It was, by far, the most fun show I have been to in two years. Hands down, nothing has even come close.

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that we hadn’t seen the band in a while, as life and day jobs got in the way of their regular touring, but when The Giraffes took to stage to open the Westword Music Showcase on Friday, June 18, it was like being surrounded by old friends — friends so good that you want to throw shit at them.

Snake Rattle Rattle Snake had already done a great job heating up the Bluebird Theater, and now the powder keg just needed a little spark to blow up. Even before the band had taken their places on stage ice cubes sailed through the air. One of the cubes I threw (hard) connected with singer Aaron Lazar right above the right eyebrow. It was kind of the punk rock equivalent of a high-  five between buddies, as he flipped a middle finger back.

But a few seconds later, when the band hit its opening notes, a true waterfall of beer, liquor, spit, and God knows what else cascaded over the stage. It was Denver’s answer to Victoria Falls for a while, as cups and cans hummed toward the band. By the beginning of the second song there was enough liquid on stage to fill a kiddie pool. And it never really stopped.

As the mayhem continued through the evening and well into a multiple-encore show, I had two overriding thoughts. First was ‘Damn, the poor, poor production crew.’ Those bastards need some huge kudos for having to clean that crap up. I wouldn’t have done it. My other thought centered around electricity. Maybe it’s because I know that Lazar wears a defibrillator which has zapped him on stage before. Maybe it’s because my genius tells me that liquids and electricity don’t play nice together, but I couldn’t help but wonder if this was going to turn bad. Luckily it never did, despite a tangled web of cords that Lazar picked up and wrapped around his bandmates’ bodies, so that he could more easily pull them around on the slick stage.

I’m sure that this sounds like a ridiculous hell to a lot of people, and in some sense, I guess they’re probably right. But this event was seriously the closest I’ll ever get again to participating in the great summer pastime of playing in the sprinkler in the yard — and that’s the magic of The Giraffes. It’s brutal and obnoxious, but it’s not trying to be anything but fun. It’s not trying to prove a point, or put a hurt on anyone, it’s just trying to scream away some of life’s frustrations — and as the crowd screamed along with “Having Fun,” it was pretty clear everyone was really enjoying their “pathetic little stabs at staying young” while “having fun with assholes.”

See you at the shows.

From the barstool of the publisher

It dawned on me this month, as I was writing the CD review for the Grateful Dead’s Crimson, White and Indigo (page 25), that I miss the super-mega giant stadium shows that I used to see on the East Coast.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m in love with the outdoor venues that we have around here. Red Rocks, the Mish and Planet Bluegrass Ranch are some of the most amazingly wonderful and intimate places in the world to see outdoor shows. But as gorgeous as those places are, seeing the DVD from the Dead’s most recent release made me truly miss sharing a concert with 100,000 or more people.

The J.F.K. Stadium show that I wrote about and attended in Philadelphia in 1989 stands as the largest crowd I’ve ever been in — 120,000 people, or more than a dozen Red Rocks, which holds just around 9,000. The field alone held more than two Red Rocks worth of crowds.

I think about it in retrospect and I can’t believe there were ever such large gatherings of people that didn’t end with utter disaster — although one could easily argue that South Philly in ’89 was already a disaster.

But what really struck me, as I took in the CD/DVD set, was the attachment that I felt to that stadium and many of the other monsters on the East Coast which were my summer stomping grounds.

R.F.K. Stadium in Washington, D.C. (where I saw my 21st Dead show on my 21st birthday), Giants Stadium in north Jersey (which was just demolished in May), even the coliseums of the northeast — the Philadelphia Spectrum (where I saw 13 shows), the Boston Garden (one show) and Nassau Coliseum (a dozen shows) — they all had something that few places we see shows in today have — history.

There was something magical about seeing a big show at the same field where Jack Dempsey lost the heavyweight boxing title in 1926. It was special to be in the hallowed halls of the Spectrum, where the Flyers won their second Stanley cup in 1975 (and where, in 1994, I witnessed the City of Philadelphia unveil a tie-dyed banner in the rafters of that building commemorating the Grateful Dead’s 50th show at the venue).

True, Red Rocks has the history to back up its legend, but so many new venues these days have comfy seats, clean bathrooms and all the historical significance of a one-hit wonder. Maybe I just forget how bad those places smelled, but damn it, I miss them and am grateful for the memories.

See you at the shows.

