Chances are you can’t name many active bands that play original material and have been around for twenty years — much less one that has regularly evolved and experimented with its sound without always jumping on some musical bandwagon. That’s been the path of the New Ben Franklins (due this…
Chain and the Gang is the latest incarnation of musical brilliance from D.C. rabble-rouser Ian Svenonius — part Prince, part Iggy, part Chomsky, part Andy Kaufman — who’s previously bestowed upon the world such deliciously caustic, sonically arresting bands as Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up and Scene Creamers/Weird War. Svenonius…
The moody, seductive sound of Civil Twilight is led by Steven McKellar’s willowy tenor, which dips and flutters against moody backdrops, recalling Thom Yorke. But despite the band’s penchant for graceful, slow-moving balladry, it plays with more finesse than Radiohead knockoffs like Snow Patrol or Travis. Civil Twilight builds tension…
If you were alive in the mid-’90s and half paid attention to popular music, you’ve probably heard of Garbage. The band’s left-field hit, “Only Happy When It Rains,” from its 1995 debut album, opened the gates to heavy MTV rotation for many more Garbage songs over the next handful of…
New York in the ’70s was home to more than its fair share of cultural and artistic luminaries. Laurie Anderson was a graduate student at Columbia when she immersed herself in the avant-garde world and became a primary contributor to the development of true multimedia performance art. Her 1984 live…
Given that the first album I ever purchased with my own money was Collective Soul’s Hints, Allegations and Things Left Unsaid, a record since consigned to the garbage heap of history with the sole distinction of having contributed to the birth of the unfortunate genre “bubblegum grunge,” it’s safe to…
It must be tough to be a singer related to Judy Garland, much less one who has the same last name and initials. But Jesse Garland, who claims as much on her bio, sounds more Texas than Hollywood, and her slow, deliberate pacing demands soft lighting, not bright lights. On…
Surpass Flavor has an optimistic flow and no problem keeping on the beat. But while his style has an amiable taste, his unidentifiable accent distracts from what he’s trying to say. The rapper definitely pines for the golden age of hip-hop, and like a good purist, he invokes the ’90s…
Josh Moore is a damn fine jazz drummer who lends his talents to acts like the Aakash Mittal Quartet, but Past Presents is a far cry from any of the jazz work he’s done. With this solo project, he delves into indie and chamber rock, and he’s equally adept at…
Rebel Tongue is made up of a conscious lyricist, live instrumentation and enough rhythm to make you rock back and forth for days. On Movin On, the act’s debut, the players come together under the umbrella of funk and a new-age fusion of hip-hop and neo-soul. They do a great…
If your main objective on 4/20 is to get as blitzed as possible, well, there are plenty of options out there. But if you’re thinking that this year you might want to elevate your consciousness instead of merely getting high, then the Choose High on Life bash at Lumonics should…
When it comes to the subject of drugs, King FOE’s new EP, Junkie, is about as viciously honest and descriptive as it gets. The second EP in the BLKHRTS trilogy, Junkie is all about the reality of drug use and the ills that go along with using. FOE drew from…
See also: *”What My Spirit Hood Means To Me”: Coachella-Goers Explain *Coachella: The Black Lips’ Cole Alexander Goes Full Monty, Plays Guitar With His Ding-Dong At Coachella, folks come from all over the world to lose themselves in the music. They’ll employ almost anything in this quest — but mostly…
Have some time to kill today in the old cube farm? Here’s something to keep you busy all afternoon. Sounds on 29th, the local-centric CPT-12 music series, which premiered last fall and is brought to us by the folks behind the Brass Tree Sessions and Out of Order, has posted…
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 dance clubs – Five best places to buy vinyl Just as music collections say a lot about people,…
Eighties dance nights are a tradition stretching all the way back…well, to the ’80s. Whether you’re a 21-year-old feeling nostalgic for a time you never lived through, or a crimp-haired, stone-washed new-waver who never got over the Talking Heads breaking up, the music of the 1980s spans cultures and generations…
See Also: In honor of Record Store Day this Saturday: Ten records we treasure. See Also: Wax Trax celebrating 33 1/3 birthday in April See Also: Download a track from Wheelchair Sports Camp’s forthcoming EP Whoever says the music industry is dead obviously hasn’t observed Record Store Day. While file…
Tons of new shows this week: Dispatch is playing a two-night stand at 1STBANK in September, Joe Cocker and Huey Lewis and the News are headlining this year’s KOOL Concert, Thievery Corporation and Beats Antique are due at Red Rocks and Esperanza Spalding is slated for shows at the Boulder Theater and the Ogden. We’ve also got the full summer lineups for both Chautauqua and the Arvada Center, and as always, we’ve got the playlist for the local special shows and a rundown of this week’s top album sales. Page down to see what’s hot in music this week in the Mile High City.
For Colorado’s annual celebration in honor of smoking the ganja — known otherwise as the twentieth of April to non-imbibers — Rusko (aka Christopher Mercer), the renowned dubstep producer hailing from England, is bringing his production to 1STBANK Center, along with DJ Shadow, Paper Diamond and Pictureplane for the second…
Oh, man, our West Coast counterparts at the LA Weekly and OC Weekly were on the ground reporting from Coachella all weekend, and they brought back some really great stuff, giving a chance for land-locked music lovers like us who watched the stream on YouTube to live vicariously: • “What…
Talib Kweli got all hip-hop scholarly this past Friday as the keynote speaker for the spring Sankofa Lecture Series at Metropolitan State College of Denver. The event was designed to focus on the anthropology of hip-hop, and Kweli, who was succinct and clear with his message, was absolutely dynamic on…
MOJO NIXON @ LION’S LAIR | 4/14/12 “Rick Santorum can suck my dick!” was the chorus Mojo Nixon got the crowd to chant as a line in an extended version of “You Can’t Kill Me.” But everything was an extended version out of an eleven song set. With just his…
