How famous is Sam Smith? Not that famous, it turns out

I don't think I'm the only person who sees Sam Smith as a placeholder pop star - filling the space on bills; turning up; doing the job; but not an actual supernova pop star. You couldn't imagine a That'll Be The Day style movie being made about him; the biography isn't going to be a Hammer Of The Gods affair. More a Paintbrush Cheap From Homebase tale.

This impression doesn't go away with the discovery that people who had gone to see him at Red Rocks actually recognised him while he was mucking about before the show.

That's all a bit awkward, but at least we know the answer to the philosophical conundrum 'if Sam Smith is not on stage with a light shining on him, does he even exist?'

Stapp misses court date

To Denver, where Scott Stapp was due to appear in court to face misdemeanour charges following his 'riding on a luggage carousel' stunt last month.

He didn't show up.

Maybe he tried, but couldn't get past DIA without finding himself trapped in a luggage locker.

There's now a warrant for his arrest.

Stapp's band, Puddle Of Mudd, last released an album in 1963.

Actually the most entertaining thing Puddle Of Mudd have done in years

Wes Scantlin, lead lets-say-singer of Puddle Of Mudd, has been arrested in Denver after riding a baggage carousel at the airport.

Actually, not quite for riding it. Like most forms of entertainment, Scantlin couldn't quite manage to ride the carousel and ended up going behind it. Into a secure area.

It meant the band were late - very late - for their show in Denver. They turned up just at that point where everyone was thinking 'well, at least we'll get a refund', which just makes their appearance all the more cruel.

Astonishingly, it took a fan to get Scantlin out of jail on bail. Which says something - not a band mate, or the promoter, or a manager, or a label person. It looks a lot like there were a lot of people kinda hoping he'd stay in chokey.

Of course, they don't like you going into the secure areas at DIA, because of the - ahem - massive secret underground city underneath. Scantlin's lucky he isn't being held by the lizard people three miles under the mountains.

Concert evacuated after Lil' Boosie fails to think things through

You know what? If you're playing a town where there was recently a high-profile shooting incident at a gig, you might want to think twice before using gunfire sound effects.

Lil Boosie didn't think twice, and ended up causing a problem. 9News:

The artist Lil' Boosie was performing at the National Western Complex Thursday as part of his Touchdown to Cause Hell Tour.

Denver police say during his first song, people heard gunshots. The sounds forced the large crowd to quickly clear the venue.

It turns out, the gunshots were only sound effects that were part of Lil' Boosie's performance.

It's possible, I guess, that the audience were just looking for an excuse to leave the venue as quickly as possibly.

Muse help with the mopping out

Muse played Denver last night; they handed over the profits from merch sales to the Colorado Flood Relief effort.

Good work, Muse.

Madonna upsets Denver

Going to Denver so soon after the mass shootings in neighbouring Aurora and having some on-stage violent gun-related fun probably isn't the smartest of Madonna's ideas.

Even so, 9News does have a slight air of entrappy desperation in its Facebook post:

Did you go to the Madonna show last night? We not only heard she came on stage really late, but we've also gotten calls that some of the show was pretty violent. One person sent us an email saying she simulated shooting a dancer and the audience. If you went, what did you think? We're you offended?

I'm sure there will be plenty enough people offended without the need to nudge the crowd and say 'you, you must have been offended, right?'

Seriously, though: mock shooting an audience in Denver. That's some crassness right there.

No winners, I think.

School not L its FAO

A six year old kid sang a snatch of a popular song to a classmate. Which could just be a cute moment, right?

Except, unfortunately, the song was Sexy And I Know It by LMFAO. Even more unfortunately, the six year old was a pupil at Sable Elementary School in Aurora, apparently home of the Colorado Fighting Over-reactors.

The child has now been suspended, accused of sexual harassment and disrupting other students. Sexual harassment. Really.

Things to do in Denver...

