Cassandra Wilson is a big fan of Cassandra Wilson. When asked how she’s able to appeal to both Kenny G listeners and the Ornette Coleman followers who despise Bill Clinton’s favorite saxophonist, Wilson, a woman who’s infused the jazz-vocal tradition with more life than any other young performer to emerge…
If you put a typical CU student at the front of a successful hippie/funk/R&B band and allowed that person to see nothing but an endless road filled with multicolored Volkswagens, to wear nothing but tie-dyed T-shirts and to hear nothing but the Allman Brothers for almost half a decade, he…
The Apples Fun Trick Noisemaker (spinART) Last year, Apples frontman Robert Schneider told Westword he wanted to write “uplifting” songs that had a “transcendent quality” about them. Judging from Fun Trick Noisemaker, the act’s spinART debut, Schneider and the rest of the Apples (drummer Hilarie Sidney, guitarist John Hill and…
“Because I’ve been in King Crimson and Yes and Genesis,” says Bill Bruford, among the planet’s best-known drummers, “I always get the stuff about British progressive rock–which is not a subject dear to my heart. It’s a term that journalists invented, but we musicians don’t really acknowledge those particular categories…
For most music aficionados, the terms “punk” and “folk” exist at opposite ends of the musical spectrum. But for self-described punk folksinger Ani DiFranco, the two genres are practically one and the same. “In my mind, they aren’t all that different,” insists the 24-year-old New Yorker. “I mean, the whole…
Justine Frischmann, the lead vocalist and guitarist for England’s Elastica, has been hearing the comments since her quartet came to public attention in 1993: You sound like this band, you sound like that band. She insists that these gibes don’t bother her a bit. “In one way, it’s kind of…
To simplify labeling, the members of the Denver-based septet known as Groove Kitchen refer to their music as acid jazz–and they definitely don’t believe the term should be interpreted pejoratively. Dogmatists may regard acid jazz as the redheaded stepchild of “real” jazz, but Kitchen guitarist Tom Burke sees it as…
The Magnetic Fields The Charm of the Highway Strip (Merge) The 6ths Wasps’ Nests (London) The man behind both of these projects is Stephin Merritt, whose unique pairings of obvious scenarios and basic instrumentation border on pop genius. But although he claims ABBA and classic Top 40 as his primary…
“You can print this on my tombstone if I’m wrong,” says Jon E., drummer for Spoon Collection. “I’m in the right place at the right time.” Jon’s bandmates, vocalist/guitarist S’aint Willy and bassist/backup vocalist Schneid, share this sunny sentiment. They believe they’re perfect matches for each other and that this…
Judged on the most superficial level possible, KTCL’s Big Adventure, a music festival staged on June 3 at Fiddler’s Green, was a good deal. The show featured fifteen bands, most of whose performances were generous and energetic. Moreover, the ticket price (around $12) was exceedingly modest. If nothing else, it…
Uncle Joe’s Big Ol’ Driver, Wednesday, June 7, at the Mercury Cafe, plays the kind of meat-and-potatoes rock and roll that critics tend to love or hate depending upon how much they had to drink the night before. Chick Rock, the Drivers’ sophomore opus (on Headhunter Records) is no exception…
You can’t blame Micky Dolenz for being cranky. After all, he’s sitting in a hotel room in Rochester, New York, where he’s currently appearing in a production of that theatrical landmark Grease. Worse, he’s got a cough and a touch of the flu that he’s been unable to kick. He…
The music of New York-based guitarist Donald Miller and saxophonists Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich, collectively known as Borbetomagus, has been slapped with some pretty dandy labels. Industrial Strength. Punk Jazz. Trash Jazz. Thrash Jazz. Sauter acknowledges that the trio’s sound has “inspired writers to be very creative. I’ve found…
Anyone hoping to explore the width and breadth of music in general during drive time is out of luck. Over the course of the twenty-plus hours of Colorado radio analyzed for this article, we heard plenty of rock, country and pop, as well as dollops of salsa, Christian music, R&B,…
part 1 of 2 In 1978 (back when he mattered), Elvis Costello recorded “Radio, Radio,” a virulent, wide-ranging assault on the title medium. The key lines neatly encapsulated his views: “The radio is in the hands/Of such a lot of fools/ Trying to anesthetize the way that you feel.” Seventeen…
part 2 of 2PUBLIC RADIO The furor over the funding of public radio is probably fueled by ideology; the Newt Gingriches of Congress don’t like paying for what they see as NPR’s liberal bias. But setting politics aside, does Denver really need three public-radio stations? After all, a lot of…
Christie Front Drive Christie Front Drive (Caulfield) There are an oodle of pop-core bands slugging it out in the indie underworld right now, but nary a one gets to the euphoric heart of the punk-pop aesthetic quite like Denver’s Christie Front Drive. On this, their debut album, guitarist Eric Richter…
“There’s a lot of dissonance involved in our music,” notes Martyn Leaper, 26-year-old vocalist, guitarist and chief songwriter for the Denver pop trio known simply as INK. “I don’t think we can control what we’re going to do next. A lot of times, I just start fiddling with my guitar…
While rap and hip-hop remain inaudible on most radio stations, the genre continues to represent the music of choice for a hefty percentage of the under-25 crowd, whose members dump more of their cash on CDs than those in any other single group. These are the people who put Friday,…
There’s nothing like an early death to prompt critical reconsideration–and the reputation of Frank Zappa, who succumbed to cancer in late 1993 at the age of 52, has gotten a major boost as a result of this phenomenon. At the time of his passing, the music made by this grumpy…
Tricky Maxinquaye (Island) Tricky is already carrying a heavy burden: The British press has labeled him the king of trip-hop, a mixture of hip-hop, acid jazz and other compatible ingredients that’s reportedly the latest subgenre to turn England on its collective teacups. Whether any of that is true, I can’t…
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy knows a thing or two about rock journalism. “The Flying Burrito Brothers have to be mentioned in any article about a country-rock band,” notes the singer/guitarist. “It’s like the Velvet Underground or Big Star. For rock critics, its a reference point. Which is fine. That’s cool with…
