Punk Rock

Denver's ten best jukeboxes

More and more, you've probably noticed an influx of Internet jukeboxes, the kind that offer a seemingly endless assortment of songs, cropping up in bars. But there are still a handful of spots rocking old school CD jukeboxes that require a bit of taste-making. Here's the ten best, including this yea ... More >>

Il Cattivo on the time frontman Brian Hagman got ran over by some angry dude at a party

Il Cattivo formed when veterans of the punk and metal scenes in Denver came together to form a band that wasn't trying to fit distinctly in an already established rock subgenre. The five piece band sounded like it had been influenced by post-punk crossover bands like the Cult but also the metallic, ... More >>

Ten Essential albums from the CBGB scene

It's easy to look at what's become of rock music over the last three and a half decades and find countless traces of the CBGB micro-culture and the fast-and-loud aesthetic it cultivated. During their now-legendary years at CBGB, bands like the Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie and Patti Smith were dis ... More >>

Chris Shaw of Ex-Cult on the appeal of mono recordings and how it's a working class sound

Known for a diverse music scene, Memphis, Tennessee has become known for its punk and garage rock scene, thanks to acts like the Oblivions, the Reatards and the bands championed by Goner Records. Ex-Cult came out of that punk world but ended up making the kind of rock and roll with the drive and ene ... More >>

The Stooges' Raw Power turns forty today

Great art does not always move units. Case in point: The Stooges' 1973 album, Raw Power, was a complete flop commercially. But, as with the story about the Velvet Underground, it seems that everyone who did buy it must have been inspired to start a band, because forty years after its initial release ... More >>

Hamilton Leithauser of the Walkmen recalls his early experiences with the DC punk scene

The Walkmen were one of the most successful bands that came out of the so-called post-punk revival of the turn of the century. With catchy melodies more bright than the dark and brooding variety favored by many of its contemporaries, this New York-based act also endured changes in tastes a little be ... More >>

Dead Ringer breathes new life into Denver punk

NOFX at Fillmore Auditorium, 12/7/12

NOFX @ FILLMORE AUDITORIUM |12/7/12 The funniest (and definitely the wrongest) moment in NOFX's show last night at the Fillmore came when Fat Mike prefaced "Arming the Proletariat With Potato Guns" by saying, "This is kind of a racist song, but it's okay if you're racist toward the people in your b ... More >>

Fat Mike of NOFX on pornography, punk-rock parenting and how America is a sinking ship

NOFX was started in Los Angeles in 1983 by Michael "Fat Mike" Burkett and Eric Melvin. The band was born of the same West Coast scene that produced some of the most important punk bands of all time, from Black Flag and the Circle Jerks to the Minutemen and the Descendents. Although the sound that NO ... More >>

Buzz Osborne of Melvins on how to him Beastie Boys were Warlock Pinchers for Dummies

Since 1983, Melvins have been perfecting their brand of influential rock, inspired in part by punk and in part by the music Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover grew up hearing as kids in the '60s and '70s. With Melvins, the two have taken that sound to different places with each record that their contempor ... More >>

Blag Dahlia of Dwarves on kicking ass and not being old guys going through the motions

Dwarves are one of the most notorious punk bands of all time. In a time when punk rock has become a kind of brand rather than an authentic lifestyle, Dwarves are always dependable to show what the real thing looks, feels and sounds like. With a reputation for dangerously raucous live shows often inv ... More >>

Joy Subtraction? Its members just enjoy screwing with Joy Division.

Elvis Costello's My Aim is True turns 35

See Also: Damned, Damned, Damned turns 35 Lester Bangs died 30 years ago today It was 45 years ago today . . . The Beatles Sgt. Pepper nears the half century mark The Smiths Louder than Bombs turns 25 today In the early 1970s, a bespectacled English waif named Declan MacManus -- later to be known ... More >>

Our complete guide to the June 23 Westword Music Showcase

See also: Twelve types of Denver musicians

Anthony Anzaldo of Ceremony: "We're constantly evolving as people and as musicians, so Zoo is the natural evolution of the band."

Ceremony (due tonight at the Marquis Theater) started out in Rohnert Park, California, as a straight ahead hardcore outfit. The band's fast, hard-hitting songs put it in good company with like-minded bands influenced by that era of punk where a song could be less than a minute long, so long as you s ... More >>

Brian King of Japandroids on Husker Du, the Gun Club and the lost art of album art

Japandroids (due tonight at Larimer Lounge) started out with its own reinterpretation of angular, splintery punk and post-punk. But instead of sounding like another band that just discovered the Stooges or Joy Division, Japandroids plays its songs with a certain conviction you normally hear in blue- ... More >>

Japanther

Tuesday, June 5, Glob, 303-641-9809.

