UP UNTIL NOW at SONIC BLOSSOM @ CERVANTES’ | 10/12/12 When Up Until Now jumped into its contemporary take on Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” it became very apparent that the chemistry flowing between producer/drummer combo David Murphy of STS9 and Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig of Disco Biscuits…
CROCODILES @ BLUEBIRD THEATRE | 10/11/12 The Crocodiles’ performance at the Bluebird last night was a how-to guide for aspiring garage rockers everywhere from here to Siam. This was obvious partway through their infectious, deliciously saccharine “Endless Flowers,” as frontman Brandon Welchez clapped to his band’s doo-wop inflected pop. The…
Hola, muchachos! Welcome to the weekend! While the Great American Beer Fest and Sonic Blossom are probably the biggest draws this weekend in the Mile High City and the pickings are slightly slimmer than usual, there’s still a great deal of music to choose from. As always, we have all…
DJ ISHE @ HOT 107’S TRICK OR BASS at GOTHIC THEATRE | FRI, 10/12/12 DJ Ishe (aka Nate Lappegaard) has been making music longer than most of his fans have been alive. Nearing his two-decade mark as a DJ, Ishe is one of the underdog producers in Denver who’s helped…
If you’re reading this right now, you’re probably at work (if so, hang in there. It’s almost Friday) and this little tidbit of information isn’t going to do you much good — well, unless you have a Slingbox or that fancypants doohickey that lets you can control your DVR remotely…
NEW ORDER @ 1STBANK CENTER |10/10/12 If you’ve been a New Order fan for long enough, you’ve heard the song hundreds of times or more. Just the same, that repetition did nothing to dull the haunting yet soothing majesty of “Your Silent Face” when New Order played it pretty much…
ALANIS MORISSETTE @ PARAMOUNT THEATRE | 10/10/12 When Alanis Morissette first appeared at the Paramount last night, she didn’t walk so much as float onto the stage, as if delivered by an invisible chariot. With a backing band that seemed too exuberant to believe, the singer whipped her hair as…
“Half of our songs are about getting fucked up, and the other half are about existential crises that make you question the nature of reality,” declares Yawpers frontman Nate Cook. “So, those two themes run pretty prevalently through the music, or at least I would hope so.” Cook, a self-described…
Not to be confused with Penn Jillette’s mid-’90s rock band or Dee Snider’s character from Strangeland, taken from the Twisted Sister song of the same name, Denver’s Captain Howdy (due at Rhinoceropolis on Friday, October 12) is an ambient noise trio. Creating music suited to charting out the state of…
One of hip-hop’s most distinctive (read: shrill) voices, Danny Brown ascended to the upper echelon of indie hip-hop following the success of his 2011 album, XXX. With a strong dose of humor and a stronger dose of psychedelics, the record got love from critics and fans alike for its absolute…
Middle-school friends Brandon Summers and Benjamin Weikel started playing out as Helio Sequence in 1999. Layering synthesizers to hover around the latter’s expressive percussion and the former’s minimalist yet huge guitar sound, early records sounded as though Helio Sequence was an all-electronic band. The outfit’s effusive psychedelia was reminiscent of…
Making its third Denver appearance this year, Up Until Now, the livetronic offspring of Jay Murphy, is returning for Euphonic Conceptions’ semi-annual Sonic Blossom festival, with support from Jay’s brother David Murphy of Sound Tribe Sector 9 and Jon “The Barber” Gutwillig of the Disco Biscuits. Blending reggae, electronic, hip-hop…
It’s probably a safe bet that Mike Donovan never met Gram Parsons — or Arthur Lee or Donovan Leitch, for that matter. He may not even be inspired by their music. But Sic Alps has plenty of garage psych stirred into its songwriting cauldron, and the act’s latest album, Glyphs,…
“Crooked Finger” begins this album with a heavy tom strike ahead of a flood of guitar rock that sounds like it could easily have been the source of the band’s name. But rather than fill the space with noise, these guys let the songs breathe with a swinging cadence. It’s…
Although John Kite has been the featured pianist at the Brown Palace Hotel for the last 25 years, Anything Goes! marks his first solo album. Drawing from Tin Pan Alley-era songs and jazz standards, Kite kicks off the disc with a peppy take on a Cole Porter tune in which…
Using a syncopated motorik beat as a baseline, Dyad makes the kind of electronic music with a seeming leg in ’90s house that could well fill the synth-pop album that Aphex Twin never made. “Hyper Cube” is reminiscent of the more playful work of IDM artists like Boards of Canada…
Recorded from July 2011 to July 2012 on a laptop in basements around the country, Project Arcturus documents a year in Alex Pelissero’s life via the expansive voice of his folk-punk alter ego, Jack’s Smirking Revenge. Pelissero obsessively wrote and recorded one song for every week of the year. The…
DJ Ishe (aka Nate Lappegaard) has been making music longer than most of his fans have been alive. Nearing his two-decade mark as a DJ, Ishe is one of the underdog producers in Denver who’s helped propel the dubstep scene, and he’s done so by keeping true to himself and…
Guy Gerber does things his own way. When he released a Fabric album earlier this year, instead of mixing popular or up-and-coming tunes from other artists, he created sixteen of his own tracks to weave into a set. The Israel native was on his country’s national under-sixteen soccer team as…
ROCKIE FRESH @ MARQUIS THEATER | 10/9/12 Rockie Fresh, Maybach Music Group’s newest member, took the stage at the Marquis Theater last night wearing all black and several gold chains before rocking the small crowd. His energy was upbeat after spending almost a month up in the western slope of…
AIMEE MANN @ OGDEN THEATRE | 10/9/12 With an interesting mix of middle aged ‘Til Tuesday fans reliving their high school heartaches, along with twenty-something feminist-lit majors swaying with their eyes closed, Aimee Mann delivered a refreshing dose of singer/songwriter warmth to the Ogden Theatre last night. Relying heavily on…
KENDRICK LAMAR @ OGDEN THEATRE | 10/8/12 The stage was set by an erupting smoke machine, thundering bass and a massive light spectacle, all in preparation for a dynamic, five-foot, six-inch MC in old-school high socks and a voice that seems too powerful to come from such a little body…
