Alison Wonderland is the stage name of Alex Sholler. The moniker was meant to be a temporary name she employed for a DJ night early in her career that she assumed she was going to discard soon enough — but the name stuck. Before making electronic music, Sholler was a…
When did people stop dancing at electronic music shows? Because surely if there’s a pairing that warrants some major league writhing, pulling out all the moves — it’s Com Truise and STRFKR. But no; with a few notable exceptions, Thursday’s crowd just swayed a little and nodded their heads, and that was all. They…
Hot Buttered Rum and Tea Leaf Green co-headline two nights at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ball Room this weekend, Best Coast and Wavves play two nights at the Bluebird, Something Underground celebrates the release of its new album tonight and Rickie Lee Jones is at the Oriental Theater on Sunday. See the…
This morning Planet Bluegrass announced its preliminary lineup for the 26th annual Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, which takes place August 19-21, 2016 at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch in Lyons. The headliners include “not pretentious hipsters” the Decemberists, Lucinda Williams, Passenger and up-and-coming eclectic folk act Darlingside, which recently had a big…
Eleanor Friedberger was once a member of experimental rock band Fiery Furnaces with her brother Matthew from 2000 until 2011, when it went on indefinite hiatus. In that band the Friedbergers seemed to try out any crazy, creative idea they pleased from record to record, establishing themselves as one of…
The members of Kneebody, an avant-garde jazz collective, have been playing gigs together for so long that they don’t even live in the same parts of the country; they simply fly from their respective locations in New York, Los Angeles, Denver and Reno and jump on stage together whenever they…
The presale for Westword Music Showcase 2016 ends at 11:59 p.m. tonight, Thursday. Regular-price tickets go on sale tomorrow, Friday, February 26, at 10 a.m. Tickets are $39.75 for general admission, and $80 for VIP. This year’s national headliners have been announced and include Dillon Francis, Cold War Kids, Matt…
The Internet is life, and life is the Internet. It’s no longer about “being online”; it’s about blurring that line between being and not being — online. And apparently, no one is ever not online anymore. At last night’s Fetty Wap show at the Fillmore, there was not a single…
Cult of the Lost Cause has been defying simplistic definitions since its inception in 2010. The band plays instrumental post-rock and comprises three transplants with eclectic tastes and musical backgrounds: guitarist Mhyk Monroe, bassist Thom McLoughlin and drummer Mike Salazar. Along the way, the band’s ethnically diverse membership has been…
When the opening guitar chords of the Ataris’ “In This Diary” first came on last night during the Three Headed MonsTOUR, I was checking RTD’s mobile site for the latest possible Flatiron Flyer I could catch to Boulder to make it to work on time. Fans broke out the concert…
“I’m thinking I want to make a Tinder for a ham and cheese sandwich, but that requires making a new email and everything. But I’m ready to go through that whole rigmarole just so I can be sandwich on Tinder,” says Clementine Creevy, guitarist, singer and founder of Cherry Glazerr…
Paul Simon headlines the Bellco Theatre on Friday, May 20 as part of his 31-city North American tour. Tickets ($64.50-$154.50) go on sale on Friday, February 26 at 10 a.m. Jackson Browne returns to Red Rocks on Monday, August 22 with longtime bandmates Val McCallum (guitar), Mauricio Lewak (Drums), Jeff…
By the time Megadeth got to the end of a super-tight and extremely well-received set, the band took a bow to the sound of Sid Vicious’ cover of Sinatra’s “My Way.” Hearing snotty Sid wail, “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention” seemed on-the-nose appropriate. This is, after all,…
Last weekend dozens of musicians from Colorado, including myself, traveled to Kansas City for the 2016 Folk Alliance International. Currently in its twenty-eighth year, the conference and festival, draws more than two thousand artists and industry from all over the world. It is five days of performances, classes, lectures, panels and…
Brent Cowles is certain it’s going to be a big year. The singer-songwriter and former frontman of Denver’s You Me & Apollo just signed to the Greater Than Collective label. He has a solo EP in the works. And in a few weeks, he’ll be heading across the globe to…
By the time Pat Martino underwent surgery after suffering a nearly fatal brain aneurysm in 1980, the jazz guitarist already had more than a dozen albums under his own name and two decades of playing professionally, having started his career in his mid-teens. Yet following the operations he hardly remembered…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
The Westword Music Showcase returns Saturday, June 25! The 22nd annual festival features national headliners including DJ and moombahton/electro producer Dillon Francis, soulful indie-rock band Cold War Kids, amped-up indie-pop duo Matt & Kim, Danish rockers New Politics, L.A. noise band HEALTH, indie electro-punks Brick + Mortar, Black Pistol Fire,…
Chances are that you’ve heard of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series, that maybe you’ve even fallen down a video rabbit hole, watching favorite band after band cluster around the famous cluttered desk in the NPR offices and perform stripped-down versions of songs you love. For the second year in a…
For years, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast, which joins Wavves at the Bluebird Theater on Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28, has been among the smartest and most opinionated figures on the current music scene. But earlier this month, she took these attributes to the next level. In “Burgers,…
While metal has often been a male-dominated world and, at its worst, infected with misogyny, things have been changing for some time now. The average music lover won’t stand for that shit anymore and it’s no secret that women rock hard. The Joan Jetts of this world are no longer…
Throughout its long career, irreverent humor and compassion for the human condition is at the core of Freakwater’s alternative country music. On its latest record, Scheherazade, its first album of new material since 2005’s Thinking Of You, founding members Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin explore modern myths and archetypes…
