I’m rarely carded these days: I’m nearly twice as old as the legal drinking age, and what hair I still have is starting to go gray. So when the bartender at Hai Bar (3600 West 32nd Avenue) asked for my ID on a Thursday night, I gave her such a…
Less a band than a loose agglomeration of musicians engaging in a performance-art piece, Spellcaster’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Time Travel Committee (due at Rhinoceropolis on Friday, October 30) brings the danger back to an indie-rock show like few have since the Kindercide last performed. Spellcaster puts aside his usual noise…
Steely Dan sounds like the 1970s incarnate — not because its music makes you think of earth tones, discotheques, quaaludes or the Eagles, but because its classic oeuvre was so non-threatening that it hid the lurid tales and subversive content of its seemingly innocuous songs, written in a decade that…
Too often, the term “pop” rightfully conjures images of hackneyed premises about love and longing and music too lacking in an individual sound to be more than cultural wallpaper. White Rabbits (from Brooklyn via Missouri) clearly dispensed with such refinements and forged songs that are thematically far-ranging and rich in…
Christmas is still a couple of months away, but one of its biggest supporters will be coming to Denver early. David Bazan, formerly of Pedro the Lion and Headphones, may seem an unlikely St. Nick, but he’s taken the Christmas spirit by the reigns and just released his sixth installment…
Born Against, Millions of Dead Christians, Christ on a Crutch: Traditionally, hardcore punk bands haven’t cut the Christian religion a hell of a lot of slack. San Francisco’s Christ on Parade proudly considers itself part of that lineage, and for good reason. After forming in 1985, the group released its…
Never afraid to lubricate the dance floor with a little well-slung mud, Darren Keen of Nebraska’s one-man band The Show Is the Rainbow is as known for his frequent lambasting of the prominent Omaha indie-rock scene as he is for his own abrasive yet massively catchy dance jams. Keen seems…
A little too experimental to be straight-out country and too countrified and honky-tonk to rightfully be considered alt-country, this latest release from Weird Turn Prose is nevertheless a sonically consistent and rewarding listen. It’s obvious the songwriters didn’t bother with genre considerations, and nowhere is this clearer than on the…
Denver has no shortage of young, hungry metalcore bands. The Skyline Surrender isn’t any less ambitious than the rest — but its debut EP, This Is Character, shows that the quartet has more than just high hopes. The disc draw equally from the metallic undertow of Darkest Hour and the…
It’s hard to put your finger on Plastic Fantastic Lover’s music. Most of it falls somewhere between a folkier Tom Waits and a mildly psychotic take on the Grateful Dead’s mellow, hippie-folk side. But then it takes a turn into something like electronic down-tempo for a track or two before…
Originally called the Potcheen Folk Band, this outfit has dropped the “folk” from its name, and that makes sense — because while the musicians delve into traditional Irish folk songs like “Foggy Dew” and “Whisky in a Jar,” they also use the genre as a foundation to build upon and…
As the longtime host of the BBC Radio 1 shows Essential Selection and Essential Mix, Pete Tong is arguably one of the most influential DJs in the world. Beamed across the U.K. and the world, those shows have introduced millions of listeners to the latest and greatest sounds in dance…
In the early 1990s, Andre Lucero, Doug Seaman, Tony Morales and Elizabeth Rose formed the popular experimental-rock band Sympathy F. Seaman later went on to a brief stint in Worm Trouble, and Morales played in the Kalamath Brothers with Kevin Soll of 16 Horsepower. Lucero and Seaman also performed as…
Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary, better known as the German dance-music duo Modeselektor, aren’t afraid to expand the horizons of techno in their productions. Studio collaborations with Thom Yorke of Radiohead, noisemeister Otto von Schirach and fellow techno traveler Apparat are evidence of that. In their DJ sets, such as…
Didn’t see this coming, particularly with all of the school closures and snarled roadways: We’ve just learned that tonight’s scheduled Combichrist show at Cervantes’ has been canceled. Snow, evidently, isn’t a friend to the band, which was presumably trying to make its way to the Mile High City from Salt…
This week’s flier is so freaking awesome, it wasn’t even close. Just look upon the freakish majesty of this five-eyed, skull/owl beast and weep in the face of its power. There’s really no other option. The fact that it’s a flier for the return of d.biddle to these shores (metaphorically…
As reported earlier this week, a new batch of North American dates for U2’s 360° Tour were announced, which includes a stop at Invesco Field June 12. Live Nation says 85 percent of the tickets are priced at less than $95, general admission floor tickets at $55 and at least…
We’re not big sportos around here. We know, right? Hard to imagine. Folks who spend all of their time writing about, talking about, listening to, thinking about and making music, you’d think we’d all be big jocks, especially since we live in such a huge sports town. That in mind,…
This Friday, the Epilogues will be returning home from tour with the Photo Atlas and both bands are celebrating with a dual CD release show at the Marquis. But if this impending event has you jumping up and down with anticipation, relax — you don’t have to wait to hear…
The Slippery Nipple — isn’t that a great name for the space soon-to-be formally known as Quixotes? Whaddya think? No? How about the Almighty Righteous Room? Not so much? What, you have a better idea? Then let your fingers do the walking, bigshot, and drop the new owners a line…
Hello Kavita, Houses, It’s True October 23, 2009 hi-dive Better Than: Prozac Omaha band It’s True started things off with some sweet ‘n simple melodies and starry-eyed vocals. They cranked the feedback a bit because they’re no pushovers, but theirs was certainly the odd performance out on a night of…
College Music MarathonOctober 20-25, 200975+ Venues in Brooklyn and ManhattanBetter than: Fighting swarms of tourists to see the Statue of Liberty. This year’s CMJ (College Music Journal) Music Marathon offered more music than any avid concert goer could even attempt to comprehend with 1,300+ bands playing at more than seventy-five…
