:: TV on the Radio :: Ogden Theatre :: March 20 :: 

By Gina Pantone

There remain very few musical acts that can maintain a concurrent level of success and innovation in an industry so crippled and corrupted by the dollar. The will to be famous often supercedes the drive to be important, to have a purpose, and to possess a true passion for the craft of musicianship.

But critically acclaimed sonic innovators TV on the Radio seem to be doing everything right — from musical trend-setting to their laissez-faire attitude, to even their location (the north side of Brooklyn, NY, known as Williamsburg). Their second LP, the facetiously titled Return to Cookie Mountain, gained massive attention and accolades. While some critics find it a step backward in the band’s experimental stratosphere, others have it pegged as brilliant. Regardless, Cookie Mountain is more than just a sophomore effort — it’s literally a structure of sweet sonic proportions.

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:: Robert Randolph and the Family Band :: Fox Theatre :: March 3 and 4 :: 

By Brian Kenney

It’s not really about how good you play guitar, it’s about how you play guitar. It’s about the passion, it’s about the phrasing, it’s about personifying an inanimate object and making that thing stand up and command a presence as if it was a preacher. It’s about making that guitar tell a story.

This is how Robert Randolph approaches his art, and this is how he approached his latest disc Colorblind. This is also how he approached recording with his boyhood hero, Eric Clapton.

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:: The Tragically Hip :: Gothic Theatre :: March 19 :: 

By Brian Kenney

So what’s so special about being Canadian? In essence, things seem to be a bit simpler with our northern neighbors. And that’s not being diminutive. Beer, hockey, small-town life, oh and the Tragically Hip. In a country that prides itself on a low-key, simple existence, the only thing that may exist on a monumental level is the Hip’s popularity.

Appearing on the scene in 1986, at the height of Bon Jovi hysteria, the Hip composed simple odes of humble, Canadian life inspired by the folk of Gordon Lightfoot, the slide guitar harmonies of the Eagles, the cerebral lyrics of REM, with an indie splash of the Replacements. The tight-knit Kingston, Ontario quintet had a simple sound and a simple formula: play music and earn enough to support your habit, and don’t have expectations outside of your means.

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:: Glenn Kotche :: Larimer Lounge :: March 3 :: 

By Brian F. Johnson 

Wilco drummer Glenn Kotche had just gone back into his New York home after his third trip outside that day to shovel snow. He was just as ‘over winter’ as everyone is when February begins to draw to a close, but Kotche is a bit of a glutton and was getting ready to set out on a solo tour the next day that would take him from New York to Montana, to Washington state and, eventually, Colorado — and this wasn’t some plush tour bus kind of tour that he does with Wilco, this was a load-up-the-car-and-drive kind of tour.

Kotche was hitting the road to tour in support of his solo album Mobile, which was released nearly a year ago, but one that he has had little time to perform for live audiences.

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:: Sebadoh :: Fox Theatre :: March 17 :: 

By Tim Dwenger

In late 2006, Lou Barlow, prolific musician and founding member of several influential bands including Dinosaur Jr., announced the reunion of the original line-up of Sebadoh. To truly understand the significance of the reunion of the original line-up, it is critical to understand something about the history of this seminal indie-rock band. 

The project rose out of the ashes of the original Dinosaur Jr. in 1989, when bassist Lou Barlow was plucked from the brink of depression by experimental recording partner Eric Gaffney. “I was sorta heartbroken, having been just kicked out of Dinosaur and he was like, ‘Fuck it, let’s just do this, I know this kid who plays drums and he’s awesome, I’m gonna bring him down,’” said Barlow in a recent interview with The Marquee. “Turns out he was pretty awesome and we ended up getting the band together really quickly.”

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:: Midlake :: Hi-Dive :: March 10 :: 

By Page Bayless 

For anyone who has ever said they’re sorry to me for being from Texas, you had better look up Midlake. Yes, friends, that’s right: Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas/Fort Worth. There, at the University of North Texas, five jazz musicians came together to form the band Midlake and, fortunately, for all of you gagging at the thought of boots and spurs, this is the kind of band that won’t be making an appearance at the Grizzly Rose.

