The Show(case) Must Go On!

A classically trained opera singer who toured Europe when she was eighteen, Marri Jo gave up singing in 1985 because of burnout and anxiety. She started singing again for her circle of friends, including Gonzales, bassist Chip Fair and drummer Laura Coleman, in the late '90s. At first she would avoid their gazes by singing from a darkened kitchen, but she slowly built her confidence to the point where she could sing in front of complete strangers again. But the anxiety is not entirely gone: "I'm a puker," she says. "I throw up at every single show."

The original plan was for Backbone Velvet to play ten or fifteen covers for friends at Chip Fair's annual Christmas bash in Bailey, but the band soon mushroomed into a mainstay at Herman's Hideaway, the Soiled Dove and other Denver stages. Thank goodness: Marri Jo's re-entry into the performing world is a boon to the Denver music scene. Her raw, powerful pipes are reminiscent of Grace Slick's and Janis Joplin's, and they're backed by a band that dabbles in everything from blues to hard rock to psychedelic exploration.

Ultimately, the bandmates' longtime mutual friendships are the glue that holds Backbone Velvet together. "We all get along so well," says Fair. "It's all about the love." -- Peterson

MARCY BARUCH
NOMINATED IN SINGER/SONGWRITER
Marcy Baruch throws a mean pancake party. Every New Year's Day, the luckiest people in Denver are invited over for breakfast and mimosas. But not everything that Baruch serves up is syrupy and sweet: Rousing rockers and spare, personal pieces are nestled among the catchy pop tunes and folksy offerings on her two recent discs, Hathaway Smiles and Clearly.

In addition to penning her own compositions, Baruch has been collaborating with other artists. "I love my work as a singer/songwriter, but my other true love is in harmony work," she says. She produced fellow songstress Kate Gleason's CD, Return to Me, and performed as both an opening act and a backing vocalist on tour with Nashville artist Lynette Vantreese in 2002.

Baruch's versatility is evident in her live show. Her performance is equally compelling whether she's working as a solo act or backed by a band, whose membership varies with each gig; the only constant is her creative partner and collaborator, bassist Scott Surine. Baruch, who recently returned from a tour of the East Coast, exudes an energy that's both strong and subtle. She doesn't always generate as much fanfare as some of her local contemporaries, but her followers keep increasing in number. We suspect it's the music, not the pancakes, that keeps 'em coming back. -- Soltero

BLACK BLACK OCEAN
NOMINATED IN ROCK
When asked to expound on the aesthetic of Black Black Ocean, guitarist Stephen Till gets excited. "Hold on, hold on, let me ask somebody. I want this to be cute," he says. After a murmur of voices in the background, he replies, "My brother just said 'sucky.'"

Black Black Ocean came together in 2001 as a fairly conventional indie-rock outfit; its first demo recording came complete with sharp guitars, bleating vocals and a thin veneer of poetic sensitivity. Then something went haywire in Modest Mouseland. ¡Operación!, the band's new full-length disc, is a malfunctioning toy robot with springs and sparks popping out all over the place. The music is gnarled and garbled, a tense mess of post-punk angst that taps into the jerky, sci-fi kinesis of Milemarker, Devo and Les Savy Fav. Ryan Eason is the group's resident spaz cadet, perpetually writhing, shrieking, purring, bashing guitars and pounding away at a synthesizer strapped to his chest like a bomb. The rest of the lineup -- Till, Quintin Schermerhorn and Jared Black -- is equally as erratic, jumping around like electrocuted chimps on stage.

"How about...Black Black Ocean is like diamond dust blown into your eyes?" Till continues, almost hyperventilating. "We're like Liza Minelli and Glen Danzig's love child. We're intensely brutal, with a heart of gold."

One of the more ubiquitous bands around town, Black Black Ocean has amassed a fervent following of swooning girls and pouting boys, and it's not hard to see why: The band's atmosphere is as cool and dark as the depths of the Mariana Trench. Or, as Till sums it up: "One, we don't suck. Two, we make an indescribable sound." -- Heller

ERICA BROWN BAND
NOMINATED IN BLUES
If she's ever thought of rain a day in her life or been paralyzed by gut-wrenching heartache of Sylvia Plathian proportions, you'd never know it. Her smile brightens every corner of a room. Her laughter is more infectious than doorknobs in an elementary school. She'll have you "squirting tears out your eyes" even if you didn't hear the punchline. So what, then, is Erica Brown doing singing the blues? Dropping jaws of anyone within earshot of her stellar vocals and forging a reputation as the leader of a band no one wants to follow, that's what.