James Blood Ulmer Blues Preacher (DIW/Columbia) Ulmer’s music has always been an acquired taste, and he’s never seemed that interested in others acquiring it. Unlike most blues-based players, who frequently claim to be taking tremendous musical risks even as they succumb to the seductions and stereotypes of the genre, Ulmer…
Counting Crows, Saturday, March 5, at the Ogden Theatre, with Cracker, is one of the freshest, most darkly romantic bands to hit the music scene in a long, long time. The songs written by lead singer Adam Duritz, an amazingly keen poet for the under-thirty generation, burst with melancholy thanks…
Given the deluge of so-called new-music acts lately, it’s no wonder many of them sound the same. It seems that too many of these performers are so busy trying to provide an alternative to bland pop music that they’re neglecting to provide an alternative to each other. As Scott McLoud,…
In its rawest form, country-and-western music can be every bit as threatening as punk rock. But now that the genre has hit the mainstream, the outlaw angst of Johnny Cash and George Jones has taken a backseat to the suburban self-pity of trailer-park hacks such as Billy Ray Cyrus and…
The Grammy Awards–or the “Grandma Awards,” as the Beatles dubbed them in the mid-Sixties–have been around for 35 years, yet they continue to be ridiculed by those who feel it’s more important to reward excellence than commercial success. Among the most famous Grammy gaffes: Elvis Costello losing the Best New…
Machines of Loving Grace, with Course of Empire and Stabbing Westward, Saturday, February 26, at the Mercury Cafe, is one of those bands that PMRC moms have to listen to several times before figuring out all the lyrics. But even if Tipper Gore wannabes catch the few dirty words on…
“There was a time in high school when we were into wearing overcoats and looking at our shoes when people took our pictures,” says Kurt Ohlen, bassist for the punk-popsters in Denver’s Hop’d. “But I’d like to think ultimately that punk rock has more to do with being true to…
To get the scoop on the Meters, you need to talk to the right people. Ask an aficionado of early New Orleans blues rock and he’ll tell you that the Meters were, with Allen Toussaint and Lee Dorsey, the originators of this timeless sound. Ask a Neville Brothers fan and…
The time was 1978, and Carlene Carter was young, nervy and unafraid to say anything at any time. Her debut album, a self-titled affair released by Warner Bros., had turned critics’ heads in part because of her distinguished accompanists (her backing band on the record included members of the Rumour,…
Roy Hargrove, Wednesday, February 16, through Friday, February 18, at the St. Petersburg Jazz Club and Restaurant, 4851 East Virginia Avenue, is among the new and improved crop of even younger “young lions” aiming to fulfill the promises made by their most recent predecessors. At 23, this retro-bop trumpeter is…
Various Artists Stone Free: A Tribute to Jimi Hendrix (Reprise) Beautiful People If 60’s Were 90’s (Continuum) We, the members of the record-buying public, have been deluged with more than enough tribute albums lately–enough, at least, to know that they don’t work very well when the albums’ performers think their…
By mid-1993, Phantasmorgasm had evolved into a remarkable band, capable of blending rap, rock, metal and practically anything else that wasn’t nailed down into an utterly original whole. Which is why it seemed so inexplicable to many local-scene observers that on July 22 of last year at a low-key Skyline…
By The new album by old-school rapper Schooly D, entitled Welcome to America, neatly encapsulates the plusses and minuses of so-called gangsta rap. Producers Schooly D (born Jesse B. Weaver Jr.) and Mike Tyler achieve a harrowing sound throughout; the focus is on dark, bass-driven grooves that give the title…
All right, let’s get this out of the way right from the start: Candlebox is from Seattle. But vocalist Kevin Martin insists that Candlebox isn’t a typical Seattle band. In fact, the group–whose music critics describe as grunge, metal and alternative, while Martin calls it “real, honest rock”–got very little…
Alice in Chains Jar of Flies (Columbia) Wherein another conglomeration of grunge heroes tries to prevent its career from dribbling away into an increasingly irrelevant pool of stereotypes. But unlike Nirvana, which established its credibility last time around by releasing a disc (In Utero) so calculatingly grating that it separated…
It’s an early January evening at the Red Lion Hotel, and several dozen board members and buyers associated with the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo are auditioning local talent hoping to perform during the 1994 edition of the event. The audience members–mostly aging, rough-edged types wearing their best cowboy hats…
Miles Hunt, the lead singer-songwriter for the wiseacre Brit-pop group the Wonder Stuff, claims that he gets too embarrassed to sing love songs, but that’s not entirely accurate. True, most of the songs on the four albums his band has recorded for the Polygram label since 1986 avoid sappy lyrics…
As the ashes from the Seattle music-scene explosion settle, record company executives and journalists are clawing through the debris in search of the next hotbed of underground music. So far, Chicago, Portland and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, have all been considered potential usurpers to the throne. And now, thanks in…
Material Hallucination Engine (Axiom) Producer/bassist Bill Laswell is a major talent, but his conceptual skills are spotty: For every intriguing album he’s put together under the Material banner, there’s another one that never lived up to expectations. So it comes as a wonderful surprise that Hallucination Engine stands as Laswell’s…
While most musicians don’t mind getting great reviews, they’re not nearly so enthusiastic about being saddled with a reputation as a so-called “critics’ band.” The reason? Printed praise from erudite little twerps like yours truly may be good for the ego, but it seldom translates into simoleons. Moreover, the people…
“I still don’t know why you want to talk to me,” says Denver singer-songwriter-producer Bob Tyler. “I don’t feel famous.” Perhaps not, but he certainly is busy. When it comes to Colorado’s music scene, Tyler’s got his hand in more pies than Marie Callender. He hosts the Swallow Hill Music…
“It seems like a lot of bands are in the grunge mode–everyone’s pissed and angry and punk,” says Rob Zabrecky, bassist/vocalist for a pleasantly strange new act called Possum Dixon. “But you can do all that and still have a sense of humor.” The ability to laugh is a requirement…
