Maria “Masha” Alyokhina and Alexandra “Sasha” Bogino, members of Pussy Riot, brought great humor, poise and warmth to the conversation and Q&A held at the Oriental Theater last night, Monday, November 14, 2016. Hosts Ru Johnson and Bree Davies (former and current Westword contributors) facilitated a lively and engaging presentation.
As the line for the sold-out, highly anticipated “Evening with Morrissey” at the Boulder Theater snaked around the block, one could not help but notice an ambulance parked directly in front of the entrance.
Throughout the election cycle, I hungered for this sort of experience of validation in the political realm. Exhausted after a long day, I’ve thought, I’m so tired I just want to watch Samantha Bee talk shit about Donald Trump.
Over the past two decades, Italiano and his wife, Pam, have hosted more than ninety nationally and internationally touring rock acts at FashioNation, a Denver clothing and shoe boutique that they’ve co-owned and run together since 1987.
When Lukas Graham released the single “7 Years” in the summer of 2015, it expected the song would hit big only among northern European audiences, the band’s main supporters. But by fall, the song had gone viral and made the Danish band international pop stars.
Sting, who teamed up with Peter Gabriel at the Pepsi Center last July, returns to the area but at the much more intimate Fillmore Auditorium on Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14. The tour is in support of the singer and bassist’s brand new album, 57th & 9th, and features his longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Rufus Miller.
Monica Birkenes, known as Mr Little Jeans, came into musicianship in a way that many of us fantasize about: She ran into Beyoncé’s entourage, expressed her interest in making music, was taken gracefully into the studio where she laid down some poignant tracks and began her career as a musician. Her latest EP, Fevers, was released late September, and now Birkenese is making her way around the country with her latest tour. She spoke to Westword from the road somewhere in Nebraska to talk about touring, her upcoming full-length album and her creative process post-Beyoncé.
The memorial event for musician Tyler Marchant Despres, who died on November 1, 2016, was held Saturday afternoon at Larimer Lounge. It began with speakers who talked about Despres’s life and his impact on them and the world around him. Speakers included relatives and friends like Jonathan Bitz, who booked the Meadowlark during Despres’s tenure co-running the open-mic night with Maria Kohler and others. That open-mic night fostered a section of Denver’s underground music scene that allowed for a wide spectrum of musicians to have an accepting place to try out new material and develop their art.
Morrissey, who once tried to start a band in Arvada, headlines the Boulder Theater on Monday, November 14, while Amanda Palmer is at the same venue on Thursday, November 17. Also tonight, there’s a conversation and Q&A with Pussy Riot’s Maria Alyokhina (Masha) and Alexandra Bogino (Sasha) at the Oriental Theater, Lucius is at the Gothic Theatre and later in the week it’s the Lukas Graham at the Fillmore, the Sounds at the Summit Music Hall and Anderson, Rabin & Wakeman at the Paramount Theatre. See our full list of picks below.
Westword Music is keeping an eye on events that respond directly to the recent election, whether these are music-related protests or gatherings, benefit concerts or workshops. Please send tips and event info to editorial@westword.com.Below are a couple of events that involve local artists. We will be updating this post with more information as we receive it.
As music journalists, we often turn to songs for catharsis and for direction, so we compiled a list of songs that we hope readers might find useful in these times. You’ll find punk, hip-hop, soul, pop and more represented in these songs. Some of them are overtly political, some are not. The music itself can cause discomfort, but if speaking truth to power requires driving bass lines and the itch to get out of our seats, and if urgent lyrics and catchy melodies can push us forward into progress and peace…well, then crank it up.
This Saturday at Cameron Church, avant-garde guitarist Neil Haverstick is holding Microstock 11 wherein he and Ned Evett, an associate of Joe Satriani, will demonstrate their own microtonal compositions in individual sets. Microtonality or microtonal music has been around since humans started making music. Generally speaking, a microtonal music is that which contains tiny intervals between notes, making it different from the twelve tone equal temperament scales we hear in a lot of popular or even classical music. Often the concept is associated with non-Western music, but it has long been a part of gospel, blues and jazz where the inflection and manipulation of standard use of the strings is often employed with bends and pulling on strings with one hand as they are struck with a pick in the other.
