Teen dream Justin Bieber is arguably the biggest pop star in the country and Simon Cowell isn’t doing American Idol. A lot’s changed since last year in the world of pop. Institutions fell, ideas were challenged, and the Black Eyed Peas didn’t have the number one song in the country…
From their humble yet impressive beginnings throwing parties in the basement of Wally Behnfield’s house for a couple hundred folks to putting on shows at Cervantes drawing around 800 people, the members of Mile High Sound Movement have worked hard to create something unique and artistic and are making a…
In the course of writing this week’s feature (“O Scum All Ye Faithful”), I spoke with Five Iron Frenzy singer and Scum co-founder Reese Roper. Roper was an icon for ’90s Christian punk rock, writing songs with a lyrical sophistication that referenced literature and world history. His songs were, at…
With two weeks left in the year, Billboard has posted it’s 2010 year-end charts. The top single of 2010? Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok.” Wouldn’t necessarily have been our guess, but fair enough — seems like one of a handful of 2010’s defining singles. The album race, however, has more shocking (and…
YTCracker rolls with a crew and movement known as “nerdcore,” the epicenter of all things sophisticated and geeky. The rapper — aka Bryce Case, who pronounces his name as “whitey cracker” — and his contemporaries, guys like MC Lars, MC Frontalot, MC Chris and Dual Core, aren’t your average pocket-protector…
Since its inception in 1993, Low (due at the Larimer Lounge this Saturday, December 18) from Duluth, Minnesota, has created a body of work characterized by a fragile intensity. Although often lumped in under the banner of “slowcore” with a group of bands of similar sonic leanings, like Red House…
Chicago house heavyweight and acid-jazz/downtempo darling Mark Farina has already made two trips to Denver this year — but for his third, a set at the Gothic Theatre this Friday night, he’s promoting the release of the seventh Mushroom Jazz album, just as laid-back and groovy as the previous six,…
Since we’re in the process of compiling picks for our annual Moovers and Shakers issue next week, we thought we’d put together a link guide of everything we’ve reviewed this year. Even though it shouldn’t be at this point, it’s always a bit staggering to reflect upon just how many…
In the decade since the Bad Plus has been together, the adventurous jazz trio has included cover songs on each of its recordings. Bassist Reid Anderson, pianist Ethan Iverson and drummer David King have deconstructed and reimagined cuts by everyone from the Pixies and Nirvana to Bowie and Blondie…
The last time we heard from will.i.am and friends, they were breaking every singles record known to man. In case you’ve purged your brain of the memory: In 2009, they had the number one song in the country from April 18 through October 17. “Boom Boom Pow” took roughly the…
Known to early local hip-hop heads as Shag One and, more recently, Strange Powers, Josh Powers doesn’t fit into the mold of a typical hip-hop cat. He embraces his individuality and honors his own unique global view of music and ideology through his creative endeavors — from more traditional hip-hop…
Making connections between Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Wonder Mike isn’t such a stretch for Adam Bradley. As one of the editors of The Anthology of Rap, a newly released collection from Yale University Press, as well as the author of 2009’s Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop, Bradley has…
The Grammy nominations are out. You’re welcome to see the list, but we don’t recommend reading much into it. The major awards are all more or less their respective industries sitting in a circle for a giant back-rub chain, but none is less indicative of what is actually happening than…
Dan Aid is the frontman of White Leather. At first glance, he looks like any other young guitarist, with his blonde wood Gibson with an armful of tattoos. Look a little closer, though, and you’ll notice that he’s not like any other guitarist. The 22-year-old is missing his picking hand…
The Posies (due tonight at The Gothic Theatre) had the good fortune — or bad, depending on your perspective — of being a non-grunge rock band in Seattle that came into its own during the era when, for far too many people, “alternative” became synonymous with “grunge.”…
No Age (due tonight at The Bluebird Theater) isn’t a band that has hit the mainstream yet, but it has enjoyed an unexpected rise to prominence as a noisy pop band, making art grounded in notion of doing things your own way — regardless of whether or not it’s met…
The most immediately noticeable thing about Kalyn Heffernan is that she’s in a wheelchair. What takes a little more time to absorb and appreciate is that the petite Irish woman in the Timbaland boots and paint-covered electric chair (she’s also a sometime graffiti artist) fashions herself as the real deal…
As the leader of Sepultura for over a decade, Max Cavalera helped put Brazil on the map. From the beginning, the outfit was clearly influenced by punk rock as much as it was by other metal bands, as evidenced by its socially conscious lyrics, its grassroots efforts to get its…
When we last spoke with Jared Piccone of Innperpartysystem back in 2009, the act had just come off its split with Island Records. There was rampant speculation amongst fans about the future of the band, but Piccone assured us that it was a step in the right direction for everybody…
It’s officially the Holiday season, which is why Poptimystic is finally ready to address the Christmas albums on the charts. Even though they’ve been there for at least three weeks. Two of Billboard’s top ten albums are seasonal, and Billboard, remember, is about a week and a half behind what…
Michael Franti — due at an in-store this evening at Independent Records from 4- 6 p.m. and headlining tomorrow night’s Harvest Ball at Broomfield’s 1STBANK Center — is known for his social activism through his music. He started off as a rapper, spitting aware (and angry) rhymes in his early…
Bear Hands first made waves in 2007 with the release of its first record Golden EP, bolstered by a nervy energy and politically pointed lyrics on songs like “Vietnam.” On the Brooklyn band’s latest release, Burning Bush Supper Club, Dylan Rau’s incisive lyrics are very much intact, but the band…
