Twelve years, in the life cycle of band, is practically an eternity. This summer, the Epilogues’ celebration of their twelfth year as a band will be a bittersweet one, as singer/guitarist Chris Heckman, recently announced on his facebook page, that he will be leaving the group to attend Berklee College of…
Denver natives and indie-alternative darlings Ivory Circle are scheduled to perform at the 2016 Westword Music Showcase on the City Hall Main Stage. They’re currently working on a new EP, the third and final in a series that started with the release of Equilateral in 2014. With the second, Isosceles,…
Westword Music Showcase, featuring Dillon Francis, Matt and Kim, Cold War Kids, New Politics, HEALTH and more, is tomorrow at venues around the Golden Triangle. Widespread Panic makes its annual trip to Red Rocks with a three-night stand that kicks off tonight while Boston is at Fiddler’s Green tonight and…
At least that’s what you’ll hear if you hang around enough Denver music people. Though Denver’s musical reputation outside the state is as a hotbed for all things EDM and jam band, those genres don’t seem to influence what’s called the “Denver Sound.” Press a knowledgeable Denverite for further details,…
South African rap act Die Antwoord, who played the Ogden Theatre in 2012, returns to the venue on Monday, September 26. Tickets ($36.50) go on sale on Friday, June 24 at 10 a.m. Phantogram is set to release its third album, Three, in September and headlines the Fillmore Auditorium on Wednesday,…
With new Backbeat editor Katie Moulton now at the helm of Westword’s music coverage, we asked a few of her predecessors for their memories of the Westword Music Showcase. At the end of the post, check out your chance to win two VIP tickets to the 2016 Westword Music Showcase…
Denver has had a healthy underground hip-hop scene going back to the ’80s, including significant acts like Legion of Doom, Apostle, Future Reference, the Strange Us, the Pirate Signal and Ground Zero Movement. Newer artists like Jimmy V are keeping that world vibrant and breaking ground in establishing an audience…
Though thousands of music lovers will gather in Denver’s Golden Triangle this Saturday, June 25, for the Westword Music Showcase, some of them may start to look familiar. After all, we’ve been throwing this ever-growing shin-dig for 22 years, and certain types of Colorado music fans and general revelers are…
This Saturday at the Westword Music Showcase, Fort Collins-based trio Aspen Hourglass will take the stage at Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge as the opening act for that venue’s daylong lineup of music. The fusion-rock band has been busy in the past few months, with performances at the Aggie Theater and…
The typical silk-shirted, fedora-topped crowd at Dazzle probably isn’t expecting it. It’s late on a recent Thursday, and on a stage usually occupied by Denver’s best jazz ensembles is a 26-year-old from Colorado Springs named Joseph Lamar. Megaphone in hand, he’s screaming the lyrics to the Violent Femmes’ “Gone Daddy…
Willie Nelson has been an advocate for pot enthusiasts everywhere and championed the legalization of marijuana for decades. This summer his new company, Willie’s Reserve, is making his love of weed official. Willie, famous for the pot enthusiasts who flock to his shows, “happily shared the bounty from their home…
Dillon Francis is one of the most recognized names in the EDM world these days. But Francis got his real leg up in that world when well-known producer Diplo championed his work, and the two collaborated on a track. Since then, Francis has become associated with moombahton and electro house,…
Two years before starting the wildly exuberant keyboard-drum duo Matt and Kim, Matt Johnson met Kim Schifino at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute — and he was instantly intimidated. “I grew up in a small town in Vermont,” Johnson says, “and I’m a little bit younger than Kim is — and here’s…
The Westword Music Showcase is taking over the Golden Triangle on Saturday, June 25, and with the high-quality lineup comes incredibly-high summer temperatures as well. The forecast for Saturday says Denver temperatures will stay in the nineties, but luckily the Westword Music Showcase has more than a dozen indoor stages…
Since winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991, saxophonist Joshua Redman has toured the globe, released more than dozen albums under his own name and collaborated with number of jazz luminaries, but Redman says he still feels like a complete beginner. “Every time I learn something, that…
The fifth Make Music Denver event is happening on Tuesday, June 21. The free, all-day festival features live music performances, instruments on hand for attendees to play, and music-related workshops all across the city. The event is a branch of the international Make Music Day, which started in 1982 in…
On Saturday, June 18, Esmé Patterson bemusedly told us that the last time she had played the Larimer Lounge, it was probably with one of her old bands, Harpoontang. Which dates that show to several years ago, since that project was concurrent with her involvement with Paper Bird, a band she…
The summer solstice was nigh, and the sun set late in the evening. At the Gramatik show at Red Rocks last Friday, June 17, the artists adapted accordingly to the season with the actual light show put off until the sun had all but set. Hippie Sabotage, from Sacramento, is…
Upon relocating to Brooklyn from their homeland of Denmark in 2010, New Politics quickly found its place in the music scene as one of the freshest and most energetic groups to debut in recent years with the release of its self-titled LP — a solid half-hour of blistering alternative rock…
Choosing to ride a helicopter into EDC might sound a little ridiculous; it did to me. But while most of the hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers make the hour-or-more trek to from the Vegas Strip to Las Vegas Motor Speedway by car or shuttle, a few take to the air…
Neil Finn, who had stints in Split Enz and Crowded House, will be at the Boulder Theater for two nights with his son Liam Finn opening both nights as well performing in his father’s group. Classical guitarist Jason Vieaux opens the 2016 Guitar Foundation of America International Convention tonight, while the…
This morning around 9 a.m., the tour bus of Nederland-based band Elephant Revival caught fire in Hickory, North Carolina. According to 9news.com, firefighters responded to a call and found smoke coming from the bus, with an initial report that people were still on board. All five passengers got off the…
