If you’re among those who’ve endured your share of would-be funk and ska bands, you might be inclined to roll your eyes upon first hearing Action Figure 8. The act’s chorusy guitars and moderately withdrawn vocals recall the omnipresent, mid-to-late-’90s sound made famous by Sublime and the Red Hot Chili…
Douglas Spencer is taking a bumpy ride down memory lane. Huddled up with Monofog vocalist Hayley Helmericks on a snowy Colorado day, the wiry guitarist is recounting how he first got into music. When he was eight years old, Spencer and his dad stopped at a yard sale. That’s where…
For the most part, My Morning Jacket keyboardist Bo Koster still enjoys touring — but he’s got a much better grasp of its negatives than he did before joining the notoriously nomadic band in 2004. “I always think about The Last Waltz, where Robbie Robertson was like, ‘The road’s an…
Access to behind-the-scenes band life has become increasingly banal. Between “reality” television and coverage of performers hoping to lower the bar on self-destruction (dudes, anything you’d dream of trashing, Led Zeppelin has already destroyed twice as monumentally), it’s tough to even cock an eyebrow at backstage behavior anymore. The entertainment…
Glen Campbell, pop star, requires little introduction. Less obvious, however, is his start as anonymous session man backing artists such as Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and the Monkees, among others. (Remember, only Michael Nesmith could play.) Campbell even “joined” the Beach Boys during an eighteen-month tour. Once he was given…
Behold yet another worldwide reggae star that you’ve probably never heard of. Unfortunately, unless their name is Marley, Toots or Spear, most reggae artists typically go unnoticed by the masses. Beres Hammond falls into that category, in spite of a 35-year career that has made him a superstar in his…
Randy Newman hails from a family of film composers (uncles Lionel and Alfred were Hollywood heavyweights), so his success scoring Pixar blockbusters and other flicks is fitting. Too bad his cinematic achievements have put such a crimp in his career as a recording artist. He’s made some of the best…
What happens when a bunch of Southern rockers from Augusta, Georgia, collide with Yes in a head-on train wreck? The Dixie Dregs. Formed in the late ’60s, the Dregs — originally known as Dixie Grit — mixed a heady blend of progressive jazz fusion with classical overtones and Allman Brothers-like…
Erin Bode There’s a montage in Play Misty for Me in which Clint Eastwood and Donna Mills are seen walking on the beach, waves crashing behind them, then frolicking in the woods while Roberta Flack’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” plays. The purity and beauty of the…
A few short years ago, Jamie Foxx was the opposite of an award magnet — but that was before he won a Best Actor Oscar for the 2004 Ray Charles biopic Ray. Since then, he’s been nominated for five Grammys, including three this year: one for his contributions to “Georgia,”…
Kayo Dot thrives at extremes. On its Tzadik debut, 2003’s Choir of the Eye, the act creates exhaustive, dynamic backdrops in which dense layers of distortion descend into exquisite, wistful excursions, like chaos dissolving into serenity — or something akin to dropping acid in a tunnel with Marshall stacks blaring…
Quick: Name three things that come from Denmark. Drawing a blank? You know, Denmark. It’s that little Scandinavian country that owns Greenland, used to reign in blood over vast swaths of northern Europe and until now has been known mostly for tasteful furniture design. Well, Danish metal quintet Mnemic (the…
Anti-Glacier Movement’s most obvious touchstone is Radiohead. Frontman Jesse Nesbitt evokes Thom Yorke’s signature croon better than most of his counterparts who’ve co-opted the British band’s eclectic, folk-influenced space rock sound. Anti-Glacier, though, goes beyond mere imitation. Instead of residing in the safe, warm environs charted by Yorke and company,…
Circusized Peanuts. What a great name for a record. And as I remembered it, Peanuts was also a pretty kick-ass album. Not quite as good as Deadly Kung Fu Action — the classic Warlock Pinchers album, which contained the immortal ditty “Morrisey Rides a Cockhorse” — but pretty kick-ass nonetheless…
Death Becomes You It’s death metal Tuesday at the Larimer Lounge. Okay, I made that crap up; there’s no official, on-going weekly theme at the Lounge. Nonetheless, that’s precisely what’s on tap — too much metal for one hand. Stop by tonight and have your ass handed to by Cryogen,…
Vonnegut Thursday is the new Friday. You got the memo, right? That said, here’s some kick ass shows worth checking out tonight… Vonnegut, Epilogues, (die) Pilot and All Capitals comprise a kickass local bill at the Bluebird, while former Against Tomorrow Sky guitarist/vocalist Mike Stephens’ new band Sedalia shares the…
I’m listening to Billy Joel right now, and it’s all Chuck Klosterman’s fault. That prick. Prompted by a passage that I read earlier this morning in one of his books, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto, I’m sorting through several of Joel’s deep cuts, among them a…
Now is a bad time to be a giant music corporation, but ethically challenged music fans couldn’t ask for better days. Bootlegging has always been about catering directly to the fans, and the Internet breeds the best bootleggers yet: bigger and stronger and faster than ever before, the better to…
In 2006, the pop-singles market continued to dominate, in no small part because the pick-and-click mentality of online music stores and ring-tone sites gave consumers unparalleled freedom to Choose Their Own Musical Adventure. What suffered in the meantime was the quality of pop and rock albums. These platters frequently spawned…
It was, according to no less an authority than the New York Times, the year rap went regional. There was plenty of recent evidence to support this claim, beginning with the suddenly paltry record sales racked up by some of hip-hop’s heaviest weights. There was a lot of historical evidence,…
The Nashville way of making music is unlike any other, comparable only to the studio system of Hollywood’s golden age — a closed system of songwriters, producers, record labels and artists that creates most of the sounds you don’t want to admit you listen to on the radio when no…
This story, as originally conceived, was supposed to be a compilation of the year’s best boxed sets and other reissues. But then it hit us: In today’s shuffle-driven iPod world, with the pace of pop culture moving at breakneck speed, it’s pointless to make such temporal distinctions. The past is…
