Last week in Poptimystic, we talked about Taylor Swift and her unparalleled ability to sell albums in the current music industry wasteland. But the album is not what it once was, and the ability to sell singles may actually be a better litmus test of an artist’s influence. It remains…
Small Black’s debut EP definitely harks back to those great synth-pop songs of the early ’80s with its vintage sound, but with a kind of lo-fi production more in line with a later era in music. The strong songwriting and a keen sense of pacing and melody continued into the…
The best is yet to come for Kal Cahoone. Which is crazy, because her musical resume is already quite impressive. She began writing songs while living in Chile. There, she collaborated with composer Christian Basso (one of their songs appears in the film Dot The I). When she came back…
We first got a glimpse of the upcoming Warlock Pinchers film a few months ago. At the time, we weren’t entirely certain when it would arrive. Now we know: Just in time for the Warlock Pinchers New Year’s Eve show at the Gothic Theatre, Eyeosaur Productions is slated to release…
Savoy, one of the brighter stars to emerge from the Boulder scene in a while, moved to New York a few months ago. The band’s sound, which pairs a live drummer with tightly-knit electronica, found a devout audience here, and by the time the group left, it was regularly selling…
The Noid isn’t just that pesky pizza-chilling character from old Domino’s commercials from the ’80s. It’s a region of England from which the neo-soul garage-rock band known as the Heavy hails. Fronted by the charismatic Kelvin Swaby, the band came together in its current form as a quartet when Swaby…
In this week’s issue, the Rough Mixes entry focusing on Eolian, the progressive-rock project led by Ian O’Dougherty (Uphollow, Ian Cooke, TaunTaun) and featuring occasional Backbeat contributor Sean Merrell (tintin, Ian Cooke, A Shoreline Dream) and Adam Edwards (A Shoreline Dream), barely scratched the surface of our recent conversation with…
Ryan Hyde doesn’t come off as nervous, worried or scared. In contrast to his chosen stage name, Anxious, the MC actually seems pretty confident. So much so, in fact, that he says he will battle anybody, anytime — and win. So far, he has the record to prove it. He’s…
Greg Laswell doesn’t have instant name recognition quite yet, but if you watch certain popular television shows like Grey’s Anatomy, True Blood, Friday Night Lights and Dollhouse, you’ve probably heard his music. Laswell came up in the independent music scene in San Diego and Los Angeles and played in the…
As co-creator of the children’s television show Yo Gabba Gabba!, Christian Jacobs has a simple agenda: Create entertainment that engages both parents and their kids through really awesome music. The show, which brings people-sized puppets together with dozens of guests, including Leslie Hall, MGMT, and of Montreal, blends together creativity…
Lil Wayne sold a million copies of Tha Carter III in one week back in June of 2008. It’s a nearly impossible benchmark in an era of dwindling album sales. And the day Lil Wayne was released from prison, Taylor Swift matched his feat. Actually, she surpassed it. Tha Carter…
In recent years, with bands ransacking the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s for musical ideas and sounds, it’s becoming increasingly easy to dismiss many musicians as being little more than throwbacks mimicking their artistic ancestors. But some of those songwriters aren’t just inspired by older music; they explore the possibilities inherent…
Many people in Denver may not know Nathan Reid by name. Just the same, over the course of his career, which spans three decades, he’s had the chance to work with a host of prominent acts, from Ghostface to Damien and Stephen Marley. Currently operating out of Mercury Sauce, his…
While they were still living in their hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor first played in a band together called Little Red Rocket before moving on to Athens, Georgia, where they formed another outfit called Azure Ray, and then eventually settling for a time in Omaha, Nebraska…
Vince Herman is going to be insanely busy this weekend, between playing with Great American Taxi alongside Drew Emmitt Band in support of troubadour Todd Snider at the Gothic tonight, and then doubling it up tomorrow night by playing as both the opening act with Taxi and the headliner with…
Remember Furbies? The Thermals do, and as the band crosses the country on tour for its latest album, Personal Life, they’ve developed a penchant for the fuzzy talking beings with batteries that never die. Using Twitter as a conduit to their fans — and request Furbies (and weed) — the…
For nearly thirty years, Mickey Melchiondo’s been making music under a moniker. As Dean Ween, one of the eponymous creative forces behind Ween, Melchiondo’s carved out an ambitious musical niche since founding the band with Aaron Freeman – aka Gene Ween – in the 1980s. In advance of Ween’s Halloween…
BrikAbrak, the vinyl-slinging, Al Green- and Old Dirty Bastard-mixing DJ, can most often be found rocking a party to high heaven or backing up one of Denver’s premier MCs on any given night. On the daily, though, you can find him at 3237 East Colfax Avenue, watching dough rise and…
Considered one of the “big four” of the thrash metal era, Anthrax (see our preview here) put New York on the map with its inventive take on infusing metal with a punk rock spirit. When singer Joey Belladonna joined in time to record 1985’s Spreading the Disease, that band had…
Last year, PS I Love You, from the university town of Kingston, Ontario, made some waves beyond its immediate environs with the release of a split 7-inch with Diamond Rings. The energy and spiky sound of the duo’s songs are at times reminiscent of Hüsker Dü and Pavement. Singer and…
Chrissie Hynde is not one to romanticize the past, but she’s done plenty that almost anyone else who has done even a tenth as much would be right to feel proud about. In the mid-’70s, Hynde moved from her home town of Akron, Ohio, to London, England, and landed in…
This past Saturday night at Beta, during Red Bull’s Thre3Style competition, celebrity judges ?uestlove and Jazzy Jeff closed the night out with a live drum and DJ peformance. Before the competition kicked off and before ?uestlove and Jazzy Jeff set the place on fire with their impressive finale, the pair…
