Critic's Notebook

A cartoon history of the Cherry Cricket.

Denver hip-hip duo Top Flite Empire has dropped a video for the track “WAVE,” from the debut album Bad Decisions, and it’s causing a stir within the local rap community thanks to the manner with which it’s tackling race and class stereotypes, and the prejudices that people harbor without knowing it.

Just because Methyl Ethel was perhaps the only band in the universe not to have descended upon Austin for South By Southwest last month doesn’t mean the trio hasn’t been plenty busy.

Since forming in 2008 and releasing a self-titled debut in 2012, the quartet the Allah-Las have become a constant presence in the United States’ psychedelic-rock circuit.

From the outside, Melina Duterte who plays under the name Jay Som appears to be an overnight success. At just 22, she has already positioned herself as indie rock’s newest critical darling.

Dazzle is leaving its longtime location at 940 Lincoln Street and preparing to move downtown to the Baur’s Building at 1512 Curtis Street, where the club will celebrate its grand re-opening on Thursday, June 1.

Jay Vance, who performs as Jbot, plays brutal music with robots.

Cloud Catcher guitarist and singer Rory Rummings lives and breathes heavy music. It’s been that way for as long as he can recall.

Denver goth promoter Joshywa Schrader passed away in the early morning hours of March 8, 2017, at age 41.

Yazman Azimi, who performs as YaSI, says, “Music is just about relating to people; the only thing that changes is the sounds.”

Before associates of Beyoncé Knowles recruited Too Many Zooz to perform on her hit 2016 album Lemonade, the trio had established itself as a standout act in New York’s subways.

Monique Ortiz and Mike Howard of Alien Knife Fight met while both were working, in two separate buildings, for Grav Labs in Austin, Texas, but they didn’t really know one another. One day, in 2010, they ran into each other while practicing with their then projects: Ortiz’s not so serious band, which mostly jammed, and Howard’s stoner-rock band Bay of Pigs.

WesDawg, one of Denver’s best rappers, has a unique voice and a style that can switch from chill to pissed at the drop of a hat.

A brief comic history of Tennyson’s Tap.

Southern metal bands Norma Jean and He Is Legend will be in Denver this Wednesday, March 22, during their Polar Similar Tour. Their Denver stop is sure to be one of the most Southern fried shows this side of the Mississippi River. To amp you up for the concert, below are…

Pam Puente, a fixture in Denver’s punk scene since she was 14-years-old, died in early March. Known as a wild-child, she earned praise and ire — often from the same people, says Jill Mustoffa, a Denver punk-show promoter who knew the musician for decades.

SuperMagik, the Denver disco-funk band formerly known as Filthy Children, has seen lineup changes, a shift in its sound and a new name.

KUVO DJ and storied singer Venus Cruz says that when she arrived in Denver from New York, she felt like “the first Latina on the surface of Mars.” It was 1992. As Cruz tells it, the city was poor, economically and culturally. But for someone fleeing a tumultuous past, in…

Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…

P.O.S., born Stefon Alexander, started playing music in punk bands like Om, but by the turn of the century was doing hip-hop. He’s a founding member of Doomtree, a hip-hop collective that began as a production project that turned into one of the most successful underground hip-hop crews of recent…

Reed Bruemmer was in the band DDC (Death Destruction Chaos) as a teen before going on to the thrash band Speed Wolf; the latter toured internationally with Napalm Death, among others. Now Bruemmer is in Poison Rites, which is releasing its self-titled debut LP at the Larimer Lounge on Thursday,…

Vince Staples didn’t set out to be a rapper when he was growing up in Long Beach, California. But a chance trip with some friends to Los Angeles, where he met and befriended members of the Odd Future collective, changed his life trajectory. Now considered not just a promising rapper,…