Nirvana (Band)

Ryan McPhun of the Ruby Suns on being totally obsessed with Nirvana as a 'tweenager

The Ruby Suns is the brain child of Ryan McPhun, whose New Zealander ancestry lead him to the land of his father before he joined his first actual band. Before that, he had played along to Nirvana in his parents' garage. That experience, coupled with what he learned as a member of the Brunettes and ... More >>

Ten best comedy shows in Denver in February

With Denver's local comedy scene finally beginning to catch up with Comedy Work's national acts -- in terms of both talent and swelling audience numbers -- we figured it was time to assemble some of our favorite standup shows for the coming month. As we salivate over the smorgasbord of Denver's incr ... More >>

Comedian Rory Scovel on crowd tension, Bobcat Goldthwait and why Aurora didn't steal Batman from him

Baby-faced Rory Scovel has been lighting up the comedy world with his classic observational humor, mixed with context-free voices that he applies randomly to no particular jokes or bits (he's been known to drift into a German accent at random points in the show, and may or may not continue with it t ... More >>

Fugazi is a benchmark, a signpost and an example of how it could and should be done

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, guest columnist and Flattery Festival founder Ian O'Dougherty (Uphollow, Ian Cooke, TaunTaun, E ... More >>

Nirvana's Incesticide turns twenty

In the wake of the generation defining, pop music altering, astronomically hyped wonder that was Nirvana's Nevermind, Kurt Cobain would spend the next two and a half years of his life trying to remind people what his band was actually all about (while simultaneously trying to figure that out himself ... More >>

Victoria Legrand of Beach House on how perfection is made up of many mistakes

Beach House became a bit of an underground sensation with the release of its self-titled, debut album in 2006, followed by 2008's warmly enchanting Devotion. Lead singer Victoria Legrand's rich, deep, yet feminine voice and Alex Scally's delicate melodic sense on guitar creates a disarming sense of ... More >>

Melvins Lite

Wednesday, September 12, Bluebird Theater, 1-866-468-7621.

Twenty fabled moments in Denver music: #10: Nirvana's first post-Nevermind show here, 1991

Over the course of the next few weeks, Backbeat will be counting down the twenty most fabled moments in Denver music history. Today, a look back at when Nirvana came back to town for a show at the Gothic Theatre with Dinosaur Jr., fresh off of recording Nevermind. When the members of Nirvana left a ... More >>

Flipper: "We had people reporting that they'd seen our graffiti on the Great Wall of China"

Flipper (due tonight and tomorrow night at the Lion's Lair) got its start in 1979 in the creatively fertile arts and music scene in San Francisco. Formed after the break-up of Negative Trend and including two former members of that band, Will Shatter and Stephen DePace, Flipper didn't set out to be ... More >>

Saturday Night Live: The best, worst and most controversial performances

Update: 10:39 a.m. Sunday The Shins were on Saturday Night Live last night night weekend's musical guests. Being invited to be the musical guest on an episode of SNL has been a benchmark of commercial success for any band of the last forty years. And for good reason: From Andy Kaufman annihilating ... More >>

Garbage at the Ogden Theatre 4/25

While Butch Vig is probably best known for his work as a Grammy-winning producer who's worked with the likes of Nirvana or, more recently, the Foo Fighters, he's also a member of Garbage, an alt-rock act (and a rather decent one at that) that formed in the mid '90s and was led by the fiery Scottish ... More >>

SnowBall Music Festival 2012: Day 2 travelogue

SNOWBALL MUSIC FESTIVAL @ VAIL VALLEY | 3/3/12 (DAY 2) Having survived the frigid first night, the sunshine and above-freezing temps of the second day are a treat. Feeling a little wear and tear from the night before, I was hoping to make it back to the festival grounds in time to catch Sauna play ... More >>

Flipper at Lion's Lair March 29-30

Oh, now, this is going to be just awesome! Girl Wreck is presenting two nights with Flipper. Although a legendary punk band in its own right, many remember the Bay-area outfit best for being immortalized by Kurt Cobain on an episode of MTV's Unplugged, when the late Nirvana frontman wore a homemade ... More >>

The ghost of Denver's hair metal past visits and comes bearing a holiday gift that keeps on giving

