Marquee Magazine » December, 2007
Richie Havens’ legend endures as he enters his fourth decade of performing
:: Richie Havens :::: Boulder Theater :: December 3 ::
By Timothy Dwenger
It’s been nearly four decades since 500,000 people descended upon Max Yasgur’s farm in Bethel, New York for the legendary Woodstock Music and Arts Fair. While the festival featured more than 30 of the best-known bands and musicians of the era, the duties of opening the festival fell on one man, Richie Havens.
“I was the first one on stage because I had the least equipment and the least guys,” Havens said in a recent interview with The Marquee, as he recalled the logistical nightmare that was the original Woodstock. “I got helicoptered in and they said, ‘Hey Richie, 40 minutes.’ I said ‘ok’ and went out and did my forty minutes and walked backstage to go off and they said, ‘Richie, no one else is here yet, can you sing four more?’ I said ‘ok’ and went back and did four more and then went backstage and they said, ‘Hey Richie four more?’ They did that six times. I sang for two hours and forty-five minutes, every song I knew. Then I am going, ‘What am I going to sing now?’”
No tag for this post. No commentsBlues Traveler remakes their fans’ favorite songs on Cover Yourself
:: Blues Traveler ::: Fox Theatre :: December 7 ::
By Chibo Acevedo
The Grammy Award winning band Blues Traveler has played all over the world during the last two decades and has repeatedly ripped its audiences faces off with thunderous jams that do not necessarily fall into the three-and-a-half minute-format of pop radio. They have been through as much as any legendary rock and roll band, and continue to seek their own path through all the muck of wannabe hit makers in the pop market.
They have endured the death of original bassist Bobby Sheehan. They have endured and survived motorcycle accidents, major health problems, the yo-yo of public support, and all the bullshit that is the music industry. Through all of this they still stand as one of the present generation’s best and most earnest rock and roll jam-bands, and have maintained their passion for the backbeat, hard-driving, blues-based improvisation that has inspired them ever since the first days that they met in a Princeton, N.J. high school twenty years ago.
No tag for this post. No commentsMike Doughty takes questions from the audience on current tour
:: Mike Doughty :::: Trilogy Lounge :: December 5
by Timothy Dwenger
This fall, the former Soul Coughing front man and lyricist, Mike Doughty has opted to forgo the big rooms, and his privacy, in favor of a cross country tour of some of the smallest, most intimate rooms and a jar of questions.
“The powers that be asked me if I wanted to do a tour and I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s book small venues and do a question jar.’ I just came up with it on the spur of the moment, having never tried it. Thank God it actually works,” Doughty told The Marquee in a recent interview as he prepared for a home-town show at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
No tag for this post. No commentsHeavyweight Dub Champion move from Colorado to take music to the masses
:: Heavyweight Dub Champion :: Trilogy Lounge :: December 31 ::
By Lisa Oshlo
Spawned high in the mountains of Gold Hill, Colo., Heavyweight Dub Champion has started nothing less than a musical movement. Using complex musical alchemy, the three core members, Resurrector, Patch and Totter Todd, aim to liberate the human race completely through the power of sound vibration. And in the process make some of the hottest dub-hop on the planet.
The Marquee spoke recently with Resurrector about his cosmology, the band’s Colorado roots, and his method for bringing music to the masses.
Formed in 1997 by Resurrector and Patch, the two used the relative isolation of Gold Hill (and subsequent primitive lifestyle, including a cabin with no running water) to connect with the fundamental rhythms of the earth. “In Gold Hill, we were so close to the natural course of existence,” said Resurrector. “Our band is based on cosmic relationships, and it really helped to create the rhythm of our music.”
Continue — Read more »
No comments
VHS or Beta break their own mold with Bring on the Comets
:: VHS or Beta :: Bluebird Theater :::: December 6 ::
By Tiffany Childs
VHS or Beta has long been a band ahead of its time. Since the group’s inception in 1997 they have been paving the way for bands such as The Killers, that mutate and infuse genres, crossing sounds like Kraftwerk and Gang of Four or club beats with ’80s style hookcraft. However, with their latest release, Bring on the Comets, VHS or Beta is trying to revive a genre rather than create a new one.
“‘Pop’ has become a bad word in music circles, especially indie circles,” bassist Mark Palgy told The Marquee in a recent interview. “It’s a genre that’s generally looked at as less than amazing and we wanted to transform the idea of pop as it is today.” Guitarist/vocalist Craig Pfunder agreed, “We’ve really focused on songwriting - on creating pop songs in a time when pop has been watered down. I wanted to write a record with huge catch and melody, but also something more. It’s the most profound statement we’ve done as a band.”
Marquee Tags: VHS or BetaNo comments
Jackie greene plays the role of blues rock guitar darling with legends at his side
:: Jackie Greene :: Bluebird Theater :: December 2 ::
By Timothy Dwenger
It isn’t often that a 21- year-old stops a room cold with a soulfully mature voice that calls to mind a young Tom Waits or Otis Redding. But that is exactly what happened when Jackie Greene took the stage at an open mic in Sacramento in the fall of 2001. At that point Greene had been gigging in bars and selling records out of his trunk for the better part of five years. Things took a turn for him when DIG Music owner Marty DeAnda heard him that night in Sacramento, signed him within days and gave the youngster the chance to get his music out to a much broader audience.
Continue — Read more »
No comments
Eyedea hooks up again with DJ Abilities and continues to create on his own terms
:: Eyedea and Abilities :: Marquis Theatre :: December 3 ::
By Eric Lab Rat
In 2004, the rapper Eyedea made a big splash among the intelligent rap community and national press with E & A, a collaboration between himself and DJ Abilities. It was a good year to be a producer who experimented with form, and a rapper who eschewed nonsense rhymes in lieu of more important subject matter.
