Johnny Dowd Pictures From Life’s Other Side (Koch) In early 1997, I received a copy of Johnny Dowd’s independently released Wrong Side of Memphis that was apparently shipped by the singer himself, and while I was blown away by his practically homicidal way with roots music, I figured I’d be…
Okay, let’s get the self-promotion out of the way: The fifth annual Westword Music Awards Showcase is just a running jump away. In case you somehow missed the huge supplement at the center of this paper, on Sunday, September 19, the showcase will seize control of five LoDo venues, and…
Dance Hall Crashers, Wednesday, September 22, at the Bluebird Theater, are led by singers Elyse Rogers and Karina Denike, whose voices sound as if they were piped straight from a U.S.O. fete in 1943. In this band, though, the musical accompaniment is where the “crash” comes in. With ska-punk and…
Gao Hong, Saturday, September 18, at Cameron Church, 1600 South Pearl Street, headlines the fifth annual Microstock, a celebration of music-theory deviance organized by Denver’s microtonal guru and guitarist Neil Haverstick. In seeking more eloquent expressions, microtonal musicians subvert the dominant paradigm of the twelve-tones-per-octave scale in Western music. Each…
Folk singers can get away with taking their craft into unconventional places: On downtown sidewalks, in subway stations and in restaurants at lunchtime, they open their guitar cases and unleash their voices, good or bad. So many people associate folk music with the mellow, sensitive fare of street buskers or…
To the millions who adore her, Jewel Kilcher is America’s songwriting sweetheart, a musical soulmate with an angelic face and karma to match. A look from her baby-dolled eyes or a note from her pouty lips can send legions of fans into swooning fits of “oohs” and “ahhs.” But for…
Kool Keith Black Elvis/Lost in Space (Ruffhouse/Columbia) When we last checked in with Kool Keith, who joins DJ Spooky on Tuesday, September 14, at the Fox Theatre, he was appearing on this year’s independently released First Come, First Served in the guise of Dr. Doom, a loony serial killer with…
Those who regularly attend Denver Joe’s Monday-night shows at Cricket on the Hill usually know what they’re in for, and the stragglers and neighborhood folks who happen by quickly find out. Amid a gloriously gritty country-music backdrop, the well-seasoned — and typically well-sauced — guitarist launches insults and zingers at…
U-God, 9 p.m., Sunday, September 12, at the Fox Theater, as part of the Wu Next Generation Killa Bees Tour with the Wu Syndicate and Shyheim, is one of the last members of the Wu-Tang Clan to drop a solo joint. Redemption, a seventeen-track offering that features collaborations with fellow…
Hugh Ragin, 8 p.m. Friday, September 10, at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, joins three other local luminaries in a tribute to Lee Morgan for this month’s installment of the “Steinway and Stained Glass” series, which happens the second Friday of each month. If Ragin’s latest CD, An Afternoon in…
Like many rock-music lovers who came of age during the Seventies, I grew to despise the songs of Barry Manilow, and the passage of years has not yet shown me the error of my ways. But even those of you who think that “It’s a Miracle” deserves banning by the…
For much of this decade, the members of Superchunk have preferred to make their music in the studio rather than perform it on the road, touring only when it couldn’t be avoided. Maybe it’s because it’s difficult for a band with a notorious perfectionist streak to hand over its songs…
Denver has never been widely associated with an essential rap scene. The city’s proximity to the Continental Divide leaves it just a scaled-map millimeter or two from the dead center of the country, a fact that means bad news for sushi lovers and puts rap musicians in a geographically dictated…
Various Artists Return of the grievous angel — a tribute to Gram Parsons (Almo Sounds) Before his death of an overdose in 1973 (he was 26), Gram Parsons worked with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers and put out a couple of moderately interesting solo albums that supposedly influenced…
The place was crawling with chicks. Short, fat, tall, thin — they came in droves, making their way from the farthest reaches of distant suburbs and cities, traversing vast parking lots on foot. They came en masse like pilgrims, toting Indian blankets and sealed bottles of Evian. Some brought daughters,…
Gilberto Gil, Sunday, September 5, at Jazz Aspen at Snowmass, Tuesday, September 7, at the Fox Theatre in Boulder and Wednesday, September 8, at the Gothic Theatre in Denver, has taken his Fifties inspiration from fellow Brazilian and bossa nova legend Joao Gilberto several quantum leaps further. The guitarist, multi-instrumentalist,…
The Perry Weissman 3 at Seven South, Friday, September 3, were recently selected to perform at New York City’s infamous CMJ Music Festival later this month, and it’s raised a bit of a problem. A good problem, to be sure, but a problem nonetheless. The five-person band, which includes the…
Was it Magnet, Spin or Pulse! that first coined the insidious term “stoner rock” in an effort to describe a new sound emerging from the desert — the sound that’s at times lethargic yet prone to getting loud and sonorous at the crack of a high hat? Personally, I’m hoping…
Playing house band for the oppressed worldwide is one way that Ozomatli, an eleven-piece, L.A.-based, genre-splicing outfit, wants to party in 1999. By proudly wearing a “politics for the people” philosophy on its sleeve, the multi-cultural group is a pre-millennial answer to the infamous question posed by Los Angeles denizen…
Like a lot of guys who spend their lives toiling away in the oft-thankless world of unsigned local bands, Chuck Tinsley is looking forward to the day when music will make him rich — or at least provide him with a comfortable income. But as a guitarist in the Denver…
Trish Murphy Rubies on the Lawn (doolittle/Mercury Records) With her new release, Austin-based singer/ songwriter Trish Murphy has leapt a considerable distance. On Rubies on the Lawn, Murphy stretches her coffeehouse folkster beginnings across a decidedly more accessible landscape to create an impressive, from-the-heartland pop gem. Rubies is a scrumptious…
Just us folks: Chances are good that those who’ve frequented downtown and Capitol Hill coffeehouses during the past eight years have, at some point, been privy to the quiet stylings of singer/ songwriter Micah Ciampa. After a prolonged stint as a member of the local folkie roster, however, Ciampa has…
