There were so many fine performances during both days of Goldrush Music Festival at the Savoy Events Center, it would be difficult to pick a towering standout. Despite the wide array of genres represented, the festival managed to feel like one, big cohesive experience. The accompanying ‘zine and cassette compilation…
Going back to the days of early raves in the ’80s or even as far back as “happenings” in San Francisco, strong and creative visuals have been an important component of the concert experience. Every EDM show worth attending has rich, unusual and creative light shows and projections. So it…
The Goldrush Music Festival is a great place for bands, new and old, to get publicity and make connections. But lat’s face it: Denver is a long way from most other big cities. It’s fifteen hours by van, for example, from Chicago, the home town of Crown Larks. The band…
Skylab 2015 will take place September 18 and Saturday September 19 at the 1STBANK Center. One of the longest, continuously running electronic dance music festivals in the country, Skylab has reflected the current state of the scene since its 1994 debut. In past years, legendary artists such as Rabbit In…
Don “Dynomite” Messina has been the guitarist and singer of the renowned Brethren Fast for the past two decades. He died on August 16 away at the age of 47 after a car accident on Lookout Mountain. This Sunday, eight bands will play a benefit show at Herman’s Hideaway, with…
The last two decades have been a time of extreme change for Tara Jane O’Neil, a singer/songwriter who is performing at Denver’s Goldrush Festival. In the ‘90s she cut her teeth in the Louisville, Kentucky, punk scene — one of the most active and vibrant in the country. Years later,…
Glancing at the lineup for this year’s Goldrush Music Festival it doesn’t take a music scholar to notice that one of the acts doesn’t quite fit in. Among the slew of acoustic and atmospheric artists sits Denver’s American Culture sticking out like a reverb-soaked soar thumb. It’s an observation the…
Yoni Wolf will headline the Impose Stage at Goldrush Music Festival this Saturday, September 19, at Savoy. Wolf has been a leading figure of alternative/avant-garde hip-hop over the last fifteen years, and he is one of the founders of the respected Anticon imprint. Wolf grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio and…
Cloak & Dagger Music Festival is set to take place on four stages between Vinyl and City Hall on Saturday, September 19th. The set times for the festival can be found below and you can buy tickets here. While a sizeable, electronic dance music festival, Cloak & Dagger is not…
The Doggfather himself made a public service announcement wishing everyone in Colorado a happy pot tax holiday. The video was sponsored by Merry Jane media. Mostly celebrating the money rolling into the state, Snoop also reminds youngins’ that recreational marijuana is for those 21 and older. Here’s exactly what he…
I’ve spent the last few years arguing that the ’90s were one of the best eras of popular music for women, because as musicians and fans, we seemingly had the same access to mainstream visibility as the men who have always dominated the music industry. As an early teen in…
Ian Cooke pauses and chuckles when asked where his musical career might be right now if he had never met friend and longtime collaborator Ian O’Dougherty. “I think I may have gone to California and tried to score films,” he guesses. “Singing and songwriting was always something I was planning…
Categorizing music is inevitable, even necessary in some cases, but the desire to describe a band using predetermined genres sometimes has the effect of creating more questions than answers. Such is the case with Modern Goon, a three-piece Denver band that includes two high-school English teachers and members of now-defunct…
We’ve all been there. Maybe you’re at a sweaty club digging the close, hot vibe when your eyes meet for just a split second. Then it happens again. And again. But you don’t act on your instincts. Or you could be outside under that big, blue sky at Red Rocks,…
Driving into Longmont from Denver on Highway 119, you will see a vast, seemingly abandoned factory complex that looks like it hasn’t been used in decades. This sight wasn’t so uncommon in Denver at the turn of the century, but now, it’s largely unheard of. The city is changing, and…
What’s left to be said about Ben Harper, the genre-blending, Grammy-winning, rock and blues monstrosity? Not a lot apparently. Despite playing what is bound to be a career-high show at Red Rocks on Tuesday Harper was less than verbose in our pre-show interview. Still, he managed to namedrop a slew…
Just before the Denver Beauty Bar closed after a five-year run in April, co-owner Mike Barnhart said he wanted to explore other options for the space, at 603 East 13th Avenue in Capitol Hill (which was once the long-time home of the Snake Pit). Now, Barnhart and his business partner…
The Vanilla Milkshakes and front man David McGhee have had a long and rocky journey — one our Tom Murphy detailed earlier this year. Back then, the band had plans to record a new album with Calvin Johnson — the founder of K Records and the band Beat Happening. That…
Denver is getting another music festival: The Larimer Block Party, which will shut down the 2700 block of Larimer Street on Saturday, September 26. Headliners include Del The Funky Homosapien, BADBADNOTGOOD, Joywave and Sango (view the full lineup below), all playing on an outdoor stage in the street. The surrounding…
In another era, let’s say twenty years ago, an artist like Colleen Green would have been a mainstream star, at least in the alternative rock world. In fact, her music is a little reminiscent Veruca Salt. Even today, in a time when the music industry is in flux, Green still…
Concert promoter and DJ Joshywa Schrader was one of the mainstays of the Denver and Boulder goth scene in the 1990s and 2000s, though he hasn’t organized any shows for the past four years. But when Schrader was given the opportunity recently to book a show with Australian band Angelspit…
