Lightlooms has jelled with its Synaptic Sea EP

Meaghan Lillis met Josh Guisinger while the two were students at Auraria. Lillis was studying piano performance, and Guisinger was an art student. They had run into each other at Radiohead and Björk concerts, and then at the bookstore in Westminster where Lillis worked. They bonded over music and decided…

Hugh Cleal spins January 6 at Bar Standard

Last year, Full Flavor Fridays brought some of the best national (and international!) talent out there to its underground weekly event, and the trend is continuing this year. For its first 2012 headliner, Full Flavor is bringing us Hugh Cleal, a Detroit native who cut his teeth on violin and…

Review: Slick Rick at City Hall, 12/31/11

SLICK RICK @ CITY HALL | 12/31/11 New Year’s Eve 2011 was well under way Saturday night before Slick Rick took the stage at City Hall Amphitheater. Dipped in so much iced-out jewelry he could have fed an entire Third World country just with the diamonds in his watch, the…

Review: Pretty Lights at 1STBANK Center, 12/30/11, Night One

PRETTY LIGHTS @ 1STBANK CENTER | NIGHT ONE | 12/30/11 See also photos from New Year’s Eve With a fairly expansive catalogue to draw from, Derek Vincent Smith has a plethora of singles at his disposal when preparing his sets. Last night, the Pretty Lights mastermind kept things a bit…

Review: Ween at the Fillmore Auditorium, 12/30/11, Night Two

WEEN @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM | NIGHT TWO | 12.30.11 See also, reviews of: 12/29/11 (night one) and 12/30/11 (night three) There was no ambitious declaration or plan of attack from the Ween brothers as they launched into their nearly three-hour long set on Friday night for the second show of…

Top ten Backbeat posts of 2011

By now, anyone who’s ever blogged — which is likely most of you reading this — knows that the stories that took the most time, the really important ones, were often around the bottom when it came to traffic, pageviews, unique visitors, etc. Meanwhile, the ol’ bacon Nativity scene is…

Don Cheadle has studio offer for Miles Davis film

Long in development, the Miles Davis feature film that Don Cheadle plans to star in and direct has a studio offer, the actor said in interview with the Wall Street Journal that was published today. Cheadle, who graduated from East High School, says in the interview that “the movie isn’t…

Review: Ween at the Fillmore Auditorium, 12/29/11, Night One

WEEN @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM | NIGHT ONE | 12.29.11 | See also, reviews of: 12/29/11 (night two) and 12/30/11 (night three) Early in the first show of Ween’s three-night stint at the Fillmore, guitarist and frontman Dean Ween offered the crowd a simple game plan: “We’re Ween. We’re the band…

New Year’s Eve in Denver: hip-hop events

Ah! It’s the most wonderful time of the year! When we indulge in too much champagne and cheap party favors, whilst singing songs of old. “Auld Lang Syne” anyone? Well if you’re like us, you know it’s been a festive 2011 and most are ready to shuffle in the next…

Swallow Hill Music expands its Core Programs

Swallow Hill’s Julie Davis School of Music, which starts 2012 classes on January 3, is expanding its Core Programs, something that was previously only used in the Core Guitar Program. The teaching style, which focuses on students playing songs on their instruments right away, is designed for the beginner with…

Chit Chat reunion at hi-dive tonight

Voted best club night by Westword in 2007, Chit Chat’s weekly soul night at Old Curtis St. was essentially the city’s best house party. Headed up Jason Heller and Big Al, the two took turns spinning ’45s of deep classic soul cuts, R&B, early funk, vintage mod and Northern soul…

Urban Method and FACE coming to the Paramount Theatre

Denver’s all vocal hip-hop group Urban Method, who made it to the final three on NBC’s The Sing-Off, and Boulder-based all vocal rock band FACE, who was on the show in 2009, team up for a night of a cappella at the Paramount on Saturday, February 25. Tickets ($15/$25) are…

New Year’s Eve in Denver: live music tip sheet

Correction: Bop Skizzum performs at Moe’s BBQ & Bowling on New Year’s Eve. An earlier version of this story included an incorrect venue. While there’s plenty of action in the clubs over New Year’s weekend, there are also a ton of bands playing in Denver and Boulder, and a lot…

Songwriting Camp for Veterans in Colorado Springs next month

Last July, Austin-based singer-songwriter Darden Smith gathered a team of other professional musicians to lead a songwriting retreat for nine servicemen and women. Songs written during the retreat were performed at the Faces of Freedom concert on September 11 at the World Arena in Colorado Springs. As a follow-up to…

Slim Cessna’s rare recordings now available to download

A few years ago, Slim Cessna made CDs of old cassette recordings and sold them to help make ends meet. Now he’s offering those two volumes of rare recordings again, but as download only. Some of the cuts date back to the ’80s, some include his brother Whiff, some were…

Club Coyote moves into Deadbeat Club space

Over the last decade, the space that was once Regas Christou’s Deadbeat Club at 4040 East Evans Avenue has changed names and concepts a number of times. The same folks who owned the club as it changed its name from Skin to Posh Ultra Lounge and then to Club Next,…