Lying in the grass at an expansive outdoor amphitheater recently, John Dolmayan had a unique experience: He watched the world change. “I was sitting way up in the cheap seats,” says the drummer of System of a Down, the latest politically charged outfit hailing from Los Angeles. “The sun was…
It’s not quite spring (not even close, actually), but all of the unwanted or ill-fitting gifts we received for Christmas have stuffed our storage closet beyond capacity. See, the same closet also houses our supply discs from area artists, and it’s time to clear that sucker out. What better time…
In 1966, the Beatles’ Revolver and The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds changed the way we looked at sound and melody. We realized that with a little imagination — drug-induced or otherwise — and some unusual instrumentation, pop could indeed be art. Today, though, “pop” refers largely to teenybopper music and…
Many of today’s most successful hip-hoppers share a simple credo: Creativity is for suckers. In their view, success isn’t judged on the basis of good reviews, which, after all, can’t be cashed in at the bank. The Benjamins are what matter, and whoever has more of them at the end…
For much of the twentieth century, no American popular music held tradition more dearly than country. Often this tendency seemed to argue against change, but that was a caricature of the argument: Any genre that includes Hank, Elvis, Patsy, Buck, Waylon, Garth and the Dixie Chicks is clearly not all…
In Reverse is stronger — and tougher — than Sweet’s offering of 1998, Blue Sky on Mars. Yet those who have found reason to regard his past work with reservation won’t be swayed to let down their guard, as many of the elements that render Sweet a borderline annoying performer…
Lindsay’s a guy with an underground rep thanks to his work with the intellectual-noise act DNA and brainiacs such as Brian Eno and John Zorn. But the guitarist/vocalist is also an aficionado of sounds from Brazil, where he grew up circa the height of the Tropicália movement. Prize, licensed to…
The all-powerful selection committee of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference has spoken. Last week, the mighty panel announced its picks for the annual event and the results, ladies and gentlemen, are surprising. Of the more than sixty Colorado bands that gathered up photos, random press and bio…
Fu Manchu, Monday, January 31, at the Fox Theatre, with Anthrax and the Unband, is the kind of group that Jeff Spicoli, the wave-riding babe-and-bud connoisseur played to perfection by Sean Penn in the classic film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, would have truly appreciated. Somewhere between thoughts of surfing,…
Farrell Lowe joins the Four Corners Quartet, Friday, January 28, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, as the newest member of this chamber jazz ensemble. Lowe’s guitar and electronics add a new dimension to the group, which began as a saxophone quartet that included local heroes Fred Hess and Mark…
Goth Night, Sunday nights at the Church, solves a common problem among many lovely creatures of the night who find themselves all dressed up (in realistic fangs, wonderfully creepy colored contact lenses and thigh-high black vinyl boots) with nowhere to go. The dark and dangerous need look no further, as…
The Jungle Brothers. 9 p.m. Wednesday, January 26, Fox Theatre, 1135 13th Street, Boulder, $23, 303-443-3399.
Mark Spiewak is hard of hearing. You might say he’s half deaf, though no doctor has ever diagnosed him as such. He doesn’t like doctors, he won’t investigate the fancy new hearing aids on the market, and he’s sure as hell not going to learn sign language. He just prefers…
About a year ago, an editorial about a group of musicians appeared in the Tucson Weekly, a newspaper much like this one, in which it was suggested that prior to being allowed to form yet another local band, the players in question should be forced to take a written test…
As much as any band, The Wailers, Thursday, January 20, at the Fox Theatre, must truly be enjoying Y2K and the renewed prominence it’s brought them. The BBC chose Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “One Love” as the theme song for its millennium broadcast; Time declared Exodus the best album…
Wojo, Friday, January 21, at Nick’s, plays rock-fortified funk that could get even the geriatric booty of Barney Miller stalwart Abe Vigoda shaking like a Turkish fault line. Formed in 1993 by guitarist/vocalist Jake Cameron, bassist Paul Kirby and brothers Randy and Greg Morgan, who handle guitars and drums, respectively,…
Dancing, drinking and mugging for a camera — no, it’s not a taping for MTV, it’s a model scout at Sevilla at the Icehouse, the LoDo club with a strong Latin flavor. Working with a national online casting company, the club will offer visitors a chance to be discovered while…
The first time Paige O’Meara met film director James Merendino in a Salt Lake City dive bar, he was convinced that the square-looking guy swilling beers behind Buddy Holly specs was, to put it delicately, full of shit. “I’ve met a lot of delusional people,” O’Meara says. “I met this…
Very rarely does a musician, in his or her experiments with new sounds, come along and flip the script in a way that helps create a whole new genre of music. QBert, the Bay Area-based super DJ, is an artist who has done just that. Drawing from the rudimentary scratch…
At times this column seems like an obituary page for local bands. And so it goes as another area outfit calls it quits, at least temporarily: Chief Broom, at the approximate age of 3.5 years, suffered from self-inflicted disbandment after a final show at Quixote’s True Blue on Sunday, January…
The members of Blackfire, Friday, January 14, at the Bluebird Theater, are among a new breed of young Native American artists breaking from the more traditional musical styles associated with tribal culture to speak the universal language of visceral rock and roll. But that doesn’t mean that these siblings from…
All, with Wretch Like Me, Tanger, Someday I… and Bill the Welder, Saturday, January 15, at the Bluebird Theater, headlines this showcase for the Fort Collins-based Owned & Operated record label. All has transcended its heritage as a Descendants spinoff (most of its members are former members of that seminal…
