Violent Femmes

Coachella 2013 YouTube schedule and lineup

If you're one of the fortunate ones who's going to Coachella this weekend, feel free to go ahead and skip to the end of this post, where you'll find the full lineup and schedule. If, however, you're a flat broke music lover who'll be attending Couchella, as some clever dude somewhere has coined it, ... More >>

Flattery Festival slated for February at 3 Kings

Blag Flag, Fugazi, Descendents, Sunny Day Real Estate and the Misfits? On the same bill on the same night? Uh, no. Not in this lifetime, even if you've got Warren Buffet money and you're on some Looper shit. Sorry. But, alas, here's the next best thing, Denver, some of your town's finest musicians p ... More >>

Hell's Belles, with Dirty Femmes and MF Ruckus, at Oriental Theater, 11/2/12

THE DIRTY FEMMES AND HELL'S BELLES @ ORIENTAL THEATER | 11.02.12 Last night the Oriental was invaded by a sentimental army of superfans, with performer and audience meeting on an equal plain of adoration for music that was at least two decades old. Jen Korte's Violent Femmes tribute band, the Dirty ... More >>

Violent Femmes' Gordon Gano to perform with Denver tribute band again Friday at the Oriental

Update 10/29/12: Rumor confirmed. After performing this past weekend with Dirty Femmes at the Larimer Lounge, Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano is staying in town for an encore performance with the Denver tribute band this Friday, November 2, at the Oriental with Hell's Belles and MF Ruckus. Accor ... More >>

Jules Bethea-Rateliff and Joe Sampson talk about Joe's first official release, Kill Our Friends

See Also: Best of Denver 2008: Best Singer-Songwriter Since moving to Denver in 2000, Joe Sampson has been a highly visible member of the scene, but it's always been either as member of bands like A Dog Paloma or Bad Weather California, or collaborating on projects like Wentworth-Kersey or playing ... More >>

Review: The Dirty Femmes at hi-dive, 4/7/12

THE DIRTY FEMMES @ HI-DIVE Like any relationship, a live band needs to first find common ground with its audience, and then and work from there. This is made extremely easy when you're whole set is duplicating material the audience is already familiar with. The crowd will burst with enthusiasm beca ... More >>

Kitty Crimes, Maria Kohler's hip-hop alter-ego, is the diverse musician's latest creative endeavor

Hailing from Detroit -- a city where punk rock, hip hop and blues all grow out of the same soil -- Maria Kohler is giving Denver a taste of her rhymes and her eclecticism. "I think everybody has a pretty wide variety of music that they like," explains Kohler, Kitty Crimes' mastermind, who also front ... More >>

Ted Stevens of Cursive: "There's a lot of risks you take in making a record like this."

See also: Interview with Lauren Larson of Ume, sharing the bill this Sunday. Cursive (due this Sunday at Larimer Lounge with Ume) was one of the most popular and influential bands to have come out of the underground scene in Omaha, Nebraska, the same one that spawned Bright Eyes, the Faint, Azure R ... More >>

Bearsnail: full of bare-naked sincerity

Tonight: Langhorne Slim at the Fox

​Langhorne Slim (playing tonight at the Fox Theatre in Boulder with Samantha Crain and Jonah Wisneski) could easily fit under the folk or alt-country label, but the Pennsylvania native is truly a gospel singer by nature. Slim's vocals nod to Dylan, too, but it is the soulful reverie in his voi ... More >>

2011 Westword Music Showcase Ballot

​Seventeen years! It's hard to believe we've been doing the Westword Music Showcase for that long. I can still remember being at the first one in LoDo nearly two decades ago. And when I think back, it seems like that cold, rainy Sunday night was just a few years ago.

Ten Songs about masturbation

​Hanging the Hamster. The Five Digit Disco. Jerking the Johnson. There's a million terms for the ingratiating act of self-love. Look, if we're being real here, there's no shame in the game. After all, not everyone can be pleasured by super-fantastic lovers all day, everyday, and sometimes this ... More >>

Dean Ween on fundamental changes to the recording industry and pot-smoking hippies

​ For nearly thirty years, Mickey Melchiondo's been making music under a moniker. As Dean Ween, one of the eponymous creative forces behind Ween, Melchiondo's carved out an ambitious musical niche since founding the band with Aaron Freeman - aka Gene Ween - in the 1980s. In advance of Ween's ... More >>

Westword Music Showcase sells out with 11,000 in attendance! Biggest turnout ever!

Sold out? Wait, what? Did I just read that right? Seriously? Sold out? What the ...? Those were my first thoughts when I woke up yesterday and fired up the old TweetDeck before jumping into the shower. My boy Ralphie, who we tapped to emcee the main stage for us yesterday, had tweeted something ... More >>

Top Ten Cover Songs of the Decade

Arcade Fire goes undercover.​There have been billions of songs written in the last decade but sometimes it's not the new ones that matter, it's the reimaginings. Some people argue a great cover song is decided by it's accuracy to the original, others want something new to be brought into the m ... More >>

The Skylark doubles your pleasure with twenty beers

"Add It Up" and Get Your Irish Up at Scruffy Murphy's

The "gastropub" label aside, Jonesy's EatBar is great

Smokin' the (karaoke) competition at Smokin' Joe's

Top Ten Dance Collections of 2008, Both Mixed and Unmixed

Over the next couple of weeks, Backbeat will feature some Top Ten lists from around the Village Voice Media chain. Click here for previous year-in-review coverage from Backbeat and VVM. Any knucklehead with DSL and a laptop can now make an electronic track. With a half hour of clicking and fiddlin ... More >>

Delegating Denver #55 of #56: Wisconsin

Mile High Makeout: Tasting the Cookie

Wisely

Sunday, January 20, hi-dive, 720-570-4500.

Rocket Science

Is this high school coming-of-ager quirky for good or evil? The answer’s...debatable.

Vegas, Baby!

Meet Danny Vegas, the Sin City showman the Killers love.

Westword Music Showcase 2007

Saturday, June 16

Westword Music Showcase 2005

Letters to the Editor

From the week of May 15, 2003

Letters to the Editor

From the week of May 8, 2003

Jonathan Richman

Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow (Vapor)

Straight Ahead

Modernism rules in two fine shows at Judish and Andenken.

Bleep That

The FCC's fining of a Colorado radio station is giving broadcasters headaches from coast to coast.

Churl Power

For better or for worse, Lost and Delirious lives up to its name.

Back in Orbit

The AUTONO's Chuck Snow launches the Lazy Spacemen -- and gives the music business another go.

Trischka's Treat

The banjo champion makes music that's finger-pickin' good.

Local Yokels

Keep those CDs a-coming.

Night & Day

July 15 - 21, 1999

Long Live the Revolution

Cubanismo! makes music in high Fidelity.

Orgasm Transplant

Michael Colin on the current operation of Phantazmorgasm.

Feedback

Heads Down

The Heads' Jerry Harrison on the controversial decision to carry on without David Byrne.

The Unreal World

Rebecca Blasband, veteran of The Real World, is getting on with her real life.

The Look of Lounge

SOMEBODY IN PARTICULAR

A BEHIND-THE-CURTAINS LOOK AT THE BIGGEST LITTLE PROMOTER IN DENVER.

POWERING UP

16 HORSEPOWER FINALLY GETS THE RECORD CONTRACT IT DESERVES.

JUST SAY AUTONO

THE BEST LITTLE BAND IN COLORADO SPRINGS KEEPS COMING BACK FOR MORE.

PLAYLIST

PLEASINGLY PLUM