Last month on this page, I told you about a story written in another publication about Andy Schneidkraut, the owner of Albums on the Hill, in Boulder. I complimented the story and told you to go see Andy and to learn about music in a very hands-on way that you absolutely can’t get at the iTunes store.

Well, I went into Albums on the Hill on Saturday, April 17, Record Store Day, and according to Andy, you folks listened, big time. He said that day alone was the busiest he’s had “by far” in over 10 years. Andy hasn’t exactly been a pillar of happiness lately, as he watches the business he grew and the industry he embraced slowly implode around him, but on this day the man was down-right exuberant, almost bouncing around his store. And, from the looks of it, Andy and Albums weren’t the only ones. It was announced the following Monday that Record Store Day this year, across the country, was “bigger than Christmas.”

In a press release from Good Cop PR, it was reported that Music Monitor Network (MMN) retailers enjoyed a 41 percent gain over last year’s sales and a staggering 109 percent gain over the previous Saturday.

Not only does this mean some coin in the pockets of retailers, but more importantly, it means that music fans once again have tangible products proudly in their hands. MMN credited some special Record Store Day releases with the spike in sales but, ultimately, put the success on the music fans. Record Store Day co-founder Chris Brown said in the release, “There is a lesson here for the music industry: Focus on the music fans and treat them right and they will come out. Boy, will they come out.”

The success is utterly amazing and awesome to me. I think that we may be on the verge of something really great from the record industry for the first time in decades. As consumers, we have the power to control what they offer and, for years, we’ve been saying, ‘No thanks, I’ll get it faster and easier on the web. Now, with the labels scrambling, we, as fans, stand to reap some incredible benefits as they bend over backwards to lure us back in. I think they’ve seen that crappy production and cheap packaging are turnoffs, and whether it’s a change to what we hold in our hands, or the contents within, I think quality can only go up.

See you at the shows.

Writer P.J. Nutting talked about how Albums is the final independent music store in Boulder, and how Schneidkraut is “the captain going down with the ship.”

I was thrilled to see Nutting do such a good job at explaining not only the realistic doom and gloom of the record business, but also showing what an incredibly important piece of the social fabric that Albums, and specifically, Andy, has become.

Excuse me for being a total dork here, but there’s one piece of the story that brought tears to my eyes, when, Nutting recalls a free-flow conversation in Albums on the Hill, where a customer’s purchase sparked a conversation about another artist, with fellow customers chiming in to give their two cents on the matter and thus continuing the never-ending link between artists.

There’s a lot to be said about technology these days, and how Amazon and the like are trying to  do somewhat similar things with features like “People who bought this also bought…,” but those digital links lack real substance. For instance, my profile will show that I’ve purchased The Giraffes and Sigur Rós, but that doesn’t mean they sound anything alike.

That human element is crucial and nowhere like Albums is it so educational. CU students really should be able to take classes at Albums on the Hill, as Schneidkraut has enough musical information stored in his head to fill volumes of encyclopedias. It’s a thrill to watch, when you mention an artist and see him starting to piece together links to different, but similar musicians.

I’ve gone in a few times looking for a particular CD and come out with something else entirely and a newfound knowledge that I couldn’t have fathomed before.

Nutting was right in his article that shop and it’s owner are a dying breed, and Schneidkraut will be the first to tell you that. So, I implore you to find a bit of music that you just have to have in a physical copy, go in and buy it and ask Andy what else you should check out in the process. You’ll be glad you did.

See you at the shows.

The issue you hold before you is the start of our eighth volume. That means that we’ve survived seven years in a down-trodden economy in a business that people claim daily is dying.

Print is dead? My ass!

I think if nothing else, we’ve proven in the past seven years that while big mainstream publications that are trying to be everything to everyone are, in fact, failing miserably, specific niche publications like The Marquee are being sought after more and more by readers. Niche publications are beginning to be viewed much like the community publications that this nation once relied upon, before those publications were homogenized, monetized and squeezed of all life. It’s a formula that continues to fail, not just in publishing, but other industries as well. There are no profits when a product has no life.

I may be archaic in my thinking, but I’m a firm believer that little papers and magazines are blossoming because they are crucial institutions to our sense of community. In an era when every community has the same big box stores, the same chain restaurants on every corner and the same crappy newspaper as the next town (because they’re all owned by the same companies these days), the spirit of an independent rag like this one can’t help but thrive.

So if you’re picking us up for the first time, or if you’re one of our beloved readers who have all 84 back issues stashed neatly away on your “music porn” shelves, thank you.

