There are some days you remember for the rest of your life. For Weakerthans singer/guitarist John K. Samson, a 1996 visit to Denver was one of those days. He can still remember the smell of Mace and tear gas in the air on that seasonably warm night, the howl of…
For Michael Trenhaile, the lead guitarist, co-vocalist and co-songwriter for Denver’s Worm Trouble, a musical mishap is creative gasoline. When he sits down to pen a tune, he favors chaos over control. It’s an artistic strategy that’s more Jackson Pollock than Michelangelo, one that prizes abstract originality over rigidly defined…
Courtney Love spent the better part of last week testifying on behalf of her band, Hole, arguing that bands that sign with major labels are often held captive by creatively stifling contracts. Love’s own deal with Warner Bros., the one she’s currently angling to exit, requires Hole to produce five…
Jay Vance — once a ska bassist for Skankin’ Pickle and the Blue Meanies — had such bad luck with bands that he finally decided to build his own. But infinitely worse than any ego-addled, carbon-based life form, his new musical associates (a Rasta-locked timekeeper called DRMBOT0110 and the menacing…
Back in 1992, when Denver’s Nebula 9 made its live debut at A Nightmare on Blake Street, an after-hours event housed in the old 23rd Parish Space, the whole audiovisual package was so fabulous that party patrons assumed the unit was from out of state. Nine years later, LoDo’s Bash…
Madonna opens up her latest full-length CD — the ten-million-plus-selling Music — with a small request: “Hey, Mr. DJ,” she says, “put a record on. I wanna dance with my baby.” While the Material Girl’s intentions are never easily deciphered, she seems to be addressing one Victor Calderone, the current…
Andy Falconetti’s 6-5 frame challenges the ceiling in a tiny northwest Denver basement. As rehearsal space for pop confectioners the Breezy Porticos, the cement-walled bunker serves multiple purposes: It’s a sound lab, clubhouse and, above all, a storage room. With his head grazing overarching cobwebs and support beams, the singer/guitarist…
Spring is upon us, as we can tell from the allergy-induced sneezes of our friends and loved ones. But no matter what the time of year, local artists never stop cranking out recordings. A recent round of releases brings a bouquet of sounds and styles; some will delight the senses,…
Japanese performers frequently bring a wonderfully fresh perspective to American pop. The bouncy sounds that too many musicians on this side of the pond sneer at or reject as embarrassing anachronisms fill the likes of Cornelius and Pizzicato Five with undiluted glee. Moreover, these artists’ cheery dispositions and fondness for…
What becomes an aging pretty boy most? Judging from these releases, a dogged determination to live in the past trumps aging gracefully any day. First, the bad news: Though Osmond may have found new life as a Broadway balladeer, whoever thought this baker’s mostly down-tempo dozen was a good idea…
One of the enduring agonies of parenthood is having to listen, again and again, to terrible children’s music. I don’t have kids, but I know this is true because my own childhood was irreparably damaged by prolonged exposure to Alvin and the Chipmunks. The two decades since haven’t exactly redeemed…
Jay Bianchi sits on a thrift-store couch inside Sancho’s Broken Arrow, the Colfax bar he built from the rubble of the Golden Nugget Country Disco in February 2000. The place is bedecked with tie-dyes, a huge mosaic of the Grateful Dead’s Steal Your Face logo, and a wall of signed…
Kevin Barnes, the primary instigator behind Of Montreal, Saturday, May 12, at the 15th Street Tavern, says that the act’s latest disc, the succinctly titled Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse, is a concept recording, and there’s no reason to doubt him. After all, the CD’s…
The members of Phantom Trigger, Thursday, May 10, at the 15th Street Tavern, with Regular and Mercy Ride, don’t mince words: The majority of the tunes on the band’s self-titled CD are instrumentals; when words do percolate to the top of the dense sound mix, they are usually little more…
Damon Gough, who performs under the moniker Badly Drawn Boy, has a thing or two to learn about being an English pop star. Whereas most prominent musicians from his homeland dress flamboyantly, maintain piss-off attitudes and regularly issue bold proclamations about the enduring significance of their work — whether such…
Southern California’s brand of sun-soaked Americana evokes a playful, hedonistic teen utopia of endless summers, surfboards and the ocean’s heartbeat, for starters. Without thinking too hard, you’ll likely recall Annette Funicello’s bare little midriff, Gidget’s wiggle, and Malibu Barbie’s tan, polyvinyl-chloride skin. But for Colorado’s Maraca Five-O, the instrumental surf…
With all of the effort that’s put toward indoctrinating middle-class youth into the cult of suburbia, it’s not surprising to see the rate at which bohemian leanings are traded for button-down collars. It’s something that usually takes place just after college commencement. Most likely, it’s that familiar notion — that…
The trouble with all too many reissues is overfamiliarity: Record-company execs often launch already popular titles onto the market years or decades after their debut in the hopes that people who already own them will be persuaded by the inclusion of alternate tracks, a new mix or remastering to buy…
While this Blur disc has been out for some time, it’s worth a look-see for all fans of the U.K. scene as well as anyone interested in one of the last decade’s best contributions to rock and roll. The British quartet opens its first American singles compilation with “Beetlebum,” a…
Led by the indomitable Clarence Fountain, the Blind Boys of Alabama formed in 1939 when Fountain and four other students from the Talledega Institute for the Blind began sneaking off to sing at a local military base as the Happyland Singers. In the ’50s, by then known as the Original…
Before Calypso music was hijacked by CapriSun commercials and weddings planned by Pier 1 sales reps, it was a fine, spontaneous song form that centered, to a large extent, on the art of the insult. On the West Indian island of Trinidad, where the rhumba-heavy style flourished before moving to…
No matter how exhilarating the pendulum-swinging dynamics of post-hardcore music can be, they’re also pretty tough on soft ears. While Q and Not U, Thursday, May 3, at Double Entendre Records, will never be confused with puffsters like Blink 182, the band makes more concessions to the cochlea than do…
