Freddy Rodriguez Sr. & the Jazz Connection at El Chapultepec

Freddy Rodriguez Sr. and the Jazz ConnectionWednesday, November 26, 2008El ChapultepecBetter than: Celebrating Thanksgiving Eve with critical in-laws.Atmosphere makes a difference.I’ve attended countless shows where the skill and power of a performer has failed to make up for obnoxious concertgoers, cramped quarters, poor lighting schemes or bad sound. Fortunately, the…

Jimmy Gnecco’s sound is all Ours

Jimmy Gnecco isn’t a tortured artist. Despite how he’s been portrayed by critics and perceived by fans, the Ours frontman isn’t particularly in love with his pain, nor does he need to feel tormented to write. But considering the turmoil he’s endured over the years — from dealing with paralyzing…

Bottoms — or heads — up at the Retro Room

I haven’t had anyone cut my hair since I bought some electric clippers more than a decade ago. Although that $20 investment has saved me hundreds of dollars in the years since, I still miss my last barber. He was from the old school; after finishing a trim, he’d slap…

Temples at the Larimer Lounge

As the visionary guitar wizard in Moth Eater, Kevin Richards established a unique sound. Grounded in an understanding of jazz guitar filtered through experimental improvisational music and a post-hardcore aesthetic, Richards’s playing seems to recognize no distinct sonic boundary. Temples (due at the Larimer Lounge on Friday, November 28) is…

DJ Colette at Bar Standard

DJ Colette is not just another pretty face. She’s a pretty face, a sultry, gorgeous voice and some serious DJ skills all wrapped up in one seriously kick-ass package. She’s a Chicago native who draws on her home town’s rich house history, then pushes the electronics to the front and…

Wetlands is awfully grown up, Babies Teeth and all

From its dada-esque lyrics to its soaring, scintillating rock epics, Wetlands shows a great deal of artistic maturity for a band that has only formally been together since October 2007. Its new album, Babies Teeth, is a marvel of intricate rhythms, sonic textures and expansive moods. Though there is a…

TaunTaun

When looking at a disassembled car engine, it may seem improbable that all those tiny pieces of scrap metal could one day be constructed into something powerful. The same can be said looking at the pieces of TaunTaun. With acts such as the Gamits, Rocky Votolato, Sleeper Horse and Uphollow…

Rabbit Is a Sphere

This followup to Rabbit Is a Sphere’s fantastic debut, Laps in the Sleep Salon, is a shorter and decidedly more moody offering. “Dispatch” opens the disc with a fragmenting, luminous fog that evolves into an electrifying rocker, bursting the poetic angst of its lyrics with sheer urgency; it ends with…

Jason Cain

You probably know Jason Cain as the emotive auteur who stands — or, lately, sits — in front of Astrophagus. On his first solo CD, the singer-songwriter worked with Brian Gerhard at Helmet Room Studios to strip four thematically related songs down to their core of Cain’s minimalist strumming and…

Overcasters

Kurt Ottaway has been earning praise in this publication since fronting Twice Wilted in the ’80s — and why stop now? The debut by Overcasters, his latest project, isn’t a radical departure from TW or the Tarmints, a subsequent group. Rather than self-consciously attempting to seem au courant, Ottaway and…

Negativland

Four years after U2 released The Joshua Tree, Negativland released an EP titled U2. The EP, which included a parody of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” could easily have been mistaken for another U2 album, since “U2” took up nearly the entire cover of the album and…

The Ghost Inside

In a recent YouTube interview, the members of the Ghost Inside talk about how saturated the metal-core scene is right now, and that’s no exaggeration. Hell, this bill co-stars three other genre practitioners, each of whom try to set themselves apart using different methods. For example, England’s Bring Me the…

Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk

Lawrence, Kansas, is an unlikely little pocket of American Bohemia tucked into the heart of the Midwest. So it should come as no surprise that it has its own nascent music scene, which includes the likes of Baby Birds Don’t Drink Milk. Oftentimes the most visible bands from out-of-the-way places…

Brujeria

Brujeria, appearing with Cephalic Carnage and Valiomierda, is a supergroup of sorts — and a bizarre one at that. A who’s who from the extreme-metal genre have gone through the lineup since the late ’80s, including past or future members of Fear Factory, Possessed, Faith No More and plenty of…

Swedish dance bands: Your pre-vacation time waster has arrived

The day is almost over, which means your Thanksgiving vacation has almost started. All you have to do is get through these last few hours without doing any work and blessed release will have arrived. Don’t worry, I’m here to help with this link to photos of Swedish dance bands…

Pre-turkey day debauchery

With the holidays officially kicking tomorrow, what better way to start of turkey day with a hangover from a lot of partying tonight. Here are a few Thanksgiving eve suggestions:Rockbar (3015 E. Colfax Avenue) will be dubbed Plymouth Rockbar for its Thanksgiving eve kegger. We’re talking five kegs of beer…

Live review: AC/DC and The Answer at the Pepsi Center

Photo: Chad Fahnestock AC/DC and The Answer Pepsi Center November 25 The crowd at the Pepsi Center last night for AC/DC’s first Denver concert in seven years resembled the ones that gather for Oakland Raiders games. It looked like everyone incarcerated at the state’s prisons had been given a one-day…

Vintage Q&A with AC/DC’s Brian Johnson

Sunday’s AC/DC concert — reviewed in the blog “Live Review: AC/DC and The Answer at the Pepsi Center” — conjures up memories of the Q&A with the band’s Brian Johnson that Westword published under the headline “Power Age” back in April 2001. It’s among my favorite interviews ever — and…