Brent Loveday of Reno Divorce: "Originality is the evolution of influence"

Reno Divorce (due tomorrow night at the Marquis Theater) began in the middle '90s when frontman and guitarist Brent Loveday founded the outfit while still living in Orlando, Florida. Some early, glowing press came the way of the band's 7-inch. But it wasn't until Loveday relocated to Denver and disc ... More >>

Against Me!

Wednesday, May 30, Ogden Theatre, 888-929-7849.

Primal Time

Social Distortion's Mike Ness on must-have albums: If you don't have these, you're not alive

"One of my favorite things to do is look at the line of the people going into the show. It's totally diverse. And even back in the day, in the early days, I didn't want to play just for punk rockers. I felt that we had something more to offer. Maybe we didn't have quite the global message that the C ... 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 >>

Punk invades MCA this Friday: Steven Wolf on West Coast punk

The West Coast punks are pogoing into town this spring at MCA Denver, Gildar Gallery, the Colorado Photographic Arts Center and other locations, for a series of shows falling under the aegis of Search & Destroy. So-named for the San Francisco 'zine or the '70s), the ring of satellite shows will come ... More >>

The Sex Pistols signed with A&M outside Buckingham Palace 35 years ago today

In the history of rock there has never been a greater example of media manipulation than the Sex Pistols. From the Stones refusing to wear a tie to Bowie claiming he was gay to Ozzy biting the head off a dove, press savvy rockers have been tricking the media into endless headline coverage as long as ... More >>

Damned Damned Damned turns 35

It's unfortunate that so many people assume that U.K. punk was all about politics. When Bill Maher interviewed Green Day's Billy Joe Armstrong on his show Real Time with Bill Maher last year, he questioned the singer's punk credibility for working to help elect Barack Obama in 2008, referring to Th ... More >>

Bill Stevenson of Descendents: "Maybe it's just all of our fans are paying us back for some good music we've given them "

Chapman BaehlerDescendents Descendents (due tomorrow night at the Fillmore Auditorium) didn't exactly invent pop punk, but the band's musical influence can be heard throughout that movement whether latter day poppy punk bands know it or not. Starting in 1978, Descendents were early compatriots of w ... More >>

Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival kicks off on 2/4

Those looking for a little rowdy cinema to warm up those dreary final months of the season should look no further than Growler Distro's Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival, which features only the most hard-core selection of underground punk-rock movies of the '70s and '80s through today. The series is a ... More >>

Social Distortion, Hells Belles, Scott Kelly of Neurosis, Mickey Avalon and more this weekend

Social Distortion kicks off a three-night stand at the Ogden Theatre tonight​If you're looking for some captivating music this weekend, you need not look very far. Social Distortion kicks off its three-night stand tonight at the Ogden Theatre. Sean Paul is playing a free show tonight at Cassel ... More >>

Rise Against

Tuesday, December 6, 1STBANK Center, 1-866-461-6556.

Review: Denver does CBGB at the hi-dive, 10/29/11

Josiah Hesse​DENVER DOES CBGB at HI-DIVE | 10/29/11While the rest of the world celebrated Halloween weekend 2011, down at the hi-dive this past Saturday night it was 1976. Less a Halloween show and more akin to a Civil War reenactment or a Renaissance Festival, the night offered romanticized t ... More >>

Keith Morris of OFF!: "I don't see the light at the end of this tunnel"

Is Stranahan's the punk rock of whiskey? Ask the bartender...

​Growing up in New Jersey, I was a punk-rock kid. I started with Iggy and the Stooges, the Ramones and the Clash, and moved on to Bad Brains, Fear, the Misfits, early Bad Religion, then into NY hardcore, Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, etc. As the '80s progressed, so did my punk-rock fervor. I re ... More >>

Stiff Little Fingers

Saturday, August 20, Summit Music Hall, 1-866-468-7621. 

