:: DeVotchKa :: Fillmore Auditorium :: October 27 ::

By Timothy Dwenger
When first exposed to their startlingly original sound, it is difficult to believe that DeVotchKa hails from right here in Denver and was formed a mere 10 years ago. Their Eastern European sound and the emotional crooning of lead singer Nick Urata could be the soundtrack to an Eastern Block nightmare, circa 1950. Perhaps they are musicians born in the wrong era or, more likely, they are trying to bring a neglected and largely untapped genre into the public eye.
“When I started this band 10 years ago I was kinda treading water in a sea of unknown musical styles,” Urata said in a recent interview with The Marquee, from a studio in California. “I just kind of honed in on what felt natural and what I felt like I could do some justice to. I definitely wanted to do something exotic, use unusual instruments and break away from the drudgery of guitar rock bands.”
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:: Maroon 5 :: Fillmore Auditorium :: Oct. 29 & 30 ::

 (note: show relocated from Pepsi Center)

By Tiffany Childs
Waiting four years to release a sophomore record in an industry that has a notoriously short attention span may seem like a big gamble for most bands. Maroon 5, on the other hand, wasn’t worried about it at all. And it seems they had no reason to. Their newest release, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long, hit the charts running – their first single set records on the Billboard charts by jumping 63 slots to #1 — the largest jump in the charts’ 49 years.
Beyond that success, Maroon 5 has also seen their single take iTunes’ top spot in audio and video downloads as well as having pre-sale orders reach #1 on the iTunes album download sales chart. With all of this success one has to wonder if the Grammy-winning quintet is setting itself up for a repeat performance.
In a recent interview with The Marquee, Adam Levine (vocals/guitar) and James Valentine (guitar) spoke about their thoughts on the album’s success and the tour supporting it.
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:: Jethro Tull :: Temple Hoyne Buell Theatre :: October 10 ::

By Brian F. Johnson
Jethro Tull is approaching its 40th year. In the last four decades the band has sold over 60 million albums, notched three Top Ten singles and have performed over 2,500 shows in more than 40 countries. As Tull nears this latest milestone, releases of DVDs are flourishing and the band is working on a new album due out sometime in 2008.
The most recent release, Live at Montreux 2003, a CD/DVD combination, is a great snapshot of where the band is and what fans can expect from their live show — a set consisting of their standard hits, peppered with a few new tracks.
Lead singer and flautist Ian Anderson, in a recent interview with The Marquee, said that the Montreux set isn’t necessarily Tull’s best or worst performance, but a good indicator of a “night on the road” with Jethro Tull. But, the former Montreux resident said that the impetus to release the DVD came from the honor the band felt to be a part of the legendary Switzerland festival.
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:: Jose Gonzalez :: Bluebird Theatre :: October 12 ::

By Tim Dwenger
Seven years ago a record executive never would have looked for the next superstar singer/songwriter in a University of Gothenburg, Sweden research lab, yet that was exactly where he was spending his time. The student was Jose Gonzalez and, at the time, he was pursuing an advanced degree in biochemistry and merely dabbling in music on the side.
Today, Gonzalez has won several international music awards and sold more than 700,000 copies of his debut album Veneer. He has toured the globe, from Scandinavia to Japan, several times over and captivated audiences with his deftly subtle finger-picking and understated vocals.
As you might assume when listening to his music, Gonzalez is a humble and soft-spoken man. However, more than once during a conversation with The Marquee from a London hotel room, he made references to the current state of the music business as being full of “artistic compromises.”
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:: Liars :: Fillmore Auditorium :: October 14 ::

By Tiffany Childs
Liars is a band known for drastic musical shifts in each of their albums and their latest release, the self-titled Liars, is no different. With their mystical and heavy sound, Liars is a band that has grown used to gaining and alienating fans with every new release. Liars, however, may see the band gain more admirers than ever before because this isn’t just a reinvention; it’s a brand new start for the group, using a simplistic approach to songwriting that we haven’t seen or possibly even imagined coming from Liars.
In a recent interview with The Marquee, Aaron Hemphill (percussion/guitar/synth) told us that this tendency to change each album is actually purposeful and not just a reaction to their previous work. “When we are making an album we try to exhaust all the possibilities before moving on. We try to make it so everything is covered in whatever style we are doing. And then we make a natural transition to what we’re interested in next,” he said.
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:: Aesop Rock :: Black Sheep :: October 17 :: Cervantes :: October 18 :: Fox Theatre :: October 19 :: Aggie Theatre :: October 20 ::

