Hey, DJ! Q&A with DJ Ginger

Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats (and kittens) behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up…

The Fray earns a pair of Grammy nods

What are you doing on Sunday, January 31? Haven’t thought about it yet? Bet those Fray kids have. In fact, we’re going to guess that they know exactly what they’re doing that night. We don’t have access to the band’s itenerary or anything like that, but something tells us that…

Surround yourself with the Normal Ones

If you don’t already have plans for Friday — or if those plans were to catch some of the last First Friday goodness of the year — here’s an intriguing option for you. The Normal Ones, an excellent act that combines elements of ambient, old-school IDM like Orbital, threads of…

Q&A with Eric Gilbert of Finn Riggins

Eric Gilbert, Lisa Simpson and Cam Bouiss formed Finn Riggins in the small town of Hailey, Idaho, in August of 2006. Since that time, the band has put out five releases. Three of those albums were released on the Portland, Oregon-based Tender Loving Empire label including the act’s latest, Vs…

Last Night: Norma Jean at Marquis Theater

Norma Jean, HORSE the Band, The Chariot, Arsonists Get all the Girls Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 Marquis Theater Better than: Seeing an actual Kenny Loggins show — this show had just the right amount of Kenny Loggins. Though, to be fair, I’ve never seen the guy play. It might be…

Tom Waits top seller at Wax Trax

Tom Waits’ Glitter and Doom Live, which includes tracks from last year’s Glitter and Doom tour, grabbed the top spot at Wax Trax for the week ending November 29. The Black Keys’ hip-hop project Blakroc, which features rappers like Raekwon, RZA and Mos Def, came in second with their self-titled…

If ever there were an indie-rock orchestra, Moonspeed is it

Three vocal mikes. Three D.I. boxes. A condenser mike, a bass mike, a melodica vocal mike and a percussion mike. Two acoustic guitars. Two amplifiers for a pair of synths. Two drum kits. Moonspeed, which at times boasts an eleven-piece roster, strives to ensure that every note is played exactly…

Beer pong and backless chaps are the draw at Hiccups 1

Fifteen years after I graduated from college, I finally discovered beer pong when I stopped in at Hiccups I (7980 Sheridan Boulevard in Westminster) on a recent Monday. The joint was jumping at 11:15 p.m., with a DJ spinning Bell Biv Devoe’s “Do Me!” At one end of the club,…

Sandusky at the Larimer Lounge

A cursory listen to Sandusky’s recorded output might give you the impression that the act has been doing soundtrack work for the next Gregg Araki film. In much of the band’s music, you can almost hear sighing ambience, gentle dynamics and the sort of introspective aesthetic that comes from contemplating…

Zac Brown Band

Compared to airbrushed, frosted-bang pretty boys like the ones in Rascal Flatts, Atlanta’s Zac Brown Band looks like it came straight to Nashville from a bare-knuckled dustup with the Kentucky Headhunters. However, the strand of Southern rock that Brown and company are steeped in most is the free-form Widespread Panic…

Finn Riggins

Idaho is probably the last place anyone would expect a thriving pocket of experimental rock to exist. But that’s exactly where Finn Riggins was founded, in the small town of Hailey. Four albums and hundreds of shows into its career, Finn Riggins is hardly a household name, but it should…

Big D and the Kids Table

It would be easy to peg Big D and the Kids Table as the de facto leader of some sort of ska revival. But the truth is, the band has been at the skanking game for almost a decade and a half. Formed in 1995 at the height of the…

Stellastarr*

In the earlier part of this decade, four post-punk-inspired bands of note from New York came to the attention of the general public: the Strokes, Interpol, the Rapture and Stellastarr*. Of the four, Stellastarr* probably received the least amount of hype, but with the release of its latest album, Civilized,…

Polka Dot Dot Dot

Joanna Newsom came on strong earlier in the ’00s, peaked early and has seemed to all but disappear from the limelight now that the decade is winding to a close. But the odd, arty folk of her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, lives on in Polka Dot Dot Dot. That’s not…

Pacific Pride

Trimming most of the flab that the indie world has packed on over the past ten years, Pacific Pride is more than just a fine physical specimen. Airy yet athletic, it’s a tribute to the immaculate jangle of acts like latter-day Pavement and Luna, one that serves only itself, not…

Carbon Choir

On its debut album, Carbon Choir shows off an undeniable mastery of the piano-and-falsetto, sensitive-guy rock form. The playing is skilled and the songwriting solid, even nuanced. Singer Joel Van Horne has a strong voice that falls somewhere between Thom Yorke and Chris Martin, with a touch of David Gray…

Crawl

This debut from Crawl, which includes former members of Dethbox, is one track after another of hyper-aggressive punk that sounds like it was recorded in an indoor skate park. Just the same, the songs aren’t a full-on speed-driven assault. Whereas a hardcore band might pummel you until the end, Crawl…

Makeout Point

You can almost see the four members of Makeout Point nodding at the beginning of “Breaking Point,” when the guitar rises from the white noise and the drums come tripping in. It’s the band’s moment of arrival, the fifteen seconds when it is clearest that they have something here worth…