First up, go to Dora's. No, no... go to Senor Ric's. Then Dora's.

Second: It's Titwrench this week, Thursday-Friday-Saturday.

"We thought the name was catchy" explains the collective.

Lots of bands, and much more. Including the mighty Married In Berdichv:



But go to Senor Rics after, okay?

John Elway takes on the punks

There's a band in Fort Collins who took the name Elway, as a way of (a) dumping their original, rotten name of 10-4 Eleanor and (b) paying tribute to their roots through John Elway, who used to play American "football" and sell cars in Denver.

John Elway found out, and was not flattered. He's now instructed his people to send a letter to Elway, the band, asking them to not use the name any more.

They're going to stick with the name. Not least, you suspect, because a band who by their own admission usually play to "about 30 people in a basement" are suddenly picking up coverage from CBS, Yahoo, and USA Today. Albeit the sports pages, but still, it's coverage.

Elway insist that they're not actually using Elway to mean John Elway - instead, they're using him as part of the local vernacular; Mr Elway, to be fair, hasn't sent a legal cease-and-desist. Not yet, anyway.

Rihanna tries to avoid a soaking

More misery from the US live music scene, where greed-and-Ticketmaster-LiveNation have combined to suffocate a golden goose: Rihanna is axing dates across the US rather than turn up to empty rooms.

The Denver date has followed Phoenix, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Dallas and Washington down the drain; Simon and Garfunkel have also been paring back their itinerary as people decide not to pay silly money for a night out.

The Rihanna tour is going under the banner The Last Girl On Earth; ticket sales are so slow she might have wound up The Only Person In The Arena.

Denver has some sort of rating

Someone - and the 9News report doesn't actually say whom - has come up with a semi-meaningless figure to measure the 'creative vitality' of US cities, leading to this sort of conclusion:

A new study says Denver's music scene is bigger than once thought, ranking high with the likes of Los Angeles, New Orleans and Seattle.
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Denver's Creative Vitality Index, or CIV, is 2.33. The national average was reported to be 1, and cities like Los Angles and Seattle received CIV's of 4.24 and 2.06 respectively.

I'm not sure I even understand how Creative Vitality Index gets shortened to CIV rather than CVI, much less how this number is arrived at.

According to the study, there are about 2,300 music-related jobs in Denver, which is higher than Seattle and New Orleans on a per-capita basis.

Hmm.

Denver is home to 44 music venues and at least 60 more mixed-use venues that offer live music every night of the week, and according to the study, the total gross sales for all the venues in the Mile High City averaged a minimum of $2.3 million a night.

That would imply that Denver music venues are taking USD839million a year. Which, if true, is probably a far better indication of Denver's creativity than a made-up number.

Silver Jews weekend: Random Rules

Live at the wonderful BlueBird in Denver:



[Part of The Silver Jews weekend]

Polluting the body politic

Barack Obama - and with a slightly less straight face, John McCain - both pledged some time ago to reduce the presence of lobbyists in American politics.

That hasn't stopped the RIAA spending record company shareholder's cash turning up at Denver:

Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA, said RIAA president Cary Sherman and others from the recording industry are in Denver "to be relevant to the political process. We'll be in Minnesota next week."

Mmm. Yes, since you ask, I did throw up a little in my mouth at that "relevant to the political process" - why should a business lobby group feel they need to be connected to the political process at all? Should they not just wait for democracy to run its course and then see if they're relevant any more?

When anthems clash

Trouble in Denver, where the invited national anthem singing guest for John Hickenlooper's mayoral "State of the City" address chose to play an unexpected round of One Song To The Tune Of Another:

"The city asked Rene Marie to sing the national anthem at (Tuesday's) State of the City event. She agreed to do so. We expected her to sing the national anthem, and she deceived us," the mayor told reporters at a press conference in front of the City and County Building.

