If someone were to make a movie about the rise of a popular fictional indie-folk band, that person might do well to study the actual story of the Head and the Heart. Formed in Seattle in 2009, this project started out playing open mics at the Conor Byrne pub in the Emerald City's Ballard... More >>

On Hazard of the Die, the followup to his 2011 debut, Sometime Around, Andy Palmer shows continued growth as a songwriter. The beginning of "The Monk," the eight-song disc's opener, is fairly tame, but strings, arranged here by Kailin Yong, gradually swell, making the song seem damn near epic... More >>

Guitarist/singer Coco Montoya started off as a rock drummer. Albert Collins walked into the club where Montoya was working, and the club owner let him use Montoya's drum set -- without asking him. Montoya blew a gasket, and Collins ended up calling to apologize. Collins phoned a few months... More >>

While the rest of the country is celebrating a revival of standup comedy, Boulder has had a difficult time establishing a laugh track of its own. “It’s amazing to me that for such a famous town, there’s no local standup comedy,” says James Gold, a Boulder promoter who... More >>

Ryan Bingham's voice sounds like the guy has spent decades blowing through cartons of cheap cigarettes and gallons of cheaper whiskey somewhere along the lonely, broken mid-American highways. A former bull rider who spent a good chunk of his teens and early 20s on the rodeo circuit, Bingham... More >>

The indie-folk movement has become a plague. What started as an innocent return to roots quickly became a fad and, somewhere along the line, the pining for simplicity and an authentic nod to American roots music turned into a push to get ahead. But the cynicism directed at Americana's revival... More >>

The saving grace of any good cover band is to not go for the all-too-obvious hit. Credit Motor City's turbo-sleaze outfit the Detroit Cobras for limiting their self-penned material with the full understanding that they'll never write songs as soulful or enduring as the ones by Otis Redding,... More >>

As a founding member, rapper and producer of Three 6 Mafia, Juicy J helped cultivate a sound that combined a creeping darkness with DJ Screw-influenced, syrup-induced trippiness, pairing unlikely horror-flick sound effects with rolling hi-hats and popping snares. The group complemented their... More >>

Averaging 200 shows every year for the past eight years, the members of Pepper have earned a reputation for being as dedicated as they are hedonistic. With five full-length albums under their belt and the development of their own record label, the Hawaiian-bred members have demonstrated an... More >>

Like another Irish-American brood in the media, the Gallagher family of Showtime's Shameless, everyone's favorite Boston-based Celtic punk band, the Dropkick Murphys, keep things lightheartedly aggressive and endearingly real. The band is bringing their brazen brand of sing-along friendly... More >>

This Miami band formed in 2004 when Steve Brooks and Juan Montoya of influential doom band Floor got together with their friends Jonathan Nuñez and Rick Smith. Somewhere between sludge metal and noisier punk, Torche's sound has more in common with the likes of the Melvins, Helmet and... More >>

While riding the bus to school as a child, Zsuzsanna Ward spent her time in headphones, thinking about just how much she wanted to become a singer. As an adult better known as ZZ Ward, she reached the crux of that dream long ago and is now well on her way to moving into the mainstream. Ward cut... More >>

The decade-old phenomenon that was the Postal Service is back. In the ten years since the team of Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) made music together as the Postal Service, we got Garden State, we got Owl City, we got an onslaught of music blogs, and the... More >>

"When I first got going," recalls Lorin Ashton, "I was into fuckin' brutal, satanic death metal." Even with all of his hair, it's hard to imagine that Ashton, better known in dance circles as Bassnectar, was once enthralled with extreme metal. After all, dubstep, the subgenre he's essentially... More >>

"When I first got going," recalls Lorin Ashton, "I was into fuckin' brutal, satanic death metal." Even with all of his hair, it's hard to imagine that Ashton, better known in dance circles as Bassnectar, was once enthralled with extreme metal. After all, dubstep, the subgenre he's essentially... More >>

Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson at Red Rocks. Sweet Jesus! How this totally obvious and sure-to-be-awesome pairing has not happened before now is anybody's guess. The music world's O.G. shock rocker and his direct artistic descendent are slated to share a bill at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Brace... More >>

The xx is an electronic pop group from London, England, whose music is informed by soul and post-punk as well as hip-hop and modern electronica. The act's critically acclaimed, self-titled debut album from 2009 garnered the outfit widespread popularity. And while a lot of bands would have... More >>

Fans of both Jane Austen and musicals should be thrilled that the Denver Center Theatre Company is launching the world premiere of Sense and Sensibility: The Musical tonight. The novel, which follows the Dashwood sisters — Elinor and Marianne — as they fall in love and out of love... More >>

Artist Colin Livingston's conceptual diptychs -- which are steeped in our sterile commercial culture to the point that it's hard to say if he's embracing or lamenting the fall of civilization -- might not always be easy to understand. But most people who see them know they're supposed to laugh,... More >>

If the ’60s were “the dawning of the age of Aquarius,” what does that make the 2010s? While we’re still figuring that out, the Town Hall Arts Center is bringing Hair, the classic hippie musical that’s a trans-generational story of love, dope and anti-war protests,... More >>

Curious Theatre artistic director Chip Walton first saw the Tony Award-sweeping hit God of Carnage -- starring Marcia Gay Harden, Jeff Daniels, James Gandolfini and Hope Davis -- on Broadway a few years ago, and was immediately inspired by its sharp satire. Think of it as a contemporary Who's... More >>

While past summer/fall outdoor exhibitions at the Denver Botanic Gardens have taken us to South Africa and the bamboo forests of Japan, this year's sculptural blockbuster is sticking closer to home. Catalyst: Colorado Sculpture, which opened to the public on May 4, is strictly an in-state... More >>

Create Denver has a new home in the city-run McNichols Building in Civic Center Park, and to show it off, the group is hosting City Beautiful 2.0: A Modern Interpretation of the Built Environment, a four-part exhibition and experiment in integrating modern environments. It all begins with the... More >>

The works of Parisian artist Amande In are long on concept and fleeting in execution, but they have a way of turning a viewer’s understanding of art upside down. Cortney Stell, curator at the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design’s Philip J. Steele Gallery, flipped the minute she... More >>

Textile arts comprise some of the most grassroots forms of expression. Born of necessity and woven through with elements of creative design since the dawn of mankind, in modern times they’ve morphed into a whole genre of multimedia work that slides right off the functional grid and... More >>