Continue — Read more »
No comments
From the Barstool of the Publisher - December, 2007
:: December 2007 ::
By Brian F Johnson
Is it just me, or is one of the most thrilling things in life discovering a new band on your own terms - finding that act that no matter how hard you try you just can’t get them out of your CD player, or off of your iPod?
Now, I’m pretty damn lucky, as I’ve had this happen many, many times in my life, but there’s still that amazing feeling each time, and as the Thanksgiving leftovers turn into science projects in the back of my refrigerator it is this for which I am thankful.
No tag for this post. No comments
Industry Profile: Crescendo artists’ Brandon Mann keeps riding the wave of success
By Brian F. Johnson
Crescendo Artists president and national booking agent, Brandon Mann is one of those people who always knew he’d somehow be involved in music. Despite being a business and government major when he attended Franklin and Marshall College in the 1990s, Mann’s passion for music had him booking local bands on campus and working with the school’s program council to bring Little Feat and Bela Fleck (among others) to his school.
After college, Mann had several industry jobs, working in publicity with Ambrosia Healy, in artist development with RCA and as an agent for Partners in Music. Three years ago the partners of Partners in Music decided to divvy up their individual duties into different companies and Crescendo Artists was born.
Continue — Read more »
No comments
CD Reviews - December - 2007
The Big C
The DVD, featuring Spyz
Independent
5 out of 5
This is one of the most gripping things I’ve watched in I don’t know how long.
Heartwrenchingly sad but amazingly uplifting and inspirational, Boulder musician and cancer survivor Jon Henderson, and his band Spyz, open the next chapter in their ongoing story The Big C.
Last year, Spyz released the CD The Big C, a superb rock album where the theme of each song is, of course, related in one way or another to cancer.
This year we learn that the impetus for that project was to compile songs for this film. Henderson put together 13 cancer patients, family members, friends, doctors and social workers and filmed their thoughts, feelings and advice on cancer, intertwined with the music of The Big C.
The songs stood well on their own with the CD last year, but now coupled with the documentary, the story becomes more real, less metaphorical and ten times more poignant.
Continue — Read more »
No comments
This Month in Music History - December
December 1
• 1983: Neil Young is sued by Geffen Records for producing albums that are “not commercial in nature and musically uncharacteristic of his previous albums”
• 1982: Epic Records releases Thriller - Michael Jackson’s first solo album in three years
December 2
• 1970: Jay-Z is born Shawn Corey Carter
• 1967: The Monkees set a record by achieving four Number One albums in the same year
• 1906: Peter Carl Goldmark, the inventor of the LP, is born
December 3
• 1979: Eleven Who fans are trampled to death rushing to gain admittance for general seating at Cincinnati’s Riverfront Coliseum
• 1948: Ozzy Osbourne is born John Michael Osbourne
December 4
• 1993: Frank Zappa dies of pancreatic cancer at age 52
December 5
• 1932: Little Richard is born Richard Wayne Penniman
December 6
• 1988: Roy Orbison dies of a massive heart attack at the age of 52
• 1969: The Rolling Stones headline a free show at Altamont Speedway in California; the Hell’s Angels handle security and stab a man to death during the show (See: Gimme Shelter)
• 1956: Randy Rhodes is born
December 7
• 1949: Tom Waits in born
• 1942: Singer/songwriter Harry Chapin is born
December 8
• 1980: John Lennon is gunned down in front of his N.Y.C. apartment building after returning home from a recording session with his wife Yoko Ono
• 1947: Gregg Allman is born
• 1943: Jim Morrison is born
December 10
• 1967: Otis Redding dies in a plane crash
December 11
• 1964: Sam Cooke is shot and killed by hotel manager Bertha Franklin
• 1958: Motley Crue bass player Nikki Sixx is born
• 1957: Jerry Lee Lewis secretly weds his third wife, third cousin Myra Gale Brown
• 1940: David Gates of Bread is born
December 12
• 1949: Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company is born
• 1943: Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band is born
• 1915: Frank Sinatra is born
December 13
• 1948: Ted Nugent is born
• 1968: Iron Butterfly’s epic song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” goes gold
December 16
• 1966: “Hey Joe” is released as the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s first single
• 1950: Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top is born
December 18
• 1970: Rapper DMX is born
• 1943: Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones is born
December 19
• 1955: Carl Perkins records his original version of “Blue Suede Shoes”
December 20
• 1950: Alex Chilton of Big Star is born
December 22
• 1949: Robin and Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees are born
• 1946: Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick is born
December 23
• 1966: Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is born
• 1955: Bruce Hornsby is born
December 24
• 1961: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” becomes the first African song to hit #1 on the U.S. pop charts
• 1945: Lemmy of Motorhead is born
December 25
• 1946: Jimmy Buffett is born
December 26
• 1968: Led Zeppelin begins its first U.S. tour
• 1951: Jazz guitarist John Scofield is born
• 1940: Legendary music producer and “Wall of Sound” creator Phil Spector is born
December 27
• 1932: Radio City Music Hall opens to the public in New York City’s Rockefeller Center
• 1952: David Knopfler (the younger brother of Mark Knoplfer) of Dire Straits is born
December 30
• 1999: George Harrison is stabbed several times after he and his wife, Olivia, are attacked by an intruder in their home outside London
• 1945: Davy Jones of The Monkees is born
• 1942: Michael Nesmith of The Monkees is born
• 1928: Bo Diddley is born
December 31
• 1984: Def Leppard drummer Rick Allen loses his left arm in a car accident in England
• 1952: Singer/guitarist George Thorogood is born
• 1943: John Denver is born John Henry Deutschendorf