Contrary to popular belief, there are still a handful of jazz musicians with recording contracts who enjoy taking chances. But most of the acts that fit this description, including Other Dimensions in Music, Test, the Matt Wilson Quartet and local hero Hugh Ragin, are indie-imprint signees forced to toil in…
Gladhand has spawned an offspring. Anyone familiar with Denver’s compelling avant-garde musical misfits — whose live act involved everything from vomiting dancers to flaming baby-doll heads — may find this thought slightly unnerving; visions of a mutant cross-pollination of Cirque du Soleil and a resurrected G.G. Allin spring to mind…
What is it about the Beach Boys that makes them so damn appealing to alt-country acts looking to go mainstream? First Wilco shed its steel guitar for sunny vibraphone melodies on Summer Teeth; now the Jayhawks have a determinedly chipper album called Smile. If you don’t make the Beach Boys…
Wit doesn’t turn up that often in classical or experimental music, perhaps because composers fear (often with good reason) that the presence of humor will cause observers to take the music less than seriously. But Cloidt, a composer and engineer based in Oakland, California, doesn’t suffer from that particular brand…
On a recent lovely July evening at Red Rocks Amphitheatre — on which the moonlight hit the rocks in such a way that even the clouds appeared to share the ruddy properties of the Flinstonian architecture — you could hear the wind rustling the trees. The occasional bird chirping. And…
The Big Tymers with the Cash Money Millionaires (Juvenile, Lil Wayne, Turk, B.G.), Thursday, July 13, at the Paramount Theatre, are the latest group to emerge from the Cash Money Records franchise in Louisiana — an imprint that sold more than nine million records last year. Featuring in-house label producer…
Cherry Bomb Club, Thursday, July 13, at Seven South, boasts a membership more exclusive than that of the Denver Country Club. A project begun by Divineshaker (aka Dave Moore) of Foreskin 500 and Legendary (aka King Scratchie of the infamous Warlock Pinchers), the clubs roster now includes local blues goddess…
Andy Warhol said that everyone is famous for a fifteen minutes. Organizers of the Warhol Party 2, Tuesday, July 18, at the Foundry in Boulder, dont think thats quite long enough: People who attend their event, an offbeat fundraiser for the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, can spend the entire…
When the String Cheese Incident began six years ago in Telluride, it was a band with a plan. “From the very beginning,” says SCI bassist Keith Moseley, “we’ve looked at this as a long-term project, something we wanted to be doing ten or fifteen years down the road. And we…
On the surface, the lineup of the Spitkickers Tour — De La Soul, Common, Pharoahe Monch and Talib Kweli, with Biz Markie thrown in for comic relief — seems like the yin to the yang of this summer’s Dr. Dre/Eminem/Snoop Dogg hip-hop extravaganza, with the former representing a forward-looking alternative…
The mythical Phoenix flapped its wings so hard it finally burst into flames. Singing a melodious dirge, this ridiculously flighty creature ended up burning to death — snap, crackle, pop — before rising up from its ashes happy as a lark. Renewed. Triumphant. Like Jesus with feathers. As tough an…
In the film Clueless, Cher Horowitz, played by Alicia Silverstone, dismisses the music loved by Josh (Paul Rudd), her stepbrother/love interest, as (I’m paraphrasing here) the sort of depressing dreck only overly sensitive collegiates could stand — and although she didn’t mention the Mendoza Line by name, it was probably…
What could possibly be better than sitting around the family hearth with a crackling fire and the Good Book, snatching deep and meaningful glances over Deuteronomy with uber-Christian Amy Grant? Maybe the little vixen just darned your socks or polished your Sunday snakeskins. Or fetched you a hot mug of…
Whether it’s the result of a karmic quirk or of nostalgic indulgence on the part of rock fans, there’s no denying that Astbury’s career suddenly and almost inexplicably has more legs than a Catholic girls’ school. A founding member of the Cult, a group whose blend of old-school swagger and…
Here’s a little-known fact about Ethel Merman, not that you asked: The Broadway belter with the enlarged nasal cavity extended her skills into a new arena by cutting a disco record, There’s No Business Like Show Business, in 1979 — something Backwash discovered while thumbing the bins at a particularly…
Somewhere up around 40,000 feet, while Neil McIntyre was flying over the desolate, expansive state of New Mexico on his way to Phoenix, the woman in the next row let him know that she had seen his band, Yo, Flaco!, play months before at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in…
The bling-bling of shiny platinum jewels adorning commercial rap and R&B might blind some people to the fact that there is a creative resurgence going on in hip-hop right now. Yeah, that’s right — it’s rising up from the underground at this very minute. The strength and success of recent…
When you hail from Oxford, Mississippi, and your band’s handle is “Kudzu Kings,” you’d better be damn good. The title is a volatile moniker given that kudzu — an invasive vine that covers millions of acres of Southern land — replaced cotton as the King of the South years ago…
As a rule, defunct cult acts should leave well enough alone. Take Tin Huey, which rose from the same late ’70s Akron, Ohio, scene that spawned Devo, made one well-reviewed major-label album (1979’s Contents Dislodged During Shipment), launched a couple of its members on relatively productive careers (guitarist Chris Butler…
The reggae harmony outfit Israel Vibration has seen few member departures in its 23 years, save that of founder Albert “Apple” Craig, who left the group following 1996’s Free to Move. Even that significant loss had little effect on Israel Vibration’s musical approach: When the trio became a duo, it…
As concepts go, revolution — the rejection of preset ideas in favor of something new — and resuscitation — consciously reusing old ideas — are about as opposite as ideas can be. It’s somewhat shocking, then, that the (International) Noise Conspiracy has never recognized the rather obvious distinction between the…
