In sixth grade, Tony Furtado made a banjo out of a pie tin for a music-class project. He glued some paper to the pie tin, painted the makeshift instrument with latex paint, and then strung it up with nylon fishing string and tuned it all to one note because he…
It won’t take long for faithful Samples fans to pick up on the nostalgic undercurrent of America. “It seems like it was 70,000 years ago,” sings guitarist, vocalist and sole remaining original member Sean Kelly on “Boulder,” a slow reggae jam that nods to the group’s beginnings over two decades…
With layers of sound over heavy beats and rhythm, like washes of color streaming with eddies of evolving hues hanging prominently as a compositional piece, the songs on Entropic Advance’s Industrial Noise Control recall the darker moments of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Volume II. “Nothing Comes of It,” meanwhile,…
On the inside cover of Dan Allen’s To the Left Will Go West, there’s a still from a scene near the end of Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law in which Nicoletta Braschi is explaining to Tom Waits and John Lurie how the road forks (“On the right will go east;…
On “Spitfire,” which opens this eponymous effort, Weapönizer sounds like some kind of early thrash band fresh from hearing Venom for the first time — or like Darkthrone, if that band had drawn even more inspiration than it did from the first wave of grindcore. But while on the surface…
While this one probably won’t make Good Morning America , like her last appearance here, the lovely Miss Katy Perry is slated to make her way back to Colorado this fall for a date at the Pepsi Center on Tuesday, September 30, with Tegan and Sara. Pre-sale information will be…
After three years of raging at sea, the Holy Ship cruise from Hard Events has proven to be one of the best nautical adventures you can have. This party boat has the most loyal fans, the edgiest lineups, and the biggest surprise guests. According to our friends at Miami New…
Back with another fresh batch of local hip-hop. This week, we’ve got a little something for everybody; whether you dig the old-school vibe of the Soul Pros, the futuristic sounds of Aires Jackson or something more reflective of this era, we think you’ll come away satisfied. Along with cuts from…
Back with another edition of In the Mix, where we spotlight new dance tracks and mixes from local producers and DJs. This week, OWSLA’s Wuki (pictured above) offers up some fresh sounds from the next page in dance music, Decadon keeps the trap in check on his mini-mix, Option4 drops…
Banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck and legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea teamed up in 2007 for The Enchantment, an album of duets, but the two have been playing on each other’s projects going back to Fleck’s 1995 album, Tales From the Acoustic Planet, and Fleck appeared on Corea’s Rendezvous in New…
Chromeo and Cut Copy at Red Rocks — that’s one helluva double bill, probably one of the better ones in recent memory this side of LCD System and Arcade Fire at Red Rocks in 2007. If you’ve seen either act — particularly Chromeo, a Westword Music Showcase alum — then…
Atomga (due this Saturday, January 18, at Cervantes’ Other Side) was founded by three friends who shared a mutual love of Afrobeat. Early on, Atomga expanded to its current size of eleven members, and although the outfit has released live recordings in the past, it is finally releasing its debut…
Jam. Band. Apart, these two words are innocuous. Put them together, though, and for whatever reason, they become instantly polarizing. Whenever the subject of jam bands comes up, it seems to send some people into a frenzy of dogmatic snideness. In some cases, you get the sense that they’d almost…
After more than a decade in the scene, Bop Skizzum is calling it a day. Founder and guitarist Andy Guerrero (aka Andy Rok) broke the news to fans last night on the group’s website. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” he writes. “For over ten years and counting,…
Fall Out Boy and Paramore are set to co-headline Red Rocks on Tuesday, August 12, as part of their Monumentour. Tickets range from $44.75 to $49.75 and go on sale this Saturday, January 18, at 10 a.m. Keep reading to see what other shows are on sale, what songs were…
Alex B is preparing to kick off his latest tour with Paper Diamond this Friday night in Hollywood. The tour, which includes more than thirty dates with support from LoudPvck, Branchez, Gent & Jawns and Manic Focus, is set to crisscross the country before making its way back home to…
Since 2000, RJD2 (aka RJ Krohn) has been creating anthemic hip-hop tracks. Live, the turntablist dominates four decks while seamlessly mixing classic songs in with his own original beats. In the studio, RJD2 is continuously working to progress his sound, from laboring over honing the brass sections to finding just…
Tristan Shone was a mechanical engineer before he formed Author & Punisher (due this Wednesday, January 15, at Summit Music Hall). His first album, 2005’s The Painted Army, hinted at the sound Shone would later hone five years later on Drone Machines in 2010, after having fully integrated various MIDI…
FRI-SUN | MURDER BY DEATH at STANLEY HOTEL | 1/17-1/19 When Murder by Death first formed in Bloomington, Indiana, nearly fifteen years ago under the name Little Joe Gould, the outfit was somewhat of an anomaly, as the whole chamber-pop phenomenon hadn’t happened yet — and wouldn’t for another five…
While the peak of the jam band scene was arguably reached somewhere in the middle part of the last decade, there are no shortage of excellent bands playing today and releasing new music who blend different genres of music together and improvise freely on stage. Granted, not all of these…
A couple months ago, our sister paper LA Weekly published a piece entitled “It’s Crunch Time for Nipsey Hussle.” In it, writer Justin Tinsley examined the 28 year-old LA rapper’s career, and how he believed it had come close to a stall. Barely three months later, and already Nipsey Hussle…
If you’re a Hawkwind fan, we’ve got a good news/bad news scenario for you: The good news is we’ve got a great interview with Dave Brock in which he talks about Lemmy. The bad news is that we did the interview in anticipation of the band’s upcoming show at the…
