Denver’s Big Mike is not a man wanting for confidence. In describing the sort-of rebirth of his best-known band, Phantasmorgasm, he declares, “On a pompous, pretentious note, it’s my intention to reclaim Denver from the dregs–from how dismal the scene around here has become.” He declines to elaborate on this…
To many observers, the 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate sect who recently committed suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, are tragic figures. To the Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, they’re something more: material. The good reverend, who specializes in comic entertainment of an especially Southern-fried sort, has already been working…
At this writing, the biggest name in country music is LeeAnn Rimes, a teenager whose handlers have managed to parlay her precocious Patsy Cline impressions into an incredibly lucrative debut album (Blue is triple platinum and still going strong), a Grammy for Best New Artist and a series of television…
“What we do could be interpreted as R&B in spirit,” explains Gregg Foreman, guitarist and vocalist for the Delta 72. “But it’s definitely not R&B in its purest form. I don’t think anybody is going to confuse us with Sam and Dave or Babyface.” Amen to that. Even though The…
Big Head Todd & the Monsters Beautiful World (Revolution) A new Big Head Todd album? Well, sort of. These are certainly new songs–or at least songs that haven’t turned up on previous albums credited to the band. (Three cuts bear 1989 copyrights.) And they’ve been produced by a new guy–the…
Since making his major-label debut in 1991, Lee Roy Parnell has been an unexpectedly fresh presence on hit country radio. With his trademark slide guitar and soulful voice, he has served up four discs of a unique brand of bluesy C&W that stands out among the watered-down country pop currently…
As you know, Boulder is a community that tends to attract unique personalities–like Heaven’s Gate guru Marshall Applewhite, for one. But Applewhite’s wide-eyed, flighty blather about UFOs and recycling your containers represents only one of the city’s many facets. Eric Stenslo of Boulder-based Napalm Records America epitomizes another, far different…
The members of Boulder’s Cabaret Diosa rarely refer to themselves as a band. Rather, they see the aggregation as a place, like a Latin Brigadoon or Shangri-La that exists as if by magic for a night and then is gone again: a luxuriant, recurrent dream. “I’m totally in love with…
Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, is a provocateur. Plenty of hip-hop artists are dismayed by what’s happening to their chosen musical form, but most take a cautious, it’s-all-good approach to remarking about it in the press. By contrast, Shadow goes out of his way to twist his blade in hip-hop’s…
At their Saturday, March 29, concert at the DU Fieldhouse, the Samples will consist of Sean Kelly, Andy Sheldon, Jeep MacNichol and Al Laughlin. If you like this lineup, make sure to check out the show–because this is the last local concert to feature it. No, the Samples aren’t breaking…
From the looks of Agniezska Rybska, Melora Creager and Julia Kent, the three cellists who make up New York’s Rasputina, it would be easy to assume that they would be happiest at home, clad in corsets and tatted organdy in dim drawing rooms like the women of delicacy and refinement…
Putnam Murdock, guitarist and vocalist for Boulder’s Chief Broom, is not an especially earnest student, but he has learned something important during his time at the University of Colorado in Boulder. “As I grow older,” he says, “I’m realizing that there’s no real point to college.” Luckily for Murdock (and…
Never underestimate the power of a bad review. Judge Roughneck, widely regarded as Denver’s premier ska ensemble, is living proof. Before winding up on the receiving end of a particularly vituperative slam, the act was a hobby–a cover band that Byron Shaw, former leader of the Jonez, saw as an…
U2 Pop (Island) The hype, the hype, the hype. Regular reports over the course of a year about the making of U2’s latest–who was producing, who was mixing, who was standing in the spotlight, who was standing on the sideline. Internet leaks (which were probably intentional). Cease-and-desist orders (which were…
Most musicians are more comfortable talking about music than merchandising–but not Al Ferguson. When discussing Fascinating Rhythm, a group whose name he likes so much that he’s had it trademarked, the Denver-based Ferguson often sounds more like the head of an advertising firm than a creative artist. “My objective with…
A few days before the beginning of this year’s South by Southwest Music Festival, I told vocalist Myshel Prasad, who was set to showcase with her band, Space Team Electra, that she would likely hear some truly inspirational music during her time at the annual Austin, Texas, blowout. But as…
Triumphs may be the current motorcycle of choice among members of the posh Hollywood set, but mention the “T” word to Zeke frontman Blind Marky Felchtone and you’re likely to get clobbered. “I just can’t get behind anything that pisses oil and was designed on the back of a cigarette…
“We are the guardians of the faithful,” declares Fletcher Neeley, guitarist for the Emirs. “We are fine purveyors of Mile High City mayhem since 1972.” Like most of the claims made by Neeley, this one isn’t exactly a paragon of accuracy: In 1972 the only mayhem he was purveying was…
The four men in the band Live are not what you’d call innovators: If they’ve ever had an original thought, they apparently have not seen fit to share it with the general public. But even if they’re not stellar when it comes to making fresh music, they at least have…
“I don’t think most people understand electronic music,” says Clark Nelson, aka Clark ov Saturn, a vocalist and programmer for Denver’s LD-50. “Some people think that you turn on the keyboard like a Casio and press the start button and it just does its own little thing.” LD-50 delivers far…
For years locals have dreamed about a “Denver sound” that would help establish the Colorado musical universe in the minds of talent scouts and A&R types associated with the record industry. But even though the lack of such a sonic signature may be partly responsible for the low profiles of…
When the readers of Guitar Player magazine named English guitarist Adrian Legg’s 1992 album Guitar for Mortals the acoustic record of the year over competition that included the Eric Clapton disc Unplugged, many of them probably assumed that Legg had roots in the art-rock supergroups of the Seventies. But Legg,…
