The scene is a self-serve copy shop on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago, the time is several years ago, and the protagonist is Wesley Willis, beloved local icon. Willis is built like Sasquatch (he’s 6-4 and weighs over 300 pounds), but his spirit is friendly and gentle–which is why his sudden…
For the men and women of the Ladybug Transistor, discussion of the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds is strictly taboo. “These days, we refer to it as ‘the P word,'” jokes guitarist Jeff Baron. “It seems to follow us wherever we go.” Vocalist/trumpeter Gary Olson concurs. “It’s kind of funny. For…
Pianist/accordionist John Magnie and drummer/percussionist Steve Amedee, the key members of a new quartet called Magpie, were once half of the Subdudes, a group that earned a lofty place in Colorado music history and an impressive national reputation prior to its 1996 breakup. But on this April afternoon, the two,…
Joey McIntyre Stay the Same (C2 Records) If you needed any more proof that musical cycles are swirling faster than ever before, look no further than Joey (formerly Joe) McIntyre. This scrumpdillyicious hunkaroo was part of New Kids on the Block, which captivated the nearly pubescent crowd between 1988 and…
Local songs from the end of the century. Jonny Mogambo’s Colorado Golden, on Hapi Skratch Records, is slick but mostly enjoyable blues rock. Mogambo is a skilled guitarist whose occasional hippie-isms don’t put the brakes on the propulsive ditties “Victoria,” “Sorry State of Affairs” and “Melanoma Superstar,” and if the…
Duane Johnson Jr. occupies two worlds that most people see as mutually exclusive. By night, he is Defari Heru, a rising hip-hop star whose impressive debut album, Focused Daily, was recently issued by Tommy Boy Records. But during the day, he is simply Mr. Johnson, a 27-year old geography and…
How could anyone be surprised that Howard Stern made tactless remarks about the Columbine High School shootings during his April 21 broadcast? After all, his appeal, in large part, is based on his willingness to make tactless remarks about anything and everything, so he was simply running true to form…
If the mythology surrounding it is to be believed, the 1954 discovery of Elvis Presley turned as much on race as on talent. The story goes something like this: Sam Phillips, whose Sun Studios concentrated on songs aimed at the average rhythm-and-blues consumer, wanted to break into the musical mainstream–and…
Jim McIntyre, the brain behind Von Hemmling, lives among amps and mikes and dogs and cats at Pet Sounds, the shabby yet illustrious recording haven of the Apples and other acts affiliated with the Elephant Six imprint. In doing so, he’s grown accustomed to having indie-pop royalty traipsing through his…
Gomez is an up-and-coming English rock group, but its members don’t act like it. Their clothes aren’t terribly exciting, their music doesn’t “shimmer,” “jangle” or “pulsate” from the speakers of a dance club near you, and they resist the urge to tell the press that their British peers are either…
“I try to imagine what the scene in Denver would be like if we hadn’t been here–myself, Darrin Choice, John Chamie, Hipp-E and the other visionaries,” says Ken Hamblin III, better known as DJ K-Nee. “And I’m not certain it would be as interesting. We all saw that this music…
In conversation, bluesman R.L. Burnside exudes satisfaction. He doesn’t have an unkind word for anyone, and his comments glow with a sort of beatific acceptance: He delivers his most common replies–“Mmmmmm-hmmmmm,” “That’s right,” “Oh, yeah” and “I really believe that”–in a sweet growl, like James Earl Jones after being mellowed…
Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, Dolly Parton Trio II (Asylum) When Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt recorded the first Trio in 1987, the collaboration made sense. Harris had been building a respectable country audience, Parton had earned a couple of number-one country hits and some acting credibility in 1980’s…
Despite author Thomas Wolfe’s definitive warning, lots of people regularly try to go home again, only to find that the old place is no longer what it used to be. But not all such journeys end in disaster. Take the Smashing Pumpkins concert on April 19 at the Ogden Theatre–the…
Schrasj F (Ojet) the buddyrevelles September, November (Motorcoat) Kitty Craft Beats and Breaks From the Flower Patch (Kindercore) Masters of the Hemisphere Masters of the Hemisphere (Kindercore) Over the past several years, the buzz over indie rock has become a barely audible murmur, and for a very simple reason: The…
When it comes to the Denver club scene, the Eighties are in. Expensive venues such as Polyester’s and Lucky Star are treating expanding crowds to a diet laden with plenty of the Human League and the Cure, and nightspots associated with modern rock or current dance music, including Tracks 2000,…
Standing six-foot-seven and sporting a dark, frizzy coif straight out of the Handsome Dick Manitoba playbook, Zen Guerrilla vocalist Marcus Durant looks more like a refugee from the White Panthers than a budding soul sensation. Yet Durant insists that within his lanky, bohemian frame beats the heart of an honest-to-God…
Colorado has never provided fertile ground for independent labels: With only a few exceptions (most notably, Boulder-based W.A.R.?), most area imprints that started with high hopes wound up quickly dying on the vine. But that hasn’t stopped hearty local entrepreneurs from attempting to buck the trend–and Fort Collins’s Morris Beegle…
April 7, 1999: Prologue to the experiment: ABBA, a Swedish quartet starring Agnetha “Anna” Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Bjsrn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid “Frida” Synni-Lyungstad-Fredriksson-Andersson, was immensely successful during the 1970s and early 1980s, when it churned out one massive smash after another. Nevertheless, the group was widely despised by critics, who…
Virginia Rodrigues Sol Negro (Hannibal) As the global village shrinks, strife seems to grow, and terrorism, trade tiffs and border skirmishes tempt us to forget about the accompanying merits of intellectual and artistic continental drift. Sure, airport lines are longer, and the economics of NAFTA are debatable. But at least…
Medeski, Martin and Wood may record for Blue Note, the most venerable of jazz labels, but the trio’s music is practically impossible to describe without using a hyphen: Sometimes it’s jazz-soul, sometimes it’s jazz-funk, sometimes it’s jazz-hip-hop, and sometimes it’s an ultra-cool orgy of all this and more, more, more…
“You know what it is about our band?” asks Marq Lyn, vocalist for the Slackers, a New York City-based ska act. “We have the be-humble-and-shut-the-fuck-up policy. If anything slightly good happens to us, that makes our day. If someone gives us half a peanut butter sandwich, that makes our day.”…
