How to ruin everyone’s night at karaoke

What’ll it be this evening: pouring manure on your hated gym teacher’s front door step and then urinating on it? Getting trashed and picking a fight with the bully who became the bouncer at whatever bar that Denny’s restaurant turned into? Or maybe you could do something really wild, like…

Offthesky & Radere perform this Saturday at the Sidewinder

Jason Corder and Carl Ritger will perform as Offthesky & Radere this Saturday at the Sidewinder Tavern. Each has been a prolific composer of entrancing sounds for more than a decade. Chances are you haven’t heard their work in a club, but they’ve performed at the Communikey Festival in Boulder…

Catch Ryan Crosson at NORAD this Friday

Ryan Crosson exemplifies techno at its finest, whether your measuring stick is based on the heyday of Detroit techno or on the genre’s modern-day residency in Berlin. Crosson made a name for himself in both cities; after sharpening his needles alongside artists like Richie Hawtin and Kevin Saunderson, he helped…

Nightmares on Wax

Before he got involved in the U.K.’s acid-house scene during the late ’80s and early ’90s, George Evelyn was a hard-core hip-hop fan. He joined a breakdancing group in 1988 with Kevin Harper, and the two formed Nightmares on Wax. Mixing beat-making with turntablism and live music with electronic production,…

Slim Cessna’s Auto Club

While Slim Cessna’s Auto Club got its start in these parts just over two decades ago, the band usually only plays here a few times a year. Slim hasn’t lived in Denver since moving to Rhode Island in 2000 (and later to Pittsburgh), and guitarist Dwight Pentacost lives in Boston…

Neutral Milk Hotel

Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea might be the best indie-rock album of the 1990s. It’s certainly one of the most storied. After its 1998 release, frontman Jeff Mangum put the band on hiatus, ostensibly because he never wanted to be a rock star in the first…

The Coathangers

As a side effect of being a band with women in it, the Coathangers often fall under the blanket category of “all-girl.” In their new video for “Follow Me,” the Atlanta-based trio addresses this head-on by asking their dude friends and practice-space mates in Mastodon to wear wigs and dresses…

Is Lez Zeppelin’s appeal limited to men?

You have to hand it to Lez Zeppelin — they have an awesome gimmick to go along with their awesome name. This is a long-running four-piece band whose website tagline reads “All Girls. All Zeppelin.” They made headlines worldwide in 2008 after media outlets began erroneously reporting that LED Zeppelin…

RIP Oderus Urungus: Gwar’s five most entertaining videos

Dave Brockie, better known as Gwar frontman/front-alien Oderus Urungus, passed away this morning. He was just fifty years old. His death follows that of guitarist Cory Smoot, aka Flattus Maximus, in 2011, while the band was on tour. Having formed the band of terrifying alien creatures in 1984, Brockie had…

How can my band rebound after a bad tour?

Critic Jessica Hopper has played in and managed bands, toured internationally, booked shows, produced records, worked as a publicist and is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Rocking, a how-to for teen ladies. She is here to help you stop doing it wrong. Send your problems to her –…

The 8 best concerts in Denver from March 24 to March 27

Novelty had its moment in hip-hop; vision had its moment; abstraction had its moment. But thanks in no small part to Top Dawg Entertainment and its star, Kendrick Lamar, good old fashioned high-quality rapping is once again the standard of the day. And now, K.Dot’s longtime running mate Schoolboy Q…

The best EDM in Denver this weekend

FRI | MARK FARINA at BAR STANDARD | 3/21/14 Mark Farina plays mushroom jazz, and that’s just the way it is. Seamlessly fusing funk, soul, jazz, and hip-hop into a fluid soundtrack, Farina has grown into a household name at Bar Standard where he regularly plays sets in what could…