“It was really cool, like completing a circle,” says Adam Revell of the first time he realized he already knew Stephen Thurston, a fellow keyboardist he’d begun to collaborate with. Years earlier, Thurston had taken piano lessons from Revell, formerly of the funk/jam colossus The Motet. Revell didn’t remember Thurston…
First impressions have always been important in pop music, but in an era where bands seems to outnumber people, it’s become our primary currency. In three minutes you can go from reading about a band, to typing their name in Spotify, and writing them off permanently. These are strange times,…
The Jazz Aspen Snowmass nonprofit started throwing an eclectic music festival on Labor Day more than twenty years ago. Now it has expanded to three days, and this year includes headliners like Carrie Underwood and Fun. In this week’s music feature, now posted on the Backbeat blog, A.H. Goldstein explores…
To hear most people tell it, the history of rap goes like this: MCs were originally rapping primarily to showcase their DJs. That is, until Sugar Hill Gang put out “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. It was the second rap record of all time and an enormous hit, proving there was…
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The word “festival” carries some tricky connotations for the organizers of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, or JAS. For the past 23 years, they’ve used the term as a shorthand descriptor for the three-day concert series that falls on Labor Day. At first glance, that seems perfectly fitting. Every August, a faithful…
Joe King Carrasco has traded his crown and cape for a cowboy hat and sparkly Lady of Guadalupe shirt, but he is still just as eccentric and entertaining as he was decades ago, when a particularly wild performance got him banned from Saturday Night Live. Carrasco, who grew up in…
It’s no surprise that music and beer are meant to be together, especially in Colorado. Still, there are a handful of local breweries that like to turn it up a notch when it comes to supporting Colorado’s music. We’ve picked out ten of the best places for music fans to…
Learning to play guitar came late in life for John Hollenbach. The Louisville carpenter wasn’t a stranger to the instrument but had trouble finding the time to really focus on music. “I always had a guitar,” he says. “There’s always been one around me but I never really took it…
Phillip Phillips stops at the Paramount Theatre on Wednesday, October 1 as part of his North American tour that kicks off next month. Reserved tickets ($39.50-$57.50) go on sale on Friday, August 29 at 10 a.m. Cut Copy comes to the area for a pair of shows: Wednesday October 29…
There was a moment on Friday night when, in the general vicinity of an IKEA, all six feet, three inches of Waka Flocka was jumping into a crowd of teenagers, waving a Flosstradamus flag. Flosstradamus, meanwhile was sending a cacophony of drums and drum-like electronics and rapid-fire laser noises and…
When MC Frontalot (born Damien Hess) coined the term “nerdcore,” which inspired his 2000 single “Nerdcore Hiphop,” he wasn’t part of a movement. But around then, when artists like YTCracker and MC Hawking became more visible alongside Frontalot and MC Chris, a phenomenon emerged, inspiring two 2008 documentaries: Nerdcore Rising…
Future Islands, touring on the strength of an album that has demonstrated to a much broader audience what the DIY crowd has known all along (namely that Future Islands are awesome), will be in town on Wednesday. There are a few other good ones, including MC Frontalot at Larimer Lounge…
Plagiarism in music is a weird concoction of money, pride and misinterpretation. We all know that nobody has written an original rock song since 1953, and the entire music industry is founded on the principle of exchanging blurry photocopies of other people’s work. But that certainly doesn’t stop artists from…
When Black Kids seemed to disappear from the popular music landscape in the .mp3-blog heydey of 2009, it looked like another example of too much hype, too soon. If the pressure of impossible expectations is weighing on the band’s members still, it sure wasn’t present at Larimer Lounge, because everyone…
Back in December of 2013, the Denver Public Library put out a call to local musicians asking for song and album submissions to be considered for a future database that could be accessed by DPL card holders. Just like other media available for free through the system, once in place,…
Our annual celebration of the Denver dining scene, Dish, will be Sunday, September 7 in Sculpture Park at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Over 40 area restaurants will bring samples, and drink samples are included with the price of the ticket as well. We’re telling you about all this food…
Marni Pickens wasn’t always the easy-going bluegrass picker she is today. “I’m a rocker chick,” she says. “Even though I grew up in Colorado, I never listened to much country or bluegrass at all.” After moving from Colorado to New York City at eighteen years old, Pickens started playing bass…
In spite of a mind-boggling amount of personnel changes (including two members leaving and then returning), Corrosion of Conformity has nevertheless remained consistent for over three decades. Currently whittled down to the trio of bassist/singer Mike Dean, guitarist Woody Weatherman and drummer Reed Mullin, COC recently released IX, yet another…
Last year when musician and hairstylist Kitty Vincent broke her foot in a car accident, she found herself confined to the house with idle hands. “I had six months in a cast to sit on the couch and sort of dream up all of these ideas, so I’ve had a…
About twenty minutes before Jack White took the stage at Red Rocks, a hard rain started falling and lightning flashed to the east. Fog machines on the stage were fired up and the wind was blowing the haze, tinted hues of blue from the stage lights, around. For a moment…
Nirvana songs played at the Gothic Theatre before the opener, Toronto-based July Talk. Singer Leah Fay kept nuzzling her head against her bandmates and yelling about pizza. “It’s hard to open for the Presidents of the United States of America” she said as she tried to coax fans to come…
