. . . the five-piece showed the surging Denver throng that it has reached a sort of musical plateau, one where it can perform just about any collection of new, old and really old material with aplomb and brilliance. They can whip any crowd into a throbbing fury, and then easily coax it back...
Read more →From the first plea in their opening cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Stop the World and Let Me Off,” you could feel that last Tuesday night’s set from John Doe and the Sadies at
Read more →Black Francis — a.k.a. Frank Black, a.k.a. the leader of alt- and indie heroes the Pixies — is a storyteller. His ability to thread a yarn through rambling, surrealist lyrics is only exceeded by his talent in wrangling pure and simple rock that’s a worthy backdrop for them.
Read more →Frontside Five has reached a sort of plateau in skate-punk, which actually involves leaving behind much of the genre’s simplicity in favor of some more complex rhythms, and a slightly more metal edge.
Read more →There are some artists that need to be alone, and then there are those that just plain can’t play with anyone else. It’s the latter group that put themselves on stage as a one-man-band — performing with total musical independence, total responsibility.
Read more →. . . the fervor, the excitement, the downright religious intensity Slim Cessna’s Auto Club brings to the stage never seems to fade, though I, like hundreds of other natives, have seen it regularly since they started out in 1992. . .
Read more →Jonathan Richman has a deeper affection for the Lion’s Lair than we thought. He played in the tiny Colfax dive-bar a year ago . . .
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Portland singer-songwriter Mirah introduced herself at the Hi-Dive Sunday night by saying “My name is Mirah, and I think I’m actually wearing a bra!” In one simple, quirky sentence about a slightly provocative item of clothing, walls of listener/performer separation instantly evaporated, and we felt as close to Mirah as her skin-tight shirt.
Read more →The last time I saw Motörhead was with Black Sabbath at the Paramount Theatre, some 10 years ago, and Lemmy looked older then than he did Saturday night at the Fillmore fronting his legendary metal band.
Read more →In front of blister-fast rhythms and searing metal riffs, Valient Himself screamed songs into the mosh pit on subjects ranging from how poorly George Bush is handling this country and the Iraq war . . . .
Read more →Drew Daniel bounced around his table like an animated mad scientist leaning over his mixing boards, laptops and synths and frantically grabbing, mixing, and manipulating sounds. M.C. Smith sat at his table fingering his synth, and then strumming, scratching and hitting the strings on his guitar. Over their heads played a black and white...
Read more →Take that thick, moonshine-soaked, screaming guitar work, along with inherent lyrics about living and driving (just like the Duke boys) between the still and the roadhouse in your tricked out Charger, or in your pick-up — complete with confederate flag and gun rack — and add a healthy dose of Cramps-style psychobilly and AC/DC-style...
Read more →Though screamed often in anger about the disgust he holds for the situation we find our society in — centered around the Iraq war, but certainly not limited to it — he could have been reading off of cue cards at times.
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