Bob Dylan said of Leonard Cohen, who passed away yesterday, November 10, 2016, at the age of 82, is “very much a descendant of Irving Berlin,” in that both are “incredibly crafty. Leonard particularly uses chord progressions that seem classical in shape. He is a much more savvy musician than you’d think.” The many, many covers of Cohen songs, by artists both expected and unorthodox, prove his latter observations to be true. But like Dylan’s body of work, Cohen’s compositions have been transformed in the hands of other people, and functioned as malleable source material ripe for interpretation and illumination.
Kevin O’Brien never wanted to be in a band. But when the full-time comedian (and occasional Westword contributor) had the chance to start jamming with his friend, fellow comedian and musician Sam Tallent, he loved it. Now, the beer-drinking guitar-playing hangouts have turned into a serious band, Big City Drugs, which celebrates the release of its EP at 10 p.m. tonight at GLOB.
Rob Burleson is a familiar and friendly face to anyone who has been around the local music scene. After playing in dozens of bands — Hearts of Palm and Lion Sized, just to name a few — he found his way to the “vacation-rock” outfit SPELLS, which has quickly become…
Ben Folds teams up with the Colorado Symphony again for two nights at Boettcher Concert Hall this weekend while YouTube sensation Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox headlines 1STBANK Center tomorrow night. Also this weekend SPELLS celebrates the release of its first full-length album at 3 Kings, Colfax Speed Queen debuts its sophomore album at Lost Lake Lounge, Lane 8 is at the Bluebird Theater and rapper YG is at the Ogden Theatre. See the full list of our picks below.
At eighty years old, Harry Tuft is finally getting the time and opportunity to do what he came to Colorado to do in the first place in 1960: play music. Not that Tuft hasn’t played music all along and put out albums, but it is the first time he’s been free to do so without the weight of running a store, leading the local chapter of the musicians’ union, or, in years past, booking acts like Joan Baez and arranging for her to meet the Beatles when the Fab Four played Red Rocks in 1964. He basically served as the de facto godfather of Denver folk through his establishment of the Denver Folklore Center in 1962, and he was instrumental in founding Swallow Hill. If Tuft hadn’t left Philadelphia to move here, inspired by stories of the opportunities to play live out west, Denver music and culture would be immeasurably diminished.
The masterful jazz guitarist Joshua Breakstone thinks the ultimate thing in jazz isn’t how fast you play or how great a guitar player you are. Rather, it’s how well know your instrument.
The Motet is making its second annual pit stop in its home town to Denver to bring “dance your ass off” funk for two nights at the Ogden. The band’s Hometown Hustle show is even more of a homecoming for one of the newest members, vocalist Lyle Divinsky. Divinsky joined the Motet in January 2016 after frontman Jans Ingber left last year.
Colfax Speed Queen is releasing its sophomore album Talk To Your Doctor through Heavy Dose Records on Friday, November 11. The Denver-based rock band started in 2010 as a college project for singer/guitarist Matthew Loui who had only recently started playing guitar.
Bonobo, who’s set to release his new album Migration in January, and Nick Murphy (formerly known as Chet Faker) will be at Red Rocks on Friday, May 12. General admission tickets ($39.95) go on sale on Friday, November 11 at 10 a.m. Bring Me the Horizon will release the DVD/CD package Live at the Royal Albert Hall next month and the band headlines the 1STBANK Center on Wednesday, March 29 with Underoath and Beartooth opening. General admission tickets ($39.95) and GA bowl tickets ($32.50) go on sale on Friday, November 11 at 10 a.m. DMX brings his A Very Special DMXmas Show to Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom on Friday, December 23; tickets ($33/$35) go on sale on Friday, November 11 at 10 a.m.
When Daniel Goldstein aka deep house artist Lane 8, released debut album Rise last year, heads turned. With tracks premiered by the New York Times, SPIN, and Billboard and topping the Hype Machine charts, Lane 8 went on tour ready to connect with an army of new fans. Goldstein, however, didn’t expect the reaction to his better-known songs to be so, well…uninspired.
