Doug Martsch, whose band, Built to Spill, headlines this year’s Westword Music Showcase on June 12 (click here for more details), is a rarity — a indie-rock musician who signed to a major label in the mid-’90s who’s still inked to the same imprint today. He’s also a rare, if…
Early on in its career, Camera Obscura endured endless comparisons to revered fellow Glaswegians Belle & Sebastian. At this point, however, any comparison threatens to make the latter look bad: Among scholars of the heartache and growing pains of bookish, precocious youth, Stuart Murdoch’s got nothing on Camera Obscura vocalist/guitarist…
In this week’s issue, we’re running a short profile on Tim Pourbaix in Rough Mixes, based on a lengthy interview Eryc Eyl conducted with Pourbaix. The singer-songwriter had much more to say than could fit into that smaller piece. Subsequently, we’ve opted to allow Pourbaix to tell his story –…
Hayley Williams, the frontwoman for Paramore, which opens for No Doubt on Wednesday, May 27, at Fiddler’s Green, is already a star, but few thinks her career trajectory has peaked. Based on the platinum sales of Riot!, the group’s last album, and a successful tie-in with Twilight, the vampire-romance novel…
Singer-songwriter Kevin Devine, the subject of a profile in this week’s Westword advancing his Sunday, May 24 gig at the Marquis Theatre with Miniature Tigers, The Rouge and Brian Bonz, is the rarest of interview subjects: a guy who listeners carefully to every question and answers each as completely and…
A Week ago this evening, the members of Ghost Buffalo played what was presumably their last show ever, at 3 Kings Tavern. While it’s barely been even a week, it’s safe to say that we already miss them. If you feel like we do, then you’ll love this week’s edition…
The Ideal Fathers are four guys (singer Jesse Hunsaker, guitarist Adam Rojo, bassist Michael King and drummer Michael Perfetti) who play gloriously chaotic, hyperkinetic dance punk with verve and abandon. If you haven’t caught one of their sets or heard any of their songs on one of the fine radio…
Mike Watt is most certainly a man whose thoughts cannot be expressed in a mere 500 or words or so. Needless to say, the Rough Mixes entry focusing on him in this week’s issue hardly scraped the surface of our recent conversation the punk elder statesman. While on tour supporting…
In this week’s Rough Mixes entry focusing on Napalm Death, we only printed highlights of Tom Murphy’s recent conversation with Barney Greenway. The two of them actually had a fairly extensive conversation in which Greenway discussed the influence of My Bloody Valentine and other unexpected acts on Napalm Death, how…
In this week’s edition of Rough Mixes, we printed excerpts of Tom Murphy’s recent chat with Dave Dictor from MDC. As you’ll see from the full transcript posted after the jump, the band’s frontman is still very much an iconoclast championing ideals that are as provactive as the revolving moniker…
Not surprisingly, the leader of Elvis Perkins in Dearland (a band headlining the hi-dive on Friday, May 8) is none other than Elvis Perkins, a singer-songwriter of uncommon depth and gravitas. Find out for yourself by reading the following Q&A, conducted for the Westword feature “Elvis Perkins Tries to Move…
The recorded tunes of Black Market Empire simply do not do the band justice. Before Saturday, I was familiar with the band only from its three MySpace tracks, which were decent if somewhat uninspired retro new wave that conjured up such ’80s stalwarts as the Cure, Duran Duran and more…
Okay, so before we call it a week and go crack a cold one and lend an ear to some of the finest music this city has to offer, as promised, we’re leaving you with the recordings from Houses’ last appearance at the hi-dive a couple of months ago, to…
In advance of his two shows this weekend (Saturday, May 2nd at The Oriental and Sunday, May 3rd at The Fox Theatre), we were able to have a few words with jazz/proto-hip-hop legend Gil Scott-Heron about his influences and his work. Westword: Your music is known for being socially conscious…
Finally, a band has emerged that combines my love of experimental improvisation and dub with my love for spiders (seriously, I love the creepy little bastards). The brilliantly named Fight Spider with Spider lists David Lynch and John Zorn amongst its influences, has an instrumental credit for “mad scientist station,”…
Speaking with Aaron Howell, the frontman of Forth Yeer Freshman, is a lot like listening to his band’s music: the things he says are generally over the top and somewhat ludicrous, yet you get the sense that there’s a certain amount of earnestness attached to his sentiments. In advance of…
In this week’s edition of the Denver Boot, the esteemed Mr. Lance Stack has provided us with another fine audio snapshot of the Denver scene that we’re now blessing you with, a vintage — well, if you consider three and a half years ago to “vintage” — recording from the…
In an interview for a Westword profile in advance of an April 15 Oriental Theater gig with Mates of State and Judgement Day, Reggie Youngblood, lead singer and songwriter for Black Kids, talked at length about his buzzy band and plenty more. Get into his head after the jump…
No, Los Campesinos! isn’t a band from a Spanish-speaking country. It’s based in the U.K. And no, Tom Campesinos!’s last name isn’t Campesinos!. He and his fellow bandmates perform under half-pseudonyms, Ramones style. As for his real name, Tom didn’t spill — but he did share plenty of other stuff…
Some bands wear a style like a trendy fashion statement, and others embody what that music is about by creating their own artistic identity while expanding and building upon what has come before them. The Prids, from Portland, Oregon, are among the latter. Incorporating elements of synth-inflected new-wave dream pop…
It’s not exactly a surprise that Phish’s four-day stand at Red Rocks sold out in minutes, but there are elements of the whole thing that smell, well, Phish-y (sorry, I couldn’t resist). At least one hard-core fan (the one I live with, to be specific) was online within seconds of…
The recently reunited members of Phish announced today that the band will return to Red Rocks for the first time in more than a dozen years for a four-night run (Thursday, July, 30 through Sunday, August, 2). A limited number of tickets are available now through Sunday, March 22 at…
