“Emo” isn’t really as bad a word as critics would have you believe. From the ’80s heyday of Rites of Spring and Embrace to the genre’s many mutations throughout the ’90s, emo has an honorable tradition that a few shitty MTV bands can’t erase. When the Appleseed Cast released its…
While the bulk of the Wu Tang Clan generally adopts a bullets-can’t-touch-us-because-of-our-Shaolin-sorcery approach to hip-hop, Ghostface Killah — in a Diddy-esque turn, now going as just Ghostface — has always been more of a if-you-shank-me-do-I-not-bleed kind of guy. Although Ghostface is not short on braggadocio or mad crazy, provocative, stoopid…
Spreading the gospel of pain since 1986, the Genitorturers, a goth-shock outfit out of Orlando, never shy away from including a bondage demonstration or two in their live set — an abrasive, costume-changing bacchanalia hosted by statuesque Mistress of Ceremonies Gen Vincent. After leaving her native Albuquerque at seventeen to…
With viral melodies, sold-their-soul technique and devilish beats, the four horsemen of Seattle’s the Divorce create end-times party music that doubles as another sign of the apocalypse — the deliciously sinful triumph of style over substance. Opening with the festive “Yes!” and whipping us into a caffeinated froth with tracks…
Don’t call it a throwback — well, actually, go right ahead. Frontside Five is proudly unapologetic about exhuming the thrash of classic American skate-punk acts like the Faction, Gang Green and Life Sentence. Formed three years ago by singer Brandon Stolz, bassist Brooke Crawford, drummer Robb Dogg and guitarists Shane…
Taking to heart the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, DJs Etain, MLE, Jamie Kent and Ms. Vicious formed the all-female DJ collective known as Angelic early this year. Each of these ladies has spent much of the past decade carving out a name…
Kawabata Makoto, the high priest of Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple & the Cosmic Inferno, conducts English-language interviews via e-mail with the help of a translator, and that’s appropriate. After all, his livelihood is founded on translation, albeit of a very different sort. “My music is something that I constantly hear…
Phil Murray is stoked. This Saturday, Live From Ebbets Field Vol. 1, the project he’s been working on for eighteen months with G. Brown, a former Denver Post scribe and current KCUV staffer, will finally hit the stands. The eagerly anticipated disc — which will be available at Borders and…
It’s a Thursday afternoon at 33rd and Blake, and the Flobots are at a screen-printing shop, talking T-shirts. A mere two weeks from their EP-release party, the clock is ticking. Gotta make sure shirts will be ready for the faithful fans they’ve amassed while barnstorming the Front Range this past…
Katrina Leskanich, former lead singer of the ’80s band Katrina and the Waves, whose one hit, “Walking on Sunshine,” became a Top 10 smash in the summer of 1985, knew something was up when she checked her website (www.katrinasweb.com) one day in late August and saw it was suddenly getting…
Rob “Bucket” Hingley has a simple motto: Don’t let the bastards grind you down. It’s fitting for the longtime champion of ska and leader of the genre’s American flagship, the Toasters. Any preconceived notions and prejudices people may harbor against ska, however justified, are thrown out the door the minute…
John Rich likes to tell a story about his preacher dad and Mtley Crüe, a group that embodies rebellious fun for a whole generation of heartland Americans. About four years ago, when Rich — one half of Big & Rich, the funniest and funkiest new rebels in country music –…
Admittedly, we washed our hands of Ryan Adams when his antics became as shamelessly precious as his subtly titled sea-change record, Rock N Roll. When he took time away from headline feuds and Hollywood girlfriends to actually make music, it seemed the earnest well that ran beneath his young career…
First, the good news: The Dandy Warhols have had their fling with disposable synth-pop, rediscovered the Velvet Underground and secured cult status from the rockumentary Dig! for not being assholes quite on par with the “genius” asshole in the Brian Jonestown Massacre. On the downside, Portland’s pleasure-seeking scamps banked enough…
Given that Bob Dylan’s 1997 disc, Time Out of Mind, took the best-album Grammy largely because he nearly died prior to its release, Neil Young’s Prairie Wind, which arrives under virtually identical circumstances, has “winner” written all over it. Still, the blessings here are mixed. Whereas Dylan’s effort was overrated,…
Teetering between corny and classic, Junior Brown bangs out a set of Americana-tinged fare that features his acclaimed double-necked plucking and baritone crooning. Bottling the essence of Tex-Mex, Western swing and even surf music (an instrumental jog through the Johnny Rivers classic “Secret Agent Man”), Junior swerves through a varied…
We’ve been shitting on her for eons, but as recent catastrophes will attest, Mother Nature refuses to be take it any longer. Humankind will have an equally hard time ignoring Divides, the deafening debut by Denver’s Across Tundras. A concept piece chronicling an epic voyage across seasons, the elements and…
Chronophonic rhymer Jon Swift specializes in a hip-hop/R&B hybrid that’s not driven by samples. Instead, he leans on the talents of noteworthy local performers, who help put Fresh Fitted into an enjoyable groove. Yo, Flaco! keyboardist Matt Piazza might be the dominant instrumentalist here, but he gets able assistance from…
David Allan Coe, Penitentiary Blues (Shout! Factory/Hacktone). Out of print for three decades, Penitentiary Blues is the most compelling blues release in recent memory. Written while this country outlaw was cooling his heels in the clink for the eighth time, Blues more than backs up David Allan Coe’s assertion that…
When you consider that Dolly Parton grew up with eleven brothers and sisters on a poor farm in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, it almost makes the tackiness of her theme park, Dollywood, seem forgivable. (There but for the grace of God goes Tammy Faye Bakker.) Of course, there are also Dolly’s…
The average pop-music fan doesn’t know Carl Cox from Wally Cox, but he’s been a DJ-culture celeb for almost two decades. A London native, Cox discovered house music circa 1987 and went on to became a prime spinner in Britain’s influential rave scene. He eventually developed into a salable commodity,…
There’s good reason that article after article describe Coheed and Cambria as “the emo Rush.” With 2003’s In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3, the New York quartet straddled two divergent demographics to strike gold, drawing big crowds at the Warped Tour and attracting increasing numbers of classic-rock fans to…
