It was a great summer for independent hip-hop in Denver and beyond, with more venues opening their doors to the genre, and creativity in the rap world reaching new highs. Riding those highs, Kaipran Promotions will present a show celebrating independent performers called “Legends in the Making” on December 5…
The Fluid is the focus of High Plains Underground Archive’s second installment on Denver music reunion shows. To start at the beginning: Matt Bischoff and Ricky Kulwicki had been members of the Aurora, Colorado-based Frantix, a great punk band with irreverent humor and incredible energy, which became known for its classic single in…
Gravy is Thanksgiving culinary staple, a condiment loved for its rich, smooth, flavor. And shouldn’t your holiday soundtrack be as mellow and funky as the gravy on your potatoes? We’ve got you covered. Compiled for your listening pleasure, we present ten soul-jazz morsels that combine soulful blues inflections and a…
If anyone could embody the nickname “Zen Cowboy,” it was country-folk singer-songwriter and master fingerstyle guitarist Chuck Pyle, whose songs have been covered by John Denver, Chris LeDoux, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Suzy Bogguss. Pyle died on November 6, at the age of seventy, in Palmer Lake. “Chuck…
Since the late ’90s, Fuck the Facts has been a force to be reckoned with in the worlds of both grindcore and metal. The French Canadian crossover band have undergone a few lineup changes, hiatuses, and other challenges, but they have returned stronger, making more music and hitting the road…
The current musical era is not short on nostalgia and reunion shows; bands performing classic albums in their entirety have become commonplace for tours and for the Pitchfork Music Festival. In addition to the “classic rock” nostalgia circuit, many bands who had their heyday in the 50s-70s seem to embark…
In this week’s cover story, “Rhymes to Die For,” we gave you the story of Rachel Aboytes, a local rap artist who performed under the stage name La Baby Smiley. In March of this year, Aboytes was murdered in a drive-by shooting in east Denver. Since then, her fame has…
Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Dave Preston recently released his first ambient album in five years. The luminously evocative In These Storms is Preston’s third ambient release, following 2008’s Be and 2010’s Soundtrack for Motion. Rather than the synth or beat-driven sounds often associated with the ambient style, Preston’s music features organic sounds…
On the first weekend of November, 2015, The Globe opened for business in the former home of Sidewinder, a longtime Globeville dive bar that later enjoyed a short run as a cozy little bar and music venue, after it was bought in 2012 and managed by Fernando “Fez” Guzman’s family…
Dreadnought, the local psychedelic, progressive-doom band, defies many stereotypes about what metal is and can be. The act is half-male and half-female, and its members take on non-traditional roles. Kelly Schilling plays guitar and does harsh and clean vocals; Lauren Vieira plays keyboards and does clean vocals; Jordan Clancy plays drums…
Music is a tough subject for writers of fiction. Because unless an author has actually lived the life of a musician or someone in the music business, writing with anything approaching legitimacy is nearly impossible. Even people who know the subject inside and out face myriad problems, the first of…
Growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, rapper/producer Matt Brandyberry might not have made music his life’s passion if he hadn’t had to find something to do in a small city ninety minutes from Philadelphia. But it took a while to find his sound. Brandyberry wasn’t allowed to listen to anything but Christian…
In the two decades since East High grad Shane Endsley left the University of Colorado to attend the Eastman School of Music, the trumpeter went on to co-found the Grammy-nominated group Kneebody; tour with Ani DiFranco; perform with forward-thinking jazz players like Steve Coleman, Ravi Coltrane and David Murray; and…
Veteran music journalist and Denver-based author Steve Knopper, who will speak tonight at the Boulder Book Store, recently released his latest book MJ: The Genius of Michael Jackson through Simon and Schuster. The current music-business editor at Rolling Stone, Knopper is a Colorado native and worked for several daily newspapers…
Noise rock/no wave band CP-208 split last month. While that development may not be big news to anyone who didn’t like the band (or didn’t even know about it), the dissolution quietly marked the end of a certain era of underground music in Denver — because the band’s membership and…
Prepare to have your brain rearranged by the soul-crushing doom of Windhand, Monolord and Danava, all playing at the Bluebird on November 4. This tour has been getting a lot of attention because of the unusual lineup: Windhand is signed to Relapse Records, and instead of playing with other bands from…
Tommie Phillips has one foot in the past and the other securely in the future. Having lived through the psychedelic sounds of the ’60s, the progressive rock of the ’70s, the revival of both in the ’90s and the death of numerous music formats and their subsequent resurrections, he’s seen…
There are a lot of places where you can hear live music in Denver, but there was only one spot where you could hear everything from soul to funk to death metal at just about any hour, day and night: the practice space at 2200 Larimer Street. Built in 1904,…
One of the sounds that has long been part of the Colorado music scene is lush, atmospheric rock. Even though Colorado boasts more than 300 days of sunshine each year, many significant Colorado artists have an indisputable attraction to music that, if not exactly dark, suggests an inward expansiveness and…
The ’90s in Denver, as in much of the rest of the world, was a time of great creativity in music — and if not for the lack of a spotlight directed at the Mile High City, some of the local talent probably would have enjoyed national as well as…
My daughter, Sidney, is somewhat of a punk-rock connoisseur, at least for a Boulderite, and especially for a five-year-old. Sure, she’s obsessed with Cinderella (the princess, not the band) and digs Frozen, but “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill is near the top of Sidney’s favorite songs. Plus, when she heard…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. This week he profiles Lost Lake Lounge. Visit Karl Christian Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work. …