Supporting your local music magazine is like supporting your local record shop. Yeah, the giant chain might have some better selection, and yeah, Amazon can get you pretty much anything you want in 48 hours, but wouldn’t you rather make a personal connection with someone and something real? We sure would.

So again, thank you for picking us up, for standing by us for seven years, and for leaving copies on the back of your toilet when you have a party. It means the world to us and we couldn’t have done it without the community support.

See you at the shows.

You see, five years ago this very month was the first ever issue of The Marquee in the form you see it now — it was the first month where we went from being 100% newsprint to having that sexy glossy cover that is now such an identifying element of the magazine.

So it’s really fitting to have an interview with Warren Haynes, once again, in this issue because, like Haynes, 2010 is the year I’m going to focus on my baby again. As our writer Hap Fry explains in his story, the Mule is Haynes’ main focus this year, after several years of working on other projects — and it’s a feeling I can relate to.

Like Haynes, I put my life’s passion on hold in recent years, to explore other possibilities, see other perspectives and learn (or at least try to learn) along the way — and I’m happy as can be that I did. Being away from The Marquee full-time made me miss the hell out of it and made me realize how much more could be done with this humble little magazine.

Early in my career, I was a reporter for a community newspaper in a tiny little town. The paper was a true mom and pop shop, with a husband and wife team that ran the show. I always wanted to own that paper, but now many years later, I find myself having an even better reality.

In recent months, The Marquee has become a mom and pop shop itself, with my wife, Jess, officially joining the front lines of the magazine (she’s been a long-term behind-the-scenes supporter, of course). So now, instead of a family-owned business that covers school board meetings and planning commissions, like that other paper I worked for, we get to have that same community feel, while covering our community, the music scene.

With 2010 upon us, here we are: revitalized, rejuvenated and ready to nurture this little beast into the publication that it can become.

Thankful for the lessons learned in our past, and the opportunities we were able to experience along the way, and with great optimism and hope for the future, The Marquee is like the little indie band that has once again found its roots and its voice.

See you at the shows.

I received an international phone call from a  friend in Europe who read it online and thought we were going to re-shape the mag entirely. I got a very endearing e-mail from a local reader who begged us not to change any content.

To those people and others who did not reach out, I ask you to please breathe. This baby of mine ain’t changing in any drastic way.

But we are going to be making some small changes — the first of which you can find this month on page 24. It’s a new colum called “Local Love,” which is designed to highlight a couple of local bands each month. It’s kind of amazing we haven’t done this before, but suddenly last month, the light bulb went on about how to properly implement that idea.

There’s also been discussion about resurrecting our “Overheard” column that gives little tidbits of news around the Colorado music community — you know, the “So-and-so won an award,” “Such-and-such band added a new player,” etc.

When I said last month that the cannabis community has been embracing us wholeheartedly, and that we plan on doing so in return, I meant just that. But what I failed to say is that our music coverage wasn’t going anywhere, and that this support was only going to help us do some things we’ve never had the opportunity to do.

Sure, we might implement some medical marijuana columns, but we’re not going to make knee-jerk reactions when it comes to our content. We’re NOT reshaping the magazine, we’re just opening our minds to the endless possibilities.

For those who were concerned, I really and truly cannot thank you enough. It means you care. It means you “get” us. It means that all of the struggle we’ve put into this magazine hasn’t gone unnoticed and we are so incredibly grateful for that. But think about the changes ahead kind of like losing or (something I’m more familiar with) gaining weight. It’s not going to happen overnight. You’re not going to suddenly wake up and find The Marquee 50 pounds fatter. But we’re going to add a little here and a little there each month, until we’re a nice plump publication that you can’t wait to sink your teeth into — full of juicy music with some nice garnish and side dishes of cannabis. It’s going to be a fun journey and we’re honored to have you along for the ride.

See you at the shows.

What an amazingly awesome turn of events, and content, we’ve had in The Marquee over the last two months. It kind of caught us off guard, but the medical marijuana movement has come through huge for us and we couldn’t be more grateful.

Back in the mid-Nineties, when I was still a relatively young reporter, my dream was to write for High Times magazine, and after a whole bunch of rejections from them I was finally given the chance in early 1996. As part of the Highwitness News Team, I was on the front lines of the medical marijuana movement. It got to the point where, in between freelancing for HT, I used a week’s worth of vacation time from my corporate newspapering job to volunteer with NORML. Yes, I felt so strongly about it, I gave up vacation time. Now here we are more than a dozen years later and I find myself again near the front lines of that same movement.

