Chautauqua announces summer 2011 lineup

Triple-A fans, rejoice! Chautauqua just announced the lineup for its upcoming summer season, which kicks off on May 21 and runs through the end of August, and with the exception of the odd comedian and pair of indie acts, you can look forward to the type of world-class rock that…

Tonight: Of Mice & Men at the Marquis

Of Mice & Men (playing this evening at the Marquis Theater with I Set My Friends on Fire, Sleeping With Sirens and Woe Is Me) has had a tumultuous three-year run as a band. The group’s backstory reads like a daytime drama. Vocalist and founder Austin Carlile was kicked out…

Cold Cave at the Larimer Lounge, 4/11/11

COLD CAVE With Force Publique 04.11.11 | Larimer Lounge My companion’s flowery dress was almost comically out of place amid all the black at the Larimer last night, as local and national representatives of the darkwave revival took the stage for some synth-heavy brooding. It’d be hard to think of…

CMKY brings electronic arts and music to Boulder for a fourth year

Kate Lesta and Matthew Krall are crazy-busy trying to juggle their day jobs while ensuring that their labor of love, the Communikey Festival of Electronic Arts, goes off without a hitch. “It’s a challenge to continue doing something you love so much on a volunteer level,” says Krall, the festival’s…

The Denver Pedal Bar makes you work for your beer

Traveling from bar to bar on a fifteen-seat, pedal-powered vehicle with a sober driver steering sounds like a concept that could go far in Denver, a city where both the beer and bicycling scenes are in high gear. That’s what Nick Vannucci will be counting on when his Denver Pedal…

Mingo performs on April 16 at Art Network

If you grew up in the Midwest during the ’80s and ’90s and you were a little different, chances are you had a brush with all that groundbreaking electronic and experimental music that came out on Wax Trax Records. Mingo — due at Art Network (878 Santa Fe Drive) on…

Cave Singers

At first listen, Cave Singers doesn’t sound like a band that came out of the ashes of Pretty Girls Make Graves, Hint Hint or Cobra High. But considering that it features Derek Fudesco, who made a name for himself in the whiskey-swigging garage-rock band Murder City Devils before doing time…

Dark Dark Dark

Chamber pop is one of those rare musical forms that doesn’t seem like it should work in the indie scene. After all, it takes a small army just to get the sound right, but Dark Dark Dark is up to the challenge. The Minneapolis sextet hasn’t been shy about putting…

Monolake

The main man behind the highly influential German techno act Monolake, Robert Henke is one of electronic music’s greatest innovators. Emerging from the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction label group in the mid-1990s, Monolake’s minimal, dub-inspired techno helped provide the blueprint for the Berlin sound that remains dominant today. Henke co-founded the…

Starfucker

From bedroom recordings to Target commercials, Portlandian quartet Starfucker has had an interesting trip up the pop-culture ladder. In a perfect world, the group’s catchy hook-producing capabilities would make it a Top 40 shoo-in. But perhaps there’s something too deliberate in the act’s chosen moniker. A handful of earlier name…

In an act of rebellion, Bob Dylan lets the Chinese censor his concert

Even for Bob Dylan’s taste, America has always put a little too much faith in Bob Dylan. A generational spokesman? A civil-rights leader? A prophet? Those are some high expectations of fucking Mahatma Gandhi, let alone an old folksinger. So it’s no surprise that people have been freaking out about…

The Love Royale

Headed up by singer Heather Larrabee and Flobots producer Kyle Jones, the Love Royale whips up some of the finest electro-soul in these parts. On Love Letters, the first of three long-form EPs, the group lays down a number of tracks that provide an ideal soundtrack for getting to, er,…

Cora Vette

Contrary to popular belief, marijuana was not discovered in the 1960s by hippies. Back in the ’20s and ’30s, vipers were getting mellow by smoking jive — and if none of that terminology sounds familiar, you clearly missed BurlyCute’s Reefer Mania show last year. But never fear: Burlesque emcee/madam Cora…

The Microdots

This record hurts. It hurts because just when it seems like the Microdots realize the power in their dub-like rhythmic variations, Orkid turns on itself. Going from the attractive and dirty basement shakiness of “Crazy Maraca” to a tawdry slow drip like “Tangerine” seems unfair — safe, even. The quartet…

Space in Time

It should come as no surprise that this band did a cover of Uriah Heep’s classic “Easy Livin'” from, appropriately enough, 1972’s Demons and Wizards. What is surprising is that Space in Time’s version is superior to W.A.S.P.’s 1986 take on the same song. Sure, this collection of tunes might…

Styles Davis spins on April 16 at the Meadowlark

Styles Davis (aka Noah Parman) has been an integral part of the musical and cultural landscapes of this city for several years, so it’s no wonder that his DJ sets get so many asses shaking on the dance floor. Davis began his career behind the decks in the late ’90s,…

Tonight: Greyson Chance at the Gothic

Just one of the many acts birthed in the last half-decade thanks to YouTube, thirteen-year-old Greyson Chance — due at the Gothic Theatre tonight with Cody Simpson and Camryn — could still be considered a bit of an anomaly in his own right. Unlike his pop contemporaries, the ‘tween’s adoration…