Music

For a buzz band, Blitzen Trapper is extremely modest. Instead of trying to overwhelm listeners with their awesomeness, singer-songwriter Eric Earley and crew create casually adventurous tracks that draw from American music in ways that seem both familiar and fresh. “Sleepy Time in the Western World” opens the album with…

No one really knows what to do with CSS. Not Sub Pop, not Apple, and certainly not proponents of, uh, “nu-rave.” I guess we’re supposed to dance, guiltily. “Let’s Reggae All Night” has a nice locked-in squelch to it, but I wish the line I heard as “Let’s break the…

Lindsey Buckingham is the creative force behind Fleetwood Mac, a group that remains a big concert draw and a steady seller when it comes to albums new and old. Indeed, Rumours, released in 1977, is among the most popular long-players ever released, with worldwide sales in excess of thirty million…

Alejandro Escovedo has made a career out of taking chances. He started in punk with the Nuns, joined cowpunks Rank & File, and formed the country-oriented True Believers with his brothers before going solo. Even after being diagnosed with hepatitis C, Escovedo’s rock-and-roll lifestyle helped define his music. That is,…

John Digweed will always hold a special place in my heart. It was Digweed who catalyzed my transformation from an electronic-music dilettante to a full-blown dance-scene aficionado, by way of his first Global Underground mix and seeing him at one of the first half-dozen raves I attended. It was his…

The Clash, Live at Shea Stadium (Legacy Recordings). Not many groups can best the Who. Yet that is exactly what happened when the Clash opened for the group in 1993. Wielding socially relevant songs like “The Hammer of Thor,” the band turns in a protesting performance that has not been…

The Chain Gang of 1974, who’s getting ready to embark on a massive two-month long tour supporting 3OH!3, debuted its new video for “We At the Disco.” The retro-leaning clip features departing drummer Adam Halferty and a cardboard robot toting around a vintage jambox interspersed with full on Missy Elliott…

Fresh off of an energetic performance at Monolith this past weekend, the Swayback dudes sent over some more photos of their time in LA with Andy Johns, which we’ve posted after the jump. And if you’ll be anywhere near the radio in the next hour or so, be sure to…

This past Monday, Dan Craig joined the ranks of Reed Foehl, the Trampolines, Redline Defiance, Angie Stevens and a handful of other local acts who’ve had their music licensed to various shows on the small screen. Craig’s song, “Further to Fall” appeared on the latest episode of One Tree Hill…

Lindsey Buckingham in 1992. Lindsey Buckingham, the once and future Fleetwood Mac frontman and solo artist par excellence, gets the profile treatment in the September 18 edition of Westword prior to his September 24 appearance at the Ellie Caulkin Opera House — and he’s also the subject of an absorbing…

Four years after forming, Ten Cent Redemption has come to a rest. According to frontman Rhett Lee, who formed the band shortly after the demise of Carolyn’s Mother, his previous outfit, Ten Cent had simply run its course. “I just haven’t been feeling it, and we’ve become so busy with…

Yellow Elephants, Adventure, Future Islands, Ssion and Pictureplane Sunday, September 14, 2008 Rhinoceropolis Better Than: Just another dance party. Of all the dance parties disguised as a show at Rhinoceropolis, this one may have been the best. Things got started off with the experimental act Yellow Elephants from Denver. The…

Tokyo Police Club started a solid run on the main stage. (Photo by Chad Fahnestock). And it’s gone. Just like that, the gale-force winds of indie rock have come and gone, whipping Red Rocks into a frenzy all day Saturday and Sunday. Missed it? Can’t remember it? Read our Day…

Monolith has come and come and gone, like a ship in the night, if that ship was wearing really skinny jeans and neon sunglasses. For dozens of photos from both days, cruise to the slide show page on westword.com. And for more photos and reviews, captured on the scene by…

Day 1 of Monolith is gone, a distant, hazy memory. Maybe you didn’t go; maybe you just don’t remember what happened. Either way, we’ve got you covered with two slide shows: The bands, and the fans. And stay tuned all day for live reviews and photos of Day 2, which…

Midnight has finally come. For 11 hours straight on Saturday, Backbeat Online had Red Rocks surrounded, an army of writers, photographers, and other assorted hooligans braving a piss-reeking media tent to bring you live coverage of Monolith Festival. Day 1 of the fest starred Devotchka, Vampire Weekend … pretty much…

LOCALS ONLY For the last year and a half, Infinite Mindz has been on a tear locally. Since the release of its debut album, Monkey Rebellion Musik, last year, the group has been in demand for shows, as well as being nominated in the Best Hip-Hop Group category at this…

Richie Hawtin September 11, 2008 Beta Better than: anything else you can do with your body besides sex. There are no words. Reviewing a DJ performance is difficult, at best. There aren’t exactly “songs” to point out, and even if I could catalog every track played, it wouldn’t mean anything…

Portugal. The Man was born in Alaska, but it might as well be a Denver band, with how often it seems like the cats come through here, how much we’ve embraced them and how bro’d down they are with locals like the Photo Atlas, whom they toured with last year…