For many of the performers who shlep down to Austin for the South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival each year in search of that elusive label deal, the effort rarely amounts to more than a long journey back to Mississauga, Canada, or Aliceville, Alabama, or Dayton, Ohio, or Vienna,…
True confessions time: I found 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, Morissette’s blockbuster first album, to be about as much fun as a sesame seed wedged so tightly between two teeth that no amount of flossing can dislodge it. Likewise, the 1999 McNichols Arena concert the warbler headlined in support of disc…
When Hot Rize, the great Colorado bluegrass band, got back together for a reunion concert at the Boulder Theater six years ago, Nick Forster, the group’s bass player, had the foresight to record the show. Then he lost the tapes. Luckily, his wife, Helen, discovered them in a closet of…
With so much music out there, one of the hardest things for a band to do is find an original sound — so more power to those who try diligently to stand apart from everyone else. But there’s also something to be said for continuity, for not turning 180 degrees…
Designed partly to pump up the reputation of Costello’s latter-day compositions, these re-releases backfire by facilitating direct comparisons between the former Declan Patrick McManus at his best and worst. On the “best” side, Aim and Model stand as collectors’ money shots, sporting bonus tracks and demos from as far back…
It’s been a big week for Big Head Todd and the Monsters: The locally bred band released Riviera, its first recorded effort since 1998’s Live Monsters, on Tuesday, March 26. Note for note, the album is as solid — if not more so — than Sister Sweetly, the major-label release…
The Eels have been invisible on the mainstream radar since their 1996 hit “Novocaine for the Soul.” If the appearance of the band’s enigmatic singer-songwriter E (Mark Oliver Everett) is any indication, the Eels have had no trouble embracing their status as commercial outcasts: These days, E is rocking a…
Funk’s good name is sometimes tarnished by fusion bands who think all the genre requires is a fat bass line, a funny name and a “Brick House” cover. Buckner Funken Jazz, which appears Friday, March 29, at Herman’s Hideaway with the Funky Babylonians and the Fabulous Boogienaughts, rectifies this situation…
Every young artist must try to climb Olympus, mix it up with the gods and maybe hang around for dinner. For Pat Bianchi, a 26-year-old jazz organist who means to make his mark, the big moment will come this week on funky old Larimer Street, when he plays a concert…
To paraphrase LL Cool J, Nas doesn’t want people to call his return a comeback, since he’s been here for years. But hip-hop addicts don’t see things this way and never have. “Every time I make an album, they’re always saying, ‘He’s coming back,'” grumbles the rapper during a recent…
These days, Tim Rutili is as busy as a one-armed monkey at a flea festival. He’s not only juggling parenthood and the planning of Califone’s three-week tour to the West coast and back, but also overseeing the operations of Perishable Records, a small, Chicago-based indie label that he co-owns with…
When Drag the River’s Jon Snodgrass describes an incident on a recent tour, it sounds a little bit like a David Lynch movie that was never made. During the last leg of the regional jaunt, a broken-down van was the catalyst for a nightmare freak show in a New Mexico…
The rest of the world knows something about Americans that we prefer to deny: We are lazy slouches. We’re good at plenty of things, yes, but we’re generally wary of pursuits that require intensive training, discipline or any physical discomfort. We can’t really be blamed, though. As a culture, we’re…
The Starlight Drifters, Wednesday, March 27, at the Buffalo Rose in Golden and Thursday, March 28, at the Skylark Lounge, separate themselves from the pompadoured pack with one singular force: guitarist Chris Casello, one of the finest pickers in rockabilly/country circles. His immense arsenal of styles brims with snippets of…
Ultimate Music Xperience, Saturday, March 23, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday, March 24, from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., at the Soiled Dove, is a marathon audition for acts hoping to play the annual People’s Fair, which funds the mighty civic efforts of Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods…
Performers frequently overflow with contradictions, but few are as consistently enigmatic as keyboardist Herbie Hancock. He’s won steady acclaim in the jazz arena, as well as intermittent scorn for venturing outside it — but that hasn’t stopped him from eagerly delving into popular styles as disparate as classical and hip-hop…
Given the pedigree of Le Tigre’s three players, it’s not surprising that they’re poised as she-roes for feminists of generations X and Y. Kathleen Hanna, unofficial leader of the riot-grrrl movement spawned in the Pacific Northwest in the early ’90s, formed Le Tigre in 1999 after the dissolution of garage…
Imagine yourself an astronaut adrift in space. Your ship just blew up. You’ve been jettisoned into emptiness with only an eggshell of oxygen between you and eternity. After that first sunburst of panic, an icy resignation washes over you. You look down at the spacesuit enshrouding your body. You read…
Becoming a critics’ fave can be like moving into a posh but virtually inescapable prison cell, and Chambers is apt to wind up with such a sentence. After all, her music is often described as “alternative country,” which has proven to be as big a turn-on for mainstream record buyers…
With Ryan Adams currently anointed as the commercial savior of roots rock, can Hoge’s ascension be far behind? Since taking up music professionally in the late ’90s, the singer has already evoked favorable comparisons to Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and every other sweaty bar-room bard to come before or after…
Madame Andrews possesses a heavenly voice that’s mightier than Goliath yet as supple as Halle Berry’s skin. Known as the “Gospel Queen of Denver” — a title that she says was bestowed upon her by the Lord through a divine communiqué — she has spent a couple of decades as…
Leftover Salmon fans have done their band proud. When word spread that banjo player Mark Vann had lost his bout with cancer on March 4, the band’s post office box in Nederland began to swell not only with cards of condolence, but with checks and other pledges of financial support…
