“When we started out, our major goal was to do a regular night at the Holiday Inn,” says the Gambler, drummer for Denver’s Ruby My Dear. “That would be the pinnacle of success for us.” “And if we really made it,” pianist Simon Cushing adds, “a night at the Brown…
Meet Joe Christ. Mr. Christ, as the New York Times would refer to him, is a musician and filmmaker to whom the term “notorious” may safely be applied. Communion in Room 410, the 1988 short film that made him a hero to gore cognoscenti, is a case in point. “I…
Salif Keita “Folon”…the Past (Mango) Observers who argue that blending music from different regions or cultures can’t help but dilute its impact should spend an hour or so with this disc, a global hodgepodge of sounds and influences that is marvelously inventive and undeniably coherent. Keita, an Albino activist from…
The ‘Vengers, Friday, February 16, at Soapy Smith’s, make music that’s tough to sit through: The combination of their burbling ska riddims, infectious horn blats, spirited singing and commitment to constant onstage motion is capable of causing even the most devoted wallflower to get up and skank. The act’s debut…
“I hear they’ve got some phat rides in Japan,” says Paul Lopez, aka Pauli P, half of the Denver rap duo called Deuce Mob. “Yeah, they’re shipping cars over from here,” elaborates Pauli’s partner, Fabian Garcia (stage moniker: DJ Fame). “They’ve got, like, $80,000 Impalas there, and all the guys…
“People come to me when they need a certain type of spiritual help,” says the Reverend Dr. Marjorie Williams-Cooper. “What I do is cast out devils, stuff like that. That area. People come to me saying they are being oppressed, attacked or even possessed by demons. Or maybe their house…
Arlo Guthrie, Saturday, February 17, at the Boulder Theater, has accomplished far more in his career than writing “Alice’s Restaurant” nearly thirty years ago. He’s also created a body of work strong enough to move him out of the enormous shadow cast by his father, folk legend Woody Guthrie. His…
Pizzicato Five The Sound of Music by Pizzicato Five (Matador) Self-conscious camp is a volatile commodity. If practitioners of same spend too much time winking at their audience, they wind up as more intellectual versions of “Weird” Al Yankovic (and we all know how sought-after that distinction is). But a…
The morning after, Lemmy Kilmister, age fifty, is doing his best to remember the night before. As usual, Lemmy’s band, Motorhead, is on tour, but there was no show the previous evening. Rather than catch up on his rest, however, Lemmy abandoned his New Orleans hotel around nightfall and cruised…
Chris Romero, frontman for the Brighton-based band Sick, may not be the only rocker to support his music by doubling as a hit man, but he’s probably the first to boast about it. Of course, Romero’s work as an assassin is only an act; he has a small but important…
Irene Farrera, Friday, February 9, at Swallow Hill Music Hall, is certainly ambitious; the singer/guitarist says her main musical objective is to “change the minds of the world’s racists, homophobes and political and religious fanatics.” Fortunately, this heavy agenda is presented in a fascinating manner. Born in Venezuela but based…
Celeste Krenz, Saturday, February 10, at the Bluebird Theater, with the Tyler Brothers, is slowly but surely gaining acceptance from a notoriously fickle segment of her audience: radio programmers. Slow Burning Flame, Krenz’s latest CD, has found favor at stations experimenting with Americana, a format that’s proven to be a…
Genius/GZA Liquid Swords (Geffen) Hip-hop’s in a bad place right now. There’s still plenty of kick left in the style, but by using up the prevalent imagery before they’d found something to take its place, new rappers and old have painted themselves into a creative corner. This self-proclaimed Genius (a…
Damon Albarn, lead singer and songwriter for England’s Blur, is sitting on a London film set, where the video for his band’s next single, “Charmless Man” (from last year’s album The Great Escape), is being shot. Albarn acknowledges that the clip–which involves “a slightly psychotic twentysomething businessman who’s haunted by…
“I do sit down to work on songs,” notes slide guitarist Ben Harper, “but really, songs sit me down and say, `It’s time to write.’ When I see something that needs to be written about, I write about it. When I feel something I need to express, music is the…
Since 1986, Niwot-based banjoist and bandleader Pete Wernick has been president of the International Bluegrass Association, located in scenic Owensboro, Kentucky. He’s eminently qualified for the post: He’s been a professional bluegrass musician for more than a quarter-century, and because of his membership in Hot Rize, a Colorado quartet that…
La Musgana, 8 p.m. Friday, February 2, at Cameron Church, is a quartet from Leon, Spain, that specializes in European folk sounds rarely heard in these parts–Castilian, Andalusian, Galician and Murcian styles that are rooted in music brought to Spain by gypsies, Celts, Moors and Basques. That description aside, the…
Colcannon, Sunday, February 4, at the Left Hand Grange Hall in Niwot, makes Celtic folk music of an especially passionate and moving stripe, and this quality has been captured beautifully on the act’s latest recording, The Life of Riley’s Brother. Produced by Tim O’Brien, the disc finds the group (Mick…
Gladhand, Saturday, January 27, at the Mercury Cafe, is made up of five rather modest folks: The closest thing to a boast bassist Mike Brown can come up with after being asked about new and exciting happenings involving the band is, “Well, we’re going to have T-shirts soon.” So you’ll…
Every Wednesday night, Tulagi, one of Boulder’s most venerable rock clubs, gets a new look. Seventies-era furniture supplements its usual decor, as do tapestries and murals enhanced by black lights. The audience is different, too: A visitor might see anyone from Shaggy-bearded hippies to the latest fashion victims of gangsta…
In last year’s made-for-cable movie Tad, Kris Kristofferson portrayed Abraham Lincoln. Given his strong, rough-hewn features, stern mannerisms and deep, raspy voice, the casting was perfect–too perfect, perhaps. After a quarter-century spent on screens big and small, Kristofferson is so readily identifiable as an often-stone-faced actor that a sizable percentage…
Tom Russell, with Nancy Cook, Saturday, January 27, at Swallow Hill Music Hall, is another of those artists who’s discovered that the gap between folk and country is, commercially speaking, a chasm. While Russell’s songs have been successfully covered by artists such as Joe Ely and Nanci Griffith, his own…
