ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO at SOILED DOVE UNDERGROUND | 11/22/13 One big takeaway from Alejandro Escovedo’s show at the Soiled Dove Underground: The man lives the songs he writes. On stage, he spun tale after tale, at times foraying into extended monologues, to describe the backstory of each song. When millionaire rockers…
After reading a book about prostitutes in the Old West and how they basically ran things in places like Colorado, Johnette Napolitano (due at the Soiled Dove Underground this Wednesday, November 27) began working on a project a few years ago with a friend from England. That particular collaboration resulted…
Big Freedia (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Bluebird Theater) is the stage name of Freddie Ross, who began performing in his home town of New Orleans as a backup dancer and singer for Katey Red, a local drag queen who performed bounce music. Nicknamed “Freedia” by a friend,…
David Bazan (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Denver Music Summit) is perhaps best known for his songwriting for Pedro the Lion. His skill in crafting delicate, gently evocative music with subtle but powerful emotional resonance earned him fans and critical accolades from early on. Although Pedro was ostensibly…
It seems like every month one old-ass act or another is rolling through town. On the plus side, they’ve got all those great hits. On the minus side, they’re often past their prime. Having trouble deciding whether or not you should check them out? Lucky you, we’ve cobbled together a…
SAT | CAT POWER at GOTHIC THEATRE | 11/23/13 Cat Power is the sometimes solo, sometimes full-band, project of Chan Marshall. Although born in Atlanta, Marshall made her way to New York City in the early 1990s and became involved in the underground music scene in the Big Apple. In…
SAT | CATZ ‘N DOGZ at NORAD | 11/23/13 Catz ‘N Dogz has had a smashing year so far. In addition to being invited to create a BBC 1 Essential Mix, the powerhouse duo has collaborated with a mother lode of impressive acts, including Eats Everything, with whom it put…
Black Friday is at hand. And while we’ve all come to begrudgingly accept the fact that this annual fateful day unofficially serves as the kickoff of the holiday season, there’s a new tradition being started by some local faves that’s far more worth getting excited about. Here’s BLK Tuesday, a…
There was a lot of excitement leading up to Phish’s Fall tour, as indoor Phish is a whole different monster from the summer shed extravaganzas that leave you in the sunlight for the first set; these shows get dark and dirty from the get go. The band rehearsed and wrote…
Will Johnson (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Denver Music Summit) made a name for himself in the ’90s in Centro-Matic. A gifted songwriter, Johnson has a knack for penning elegant, emotionally rich and subtly powerful, folk-inflected songs. Over the years, he’s toured endlessly on his own and with…
The Devil Wear’s Prada (due this Sunday, November 24, at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom) first came together in 2005. Formed in Dayton, Ohio, by members who came up in the local hardcore scene, the act is a Christian band, but it has never traded on that aspect of the band with…
“The album is dying in front of our very eyes,” Variety columnist and music business know-it-all Bob Lefsetz wrote recently based on weak LP sales, including Katy Perry’s Prism, which sold only about 220,000 copies in its first week. See also: Are mixtapes even a thing anymore? “If your plan…
In the Whale has the kind of live show that can literally turn the head of a rock star. No, really — not speaking figuratively here. Ask Slash. The Guns N’ Roses guitar god hand-picked the band to open for him after seeing footage of Eric Riley and Nate Valdez…
An odd duality marks Counter Counter Culture, Skyfox’s latest effort. There’s a common thread of pain that comes through in the lyrics on each of the ten tracks. Whether it’s the agony of a romance gone bad — a theme spelled out in songs like “Drug in Me (Down)” —…
For a guy who grew up learning to play Elton John songs on his autoharp while listening to the radio, Clay Cabe has quite an affinity for funk. Although his debut, 2003’s December, was an acoustic-driven folk-rock album, The Underworld is more of an eclectic effort. There are still a…
Many sludge/doom bands tune their guitars to drop C. Joseph Weller Myer of Whilt goes one step further, playing a bass that evokes the lowest registers of both guitar and bass. “Black Leaves” is a clear reference to marijuana — the kind Satan keeps for himself in a secret stash…
“Night of Lonely Zombies,” from Locusts of Egypt’s sophomore effort, Fondness, could easily be a long-lost ’70s power-pop song; it also recalls the sound that Elephant 6 became known for in the ’90s. Meanwhile, Jim Angell and Eugenia Appelhaus’s higher-register vocals and the way they sit in the mix call…
In 2009, a study commissioned by the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs introduced Creative Vitality Index (CVI), a metric created by Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) to measure our city’s cultural viability. Based on Denver’s CVI, the study determined that the Mile High City was an emerging national cultural hub,…
Catz ‘N Dogz (due at NORAD this Saturday, November 23) has had a smashing year so far. In addition to being invited to create a BBC 1 Essential Mix, the powerhouse duo has collaborated with a mother lode of impressive acts, including Eats Everything, with whom it put together a…
THUNDERCAT at LARIMER LOUNGE | 11/19/13 Standing in the middle of a pulsating crowd of people dancing their asses off last night at the Larimer Lounge, I noticed the scene was tastefully decorated with diverse pockets of older gentlemen, hippie chicks, approachable beardos and cool guys. Somehow, Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner…
In his new column, award-winning goofball Shea Serrano, whose recent exploits include Bun B’s Rapper Coloring and Activity Book, writes about his life and times. Last week, I wrote about why One Direction’s “This Is My Story” sucks. Usually, whenever one of these pieces goes up, I get a handful…
Music is life — or at least it is for us. When we’re not writing about it, we’re thinking about it, talking about it or listening to it. These are the things that were in heavy rotation for us this week. What are you listening to? What should we be…