Since things caught us so off guard, we weren’t really able to prepare the magazine for the change in advertising and we hope to, within the next few months, find a way to balance what we’ve always done — bringing you stories on Colorado’s live music scene — with some information about this movement that is happening before our eyes.

As with any new industry, people are going to want reviews and for us to hand out kudos to their shops, and we will be doing that from time to time. But as we venture into this, we will make this vow to our loyal readers — any praise will be handled with the same care that we provide for our musical coverage. What that means is that you’re not going to have to search through negative reviews to find the good establishments. Those who read us each month will notice that we never run CD reviews of less than two stars. While it could be argued that we give everyone good reviews, it can also be argued that we don’t waste our time or yours telling you why something sucked — instead we just want to tell you what’s good.

So keep an eye out for those changes that are heading your way and by all means voice your opinions about them. If you don’t mind the magazine looking elsewhere for content, tell us, and if you do mind, tell us that as well. Without your feedback we’re blind, so let us have it.

For those of you who don’t care for the movement, we hope not to alienate you. We’re not going to completely change our voice. It’s our opinion that the only reason we’re still here after nearly eight years, is because of our hard line “nothing but music” attitude. But we also think that changing things up from time to time and adding fresh life is a worthwhile venture.

See you at the shows.

The circle of people who surround this magazine, as I’m sure you can imagine, are very near and dear to me. The amount of tireless hours that go into this magazine each month from them still astounds me.

Of those people, there is no one who has given more volumes of quality content to The Marquee than Timothy Dwenger. Tim has written more stories for this magazine than any other writer (including me) and single-handedly shaped the contents of these pages, and my own personal music collection, because of his work.

Well, Tim got married this month as this issue was going to press, and you’ll notice that he still contributed two stories (I told him not to and to take the month off, but he insisted).

I don’t want to get too gushy, but I wanted to take this space to wish him and his lovely bride Lindsay all the best in this new chapter of their life. They are one of the most loving and inspiring couples I know, and my wife and I have spent many an evening with them enjoying some of the very artists that Tim helped turn me on to. Best of luck, you guys. You deserve the world.

Their marriage leads me to another amazing couple in The Marquee family who also tied the knot this month. Amy Rist — who like many Marquee people, has come, gone and then come back to Marquee-land — this month, married her long-time boyfriend and fellow Marquee distribution manager Joey Wilkinson. I’ve always loved the fact that Amy’s strong Boston voice is as loud and as powerful as mine, and that she’s never afraid to use it. So, I’m bracing myself for the phone call I’m soon due about missing their wedding. I’m so sorry you guys. Despite my absence at the ceremony, you know I love you both and wish that your future years together are as fun and fulfilling as your years up till now have been.

For those of you who don’t know either of those couples, I’ll get back to my pointless, incessant ramblings in next month’s issue — which I also promise you is going to feature an out-of-this-world interview: our first inter-galactic, inter-species interview that is not to be missed.

See you at the shows.

Love Phish or hate them, if you’re a fan of any kind of music these days, you kind of have to marvel at what their reunion this summer has done, the excitement it has spurred throughout the industry, and the holy-shit-is-that-Phish-in-a-mainstream-media-outlet attention it has spurred.

But one thing that it has also shown is greed, and this time I’m talking about greed within the fan base, not the normal outlets we point our fingers at, like Ticketmaster and scalpers and such.

I was talking with some friends the other night and we were sharing stories about how we got our tickets and who we know that got shut out and all of that. It’s a conversation I’ve had several times this summer and in EVERY conversation it is always inevitably revealed that at least, at least one person used a slew of credit cards from family members, friends and old dead relatives to try to score their seat. I’m sorry but I think that sucks. It’s that kind of activity that fuels the greed of scalpers and ticket agents.

Let’s take these Red Rocks shows, for example. They sold out almost before they went on sale. Just for argument sake let’s say that there were one million people vying for these (roughly 40,000) seats. If everyone who was trying for them used two cards each, then, duh, no wonder it was so hard to get tickets — not to mention the bastards who used five or more cards.

That fervor is what creates all the opportunity in the world for fans to get ripped off in the long run. Now, luckily, some of the monster prices that were happening have settled down and most tickets for the Phish run (as we go to press, just a week before the actual shows) are hovering at around the $200 to $300 mark — which is still obscene, but not as bad as when there were extra zeroes.

