Live Review: Dressy Bessy, the Fire Drills & the Pseudo Dates

Dressy Bessy, the Fire Drills and the Pseudo Dates Bluebird Theater Saturday, October 18, 2008 Better than: listening to it in your headphones When Tammy Ealom started singing about a gal obsessed with the ‘60s in the song “Do You Whisper?” on Saturday night, it was hard not to think…

Friday Rap-Up: ytCracker, DJ AM , Eminem and No Limit

Photo: Aaron Matthews LOCALS ONLY The funny thing about living in Colorado is that you may have superstars right in your own backyard and not even know it. That’s certainly the case with rapper ytCracker. While he’s not widely known in the Colorado hip-hop scene, he’s a beast in “nerdcore,”…

Live Review: M.A.N.D.Y. at Beta

See the slide show M.A.N.D.Y. October 17, 2008 Beta Better than: Most acts with that much superfluous punctuation M.A.N.D.Y.’s entry in the Fabric series has been spending a lot of time on my speakers and headphones, and each listen reveals new reasons to like their style. That can be a…

Breezy Porticos fans, behold: Liberry

Photo: James Bludworth Attention distraught, inconsolable fans of the recently departed Breezy Porticos: We’ve just been handed some late-breaking news that might inspire you to stop playing rush hour Frogger in the middle of I-25. It seems the outfit’s erstwhile frontman Andy Falconetti has already begun work on a post-Breezy…

MP3 Freeloader: Everything Absent or Distorted (a love story)

Photo: Brigid Mcauliffe A few weeks ago, we received a super-secret, hand-illustrated, advance copy of the new Everything Absent or Distorted (a love story) record, The Great Collapse, along with a straight-forward, hand-scrawled note from the band — a simple plea, really — asking us to kindly not talk about…

Chuck Potashner debuts new songs

Photo: Sarah Cass Hey, everybody, Chuck Potashner has posted a pair of new tracks on his MySpace page! You might know Chuck from his time in teamAWESOME! — although if you ask us, dude’s just plain awesome, team or no team. While both tunes he’s posted are pretty swell, “Slightly…

Mile High Makeout: Making Music Matter

There’s a lot of talk – especially in this column – about how supportive and caring the Denver music scene is. Every time you turn around, there’s a benefit show to help some musician pay his medical bills, move out of state, or fund his honeymoon. It’s not unlike the…

Live Review: Magnetic Fields at Boulder Theater

Magnetic Fields Boulder Theater Wednesday, October 15, 2008 Better Than: Watching Chihuahuas act in films. While Magnetic Fields’ latest album, Distortion, is coated in layers of reverb drenched Jesus & Mary Chain-inspired fuzz, there was none of that at last night’s show. It was a stripped down acoustic affair, and…

Live Review: Stereolab at Gothic Theatre

Photo: Jon Solomon Le Loup Stereolab, Monade and Le Loup Tuesday, October 14, 2008 The Gothic Theatre Better Than: Seeing just one Laetitia Sadier project. For whatever reason, my expectations tend to be a lot lower for out of town opening acts touring with national and international bands. Luckily, Le…

Fascination Street: War of Words

What we have here in our country is a clash of some old political ideologies. Some people are all up on the “Hope for Change” tip, while others are all like, “Change, sure, but not on my dime.” On one hand you have a hint of classique socialist reform. It…

This Just In 10/16-10/22

Tapes ‘N Tapes hits the Fox January 17. Not a whole lot shakin’ with the bigger concert announcements this week, but there are still some good smaller shows on tap, like Tapes ‘N Tapes January 17 at the Fox, the Giraffes November 7 at Larimer Lounge and the etown taping…

Conspiracy Assassin calling it a day

Conspiracy Assassin, who’s currently in the midst of putting the finishing touches on a new EP, has announced plans for its CD release/farewell show. That’s right: The band is planning to call it a day after its show on Saturday, November 15 at Arvada’s 12 Volt Tavern, which means its…

Radiohead in a Telluride Time Lapse

If any of your out of state friends ever ask you again why you choose to live in a place like Colorado instead of, say, New York or LA or, hell, I don’t know, Dubuque, Iowa, save the effort of trying to come up with some compelling diatribe about the…

Hello Kavita gives away free tracks

Hello Kavita, profiled here this past April, has partnered with Grant Blakemen’s burgeoning Backstage site to give away three tunes from the band’s latest effort, the fantastic And Then We Turned Sideways. If you don’t already have a copy, get on it. (In fact, what are you still doing reading…

Roe previews songs from new record

Brace yourselves for yet another batch of pristinely crafted, radio-friendly pop served up from Ft. Collins. From the sounds of it, Roe — who’s previewing new songs from its forthcoming full-length, Letters and Light, every week until the record drops on November 13 — is inline to be the next…

Live Review: David Byrne at the Temple Buell Theater

David Byrne Sunday, October 12th, 2008 Temple Buell Theater, Denver Better Than: Byrne has been in several years. My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, the 1981 collaborative album between David Byrne and Brian Eno, should be required listening for anyone attempting to incorporate non-Western music and samples into their…

Live Review: Unearth at Gothic Theatre

Photo: Aaron Thackeray Unearth, Protest the Hero, Acacia Strain, Whitechapel, Gwen Stacy Friday, October 10, 2008 Gothic Theatre Better than: Taking in a metal show within the cramped, uncomfortable confines of a dive bar. Early on in the Acacia Strain’s Friday night set, frontman Vincent Bennett staked out the parameters…

Live Review: Deerhoof at Bluebird Theater

Deerhoof, Experimental Dental School, Coconut Saturday, October 11, 2008 Bluebird Theater Better Than: The freezing-ass rain outside. I realize that it can be somewhat fallacious to liken bands to one another simply because they happen to share a bill, but the three bands at the Bluebird Saturday night — San…

Byrne After Reading

This week, we present “Byrne After Reading,” our new advice column by musician/artist (and former Talking Heads frontman) David Byrne. Dear David: I am a singer who used to be in a popular and highly influential ’80s band until we broke up because we all hated each other. Since then,…

Q&A with Stereolab’s Tim Gane

In the October 9 issue, we ran excerpts of Tom Murphy’s recent interview with Tim Gane from Stereolab. The following is the transcript from their entire conversation…