Ten best songs about quitting your job

"Oh, I can absolutely work Saturday. I didn't have any plans anyway."​The job market's still very tough, your 401 (k) has probably lost its value over the last week, and your rent, car payment and baby mama aren't going to get paid on their own. You hate your job, your boss treats you like gar ... More >>

Review: Against Me! at the Warped Tour, 8/5/11

Against Me! at the Denver stop of the Vans Warped Tour​AGAINST ME! at WARPED TOUR | 8/5/11Without delving into the history of the Vans Warped tour, it can be argued that a lot about it has changed. What started as a tour meant to showcase punk-rock rebellion, has now become a major cog in the ... More >>

Elias Bender Ronnenfelt of Iceage on Copenhagen DIY, gear and zine controversy

Alberte KarrebaekIceage​Iceage from Copenhagen, Denmark (due tonight at Rhinoceropolis) are all under the age of 22 but in its relatively short time together, the band has garnered a buzz for the sonic savagery of its live shows and the harrowingly resonant emotional tenor of its music. Its de ... More >>

Curt Kirkwood of Meat Puppets on the band's legacy and his vivid lyrical imagery

Photo by Jaime Butler​When Meat Puppets (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater with Bad Weather California and The Black Box Revelation) formed and released its first few records on SST in the early '80s, the Phoenix-based act challenged punk rock conformity with its eclectic blend of countrifie ... More >>

Westword Music Showcase 2011

The Westword Music Showcase celebrates seventeen years, a lifetime for some of 2011's performers

Kaia Wilson on Team Dresch, how she got into punk and her first solo tour in fourteen years

​Kaia Wilson (due tonight at Yellow Feather Coffee) was a teenager in the late '80s and early '90s in Oregon when she became involved in the Pacific Northwest's underground music scene. Although she played shows with many of the famous bands of the era with her band Adickdid, she first came to ... More >>

Q&A: H.R. of Bad Brains just wants everyone to love Jah and learn how to love universally

​Bad Brains (due tonight at Summit Music Hall with Frontside Five and the Other Russia) is a band that's consistently mentioned in the same breath as Black Flag and and Minor Threat as groups that made massive contributions to defining the hardcore/punk movement in the late '70s and early '80s ... More >>

Hey Ronnie! 10 best punk songs about Reagan

April 1983 issue of TIME. How could '80s lefties not kind of loathe and fear this guy?​Thirty years ago today, at 12:27 p.m. mountain time, John Hinckley, Jr., shot then-president Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. Reagan, of course, survived the shooting, ... More >>

Dave Chandler of St. Vitus on the band's early days at SST and what inspired the reunion

Tina-Korhonen​St. Vitus (due tonight at Summit Music Hall) were one of the pioneers of a style of music that took its direct inspiration from the first four, maybe even the first six, Black Sabbath albums. The band's aggressive guitar work flirted with psychedelia but was too heavy to ever be ... More >>

Tonight: Zinester and graphic novelist Cristy Road at the Denver Zine Library

"Medusa," by Cristy Road.​Cristy Road is a queer punk-rocker radical feminist Cubana artist and writer; her career as a 'zinester dates back to the 7th grade and a time when she struggled with personal gender and identity issues, masking over her true feelings with a combination of deep-felt l ... More >>

The 20 bands that inspire tattoos like no other

An average Misfits fan.​Personally, it's been the "One Bad Album" rule. That's all it takes for a band's musical reputation to be asterisked forever, which makes getting a tattoo of that band, well, risky. You have to wonder how often thirty-somethings across the land hear "Nice Chi' Pep's tat ... More >>

Dean Spunt of No Age on the importance of DIY

Todd Cole​No Age (due tonight at The Bluebird Theater) isn't a band that has hit the mainstream yet, but it has enjoyed an unexpected rise to prominence as a noisy pop band, making art grounded in notion of doing things your own way -- regardless of whether or not it's met with the stamp of ap ... More >>

Veronica

Emerging From Troubled Days
Self-released

Bad Religion at the Fillmore, 11/12/10

Eric Gruneisen​ BAD RELIGION With Bouncing Souls • Off With Their Heads 11,12.10 | Fillmore Auditorium Yes, lead singer Greg Graffin was a little rounder, a lot balder and dressed like the college professor that he is, but his voice was still as crystal clear as ever. Last night's Bad Reli ... More >>

Greg Graffin of Bad Religion: still straight-edge after all these years

The men of Eolian on their backgrounds and the creation of Egg, their concept album

Matthew Ballantine-PattonAdam Edwards, Ian O'Dougherty and Sean Merrell are Eolian​ In this week's issue, the Rough Mixes entry focusing on Eolian, the progressive rock project led by Ian O'Dougherty (Uphollow, Ian Cooke, TaunTaun) and featuring occasional Backbeat contributor Sean Merrell (T ... More >>