Aaron Freeman incorporates a lot of personal history when he takes on the musical alter-ego role of Gene Ween. For nearly thirty years, Freeman and Mickey Melchionda (aka Dean Ween) have been the tongue-in-cheek duo behind Ween, a band that’s evolved from the abstract musical experiments of 1991’s The Pod…
Whichever one of you asked for a new Radiohead song for Christmas, thank you. To be honest, you should have been a bit more specific, but we at Backbeat are counting our blessings regardless. According to the epic Brit rockers’ obsessive fansite, Atease.com, the long-lost track you are about to…
Michael Buble put out a killer Christmas record, and it could not have come at a better time. While the charts are currently flooded with dance-pop beats, synthesizers-laden hooks and auto-tuned vocals, Buble releases an album of Christmas standards — an album so strong Bing Crosby himself could have it…
With major comebacks and massive hits, 2011 was the year of the women, from Beyoncé to Miley Cyrus. Without singers like Adele, we wouldn’t have songs to cry along with, and without Katy Perry, we wouldn’t have any songs to hum at our nine-to-five. So what, exactly, were the biggest…
No matter how hard he tried, David Bowie just couldn’t fit into the ’60s. From having to abandon his birth-name (Davy Jones) to the pop-darling Monkees singer, to staring in Ice Cream commercials in order to finance his tanking music career, fame continually eluded young Bowie. “I must have had…
In the hierarchy of things that happened in the pop metal world after Nirvana’s Nevermind was released, this one has to rank pretty high in the pantheon, at least locally. The year was 1993: The music industry was booming, hair metal was fading and a handful of Denver rock enthusiasts…
The members of Speedwolf (due tonight at the Marquis Theater) specialize in brand of no frills metal in the vein of Motorhead and Venom, played with the playful ferocity of a hardcore band. The guys are not necessarily carrying the torch for that older style of heavy music as much…
Two key figures in the evolution of Denver’s constantly changing dance-music scene, Little Mike and Crazy Larry are coming home for the holidays — and for the party “Homecoming Queenz,” which they co-headline Saturday at 2200. Little Mike (known to his mother and perhaps a few others as Mike Chapman)…
When he branched out on his own after more than two decades of working with Wynton Marsalis — both in his septet and as part of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — alto sax player Wessell “Warmdaddy” Anderson had more time to work with his own group as well…
Happy humpday! Here’s some piping hot, pristine, radio-ready pop for you, hot off the presses and straight out of the Mile High City. The band is called Places, and the tune is titled “Fire,” from the group’s brand-new album, No More Wasted Days. We’ve been enamored with this act for…
For a pop star whose boobs were their own punchline on a previous appearance of Saturday Night Live, Katy Perry fell flat on Saturday. Instead of creating any memorable new characters — a la Justin Timberlake — the writers of SNL had Perry showcasing her singing talents instead of her…
Guns N’ Roses (due Sunday, December 11 at 1STBANK Center) is a household name at this point and hardly needs an introduction. During the late 1980s, Guns proved that you could come out of L.A. and not have songs that were just thinly disguised paeans to sexual conquest. Guns didn’t…
Converge (due tonight at the Marquis Theater with Git Some and Glass Hits) is one of the most influential of the what some might call post-hardcore or metalcore acts still going. Formed in the early ’90s in Salem, Massachusetts, Converge fused a musical precision with the articulation of a cathartic…
“Marry The Night,” Lady Gaga’s new video has racked up eleven million views and counting since debuting this past Friday. The most surprising part isn’t how many views the clip has registered as much as the fact that that many people are willing to watch a fourteen-minute music video in…
ohGr (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater with Left Spine Down and Orbit Service) is a project involving Mark Walk and Ogre (aka Kevin Ogilvie), the legendary frontman from influential and pioneering electronic band Skinny Puppy. During the ’80s and ’90s, Skinny Puppy created one of the templates many industrial…
With dubstep’s surging (and some might say waning) popularity, it’s not surprising to hear explosive dubstep breakdowns bleeding into pop. Turn on Top 40 radio today, and there’s a great chance you’ll hear dubstep elements borrowed in one form or another to create a hook, verse, chorus or bridge. Below…
Chuck Ragan (due at the Ogden Theatre with Social Distortion tonight and tomorrow night) first made his mark as the frontman of Hot Water Music, one of the more highly influential punk acts to emerge in the ’90s. Toward the middle part of the last decade when that band went…
“Party people! Party People! Can y’all get funky?” You already know what it is as soon as the first twinkling bells, crowd screams and intergalactic beat drops for Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force’s cult hit, “Planet Rock.” Get your ass to the nearest dance floor and do an old school…
Grammy nominations for 2012 were announced last night during the Grammys Nomination Concert — which was, oddly, just that: a concert, not a nominations show. Nominations in four major categories were announced, plus performances by major players in mainstream music like Lady Gaga, who performed twice (once for “Marry The…
Local rappers have been hard at work this week, releasing videos and songs about everything from love and unity to the military industrial complex and drunken nights — and we’ve even got a children’s choir! Page down for fresh hip-hop from Pries, Lokon with Spellbinder, Turner Jackson, Cavem Moetavation and…
Beats Antique (due Saturday, December 3, at the Fillmore Auditorium), a trio made up of producer and show-stealing belly dancer Zoe Jakes and a pair of classically trained multi-instrumentalists, David Satori and Tommy Cappel, has crafted a sound that has roots in dubstep, hip-hop, indie rock and even Middle Eastern…
Have you noticed the influx of male R&B singers these days, particularly in the Mile High City? Adam Duncan, who just joined the A&M/Octone Records roster, is just one of many cats putting it down in Denver these days. Jon Shockness (Air Dubai), J.Carey, Devan Blake Jones, BMore and B.Blacc…
