El Toppo borrows precious little from Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wildly fantastic Western of the same name, a gun-slingin’ cinematic nightmare with a cast of midgets and amputees. Not that it should. What you get instead is a succinct, catchy and likable album — the followup to 1999’s debut Dead Letter Chorus…
It shouldn’t be an unusual experience to be truly moved by a piece of music. At its most basic level, that is what music is supposed to do. But even as Backwash hears more and more of the stuff — literally hundreds and hundreds of recordings line the shelves, nooks,…
Britt Daniel, the frontman for Spoon, scheduled to arrive at the 15th Street Tavern on Friday, March 9, has watched the indie-rock growth cycle from point-blank range. His Texas-based group emerged during the mid-’90s, when the genre was really buzzing. Spoon put out one fine disc after another on a…
With Welcome to Nowhere, The Fairlanes mark their official entry into the world of full-time bandship. Following the CD’s release party on Friday, March 9, at the Ogden Theatre, with the Gamits and Qualm, the members of the (mostly) Denver-based band plan to head out on the open road full-time…
It’s a balmy, hazy afternoon in Southern California, and the ocean is beckoning. The year is 1960. On this day, the Ventures have a number-two hit called “Walk, Don’t Run” in heavy rotation on AM radio, and surf music is just about as bitchin’ as it gets. From a garage…
The killer awoke before dawn. He put his boots on. He took a face from the ancient gallery. And he walked on down to the mall. Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain, he came to a CD outlet between Orange Julius and Dress Barn. He looked inside. “Father?” he…
There’s something reassuring about metal. No matter what member of the Bush family is president, or what member of the Clinton family is in office, or what hairstyle or clothing style or body-art style or circumcision style is in favor at any given time, metal is always there — drums…
For the French, it’s not enough to love music; one must embrace it with the co-dependent disgust of a couple verging on a murder/suicide. The French avant-rock group Ulan Bator clearly loves the pop tradition in this way. Listening to the trio’s first American release (and fourth overall) is like…
Los Angeles imprint Priority Records has snatched up a two-year-old recording by JS16, the hip and sexy handle for Finnish tech-head Jaako Salovaaro. The twenty-something knob-twiddler has loaded Stomping System, his stateside debut, with ten tracks of get-on-up-and-dance music. The tracks here are grown primarily on simple tribal house programming,…
Last year, scores of mask-wearing, partially clad Denverites converged on the Wonderground warehouse space to wish a bon voyage to Cindy Wonderful and her multi-hued Rainbow Sugar posse; following that last great fete, Wonderful, Amy Fantastic and Germaine Baca boarded up their art-and-performance space in northwest Denver and headed off…
The Old 97s return to Boulder Friday, March 9, at Tulagi, with a new album, Satellite Rides (Elektra), that itself represents a return of sorts. The band has always skirted the line between the rough-hewn alternative country of 1997’s Too Far to Care and the melodic pop that marked 1999’s…
David Booker and the Swingtette, Friday, March 2 and Saturday, March 3, at Sambuca, are arguably D-town’s reigning kings of swing, jump and blues. For more than twenty years, Booker’s played more local gigs than any artist of a similarly blue hue, making his surname a deserved one. Sure, he’s…
For the past decade, the New York City-based Groove Collective has mapped the unlikely musical spaces between jazz, house, funk, hip-hop and the Beatles. To traverse this terrain as a listener, you won’t need a compass — nor will you get lost — if you accept that the mind and…
Patsy Cline’s plane went down outside Camden, Tennessee, on March 5, 1963 — roughly one month before singer Paula Frazer let out her first newborn squall. And while reincarnation makes for nifty tabloid copy, Frazer certainly does conjure the spirit of the Grand Ole cowgirl. At least, most music critics…
Face to Face, with Snapcase, H2O and the Explosion, Friday, February 23, and Saturday, February 24, at the Ogden Theatre, scared more than a handful of fans away with its 1999 shot at epic rock, Ignorance is Bliss (Lady Luck/Vagrant), but the band is doing its best to bring punk…
If your punk-rock gauge reads “empty,” fill up your tank with Regular at the 15th Street Tavern, Friday, February 23. Dishing out inferno-style punk driven by thermonuclear riffs and wanton energy, Regular is a family affair: Singer/guitarist Miguel Lopez jammed with his brother — Regular drummer Manuel — for nearly…
In jazz, your sound is everything. It’s your identity, your symbol of maturity. It defines your artistry. There’s no quicker put-down than “he hasn’t found his own sound yet”: It means you’re not really worthy of being talked about at all. Now consider Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri. He has…
In the world of Western pop music, there’s a reason the drummer sits in the back: We are married to melody. The casual pop-music consumer could probably easily rattle off names of musicians responsible for his or her favorite melodic hooks, but that same individual would probably draw a blank…
When Rachel Simring was looking to replace her ex-boyfriend guitarist back in Georgia, in 1993, she almost passed on Andy Ard. Two other musicians had already offered to play with her, so when the perennially shy Ard approached her with a hesitant “I don’t know if you remember me,” she…
A drive through downtown provides many clues to Denver’s cultural ranking. Does the city have an adequate number of scary-looking dive bars? Good bookstores, galleries and coffee shops? Plentiful parking? Is there a building with large, sculpted insects climbing all over it? The answer to that final question is yes,…
The Youngblood Brass Band, Saturday, February 17, at the Boulder Theater, will add a blast of fresh heat to the early Mardi Gras celebration being presented by the Colorado Friends of Cajun-Zydeco Music and Dance. The band — eight white guys from the seemingly gumbo-impaired environs of Wisconsin — blend…
Ever wonder about the music that’s used to weave together segments on programs like National Public Radio’s Morning Edition? Local acoustic guitarist and songwriter Lynn Patrick, Friday, February 16, at the Chautauqua Community House, Boulder, has supplied some of these sonic beds of late: Selections from her self-produced instrumental recording,…
