Concerts

Some of the best rustic music being made today is coming out of Portland, Oregon, by groups such as The Builders and The Butchers, who lend an infectious exuberance to a form of music that’s been performed ad nauseam since before folk was an actual genre. Many bands perform folk…

Texas in June is great. There’s a certain romance to it. By August, though, the romance is gone, and everyone starts getting edgy. A few summers ago in the studio, the heat really started getting to Centro-Matic frontman Will Johnson, inspiring him to write faster, louder and rawer material. “We…

Capricorns, River, Bear Your Bones (Rise Above). Londoners Nathan Bennett and Kevin Williams know their math as well as any guitarists working the arithmetical metal scene, but they avoid getting so deeply into theoretical abstraction that their creations become inaccessible to anyone other than themselves. “Broken Coffin of the Venerable…

Over the past decade, Kevin Larson has created quite a following through his annual Victorian Fetish Ball and White Rose Gala parties. And over the past year, he’s been hearing a lot from some of those followers, thirty-somethings who said they wished there was a place where they could hang…

Martin Landsky started deejaying at just fourteen years old, mixing for friends and family at private functions, but his musical direction was set a short time later when he visited Kultklub Front in Hamburg, circa 1988. The blend of acid, house and techno he heard there still shapes his sound…

With the recent spate of poseurs copping classic-rock poses, it’s easy to dismiss anyone even remotely following those musical instincts as an artistic reactionary. However, when an act’s songs are as great as anything from times past but informed by contemporary aesthetics and performed with visceral and bracing immediacy, that…

Four years ago, when we last checked in with the members of Fear Before the March of Flames, arguably one of Colorado’s most compelling bands, they were just a few years out of high school and all still staying with their folks. The guys eventually moved into a six-bedroom house…

While some musicians go for a more entrepreneurial approach, Blitzen Trapper is happy to ditch its DIY ways and sign on the dotted line. The Portland, Oregon, outfit has built a healthy following with a relentless tour schedule and a few self-released albums, including last year’s critically hailed Wild Mountain…

Shearwater, Wye Oak Sunday, August 31, 2008 hi-dive Better Than: Most shows I’ve seen this year. When I walked into hi-dive, Wye Oak was already playing (I think it was “Warning” or “Orchard Fair”). From the thickly layered guitar sound, though, I thought for a moment that it could’ve just…

Triclops, The Nod Saturday, August 30, 2008 Lion’s Lair, Denver Better Than: A full line-up of stoner rock bands. With a name like “The Nod,” I expected a druggy, stoner rock band and not much more. Not that that vibe wasn’t prevalent in the music, but there were a few…

Dixie Chicks not ready to make nice… or get dressed, evidently, on the cover of Enterainment Weekly. Okay, so last night I was sitting around watching the RNC as Fred Thompson was offering up an impassioned screed about the character of John McCain, citing the unbelievable torture he endured during…

Do you hear that? That’s the sound of people actually working. Weird, huh? And it’s been this way for at least a month now, since the DenverMessageBoard.com went the way of pager technology. That’s when I first noticed, anyway, thanks to a pesky Trojan virus I’m nearly positive that I…

This just in: In case you’ve somehow managed to to miss the thousands of inescapable national trend pieces floating around on the subject, vinyl is evidently making a comeback. And now it seems the backwards-glancing craze has made its way to the local scene. And we couldn’t be happier, friends…

Nine Inch Nails/Deerhunter Tuesday, September 2, 2008 Red Rocks Amphitheatre Better Than: The last time I saw NIN, when I was in the nosebleeds at the Pepsi Center and could barely hear. I arrived at Red Rocks last night under threatening skies (would any other sort be appropriate for a…

I know it’s not over yet, but I’m pretty sure that 2008 is gonna go down as the year of the break up. Here are some of the acts that called it a day: Planes Mistaken for Stars, Machine Gun Blues, the Brotherhood of Dae Han, Whiskey Kiss, Fight Like…

It’s been a hellacious day over here at Backbeat HQ. I’ve been busier than a one-eyed cat keeping watch over two mouse holes. In addition to digging out from a litany of e-mails leftover from last week’s DNC onslaught and from the long weekend, I’ve spent the day putting the…

Nyke Nitti gets in where he fits in. LOCALS ONLY Nyke Nitti (formerly Nyke Loc) has been putting in work in the local scene for over a decade. His biggest project came around 2000, with the release of Mob Life on his Str8 Check’n imprint. The album scored a solid…

Music ruled Denver this week, from Saturday’s Rock the Bells show to Thursday night at Invesco. Here are some of our favorite performances — also known as the ones we managed to get into…

Alright, alright, admitedly, the headline of this post is a little misleading. By no means am I a political analyst, nor am I even going to pretend to be. I have my own thoughts on Barack Obama’s speech, but I’m gonna go ahead and leave the analytical dissection to far…

Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah. No, seriously, do it! Nada Surf, Cold War Kids, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Silversun Pickups Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2008 Manifest Hope Art Gallery Better than: Hanging out in the industrial stretches of north Denver when the DNC is not in town. By 6…

Moby’s been in town all week, in case you haven’t noticed (we haven’t really paid any attention, to tell you the truth). Evidently, he’s been drinking coffee at the Brown Palace, which he thinks sounds like some sort of Berlin club for shit fetishists, and when he’s not doing that,…