The Denver Westword Music Blog

September 2006 Archives

Stage Managers

Thu Sep 21, 2006 at 12:21:24 PM
The techtonic plates continue to shift along Denver's increasingly competitive concert scene. Although no official statement has been released, Chuck Morris will be vacating his current post at Live Nation to join his proteges, Don Strasburg and Brent Fedrizzi, at the new Denver outpost of Anschutz Entertainment Group. Morris, one of the region's most revered promoters (his three-decade-plus track record is rivaled locally only by that of Barry Fey), reportly will make the move around the first of the year, after his contract with Live Nation runs out.

Meanwhile, after commuting between Los Angeles and Denver for the better part of the past month to do interim booking duties for the Rocky Mountain region, Jason Miller, Live Nation's L.A.-based senior VP of touring, will be heading back to the West Coast and making way for his successor, Perry Lavoisne. An independent promoter-turned-Live Nation talent buyer with an impressive track record of his own, Lavoisne is tying up loose ends in Detroit and house-hunting here, with a stated goal of being in Denver full-time by the end of next month.

What does this all mean for the local music fans? Close to nada, really. Fact is, most folks don't pay much mind to the name on the ticket stub. The only ones keeping track of the execs as they change jerseys are the media pundits and business analysts. For Joe Consumer, it's the equivalent of keeping up with the CEOs, CFOs and COOs at power, phone and cable companies -- tedious and uninteresting. So, unless any of these cats start dipping their hands in the company till like Kenneth Lay and his Enron cronies, the water-cooler discussions will be focused on more meaningful things, like the new Planes Mistaken for Stars record.

Holy Jesus, is it good.

Still, with so many high-profile players jockeying for position, the already robust local concert scene will become just that much better, with the dueling concert-company principals ensuring that the best shows and highest-quality acts come to town.

But after spending the past two nights in Boulder at epic, back-to-back shows from TV on the Radio and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, I can vouch that we're already getting some of the best. -- Dave Herrera

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Paris Is Burning

Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 02:15:51 PM

In an absolutely brilliant act of subversion (headslap! -- why the hell didn't someone think of this before?), Banksy, one of the world's most infamous and prolific grafitti artists, has directed his aim towards the most vapid and inexplicable of American celebrities, the would-be-pop princess who is Paris Hilton.

A month prior to the album's stateside release, Banksy covertly placed 500 modified copies of Paris's debut disc in stores across the UK. The intricately planned and expertly executed ruse features Photoshopped depictions of the heiress's bare breasts on the cover of the disc, alongside photos of her stepping out of a car in all her trademark fabulousness in front of a row of homeless men — with a caption on top that reads, "90% of Success Is Just Showing Up."

Now, that's hot.

But, wait, it gets even better: Ol' Banksy fashioned a retail sticker touting his custom remixes on the amended disc, complete with titles such as "Why Am I Famous?" "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?" And then, lest the message become obscured by the deed, another header ensures that the manifesto is clear: "Every CD you buY puts me eVen further out Of youR league."

Listen to one of Banky's remixes and check out video documentation of the stunt below. Pictures of the modified liner notes can be peeped here. -- Dave Herrera


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Hick-Hop

Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 09:19:55 AM

Props to whoever was responsible for putting together the Subversiv* Records Tour flier that we snagged from a lamppost at 11th and Broadway this morning. Although the handbill hyping a July 14 date at Old Curtis St. featuring Epic, Brzowski, Matre, DJ Chaps, K the I and Ancient Mith was weathered and fading, we got the point.

The flier, which put Hizzoner Hick's face on the body of classic-era LL Cool J -- when he still rocked a Kangol and was bejeweled like Mr. T -- redlined the wit-o-meter like no other. Hick-hop and you don't stop, yo'. -- Dave Herrera

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