“C” is for controversy — you know, the thing that media types presumably thrive on, the lifeblood of sites like Radar Online and TMZ. But not all media outlets set out to create controversy. Some just stumble into it. Case in point: Last month, we learned that two groups of…
Creating music that alternately recalls shades of John Mayer and Jack Johnson with a strong soul music influence, One eskimO and its song “Kandi” have slowly been infiltrating eardrums since the release of the act’s debut last fall. Starting with a casual mention of the band’s name about six months…
Its been over eight years since Eminem thrust the concept of battle rapping into the mainstream consciousness with his first feature film, 8 Mile. Even though hip-hop has thrived within different types of competition since its birth (including breakdancing battles, DJ competitions and crossed-out tags on walls), crowds in the…
Did you know Denver’s a great techno town? Okay, Colorado in general, since a fair bit of our talent is in Boulder and/or small mountain towns — damn techno producer recluses and/or hippie freaks. Anyway, the point stands. While we may never rival the eight-hundred-pound gorillas of techno like Detroit…
By Matty Clark, bartender at Lost Lake Lounge (3602 East Colfax Avenue) in Denver. The bartender doesn’t actually hate you. Bartending is a stressful, complicated job that requires dealing with human beings at their absolute worst (when they’re drunk.)…
PHISH August 9-10, 2010 | Telluride Town Park Looking out over a crowd of roughly 10,000 people on the ball fields of Telluride’s town park after tearing through a cover of Traffic’s “Light up or Leave Me Alone,” Phish’s Trey Anastasio summed up the surroundings succinctly: “It’s still beautiful here.”…
Our Denver Rock Atlas feature is precisely what it sounds like: a compendium of storied Denver venues, past and present, in which we pick a place and share our favorite memories of the joint. After you read our memories, please feel free to share some of your own.You haven’t forgotten…
Tonight at the Lobby DJ Low Key is helping launch a new night called Lounging at the Lobby, that’s exactly what it sounds like: On the second Thursday of the month at the Lobby (2191 Arapahoe Street), the folks at BiggDizzy.com have organized an adult game night that will include…
Near the end of last year, Lizard’s Bar & Grill at 1920 Blake Street closed after a short run. Mike Hayter and his business partner Mike Refling moved to town from Bozeman, Montana, and took over the space at the beginning of August. Dubbed Hayter’s, the new spot will be…
Mainstream success hasn’t complicated Laurent Brancowitz’s approach to music. As lead guitarist and a founding member of the alt-rock quartet Phoenix, Brancowitz played a formative role in honing the band’s straightfoward sound, a mixture that blends ’80s pop cues, soul-informed guitar licks and plaintive vocals. “It’s a thing we’ve always…
It’s been a tough summer for live music. Lilith Fair was ultimately cut by more than a third. The Limp Bizkit reunion tour was canceled entirely (though no one seems too broken up about that one). And here in Denver, there will be no Monolith. Which makes Mile High Music…
Go green! In April, Eric Turner and Alfonso Natarelli took over the former Foundry space at 1109 Walnut Street in Boulder, which they’re transforming into Absinthe House. “We want it to look like an absinthe house that’s been around before the ban on absinthe ninety years ago, but with an…
It would’ve been too obvious for Aaron Collins, former frontman of the rock barbarians known as Machine Gun Blues, to do something similarly rambunctious with his new band, A. Tom Collins (due at the hi-dive on Tuesday, August 17). Fortunately, he opted to accentuate his actual musical talents with this…
Das Racist got famous by recording a song called “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell,” which is basically made up of the line “I’m at the Pizza Hut/I’m at the Taco Bell/I’m at the combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.” There’s also something in the middle there about “pizza butt,”…
As half of the Benevento-Russo Duo, Marco Benevento played bass lines with his feet and held down organ and Wurlitzer parts with separate hands. But in the trio format, he’s completely at home behind the piano, which he says is totally his ax. The forward-thinking Benevento usually makes some absorbing…
A lot has been made of the 2009 reunion of pop-punk legends Screeching Weasel — but the fact is, the band has broken up and reformed numerous times since starting in suburban Chicago in 1986. Snotty, catchy and just sloppy enough to keep it real, the group became a beloved…
For one of the most successful bands in history, Rush remains a pretty cryptic bunch. Formed in 1968, the Canadian trio of guitarist Alex Lifeson, drummer/lyricist Neil Peart (who joined in 1974) and singer/bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee began as a Zeppelin-esque hard-rock combo before mutating into rock’s most progressive, subversive A-lister…
In 2000, Kitty Vincent and Joe Grobelny started a band with some friends after meeting through an ad at Albums on the Hill in Boulder. Facade was the name of that outfit, and its music was kind of a cross between jazz and dream pop, with Vincent’s velvety voice weaving…
Like Midlake, Cotton Jones and Sub Pop labelmates Fleet Foxes, Blitzen Trapper is a key player in the current outpouring of poignant lo-fi rock influenced by ’70s legends like CSNY, the Band and Neil Young. However, spearheaded by the quixotic lyrics and vocals of Eric Earley, Blitzen Trapper stands out…
The music of producer/DJ/vocalist ill-esha is a unique take on some of the most exciting developments in recent dance-music history. Let’s start with glitch-hop’s bit-damaged aesthetic of urban futurism; from there, how about we mix in a healthy slug of dubstep whomp and grime? And let’s not be elitist: We…
Here what the area’s local-centric specialty radio shows were spinning this week. We’re currently tracking the playlists a number of different shows including, Radio 1190’s Local Shakedown*, KTCL’s Locals Only, KBCO’s Local Edition*, The Colorado Sound, which originates at KRFC and is re-broadcast all over Colorado, 99.5 the Mountain’s Homegrown…
Update: We have a winner. Congratulations to Melissa Taylor! She and a guest will be our guests at Mile High Music Festival this weekend. Check the blog later today. While we don’t have any more tickets to the fest itself, we will have plenty of tickets up for grabs to…
