Music

On For Better or Worse, his sophomore solo release, A.V.I.U.S., the frontman MC for Prime Element — a trio that also includes Es-Nine and DJ Cysko Rokwel — sounds reflective and thoughtful. Scheduled to come out this week on the Kamikaze Airlines label, home also to Prime Element, the eight-track…

From the mid-’80s to the early ’90s, San Francisco was a Shangri-La of house music. It’s where impresarios like Doc Martin got their start or continued their careers. Martin began spinning records in the summer of 1986, playing legendary eight-hour sets at such clubs as Flammable Liquid and Sunday Love…

The black SUV with the “Ecstasy” vanity plate pulled up to the back-stage entrance of Westword Music Showcase on Saturday, and out stepped the driver, who looked fully dressed to attend an ’80s prom. He was suited appropriately for his passengers: Chromeo, the funk duo that pays homage to the…

As Matt & Kim (playing tonight at the Ogden Theatre with The Thermals and Autobot), Matt Johnson and Kim Schifino didn’t set out to do much more than have fun. Playing its first D.I.Y. show before even arriving at a name, the New York duo has since moved on to…

Hard Rock Cafe’s 40th Anniversary Memorabilia Tour bus will be outside the Denver location at 500 16th Street for one day only on Wednesday, June 29, from noon to 7 p.m. The exhibit includes the top forty most iconic pieces of music memorabilia from Hard Rock’s collection, including Buddy Holly’s…

Elway’s (2500 East First Avenue) just kicked off its seventh annual summer music series, which runs every Wednesday through August 21. The outdoor shows, held in the courtyard behind the restaurant, usually attract some decent-sized crowds. This year, the lineup includes a number of original acts like Bop Skizzum and…

Every year, we enlist our Backbeat writers to host various stages at the Westword Music Showcase, and in addition to their emcee obligations, we ask them to pull double duty and write up the acts that appear on their individual stages. Click through to read travelogues from Thorin Klosowski, Ru…

Norwegian-born singer Sondre Lerche (playing tonight at the Larimer Lounge with Kishi Bashi and Nightlands) knows how to write a catchy melody, but it’s his deep catalog of complex chord structures, bossanova beat references and Tom Jones-ish crooning that set him apart. This diversity has also allowed the musician and…

Outsider musician Larry “Wild Man” Fischer passed away last week at the age of 66 due to heart failure. He wasn’t exactly the most well-known musician in the world, but his blend of crazed outsider songwriting and a knack for attracting some popular friends — including Rosemary Clooney, Frank Zappa…

The last time I got a contact high was in September, when Sleep played the Gothic Theatre. So it was only appropriate that my next contact high came while talking with J.D. Cronise of the Sword, another great metal band, about fifteen minutes after the Austin-based act finished its set…

BASSNECTAR at RED ROCKS | 06.18.11″The visuals for the night set a new standard: Revolutionary in regards to illusional perspective and thought-provoking in regard to the propaganda images of war and op-art icons seared into the retinas of everyone staring at the stage.”…

All right, now that the festival portion of the Westword Music Showcase is on the books, it’s time to hand out the awards. As far as that goes, we’re tallying the votes right now, and the winners in each individual category will be announced at a special ceremony this Thursday,…

Sure, we were all exhausted and hungover from Saturday’s Westword Music Showcase (the biggest one to date, and it felt like it in the most awesome way possible) but Hindershot didn’t care. The band took advantage of yesterday’s gorgeous weather, spending most of the afternoon filming a new video for…

Partially reinventing the old garage rock wheel, Oakland’s Bare Wires (playing tonight at the Larimer Lounge with Winter Legends, Six Eyed Snake, The Conjugal Visits and BleachedBlonde) do a damn fine job of adding a pretty shine to the usually clangy genre. Part Buzzcocks, part Kinks, the trio makes effective…

YO LA TENGO at #WMS11 | 06.18.11″After two or three songs, Ira Kaplan said there were notes all over the stage saying not to use profanity and that if that were the case, they had nothing left to play.”…

Man, what a day we had yesterday at the seventeenth annual Westword Music Showcase! The music was exceptional, the weather was beyond agreeable and everywhere you looked in every direction it was a sea of smiling faces. With over 13,000 people in attendance this year, this was certainly the biggest…

DEL THE FUNKY HOMOSAPIEN @ SHOWCASE | 6/18/11 The fact the Del the Funky Homosapien is still able to get up on stage and command the attention he did ten years ago is a testament to the quality of his music, the production of his beats and the impact of…

Oh no! Those five vodka & Red Bulls gave you the guts to talk to that guy or girl, but not the common sense to actually get their phone number, Facebook, Twitter or even their name. Now here you are in the sobering sun of Sunday morning, wondering how you…

You can’t be everywhere at once, especially during events like Saturday’s Westword Music Showcase, with more than a dozen venues across a few blocks in the Golden Triangle. Thankfully, we’ve got Twitter to read about people complaining and dancing and high-fiving across the festival, which is truly the best use…

CHROMEO at #WMS11 | 06.18.11″Two songs in and it was clear: Dave and P came to party. There wasn’t much in the way of segues or throwaway banter between tunes. Chromeo let the music speak for itself and went straight for the hipbone.”…

All right Showcase is finally here. You excited? We are. If you’re on your way or just getting here, there’s a couple of programming changes we wanted to make you aware of that are different from the printed pocket guides and the downloadable PDFs. Most notably, over at City Hall,…