Today’s mash-up craze — where artists graft the a cappella version of one popular tune to the well-known instrumental backing of another — inspired a “band” like Columbus, Ohio’s Evolution Control Committee to up the ante beyond anything that London’s Freelance Hellraiser introduced to dance floors last year. Simply pasting…
Note to the jam-band contingent: Leftover Salmon is not really one of you, despite appearances to the contrary. The band is sunny and string-heavy, yes, but its music comes out of the bluegrass tradition — a stop-on-a-dime style that’s driven by songs instead of elongated instrumental spaceouts. “The jam-band thing…
Boredom, poverty, loneliness, suicide and heartbreak. Sounds cheerful, doesn’t it? Actually, it is…as long as FM Knives are singing about it. This Sacramento four-piece, playing Thursday, May 22, at the Climax Lounge, has mastered the punk-rock alchemy of turning depression into elation, ennui into energy. On “16 DOA,” a love…
Drowning in oceans of lust, wailing hopeless lovers’ oaths and going toe to toe with oblivion itself can take its toll on a guy — especially one with a Sicilian heart condition. Fortunately Nick Urata of DeVotchKa counteracts such reckless conduct by issuing consistently beguiling sonic tapestries that weave together…
House freaks have been following the career of DJ Garth since 1991, when he caused a minor earthquake in San Francisco’s dance scene with his “feeling over formula” philosophy. The shock waves rippled again in 1994, when Garth acquired a custom-designed Turbo-sound rig from his native U.K., and again in…
From the beginning, Mark Orton, Rob Burger and Carla Kihlstedt, the instrumentalists behind San Francisco’s Tin Hat Trio, understood that some listeners and critics would have difficulty getting their arms around the combo’s wonderfully diverse sound. To assist those struggling with the chore, the musicians came up with their own…
For forty bucks, you can buy a device that emits some of the most irritating and beautiful sounds imaginable; a device that not only presents an international kaleidoscope of opinion, but also receives secret spy transmissions. Best of all, every time you turn it on, the thing behaves completely differently,…
Trace Reddell spends a fair amount of time figuring out ways to make his computer more like a person. A musician and educator who teaches both undergrads and graduate students in the Digital Media Studies program at the University of Denver, he uses computers as tools of art as well…
My Morning Jacket, which appears Tuesday, May 20, at the Fox Theatre, with Detachment Kit, aims to restore dignity to the oft-maligned genre of classic rock, albeit with an entirely modern sensibility that’s both organic and studio-enhanced. Hooky and exultant, with occasionally countrified flourishes, the music suggests what might have…
The band calls it “trailer-park jazz,” while a reviewer once referred to it as “cinematic Americana.” Either way, the experimental music of County Road X is finding an audience, one that’s grown steadily with each performance. Influences as diverse as Afro pop, chamber jazz and Radiohead, among others, swirl together…
What to do when you’re an aspiring artist/musician who wants to make music in a climate in which seemingly everything interesting has already been done? Do you succumb to the demons of musical recycling, or do you take yourself to a desert island of creativity? Jeph Jerman chose the latter…
Dennis Flemion sounds irritable and flabbergasted for close to two hours — a marathon by interview standards, especially since the founder of the Frogs prefers to keep to himself. “Look, Prince never did interviews,” Flemion says flatly. “I don’t want to talk to anybody. I’m not getting anything, so I’m…
Portland, Maine, doesn’t quite carry the street cred of, say, Compton. But Sole, who came of age as a rapper in the beatific Eastern state, isn’t worried about the geographical connotations of his home town. The battle scars he received in this burg, which he describes as “cold and unforgiving,”…
At one point not too long ago, the population of the Front Range expanded. Tech complexes and subdivisions consumed open space, while McMansions replaced ponderosa pines as the tallest species in the foothills. Evergreens and pristine land morphed into what newspapers morbidly dubbed “Sprawlorado.” Mark Merryman is one long-suffering Colorado…
Halden Wofford & the Hi Beams play retro country better than just about anybody in these parts, and their live shows feature covers of old favorites by the likes of Lefty Frizzell, Hank Williams and George Jones. For this debut studio album, however, the band has wisely chosen to focus…
Back in 1984, when Colcannon was formed, the notion that a Celtic group of such high quality could emerge from a part of the world so geographically and culturally distant from the Emerald Isle was legitimately surprising. Today the outfit’s continuing vitality is just as unexpected, but for different reasons…
The cover of Kreg Viesselman’s eponymous disc implores you to listen. It’s vaguely reminiscent of those old Van Morrison albums, on which the soulful Irishman would sport a fisherman’s sweater, brown corduroys and shaggy mutton chops while wistfully contemplating a drooping apple tree through a mist and clutching a timeworn…
Bedouin is composed of approximately eleven players who come together in shifting combinations, with singer/guitarist/songwriter Stewart Erlich at its nexus. Recently transplanted to the Front Range from New York, Erlich is striking out on his own after completing Book of Storms, an engaging, promising outing that showcases his stylistic versatility…
The City and County of Denver publicly unveiled its new Red Rocks Visitor Center on May 3, meaning the place is now officially a geological theme park. Replete with interactive exhibits and a hello-Cleveland feel, the sprawling center chronicles the sandstone space’s evolution from dinosaur habitat to world-class concert venue…
Pinetop Perkins, who appears Wednesday, May 14, at the Soiled Dove, is a human time capsule of American music history. Now ninety, Perkins once picked cotton for a living, played guitar and piano during the juke-joint heyday of the Mississippi Delta and gave Ike Turner his first piano lessons. After…
Jill Stevenson might look young (she is) and innocent, but get her on stage with her band, and the trio will tear through its set with a verve and vigor that’s anything but tame. Bassist Tex and drummer Matt round out an aggressive rock sound that recalls a bold Michelle…
Just because you’re all grown up doesn’t mean you have to stop loving the circus, especially this one: The Sensory Circus makes its debut on Thursday, May 8, at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom. A festival of sight and sound, this show features eclectic visual art pieces from locals Jerry Simpson, Mark…
