After several years as director of show development for the Up With People organization — where he was charged with writing songs, co-producing shows and worked in talent development — Pat Murphy got back in the local music scene and started playing with the Nacho Men around 2004. On his…

When entrepreneur Francois Safieddine started thinking about Chloe, his new venture that opens Thursday, July 21, in the former Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, 1445 Market Street, he researched what the nightlife crowd was looking for downtown — and wasn’t already being offered. “What my research led me to is there was…

While some of George Inai’s previous material sounded like what he described as “a Model T built by Toyota in a Mexican factory,” what he’s doing with A Curious Ghost is somewhat different than the gothic Americana-meets-Mexican folk he’s done in the past. On A Curious Ghost Part I, Inai…

When pianist Matthew Shipp started recording in the ’80s, he rebelled against jazz; he didn’t want to have to defend himself by saying that he came from jazz roots, like avant-garde players such as Cecil Taylor, Anthony Davis and James Newton. Shipp says he even wrote a term paper in…

In the three-plus decades since Bob Engel opened BJ’s Carousel (1380 South Broadway), Denver’s longest-running gay bar has gone through a number of ups and downs, from the oil boom and bust to losing a number of customers to AIDS in the ’80s to taking a tough hit in the…

THE AVETT BROTHERS at RED ROCKS | 7/9/11Last night at Red Rocks, when Governor John Hickenlooper introduced the Avett Brothers — which he called the one of best bands in the world — he said, “If you look back into the history of music, there’s something special about people who…

For the past decade, Playground (also known as the Playground Ensemble) has been one of the few groups to delve into adventurous, forward-thinking, avant-garde chamber music while also exploring a variety of other genres such as jazz, world music and rock. “NO one To kNOW one,” the opening track on…

As a drummer with local punk act Gina Go Faster, Mark Armijo always thought karaoke was kind of cheesy — especially since he’d written, recorded and played his own music. The few times he’d been to karaoke nights, people were always singing Sinatra, Elvis or Patsy Cline. But that was…

On 2009’s Twang Shui, Adam Stern showed just how versatile of a guitarist he is, delving into jazz, country and a whole lot more. And while that album proved that Stern has some serious chops, on its followup, High Country Gentlemen, Stern pulls back a bit, saying that the recording…

Justin Roth is a damn fine fingerstyle guitarist who’s clearly inspired by Michael Hedges. In addition to his notable fretwork, Roth sings and plays every instrument here, including bass, keyboards and percussion. On the opener, “This Winter,” multiple reverb-drenched vocal layers float in the background like a ghostly chorus, à…

When Noah Ray McMahan, Justin Martinez and Mike Barnhart opened Beauty Bar — a franchise that has nine siblings across the country, all featuring the vintage kitsch of ’50s hair salons — in the former home of the Snake Pit, at 608 East 13th Avenue, they envisioned a hipster crowd…

A few years ago, jazz singer René Marie was called an American during an interview in Russia. Marie, without even thinking, wanted to correct the journalist and say, “I’m not American,” since she didn’t feel like an American. “I stopped myself,” she recalls, “because I realized, ‘Wait a minute. Why…

One of the most gripping live acts around these parts for the past two decades, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club generally kicks up dust with equal fervor on its studio recordings. With Unentitled, the followup to 2008’s Cipher, the band doesn’t steer too far from its tried-and-true formula of dark country…