So you thought that after coming through heroin addiction, imprisonment and virtual banishment from the country-music industry, Steve Earle would be suitably apologetic and recalcitrant? Think again. As Earle puts it, “There are some people in this world that I really quite frankly don’t give a fuck what they think.”…
The message flashed at viewers during the introduction of The Last Klezmer–a 1994 documentary film made by Yale Strom, leader of the klezmer/jazz act known as KLAZZJ–underlines the important role the style has played in Jewish culture throughout Eastern Europe. “A wedding without a klezmer,” the saying goes, “was worse…
“I think we need radical change in politics,” says Wayne Kramer, “and that can only come from young people with revolutionary ideas. Right now we’re getting business as usual.” If that sounds like the brand of verbal throwdown most frequently associated with the protest movements of the late Sixties and…
The Cranberries To the Faithful Departed (Island) There’s a fine line between a distinctive voice and an annoying voice, and Dolores O’Riordan is on the wrong side of that line. Following in the footsteps of prime-time Stevie Nicks, whose singing recalls the bleating of a herd of sheep in an…
“A lot of people been saying that I’m not consistent,” reports Michael Rose. “And they say this is why no one hears of me.” On the surface, these rebukes seem warranted. After all, Rose left Black Uhuru, the group for which he’s best known, in 1983–and over the course of…
When bassist Kelly Dermody first joined Denver’s Fatwater, the group members claimed to be a rowdy fraternity of extreme kayak enthusiasts given to shouting “Fatwater!” as they approached frothing rapids. That Dermody was fooled is understandable. One is inclined to believe anything vocalist Judson Harper says. Even when Harper is…
Since its inception, 16 Horsepower has been the product of three people: multi-instrumentalist David Eugene Edwards, drummer Jean-yves Tola and bassist Keven Soll. While Edwards was clearly the frontman for the band, the other players were key contributors who added an important visual component to live shows most observers saw…
Drummer Dan Haugh and bassist Mike Kunka, collectively known as godheadSilo, would like to join Motsrhead and the Who on a roster of the loudest acts in the history of rock and roll. But one thing stands in their way: space. “We’d like to take twice as much equipment on…
It’s a Tuesday night in downtown Denver, and Chuck Shockney, music instructor, organ salesman and part-time musician, is preparing for another gig. He sits down at his keyboard, turns on his rig and slides into a tune for the usual audience of…50,000 people. Shockney, the 51-year-old organist for Coors Field…
They’ve got the local music in them. Flesh Blanket, by Zoon Politikon, is not a punk album in the contemporary, major-label sense–meaning that it sounds nothing like Green Day. Instead, the act, as captured by producer Tim Beckman, gives you an idea of what early Eighties X might have sounded…
“Have you noticed how a majority of the musicians around here are about a generation behind in the way that they play?” asks Sam Coffman, a composer/pianist who leads the Denver jazz act Cat Unit. “And hey, it’s not just around here; I think it’s a common problem everywhere. But…
Madonna’s baby-to-be (reportedly a girl to be named Lola, after the Marlene Dietrich character in 1930’s The Blue Angel) is a star even before sticking her head out of her mom’s well-publicized womb. But will she stay one? It’s not easy, as the offspring of the famous performers below can…
“In a way, it’s almost a privilege not to be played on the radio,” singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa says with a laugh. “Sure, I’d love to have radio success–I’d be lying if I didn’t say that. But the quality and content of the music are just as important to me as…
Thus far, videotape shot during the aftermath of the punk-rock-show-turned-riot at a Denver VFW hall on May 18 (Feedback, May 23) hasn’t caused the stir many attendees were hoping, in part because of its highly variable quality. Dave Paco, bassist for the band Four, says much of the footage he…
Howlin’ Maggie Honeysuckle Strange (Columbia) Who’d a thunk that in 1996, one of the hottest sounds in the United States would come courtesy of the Rolling Stones? Not that the Stones are suddenly enjoying a personal revival; while catalogue sales are keeping them in beer and blood transfusions, their most…
If the members of Denver’s Eleventh Hour appear to be suffering from an identity crisis, you can hardly blame them. According to Howard Bridges II, drummer for the youthful combo–which also includes lead vocalist/guitarist Shane Ewegen, bassist/ vocalist Brian Long and self-proclaimed djembe “intern” Nathan Frank–the people who attend the…
One expects even those rock musicians inclined toward experimentalism to eventually embrace the four-minute pop song, or to otherwise marry the gems of their wanderings to our culture’s more prominent musical conventions. But thus far, John Herndon, one of the five multi-instrumentalists who make up the Chicago-based Tortoise, has resisted…
The mainstream-media coverage of the so-called melee that took place Saturday, May 18, at a punk show staged at the Veterans of Foreign Wars hall was, in a word, typical. The television news accounts that I saw immediately following the incident–which involved the arrests of seventeen people and the participation…
Rage Against the Machine Evil Empire (Epic) Why are so many left-wingers humorless? Sure, there are terrible things happening on this little globe of ours–war, torture, rape, racism, discrimination, deforestation–and anyone willing to batter against such obstacles deserves props. But I humbly submit that the harangue is seldom the best…
Shortly after moving from Japan to the United States in the late Eighties, Yuka Honda landed a job writing about American food for a Japanese magazine. On the surface, the position seems to have little in common with her current role, as half of a resolutely eclectic band known as…
Very little unnerves Leslie Mah, guitarist for San Francisco’s Tribe 8. But she admits to being a bit nervous about playing her first show in Colorado since moving away from her home state seven years ago. “It’s going to be a little weird, because I haven’t been to a show…
Six years ago this month, Cristofer Lix was admitted to a hospital with a severe headache, the result of a pharmacist’s misreading of his prescription for sinus medication; for two days he had been inadvertently taking a drug for high blood pressure at an unusually high dosage. But after having…