​In the hierarchy of things that happened in the pop metal world after Nirvana's Nevermind was released, this one has to rank pretty high in the pantheon, at least locally. The year was 1993: The music industry was booming, hair metal was fading and a handful of Denver rock enthusiasts were ma ... More >>

Record Store Day, the Black Friday edition

​Record Store Day was originally started a few years ago as a once-a-year celebration for some 700 independently owned record stores in the U.S., including Twist & Shout and Wax Trax, but the organizers have also included today, Black Friday, as another chance to for music fans to get their ha ... More >>

A Shoreline Dream

Losing Them All to This Time
Latenight Weeknight Records

Listen to the 20th anniversary Nirvana tribute show from the hi-dive

Tom Murphy​If you couldn't make it out to the rather excellent Nirvana Nevermind tribute show last weekend, never fear, because music blog The Flat Response recorded the whole thing for your enjoyment. Jam packed with every song from the evening (and intros!), you'll be able to live vicariousl ... More >>

Review: Come As You Are, a covers show for Nirvana's Nevermind, at Hi-Dive, 9/24/11

Tom MurphyThe Swayback and friends covering "Smells Like Teen Spirit"One of the obvious highlights of last night's exceptional Nirvana covers celebration in honor Nevermind's 20th anniversary was when Eric Halborg of The Swayback told us we knew the words to the third song the band played and invite ... More >>

'90s relapse weekend! Here's your Good Friday roundup

The Dwarves​This weekend is heavy on the flashbacks, as multiple punk and grunge shows usher in our new stage of societal nostalgia. Friday night features freak-punk outfit The Dwarves at the Bluebird, while downtown at The Walnut Room things will be kept a little more light and carefree wit ... More >>

Critic's Choice: Come As You Are celebrates Nevermind on September 24 at hi-dive

Nirvana's Nevermind turns 20 this Saturday

The forthcoming 20th anniversary of Nirvana's Nevermind isn't just an observance of the release of the 1991 record; it is a tangible marking of a shift in popular culture.

Didn't catch the Tea Party Debate? Here it is, in 75 seconds of mind-numbing glory

Uh, no apologies.​Monday night, the eight Republican Presidential candidates threw down on the CNN-hosted Tea Party Express debate, and one thing was clear: The country is poor, the current approach to healthcare isn't working and Rick Perry is disliked. By everyone else in his party. But we w ... More >>

Top five Headbanger's Ball videos

​Headbanger's Ball started on April 18, 1987, and ran for nearly eight years. With little regard for a narrow definition of what constituted metal, the show's programmers seemed to embrace it all. So you would see a Poison video, something from Motorhead and then something from the Cult. The e ... More >>

Facebook gets worked up over Nevermind: Ten notably more offensive album covers (NSFW)

​This week, Facebook claimed the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind, which features a baby and his hanging do-dad, violated its terms of use when it was displayed on the official Nirvana fan page. The social networking site later reversed its decision, but it can only be assumed it was initially due ... More >>

Bobcat Goldthwait on touring with Nirvana and what attracts him to the darkness

​Bobcat Goldthwait says that when he couldn't make people feel awkward with his stand-up comedy, he tried to do that with the movies he wrote and directed -- films like Shakes the Clown (where Goldthwait stars as a depressed and alcoholic clown who gets framed for murder) Sleeping Dogs Lie (a ... More >>

Tastebuds.fm sets you up based on musical tastes, finds Adele fans get messaged but not laid

Jelmer de Haas via Adele.tv ​Online dating, that cesspool of hilarious stories and perhaps even true love. Sure, you could scour OkCupid for witty About Me paragraphs, be completely charmed by his or her fondness for biking in the rain, and then get to the favorites section. Favorite band is T ... More >>

The '90s make a womping comeback: Fifteen tracks get a good old dubstep goose via remix

​There are a lot of things to love about the '90s: Power Rangers, Cindy Crawford, Titanic, Beanie Babies, Win Ben Stein's Money, Mr. Bean, Friends or that notorious low-speed chase involving a white van and a retired professional football player. The music, however, was the best part of the de ... More >>

West Coast travelogue part two: Night of Joy, Lust-Cats of the Gutters and Sara Century come home

Kentaro MuraiLust-Cats of the Gutters in Moscow, IdahoThere is something really awesome about being able to wake up and look at a day and think, I'm probably going to be in at least two states during the course of the next 24 hours. This is the epitome of what tour feels like, when it's going well, ... More >>

Lady Gaga be damned: Top five "Weird Al" Yankovic parodies of all time

​Earlier this week, Lady Gaga reportedly refused permission to "Weird Al" Yankovic to release a parody of her new single, "Born This Way," called "Perform This Way." Upset, but well-aware of his right, Yankovic released the song anyway. Turns out, Lady Gaga actually loves "Weird Al" and is pla ... More >>

American Idol is giving us a ticker-tape parade of the same boring B.S.

