Reviews

When Papadosio took over the Fox Theatre Thursday night and turned it into a hypnotic display of light, sound and video projections, the crowd and band both knew that something special was in store. This was documented at the end of the show when lead guitarist Anthony Thogmartin called Colorado a second home for the band to mass cheers and rooster crows.

The legend of the Delta Blues is a somber story. Its grandfather died at the age of twenty-seven under debated circumstances. The legacy that Robert Leroy Johnson left Mississippi was a new style of guitar playing and singing that would eventually become the predominant defining form of American roots music. Nearly every style of American-born music can be structurally traced back to blues. Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll is blues music, and wouldn’t have been birthed without that foundational backbone.

Few producers can stand the test of time and survive the modern-day music industry like Dutch music producer Tom Holkenborg, better known as Junkie XL. A one-man wrecking machine, Holkenborg has accomplished more in his 15-year career than many musicians could ever fathom. "When I found out in 1986 how my sampler could produce sounds, I knew it was pointless to ever leave the studio," says Holkenborg.

Berkeley's Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse provides a comfortable setting for artists and fans just 1 block from Shattuck Avenue...and all it has to offer. On Friday night, Bay area native Melody Walker and partner Jacob Groopman took the stage in front of a modest crowd who braved the first rains of the winter season.

Listening to northeastern synth-tinged rock band Jimkata, it’s obvious that these boys want to add their own special blend of spice to the standard of indie fare that’s become business-as-usual in an increasingly predictable genre.

Canadian-based jam band Days Of You is set to release their first album in over a decade, after taking a 12-year hiatus throughout the 2000’s. The band’s upcoming LP release, You Belong Where You Go, marks a triumphant return to the scene for the Canadian pioneers. Mixing elements of rock, blues, jazz, reggae, and folk, on top of improvisational experimentation, Days of You quickly gained success through community radio and word of mouth.

This November 11, Boulder, Colorado’s Fox Theatre hosted Xavier Rudd, one of Australia’s most iconic voices, for the last American stop along his Spirit Bird Tour. Behind his custom drum set equipped with two didgeridoos, Xavier Rudd appeared like a mythic creature from an aborigine creation story. Rudd embodied the totem spirit vision as half-man and ecstatic bird with colossal tusks.

One of the more humorous developing attitudes of newer bluegrass acts is that they don’t like applying the label “bluegrass”. Though their instrumentation, song selection, and style all point to an existing form. The trend seems to be that up-and-comings feel marginalized by being cornered into accepting the label. In certain ways I understand this fear. Donning the title of a “bluegrass” band makes its musicians pressured into accepting a certain catalogue of songs and a limiting context in which they can expand and improvise their instrumentals.

Beats Antique brings us a new 8 track EP bursting with many styles of world music and theatrical composition, its impossible not to get into it.  Beats Antique was formed in San Francisco, California and in 2007 created their first album.Beats Antique's music can’t be classified to one genre.  The track The Allure gives off a spooky vibe.  Like it should be in a haunted house frightening children on All Hall

There are bands that throw a CD Release Party, and there are bands that are a party every time they take the stage, no matter what night of the week it is.  Cincinnati bred fastgrass up and comers The Rumpke Mountain Boys, the region’s ultimate newgrass party band, took over the stage of the Beachland Ballroom, where Yonder Mountain String Band got their start

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