Concerts

There was a woman sitting on her four-wheeled walker near the soundboard for most of Herbie Hancock’s two-hour set Monday night at the Denver Botanic Gardens.

Troy Andrews, also known as Trombone Shorty, was born into a musical family and has lived a musical life. He started playing trombone at four years old, knows his way around funk and jazz, and has been working as a professional musician since he was a teenager. While he has been immersed in music for most of the 31 years he’s been alive, he spent the day before he and his band left for Japan to play the Fuji Rock Festival driving around New Orleans, his home town, with his car stereo off.

Sunday’s Colorado Music Hall of Fame Presented by Comfort Dental induction and concert event was a poignant, well-produced evening honoring Colorado music creators and cultivators. This year’s class included famed — but long gone — studio, Caribou Ranch, the late Dan Fogelberg and Joe Walsh & Barnstorm. Legendary producer Bill Szymczyk was also honored with a Colorado Music Hall of Fame Award of Excellence. Dr. Kevin Fitzgerald, veterinarian, television personality and frequent face at Comedy Works, emceed. The night would have been Fogelberg’s sixty-sixth birthday.

Johnny Iguana, founder of the Chicago-based soul-punk-blues band the Claudettes, plays the piano so hard that he breaks keys. His piano gets repaired all the time because of how hard he abuses it. He says it’s not a showmanship thing; he just gets overexcited.

After a lengthy trial, a jury of eight determined former Denver DJ David “Jackson” Mueller had assaulted and battered singer Taylor Swift.

“You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, it’s true…” A seemingly simplistic lyric launched British singer-songwriter James Blunt into the public eye in 2005; the radio played the song endlessly after its release.

Rapper Logic headlines Red Rocks tonight with Joey Bada$$ and Big Lenbo opening while Trombone Shorty is at the venue on Wednesday. Also this week, Ed Sheeran is a the Pepsi Center, St Paul & the Broken Bones has a two-night stand at Chautauqua Auditorium and Denver Botanic Gardens features two jazz legends, Herbie Hancock tonight and Chick Corea tomorrow night.

Sylvan Esso’s Colorado fans revere the North Carolina indie duo’s EP Echo Mountain Sessions, even if it’s a surprising rock-and-roll departure from the act’s synth-pop sound.

It’s hard to imagine a time when the musicians in Strange Americans didn’t feel like they were a part of the Denver music scene. “I think we were so new that we hadn’t been in the scene for awhile,” Guitarist/vocalist Matt Hoffman says. “Now we know a lot of people , but at the time we were disconnected.”

Back in June, Denver-based composer/percussionist Thomas Blomster excitedly told Westword about his upcoming trip to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where a piece of his would be performed by the Morin Khuur Ensemble, a traditional Mongolian folk orchestra that is part of the Mongolian Philharmonic.

Velorama Colorado, a celebration of bands and bicycles, is happening in the RiNo District this weekend and spotlights live music by Wilco, Death Cab for Cutie, Old 97’s, the Jayhawks and more, while Rancid and Dropkick Murphys co-headline the Sculpture Park tonight with the Selecter and Kevin Seconds opening.

Taylor Swift took the stand this morning to testify during the fourth day of the Mueller v. Swift et. al lawsuit over an alleged groping incident at a June 2, 2013 meet-and-greet at the Pepsi Center. The pop star was firm and funny, as she accused former KYGO morning show DJ David Mueller of groping her bare butt, an assertion that led to his termination. The word “ass” was uttered over forty times within the hour Swift testified.

Loyal fans know that when Green Day comes to town, Billie Joe Armstrong will invite some eleven-year-old kid up to play his guitar every goddamn time. He’s been doing it since the punk outfit started packing arenas in 1994. And we’ve not grown tired of it, anymore than we’ve grown tired of the classic power-chord driven songs.

The new Velorama Festival is like a craft cocktail, pairing seemingly-disparate but intriguing components. In this case, those ingredients are a music festival, a professional-level bike race, and a flea market. The race c
omponent began today in Colorado Springs, but the festival itself will descend on RiNo Friday the 11. Here are six tips on how to navigate (and what to head to at) this weekend at Velorama:

Blame it on Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings movies or even Harry Potter, fantasy, a once-geeky literary obsession, is now one of the hippest genres in pop culture.

Mueller v. Swift et. al, the largest celebrity trial Denver has seen since Michael Jackson’s plagiarism case in 1994, began its first day of testimony after a protracted jury selection. In case you missed it, the trial centers around former 98.5 KYGO DJ David Mueller (known on-air on his morning show as “Jackson”) allegedly groping Taylor Swift’s butt while posing for a photo before her 2013 Red concert at the Pepsi Center. Mueller sued Swift, her mother Andrea Swift, and Swift’s radio coordinator Frank Bell for around three million dollars in damages after he was fired from his job shortly after the incident, and Swift countersued for $1.

It was 2015, six weeks before the soul-pop act Sarah and the Meanies was scheduled to leave on tour. The group’s guitarist, who had taken the reins of the band, sent his bandmates an email that said he was quitting.

Denverites know there is no better place to spend a summer night than in the fresh air, on a patio, with a drink in hand.