The thing about album reviews is that they tend to be fairly untrue. Too many generalities, too much name-dropping; it’s a contentious game of words and, often, a clash of musical egos. Take Scenery, the debut solo effort by Timothy Thomas Cleary (formerly of Boulder-based Signal to Noise and soon…
The Clientele, God Save the Clientele (Merge). One of the most appealing things about previous releases by this U.K. band was the sound quality. The ’60s-esque pop songs were sublimely hazy and antiquated, almost as if they’d been recorded on a Fisher-Price recorder at the bottom of a lake. Sad,…
Although viral marketing has improved the condition of Sick Puppies, the cure may not be permanent. The Aussie band’s attempts to break in the States were going nowhere when singer/guitarist Shimon Moore combined footage of performance artist Juan Mann, who offered “Free Hugs” to passersby, with a power ballad called…
Christopher Lawrence’s backbreaking tour schedule literally broke his back. The king of techno-tinted trance returns to the road this weekend after canceling two months of scheduled performances to undergo surgery on a ruptured disc. No stranger to the strains of DJ superstardom, Lawrence probably needed the rest: He’s the only…
It makes sense that these guys have decided to go by ALO these days. Their full moniker, Animal Liberation Orchestra, conjures images of a large group of people dressed in black and bounding about under cover of darkness, setting circus animals free from chained bondage. But judging from Roses and…
The light of the morning sun spreads across the horizon as you slowly awaken from a restful night’s sleep. As the fog clears and conscious thoughts begin to crystallize, you enter a state that scientists call hypnopompia — a psychological limbo between sleep and wakefulness during which you’re prone to…
When Elliott Yamin first appeared on American Idol, his snaggle-toothed grin and backwoods appearance recalled that O Brother, Where Art Thou? scene in which Tim Blake Nelson fears his escaped-convict buddies have been transformed into “horny toads!” By placing third in the contest, however, Yamin earned a pricey makeover that’s…
Peter Black, the man behind Rockstars Are Dead, has teamed up with Lipgloss’s Michael Trundle to start a new weekly Wednesday residency at DC 10 (940 Lincoln Street) called Riot! The two DJs are shooting for a more diverse and commercial audience than at their previous underground events. Black says…
For a few years there, it seemed that there would be no end to the stream of angsty, but not angry, suburban white-boy punks. How many times did you roll your eyes at all the pre-fab rebellion packaged neatly inside screaming harmonies? Out of that milieu, there were a few…
Git Some and These Arms Are Snakes 3 Kings Tavern Slide Show…
Some cool things about Sasquatch! Music Festival : — Sasquatch is another name for Bigfoot — There were a ton of great bands. — Seattle Weekly (Westword’s sibling) has extensive web coverage of the event. The only thing that could have made it better if the bands that preformed were…
Whiskey Kiss and 18 Wheeler 3 Kings Tavern Saturday, May 26th Slide show…
Slide Show Bob Dylan is a wierdo among freaks. Even when he was a leader of the ’60s folk scene, he considered himself an outcast, a stranger who was lost, and by his own admission had “no direction home.” So maybe it was fitting that the Bob Dylan tribute show…
Killfix The Walnut Room…
Being a native of Littleton, I felt an immediate affinity for Januar while researching their Myspace Music page. Their profile was incredibly straightforward. From: Littleton (who owns up to that?); influences: Jeff Buckley, Mojave 3, Sigur Ros; band name is Icelandic for “January,” and they’re wearing woolly beanies in their…
I was in the middle of shaving Saturday morning when Sweetie bellowed something in my direction. I couldn’t make out what, exactly, because…well, because I was shaving and concentrating on not cutting myself. “David, come here,” she beckoned again, sounding slightly bemused. “You’ve got to see this.” I could hear…
Gregg Gillis can’t believe all the attention his musical alter ego is getting. “The past couple months have been particularly ridiculous,” he marvels. “First you’ve got Mike Doyle talking about me in Congress. Two weeks later I’m playing a high-school prom, playing to all these seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. The next…
There is something very un-punk about the members of Propagandhi. They don’t write optimistic anthems about radical social change, or dress down in the all-black anarchist uniform, or have any illusions about having to make certain compromises in a capitalist society. Yet the Canadian outfit is one of the most…
Joss Stone needs no introduction. By now you’ve either heard her preternatural voice or seen her barefoot on any number of award shows, or maybe you saw her in Eragon or checked out her Gap ad cameo. With two mega-selling albums, Stone clearly isn’t unknown. Nonetheless, the British chanteuse chose…
The title of the latest disc by the Bad Plus is Prog, and it includes a version of Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.” But that doesn’t mean pianist Ethan Iverson can be called a longtime fan of the artsy genre. Because he grew up listening to jazz, not rock, he was unfamiliar…
A lot of posthumous albums seem like vain attempts to make a buck off the name of someone who died prematurely. To that end, Kill Rock Stars should be commended for its decision to wait four years to issue New Moon, a two-disc set of unreleased Elliott Smith songs. Recorded…
Every music lover has a line beyond which material that had been intriguing becomes self-indulgent. On In Glorious Times, the Museum members don’t just cross this line; they flip back and forth over it like Carly Patterson on angel dust, daring listeners to decide from one moment to the next…
