Music
Songs for songwriters
In many cases, a covers record is a group’s attempt to show its musical influences and how its own songs came to sound the way they do...
Songs to consider
Post-Louis Armstrong, there probably has not been a more influential American musician, save for Bob Dylan, than Lou Reed, who died two months ago at the age of 71, five years after marrying visionary multimedia artist Laurie Anderson in Boulder. It’s a shame that ...
Beatbox vs. symphony
The Boulder Philharmonic’s next concert (Saturday in Macky Auditorium and Sunday in Lakewood) is called “Boulder Sensations,” but the subject is rhythm...
Pretty Lights Music clowns around at the Fox
Pretty Lights Music is loaded with solo electronic acts, so it’s refreshing to see that as lead man Derek Smith (Pretty Lights) has shed drummers over the years, Pretty Lights Music as a label is increasingly inclusive...
Top 10 albums of the decade
A serviceable definition I recently came across for the word “best” was “of the most excellent, effective, or desirable type or quality.” As a journalist, the job regularly includes the hopefully tasteful, relevant use of superlatives, but incorporating the word “...
Strays & runaways
The metamorphosis of folk trio The Waifs, who play at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival in Lyons this weekend, is equal parts gritty survival story and enchanting fairy tale. Beginning in 1992, sisters Vikki and Donna Simpson, selftaught guitarists, began traipsing...
Sia kills Denver with cuteness
For those who are unfamiliar with Aussie singer-songwriter Sia and her music, she’s the type of artist that dig deeps and delivers emotional, soul-searching, introspective lyrics over subdued electronic beats and melodies. Listening to her music, you’d think that ...
Musical medics
Everything you need to know about psych-rockers The Black Angels is right there in the name. Think other-wordly dark comfort, inspired by the Velvet Underground and their fuzz-laden epic, “The Black Angel’s Death Song.” Billowing clouds of guitar shrouding sultry ...
Bit o’ honey
Things were coming to a close for nascent guitarist Joe Lewis. The nearly lifelong Austin resident had reached the end of his musical rope. He was without a band and about to hang up his short-lived guitar career, when he received a call from Zach Ernst. A member of ...
Professor turns virtuoso
Getting a touring musician on the cell phone for a few minutes isn’t exactly rocket science these days, unless their GPS has taken a dive rolling through Sasquatch country or the van has blown a sidewall in a granite-lined mountain pass tunnel someplace, but it ...
Sex, drugs and tango
Cynthia Katsarelis, the director of the Pro Musica Colorado Chamber orchestra, is wearing a black leather jacket as she explains the subversive nature of the orchestra’s next concert, “Epic Seasons...
