cuts and more accessible tracks — and a series of stellar productions under the moniker Science Dept…
You’ve heard of one-man bands — but one-man glam is something else entirely. On The Moonstation House Band, released earlier this year on the Secretly Canadian label, and a new EP built around the Moonstation single “Nothin’ No,” Vandervelde, who’s based in Chicago, nods to the glitteriest rock of the…
If Richard Simmons swallowed a fistful of hipster pills and started sweating to the indies, Gravy Train!!!! would likely be playing in the background. The Oakland-based foursome has been dishing out its rambunctious electro-kitsch sex pop and whipping crowds into frenzies for more than five years. All the Sweet Stuff,…
This may seem a bit strange, but one of the fondest memories I have of my dad is the time we went to Shotgun Willie’s (490 South Colorado Boulevard) together. I was home from college for the holidays, and we decided to head to the strip club for happy hour…
One of the most amusing trends in the last few years has been the merging of Southern rock and so-called stoner rock. As if we needed the unholy union of Sleep and Molly Hatchet. And yet someone was bound to make it work without sounding like a pack of rednecks…
Each clip is between 20-30 seconds in length Rock Machine Gun Blues The Omens Rose Hill Drive The Swayback Tarmints…
Slide Show Crash Orchid, Go Patriot, The Dirty Novels June 29, 2007 3 Kings Tavern Better than: Missing out on Go Patriot would have been. Friday night at 3 Kings tavern brought a more or less random mix of bands and music fans out. The night started off with Crash…
Slide Show The Heyday with Tickle Me Pink, The Autobiography and The Simple Discussion June 30, 2007 The Marquis Theater Better than: Waiting to see The Heyday until it starts filling arenas. I have seen the future, and it is The Heyday. Hyperbole? Maybe, but it’s hard to overestimate a…
Buzz Bomber & the M-80s Cricket on the Hill Saturday, June 30 Slide Show…
Slide Show The Ideal Fathers, The Classic Breakdown, Racecar God and Latch June 27, 2007 Larimer Lounge Better than: Staying home on a Wednesday night. Wednesday is not an ideal night for four largely unknown local bands to play a show. With no national draw and no big-name Denver act…
All right, so the biggest thing I learned on my summer vacation — er, I mean, at the Westword Music Showcase, which, though always a trip, is far from a retreat for me — is that it’s truly impossible to categorize all the disparate factions of the local scene. While…
