They came from the Planet Peelander to spread smiles onto everyone’s faces. Or, perhaps, Peelander-Z came from Japan, via New York, and based themselves in Austin. One of those is the true story, the other is the one that, quite frankly, we should all go out of our way to believe, because it’s way more fun.
Denver hip-hip duo Top Flite Empire has dropped a video for the track “WAVE,” from the debut album Bad Decisions, and it’s causing a stir within the local rap community thanks to the manner with which it’s tackling race and class stereotypes, and the prejudices that people harbor without knowing it.
The March Open Music Session welcomed El Javi, a Denver-based Mexican acoustic flamenco guitarist who uses his gypsy lifestyle to shape his music alongside percussionist Jordi Marin, as showcased by this year’s EP A Gypsy Journey: Pt.1 Trip.
When UC Boulder professor Adam Bradley, alongside co-editor Andrew DuBois, released the book The Anthology of Rap in 2011 and, one year earlier, put out Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip-Hop, he sought to prove rap lyrics had literary value. Likewise, his “Hip-Hop in the Classroom” course has been…
Building a career on blending traditional blues and hip-hop for a college audience, G. Love & Special Sauce emerged in 1992 and stumbled upon a winning formula.
Up here in the Rocky Mountains, the popularity of country music seems like a given.
In 2001, Russian-born singer-songwriter Regina Spektor released the 11:11 debut album, a self-released effort recorded while she was performing in colleges and amid the downtown New York City anti-folk scene.
WesDawg, one of Denver’s best rappers, has a unique voice and a style that can switch from chill to pissed at the drop of a hat.
LaRissa Vienna and the Strange plays music that is honest, emotional and poetic — and more than a little strange.
Roots music — whether country, reggae, Americana, bluegrass or folk — holds massive appeal here in Colorado. We love music that boils songs down to something completely devoid of pretension. Throw traditional instruments into the arms of the musos, wind them up and let them go. As a result, we’re…
As eclectic and musically wide-open as the Denver scene is, there are still some areas and genres where we’re lacking. Much of that has more to do with the variety, or lack thereof, of cultures in the Denver region. We might have, for example, a lot of Latinos in Colorado,…
In the mid-’90s, Orange County ska punk was very much the in thing. Bands like No Doubt, Reel Big Fish and the Aquabats took a third-wave ska scene from cities like Anaheim and Huntington Beach into the upper reaches of the Billboard charts. Forming in 1995 and taking its name…
British rockers Enter Shikari have risen from playing the darkest dives and the bottom of festival bills to headlining arenas in the UK. Here in the States. though, the band hasn’t quite managed to get a foothold on anything like that level of success yet. That’s not particularly unusual; there…
Jamaican reggae and dub singer Chronixx (real name Jamar McNaughton) is a passionate believer in the music that his home nation has produced and, more to the point, keeps on producing. The son of Chronicle, a popular reggae singer in his own right, Chronixx has been immersed in music and…
The last time Westword chatted with Havok frontman David Sanchez, the local metal titans were reeling after being unceremoniously ejected from a tour with Megadeth, after they rejected a management contract with Dave Mustaine’s son Justis. At the time, Sanchez said, “They wanted to get us on paper and lock…
Technology evolves quickly, and in the world of electronic music and the many sub-genres that branch off of it, the flavor of today can be stale by tomorrow. That said, there are many artists in the region who have learned to grow with the technology. This year will be a…
Since 1989, Cleveland’s Ringworm has been blurring the jagged lines between hardcore punk and thrash/death metal, an almighty mashup of rock’s more extreme subgenres. And while Ringworm is hardly the first band to make that blend, in 2017 it remains one of the more interesting. Still, 28 years is a…
On Friday, March 3, the Open Media Foundation hosts its next monthly free Open Music Session event, which will feature musical guests El Javi, as well as a set by comedian James Conklin. Last month, the February Open Music Session welcomed Matt Rouch & the Noise Upstairs, a folk-roots-country outfit…
The members of the punk band, The Dickies included TV-loving kids who were raised in the Valley, bathed in privilege and swimming pools, with interests not stretching much further than water slides and movie stars.
When Sepultura formed in Brazil in 1984, there was little evidence to suggest that the band was ever going to be anything more than your run-of-the-mill death metal outfit. By the second album, Schitzophrenia, people were taking notice. The fourth, 1991’s Arise, catapulted Sepultura into the international spotlight, and then…
In February, Open Media Foundation hosted its monthly free Open Music Session event, which featured musical guests Matt Rouch & the Noise Upstairs. Before that, the December 2016 Open Music Session welcomed High Fiction and Rob Drabkin, a Denver indie-rock double bill. High Fiction is an unconventional power duo, with a trad-folk…
The history of the L.A. Guns is nothing if not storied. The band formed in 1983 amid the riotous Hollywood sleazy hard-rock scene, and one year later merged with another band, Hollywood Rose, to form Guns N’ Roses. When guitarist Tracii Guns left the fledgling Guns and Roses in ’85,…
