Whenever Jesse Elliott and his sister would begin to bicker in the back seat on family trips, their mother would threaten them with campfire songs and enlist their participation. Though the harmonica-led tunes were intended as a creative form of discipline, Elliott realizes now that the family sing-alongs were a…
Before forming their band Kosmos, brothers Ben and Tim Tonak grew up listening to Pearl Jam and could play nearly every song in the group’s catalogue. Since then, the guys have gravitated to Radiohead and Jimmy Eat World, which instilled the act with “a garage-band sensibility with arena-rock accessibility.” As…
Mike Relm is a pioneer working in the medium of video turntablism. Mashing up snippets of video and music in a live setting and incorporating the scratching and other DJ tricks of traditional turntablism, Relm is helping to create a vibrant new art form. Since adding the video element to…
Death in June, The Rule of Thirds (Soleilmoon). Samples aside, you’d almost think this was a record straight out of the modern psych-folk movement. But Douglas Pearce has been cultivating this sound since Death in June began to evolve from its post-punk/proto-industrial beginnings 25 years ago. Haunting, profane and delicately…
The closest I ever came to doing hard time was half an hour in a holding cell in Denver police headquarters after I was busted for shoplifting rubbers at the age of thirteen. If I hadn’t gotten busted — at Skaggs Drug Store (now Rite-Aid), where they sat me in…
It’s unfortunate that the town that spawned the likes of Cavity and the VSS is now known mostly for jam bands whose hallmark is self-indulgent soloing. It comes as a pleasant surprise, then, that a band as dynamic, rich and concise as Three Cheers Faraday (due at the hi-dive on…
Among all the stars at Skylab, it would be easy to overlook Adultnapper. This would be a mistake. The Brooklyn-based DJ/producer (aka Francis Harris) has been creating quite a splash with his productions, which hark back to the classic techno releases of Richie Hawtin (aka Plastikman) but add tribal percussion,…
The video for this album’s title track — a guided tour of Colfax locales such as Casa Bonita — makes it clear that the members of UmConscious (who open for Pepper at the Fox Theatre on Friday, August 16) would rather grin than grimace. But The Avenue isn’t a straight-up…
With a title like this for an album, you’d be excused for thinking that former Thorazine Frisbee mastermind Dan Kaufman has an absurdist, zen-like sense of humor. At first blush, the arrangement of sounds here bears comparison to the music put out by the Elephant 6 collective. Instead of Brian…
A generation of teenagers is actively pissed off that Sublime’s Brad Nowell overdosed after making only three albums — and for them, Slightly Stoopid, joined here by Sly & Robbie, Pepper and Half Pint, might be the next best thing. During the mid-’90s, Stoopid ones Miles Doughty and Kyle McDonald…
Jazz drummer Jeremy Jones grew up in Denver, but for the past five years he’s lived in Seattle, where he plays in a number of bands, including his trio, the Teaching, and another outfit called the Xtet. On the last group’s latest album, Awakening to Life, Jones shows off his…
For an act whose moniker alludes to the film version of V For Vendetta, graphic novelist Alan Moore’s dystopian fantasia about a masked bomber, Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head is pretty darned peppy. On Glistening Pleasure, the Seattle-based outfit’s debut album, Luke Smith, Claire England, David Price, Shaun Libman and Liam…
Named Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year for the past two years by the National Blues Foundation, Tab Benoit rolls into town on a hot streak in support of his latest release, Night Train to Nashville. Expect Tab and his longtime backing outfit, Louisiana’s LeRoux, to haul in a…
Named after an obscure town in western Texas situated far from Austin, where the band is based, Balmorhea has a sound that’s the stuff of daydreams and contemplation in a place where the pace of life is slow but you can find the answers to all your questions if you…
Most everything you need to know about horny, go-getting Los Angeles newcomer Shwayze can be gleaned from lines like this one from “Polaroid”: “Woke up with a semi-hard dick/In a fat chick/Three this week/Call that a hat trick.” Yeah, it’s that bad. Oddly, though, the partly sung, partly rapped tracks…
In a wry comment on his reputation as a doctrinaire zealot, System of a Downer Daron Malakian kicks off the side project he shares with SOAD drummer John Dolyman by delivering “Serious,” whose hook declares, “You’re too serious for me.” He’s doesn’t mean it, of course; any humor here is…
This past weekend, Epilogues played a benefit show at Herman’s Hideaway, and evidently, while the band wasn’t looking, some unsavory character entered the club’s greenroom and helped himself to drummer Jason Hoke’s laptop, which contained all things Epilogues. Shortly after sending out a rather vitriolic MySpace bulletin (“so, to the…
Just received word from Erica Brown that her namesake band, which has been a staple on the blues scene for the past decade, is calling it a day. The act has a dozen more dates booked, including one this evening for Band on the Bricks on the Pearl Street Mall…
The Pseudo Dates Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Auraria Campus Better Than: Most other outdoor shows I’ve seen. Rarely are good bands, local or otherwise, featured on college campuses in and around Denver, but at 10:15 a.m. yesterday, someone made an exception. There’s always something surrealistic about a band playing in…
Rx Bandits, Portugal. The Man, Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground Tuesday, August 12, 2008 Marquis Theatre Better Than: You might guess Trying to predict who might show up to last night’s show defines an exercise in futility. Rowdy frat brothers? Check. Kids who appeared to be about twelve? Yep…
See the slide show here. Machine Gun Blues, Ghost Buffalo, Mr. Pacman, the Nicotine Fits Saturday, August 9, 2008 Bluebird Theater The skies opened up early Friday evening, shattering the recent heat wave and bringing down what can only be described as a shit-ton of rain, flooding many of the…
Ran into Mike Herrera (no relation, as my colleague Michael Roberts would say) outside the Portugal. The Man show — which was unbelivably badass, BTW, especially openers Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground — at the Marquis, and he asked me if I knew of any drummers. Apparently, current timekeeper…
