A few weeks ago, we published a list of “The Ten Finest Tribute Bands in Colorado,” and this is a sequel of sorts. Every city needs its cover bands, those groups that play out-of-the-way bars on a Thursday night, or weddings and corporate events, giving the audience exactly what they want…
This weekend, Drake (aka the Canadian Crooner, the Wonder From Up Yonder, the Rihanna Whisperer) is taking over the Pepsi Center, and what better way to honor his arrival than by addressing the age-old question: Is Drake emo? Emo, of course, is a label ascribed to pop-punk bands who wax…
On September 13, Colorado singer-songwriter Silent Bear found himself singing a new song to a group of Dakota Pipeline protesters in front of the Boulder County Courthouse. “I ain’t gonna work on Kelcy’s pipeline no more,” the song begins. “They’re protectors of the water, they’re protectors of the land, they’re…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
Clarinetist Ben Goldberg, a Denver native who has been a longtime Bay Area resident, has worked in the avant-garde world heavies like John Zorn, Nels Cline and Myra Melford. He also formed the New Klezmer Trio in 1992, was part of the acoustic chamber group Tin Hat and has led…
Wheelchair Sports Camp is finally releasing its debut full-length album No Big Deal. The the album is the band’s first may come as a surprise, since WSC has long been one of the most highly regarded acts in Denver. Until now, the group’s releases have been self-recorded EPs. Wheelchair’s founder and…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
Jux County is releasing its first album since 2001’s Junk Country. The new collection of songs, titled Coral, represents the group’s latest phase since it reconvened in 2014, after years of on-and-mostly-off-again live shows as its members focused on projects and life outside the band. Primary songwriter, guitarist and singer…
Donovan Leitch, who’s gone by his first name only for more than five decades, wrote and recorded hit songs like “Mellow Yellow” and “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” yet his influence as a songwriter and musician reaches beyond his own music. He inspired David Bowie, Marc Bolan and a number of other…
It’s official: Denver-based hip-hop artist Trev Rich has been signed to Ca$h Money Records. The Source has confirmed that Birdman signed the Colorado rising star a few weeks ago, a solid next step for Rich after the success of his 2016 album Rain in the Summer. Being a part of…
Donny McCaslin felt a little shy when he first met David Bowie during a rehearsal of the latter’s “Sue (or in a Season of Crime),” which would be released as a limited-edition single and on Bowie’s 2014 compilation album, Nothing Has Changed. The New York-based jazz saxophonist leads his own…
The music industry and how music is disseminated these days is quite different than when Echo & the Bunnymen released significant albums like Porcupine and Ocean Rain in the 1980s. Guitarist Will Sergeant says that everything’s changed; the whole ballpark has changed. That’s why the band, which released its twelfth…
Grande Orquesta Navarre came together in the summer of 2015 when Evan Orman, Sara Parkinson, Susan Cahill and Tom Hagerman decided to ditch the genre confines of their former tango outfit Exstasis for a more open-format band. Drawing on their mutual interest and backgrounds in classical music, jazz, rock, pop…
Mama, we’re not in Muskogee anymore. Country legend Merle Haggard is throwing his hat into the marijuana market from beyond the grave. Haggard died on April 6, 2016, on what would have been his 79th birthday. Before his death, however, he had joined forces with the Colorado Weed Co. in 2015…
The September 13, 2016 edition of NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross features an interview with comic and “Roastmaster General” Jeff Ross who produces and hosts Comedy Central’s celebrity roasts and others. During a line of questioning about changing audiences in an age of trigger warnings, Ross insists that more people want to…
Editor’s note: Twenty years ago today, influential hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur died in Las Vegas after being shot six days earlier. In his new book, Original Gangstas: The Untold Story of Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Tupac Shakur, and the Birth of West Coast Rap (out today with Hachette Books), former music…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
The Velveteers started in Boulder in September 2014 when frontwoman and songwriter Demi Demitro started playing guitar. Demitro had been singing and making up songs from a very young age and eventually starting some kind of band seemed inevitable. “My parents have videos of us on road trips and I’d…
Tribute bands. Love them or loathe them, they’ve been big business for years now, and as nostalgia tightens its grip on music fans, they’ll likely go on and thrive. People love going out, paying $5 or so for a ticket, and catching a band playing faithful versions of songs they…
In the 1980s and ’90s, the Denver band Ironwood Rain “turned some heads,” according to former frontman Scotte Burns. He talks about his years of making music without remorse, shedding no tears when describing the fact that music is no longer a part of his life. For Scotte, navigating downtown has…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
The great thing about writing about music for a publication like Westword is you never really know what’s going to land itself on your task list from one day to the next. Never is that more true that right now because, just as we were winding down in preparation for…
