This heartfelt tribute to the man known as the father of bluegrass is at its best when the performers involved manage to infuse Monroe’s material with new vitality without trampling the compositions’ stark and subtle charms. The best example of this balancing act is Dwight Yoakam’s rendition of “Rocky Road…
More than any other city, Chicago is ground zero for the alternative-country movement. It’s home to Wilco, Bloodshot Records and a vibrant music scene that regularly produces talent like Chris Mills, who is among the finest of the second generation of alt-country singers. Just 25 years old, Mills grew up…
Now that Keanu Reeves has inked a deal to make two more Matrix movies, the chances of getting another fix of Bill and Ted’s Wyld Stallyns looks pretty slim. Though Reeves shelved his stoner alter ego for more serious work, he hasn’t kissed off the rock-and-roll fantasy just yet –…
Good people of Denver, Backwash would like to reintroduce you to Mike Colin, the former leader of proto-punk/funk locals Phantazmorgasm (later Phantasmorgasm), who respectfully bowed out of the local scene roughly two years ago. Before doing so, the multi-instrumentalist and producer oversaw some of the area’s more original and definition-defying…
Mingus Big Band, Saturday, September 30, at the Boulder Theater, is an ideal jazz band for the new millennium. It swings with the class of the Duke Ellington-era crews without sounding quaint. It blisters through the avant garde without going off the deep end. It melds sophisticated ensemble work with…
Though Kristina Ingham, Friday, September 29, at the Soiled Dove, has got the crunchy good looks of many a Boulder-based female folkie, she’s hardly content to stand at the edge of the stage and strum away on ballads all night. Ingham got her singing start on the evangelist circuit in…
Hot, medium or mild – how do you like your salsa? For those of you with cajones, get out and dance with the Bacardi Salsa Congress, Tuesday, October 3, through Saturday, October 7, at Sevilla at the Icehouse. Long before many people realized that salsa meant more than tomatoes, the…
Not so long ago, the ghosts of Denver’s past were threatening to become this city’s only future. On any given night, an earnest drone could be heard emanating from various downtown clubs; hymnlike songs summoned spirits of a boomtown from days gone by. With themes ranging from black lung to…
God only knows what anyone loafing around Arlington, Virginia-based Inner Ear Studios thought upon hearing playbacks of Jets to Brazil’s just-released second album, Four Cornered Night. This space has been the recording home to bands such as Fugazi, Bluetip, the defunct Jawbox (whose former frontman, J. Robbins, has produced both…
Despite rock music’s errant attempts to broaden itself with the branching — and stemming, and twigging — of different variations of sound, its evolution is pretty regressive. Particularly with the hybrid music of today, whereupon hip-hop meets metal, metal greets classical, and classical introduces melancholia to improvisational jazz and roots…
The main difference between these discs is that one doesn’t suck nearly as badly as it ought to, while the other does — and then some. In the mondo-suckage category, Bon Jovi’s latest proves nothing other than that the purveyor of some of the most delectable ear candy of the…
The third CD from this pioneer-spirited Canadian fivesome, hand-delivered via the rudimentary indie methods of Pony Express and word of mouth, is just now showing up on a midget’s handful of radio playlists months after its official release date. But who’s counting? “It’s a long climb down from obscurity/So cancel…
Rock music, to no one’s great astonishment, has had a longstanding relationship with pornography. But only recently has this pairing received anything resembling critical attention. Two events in particular prompted this: Kid Rock’s brief-but-public romance with porn star Midori, and Oglio Records’ 1998 album Porn to Rock, which featured the…
Things seem a bit peculiar over at nobody in particular presents, the local promotions house you no doubt recognize from all of those ticket stubs on the floor of your car. Last week, Russ Austin, who was then serving as NIPP’s local booking agent, was informed that his services were…
Elastica, Sunday, September 24, at the Bluebird Theater, with the Meat Puppets, debuted on these shores in 1995 with a self-titled disc/guilty pleasure that had very little to do with what was going on musically at the time. Whereas fellow Brits like those in Oasis and Blur were embracing 60s-and-beyond…
If you frequent upscale coffeehouses or shopping malls or listen to a lot of public radio, its possible that you have heard the music of Darren Curtis Skanson — Friday, September 22, through Sunday, September 24, at FlatIron Crossing — without even realizing it. The classical guitarist, who formerly served…
Go ahead — bite the apple and head to the Garden of Eve Fashion Show, Thursday, September 21, at Sevilla at the Icehouse. The LoDo tapas bar will be transformed into a vine-covered version of Paradise, complete with beautiful women clad in snakeskin pants (and other clothes) from Eve, a…
I hope this doesn’t sound too weird to you,” says local country artist Dustin Bogue, “but if I ever do make it, I want to make a movie about my life and all that I’ve been through. I know this is just the beginning, but my road has been amazing.”…
In this great Era of Irony, when everything is safely played for the underlying joke, it’s refreshing to encounter a literalist. On Four Cornered Night, Jets to Brazil’s second release, singer-songwriter Blake Schwarzenbach attempts to swim upstream against the current cultural phenomenon. He boldly puts himself, and his direct music,…
Mythology tends to obliterate hard work. The progress of John Coltrane through the popular imagination — tenor of his time, transcendentalist, martyr — often fails to acknowledge the agonies of his development. As the troubled saxophonist (Dexter Gordon!) in the exemplary jazz film Round Midnight tells us: “You don’t pick…
Vission’s nickname suggests an old-school hip-hop connection, but there’s nothing remotely Digital Underground-like about this rising DJ’s Humpty dances. As the man charged by Madonna to make “Music” — her latest single — club-friendly, he’s one of the mixologists of the moment, and Shut the Fuck Up shows why. The…
At first blush, Tim Rutili’s five-song EP about disaster, grace, dumb luck and fear of machinery might seem like a cynical prayer for peacenik John Lennon. Consider the hollow, resonating piano of the disc’s opener, “Electric Fence,” and its narrator’s vocal resemblance to the Fab Four’s often acid-tongued martyr: “Jesus…
