Julian Cope Autogeddon (American) Anyone who wants to know a little bit more about the fine line between insanity and genius would do well to give this a listen. The esteemed Mr. Cope is certainly capable of making accessible pop: He manned the defunct British act Teardrop Explodes during an…
Author Gertrude Stein wrote that all vigorous art is irritating–and once it ceases to be irritating and becomes pleasant, it is no longer of any use. The members of Instrument Panel, an aleatory Boulder-based quartet committed to turning any sound into music, couldn’t agree more. “We are dealing with pure…
Joe Escalante, bassist and founder of the Vandals, knows something about real punk rockers, in part because he and his bandmates (guitarist Warren Fitzgerald, vocalist Dave Quackenbush and drummer Josh Freese) have seen their share of poseurs. ” used to go to high school with Warren,” he says by way…
So you’re an affluent young professional. You’re smart, attractive–a doer, not a couch potato. You never forget to separate your recyclables, and you make sure that your Lexus is in perfect tune to keep air pollution to a minimum. You may be in your late thirties now, but you’re still…
The news media seemingly has given as much coverage to last weekend’s Woodstock II as was paid to the Normandy Invasion. Countless articles and radio and TV broadcasts have inundated us with everything we could ever want to know about the performers and participants at the original 1969 Woodstock, as…
The pop landscape isn’t exactly crowded with divas. While the Sixties produced Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross and other flamboyant goddesses on earth, the current decade seems destined to be remembered as a time when many female performers preferred toughness and outrageous behavior to ease and grace. For example, it’s hard…
For the last couple of years, the Gin Blossoms have seen more of the road than Bob Hope in his prime. Since the 1992 release of the album New Miserable Experience, the Tempe, Arizona-based quintet–vocalist Robin Wilson, guitarist/vocalist Jesse Valenzuela, lead guitarist Scott Johnson, drummer Phillip Rhodes and bassist Bill…
Manu DiBango, Friday, August 19, at the Ogden Theatre, has a lot of famous friends, many of whom appear on his latest Giant Records release, Wakafrika. But in spite of the presence of Peter Gabriel, Sinead O’Connor, King Sunny Ade, Youssou N’ Dour and Ladysmith Black Mambazo, DiBango holds the…
Things are not always what they seem–especially when it comes to Smackjacket’s John Bogovich. On the surface, this 26-year-old vocalist/ guitarist seems the epitome of Nineties hard-rock nihilism: His scalp is shaved, his ears sport large, primitive earrings that look as if they were ordered from the back pages of…
Various Artists The Lion King: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Walt Disney) On the heels of the relatively strong material from Beauty and the Beast and the okay tunes from Aladdin come the generally treacly songs from the faux-Bambi currently monopolizing the screens at your neighborhood multiplex. Elton John wrote…
“Most rockabilly bands don’t really like us,” says Rex Moser, guitarist and lead warbler for the Denver-based punkabilly trio known as the Throttlemen. Given the threesome’s irreverent passion for grafting traditional rockabilly riffs onto accelerated punk-rock tempos, it’s not surprising that many local rockabilly disciples have a problem with them…
Singer-songwriter Freedy Johnston owes much of his newfound prominence to the fledgling Adult Album Alternative (or Triple A) radio format birthed by Boulder’s KBCO-FM–and he knows it. But that doesn’t mean he spends a lot of time absorbing music made by the other artists whose careers have been boosted by…
In the world of hip hop, too many performers think that playing sampled funk grooves behind their own bad raps magically transforms them into composers. Mel Simpson, the producer and conceptualist behind the jazzy hip-hop project called Us3, disagrees. He feels that brand of rap is a rip. “So many…
Marilyn Manson Portrait of an American Family (Interscope/nothing) If this is a legitimate effort to piss people off, it’s a failure: Although borrowing pseudonyms from serial killers (bandmembers here include Daisy Berkowitz, Madonna Wayne Gacy and Twiggy Ramirez) may upset a certain percentage of elderly schoolteachers, the rest of us…
To Rivers Cuomo, singer and guitarist for the L.A.-based guitar pop band called Weezer, the glass is half empty. “I’m a real pessimist,” Cuomo says in a dour monotone. “When we put out this record, I thought everyone would completely ignore it.” The four Weezers (Cuomo, bassist Matt Sharp, drummer…
As members of the Lost Angel Stone Ensemble, Boulderites Tom Wasinger and Jesse Manno play with rocks–literally. With the exception of melodic fragments produced on a small jade ocarina, their music is performed entirely on resonating stones. “There’s not anybody who makes instruments out of rocks anywhere in the world–at…
Just like the lunchroom staple for which he’s named, Meat Loaf is a mixture of many elements. The one he seems to prefer is rebellion: By way of explaining the course of his career to date, the once-rotund retro rocker says, “I’ve always swum upstream.” Born in Texas, the former…
There was a time when the idea of the Who’s vocalist, Roger Daltrey, teaming in concert with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra to perform “the songs of Pete Townshend” would have sounded like a comic’s satirical prediction. During their heyday, Sixties rockers struck most of us as the last performers who…
“We’re the most insecure band in Denver,” says Heather Dalton, vocalist for the Shrinking Violets. Adds Alex Slagg, the group’s guitarist: “I think one of our strengths is that we’re our own worst critics as far as stage performance, writing and practicing.” That’s saying something in light of the reviews…
James Brown knows what he wants to say and he’s going to say it whether you like it or not. Ask him virtually any question and he’s apt to answer with something like this: “I’m a man from the other side of the tracks who’s come back and changed the…
“In Ted’s world, we want the death penalty to be imposed at the scene of the crime,” says veteran guitar-slinger Ted Nugent in a voice somewhere between a bark and a howl. “The only good bad guy is a dead bad guy. You want to rape my daughter, you’re a…
Vince Bell Phoenix (Watermelon) Bell’s singing is quite ordinary: He delivers most of these eleven fascinating songs in a voice he seemingly forgot to clear several years ago. And that, believe it or don’t, is one of the primary reasons Phoenix is so effective. The musicians who accompany this obscure…
