Southern California

Gwil Sainsbury of Alt-J on what it's like to be in one of the hottest bands going right now

With prime slots at this year's Coachella and millions of YouTube views, Alt-J is one of the hottest emerging acts in the country right now. Touring in support of its latest effort, The Lateness of the Hour, the U.K.-based folk-rock quartet is due to play a sold-out show at the Bluebird this week, w ... More >>

Westword Music Showcase: Sign up for Voice Daily Deals, get discounted tix Friday-Sunday

The nineteenth annual Westword Music Showcase is coming up fast. If you've already snagged your tickets, good on you! Obviously you know what's cracking, which is why we just know you're going to jump on this like a fat guy on free pizza. Tomorrow through Sunday, you can get GA tickets for 25 percen ... More >>

Westword Music Showcase: Sign up for Voice Daily Deals today to get discounted tickets

The nineteenth annual Westword Music Showcase is coming up fast. If you've already snagged your tickets, good on you! Obviously you know what's cracking, which is why we just know you're going to jump on this like a fat guy on free pizza. Tomorrow through Sunday, you can get GA tickets for 25 percen ... More >>

Feyline's "Goon Squad" leader Tony Funches on giving beatdowns to club-wielding gatecrashers

On Wednesday, March 6, Barry Fey will be inducted into yet another hall of fame, this one the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame. In honor of his induction, we'll be running the stories that didn't make his memoir all this week. Today, Tony Funches on first meeting Barry by throwing him out of a ... More >>

Passion Pit's Jeff Apruzzese on being on SNL and getting hugged by the dude from Portlandia

Passion Pit began in as a solo project of lead singer and keyboard player Michael Angelakos in 2007. The project quickly fleshed out into a full band that combined a keen sense for upbeat pop melodies with lyrics that didn't exactly try to sugarcoat the complex emotional life and experiences of adul ... More >>

Video: Christopher Dorner, ex-L.A. cop, presumed dead after fiery cabin standoff

Update:Ex-L.A. cop Christopher Dorner has been the subject of a massive manhunt for more than a week after allegedly killing three , including former Denver resident Keith Lawrence; see previous coverage below. Now, the crisis appears at an end, with charred remains found in a gutted California cabi ... More >>

The twelve best shows in Denver this weekend

Ah, yes, what a, uh, super weekend we have on tap. Welcome! You made it! Not only is the big game going down, but the weather is supposed to be favorable with a high in the fifties and there is an abundance of music to look forward to -- so much so, in fact, that we've expanded our picks this week t ... More >>

YouTube stars battle for money and creative control

Five Iron Frenzy: A extensive oral history of the band straight from the members themselves

Five Iron Frenzy is a Colorado band with a lengthy and storied history. Initially formed as a side project of Exhumator, an idustrial thrash band, Five Iron became a full time endeavor when its founders, frontman Reese Roper, bassist Keith Hoerig, and guitarists Micah Ortega and Scott Kerr, and drum ... More >>

John Famiglietti of HEALTH on being flipped off on tour with NIN, plus Rhino and Pictureplane

HEALTH came out of the circuit of underground bands that played DIY spaces in southern California like Ché Café, Il Corral and the Smell. It was that last place with which the band has become most closely associated. Combining avant-garde electronic music with noise and a frantic post-punk fury, H ... More >>

Fifteen non-Colorado breweries to try at GABF

Colorado represents a huge part of the festivities inside the Great American Beer Festival, both because of the depth and breath of our state's brewing prowess and because we are the host state, so it is fitting - and easy - for our beer makers to represent. As a result, many Colorado residents who ... More >>

Claudia Folska doesn't need to see to have vision

RTD: Meet the three men running against Westword cover girl Claudia Folska

Claudia Folska's resume is impressive. In college, she started a nonprofit. After graduate school, she biked from Pakistan to China. This past spring, she earned a dual doctorate from the University of Colorado. And best of all, she once groped Arnold Schwarzenegger -- a feat she jokes that she coul ... More >>

For some Cambodians in Houston, water spinach provides a figurative and literal lifeline

Dave Gonzalez of Paladins rockabilly fame on the Stone River Boys and playing country soul

See Also: - Stone River Boys at Central City Roots Ruckus, 8/11/12 - Stone River Boys at El Diablo's Rockabilly and Ribs, 8/12/12 Starting in the '80s, guitarist Dave Gonzalez released a number of albums with the Southern California-based roots rockabilly trio the Paladins before later founding the ... More >>

