Music

Audioloom, the recording studio that Brian Gerhard, Christopher Shumake and Greg Nichols have been building at 3430 Lawrence Street is nearly finished. A non-profit venture, the studio was established with the goal of giving Denver artists a place to record for nothing more than a donation. Although the project is…

Almost a month ago exactly, big slabs of the ceiling over the stage at the Oriental Theater came raining down during a show featuring Doug Kershaw. Thankfully, nobody was hurt during the incident, but it caused the historic theater at 44th and Tennyson to be closed for the better part…

If you’ve ever thought yourself a worthy successor to the Magic Cyclops throne, this Halloween might be your chance to give it shot for a day. For $15, you can order the official Magic Cyclops costume kit, which comes complete with sunglasses, a custom screened headband, fake British accent and…

You can’t help but calm the fuck down when you move to Colorado from inner-city Chicago,” notes Craig Fleischman. The drummer, better known as Craig Nice, is one-half of the duo Gauntlet Hair, an outfit he started with Andy Rauworth, a high-school friend with whom he fled the Windy City…

For close to three decades, Bob and Cathy Lyons ran the no-frills, nautical-themed Brown Barrel at 76 South Broadway. The bar was one of the last old-school joints in the Baker neighborhood, an area that was once full of them, and won Westword’s Best Dive award in 2008. But the…

Maybe the name Colfax Speed Queen refers to a weird alcohol- or amphetamine-induced daydream someone had while doing laundry at Smiley’s. Or perhaps it’s a reference to some clandestine encounter with a tweaked-out lady of the evening. Whatever the case, here’s what we know: Colfax Speed Queen (due on Thursday,…

Maria Taylor grew up in Alabama, where she was part of the band Little Red Rocket with her friend Orenda Fink. Fink and Taylor ended up moving to Athens, Georgia, where they formed Azure Ray, a band that ultimately landed in Omaha and became one of the groups that helped…

In just one short year, Tigran Mimosa has gone from bass-bombing Cervantes’ and playing free shows at Boulder record stores to headlining the Fillmore. His most recent album, 58 Degrees, showcases his drum-and-bass influences while hinting at his progression into a finer, more complex realm of musical composition and cross-genre…

When Adam Granduciel moved to Philadelphia nearly a decade ago, he met lo-fi rock wunderkind Kurt Vile and started the first incarnation of the War on Drugs. Vile has long since moved on, but Granduciel kept at it, and his songwriting evolved over the course of two EPs before the…

Known almost as much for controversy and rap beef (see the never-ending feud with 50 Cent) as he is for his husky vocals, Game came onto the scene with a lot to say and even more to prove. The L.A. native has an unflinching loyalty to Dr. Dre and to…

Cedar Point, for those who tragically may not know, is probably the fourth-greatest place on planet Earth — so it’s worth noting that I have only two distinct memories of the first time I went there, on a chartered bus with about forty other middle-schoolers in 1994: One is tossing…

Presumably because there is no shortage of prominent Ryans making music these days, Ryan James decided to record his indie-folk debut under a moniker inspired by a Sylvia Plath novel. Although he has recruited a band since the release of Fall Systems Go, here he handles all the vocals and…

Rap Addict underwhelms at pretty much every level: It’s not well written, rapped, mixed or produced. Do-Rong has a deep voice and an obvious penchant for picking decent piano-heavy beats, but based on this album, that’s about all he has going for him. “Undercover Hater” is a hilarious admonishment for…

From the poppy hooks on songs like “If You Like Too” to the crazy rhymes he delivers (in the third person, with voice effects) on “The Falling,” it’s obvious that Turner Jackson has a variety of musical influences. The lyrics on My Heart Needs Space are honest and personal; Jackson…

The latest release from 3Two may have been recorded in this decade, but with songs like “Backspin,” which features a throwback robot voice and laser-beam sound effects perfect for breakin’, and “Roll Bounce,” an ode to Skate City, where preteens learned to show out, the rapper pays homage to the…

For many people in America, Portishead was their introduction to the lush, soulful, experimental music collectively stamped as trip-hop. From its debut, 1994’s Dummy, Portishead struck a wide audience with its seemingly complete disconnect from the grunge and alternative rock that dominated the era. The outfit’s cool, dusky compositions were…