Concerts

When we spoke with Wilco guitarist Nels Cline a few weeks ago for a profile that previewed his gig at Dazzle, we mainly talked about the Nels Cline Singers’ latest effort, Initiate. But right before concluding our chat, we asked Cline about Wilco working on new material. He told us…

I wanted it for a long time, and my friend Sheena did it at a benefit for the Underground Carrot at the Mercury Cafe,” says Brittany Gould of the envelope-shaped tattoo on her hand. “It was mainly so I can remember to send letters and packages.” Performing under the name…

When Soda Jerk Presents took over the former Bash at 1902 Blake Street, the concert promotion company changed the name to Summit Music Hall and turned the front section into a space where local acts have been playing since May 1. Now Soda Jerk is ready to debut Summit’s main…

It’s too bad the term “women in music” came to be synonymous with relatively safe mainstream artists of the ’90s. Or, more to the point, that it’s even necessary to point out the presence of women in music. Fortunately, the Vixens Ball (Friday, July 9, and Saturday, July 10, at…

It’s a success story fifteen-year-olds dream of: A big-shot producer randomly clicks on your YouTube demo, and — boom — you’re whisked off to Atlanta to record with Usher. While Justin Bieber’s pairing with R&B moguls might be a little strange — seriously, it’s weird to hear his prepubescent boys’ choir…

Rhode Island’s Prayers for Atheists is a band with incendiary political convictions, the kind that can land dudes in jail. At the 2008 Republican National Convention, vocalist Jared Paul was arbitrarily arrested while covering the convention for quarterly publication The Agenda, and he and the rest of his bandmates have…

KRS-One (aka Lawrence Parker) was the sole constant member of Boogie Down Productions, whose 1987 album, Criminal Minded, is often cited as the record that introduced gangsta rap to an unsuspecting world. But BDP’s raps were always as literate as they were gritty, and the act quickly evolved beyond its…

A road warrior who has crisscrossed continents in his quest for true troubadour-hood, Austin Lucas is the rare songwriter who seems buoyed by the road rather than beaten down by it. His intricately picked yet propulsive folk is as accomplished as it is effortless, and Lucas’s rough edges — honed…

Somewhere in Denver there’s a backyard barbecue pit full of steak drippings, cigarette butts, smashed beer bottles and a couple decades’ worth of kerosene-soaked charcoal. From those rancid, grimy ashes rose Heeler. The band’s second CD, Release the Snake!, is a meaty slab of rock and roll that tastes as…

“Yeti in the City,” this album’s opener, sounds like its authors have been listening to a lot of dubstep, experimental electronic music and underground hip-hop while scoring a really weird episode of Monk. The production might be a bit slick for some, but there’s nothing wrong with technological competence, and…

While some people can bang out an album in a weekend, it took singer-songwriter John McVey a decade to make his third solo effort, Unpredictable. In between producing and engineering hundreds of other people’s albums at Boulder’s Coupe Studios, he took his time crafting the songs and recording them. Not…

In this postmodern age, it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference between a brilliant, faithfully executed parody and the real thing (see: Die Antwoord) — and that’s exactly the case with Bad’s self-titled debut. What is certain is that the album packs such a broad range of rock clichés into…

Lust-Cats of the Gutters is a band whose roots are planted firmly in the same fertile soil as acts like Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and the Frumpies. Fiercely independent, the band has found itself being touted by Courtney Love and purportedly being courted by a certain Seattle-based record label. Even though…

The band calls its music “dread rock,” and while the act does pay fairly direct homage to Brad Nowell in the occasional punk-rock breakdown or Big-Muff-shredding guitar solo, Desciples, at its core, really plays straight-up reggae. And from the downbeat, percussion-heavy grooves to the dub-influenced, liberal use of delay, you’d…

Back in the days before anyone had ever spoken the word “dubstep,” when the nascent genre was little more than a weird trend cropping up on the B-sides of two-step singles, Hatcha was there. As a buyer and, later, A&R man for Big Apple Records, he put some of the…

Colorado hip-hop is serious right now, and there’s a bunch of cats making moves. Hot on the heels of his runner-up finish to back-to-back winner Boonie Mayfield in the recent Red Bull Big Tune battle, Xperiment is the latest addition to the Humble Beast roster. Based in Portland, Oregon, the…

Well how do you like that? As we post this, yet another Colorado-based act is getting prime exposure on Pitchfork. That’s what we’re talking about. Within the past month, no less than four local artists — including Pictureplane, Woodsman, Tennis and Candy Claws — have been prominently featured on the…

Today’s a pretty big day for Danielle Anderson. Not only is the YouTube darling featured on the front page of, well, YouTube (see the clip being touted after the jump), but today marks the release of her brand new record, Two Bedroom Apartment. Oh and she’s celebrating by playing some…