Rock historian Lester Bangs once observed that “rock and roll is the most democratic and all-American of art forms.” What the late, great critic forgot to mention, however, is that it’s also the most fun a young punk-rock insurgent can have without a book of matches. For proof, look no…
Gil Scott-Heron got it wrong when he told us that the revolution would not be televised. It’s been televised repeatedly, and can be witnessed in all its glory in films and videotapes featuring the choreography of Alvin Ailey and performances by artists such as John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis,…
Gil Scott-Heron Spirits (TVT) Gang Starr Hard to Earn (Chrysalis/ERG) You can bet that the members of Gang Starr have worn out a few Gil Scott-Heron albums in their day. Scott-Heron was rapping before hip hop became either fashionable or marketable, and the music that he put to his words…
Old Bull’s Needle vocalist Tim Franklin is a man with a mission: “If there’s one goal in my life as a musician,” he explains, “it’s to get halfway famous enough to meet from Counting Crows–and wring his fucking neck.” Given sentiments like these, it’s doubtful that Franklin and his bandmates…
John Quill sits in his smallish apartment-cum-recording studio in southeast Denver and tries to explain why he’s been producing the weekly radio show Radio Free Colorado for more than four years when the financial rewards have been, to say the least, tiny. He soon discovers that he can’t. “I probably…
In early 1993, when the editors of Musician magazine published their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time, they praised Stanley Jordan as a one-of-a-kind talent whose recent albums “point to a leaner, more spacious style, which only means he’s getting wiser.” But when that article was written,…
L’Impossible Trio, Friday, April 29, at Ricketson Auditorium, is an unlikely Paris-based threesome most stateside listeners have never gotten an opportunity to hear. Guitarist Phillipe Deschepper, tuba player Michael Godard and percussionist Youval Micenmacher began working together in 1988; since then they have conceived original compositions that often combine Middle…
Hole Live Through This (DGC) After weighing what we’ve learned from the celebrity press (now there’s a reliable source), it seems clear that Courtney Love is an erratic wreck of a human being–and since having your husband blow his brains out isn’t exactly a recipe for renewed mental health, she’s…
In February NBC aired a show dubbed The Jackson Family Honors, whose real purpose was to demonstrate that the Jackson family–parents Joseph and Katherine and kids Janet, Michael, Rebbie, Tito, Randy, Jackie, Marlon and Jermaine–weren’t really as dysfunctional as they seemed. Instead, this excruciating program proved that the Jacksons themselves…
Country blues singer-songwriter Rory Block knows how to play with pain. A solo artist who prefers to pick the steel strings of her guitar bare-fingered, she’s been known to perform entire shows at the starts of tours with blood dripping from her hands. Her calluses solidify as her time on…
Jonas Tauber, the 26-year-old principal cellist for the Boulder Philharmonic, has some complaints about the marketing of the classics. “I don’t think classical music is heard enough in an informal setting,” he says. “And usually, it’s extremely expensive. I hate that, too.” For these reasons, Tauber doesn’t limit his playing…
Otis Rush Ain’t Enough Comin’ In (This Way Up/Mercury) If you’re curious as to what blues aficionados mean when they describe guitar solos as “stinging,” pick this up. Rush, who’s worked in something akin to obscurity since the mid-Fifties, is a lethal force, and when he straps on his weapon…
John Porcellino is the Denver music scene’s latest renaissance man. He’s best known as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist for the Felt Pilotes, a jangly local pop band whose other members, like Porcellino, hail from DeKalb, Illinois. But he also runs his own independent record company (Spit and a…
Beck, Friday, April 15, at Ground Zero, has presented a quandary to music-scene observers. They wonder: Is he the new Bob Dylan or the Vanilla Ice of slack? The verdict’s not in yet, but it seems clear from the early reactions to Mellow Gold, the anti-album just released on the…
Fans are comparing him to dead rock stars of the past. Commentators are claiming that his demise stands as the perfect symbol for a generation marked by lowered expectations and a nihilistic world view. Pundits are picking apart his lyrics in search of clues to his desperate final solution. And…
No one can accuse Jello Biafra of being less than bipartisan. His archenemy, George Bush, was ousted from office, but the former Dead Kennedys frontman remains as outraged as ever at the White House’s current resident. “Even I had a little bit of hope this time around, although I couldn’t…
Ted Hawkins The Next Hundred Years (DGC) You would be perfectly justified in assuming that any good reviews given this album would be inspired less by the music than by the personal life of Ted Hawkins, a street performer who has spent most of the past several decades subsisting on…
Oh, my God! They’re coming back! Yes, the bands that ruled the touring circuit during the Seventies and Eighties are returning this summer to a football stadium near you. Set to visit Mile High on June 18 is Pink Floyd, a group that did its best work in the late…
Most members of the Beavis and Butt-head generation believe that when it comes to rock and roll, words suck. It’s hard to argue the contrary: Wretched lyrics abound, from new-age prattle and sleazy backseat boasts to juvenile political pouting. It’s enough to make you wish that more singers would follow…
“We find ourselves caught in the middle of a lot of things,” says Dave Shouse of the Memphis quartet called the Grifters–and considering the guitarist’s gift for making music that borders on the schizophrenic, this claim is a wild understatement. Shouse and his bandmates (guitarist Scott Taylor, bassist Tripp Lampkins…
Elvis Costello Brutal Youth (Warner Bros.) Of course you’ve read those interviews in which Mr. McManus has claimed that this reunion with his original band (the Attractions) and his original producer (Nick Lowe, here relegated to sideman status) was motivated by musical forces, not commercial ones. Still, there’s no denying…
There undoubtedly are some artists from days gone by whose out-of-print recordings haven’t been reissued in the past year, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out who they are. Because of the continuing popularity of the compact-disc revolution, a startling panoply of material is descending upon us–much of…
