Lately, I’ve been thinking about all the talking that takes place during shows. I first broached the subject a few years back after seeing Ian Cooke at the hi-dive; in that column, I wondered why folks would take considerable effort to see local bands they clearly care about (I mean,…
Sometimes songwriters take well until adulthood to reach a level of creative maturity warranting attention by anyone beyond their peer group. Cody Crump got a jump start, through extensive experience in his youth, being an old soul, or both. Whatever the source of his preternatural wisdom, he reaches surprising depths…
Not many people know this about me, because, well, I don’t like to talk about it much: I used to be a Mouseketeer. But I was chewed up and spat out of the Disney machine faster than an ill-conceived Parisian theme park. I started out on Kids Incorporated, belting out…
Get ready to get twisted. One of the most innovative, intense and flat-out insane artists in the world is coming to Aquarius on January 31. I’m talking about the incomparable Otto von Schirach. He’s loud, he’s crude, and he’s the very essence of awesome. His discography includes such tasteless titles…
Three years ago, Big Timber got its start playing punk. The band then tried its hand at alt-country before settling on its current sound — indie rock infused with a ’60s garage flair. On its latest EP, Midnight on the Mainland, the group plays to both sides of its personality…
There isn’t a song on Dew on the Needles that doesn’t incorporate an unexpected twist or pleasant surprise. Songs will start out one way, set a nice groove, then take a hard left into weird territory; fairly straightforward tunes will suddenly give way to an extended sample of a woman…
Gription is basically a boogie band of the sort that’s provided a soundtrack for generations of suds-guzzlers. But it sounds like a damn good one on Last in Line thanks largely to Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore of Fort Collins’s Blasting Room Studios. The pair, who recorded the last two…
The Dreaming Machines’ debut is a compilation of live tunes that displays the vast scope of Kurt Bauer and Arnie Swenson. It starts off with a few somewhat tame guitar/banjo duos, but as the album progresses, the two dig into various worldly excursions using instruments like the Vietnamese dan tinh,…
Although this record was put to tape around a decade ago, the resurgence of psychedelically tinged indie pop has made the Christines’ music both ahead of its time and eminently contemporary. Uniting elements of space rock, indie pop, psychedelic garage rock and power pop, the band has progressed beyond its…
Who knows what the hell’s going on with Scott Weiland these days? After Stone Temple Pilots collapsed largely because of his parade of personal issues (arrests, rehab stints et. al.), he landed the frontman spot in Velvet Revolver, the rare supergroup that actually made a commercial mark — at least…
If the idea of a great rock band from Siberia sounds like the setup for a particularly lame joke, you clearly haven’t heard Mumiy Troll yet. Formed in Vladivostok in 1983, the quartet was condemned back in the U.S.S.R. as “one of the most socially dangerous bands in the world.”…
Musically, State Radio, which is paired with Rebelution at both of these gigs, doesn’t always sound especially aggressive. “Rash of Robberies,” “CIA” and other tracks from the Massachusetts band’s latest album, 2008’s Year of the Crow, kinda/sorta rock when they’re not inviting noodle dancing with modified reggae riffs, but they…
There is much more to Salt Lake City punk than some silly movie set in the ’80s. The real thing is very much alive and well in hard-edged experimental bands such as Form of Rocket and the decidedly more poppy but just as energetic and fiery Fail to Follow. These…
Todd Snider’s Americana is a far cry from punk rock, yet the singer-songwriter embodies a punk attitude, especially on his latest release, Peace Queer. Channeling Dylan with the balls of, say, Jello Biafra, Snider rails with his trademark dry wit against the war and George W. Bush. The eight-song, half-hour-long…
Photo: Summit Sudios Found yet another batch of videos of a band hard at work in the studio. These feature Rough Draft, an up-and-coming, unabashed Christian rock act from Fort Collins that spends the bulk of its time on the road. Coming off winning the band competition at the Gospel…
Photo: Gary IsaacsBefore heading off across the pond for a sizable nineteen-day jaunt through Europe in April, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club will be crisscrossing Colorado in the company of the Reverend Horton Heat. Kicking things off at the Ogden Theatre this Friday night alongside Reno Divorce, the band will accompany…
In a coincidence they perhaps hadn’t anticipated when they chose their moniker, the members of Honor the Fallen, a young Broomfield-based act, has issued word that guitarist Dylan Neise (pictured left, center) is departing the band. As an, ahem, honorable gesture, the band delivered the news to fans in a…
Overcasters, the promising new outfit led by Kurt Ottaway, just returned from a pair of shows on the East Coast with the Fluid. While the shows were awesome, from the sounds of it, the band was fortunate to have made it there in one piece. As the band was passing…
This week’s Beatdown deals with the whole idea of talking during shows, as it seems like a fairly frequent occurrence regardless of who’s performing. I offered up a few viable theories as to why it happens and asserted that, for the most part, I sincerely don’t believe that anyone truly…
It seems like just yesterday that we were writing about how you could pick up the Heyday’s new album for a song (okay, it was just yesterday). Well, if you’re still on the fence, the band would like you to try out three of the album’s tracks for free –…
Earlier today, we mentioned Dave Beegle in the news about Trace Bundy getting recognition in Acoustic Magazine. Next thing we know, Beegle’s brother and his most faithful, ardent and tireless champion, Morris, the owner of Hapi Skratch Entertainment, posted a vintage video of Dave shredding with Fourth Estate at the…
Photo: Steven Wallace This is shaping up to be a stellar year for hard rock and metal in Denver. As we write this, another promising act is in the process of recording a debut full-length. And in what has almost become customary at this point in this here digital age,…
