Figuratively speaking, the planet is shrinking by the day, and Manu Chao is singularly qualified to capture this contraction in song. Born in Paris of Spanish parents, he grew up listening to sounds from across the globe, and his recordings have managed to encompass these influences without diluting his personal…
It’s a given these days: Major labels are filled with worse decision-makers than the Bush administration. Columbia Records, however, looks dumber than most for dropping Lovedrug before the release of its sophomore album. Everything Starts Where It Ends — picked up by the Militia imprint, which released the act’s debut…
Consistency is considered to be an attribute — but for Richard Thompson, it’s been a drawback, too. He was first championed during the late ’60s for his contributions to Fairport Convention, among the most interesting English folk-rock groups of the era, and he saw his star rise again in the…
When MxPx got its start in 1993, it was known as Magnified Plaid. Back then, the Bremerton trio was little more than a replicate of its influences, specifically groups like NOFX. But the threesome never dreamed it would go on to be as influential in the Christian punk scene as…
As the charismatic frontwoman of Blondie, Debbie Harry was more than just a dumb, photogenic singer crooning unforgettable new-wave pop songs. From her beginnings in the ’60s folk-rock act Wind in the Willows to her experimental, poppy post-Blondie albums, Harry has consistently proved herself to be a versatile artist with…
Pull up to Le Rouge at 9 p.m. for the first round of the Miss LoDo Contest. These things never start on time, but I don’t want to miss anything. So I grab a seat at the bar. It’s near the end of the fourth quarter of the Pistons-Cavs game…
In Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive who gets kidnapped by a bunch of spies convinced that he’s an elusive figure named George Kaplan. Longtime friends and Hitchcock fans Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens and Jason Fredrick Iselin borrowed their moniker from the film —…
Slide Show Chris Adolph of Bad Weather California sat alone in a folding chair on the stage of the Larimer, in front of an all but empty room, bathed in green light. “I’m going to pretend this room is full,” he said and then started playing…
Slide Show The Born in the Flood barbecue June 3 at the Larimer Lounge was everything good about being in Denver right now. The weather was pleasant, if a bit weird. Overcast but warm, with a moderate breeze blowing through, it might not have been a storybook “nice day”, but…
Slide Show There is a reason we eat dessert last. See, if you have the best part of the meal up front, it sort of ruins everything else. How exciting are boiled potatoes when you’re still savoring the taste of that chocolate mousse? This applies to music as well, as…
We Are! We Are!, All Capitals, The Narrator and Me Llamo Rosa Larimer Lounge Friday, June 1st Slide show Live review…
It was an evening of local inspiration or maybe experimentation, or how about extraterrestrial communication last night at the Hi Dive, where Denver’s Mothership hosted a CD release show celebrating their first full length, the Eleven Dimensional Symphony. A dirty mix of camera difficulties, PBRs and lost keys led me…
Gregory Alan Isakov CD-release show With Chris Pureka and Tiny Television Slide Show Check out the slide show or read this week’s feature…
A key line from the title cut of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band reads, “It was twenty years ago today/Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play” — but you’d never know it from the Denver dailies. Both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post have published articles commemorating…
GFK, Hiretsukan and Propagandhi Slide show…
Gregory Alan Isakov isn’t a big talker. Live, he rolls through his sets with graceful efficiency and a minimum of banter. When he does speak, it’s at such low levels that you’re forced to lean in close to catch the gist of what he’s saying. As soft-spoken as Isakov is,…
Not Too Late is Norah Jones’s third CD, but the first for which she wrote or co-wrote all the songs. Musically, however, only a handful of folks see it as a significant departure from the 2002 Grammy magnet Come Away With Me and its big-selling successor, 2004’s Feels Like Home…
Summer’s right around the corner, which got us to thinking: If there was an undeniable, universal soundtrack for summer, one that appealed to everyone regardless of their individual inclinations, what would the final track list look like? Probably a lot like this. “School’s Out,” Alice Cooper: We never get over…
In less than four years, the husband-and-wife indie-pop duo in the Rosebuds have repeatedly reinvented themselves. On their 2003 Merge Records debut, The Rosebuds Make Out, guitarist/vocalist Ivan Howard and keyboardist/vocalist Kelly Crisp made a sunny AM-pop splash with sparkling, naive love songs. The group’s 2005 follow-up full-length, Birds Make…
What is Ozzy now, a hundred or something? You’d think the old coot would call it a career rather than further tarnish his legacy. Like most icons past their prime, though, maybe he just doesn’t know when to say when. He’s clearly saddled by idiots; why else would he choose…
The men of Linkin Park seem awfully insecure. Minutes to Midnight is stuffed with take-us-seriously gestures, including the presence of producer Rick Rubin and liner notes that couldn’t be needier if they’d been written by Sally Field. For instance, the Parkers reveal in a footnote to “What I’ve Done” that…
Believe it or don’t, a decade has passed since Fortuitous Oddity, Cephalic Carnage’s self-released debut, first assaulted eardrums in these parts. Since then, the fearsome five have established themselves internationally as extreme-metal madmen par excellence, and Xenosapien will only enhance that reputation. The eleven songs here constitute a jolt of…
