When Meat Puppets (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater with Bad Weather California and The Black Box Revelation) formed and released its first few records on SST in the early ’80s, the Phoenix-based act challenged punk rock conformity with its eclectic blend of countrified psychedelia and what later came to…
PANIC! AT THE DISCO at OGDEN THEATRE | 06/28/11This was going to be a big show — it had to be. Panic! At The Disco, performing last night to a sold out and extremely sweaty crowd at The Ogden Theatre, hadn’t been back to Denver since the band basically split…
We have good news and bad news for you: Due to house producer and DJ Kenny Hawkes’s recent unexpected death, Matt Edwards (aka Radio Slave) will not be making his scheduled appearance at the Afterhours Anonymous/Mahesh Presents event this Saturday, as originally planned; Edwards and Hawkes were good friends, and…
Aaron Johnson has a lot on his plate right now. He teaches fifth-graders by day, and by night he’s taking classes to get certified in teaching English as a Second Language. He’s also a Geeks Who Drink quizmaster. But tonight? Tonight Aaron Johnson (aka Ukulele Loki) is performing at Red…
You can’t really talk about guitar building in this town without mentioning Scott Baxendale. About a year and a half ago, one of the area’s most respected luthiers picked up stakes and moved to Athens, Georgia — home of the Drive-By Truckers, an act that holds him in such high…
At a loss for some rad summer music? Local label Wet Pizza has the perfect solution with Wet Pizza Volume 4, a 25-song collection of both national and Denver-based acts. The coolest part? The whole thing is free, and downloadable right now via the Wet Pizza tumblr…
Behind the kit for almost a decade as part of the highly influential Hüsker Dü, Grant Hart (playing tonight at the Larimer Lounge with Bass Drum of Death and Amazing Twin), was also a principle songwriter for the midwest group. But the drummer stepped into the role of lead singer-songwriter…
Maybe you’ve noticed this, maybe you haven’t. We did, and it’s sort of been stuck in our craw ever since. The other day, we were listening to one of the new country stations in town (hey, don’t judge us — it’s a perfect palate cleanser!) when a song from Montgomery…
THE SKIVIES at THE MEADOWLARK | 06.25.11This show almost didn’t happen. A little after 9:15 or so, the power went out in the neighborhoods north of Broadway. About that time, you could hear Danimal from Osyluth playing his drum kit from outside the Meadowlark. Inside, plenty of people had shown…
A few years ago, jazz singer René Marie was called an American during an interview in Russia. Marie, without even thinking, wanted to correct the journalist and say, “I’m not American,” since she didn’t feel like an American. “I stopped myself,” she recalls, “because I realized, ‘Wait a minute. Why…
When Noah Ray McMahan, Justin Martinez and Mike Barnhart opened Beauty Bar — a franchise that has nine siblings across the country, all featuring the vintage kitsch of ’50s hair salons — in the former home of the Snake Pit, at 608 East 13th Avenue, they envisioned a hipster crowd…
While someone else could probably stake claim to the designation of “Godmother of Denver Garage Rock,” that title rightly belongs to Sarah Fischer — even though she would never claim it. A commanding yet gracious and friendly figure in the scene for more than two decades, Fischer has spent time…
As a teenager growing up in Windsor, Ontario, Richie Hawtin would often sneak out at night and cross the Ambassador Bridge from Canada into Detroit to attend that city’s underground nightclubs. By seventeen, inspired by techno pioneers such as the Belleville Three — Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson…
Talk about truth in advertising: Musiq Soulchild’s moniker is the absolute truth and nothing but the truth. Born Taalib Johnson, the R&B crooner sounds like the direct descendant of soul music’s finest, a long line of emissaries that includes Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross, among others. In 2000,…
Chop Chop probably got a boost in popularity recently when the band’s song “Play” was featured in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. However, principals Catherine Cavanagh and Christy Cheng had already been veterans of the underground scene in Los Angeles. Early on, their glitchy indie-pop sound drew…
Sacramento’s Garrincha & the Stolen Elk has had a prolific year, with three releases in the last six months. Matt Kretzmann and Davy Bui have been involved in Sacto’s noise scene outside of this project, with Kretzmann running the experimental music label Weird Forest. Garrincha is often reminiscent of the…
As occasionally sad as it may be when previously respectable musicians shill for products — like the time Bob Dylan pseudo-endorsed Cadillac by driving an Escalade around in the desert and giving off the unsettling sense of a homeless person who just stole one — if there is a redeeming…
Justin Roth is a damn fine fingerstyle guitarist who’s clearly inspired by Michael Hedges. In addition to his notable fretwork, Roth sings and plays every instrument here, including bass, keyboards and percussion. On the opener, “This Winter,” multiple reverb-drenched vocal layers float in the background like a ghostly chorus, à…
Subterranean yet otherworldly sounds — like what you might hear if you were to somehow set up microphones in the endless tunnels of H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness — start off this live recording from the 2011 Denver Noise Fest. At points, the creeping, ambient noise of bio-mechanical entities in…
On 2009’s Twang Shui, Adam Stern showed just how versatile of a guitarist he is, delving into jazz, country and a whole lot more. And while that album proved that Stern has some serious chops, on its followup, High Country Gentlemen, Stern pulls back a bit, saying that the recording…
For Better or Worse, the second release from Prime Element’s A.V.I.U.S., sounds like it marinated in a backpack carried around any variety of East Coast cities, from Boston to Philly. A choice blend of boom-bap-tinged beats were handpicked from various artists by Prime Element producer Es-Nine, who has an ear…
Next month, supreme collaborators Ryan McRyhew and Kristi Schaefer are packing up and heading to Chicago. The two — who make music as Hideous Men and run experimental cassette label Laser Palace — are starting a new life in the Midwest and leaving behind a music- and art-driven community to…