"Her actions show a certain lack of understanding for how strongly our community feels about patriotic symbols and traditions, and certainly overshadowed a day of great importance to our city," Hickenlooper said.

Marie's anthem choice immediately triggered public outrage.

Marie sang the first verse of James Weldon Johnson's Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing, also known as the Black National Anthem, but adapted those lyrics to the tune of The Star-Spangled Banner.

She also upset people in Denver by refusing to allow the Platform Blocking Move on the Denver Light Rail adaptation of Mornington Crecent.

Hickenlooper had, to be fair, at first taken a hands-off, 'hey, this is art, this is freedom, what's the problem?' approach, before discovering that swing voters didn't share that view; then, he changed his mind:

[I]n a tradition-laden civic ceremony that included a law enforcement color guard presenting our flags and the Pledge of Allegiance - making a personal substitution for the national anthem was not an option. We asked for The Star-Spangled Banner and that's what we expected," he said.

"We will do whatever it takes to ensure that a situation like this never occurs again, even if I have to sing the national anthem myself," Hickenlooper added. "If people feel the city of Denver or the mayor has in any way disrespected them, I'm happy to apologize."

Yeah - can you imagine turning up to find out what's happening with the taxes and laws of the city, and there not being a song about exploding bombs and red rockets flying through the air to start it off with? How can you concentrate on the fiscal state of the place without a bit of singalongaslaughter first, eh?

How does Hickenlooper intend to ensure that "this never happens again", though? His suggested idea - of him singing - has already got civil liberties protesters up in arms on the basis of the constitution barring cruel and unusual punishments.
Amongst those who felt slighted was the Dawn's Early Light, which told USA Today it was especially annoyed as "it doesn't seem much to ask, that people sing about me, what with me rolling out of bed first thing every day. And the hand on the heart thing - that's cute, isn't it?"

Twilight's Last Gleaming was unavailable for comment.

Venuewatch: The end of the Rainbow

It's not actually played host to a gig for 20 years - it's been a branch of Walgreens since it closed in 1988 - but it's still sad to hear that the Denver Rainbow Music Hall is to be demolished.

Amongst the bands who passed through during its time as a venue were Devo, Pat Benatar and U2 before they became unbearable, The Clash, The Fixx and Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.

The building had been converted to house the Walgreens, but now the company needs more space and is going to build anew. They have promised to keep the historic sign, though.

Evanescence send sicknote

Flu like symptoms hospitalised 'some' members of Evanescence and their entourage at the weekend, leading to cancellation of the Denver date on their current plastic-goth tour of the US.

Charmlessly, they're not going to bother rescheduling.

Rockies settle ticket claim

The Colorado Rockies had a few problems with their ticketing for their World Series run when they put them on sale last week - in a disaster that recalled the worst days of Glastonbury, the server fell over (or, if you believe the baseball team, "fell victim to a malicious DOS attack") and there was great upsetment.

Jeff Sobieck was one who was upset; he'd got a confirmation that his purchase of 12 tickets had been successful before the system went down and he launched a lawsuit. The Rockies have settled this out-of-court. The size of the pay-off hasn't been revealed, but Sobieck had been seeking money to cover the amount he could have sold the tickets on for as damages.

In other words: despite the resale of tickets for higher-than-face-value being illegal in Denver, the club has paid off a scalper for loss of earnings on tickets he never received.

Even more curiously, the team has done this despite a 1917 law in the city which would have made it illegal for them to grant entry to anyone who they knew had bought Sobieck's tickets from him:

Denver's ordinance also has prohibited the operator of a ticketed event from selling tickets to anyone who would resell them at a premium, and has made it operators' responsibility to refuse to honor tickets purchased from scalpers, brokers or speculators if the operator "has knowledge of the unlawful purchase of such ticket."

And Harvey Goldsmith thinks the UK ticketing system is unworkable. Surely by revealing that he intended to resell them, Sobieck had effectively made the tickets he hadn't bought in the first place totally valueless?