Looking to gift something different this holiday season, say, something local, maybe, not off the rack, that you can’t buy at the mall? Yeah? Mark your calender: This Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m., you can get your hands on some rare band merch at the Denver Band…

For a split EP to really work, there usually has to be some kind of musical kinship. Patrick Dethlefs and Eye & the Arrow, who each contribute four songs to the EP, both obviously share an affinity for indie folk, and although they’re on similar wavelengths, Eye & the Arrow…

It’s not surprising that the guys in Truckasaurus looked to the truck/dinosaur in The Simpsons for inspiration when choosing the band’s moniker. There’s enough humor in the lyrics to know that they don’t take themselves too seriously, with lines about doing lots of blow with hookers on the go, feeding…

Mike Ness has been the only constant member in Social Distortion’s rotating cast for more than thirty years (with a few breaks in between) — although some fans might argue that Ness essentially is Social Distortion. Ness has aged well. He and the band still tear through material with reckless…

Tiki bars such as Trader Vic’s and Don the Beachcomber enjoyed a long run in Denver from the ’60s into the ’80s, but except for a few sputters like Tiki Boyd’s in the Ramada Inn on Colfax and the Tiki Torch in Edgewater, this city’s tiki action was largely extinguished…

NATHANIEL RATELIFF AT THE GOTHIC | 11/25/11There aren’t a whole lot of singers with a magnetism capable of completely hushing a room the size of the Gothic, but Nathaniel Rateliff did just that near the end of his set on Friday night during his annual holiday show. Sure, there were…

Jay Bianchi and his two brothers opened the original Quixote’s True Blue fifteen years ago at 9150 East Colfax in Aurora as a place where Deadheads and kindred spirits could gather after the passing of Jerry Garcia. He says figured the venue might last five years and worried that his…

Although the Lions Lair opened in 1967, the bar didn’t start hosting live music until Jux County played there in 1991. Since then, the place has brought in a steady stream of local and national acts, including some legends like Graham Parker, John Doe and Jonathan Richman. To celebrate twenty…

Record Store Day was originally started a few years ago as a once-a-year celebration for some 700 independently owned record stores in the U.S., including Twist & Shout and Wax Trax, but the organizers have also included today, Black Friday, as another chance to for music fans to get their…

Although Tyler Despres originally formed Science Partner in 2008 as an outlet for his acoustic material outside of his work with Dualistics, the project has developed into a six-piece. Despres already had a knack for writing moving songs on his own, but on Science Partner’s eleven-track full-length debut, Rocky Mountain…

Instant Empire hasn’t been together all that long, but that fact isn’t readily apparent from listening to the indie-rockers’ self-titled EP. There’s a certain tightness and a strong sense of dynamics on the three main cuts (there are also a brief intro and short instrumental outro), especially “Without Wires,” which…

The fourteen-year-old Dave & Buster’s at 2000 South Colorado Boulevard just became the chain’s first location to get a major overhaul. The redesign is the initial phase of the company’s rebranding, and while there’s no schedule yet for rolling out the changes through the other 56 locations, Sean McCullough, regional…

Everybody thinks I play gloom-and-doom music,” says Otis Taylor, “so I don’t get hired to play during the holidays, because people think my music is too dark. It’s just what people think: ‘You’d get Otis Taylor for a Christmas party? I don’t think so.'” Taylor’s trance-blues shows are actually uplifting…