Concerts

Appropriately enough, Noble Beast, the latest recording by Chicago’s Andrew Bird (on tour with Loney, Dear), boasts some notably avian moments: “Fitz and the Dizzyspells” is among the tracks that feature whistling, and “Masterswarm” includes simulated birdsong that may or may not have been created by a theremin. But Bird…

On “Country Star,” the centerpiece of the recently released What I’m For, Texas singer-songwriter Pat Green croons about “ridin’ shotgun with Kenny, Faith and Tim” and “breakin’ all the young girls’ hearts like Keith Urban” in an ironic tone, as if he thinks such a possibility is about as likely…

Jessica Lea Mayfield, whose music has been featured on such shows as Gossip Girl and CSI:NY, has been turning heads with both her haunting voice, which hovers like a vulture circling a dying calf in a dimly lit, frost-covered field, and her own unique brand of “ghost country.” Discovered by the…

Hailing from Albuquerque’s avant-garde noise scene, Sabertooth Cavity takes the stage and looks like any other noise-rock band you see making the rounds of the underground music circuit. As soon as the group gets going, however, any such notions are immediately dismissed. Like Expo ’70 and the Late Severa Wires,…

On its debut album, Terrific Seasons, These Are Powers — vocalist/guitarist Anna Barie, bassist (and former member of Liars) Pat Noecker and drummer Bill Salas — craft a thick, fetid stew of no-wave post punk and drone that the group dubbed “ghost punk.” Silly descriptor, perhaps, but Barie’s otherworldly howls…

The Fray’s commercial breakthrough has provided Colorado acts with a template for success, and plenty of them are following it closely — although generally with less slickness and skill than Fort Collins-based Roe. The players are committed to guitars, but they do love them some keyboards, too, as the introduction…

This EP opens with “Deep Hole on a Gold Throne,” which sounds a bit like Dio if Michael Schenker had been his guitarist and the fantasy-fiction imagery didn’t come off as melodramatic and adolescent. Inevitably this band and this release will invite the term “stoner rock,” but there’s nothing sludgy…

The first time I saw Rob Drabkin perform, a few years ago, I think I must have worn an expression similar to the one Drabkin is wearing on the cover of his latest album: brow furrowed, one eyebrow cocked, looking a tad annoyed yet curious, thinking, “Man, this dude still…

Improv shows himself to be something of a hip-hop auteur on Omotion, which he wrote, produced, recorded and mixed largely on his own. His skill as both a producer and rapper are obvious from the opening minutes. The disc opens with a sound-collage intro that morphs into a pleasantly pushy,…

According to Billboard, the best selling act in America this week is still Taylor Swift, who moved 62,000 copies of her latest disc, Fearless, followed by Charlie Wilson, who was good for 71,000 copies of Uncle Charlie, his latest, and the Fray, which sold another 53,000 copies of its self-titled…

Remember last year when gas was like ninety bucks a gallon and the roadways in Denver were littered with gangs of unscrupulous opportunists roving the streets all Mad Max style, armed with rubber hoses (and not much common sense), in search of the next vehicle to commandeer and subsequently siphon?…

While we’re not exactly the type of folks to ever wish ill will on anyone, here’s hoping that karma is indeed a boomerang this time around and that the presumed lowlifes who burglarized our friends in Ghost Buffalo burn in hell — or at least get a flat tire or…

Everything Absent or Distorted (a love story), an act profiled in these pages back in December and who just performed at Artopia, our gigundous annual arts celebration, over the weekend, earned the distinction this week of having its latest platter, the Great Collapse, listed as the tenth most added disc…

“I believe I’ve transcended,” Van Morrison repeatedly incanted toward the end of the title track from his 1968 album, Astral Weeks, during the second night of a brief November stint at the Hollywood Bowl. Indeed, frequently over the course of those two nights, the famously mercurial, 63-year-old Irish singer-songwriter seemed…

This past weekend, I found myself at a Grand Junction Borders book store, which was selling off its remaining stock of 2009 calendars for $1 apiece. And smack in the middle of the stacks was an item that seemed time-capsule ready — a sixteen-month calendar featuring pop sensation turned tabloid…

You know those scenes in all those classic ’80s movies like Pretty In Pink or Better Off Dead, where some nameless outfit performs at a school dance while the young protagonists work out whatever assorted teen angst they happen to be grappling with at the time? As we remember it,…

Marc Grabowski, the erstwhile frontman of Corruption, has just been named as the final member of Demonica, the thrash-metal outfit founded by Mercyful Fate guitarist Hank Shermann. After playing with Corruption for the better part of the past two decades, Grabowski had his sights set on retiring from music altogether…

All right, we know what you’re thinking: Ugh! Another mash-up, right? Wait a sec. This one — assembled by the furiously talented pop tart known as Tyler Ward — is different. How so, you ask? Well, for one, he played all the instruments and sang all of the parts. When…