Music

SLOW HANDS @ NORAD | SAT, 5/11/13 There are plenty of DJs out there who are skilled at crafting upbeat dance sets to high-tempo music — after all, it’s easy to keep the dance floor moving when you keep the beats-per-minute at a fast-paced 160-180. Even dubstep only slows the…

After eight years of promoting parties around town, Patrick Young of Young Nightlife, thought it was about time to open his own his venue. In March, Young and his business partner took over the Oasis Bar & Hookah Lounge at 1523 Market Street and have been revamping the space, which…

ZAC BROWN BAND @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE | 5/8/13 “We’re gonna warm it up!” Zac Brown said just before he launched into “Toes,” one of the handful of Jimmy Buffettized country-rock tunes his band played at Red Rocks last night. That song (“Toes in the water/Ass in the sand”… don’t…

In 2010, John Grant’s debut solo album, The Queen of Denmark, was named album of the year by Mojo, and it earned universal praise across Europe. Here in the States, meanwhile, the record was criminally overlooked, as was the former Czars frontman himself, whose spring 2011 tour was unceremoniously canceled…

In recent years, while way too many bands were opting for a more stripped-down form of rock and roll via the garage/surf route in an attempt to make music from a more pure and primal place, Negative Degree (due at the hi-dive on Sunday, May 12) was embracing hardcore. And…

There are plenty of DJs out there who are skilled at crafting upbeat dance sets to high-tempo music — after all, it’s easy to keep the dance floor moving when you keep the beats-per-minute at a fast-paced 160-180. Even dubstep only slows the tempo to around 140 BPM. It takes…

Prince became a household name after the release of his third album, 1982’s 1999. Over the years, his perfectly realized blend of rock, pop, funk and jazz has proved equally popular with audiences and critics. Throughout the ’80s, Prince released hit records that broke genre barriers, not just in terms…

The Dillinger Escape Plan came out of the hardcore scene of Morris Plains, New Jersey, in 1997. Former members of Arcane — including Dillinger’s remaining original member, guitarist Ben Weinman — got together and wrote songs with a savagely mathematical precision, adding a more adventurous sonic spirit than what was…

Pusha T and his brother No Malice rose to prominence as Clipse with the single “Grindin’,” which sported a minimal Neptunes beat of simple snaps and bangs, allowing its re-creation on lunchroom tables across America. Now, more than a decade later, Pusha T is on Kanye’s G.O.O.D. Music label. Thanks…

Mobb Deep has had an illustrious career that’s spanned seven albums and more than a decade, but, really, this pair will forever be remembered for a single, legendary song: “Shook Ones, Pt. II,” which took an unlikely Herbie Hancock sample and transformed it into a nihilistic anthem. With tracks like…

Jim James is probably best known as the frontman of My Morning Jacket, a band that crossed over from the underground to the mainstream by virtue of its haunting yet richly melodic and expansive songs. The success of MMJ has given James the opportunity to collaborate with like-minded artists such…

Any song that manages to tell a story is impressive, but when a story is carried through an entire project, when the words are dedicated to a single plot and a clear ideological focus, it’s a substantially ambitious and adventurous undertaking. Whereas the media has struggled to be the first…

The song structures on A. Tom Collins’s new album, Stick and Poke, are mostly built on easily digestible formulas, bluesy designs that feel vaguely familiar and rely on four or five chords. Happily, though, the timeless blues, honky-tonk and funky New Orleans cues give the band the proper space to…

While there are still a number of big bands out there drawing inspiration from swing groups of the ’30s and ’40s, there are also a number of adventurous composers who put a more modern spin on the big-band concept. Composer and bandleader Adam Bartczak does it on Grass Is Greener,…

There was a time in the ’80s when certain films had a gritty realism infused with a dreamlike, introspective quality — William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in L.A., Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Martin Scorsese’s After Hours, even Brian De Palma’s Body Double. That sense of disembodied hyper-reality, in which you’re…

All right, so we’ve already tantalized you with the acts that are performing on the main stage this year at the Westword Music Showcase (Dada Life, Trampled by Turtles, P.O.S., Nick Waterhouse, the Mowgli’s, the Colorado Symphony with Nathaniel Rateliff and Otis Taylor, Hunter Hunted and My Body Sings Electric)…

Ah, yes, this should be dope. If you’re a hip-hop head, clear your calendar: Spoke In Wordz is set to battle J-Money on Saturday, June 1, at McDonough’s Irish Pub, 10395 East Iliff in Aurora. J-Money, who’s from Aurora, of course, is a seasoned battle rapper, whereas this MC match-up…