Music
Avant garde pop
Satomi Matsuzaki, a Japanese-born, self-taught musician who moved to San Francisco from Tokyo in 1996, highlights the avant indie-rock of Deerhoof with her childlike vocals and thunderous bass guitar. From the simultaneous irreverence, innocence and brilliance of ...
It’s a family affair
One thing lacking in the world of hip-hop is the promotion of family. Hip-hop doesn’t endorse the traditional husband-wife-child model taking on the world as a unit. Sure, we get hip-hop condemning the ills of society and government, along with hip-hop that promotes ...
Friends first, bandmates second
Watching Darlingside perform is reminiscent of seeing four college buddies — intellectual and talented as they are — hanging out, cracking jokes and making...
In the Gears
The Music of Cream’s tour manager (his name is Simon), fielded my call to Will Johns a couple of weeks ago, and walked the...
‘Your ears are gonna hurt’
If our quiet corner of the Front Range has seemed louder in recent years, that’s partly by design. Fueled by its beating black heart in...
School of Rock students learned well
Looking upon the stage from the top of Red Rocks Amphitheater, I saw a rock band decked to the nines in flared pants, tie-dye and bandanas. I heard what I presumed to be an adult opening act covering classic rock favorites — it wasn’t until I reached the front row ...
Roots and wings, shadows and light
On his way back from his honeymoon on Vancouver Island in 2018, Antonio Lopez picked up a copy of the “local alternative rag,” The...
Family circus
In the fall of 1995, Tammy Ealom only knew two chords — open E and open A. She met a guy named John Hill,...
King of hearts
Darryl Purpose isn’t used to failure. He’s recorded eight stunning albums of folk music, enjoys a close relationship with his daughter, owns two beautiful...
Blog bands in Neverland
The Lost Boys of Neverland occupy their days by living in the woods, harassing washed-up pirates, hanging out with mermaids, and occasionally scrapping with the natives before reconciling over a peace pipe. They generally did and said the things that a mob of ...
From the hills (kind of)
They don’t need drums. They don’t need bass. Sparse, gentle acoustic guitar appears now and then, but on many of their songs the three young, honey-voiced members of the new Vermont alt-folk trio Mountain Man use no musical accompaniment whatsoever. The result is ...