By Mike Scales
“It is far too easy to hate on something because pop culture has watered it down,” wrote Definitive Jux label rapper Aesop Rock in a recent URB magazine article. “To entirely dismiss hip-hop as being ‘dead’ is a little like saying elephants are dead because they are no longer armored and used in battles like they were in 16th Century India.” No truer words have been written in the defense of hip-hop culture and the underground innovators who constantly strive to explore the possibilities of this young genre.
Case in point: From the first few seconds of “None Shall Pass,” the title track from Aesop Rock’s new highly-anticipated LP, it’s clear that his vision of the art form is more vital and alive than that which was displayed in any of his previous output. The song’s subtle techno thump, spacey keys and guitar with shuffling hi-hats, sounds almost otherworldly, as does the rapper’s frenetic delivery. On the phone with The Marquee from his new San Francisco abode, Aesop discussed the direction of his new material, the upcoming None Shall Pass Tour and all the painstaking crap in between.
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:: Lotus :: Aggie Theatre :: October 5 :: Ogden Theatre :: October 6 ::

By Lisa Oshlo
While few bands these days truly can be said to push the envelope, Philadelphia-based Lotus clearly stands within this group. Purveyors of a sound that’s a little bit disco and a little bit rock and roll, the music of Lotus encompasses many genres. When catching them live, the predominant genre would be jam; the members of Lotus are masters of improvisation and are constantly evolving their sound onstage.
Made up of Steve Clemens on drums, Jesse Miller on bass and sampler, Luke Miller on guitar and keys, Chuck Morris on electronic and acoustic percussion, and Mike Rempel on guitar, Lotus formed on the campus of a Mennonite college in 1999. “Some of the administration did not want Lotus playing on campus because we also performed at bars, and I guess that meant we encouraged drinking,” said Jesse Miller in a recent interview with The Marquee. “Otherwise, the biggest challenge was finding venues to perform at around Northern Indiana and Michigan while still being able to make it to class Monday morning.”
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:: Future Rock :: Aggie Theatre :: October 11 :: Fox Theatre :; October 12 :: Bluebird Theater :: October 13 ::

By Jim Collins
Future Rock pride themselves on being a fresh voice in the electronic music world, but it was a recent jaunt as a cover band that brought in their largest audience to date. In late August in front of thousands of fans at Camp Bisco, an electronic music festival in New York, the Chicago trio transformed into Daft Rock for a special late night tribute to one of their idols. While their show didn’t offer the dazzling pyramid or the robot suits, it did generate quite a buzz.
As electronic music enthusiasts, the band is quite familiar with the spectacle that is live Daft Punk. A few weeks before Camp Bisco, the trio got some inspiration by taking in Daft Punk’s show at Lollapalooza. And before that, Future Rock bassist Felix Moreno said he rocked their legendary Coachella performance for a few months straight on his iPod.
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With this being the October issue, it’s pretty safe to say that summer is finally and quite officially over. But September — that month on the cusp with summer weather and an autumn calendar — certainly did its best to take the title of the best summer month for concerts.
Here’s the quick re-cap (in no particular order and with obvious omissions for space): two nights of Wilco, two nights of Yonder Mountain String Band, Snoop Dogg, The Killers, VHS or Beta, STS9, Built to Spill, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, the Black Crowes, Marc Ford (without the Crowes), Rilo Kiley, The Academy Is… and two nights of Monolith at Red Rocks, to name a few.
Each show was amazing and should provide enough momentum into the fall and winter to hold us freaks over until next spring, when we venture outside again for music.
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By Brian F. Johnson
Concert promoters are a rough and tumble type of crowd. Some of the more legendary ones in the business have egos that overshadow the artists they promote.
But Chuck Morris, who last year left Live Nation and just recently took over the position of president and chief executive officer of AEG Live, Rocky Mountain Region, defies that stereotype.
Sure, he’s eccentric, continually juggling countless pairs of glasses with an almost obsessive compulsive drive and sure, he’s got some been-there-done-that slickness to him, but talk with Morris for more than a minute and there’s an immediate understanding and recognition that this is a humble man who loves his work.
That work has taken him from CU Boulder, where he dropped out of a Ph.D program to manage The Sink, on University Hill, which he grew to be the number one 3.2 bar in the state. He reminisces fondly about lines that wrapped around the building in The Sink’s heyday.
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Black Crowes
Brothers of a Feather: Live at the Roxy
Eagle Vision
4 out of 5
To many Black Crowes fans, the last few years since the band reunited have been relatively flat. The band hasn’t done any press to let their fans know what’s going on, they’ve shed two members and only message board rumors and vague press releases have given any type of insight into it all. And despite last year’s CD/DVD release of Freak N’ Roll Into the Fog, no new material has been released (although, they still maintain that it’s coming).
But last year, even the most jaded ‘Amoricans’ fell back in love with the brothers Robinson when they performed a series of duo acoustic shows under the moniker Brothers of a Feather. The CD part of the project was released this summer, but just last month a combo CD/DVD package hit the shelves that’s guaranteed to be the most important release by the band since its platinum selling Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.
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This Month in music history