Currently on their U.S. tour, Midlake drummer McKenzie Smith was kind enough to step aside from a soundcheck and exchange various “y’alls” with me.

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:: Tishamingo ::Gothic Theatre :: March 6 ::

:: Aggie Theatre :: March 7 :: 

 By Marisa Beahm

With their explosive rock and roll, it’s difficult to imagine that extroverted Southern rockers, Tishamingo started their music in a secluded farmhouse five years ago. But that’s exactly what they did, and recently the band isolated themselves once again to create their most powerful album to date, The Point.

The Georgia-based foursome were living in a farmhouse outside of Athens for two years when their band first got serious.  It was during this time that Tishamingo played music full-time and synced both their lives and their sound. Living communally prepared them for life on the road together: a crucial skill, since they have played over 500 live shows in the last five years.

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:: Bob Wayne and the Outlaw Carnies :: Bender’s Tavern :: March 21 :: 

By Monica Banks 

Most people use the highway as a means to an end, but Bob Wayne can comfortably call it home. For two years, Wayne has been living on a John Deer bus and ignoring speed limit signs across the country. While Wayne usually tells his story through his songs, he recently took the time to explain a few things to The Marquee in normal words.

Wayne began his music career at the bottom. He started out as a roadie for his friends’ band Zeke. From there, he perfected his roadie talents and went to work for Hank Williams III. One day, Wayne was playing a guitar around the trailer and then things took off. He was told that within a year he would be on stage. “I didn’t really believe it at first,” he said.

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:: Coles Whalen :: Soiled Dove :: March 4 ::

::  The Fox Theatre :: March 24 ::

:: The Aggie Theater :: March 25 :: 

By Tiffany Childs

 After two years of touring across the country in a truck and camper, Coles Whalen decided she wanted a hometown to return to. Lucky for Colorado, she chose Denver.

Coles grew up in music. She began performing in front of audiences at the age of seven and never looked back. Performing mostly jazz, Whalen ended up with a scholarship to the vocal jazz program at the University of Southern California her freshman year.

She didn’t stay in jazz for long. While Coles told The Marquee in a recent interview, that she appreciated the training in that program, she switched the following year to a music industry business curriculum. “I felt that there was more inside of me than singing other people’s songs,” said Whalen. Indeed there was.

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You know, a lot of bad things can be said about bands and the music industry these days, but at least it’s all predictable.

It goes like this. A band no one has heard of breaks onto the scene with a crappy, but well-received song. They tour, record a new album (usually not as good as the first), they tour again and then fade into obscurity. It may not be the best scenario ever, but at least it’s reliable.

But in addition to that cycle, these days it seems like ’80s rock giants (see also, ‘has beens’) are about as reliable as an Amtrack train with a crack- smoking conductor.

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By Brian F. Johnson

 As Fox Theatre general manager John Caprio walked down 13th Street on The Hill in Boulder, with his ever-present smile gleaming in the sunlight, he stopped and shook hands with a local beat cop, calling her by first name and asking her personal questions very unlike the way most people speak to the police.

Caprio was sort of playing his role as the face of the Fox, but it was evident, even in the very short exchange, that whether he was the GM at the Fox or not, he would have been happy to talk with the woman. It’s what he does, after all, and he loves it.

In October of 1999, during a trip around the country with his then-girlfriend and now fiance, Caprio stood inside the Fox Theatre for the first time. It was his first night in Boulder and he was floored to be standing in the theatre that, as an East Coaster, he had only heard about through concert lore.

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John Mellencamp

Freedom’s Road

Universal Records

5 out of 5

I’m going to start this review by saying that no other album has a chance of competing with Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy as the best album of 2007, if it’s actually ever released, except for Freedom’s Road. If you know me personally you will understand the weight that this statement holds. Mellencamp’s new album is easily his most important work since 1985’s Scarecrow.

Just like the small, farming-town tales of triumph and tragedy found on Scarecrow, Freedom’s Road is a brilliant collection of songs that sums up what I currently feel as an American as opposed to the values of the “redneck agenda” that Green Day railed against on American Idiot.

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