Just last week, the one and only Madonna announced that she was working with Colorado hip-hop producer Frank E on her upcoming greatest hits package. Before the ink is even dry on that post we’ve received word that Frank E has dropped another bomb hit for the masses. This time,…
For almost three decades, the CMJ Music Marathon has grown into a monster of a music outing, right up there with South By Southwest. Started in 1980 as a way for industry folks to discover bands on the college radio charts, the CMJ Music Marathon went from just a few…
If you haven’t yet scored tickets for the Monolith Festival, which is just over a week off, now might be the ideal time to get them and save a few bucks. Esurance, one of the festivals sponsors, just released a block of 400 $99 two-day passes (no service fees) that…
Hip-hop purists may hate what the kids are liking these days, but you can’t deny the power of the youth. And in our city the youth seem to be gravitating toward the Moi Yo Yoi Boiz out of Aurora. The trio, who formed in 2007, recently dropped a new mixtape…
When Vaux ended its ten-year run a couple years back, it was a sad day for fans, a group which includes plenty of folks here at Westword. If you’re one of those folks and are still having a hard time filling that Vaux-shaped hole in your heart, here’s a chance…
That’s right: Broken Silence Recodings is looking for you. Well, provided that you have quality songs, a good live show and the right image/look. A little about the criteria for that last one? Here’s a hint: Broke Silence, the label that sponsoring this contest and potentially looking to sign your…
Cracker, Motorhome September 2, 2009 Bluebird Theater Better than: Retracing the roots of modern alt-country through a flow chart. When Cracker guitarist Johnny Hickman took choice solos on songs like “Lonesome Johnny Blues” and “Friends” on the Bluebird stage Wednesday night, the clear tones and resonant rings sounded like they…
Boasting is an essential element of hip-hop; the verbal technique, honed through countless on-stage battles, epitomizes the idea that a rapper can go from nothing to something B.I.G. if only he can spit better than anyone else. But while Regan Farquhar, better known as Busdriver, loves such traditions, he can’t…
From 2003 to 2005, Club Ra, an Egyptian-themed club with a hookah bar, filled the space at 1111 Lincoln Street that’s now occupied by Andrew’s on Lincoln. And in late August, the same weekend that Andrew’s threw a grand-reopening party to celebrate a remodel, a new Club Ra celebrated its…
Fort Collins’s Castles started as a solo project, but eventually Matt Sage’s sophisticated electro-indie pop evolved into an impressive three-piece, experimental rock band. After retiring that outfit, Sage went fully into exploring the possibilities of a lo-fi recording approach and released the hushed yet intense Consider Me, Ghost under the…
On Experimental Dental School’s new and fourth full-length, Forest Field — which is being offered as free download on its website — the group comes across as one you’d love to dance to. If only you could. Unless you’re both schizophrenic and quadruple-jointed, there’s little chance of getting into the…
Blink’s return on a bill co-starring Weezer, Taking Back Sunday and Chester French could be really, really good or really, really bad. Pros: Because the trio’s only been on the shelf for four years, the rust isn’t that thick — and the impetus for their hatchet-burying, a horrific airplane accident…
If all you know about Amanda Blank comes from her guest spots with Spank Rock, you’re hardly prepared for everything she can do. On her debut album, I Love You, the multi-talented diva forges hip-hop, electro and punk into a dance-friendly amalgam while literally invoking R.E.M. and Romeo Void, among…
High priests of Florida’s legendary death-metal scene alongside Death and Deicide, the members of Obituary have been grinding morbidity and decay into heavy, guttural masterpieces since their seminal 1989 album, Slowly We Rot, a disc that helped define the genre and lock it forever into the metal pantheon. After a…
Hailing from Milan, Italy, OvO is essentially an international duo at this point, keeping up a rigorous yearly tour schedule that traverses Europe and North America. The act’s sound could be termed “gothic power violence,” in that its sharp-edged dynamics and acidic drones are an alloy of black metal’s unblinking…
Rambling down a country back road of old-time bluegrass and Americana-inspired ditties, Paonia’s husband-and-wife team of Bill Powers and Shelley Gray (best known for their work with the Sweet Sunny South) lead a nimble acoustic formation through a musical holler of lazy hounds, yawning porches, banjos and long-gone neon motels…
People don’t push enough — especially rock musicians, a generally sedentary lot who love to remain at rest, both on stage and in their brains. Snake Mountain, however, is all about pushing. And pulling. And yanking you through a ditch, a deep one full of dripping hypodermics and raw sewage,…
The subtly disturbing “Death Sides Now,” a Joni Mitchell cover, opens the latest full-length from Little Fyodor. Recalling the more demented side of Sun City Girls, Peace Is Boring is possibly this act’s most actualized release to date. Before punk became codified, weirdos like the Residents, Ranaldo and the Loaf…
For the Motet, the groove is paramount — no shock, since the band’s de facto leader, Dave Watts, is a drummer. But despite the presence of African inspirations that are at least as prominent as jazz-fusion influences, the beats on Dig Deep (available for free download at www.myspace.com/themotet) are slicker…
Ialways wanted to do a punk-rock dancehall thing,” says Daniel Wanush, taking a drag on his cognac-dipped cigarillo. Wanush’s image and the bizarre musical mash-up might be thoroughly ridiculous were it not for the source. Wanush, after all, is better known as King Scratchie, the frontman for one of Denver’s…
A native of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Travis Egedy, who performs under the name Pictureplane, has been rapidly gaining the attention of popular underground bands such as HEALTH, which praised the act on Pitchfork, invited Pictureplane to go on tour, and brought it to the attention of the Lovepump United…
After releasing a slew of records under such aliases as Mario Fabriani, White Collar Criminals and Frequent Fliers, Joey Youngman hit it big with his latest and greatest nom de beats: Wolfgang Gartner. Under that alias, introduced in 2007, Youngman has quickly built a worldwide buzz for his brazen style…
