Qknox’s self-titled beat tape is an extravaganza of skills: finessing keys, chopping samples and programming tight rhythms. The producer effortlessly blends jazz and hip-hop, fusing them with more experimental, post-Dilla wonky futurism to create something that’s equal parts chill and bouncy. While his passion for crate-digging is evident on cuts…
Otis Taylor My World Is Gone Telarc “My world is gone,” Indigenous frontman Mato Nanji once told local bluesman Otis Taylor, in reference to his people, the Nakota Nation. The heaviness of those four words inspired Taylor to make this album, which, for the most part, deals with Native American…
A lot of memories have gone down at Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge over the past fifteen years, not the least of which feature a series of well-respected, agenda-setting shows. (For proof, look no further than our recent conversation with owner Donald Rossa.) To celebrate it all, the club hosted a…
Fans of experimental techno know that Pan-Pot is not a reference to something that comes out of a kitchen; rather, it’s a German techno duo that’s named for a panoramic potentiometer — a switch that splits audio signals into left and right channels — and has been taking the production…
QUICKSAND @ BLUEBIRD THEATER |1/15/12 In the moments before Quicksand took the stage last night at the Bluebird, the room lights dimmed and floor lights on stage came on to the sound of Basil Poledouris’s theme from Conan the Barbarian. Quicksand frontman Walter Schreifels looked pleasantly surprised at the enthusiastic…
As the winter chill finally thaws (work with us here — we know it’s still below freezing right now) and gives way to the hopefulness and fertility of spring, the upcoming concert season is likewise bursting with promise. Coming off one of the best years for live music in recent…
Gateway Acts is a new ongoing series on Backbeat in which we examine the music that served as an entry point for our burgeoning musical obsessions, a gateway drug that tuned us in and turned us on. Today, Josiah Hesse gives up the goods on his Beck jones. There is…
So What is Denver’s longest running club night. While there’s been a few hiatuses here and there over the years as the night transitioned from venue to venue, for the most part, So What has been an ongoing concern for twenty years. Twenty years! On the surface, that might not…
Twenty years ago this Saturday night in the basement of City Spirit on 14th and Blake, DJ K-Nee hosted the very first edition of So What! with DJ L7-Square. Little did K-Nee know back then that So What! would not only go on to become Denver’s longest running club night,…
Hi. Uh, erm, happy Monday? Yes, we know: A certain sports team let everybody down (grumble, grumble, f*@king Broncos! grumble). Not to mention it’s overcast and bitterly cold. So what’s happy about it, right?! Music. That’s what. Nothing picks up spirits like, well, spirits and music. And since you live…
Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary tomorrow. To commemorate the occasion, the club is throwing a party with the Bob Montgomery/Pete Olstad Big Band and the Funky Fresh Trio benefiting the Gift of Jazz, an organization supporting the past, present and future of jazz in the Rocky…
After graduating college and moving to Denver in the ’70s, Kevin Geraghty started going to the Club 404, which Jerry Feld sold a year ago after a six-decade run. After a brief stint as Denver Wheel Club 404, Geraghty, who owned Brendan’s Pub for almost ten years on Market Street,…
Welcome to the weekend! And, oh, fingers crossed, what a weekend this will be. The sun was orange and the sky was blue when we woke up this morning. We’re taking that as an omen or something. That could just be the tequila shot from last night talking, though. Saw…
Without a doubt, the biggest draw this weekend is going to be the first Slam show in Denver in more than a decade on Saturday night, but there’s plenty more on tap, including a brand-new monthly vegetarian dinner buffet/yoga practice/tai chi lesson/dance party that’s bound to bliss you out in…
TRAMPLED BY TURTLES @ OGDEN THEATRE | 1/10/13 Eerie sounds were coming out of the fiddle, the base of which Ryan Young had lodged into his chest. With his elbow bobbing up and down furiously with the movement of the bow, he summoned tones from those four strings that sounded…
Alright, so, admittedly, you’re going to have to suspend disbelief a little as we frame this next item, and you’ll need to operate under the premise that A) time travel is a reality, and B) the internet existed in the mainstream realm in 1983. Got it? Okay, good. Now imagine…
Just before Christmas, the folks behind SnowBall Music Festival began revealing the lineup for the third edition of their annual mountain music festival, which is moving to Winter Park this year from its previous location in Avon. Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Kendrick Lamar and Zion I were among the first…
Organizers for Communikey (aka CMKY, Boulder’s annual electronic music festival) have revealed the first part of the lineup for this year’s festival, which is slated to take place from Thursday, April 25, through Sunday, April 28. A limited number of $100 passes for the sixth edition of the four-day festival…
Longevity is rare in many professions, and it’s especially elusive in the fickle electronic-music business, where fleeting trends come and go almost overnight. So it was a very special occasion in 2011 when the legendary DJ/producer duo Slam (comprised of Scotsmen Stuart McMillan and Orde Meikle) celebrated the twentieth anniversary…
Alex Pelissero was one of the people behind the Danger Zone, a short-lived DIY venue in Boulder. In addition to helping maintain welcoming places for people to play, Pelissero, as Jack’s Smirking Revenge (due Tuesday, January 15, at Seventh Circle Music Collective, 2935 West Seventh Avenue), also writes wonderfully profane,…
Third-wave ska was last in vogue when people still thought Y2K was a threat, but the passage of a decade hasn’t changed the fact that many of those bands still make an awfully accessible and enjoyable racket on stage. See: well-vetted Huntington Beach six-piece Reel Big Fish, the main attraction…
There’s surely some sort of official story behind the origin of the Used’s name, but it might as well describe the elements that make up the band’s music. The threads of pop punk, metal and even good old-fashioned rock and roll that are woven into the screamo-tinged tunes are well…