October 2
•    1967: All six members of the Grateful Dead are arrested for drug possession after a raid at their 710 Ashbury Street house in San Francisco
•    1951: Sting is born Gordon Sumner
October 3
•    1967: Woody Guthrie dies at the age of 55
•    1954: Stevie Ray Vaughan is born
October 4
•    1970: Janis Joplin dies of a heroin overdose in a Los Angeles hotel room at the age of 27
•    1956: Johnny Cash is jailed for one night for drug possession
October 5
•    1954: Humanitarian and Boomtown Rats leader Bob Geldof is born
•    1949: Brian Johnson of AC/DC is born
October 7
•    1957: “American Bandstand” with Dick Clark premieres on U.S. television
October 8
•    1980: Bob Marley collapses during a concert in Pittsburgh and will never perform again
•    1966: The U.S. Government officially declares LSD an illegal substance
October 9
•    1975: Sean Ono Lennon is born
•    1940: John Lennon is born
October 10
•    1953: David Lee Roth is born
•    1917: Thelonius Monk is born
October 12
•    1997: John Denver is killed when the plane he is piloting crashes over Monterey Bay, Calif.
•    1979: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull suffers an eye injury after a rose is thrown on stage
•    1978: Nancy Spungen, girlfriend to ex-Sex Pistol Sid Vicious, is found dead of knife wounds in Room 100 of New York City’s Chelsea Hotel
October 13
•    1941: Singer/songwriter Paul Simon is born
October 16
•    1977: John Mayer is born
•    1962: Flea of The Red Hot Chili Peppers is born Michael Balzary
•    1947: Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead is born
October 17
•    1974: Eminem is born Bruce Marshall Mathers III
October 18
•    1926: Chuck Berry is born
October 19:
•    1965: Todd Park Mohr of Big Head Todd is born

October 20
•    1977: Lynyrd Skynyrd loses Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines when their plane crashes into a Mississippi swamp
•    1971: Snoop Doggy Dogg is born Calvin Broadus
October 21
•    1995: Shannon Hoon, lead singer of Blind Melon, dies of an overdose at the age of 28
October 25
•    1991: Concert promoter Bill Graham dies in a helicopter crash
October 27
•    1967: Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver is born
October 28
•    1936: Charlie Daniels is born
October 29
•    1971: At the age of 24, Duane Allman dies undergoing surgery after he is injured in a motorcycle accident in Macon, GA
October 30
•    1986: License To Ill by The Beastie Boys becomes the first rap album to reach #1
October 31
•    1966: King Ad-Rock of The Beastie Boys is born Adam Horovitz

Compiled from the archives of Rock & Roll Library www.rocklibrary.com