Concerts

How does one go from affable, unassuming club DJ to one of the hottest, most in-demand producers in the game in just under a year and half? Beats us. We’re pretty sure, however, that Frank E can tell you a thing or about that sort of thing. After crafting hits…

There’s been a lot of prom-themed events lately, from the Rockbar’s ’80s Nerd Prom last weekend to next weekend’s John Hughes memorial prom at Starz. But something tells me this weekend’s Very Senior Prom, which kicks off at 9 pm. Saturday, August 29 at Moe’s BBQ and Bowling, may be…

Update: Thanks to our friends at Suburban Home Records, we’ve got our hands on a track for Chad Price’s forthcoming record, which we’ve posted after the jump for your downloading pleasure.Hot on the heels of Vistor’s Band, Jon Snodgrass’s excellent solo record, Chad Price, the other half of the almighty…

Fell’s discography is a bit complicated: Although the group’s latest album, Incoherent Lullabies, was just released by the band’s Australian label, Camera Obscura, it was actually recorded before the album the act released a few months ago, a platter titled A Farewell to Echoes. As it turns out, Lullabies was…

As those who’ve spent any amount of time on the road can attest, touring can be either exhilarating or exhausting. Like anything else, there’s high points and low points. Most of the time, though, it falls somewhere in the middle. Days are spent in constant motion it seems on long,…

Few musicians can cite a specific turning point in their artistic lives. Boulder Acoustic Society bassist Aaron Keim is one of them. During a visit to rural New Mexico, the young instrumentalist — then a college student in his native Wisconsin — sat in on an honest-to-gosh, down-home hootenanny in…

Inside the Rocket Room, it didn’t take long to completely forget that I was just south of downtown Colorado Springs (at 230 Pueblo Avenue, specifically). This place could easily fit in on South Broadway, and it shares more than a few similarities with 3 Kings Tavern — including punk, rockabilly,…

The elusive Tjutjuna, the Siberian equivalent of Sasquatch, roams the highlands of eastern Russia. Tjutjuna (due at the Larimer Lounge on Wednesday, September 2) is also an experimental band from Denver that comprises four of the former members of the ambitious space-rock group Mothership. As with that outfit of cosmic…

Olympia’s Desolation Wilderness combines ghostly atmospherics with scintillating poppy guitar work, sounding as though its members learned to play music from listening to a steady diet of Galaxie 500, Big Star’s Third and Codeine. The live version of Desolation can be startlingly forceful, as the band also manages to pull…

Not all bands can excel in every kind of venue, as those who attended the August 14 Atmosphere show at Red Rocks discovered during the Eyedea & Abilities set. The Minnesota pair, whose collective moniker obscures the identity of emcee Michael Larsen and DJ Gregory Keltgen, didn’t adjust their approach…

Fruit Bats frontman Eric Johnson, who’ll take the Larimer Lounge stage following Death Vessel and Achille Lauro, joined the Shins shortly after contributing to a track on the latter’s 2007 album, Wincing the Night Away. Fortunately, though, he didn’t respond to this opportunity by shutting down his previous project. The…

Despite the fact that he once recorded Aleister Crowley-influenced songs with prog master Robert Fripp — seriously, we can’t make stuff like that up — Daryl Hall has never been given the credit he deserves. Of course, you can’t blame the public for its perception of Hall and his sidekick,…

When Arrington De Dionyso formed Old Time Relijun in the late ’90s, the group’s reliance on the deconstructive glee of free jazz and the mutant skronk of Captain Beefheart was a bracing formula. But over the years, De Dionyso has proven to be more than a mere dabbler in the…

Before joining Nick Houde to form BDRMPPL, Ryan Mcryhew performed under the name Thundercade. This latest release from that project weaves together eight-bit composition with house beats, analog synth pop and a touch of trance. “Autosuggestion” feels like a lost OMD track until a hip-hop vocal sample bursts the bubbling…

The jam with which YMSB’s music has been flavored since its 1998 founding is spread thinner than usual on The Show, a new album being given to attendees of a Friday, August 28, Red Rocks concert co-starring Xavier Rudd (August 27’s Fox Theatre preview is sold out). Working again with…

Fort Collins outfit GasHead began as a solo project by guitarist Mike Lopez, then branched into a full, albeit instrumental, band — which then blossomed into a full-on, five-headed metal juggernaut with the addition of vocalist Josh Purdy on 2007’s The Isolationist. With the group’s new EP, though, things have…

During the opening track of Sonnenblume’s self-titled debut, Liz Forster pleads: “Stay with me/for all time.” That line portends the power over listeners within nearly every song to follow — eleven unforgettable, moody pop melodies draped in thoughtful atmosphere, quality musicianship and dreamy vocals. Do not mistake accessibility for simplicity,…

The Kissing Party is a band masterful in the writing of upbeat, melancholy pop songs and wry wit. Although the lyrics reveal the romantic and sentimental outlook of the group’s primary songwriters, Gregg Dolan and Deidre Sage, it is the rhythm section of Lee Evans and Shane Reid, coupled with…

John Eriksson was groomed from an early age to be an orchestral musician. He began taking lessons at age eight, earned a degree in classical percussion at the University of Stockholm and spent years playing in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. But something got in the way of his boyhood…

DJ Sneak (due at Vinyl on Saturday, August 29) is an icon of second-wave Chicago house music. Coming up in the early ’90s, his pioneering filter-disco style helped define a new sound for Chi-town, tied to the past but looking to the future. Some fifteen years later, Sneak has evolved…

The Johnson family never ceases to amaze us with their extraordinary talent. From making music (Nathan Johnson, musician, Cinematic Underground) to making films (Rian Johnson, auteur, Brick and Brothers Bloom) to making records (Aaron Johnson, producer, God or Julie/ and the Fray), the Johnsons are an exceptional bunch. We were…