The five best concerts in Colorado this weekend

See also: - Dave Gonzalez of Paladins fame on the Stone River Boys and playing country soul - Review: The Reverend Horton Heat at the Odgen, 1/28/12 - Kappa Cell takes over the Lion's Lair with its dark, dystopian hysteria Welcome to the weekend! As per usual, there's a gajillion shows to choose fr ... More >>

Director Gil Reyes on what he found in Searching for Elliott Smith

When Gil Reyes realized that TV news was doing little to cover the passing of beloved musician Elliott Smith, he decided to go out searching on his own. What he discovered through interviews with the artist's friends, former bandmates and the girlfriend who many blame for his death, is a portrait of ... More >>

Aurora theater shooting: Neighbors of James Holmes forced to leave apartment building

Ben Leung just wants to get a shower. He really wishes he'd made a more appropriate wardrobe selection, especially since he's been standing around all day in the sweltering heat answering the same questions over and over. Then again, when the armed officers roused him at 2:30 a.m. today, he didn't t ... More >>

Medical marijuana should be okayed for vets' PTSD treatment, activists say

In 2010, Sensible Colorado's Brian Vicente petitioned the Colorado Department of Public Health to add post-traumatic-stress disorder to the list of conditions that can be treated by medical marijuana. This effort not only failed, but it led to a public-relations disaster over untruths spoken by its ... More >>

Twenty fabled moments in Denver music, #18: Black Flag at the Rainbow Music Hall 1984

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 Black Flag's 1984 show at the Rainbow Music Hall that ended with members of the opening act being arrested. You may have heard about this one; it was n ... More >>

Contemporary art with a Western edge fills Robischon

See more images from Appropriated: The Chronicled West

Mojo Nixon: "I am here to set the world straight about Tim Tebow and his invisible friends!"

Mojo Nixon (due Friday, April 13, and Saturday, April 14, at the Lion's Lair) gained notoriety in the mid- to late '80s for his irreverent songs informed by an absurdist humor with partner Skid Roper. Nixon's exuberant, unapologetic persona won over audiences because even as Nixon would make seeming ... More >>

Why Denver is home to the best Mexican dish in the United States

Also read: Chipotle or Qdoba? Either way, burritos legally stand on their own

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 >>

Review: Speedwolf at The Marquis Theater, 12/16/11

Tom MurphySpeedwolfSPEEDWOLF at the MARQUIS THEATER | 12/16/11Speedwolf vocalist Reed Bruemmer feigned surprise at the end of the band's set last night and asked the audience if they actually wanted to hear the band cover KISS. Of course everyone did, so the guys closed the record-release show with ... More >>

The Boy Scouts' Police Problem

Dozens of teenage Explorers have been sexually abused by cops. Should the Scouts share the blame?

Let the spiritual move you at patheos.com

Journalist Sonia Nazario and Su Teatro shed light on the horrors and the uplifting moments of migrant life

James Denton​ The play Enrique's Journey, adapted by Su Teatro artistic director Anthony Garcia from the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nazario, debuted last weekend in Denver, bringing to light the harrowing story of Central American immigrants who risk life and limb riding the top ... More >>

Artist Delton Demarest paints three kegs for Pacifico's new U.S. draft-beer push

deltondemarestarts.blogspot.comOne of Delton Demarest's Pacifico preparatory sketches.​When three kegs of Pacifico beer showed up at Delton Demarest's doorstep, he was excited. But unlike most people, he had hoped they'd be empty. Instead, says the Denver artist, "they were unexpectedly full. ... More >>

For these married Denver detectives, truth is more fun than fiction

James Valentine of Maroon 5 on being a broke musician and finally achieving success

Maroon 5 guitarist James Valentine​Since releasing Songs About Jane, its breakthrough album in 2002, Maroon 5 (due tonight at Red Rocks with Train and Gavin Degraw) has earned four Grammy Awards, been nominated for five more, toured the world and made young girls (and probably boys) fall in lo ... More >>

Action Friend on For You the World, Toshi Kasai, Zorn and Spruance

Tom MurphyAction Friend.​For the past eight years, Action Friend (due Saturday, June 25th, at The Meadowlark Bar) has been evolving the kind of music played by what many would say are "a musician's band." Although all the players in the band are highly skilled, it's the inherent weirdness to i ... More >>

Harry Shearer on New Orleans, media error, and not being the funnyman

Harry Shearer's new film uncovers what really happened in New Orleans. ​Harry Shearer may be best known as the comedian who voices a litany of characters on The Simpsons and makes mockumentaries like This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, but his new documentary is completely serious. The Big U ... More >>