Dee Dee Penny of Dum Dum Girls on being a shy person in an extroverted profession

Tyson WirtzfieldDum Dum Girls​ As a rare drummer and frontwoman, Dee Dee Penny (aka Kristin Gundred) was part of experimental pop band Grand Ole Party. Once that band split, Gundred took it upon herself to learn how to write songs on an instrument well outside her comfort zone. When that expe ... More >>

The Bad Plus

Saturday and Sunday, December 11 and 12, Dazzle, 303-839-5100.

Introducing Split Decision: Tale of the tape

​Cassettes, in case you haven't noticed, are once again becoming viable. The number of tape-only imprints that seem to keep cropping up have not only made for decent blogger bait (see our recent Deathbomb Arc item or the recent NPR blog post focusing on Ft. Collins Patient Sounds), it's served ... More >>

Rose Hill Drive debuts new music this weekend at the Fox Theatre

​Just as the last of the amber alerts are set to expire, we've received word and indication that the members of Rose Hill Drive are emerging from their self-imposed hiatus. Although the act has played a couple of dates recently, for all intents and purposes, it's been a good year and a half or ... More >>

Dead Confederate

Saturday, September 18, Larimer Lounge, 303-291-1007.

Mashed landings: A rundown of the 5 worst mash-ups

flickr / nmfin​Thanks to the absurdly low cost of music and video editing software and an inexhaustible number of people who clearly have too much time on their hands, the Internet has been inundated with mash-ups. Some folks, believe this is a auspicious development for humanity. And while we ... More >>

Cheese whiz: The discovery of camembert is more salivation than salvation

Over the weekend: Acoustic Profanity at Bender's Tavern

Acoustic Profanity Friday, January 8, 2010Bender's Tavern Better than: MTV Unplugged. Acoustic Profanity was about what you'd expect from the name: Get a bunch of punks together and take them out of their element a little by handing them acoustic guitars and sitting them on some stools. Over the co ... More >>

Slayer grabs top spot at Wax Trax

​Slayer's latest effort, World Painted Blood, grabbed the top spot at Wax Trax for the week ending November 15. Lightning Bolt came in second with Earthly Delights and 20th anniversary edition of Nirvana's Bleach took the third spot, while The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults Vol. 14 co ... More >>

Top ten reunions we'd rather not see

Better Than Ezra ​There have been a lot of bands in the history of the universe and most of them, at one point or another, have broken up. Surprisingly, we've found the majority of them have reformed despite themselves. Another surprise is the amount of bands still playing -- Better Than Ezra, Sev ... More >>

Manchester Orchestra frontman Andy Hull takes his cues from a heavenly place

The revival of this iconic punk band gives us a bad case of Germaphobia

Dualistics unveiling new tune tomorrow at hi-dive

The Dualisitcs have been on something of a hot streak for the past six months. They kicked off the year with a brand-new EP that drew great buzz, a solid review and warranted a feature from us. They followed that up a few months later with a Nirvana cover show that had everyone stoked (sorry I misse ... More >>

Q&A with Kevin Devine

Photo by Denny DoesKevin Devine. Singer-songwriter Kevin Devine, the subject of a profile in this week's Westword advancing his Sunday, May 24 gig at the Marquis Theatre with Miniature Tigers, The Rouge and Brian Bonz, is the rarest of interview subjects: a guy who listeners carefully to every ques ... More >>

The Elm

Guys with guitars.

Shonen Knife

Tuesday, December 4, Gothic Theatre, 303-788-0984.

Son Sets

The late Kurt Cobain narrates a documentary about his life and death.

[Linkin Park]

Meteora (Warner Bros.)

Division of Laura Lee

Black City (Burning Heart/Epitaph)

Queens of the Stone Age

Rated R
(Interscope Records)