In preparation for the release of his long-awaited SEXTAPE EP, Yonnas Abraham of The Pirate Signal and BLKHRTS is releasing a song a week leading up to the day the six-song debut is released: December 16. While the songs — “Try,” the first track, which dropped on September 11, and…
Spoke In Wordz’s latest effort, Beautiful Dead, comes at a time when celebrations of the dead are at their highest, split between Halloween and Día de los Muertos. Traditionally, this is the time when the spiritual veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Spoke chose to…
Although these days Lizzie Huffman plays what she calls “country folk pop,” the 22-year-old singer-songwriter says she was more into hip-hop and R&B artists like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill early on. But just as she was becoming a teenager, she discovered classic country singers like Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells…
What do you do if you release a music video and get slammed with plagiarism accusations? If you’re Beyoncé, you release another video. And then another. First Beyoncé released a video for “Countdown,” her third official single (after “Run The World (Girls)” and “Best I Never Had”), then she released…
Elvis Costello finally made his Sesame Street appearance last week with a number-orientated rendition of “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.” The show is a well-tread, 42-year-old road that has included a charmingly sweet Tony Bennett, an unexpectedly fitting LL Cool J, and corny inspiration from NSYNC and Backstreet…
Nearly two years after she charmed the world as an American Idol contender on the ninth season of the Fox flagship, Lilly Scott is thriving creatively in Denver, fronting her own band, Varlet. The group has completed its debut effort, The Drifter, and set a release date for Saturday, November…
Songwriters, like many creative types, often need to embark on challenges they create for themselves. Singer Jenna Herbst, for instance, has challenged herself to write, record and distribute a song a week for the next two months. The songs, which will be sent out via an email list will be…
So the chorus of dissent continues against OpenAir 1340 AM — if only here on our blog; everyone else seems to love the new station. Yesterday, Kirk Wilde asserted that it’s a “it’s a cocophonous mess,” as he put it, adding “Its audience will be limited to Dadaists.” Jenny B,…
In February 2006, Cole Rudy was pulling an epic guitar-god move at the Climax Lounge during an opening set for To Be Eaten, with his leg up on the monitor — head tossed back and everything — when the thing came loose and crumpled him like a cheap suit. “I…
The B.U.F.F. Brothers group of bars and restaurants has broken up. After thirteen years, Rob Lanphier split from his business partner last month and started his own company, Pour Kids. Noonan’s Tavern (13521 East Iliff Avenue, Aurora), which B.U.F.F. opened in March, is now part of Lanphier’s portfolio, as is…
Joe Piza, Dave Beckhouse and Brian Wilson were in hardcore band Warsaw Surrenders around the middle of the last decade. That band split too soon, but the three started playing together again before long and recruited former Vaux bassist Greg Daniels and vocalist Keith Curts, who had been playing in…
It’s somewhat befuddling that the song that brought Jeffrey Gaines the most notoriety in his career is one that he didn’t even write, nor was it even really meant to be released. But when a radio station latched onto a live version of “In Your Eyes” — a Peter Gabriel…
In the early ’90s, when he began his pop-culture career, Dirt Nasty was better known as Simon Rex — a super-tan MTV VJ and the occasional star of screwball comedies and prime-time teen shows. Around 2007, Rex went in a new direction: He adopted the Dirt Nasty moniker and became…
It’s easy to forget that Judas Priest existed at the dawn of heavy metal, because the band’s most well-known releases are rightly affiliated with the new wave of British heavy metal. Starting out in 1969 in Birmingham, England (the home of Black Sabbath), the group solidified its classic lineup in…
Before emo became something of a joke marketed to emotionally overwrought teens, bands like Braid and Mineral and the early Appleseed Cast were lumped in with that genre. By the turn of the century, though, the Appleseed Cast had already evolved into something else. Experimenting more with the noises you…
On the home stretch of the drive from Denver to Pittsburgh, you cut at one point through the West Virginia panhandle, a roughly ten-mile stretch of winding Appalachian interstate. It’s one of the prettiest sections of the whole trip, and it also provides the setting for one-half of my exactly…
On Apple-Eaters, Thrifty Astronaut’s Nick Jones has pushed himself a little in terms of production, but he’s done so without losing the rough edges that have always made his songwriting so compelling. The title track has lyrics and a vocal delivery worthy of Jad Fair, but the music is more…
From the opening cut (“Calling of the Angels”) on Sun Comes Up, Green River Vibe’s debut, it’s pretty clear where the quintet is coming from: About halfway into a rock-infused reggae groove, the tune breaks down into a hip-hop interlude. The players, who all met while studying music at the…
Nothing Else Matters, the impressive mixtape collaboration between ProCyse (Soulfficial) and Fo Chief (Fresh Breath Committee), showcases some great writing and stellar lyrics. The seven original joints here — there are ten tracks in all — show off each MC’s diverse flow and concepts. ProCyse tends to stay in the…
The latest offering from long-running experimental guitar band IZ is filled with the kind of metallic riffs the project has often used to produce its idiosyncratic art rock. Part Frank Zappa in a heavy and unpredictable mode, part Motörhead’s gritty drive and part Dinosaur Jr’s penchant for warped, melodic aggression,…
Although these days Lizzie Huffman plays what she calls “country folk pop,” the 22-year-old singer-songwriter says she was more into hip-hop and R&B artists like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill early on. But just as she was becoming a teenager, she discovered classic country singers like Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells…
Full Flavor Fridays is about to double your pleasure: The formerly monthly event at Appaloosa has moved to Bar Standard and will hold down the dance floors on the first and last Fridays of every month. And to celebrate the debut of this double dose of underground electronica, resident Greg…
