The Widowers, Bad Weather California, The Dirty Projectors September 4, 2007 hi-dive Better than: Two out of three isn’t bad, right? It’s fun to have your expectations shredded, so I have to thank the Widowers for the fun. They were surprisingly accessible for a band made up mostly of members…
Cowboy Curse, Cat-a-tac, Apples in Stereo August 31, 2007 The Bluebird Better than: Any other fruit you could name. Slide Show It’s refreshing when a show starts on time. Cowboy Curse, opening for the Apples in Stereo, took the stage less than five minutes after the scheduled start time of…
Projekt Revolution, which concluded its 2007 run on September 3 at Coors Amphitheatre, wasn’t exactly revolutionary from a musical standpoint. Sizable chunks of the venerable package show headlined by Linkin Park played like extended outtakes from VH1’s I Love the ’80s. Still, there were quite a few memorable moments from…
Okay, I’m a sad sack, I’ll admit it. I have a thing for sad music. “Why in the hell would you intentionally listen to music that makes you depressed?” someone asked me once, completely befuddled. Simple. While I enjoy balls-out rock as much as the next guy, sometimes it feels…
The folks at Virb aren’t the only ones to realize how difficult it’s become for the average band to stand out from the MySpace crowd. Two Denver-based projects have debuted within the past year with a similar goal — and their common ingredient is jam. Granted, MoBoogie.net founder Drew Ryan…
Candee D*Vine wants to be your friend! She’s nineteen, cute, bisexual and “up for anything.” If you approve her request — and you probably will — she’ll go into the pile with the rest of your “friends,” who are more than happy to invite you to check out their naughty…
After a 22-year hiatus, David Bromberg has emerged from his Wilmington, Delaware, violin shop with a new album and a new outlook on making music. His reappearance is as sudden as his departure was: Citing burnout from touring, recording and the demands of session work — including stints backing Bob…
Sorry, Mr. Smith, but there’s no radio that likes to play the songs of your lover’s sorrow/Just sing us a jingle, and we’ll float you some bread/And all it will cost you is your heart and your head.” In the opening lines of his song “Artists and Repertoire,” Richard Swift…
Rob Zombie made the leap from stage to screen in 2003 with his surreal debut House of 1,000 Corpses. Two years later, he released a sequel to that film called The Devil’s Rejects. And this week, his lifelong passion for horror movies culminates in a remake of the 1978 classic…
Jenny Lewis may like the critical cred that came with recording for indies such as Saddle Creek, but the former child actress (she survived Camp Beverly Hills) clearly wants some adult stardom to pair with the kiddie kind. Blacklight, Rilo Kiley’s first official CD for Warner Bros., is a blatantly…
“Infectious” is too mild a word for viral tunes like “Hip Hopallula” and “Hello,” which both owe a sizable debt to old-school Grandmaster Flash and Whodini. In fact, odds are good that Junior Senior’s brain trusts, Danes Jeppe Laurson and Jesper Mortensen, are likely be quarantined in the National Jewish…
A Shoreline Dream’s debut full-length, Avoiding the Consequences, showcased a band exploring the breadth of dream pop with an immediately compelling sound. On Coastal, its latest effort, the act builds upon Avoiding’s ideas with noisier backdrops and less floating-in-the-ether-style digital delay. The disc also exhibits a greater sense of urgency…
Few young acts have their own sound from the get-go — and right now, the Platte River Killers are in the imitation stage. Their hard-rocking work is generally effective, but they’ll have to go beyond mimicry if they want to be remembered for themselves and not just for the bands…
Hannah Fury, Through the Gash (MellowTraumatic Recordings). Hannah Fury’s last full-length effort was a musical adaptation of Wicked that was way ahead of the Broadway musical. On this long-awaited followup, her wispy, spooky songs of love, life and loss play like Gothic ghost tales from another time. The lush, dense…
Parents, the members of Tub Ring are poster children for not giving your ADD-addled children their meds. Otherwise, they might never grow up to be endearingly spastic kings of pop like these guys, who can open a tune with pseudo-classical strings before veering effortlessly into bouncy punk interspersed with searing…
When you pull up the home page of Taylor Eigsti’s website, there’s a photo of the 22-year-old pianist wearing a leather jacket with a hoodie underneath. Hate to say it, but the guy looks like more like a Backstreet Boy than a jazz pianist who’s been nominated for two Grammys…
The Tennessee Three backed Johnny Cash. Elvis had the Jordanaires. And the late, great GG Allin had the Murder Junkies, a crew who saw more of his backside, front side and underside than Allin’s seventeen-year-old girlfriend. Allin died in 1993, wearing feces and a mini-skirt, his face in a bag…
How the hell did Placebo wind up on the high-profile Projekt Revolution tour alongside Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, HIM, Madina Lake, Saosin, Styles of Beyond, Taking Back Sunday and the Bled? The answer most likely involves word of mouth from the right boosters at the right time. The British…
Mr. DeLuca, performing with the Last Goodnight and the Midway State, knows plenty about burdens — like, for instance, the one he’s carried since 24 star Kiefer Sutherland adopted his musical career. Having such a powerful patron has paid dividends: Sutherland made DeLuca’s 2006 long-player, I Trust You to Kill…
Frank Schultz is bullish on the Ballpark neighborhood — and no one is more surprised by that than him. In 1997, two years after Coors Field opened, Schultz invested big in the area by opening the Soiled Dove at 1949 Market Street, but by 2005, he realized that with all…
In the hierarchy of fabled Denver bands, Christie Front Drive ranks near the top. During its brief tenure, the act delivered some of the most compelling and influential music to ever come out of this town. Helmed by singer-guitarist Eric Richter, Christie Front Drive anchored the nascent early-’90s emo scene…
Andy C. has been a pioneer of the jungle/drum-and-bass sound since the beginning of its evolution from the early-’90s hardcore techno/breaks scene in his native U.K. As a teenager, he co-founded Ram Records in 1992 with Ant Miles and released a series of influential cuts, including the mega-anthem “Valley of…
