The bar at the Skylark Lounge shows every one of its 59 years. In front of each vintage stool that lines the long, Formica countertop, faded, worn-away patches suggest the oily and beery hands of patrons who’ve been saddling up for a setup since the early ’40s, when the lounge…
Acoustic Syndicate plays newgrass music for the attention-deficit set, often moving from funk and reggae to rock and plain old blue Kentucky soul within the space of one elongated jam. It’s a fusion that’s found the North Carolina-based quartet a hearty following among Front Range fans of musical mishmash. The…
Local audiences first came to know Liza Oxnard as the gutsy vocalist for Zuba, a position she enjoyed for more than eight years. But after that group disbanded, the singer, guitarist and songwriter decided to strike out on her own, rather than retreat into the past. So far, she seems…
At one time, people tuned in to see whether Evel Knievel would clear the fountains at Caesar’s Palace on a speeding motorcycle or shatter every bone in his body trying. And even though it was much more compelling to imagine Knievel bouncing along the pavement like a lifeless rag doll…
Most Denverites have, at one point, shared buildings with a beginning guitarist, flutist or, worse, a drummer — poor souls who engender neighborly scorn, as well as mighty calluses, during their early stages of life as a musician. But there are many local artists whom you’d actually want to have…
Ah, the holidays. For Backwash, the annual Christmastime pilgrimage to my home town of Phoenix almost always involves some exploration of the endless dive bars that line the city’s central corridor, wood-paneled places with pickled eggs on the counter and equally vile specimens on the jukebox. Because I long ago…
For an evening of intimate chamber jazz, Ron Miles (pictured) and Bill Frisell join forces as a trumpet/guitar duo on Friday, January 3, at the Old Main Chapel at the University of Colorado — Boulder. Part of the ongoing Coalition for Creative Music series, this pairing of gentle souls promises…
The clouds have parted for Against Tomorrow’s Sky. Already a darling of music fans in Colorado Springs, the band recently wowed indie label Universal Warning into releasing its first CD, Jump the Hedges, and backing a Midwestern tour. Alternating the skills of Jeff Fuller and Mike Stevens on guitar and…
Musically, the pallindromic 2002 was much like any other, just with slightly different outfits and different purty colors flashing on MTV. There was some really great stuff released, as well as some truly awful dreck. Most of the hundreds of thousands of CDs released in the world fell somewhere in…
Since pointy-headed son of Dixie Trent Lott was forced to turn in his bullwhip last week (reduced to a lowly Senator in a Grand Dragon costume), the Mississippi tourism board might consider letting their prize goofball moonlight as a spokesperson for the state’s regional delicacy: largemouth bass. The Magnolia State…
Ross Kersten probably owes Paul Westerberg about six million beers. As the leader of the LaDonnas through the ’90s, the Wisconsin-born singer-guitarist crafted a deliciously rambunctious, lager-laced rock-and-roll sound that owed more than an aesthetic debt to the Replacements. (The band’s cover of “Can’t Hardly Wait” became a live staple.)…
When Bill Hill was first given the gift of music, he didn’t want it. In 1995, while he recovered from hand surgery, a friend gave him a plastic recorder. The instrument, familiar to elementary-school music students the world over, was intended as a simple therapeutic tool to help Hill exercise…
Love reigned supreme during Samsonite and Delight-Ya’s recent tour through the cold corridors of Oregon State Hospital, the stark and unpredictable location where Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was filmed in 1975. Rather than butt heads in mortal combat, the large inflatable Godzillas that accompanied the duo…
During musical periods when no single genre dominates, artists often look to earlier styles for inspirations — and judging by Electro Nouveau and We Are Science, synth pop, that most quintessentially ’80s of approaches, is getting ready for another close-up. Whether this news is good or grisly is up to…
Cry, the fifth album by country singer Faith Hill, opens with a loud crash of drums, a throbbing electric bass and a screeching electric guitar. The song is called “Free,” and it’s about liberating oneself from the chains of the past. The point is obvious: Hill wants to shed her…
When talking roots, it’s hard to get farther down the musical tree than Africa. So when searching for rootsy compositions evocative of deep blue seas, rural villages where chickens cluck about the streets and a soulful spirituality far removed from the media-saturated din of contemporary life, your first stop should…
Vincent Gallo once described himself as the kind of guy who’d attend a football game in a visiting uniform and cheer until he got killed. Divisive as a portcullis with the stare of Rasputin, the Buffalo-bred director/actor /composer has certainly garnered his fair share of praise and scorn over the…
The Colorado Music Association unveiled its Music Directory at a holiday party this past Sunday, passing out copies of the comprehensive talent guide. The directory, more than two years in the making, lists the vital statistics of as many working bands and artists as COMA was able to gets its…
Annie Quick, who appears Thursday, December 19, at Ziggie’s Saloon, has a way of both blending into and stepping out of her environment. Her band, Stickman Jones, shed its hippie upbringing when it moved from Santa Cruz to New York City in 1997. Surging with the flash and urban energy…
Blister 66 has attained a musical fluidity that allows it to change with the tides — as well as trends in mainstream commercial rock. Today the band’s lineup is almost completely different from the one that unleashed a rap-metal mélange on Denver in the late ’90s. Yet the big prize…
There’s a fine line between punk-rock recklessness and downright criminal behavior. It’s a line the Otter Popps have crossed on more than one occasion. “After our shows, we used to go out and light fires,” says Myke Martinez, the trio’s frontman and guitarist. “We’ve all been in the clink before.”…
ost Americans have a love-hate relationship with yuletide music. They can’t imagine the season without it, but they sometimes wish they could. Such conflicting emotions are easy to understand after plowing through the more than thirty holiday platters that made their way to our door this year. As usual, the…
