Bands like San Francisco-based M Machine are helping American dance music grow and spread its reach into every genre. What started out as three friends working in a parallel field — audio tracking for video games — snowballed into a full-on band, complete with as-it-happens video production and live vocals…
The distance between classical and folk music isn’t so great for Swallow Hill’s new music-school director. Swallow Hill Music officials announced this week that Uruguay native and Carnegie Mellon University alum Andres Cladera will fill the post. He replaces Michael Schenkelberg, who has held the job since 2007. In his…
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 –…
It’s safe to say that no one else has had the kind of musical career that Randy Newman has. He began as a behind-the-scenes songwriter, penning hits for singers such as Jerry Butler and Irma Thomas. Despite unassuming looks, a froggy, drawling delivery and a penchant for featuring reprehensible characters…
A musician who has experienced tremendous success with a career second act and spends lots of time and/or money on hair care has announced a Red Rocks show. Also, Lana Del Rey will play there in May. Keith Urban has pretty great hair, too, but he’s playing Fiddler’s Green. More…
When a band doesn’t rely on a set list, musicians often find other ways to communicate on stage during the music. Phish, a band utterly reliant on improvisation, has gotten particularly good at this. In fact, the band has created a whole non-verbal language to let its members know what…
For national acts touring through Denver, “the party doesn’t have to stop at the encore,” says Lipgloss co-founder Michael Trundle (boyhollow). Instead, bands can walk across the street from the Bluebird, fresh from playing to a packed crowd, and deejay at Lost Lake Lounge. They did twice last weekend: On…
Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver asks a Colorado band or musician four questions and then draws their conversation. We call the resulting comic “4 Questions: Comic Strip Interview” because we have no use for obscurity. You can see more of Van Sciver’s work and even buy it…
Fear the gaze of Angel Olsen, whose smirk has a greater effect on a room than the average five guitar-wanker power slides combined. She plays the black box on Larimer Street tonight. Elsewhere, fireworks in the form of Austin’s The Sword come to The Black Sheep, slick bro G-Eazy hits…
Ah, the mosh pit. Keep your club night bumping and grinding and give me a good old fashioned pummeling. That’s where the adrenaline is, where some of the best kinds of release can be found in live music. Plus, there are way fewer boners. Every concert is improved with fewer…
It’s a good weekend for live music in Denver. Let’s start at the end, with Paul Simon’s Graceland collaborator Ladysmith Black Mambazo at Boulder Theater. The day before that, pop clinician Dr. Dog stops by on the same night as the collaboration between knotty rappers Madlib and Freddie Gibbs. There…
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 –…
FRI | ADAM BEYER at NORAD | 3/8/14 It’s entirely appropriate that Adam Beyer’s techno label bears the handle Drumcode, considering that the techno enthusiast was a drummer in his teenage years before turning to electronic music in 1990, when he purchased his first set of turntables. Although the Swedish…
Backbeat has a new music editor. My name is Kiernan Maletsky — I’m a Colorado native who has spent the past three years first in St. Louis and then Dallas. Last Saturday, I filled my sedan with whatever clothes fit once my record collection was in there and made what…
Thrash metal flayed disco band Kiss before bingeing on high-speed guitars, rapid double bass drum and foul lyrics. The emergence of thrash in the early ’80s poked fun at a fan base of metal historians worshiping at the altar of eyeliner. These thrash bands did the world a favor and…
Matt Friedman and Ross Kiser, co-founders of Denver-based Night Supply Records, are making quite a name for themselves as house duo Need & Necessity, doing everything from playing house parties at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where they went to school, to curating shows with The Hundred founder Brennen…
Though Angel Olsen’s music is often dubbed folk or indie rock, it is too diverse to fit neatly into such broad categories. Whatever it’s filed under, her music, especially her latest album, Burn Your Fire for No Witness, is informed by a delicacy of feeling that allows her to channel…
Big Gigantic’s fifth studio album in as many years is a clear sign that saxophonist/producer Dominic Lalli has truly stepped into his own world of music. “Clvdbvrst” opens the album with a plethora of styles; from there, listeners are treated to an explosion of jazzy saxophone foundations framing big beats…
With a name like Dwarf Planets and cover art that depicts the sun and two planets, you might guess that the music inside the sleeve has a prog-rock or even new-age influence. But about twenty seconds into “Ice Rain,” the opening cut on this seven-song disc, it’s evident that Boulder’s…
“Soul” is obviously the key word here, and the Soul Pros have plenty of it. Anchored by A-L, a fantastic producer and DJ with a deep understanding of sound, song progression and how to blend samples, Soul’d Out also features two excellent MCs who make A-L’s beats sound even better…
Rarely have a project and album name fit their music as perfectly as Weed Problem and its self-titled release. “Noddy Drug Kits” flows with a buzzy drone that is never fully resolved but just continues to build while hazy, echoing chants undulate amid syncopated crashing guitar and drums. The sprawling…
THU | SCHOOLBOY Q at OGDEN THEATRE | 3/27 Schoolboy Q just released Oxymoron, his latest album, to general acclaim. He has embraced a style that is dark and creative, using unique but effective beats and a persona that is difficult to put a finger on. He has definitely carved…
