When we wrote on this week’s cover that local slammer Suzi Q. Smith is “poetry in motion,” we weren’t kidding. In addition to owning one of the boldest voices in Denver’s prolific poetry scene, Smith and her poet peers have also breached the world of music. In local tribute band…
Both Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj used their Grammy performances on Sunday to premiere new singles from their forthcoming albums, Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection and Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, respectively. However, there was only one pop star that emerged the victor from the night’s new-music battle…
Happy Valentine’s Day! In this heart-shaped edition of That’s a Rap, we have a ton of local hip-hop goodness for you to fall in love with, including a DJ Chonz mixtape entirely dedicated to Valentine’s Day, new joints from Mane Rok, Iman S., Myke Charles, A. Fox and Boy Davey,…
Molly Zackary’s Growler Record Distro is changing the way we talk about music in Denver. More than just another storefront box of commerce, Growler is actively engaging the music community with new events and programs. “I have an agenda,” says Zackary. “I think artistic movements and scenes are created because…
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks (due tomorrow night at the Fox Theater in Boulder) formed after Malkmus’s influential band, Pavement, went on indefinite hiatus at the end of the ’90s. Initially, it was something of a solo project, but Malkmus ended up recruiting his friend John Moen, as well as…
The year 1972 saw the death of the hippies — or, at the very least, the decline of the movement from idealistic young go-getters playing with the fire of radical social change to an out-of-control inferno of hard drugs and failed dreams. Neil Young’s Harvest wasn’t the first to comment…
As anyone and their mother could have (and, ahem, did) predicted, it was Adele’s show at last night’s 54th Grammy Awards. The singer, who absolutely swept the awards, took home six Grammys — meaning she won in every category in which she was nominated, including the big three: Song of…
See also: Interview with Lauren Larson of Ume, sharing the bill this Sunday. Cursive (due this Sunday at Larimer Lounge with Ume) was one of the most popular and influential bands to have come out of the underground scene in Omaha, Nebraska, the same one that spawned Bright Eyes, the…
Harry Tuft, slated to be inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame this Sunday, February 12, opened the Denver Folklore Center in 1962 and started promoting concerts a few years later, bringing in Joan Baez to Denver for the first time in 1964 and later bringing her to Red…
From power pop to power ballads, rock anthems to rap staples, the nominees of the 54th Grammy Awards, which airs this Sunday night, sees no dearth of great music. There’s little doubt that it will be Adele’s night, but others, like Kanye West and Mumford & Sons, could win big…
Spatula (due this Friday, February 10, at the Climax Lounge) was a band you often heard about between 2004 and 2005, if you did not actually see it. The band was musical, but more to the point, it was always a ridiculous spectacle with simple but effective props, elaborate homemade…
See Also: Q&A with Ted Stevens of Cursive, sharing the bill this Sunday. At this point, much has been mythologized about the badassery of Ume (due at the Larimer Lounge this Sunday, February 12). The heavy-rocking Texas trio is fronted by an almost precociously petite blonde, but Lauren Larson has…
Formed from the ashes of the erstwhile Tulip Wars, Goer is a new local duo pushing an intriguing mix of electronic and psychedelic influences. Consisting of guitarist Sean Geisthardt and drummer Dan Barnett, the pair has just completed a four-track EP titled Invisible People that draws on the dreamy, somber…
In Flames (due this Friday, February 10, at Summit Music Hall) was one of the flagship bands of the Gothenburg scene in Sweden of the early 1990s that included death-metal luminaries like At the Gates and Dark Tranquility. Those bands injected the savagery of death metal with melodic elements that…
Sometimes an artist has to go deep into himself in order to produce a product built from pain, tragedy, triumph, motivation and creativity. Whenever this watershed moment happens for the greats who make and love music, the explosion is ground-shattering and usually changes the artists’ repertoire forever. Turner Jackson is…
Children of Bodom (due tomorrow night at the Gothic Theater) formed in 1993 in the Finnish town of Espoo. Lead guitarist and singer Alexi Laiho and drummer Jaska Raatikainen formed the band around the age of fourteen under the name Inearthed. By the time the outfit released its debut album,…
Forget the New York Giants and Eli Manning. The true winner of yesterday’s Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis was pop music. Heralded in by Queen Madonna herself, the halftime show was truly an entertainment spectacle unseen since Nipplegate ’04, when everybody’s favorite boy-bander, Justin Timberlake “accidentally” exposed Janet Jackson’s breast…
David Amram, who will perform at the Neal Cassady birthday tonight at the Mercury Cafe and tomorrow night at Dazzle, shared a close connection with Cassady, Jack Kerouac and other Beats, while also being a jazz musician who collaborated with Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Amram has also…
With Chuck Morris now back with Lotus, the group embarks upon a nation wide tour before buckling down for the festival season this summer. With bass in hand and a plethora of samples at his fingertips, Jesse Miller and the rest of Lotus are coming to the Fillmore Auditorium tomorrow…
Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin'” video, which premiered only hours ago on her YouTube channel, is proof perfect that she is still the Queen of Pop. The song itself isn’t particularly innovative. It’s instantaneous dance-pop infused with elements of a previous era, the 1980s, while still attempting to sound…
Achille Lauro’s new full-length release came partly from a sense of smugness. According to Matt Close, the band’s sample master, rhythm guitarist and lead singer, Flight or Fight came as the quartet recorded material for what was originally envisioned as the latest in a series of singles. When the group…
Arguably the biggest DJ ever to come out of Denver, Eric Galaviz aka Hipp-E made his bones promoting and deejaying at some of the earliest raves in Colorado. After leaving his indelible mark on our city, he moved to San Diego in the ’90s, where he became an influential part…
