:: Will Hoge :: Trilogy :: February 2 ::

:: Sherpa and Yeti's (Breck.) :: February 3 ::

:: Belly Up (Aspen) :: February 5 :: 

 By Emily H. Lanigan

For those who think that the commerce-over-content side of music is winning the battle in the music business, a new warrior has arrived that is to real music what William Wallace (Braveheart) was to the 13th Century Scots.

Since 1999, troubadour Will Hoge has been roaming the country, bringing back good old fashioned rock and roll. Raised on such heroes as The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Otis Redding and James Brown, Hoge brings to the stage a sonic blitzkrieg reminiscent of his idols. 2006 saw Hoge release his fourth studio album, The Man Who Killed Love, and play hundreds of dates all over the country, including close to a dozen in Colorado.

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:: Songwriters Tour :: feat. Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely and Guy Clark :: Paramount Theatre :: February 9 :: 

By Tim Dwenger

When one thinks of The Four Horsemen, it isn’t usually an image of four iconic singer/songwriters sharing a stage that pops to mind. Yet that is exactly what Joe Ely is calling this winter’s tour with fellow Texans, Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark, and Indiana native John Hiatt.

Each of the songwriters has led a storied career and the tour offers a rare opportunity to see four musicians of this caliber perform together in a songwriters circle as colleagues and friends. 

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:: Béla Fleck and The Flecktones :: Paramount Theatre :: February 12 :: 

By Jonathan Keller 

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is one of those gifted musicians who would have been a virtuoso of any instrument he would have  chosen to play. Named after Hungarian composer Béla Bartók and Czech composers Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček, Fleck has created his own musical legacy through his solo work, the bluegrass band New Grass Revival and most notably Béla Fleck and The Flecktones. Along the way, Fleck happened to completely revolutionize his instrument of choice, the banjo.

Fleck, who has been nominated in more Grammy categories than any other artist in history, is very serious when it comes to music but takes critical success in stride, as he explained in a recent interview with The Marquee.

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:: Glen Phillips :: Soiled Dove Underground :: February 13 :: 

By Monica Banks

 For many, a high school band is an extra curricular activity that gets left behind after a high school diploma is earned. However, for Glen Phillips and his high school band Toad the Wet Sprocket, the 12-year run was just the beginning of a new direction — a direction that now finds Phillips fiercely independent, focused and as inspirational as he is prolific.

Phillips is inspired by other musicians and is constantly on the lookout for opportunities to improve or try something different. Last summer he was able to again tap into the muse he shared with his old companions in Toad, as they toured around the country playing 36 shows. However, for Phillips, this tour did not mark a re-launch of his Toad career. 

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:: John Lee Hooker, Jr. :: Samana Lounge (Vail) :: February 21 ::

:: The Goat Tavern (Keystone) :: February 22 ::

:: The Little Bear :: February 23 and 24 :: 

By Neil McIntyre

“That’s what it’s about, sharing love — loving people even when they’re on the ground,” said John Lee Hooker, Jr. in a recent interview with The Marquee. This mantra has been the basis for the powerful bluesman’s career and it seems to be working. After all, he learned the lesson from none other than his father, blues legend John Lee Hooker.

“It feels good to know all that he has done throughout the world. It’s great,” said Junior in a phone conversation from his California home. Junior is busy carrying on the tradition his father created. Being the son of a musical legend is no easy task. Big expectations follow Hooker everywhere he goes and many people feel he has impossibly large shoes to fill, but he is approaching that in a unique way that allows him to eschew some of that pressure. “I’m not trying to fill (my father’s shoes). I’m just trying to walk behind them,” he said with a laugh that speaks to his easy demeanor.  

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:: Everclear :: Gothic Theatre :: February 7 :: 

By Brian Kenney 

Everclear’s Art Alexakis believes he has written the perfect break-up song with “Hater.” Not exactly the most attractive quality to lead promotion on your latest disc, but, then again, if your latest disc is entitled Welcome to the Drama Club, it might just be apropos.

“A lot of living went into this album,” Alexakis said dryly in a recent interview with The Marquee.

