2 Live Crew’s 1986 debut, 2 Live Crew Is What We Are, left little doubt as to what this act was. Smack-dab in the middle of the Reagan administration and only a year after the Parents’ Music Resource Center hearings, the Crew assaulted the pop-culture collective with extremely graphic sexual…
The University of Denver does more than churn out lawyers year after year. Every spring, when the budding crocuses rear their fragrant heads, when the back molars of horny coeds grind in collective misery, the keepers of the sheepskin offer relief from cramming for one last Frisbee Golf final. The…
Nothing is more disappointing than when a DJ’s performance fails to meet your expectations. After all, the whole purpose of getting your groove on in the club is to lose it on the dance floor, right? Well rest assured, U.K.-based DJ Danny Howells’s “deep, sexy, futuristic, tech-funk house” will more…
Tacoma is weird. It’s like Seattle’s dirty little brother,” declares Ben Verellen, singer/guitarist of Roy. “Back about a hundred years ago, there was this Tacoma versus Seattle thing, but when Seattle got the railroad terminal, it kind of took over and became this big city while Tacoma took a plunge…
Kevin Barnes won’t play along. I’m trying to break the ice with Barnes, Of Montreal’s idiosyncratic leader and auteur, with a game of word association I’ve created by cherry-picking some of his striking lyrics, adding words that are often used to describe his band and, just for kicks, tossing in…
Love hurts, but rock and roll can put you in the hospital. Take, for instance, Roger Miller of Boston’s praised-to-high-hell Mission of Burma. Being one of the loudest bands of the original post-punk era was enough to blow out his eardrums, and the resulting tinnitus was a major factor in…
The only way Franz Ferdinand, the latest in a long line of overhyped British imports, could justify the celebratory verbiage penned about the group by U.K. journalists would be if its members brought peace to the Middle East, eliminated global poverty and transplanted a fully functioning brain into Jessica Simpson…
No, Janet isn’t flashing a breast in Damita Jo’s liner notes, and she doesn’t have any songs about “wardrobe malfunctions.” However, heavy sexual references and innuendos are prevalent throughout the record. The eighth studio album from Ms. Jackson picks up where her previous album, All For You, left off celebrating…
“Denver rap sucks.” That’s a bold statement, especially when made before MCs like Dent and Black Pegasus, hosts of the April 18 DMC turntable competition at the Fox Theatre in Boulder, as well as such Mootown luminaries as Apostle and Kingdom (whose beef I wrote about in this space on…
Ms. Woo would make a fine role model for any musician looking to make a career in a city, like this one, that’s far from the industry power centers. Rather than begging the management of Boulder’s Fox Theatre to put her on the bill, she took a job there as…
Don’t let the warm, wooden tones of the marimba fool you: Every sound, shade and nuance heard on this disc originates from an electronic drum (Ed for short). And through the calculated miracle of digital touchpads and proper fingertip placement, Ed chirps and urps its way through an infinite combination…
Tech N9ne has a gun. File that little detail under “No shit.” After all, the Kansas City-based rapper (below) is named after an illegal semi-automatic weapon. Yet the guy with the red Medusa hair and penchant for color coordination says he hates being strapped, but as an upshot to his…
What with eight bandmembers clad in matching jumpsuits and rubber masks, and the bludgeoning cacophony those bandmembers have produced over the years, it’s easy to dismiss Mushroomhead as a bargain-basement knockoff of Slipknot. Shroomco, however, was founded in 1993; Slipknot didn’t come together until 1995. And Mushroomhead donned the getups…
“Are you ready? Are you ready?!?” howls Valentine, vocalist of Portland’s The Get Hustle, as spidery piano and slinky percussion shudder like a death knell all around her. The thing is, it’s too late: You’re already three songs and two changes of underwear into Dream Eagle 1, the trio’s 2002…
A recent Denver performance by Portland’s The Planet The brought heckles of “pretentious asshole” that were aimed at singer/guitarist Charles Salas-Humara as he pouted, pranced and robot danced his way through a brief set of utterly brain-fucking rock. The Planet The knows how to polarize a crowd; the trio doesn’t…
After seeing Sonic Youth perform in Kiev as a teenager, Eugene Hütz caught a glimpse of his own future: fronting a multi-national New York-based band of ragtag immigrants. Raised on gypsy street music, plus any black-market recording that he could find from the Birthday Party or Einstürzende Neubauten, the Ukrainian…
Back in 1980, when REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin promised to “Keep On Loving You,” he meant forever. Which is why he and the rest of the band are still out there, making good on their vow to “Keep the Fire Burnin’.” Singer Cronin’s hair may be a little shorter and…
The main men of Uversa (due at the Mercury Cafe this Thursday, April 29) are no strangers to each other. Guitarist Tim Edwards and bassist Tom Sublett, plus Bruce Crisman and Kenny Ortiz — who share drum duties on Electric Jazz, the band’s provocative new disc — are veterans of…
If weird exotica and psychedelic records seem like fossils only Austin Powers would find groovy, the seductive sounds of the Karminsky Experience could be reason for re-evaluation. James Munn and Martin Dingle, who share an affinity for obscure film scores, formed a successful DJ partnership in 1991; that led to…
The LoDo nightclub scene can be the pits for those not born into the ranks of the Beautiful People. But the low-key elegance at Rox Infusion Lounge (1701 Wynkoop Street) has mass appeal for everyone from young singles on the make to longtime couples to groups of friends. Any fears…
I just want to share my sadness with the world,” sighs Shane Montgomery Ewegen, singer and guitarist of Denver’s Fifth Utility. There’s a problem with talking to the guys in the Fifth Utility: They’re dead fucking serious. Even more serious, in fact, than their music might lead you to believe…
Right now, the song stuck in my head is ‘Send in the Clowns’ — the Judy Collins version,” says Mark Kozelek from a hotel phone in New Orleans, where he’s scouting for real estate. “I heard that in an antique shop yesterday down on Magazine Street, and everything just kind…
