Music

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE @ ELLIE CAULKINS OPERA HOUSE | 4.10.12 Is there a science to picking a day to start a tour, or is it all some big random coincidence? Last night’s Death Cab for Cutie show at the Ellie Caulkins was sold out, and it had been for…

Mojo Nixon (due Friday, April 13, and Saturday, April 14, at the Lion’s Lair) gained notoriety in the mid- to late ’80s for his irreverent songs informed by an absurdist humor with partner Skid Roper. Nixon’s exuberant, unapologetic persona won over audiences because even as Nixon would make seemingly over-the-top,…

The party most surprised to learn that City Councilwoman Judy Montero harbors a soft spot for the Flobots might actually be the Flobots. According to the District 9 rep, they are her “very favorite band,” which explains why she referenced two of their songs — but, alas, did not sing…

After booking hardcore and ska shows around Denver for the past six years, DJ Maladjusted has taken his massive record collection and almost dogmatic devotion to vinyl and garnered a small but devoted following with his obscure selections. Spinning 2tone, ska and reggae every third Friday for One Step Beyond…

Update (4/10): We’ve confirmed that Talib Kweli will indeed be performing at Cervantes’ this Saturday, April 14, in place of Black Star, originally slated for that same date but moved to 5/11. Tickets for the show are $5 ($10 on Saturday for those under 21). Heads up, hip-hop heads: Black…

NEON INDIAN @ BLUEBIRD THEATER | 4/09/12 A little over halfway through the Neon Indian show, Leanne Macomber left her spot at the keyboards and picked up the Roland G-77 Bass Controller that had been played by Joshua McWhirter during certain parts of the rest of the show, while McWhirter,…

Everybody has self-esteem issues,” declares Dyalekt. “But you gotta work with what you’ve got.” Born to an Apache father and a Latina mother, Dyalekt — the MC, producer and self-made cultural sociologist known to his family as Justin Romero, the younger brother of rapper, producer and fellow Diamond Boi Zome…

If its own bio is to be believed, Steel Blades of Vengeance (due at 3 Kings Tavern on Thursday, April 12) seems to have been through lineup changes worthy of Iced Earth. The two bands also share musical influences, as Steel Blades started life as Maiden Denver, an Iron Maiden…

Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion met at the House of Blues in San Diego, where Follin’s older brother Richie’s band, the Willowz, had a show. The two hit it off; both happened to be leaving to study film at the New School, which is where they formed Cults. The group’s…

Combining the former guitar player from hardcore band Poison the Well with a former Nickelodeon star, Sleigh Bells is the most aggressive, poptastic, ear-drum-splitting glamour-thrash band around. On its debut, Treats, released on M.I.A.’s N.E.E.T. Records, Sleigh Bells offered up songs like “Rill Rill” and “Tell Em” that managed to…

Supergroup Slaughterhouse consists of Crooked I, Royce da 5’9″, Joe Budden and Joell Ortiz, who combined forces in 2009 to rip the hip-hop game to shreds. All street buzz and promo, the group’s first single, “The One,” from its self-titled album, was dropped on Budden’s Twitter account, and the masses responded…

Tom Petty is an iconic American songwriter whose songs are easily on par with fellow legends like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Petty’s guitar-driven anthems are instantly relatable monuments to Americana that exude a certain timelessness that belies their obvious vintage. Tunes like “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” “Here Comes My Girl,”…

Greek mythology is teeming with dudes who want to murder their fathers so they can bang their mothers. Nevertheless, as compelling as it is, I don’t really buy Freud’s Oedipus theory; personally, I’ve never felt any particular urge (that I’m aware of) to take my mother to the bone zone…

Given her background in Western swing, gypsy and vintage jazz and bluegrass, it’s not surprising that all of those styles surface on Katie Glassman’s sixteen-track long-player, Snapshot. While Glassman is clearly an able singer, her fiddle playing is exceptional — which also makes sense, considering that she started playing when…

Case Study, the new album from the outfit formerly known as 20:12, finds the act experimenting with different types of hip-hop to see what resonates. From traditional boom bap to elements of dubstep to rock, the material is all over the place. As varied as the record’s rhythm is, however,…

Mojo Nixon’s music and the reputation of his outrageous stage persona precede him. The hilariously wrong songs that he wrote with his then-partner in crime, Skid Roper, such as “Elvis Is Everywhere” and “Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child” were songs everyone knew, even if they weren’t…

DJ Beufie, owner of Native Soul Recordings and Speakeasy, is coming in from New Mexico for another episode of Supernova’s House Revival. No stranger to Denver, Beufie has been playing shows out of his home base in Albuquerque for several years, where he’s been instrumental in shaping the city’s dance-music…

This split LP has Black Sleep of Kali doing something it does well on songs like “Cosmonaut,” and that’s anchor you in space somehow while a parade of burning sound drifts past you — like you’re one of the tune’s namesakes shooting toward escape velocity. Then, near the end of…