Concerts

Pardon our inappropriate use of a preposition, but the Bluebird is where it’s at — tonight Tennis, Gauntlet Hair and Gangcharger come together for an all-local line-up, continuing a week of great shows happening at the theater. Tennis has been up to all kinds of good stuff lately — preparing…

ROGER WATERS 11.23.10 | Pepsi Center If you were at the Roger Waters show last night at the Pepsi Center, chances are you’re still talking about it this morning, regaling your co-workers and feebly trying to figure out a way to somehow express the unbelievable awesomeness you experienced. Good luck…

ARIEL PINK’S HAUNTED GRAFFITI With Diva and Os Mutantes 11.23.10 | Bluebird Theatre Ariel Pink (whose real name is Ariel Rosenberg) spent the better part of the last decade making lo-fi recordings of himself in his bedroom and being booed off-stage during solo tours. When he got signed to record…

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…

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…

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…

Like the album’s name itself, all of the song titles on Ishmael Asimov fall just shy of cringeworthy puns and curious statements. In fact, one has to applaud the audacity of calling a song “Slap N’ Pickle” and have it be a rather contemplative number. But mostly this release is…

Comparing the packaging for Fierce Bad Rabbit’s self-titled debut to Spools of Thread, its latest offering, perhaps best illustrates the band’s notable progression. While the inaugural release had exactly zero frills — sandwiched between two pieces of card stock the act’s members likely cut themselves, the disc came stuffed in…

Eddie Van Halen never had to make the sort of decision that Patrick Meese recently had to. EVH’s eponymous band has weathered three different singers and multiple albums. Meese, on the other hand, abandoned his namesake band after seven years due to the rigors of major-label success. Luckily, the experience…

As two-thirds of renowned noise-punk band Wives, Dean Spunt and Randy Randall not only made some of the most adventurous and blistering rock music of the last decade, but they helped put long-running L.A. DIY space the Smell on the map as a locus for innovative and exciting music, West…