I don’t know how we begin to curtail that over-the-top, I-gotta-have-it demand for big-ticket shows, but as music fans we’re the ones who end up screwing ourselves by acting so damn eager. It doesn’t take a business genius to realize that it’s dumb to sell a ticket for face value when someone will pay five times that — blame scalpers all you want, but they’re just cogs in the wheel at that point, and they’re not even driving.

Next time there’s a show you would sell your first-born kid to go to, take the high road and enter one card number. If you’re one of the people who are “supposed to be there” the universe will make it happen, or maybe it won’t, but won’t you feel better about yourself? If you said ‘no,’ you just proved my point.

See you at the shows.

The official cause of death still (as of press time) hadn’t been released, but that hasn’t stopped the blog world from taking guesses and surprisingly, but sadly still, for once, people are not blaming drugs — at least not the blogs that I read. No, even more sad than a tale ending from drugs, is one ending from not having drugs.

See, Bennett has been sick for some time, and he had written on his blog earlier this year, that he was in need of hip replacement surgery, but unable to cover the costs since he lacked health insurance.

Bennet had recently filed a lawsuit against Jeff Tweedy of Wilco for breach of contract and $50,000 in unpaid royalties, and that, it is supposed, was motivated by Bennett’s declining health and need to cover his medical bills.

That is a true tragedy and even more sad is the fact that Bennett is not even close to being alone here. There are thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of musicians around this country who couldn’t afford so much as a glance from a doctor.

I think so many of us have the perception that musicians are loaded and that simple basics like being able to repair your body are a given, but the true fact is that very, very few of the musicians we all see regulary have the ability to insure themselves.

One organization based in Boulder is helping to change that, though. The Basic Fund (thebasicfund.org), helps to raise funds to pay for artists’ health insurance. It’s a cause that is beyond noble and one that more people need to help support.

I hate to turn Bennett’s passing into a plug for any organization, but I hope that maybe a few people who were inspired by the Wilco albums that Bennett worked on (Being There, Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) might take five minutes of their time and $10 out of their pocket and contribute to the fund.

With the industry in the shape that it’s in, things like this aren’t going to change any time soon. No one is going to drop some magical, giant sack of cash for musician health insurance.

I think Bennett would be truly celebrated by anyone who chooses to help, and hopefully the next musician who needs help getting something excruciatingly painful fixed, won’t have to choose between food, rent and medical assistance.
Thanks for the great songs, Jay.

See you at the shows.

I’ve been struggling with these questions for the last month after getting an earful from a good friend and writer for this mag. This friend of mine took great umbrage with the fact that in last month’s reviews I compared an artist to Bob Dylan and Neil Young … well, to be fair, what I said was “I’m not afraid of the backlash by haters who will lambast me for calling the artist the Bob Dylan and Neil Young of our time.”

In my mind, I’m paying this artist the highest compliment, saying that his songs are thought provoking, poetic, romantic and strong enough to withstand the test of time.
My friend, however, saw it another way and wrote me a long e-mail stating, in part: “When you say that someone is the ‘Dylan of our generation’ or ‘(Insert Name) of our generation’ it makes me very skeptical of them (rather than open minded) because I immediately compare them to Dylan or that person. It is an unfair comparison and in the end the artist you are trying to help always loses. No one is going to be the next Dylan. I probably would have liked him had you not used that comparison. I listened to his album with the thought of this guy being the next Dylan and Neil and after four songs was like, ‘O.K., here is another over-hyped artist.’ Had I not had that comparison in my head I probably would have enjoyed him and the album more.”

Well, my retort was quick and short, saying that he was the one who was close-minded and that he was way too sensitive if a simple reference to a legendary artist when discussing an up-and-comer made him closed off to the artist.

But then something really, really strange happened the night of the band’s show. As I was getting a pre-show beverage I was talking with the group’s drummer, who said simply, “We’re not that good.” This is one of the guys I was paying respect to and he didn’t even like the compliment!
He agreed with my buddy that the compliment was over the top. What the hell!?

So, I’ve gone back and re-listened to the album, I’ve read and re-read my review of it. I stand by my comments, but also understand where these guys are coming from. The one thing I still can’t wrap my head around, though, is why does it work in some instances to compare artists, but fails so miserably in others and when is a compliment too much? I’d love to hear more debate on this.

Comment away in the blog-o-web!

See you at the shows.