Slide Show
The Ideal Fathers, The Classic Breakdown, Racecar God and Latch
June 27, 2007
Larimer Lounge
Better than: Staying home on a Wednesday night.

Wednesday is not an ideal night for four largely unknown local bands to play a show. With no national draw and no big-name Denver act on the bill, there weren’t many people at the Larimer who weren’t either in one of the acts playing or good friends with them. Despite the meager turnout, the night turned out to be worth losing sleep on a work night after all, once things got rolling.

In a profile from Westword’s June 28 edition, Mavis Staples speaks her mind in a notably feisty manner -- and in the following Q&A, which encompasses the entire text of the interview that formed the basis of the article, her undimmed passion comes through even more clearly.

Topics include her reasons for recording We’ll Never Turn Back, featuring songs of protest and struggle from the civil-rights era; her frustration that this historical period has been forgotten by so many people; her angry reaction to the terrible treatment of too many Hurricane Katrina victims; recent incidents that show her racism is (unfortunately) still alive and well in this country; memories of early trips to Jackson, Mississippi, when prejudice was an ugly way of life; the affluence of today’s children; her request that Public Enemy’s Chuck D contribute a rap to her CD, and the reasons why it wasn’t used; her take on hip-hoppers such as Common and Kanye West; takes on the charitable instincts of Bono and Oprah Winfrey; her disappointment in ministers who care more about money than helping their flocks; her desire to speak with school kids about her experiences; Dr. Martin Luther King’s favorite Staple Singers song, and the Little Rock 9, who inspired it; the roots of the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Operation Push; and the reasons why Chevrolet ads featuring the Staple Singers smash “I’ll Take You There” earned more money for the family than the song itself did during the time it topped the sales charts.

Listen up -- because Ms. Staples has a lot to say.

Marnie Stern & Motheater
Slide Show

Hot IQs, Everything Absent or Distorted and Laylights
Bluebird Theater
Saturday, June 23
Slide Show

Richard "Kush" Griffith, who died this week in Kentucky at age 58, leaves behind a legacy in Denver, where he'd lived for the previous decade -- but more importantly, he put his mark on some of the best and most vital popular music made on this planet during the past half-century. Chuck Fishman, a Colorado musician who now keeps his eye on the scene from afar, took issue with the headline placed atop a Griffith obituary penned by Denver Post columnist Diane Carman, who'd previously written about him: "Trumpeting a Flawed Man's Funky Life." According to Fishman, corresponding by e-mail, "He is the bomb, and for goodness sakes led the JB's and P-Funk at different points. So jeesh -- that's a pretty near perfect man."

Musically, he's got a helluva point. Griffith did indeed put much of the brass into the JB's, James Brown's masterful group, as well as the Parliament-Funkadelic horn section that contributed to many of the acts that sprung from George Clinton's seemingly bottomless imagination, including Bootsy's Rubber Band.

Times were tougher for Griffith in Denver...

This June 21 profile of Cephalic Carnage only scratches the surface of Westword's wide-ranging interview with the band's guitarist, Zac Joe. The Q&A below expands on virtually every topic in the article, and adds plenty more.

Subjects include the studio Cephalic built in "an undisclosed location within the Denver area," and the assorted obstacles Mother Nature tossed out to slow the recording of the group's first-rate new disc, Xenosapien; the process utilized in laying down the tracks, as well as the group's envelope-pushing foray into technical riffology; Carnage's preference for tune individuality rather than death-metal formula; comments about how a previous single that was intended to be tongue-in-cheek was taken all too seriously by the act's fans; an injury that happened amid a wild video shoot; Stephen Hawking's alleged love of Cookie Monster vocals; the influence of bands ranging from Kreator and Thin Lizzy to Frank Zappa and Mr. Bungle; the group's current tour (Zac was in South Carolina during the interview); the question of whether extreme metal's growing popularity has anything to do with the state of the world today; and day jobs versus making a living solely from music.

Let the Carnage begin:

Westword Music Showcase
June 16, 2007
Outdoor Stage
Better than: Making small talk about my daily life.

Aaron Collins is totally offensive. So is Gared O’Donnell, for that matter. The two mouthy frontmen--Collins of Machine Gun Blues and O’Donnell of Planes Mistaken for Stars--shot off a string of expletives on the outdoor stage last Saturday at the Westword Music Showcase. The reason? Because they weren’t supposed to. “They told me that the cops would arrest me if I kept using the word ‘fuck’,” Collins relayed to the audience between songs. “Oops. This next song is called ‘We Fucked It Up.’”

Black Lamb, Chris Caffery and Doro Pesch
Slide Show

Slide Shows
Part 1
Part 2

There are several ways to approach a festival such as June 16's Westword Music Showcase. Wrist-banders can check out a handful of their favorites or several groups they haven't had a chance to catch yet and spend the rest of their time exploring the rewarding world of mass-manufacture beer on tap; they can park themselves at a single venue and let the lineup there wash over them for the duration; or they can run around like a confused firefighter with a burning ember in his drawers and try to experience as many different acts as possible.

This last approach is by far the stupidest -- so, of course, that's the one I chose. I've popped the quarter-sized blister that bloomed on my right heel three times so far, yet I can feel it puffing up again even as I type. Damn you, Allen Iverson-signature Reeboks! Damn you to hell!

Between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., I caught portions of 58 sets, by my count, out of sixty-something total. As a result, the writeups below of outfits such as Westword cover boys Cat-A-Tac (pictured) can't be considered definitive. How could they be, when they're based on about four minutes per stop? Instead, think of them as aural snapshots that make up a mosaic of the spectacle as a whole. Some of these images are undoubtedly emblematic of a given performance, while others likely qualify as exceptions to the rule. Who knows?

Certainly not me...

Slide Shows
Part 1
Part 2

Westword Music Showcase
June 16, 2007
The Acoma Center
Better than: Having to fake any enthusiasm for utterly mainstream bands.

Although I made it to the Acoma Center too late to catch Rachael Pollard’s absolutely beautiful, understated songs, I did arrive just in time to witness Roger Green’s brilliantly eclectic set. Green mixed things up a bit with his more minimalist folky tunes and inspiring guitar style that made the final two Czars’ albums so compelling and thought provoking. His gift is not just in his technique or in the way he makes sounds that has the gear heads checking out his pedal board to steal ideas, but in eloquently communicating complex feelings directly without uttering a word. One of the highlights of Green’s performance included Natalie Winslow of Rabbit is a Sphere on backing vocals. Another was a song he dedicated to his old band (presumably the Czars), wherein he employed guitar loops to create dense yet ethereal layers of sound that shimmered and stirred the soul.