How Skylab XXI Is Still Finding Ways to Push the Dance Music Envelope

Skylab 2015 will take place September 18 and Saturday September 19 at the 1STBANK Center. One of the longest, continuously running electronic dance music festivals in the country, Skylab has reflected the current state of the scene since its 1994 debut. In past years, legendary artists such as Rabbit In…

Yoni Wolf on Early Alternative Hip-Hop, Clouddead and Going Solo

Yoni Wolf will headline the Impose Stage at Goldrush Music Festival this Saturday, September 19, at Savoy. Wolf has been a leading figure of alternative/avant-garde hip-hop over the last fifteen years, and he is one of the founders of the respected Anticon imprint. Wolf grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and…

Snoop Dogg Loves Colorado and the Cannabis Tax Holiday

The Doggfather himself made a public service announcement wishing everyone in Colorado a happy pot tax holiday. The video was sponsored by Merry Jane media. Mostly celebrating the money rolling into the state, Snoop also reminds youngins’ that recreational marijuana is for those 21 and older. Here’s exactly what he…

The Importance of Actual Diversity in Music-Festival Lineups

I’ve spent the last few years arguing that the ’90s were one of the best eras of popular music for women, because as musicians and fans, we seemingly had the same access to mainstream visibility as the men who have always dominated the music industry. As an early teen in…

How Ian Cooke Created the Year’s Most Ambitious Denver Album

Ian Cooke pauses and chuckles when asked where his musical career might be right now if he had never met friend and longtime collaborator Ian O’Dougherty. “I think I may have gone to California and tried to score films,” he guesses. “Singing and songwriting was always something I was planning…

Modern Goon Took the Long Road to a Truly Unique Sound

Categorizing music is inevitable, even necessary in some cases, but the desire to describe a band using predetermined genres sometimes has the effect of creating more questions than answers. Such is the case with Modern Goon, a three-piece Denver band that includes two high-school English teachers and members of now-defunct…

Colorado Missed Connections: Summer Concert Edition

We’ve all been there. Maybe you’re at a sweaty club digging the close, hot vibe when your eyes meet for just a split second. Then it happens again. And again. But you don’t act on your instincts. Or you could be outside under that big, blue sky at Red Rocks,…

The Night Goth Music Came to Longmont’s Dickens Opera House

Driving into Longmont from Denver on Highway 119, you will see a vast, seemingly abandoned factory complex that looks like it hasn’t been used in decades. This sight wasn’t so uncommon in Denver at the turn of the century, but now, it’s largely unheard of. The city is changing, and…

Ben Harper on Albums on the Hill and Playing in Colorado

What’s left to be said about Ben Harper, the genre-blending, Grammy-winning, rock and blues monstrosity? Not a lot apparently. Despite playing what is bound to be a career-high show at Red Rocks on Tuesday Harper was less than verbose in our pre-show interview. Still, he managed to namedrop a slew…

The Larimer Block Party Lineup: Del the Funky Homosapien and More

Denver is getting another music festival: The Larimer Block Party, which will shut down the 2700 block of Larimer Street on Saturday, September 26. Headliners include Del The Funky Homosapien, BADBADNOTGOOD, Joywave and Sango (view the full lineup below), all playing on an outdoor stage in the street. The surrounding…

Colleen Green Defies Musical Movements at Dryer Plug Studios

In another era, let’s say twenty years ago, an artist like Colleen Green would have been a mainstream star, at least in the alternative rock world. In fact, her music is a little reminiscent Veruca Salt. Even today, in a time when the music industry is in flux, Green still…

The Unlikely Return of Goth Promoter Joshywa Schrader

Concert promoter and DJ Joshywa Schrader was one of the mainstays of the Denver and Boulder goth scene in the 1990s and 2000s, though he hasn’t organized any shows for the past four years. But when Schrader was given the opportunity recently to book a show with Australian band Angelspit…

Roddy Bottum of Faith No More: “Bigotry Is Chickenshit.”

Tonight — September 8 — legendary experimental rock band Faith No More brings the weird and the wonderful to Red Rocks with opener Gogol Bordello. FNM started in 1981, shortly after high-school friends Roddy Bottum and Billy Gould moved to San Francisco, where Bottum attended San Francisco State University as…