Volumes have been written about how good these two Denver legends are live, so here's a pictorial taste of what you missed this weekend.
To anyone who says there isn’t any dope hip-hop coming out of Colorado: you need to have your ears checked. I’ve compiled a list of what I think were the 20 hottest songs from Colorado hip-hop artists in the last 12 months. They range from mixtape joints, freestyles, album cuts, and leaked songs from upcoming projects and trust me, it wasn’t easy just picking 20.
Anyway, you like what you hear? Leave a comment. Want more from a particular artist? Check the Colorado Hip-Hop MySpace Directory to get more info on an artist or ask about them in the comments. So here it is, my 20 favorite Colorado hip-hop joints of 2007:
Jay-Z fades to black
Everyone in the hip-hop world pretty much knew it was going to happen, but Jay-Z made it official on Christmas and turned in his two weeks' notice as president of Def Jam Records.
"I've been incredibly fortunate to have served as president of such a culturally-defining label as Def Jam over the last three years," Hov said via this statement. "During that time, I've had the pleasure of working with many of the world's most dynamic artists and many of the most dedicated and talented executives in the music business today, including [IDJMG Chairman/ CEO] Antonio "L.A." Reid. But now it's time for me to take on new challenges. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to build upon the Def Jam legacy, helping to move the company into a new era of artistic success."
Jay-Z will continue to record as a Def Jam artist, if he does choose to record again. He has said in the past that he has wanted to concentrate on his 40/40 Clubs and hopes to build a franchise.
I don’t want to bore you with too many personal details of my crazy 2007, so I’ll simply say that any year that includes being laid off and getting divorced is one for the record books. It’s been overwhelming at times, exhilarating at others, and frequently depressing. But the new chapter of life that this has opened for me looks promising and I’m grinning in anticipation of what’s to come. I greet 2008 with open arms – the better to hug it with – and open lips – the better to make out with it. Last night only confirmed my irrational optimism.
After listening to a cumulative 41 hours of 97.3 KBCO’s online streaming Christmas music over the past few days, I found myself grappling with a very important question: Where was “A Hazy Shade of Winter” by the Bangles?
Well, that’s not a Christmas song, you may counter. But you’d be wrong. “A Hazy Shade of Winter” is clearly a song about winter, and, in this culture, any song about winter is conflated with Christmas. Take “Jingle Bells” or “Winter Wonderland”; there’s nary a “Baby Jesus” nod among them, but you’ll never find them on the radio in, say, February. I don’t know why we associate winter songs with Christmas. It’s not like “Summer Lovin’” is only played at the Fourth of July, or that “Springtime for Hitler” has become the anthem of Easter. Maybe the only song to buck the winter-holiday trend is “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice – though, who knows. Maybe that should be considered a Christmas ditty, too.
Sleeper Horse and Kingdom of Magic
Saturday, December 22
hi-dive
Better than: Staying home to get all that gift wrapping done.
Saturday night was like the return of Denver’s lost sons. Former Denver residents Jonathan Byerley and Gann Matthews graced the Lion’s Lair stage, along with Blue Light. Meanwhile, in a whole other genre, Zach Brooks, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, brought his newest project to the Larimer Lounge. Across town, at the hi-dive, Mike Herrera – formerly of Blackout Pact – played with his latest band, Sleeper Horse. Maybe Tom Wolfe was wrong. You can go home again.
It could have been the holiday party vibe, or it might have been the fact that members of both bands work at the hi-dive, but last night’s show had the feel of a really good homecoming – one without the Red Lobster dinner and all that lame-ass king and queen bullshit. Members of several area bands, a number of local journalists and even one owner of a competing club were present, making the club feel like the place to be for the night.
Achille Lauro Benefit Show with Hello Kavita, Vitamins and Achille Lauro
December 21, 2007
The hi-dive
Better than: A voyage on the real Achille Lauro
It took a benefit show for one of Denver’s most intriguing acts to break my mid-winter lethargy. I haven’t made it to many shows lately, due largely to the interminable holiday death march I’ve been on, compounded by my hatred of exposing my tender, scrawny frame to the cold. But to help out Matt Close -- singer for Achille Lauro, that aforementioned intriguing act – and, in the process, see that band alongside Hello Kavita – another of Denver’s top-talent groups – I found the strength to get out of the house.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Many St. Louis musicians hightail it out of the city as soon as they can, in hopes that the sunnier pastures of Los Angeles or chillier climes of Chicago will be more welcoming than our fair city. Save a short stint in New Orleans, Son Volt founder Jay Farrar has lived in south St. Louis for the last 15 years, and he's not going anywhere.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Christian Jacobs lives in a world of boldfaced, DayGlo images, a realm in which all sentences end in exclamation marks and fun is as common as oxygen. A founding member of the Huntington Beach, California, synth-pop-punk-ska band the Aquabats! and co-creator (with Scott Schultz) of new children's television show Yo Gabba Gabba!, Jacobs (a.k.a. the MC Bat Commander) assumes a cartoonish personae with earnestness, and revels in goofiness with as much gusto as Jay-Z and 50 Cent luxuriate in their self-perpetuated, overblown mythologies.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Margaret Cho has had her own TV show, a couple of best-selling books, a Grammy-nominated comedy album and two feature films based on her national tours, but 2007 saw a new conquest for the comic: she became a viral-video queen. The Sensuous Woman, a sexy, traveling circus-like spectacle melding music, comedy and burlesque as performed by Cho and a myriad of her talented pals, was a critical success in L.A., New York and Chicago.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Looks like Dave Navarro is going to be all about instant gratification next year. The L.A. native guitarist, who launched his own Internet TV show and directed his first porno in 2007, has obviously become inspired by both the immediacy the Web provides and the adult film industry's quick turnaround.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Arizona native Jordin Sparks has the distinction of being the youngest American Idol winner in the show's history. The 17-year-old Glendale resident — whose father, Phillippi Sparks, played for the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys — was sent home after her initial L.A. audition, but bounced back to win a second audition in Arizona and end up at the Seattle tryouts, where she made the Hollywood cut with Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" before being crowned the show's sixth winner on May 23.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
San Francisco's world-renowned Kronos Quartet has charted an impressive course around the globe, commissioning more than 600 works — and releasing more than 40 records — with composers from China, Russia, Vietnam and Iraq since its inception more than 30 years ago.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Former Saturday Night Live cast member, screenwriter, New York Times best-selling author and St. Louis Park native Al Franken is currently living in Minneapolis and campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Like any good candidate, he knows his way around a speech.
As touted in this week's Backbeat, music editors from across the country asked luminaries from our respective towns to tell us what music they loved this year. Their picks appear below and on the subsequent pages.
Unlike, possibly, 90 percent of his neighbors, turntable wunderkind Isaac DeLima did not, in fact, choose his South Beach digs for their proximity to the neighborhood's nonstop party. Rather DeLima, a.k.a. DJ I-Dee, initially landed in Miami almost three years ago from the D.C. suburbs with a plan to attend culinary school.