Certainly an understatement for the founder/lyricist/vocalist/producer of Everclear, the seminal band who, along with the likes of Dinosaur Jr. and The Meat Puppets, engineered and forged the burgeoning late ’80s and early ’90s Left Coast genre known as “cow punk.”

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:: Steep Canyon Rangers :: Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival :: February 18 :: 

By Lisa Oshlo 

The Steep Canyon Rangers play to audiences worldwide and yet they always love returning to Colorado. The summertime bluegrass offerings here are well known, but it’s the smaller gems like the Mid-Winter Bluegrass Festival, now in its 22nd year, that hold a special place in every bluegrass afficionado’s heart and keep bands like North Carolina’s Steep Canyon Rangers coming back.

This will be the band’s third appearance at the festival; they share the bill this year with bands like The Dillards, Stairwell Sisters, and the Larry Stephenson Band, among many others.

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:: Blue October :: Ogden Theatre :: February 17 :: 

By Brian Kenney 

It’s nice to hear when a band lands on its feet. With all the cynicism in the entertainment industry, be it reality television or celebrity break-ups, it’s nice to hear that good guys finish first once in a while. Such is the case for Houston’s Blue October.

Anyone who has heard their heavily-rotated single “Hate Me” would dare call them anything like “feel-good,” yet they are a success story built on perseverance over adversity and grace under pressure. And they’re taking none of it for granted.

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:: Assembly of Dust / Honkytonk Homeslice :: Aggie Theatre :: February 22 ::

::: Cervantes’ Masterpiece :: February 23 ::

:: Fox Theatre :: February 24 ::

:: (HTHS only) Stage Stop :: February 25 :: 

By Tim Dwenger 

“I met Reid at High Sierra back in ’95 or ’96 and we hit it off because we were both the singer/ songwriters of our bands. I grabbed him at one point and we went to a quiet spot and hung out with our guitars and traded original songs back and forth,” said Billy Nershi in a recent interview with The Marquee.

“Yeah, we spent several hours just trading songs in the campground. It sounds almost like it was scripted but it did really happen,” Reid Genauer said a short time later in a separate interview. 

These two musicians have covered a lot of ground since they first crossed paths in the mid ’90s. At the time, Genauer was with Strangefolk, and Nershi’s String Cheese Incident was just picking up momentum.

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 In my Industry Profile interview this month with Jay Bianchi, the club owner pointed out a very valid point about the state of the music business these days that has to do with music fans. Bianchi said that people are very unwilling to try something new these days.

He was talking about the jam scene specifically and said that the last great open-minded era came and went with the passing of Jerry Garcia when people were “forced” to look elsewhere.

Bianchi is right in many regards, but I also think that it’s a trend brought on by the reality that we’re so inundated with so many different options. We, as music fans, are a little wary to open up to something new, and at the same time, when we are open, finding a direction can be a huge task.

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 By Brian F. Johnson

The car thermometer read 19 degrees as I climbed out onto Welton Street in Denver and prepared to enter the offices of what I refer to as “The Bianchi Empire.” Those offices are located inside Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom, and the man I was getting ready to sit down with, Jay Bianchi, heads up Cervantes’ as well as three other clubs — Sancho’s Broken Arrow, Dulcinea’s 100th Monkey and, of course, Quixote’s True Blue — that he co-owns with his brother, Phil.

The thermometer reading hadn’t phased Bianchi one bit, as he was dressed in his typical “uniform” of shorts, sandals and a hoodie sweatshirt; but, Bianchi isn’t the kind of guy who has ever subscribed to conventional wisdom.

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The Show I’ll Never Forget

Edited by Sean Manning

DeCapo Press

3.5 out of 5

If there is one thing that truly keeps the wheels of the music business turning and allows for the skullduggery that takes place in the form of astronomical ticket prices and seven dollar beers, it’s the passion that the fans have for live music.

It’s this passion that is celebrated in the book The Show I’ll Never Forget.  While the book is laid out in the format of short essays on particular shows, it is far from the typical recounting of set lists and drum solos that permeates many music magazines. Instead, the book aims, at most times successfully, to explore the power of music as a social interaction on a visceral and personal level. This is highlighted by a review of a junior high benefit concert, featuring no one you would have heard of, appearing alongside reviews of mega-famous bands like The Rolling Stones and Queen.

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