Back in June when Beauty Bar opened its doors, The Swayback’s Eric Halborg and Bill Murphy were brought in to throw down some jams and get the party started on 13th Avenue once again, following the Snake Pit’s closing the year before. The night was a hit, and has since…
After a year of using every platform 2010 has to offer to talk, Kanye West has fallen silent. The thing this was all about, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, is out now, and Kanye has every right to gloat. The reviews couldn’t be better. And yet his website remains as…
Kanye West is about as polarizing a figure as there is these days. The mere mention of his name inspires a variety of reactions, everything from exasperated eye rolls to passionate rants or equally passionate raves girded with an apologetic undertone for all of his often inexplicably brazen behavior. Discussing…
Kanye West: The man of the moment. The guy who has everyone in the world talking right now. Surely by now you’ve seen the viral clips of the kids re-enacting his tweets. Priceless. Bet you haven’t seen this one, though. Grandma — somebody’s grandma — reading his tweets. Meme, oh,…
Kanye West released My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy yesterday amid rave reviews — Pitchfork gave it a perfect ten rating, Spin gave it nine out of ten stars, Rolling Stone gave it five stars, Urb gave it four and a half out of five stars, and XXL has reportedly given…
Astrophagus unceremoniously ended its run this past September at Lost Lake. Bolstering the adage that you can’t keep good men down, we’ve learned that the Cain brothers, Jason and Josh, are about to resurface as Port Au Prince, with a little help from their friends Hunter Dragon on drums, Brian…
An active member of the Mile High City’s diverse music community since relocating to Denver in the early ’90s, Max Klaw currently performs as a genre-defying but ultimately bass-centric DJ, VJ and dance-music producer. We recently caught up with the pervasive bass junkie to get the scoop on his monthly…
Not to be outdone by that radiculous Guitar Hero display from last year, we happened upon another dude in SoCal who created this audacious light show soundtracked by Slayer. While we’d love to tell you how amazing it is, you’re just going to have to watch it for yourself –…
Local one-man shoegaze-cum-folk-act Irene’s March, aka Jeff Minter, has decided to drop a 268-megabyte bomb on our ears right before Thanksgiving. The collection, titled Awakenings, spans three volumes and includes 38 songs recorded over five weeks. All together, it clocks in at over two and half hours (!)…
My Chemical Romance, which hit the road near the beginning of the new year on the World Contamination Tour and just released a new album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, is due to stop at the Fillmore Auditorium on Saturday, April 9. Tickets ($32.50, $35 day…
Kid Cudi’s Man On The Moon II: The Legend of Mr. Rager might have dominated last week’s charts, but this week, it’s disappeared from the top ten at Albums on the Hill and Twist & Shout and moved down to the number four at Independent Records…
Los Angeles’ supreme weirdo Ariel Pink brings his band/concept Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti through Denver tonight, in support of his latest release, Before Today. With a discography that challenges Frank Zappa’s sheer strangeness and prolific nature, Pink and company build unique sets from the dozens of recordings he’s made –…
When Johnny Wohlfahrt announced in private that he would play the new open mike night at Starbucks, it seemed incredibly absurd. Open mike is almost always either for poets trying out new material or for singer-songwriters testing the waters after years of writing out of the public eye. Open mikes…
I remember staying up all night just hanging out with my friends, and randomly there would be gunshots and cop cars everywhere,” recalls José Bonilla, aka Zé of Diamond Boiz. “That’s just something we took for granted.” Remarkably, the MC, who grew up in Denver’s Westwood neighborhood, never got involved…
When he took over the space at 1320 15th Street that had held Alto (and Sambuca before that) last year, Paul Piciocchi split it into three 2,000-square-foot venues. The Drink opened in mid-November 2009, followed by the Rack & Rye gastropub a few weeks later, and then Mix Music Lounge…
It turns out that Nederland should be known for more than just its tranquil gentility and Grandpa Bredo and his Tuff Shed. Elephant Revival (due at the Walnut Room on Friday, November 26) does the unlikely by taking bluegrass-inflected Americana and making it seem more fresh than old-timey. The outfit…
Jonas Erik Altberg, aka Basshunter, began producing music under that moniker in 2002 using the ubiquitous Fruity Loops computer program, working from home and self-releasing The Bassmachine before signing with Warner Music for his sophomore effort. Unlike many producers, Altberg sings on a lot of his own tracks, and six…
Early in its career, Blonde Redhead clearly drew inspiration from DNA, whose song was the inspiration for the band’s name. But instead of solely offering up atonal squalls and musical deconstruction, Blonde Redhead’s songwriting also flirted with haunted melodies. By the time of 2004’s Misery Is a Butterfly, what would…
After being selected as the top vocalist at Longmont High School in 2006, Mandy Harvey went on to study music at Colorado State University. She began to lose her hearing due to nerve damage in her freshman year, but her limitations — she’s now legally deaf — never stopped her…
Living in the margin between the Postal Service and Sufjan Stevens is an awfully adorable business, but Freelance Whales manages to do it without being too vomit-inducing. Scant praise, and that’s about right for the Queens quintet. There’s some wonderful songcraft here, which keeps the Whales out of Owl City…
Post-punk is sneaking up on exactly no one these days, but that doesn’t stop a great album from being great. The reference points here are a (much) more muscular Yo La Tengo, a less high-pitched Buzzcocks and the Replacements — all meant as compliments, obviously. This is just to give…
After meeting at Metro State while studying under Ron Miles and Fred Hess, Three Squared formed four years ago as a quartet with a mutual love for freedom in music-making and improvisation. While 2008’s Let’s Play Ping Pong was a damn fine effort, drummer Antwon Owens, guitarist Jim Disner, bassist…
