One of the most soulful voices in reggae, Jimmy Cliff has had an influence on the course of popular music that cannot be overestimated. From his handiwork on gems like “Vietnam,” “You Can Get It If You Really Want” and “Many Rivers to Cross,” you could almost say that he’s…
Guitar shredding used to be a males-only club. But Lauren Langner Larson, the blond pixie guitarist and vocalist of Ume, is doing her part (along with players like Marnie Stern and Oranthi) to change that. Langner Larson started playing in punk and thrash bands with thirty-second songs when she was…
The 1997 Detroit Red Wings post-season was an awesome thing to behold for a fifteen-year-old in West Michigan. That’s when the Wings shut out the loathsome Anaheim Mighty Ducks — a hockey team named for a Disney movie about a fictional hockey team led by Emilio Estevez — and ended…
Lift Off, the latest effort from Myke Charles, is better than good. In fact, it’s probably one of the best projects to come out of the scene this year. DJ Chonz is Charles’s collaborator on the cuts, mixing and magically sewing each track together with scary precision. Check for the…
With the release of In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew more than four decades ago, Miles Davis paved the way for jazz-rock fusion. And while trumpeter John Lake’s project SHIRLEY borrows from those albums, the forward-thinking quintet takes things in a slightly different direction, incorporating electronic music, funk, computers…
Neil Ewing has long created some of the most innovative and adventurous hip-hop around. This self-titled album (due for release this Friday, June 15, at Rhinoceropolis) on Ceschi Ramos’s Fake Four imprint probably wouldn’t sound like a hip-hop album to most people. But Ewing’s synthesis of noise, hip-hop, electronic pop,…
Catch Bees is one Philip Waggoner, a Fort Collins resident and multi-instrumentalist, but on his new release, Newman’s Open Choir, his dreamy chamber pop is strained through roughly ten other players. No instrument was denied entrance at the door: Throughout thirteen tracks, the songbird and his sound team rotate through…
Grant Kwiecinski grew up in Detroit, the American breeding ground for finer electronic music, and home to the Detroit Electronic Music Festival. Having been mentored through classes with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Kwiecinski found his sound in the alto saxophone and has managed to hybridize it with hip-hop samples and…
Between his work with Drumcell as Cell Injection, his lauded underground early-’90s sets in Southern California (at the age of fifteen, no less), his current status as a resident at the legendary Interface warehouse parties in Los Angeles, his other collaborations with Droid Behavior/Droid Recordings and his productions on assorted…
See Also: – Boulder’s five biggest hipster bars – Denver’s biggest hipster bars – Five best midsize venues in LoDo and Ballpark – Denver’s ten best karaoke bars – Denver’s ten best jukeboxes – Five best places to buy vinyl While a number of local dance clubs have changed names…
Chris VictorioSee Also • Awkward dance moves from Coachella – the original • Awkward dance moves from Coachella – the sequel • The Best People of Electric Daisy Carnival • Electric Daisy Carnival 2012: Day Three • Electric Daisy Carnival 2012: Day Two • Electric Daisy Carnival: More From Day…
Over the course of the next few weeks, Backbeat will be counting down the twenty most fabled moments in Denver music history. Today, a look back at when Dean Reed (aka “Red Elvis”) came back to Denver and didn’t receive the warmest of welcomes. Dean Reed was more than a…
Chicago is the city that most music fans probably associate with Ministry (due this Sunday, June 17, at the Ogden Theatre), and for good reason, as that’s where the band got its start. Before moving to the Windy City, where the Wax Trax! label was headquartered, though, Ministry mastermind Al…
A fresh batch of new shows announced this week, including Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller at Red Rocks, the Head and the Heart and Blitzen Trapper at the Boulder Theater, Kimbra at the Ogden Theatre, Shinedown and Godsmack at Comfort Dental, and Steve Vai at the Ogden. Page down for…
Glass Delirium (due at Moe’s Original BBQ on Thursday, June 14) has been through some changes over the past few years, taking on both a new lead vocalist and a new drummer. Even so, the group has not forsaken its approach to melodic, progressive hard rock. Immediate and apt comparisons…
Since 2006, Vancouver’s Japandroids have been purveyors of a raw post-punk. Not the kind that became de rigueur in New York at the turn of the century, but rather the sort that is more sonically resonant, with the spiky, urgent melodies of Hüsker Dü and the free-flowing catharsis of the…
See Also: With the help of a psychic, legendary promoter Barry Fey reconnects with some old friends (Tommy Bolin and Jimi Hendrix) and one bitter adversary (Bill Graham) at Red Rocks A hidden tunnel underneath Red Rocks Amphitheatre is covered with signatures from some of music’s biggest names, spanning from…
Wymond Miles (due tonight at Twist and Shout and tomorrow night at The Gothic Theater) hails from Denver’s completely unglamorous suburb directly to the east, Aurora. In the mid-’90s Miles started to become involved in the underground music scene in Denver, initially, and most notably, for his experimental rock band…
Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. But the news did not reach those still enslaved in Texas until June 19, 1865, when Union Major General Gordon Granger stormed into Galveston to enforce the proclamation, declaring that all slaves were free. Since then, June 18 and 19…
After a long run at La Rumba, Michael Trundle (aka boyhollow) announced this month that Lipgloss would be moving to Beauty Bar. On Friday, June 8, the first edition of the long-running club night went off. Jim Wills was on hand and brought back some photos. Page down for some…
NICKELBACK @ PEPSI CENTER| 6.10.12 As the rotating stage rose to its peak nearly forty feet in the air, hovering above a packed general admission floor with the entire band playing, and just as the first notes of “Rockstar” began to fill the ears of fans, it became very apparent…
DESTROYER @ BLUEBIRD THEATER| 6.09.12 See Also: Q&A with Dan Bejar of Destroyer. When Dan Bejar ambled on to the stage, he scanned it left to right, shoved some stray strands of his fro back into place, clenched his eyes shut and wore a look of abstract passion. The Destroyer…
