Virgil Dickerson has always suspected that people have been stealing his music. Now he has irrefutable proof. When we spoke last month, the head of Suburban Home Records had no quanitfiable evidence to support his claims that illegal downloads were taking a toll on the label’s bottom line. Still, he…

They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating/And from what I’ve seen I believe ’em/Now the old boy may be barely breathing/But the heart of rock and roll is still beating. When Huey Lewis sang these words in the mid-’80s — around the time that dinosaurs still…

You’ve already met Zac Pennington. He’s the well-dressed kid behind the counter at the record store; the one with the Modest Mouse good looks who intimidates you with his storehouse of music knowledge. He’s the one standing outside the venue passing out hand-drawn flyers for some multimedia art-rock show he’s…

Shut the hell up. Seriously, Chatty Cathy, clip your freaking string. Standing shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the crowd watching the Wheel warm up for Ian Cooke at the hi-dive last week, those words kept rolling across my mind like a Times Square news crawl. Because even as…

Next to death, unrequited love is life’s cruelest invention. Few things are as euphoric as the rush of endorphins you feel the first time someone truly steals the breath from your lungs — or as soul-crushing as later realizing that the one you love doesn’t love you. For Ian Cooke,…

I hear ABBA records to this day,” declares Bob Ferbrache, “and I can’t believe that human beings made those records. They sound just out-of-this world perfect — and they’re 25 years old.” Ferbrache and I are sitting in the basement of his mom’s house in Westminster, talking about the music…

Last week, the Denver music scene lost a legendary figure when Terry Dalton passed away at the young age of 59. The renowned singer-songwriter and open-mike host died at his home on Friday, March 23. Dalton will be fondly remembered for his “humor and his razor sharp wit,” says his…

By all accounts, Conner is from Lawrence, Kansas — although considering how frontman James Duft sings, with a tar-thick, faux-British accent, you’d be forgiven if you assumed the group hailed from across the pond. And ironically, the positive notices that the quartet has received thus far have all been from…

Sam Baron fits the profile of a quintessential Gemini. Dualistic nature? Check. Contradictory? Yep. Complex? Definitely. Exuding confidence often to the point of arrogance, the MC, who answers to the name Mane Rok and is also one-third of the hip-hop trio Maneline, carries himself with an unwavering bravado that’s earned…

Being blind is no laughing matter — which means that jokes about being blind aren’t funny. Still, as I waited at DIA last week for a flight to Austin and South by Southwest, I couldn’t help but snort at one overheard comment. After handing him his boarding pass, a woman…

At press time, the official South by Southwest website listed only four Colorado bands (five, if you count the Apples in Stereo, which, as much as we’d happily claim that act, hasn’t been based here for quite some time) slated to perform at this year’s festival. Those artists — the…

Have you heard about Hallmark’s new line of greeting cards? It’s called Journeys, and there are 176 different designs in the collection, each with a unique, unorthodox message intended to address a range of difficult-to-broach subjects, from reaching out to someone dealing with cancer to offering words of encouragement to…

Someday the members of Dork will be remembered as either the hardest-working or the luckiest guys to ever come out of this town. But if you ask me, the band has made much of its luck — from landing on the Vans Warped Tour, to reaching out to high-powered attorney…

Frank Swider Kirk Rundstrom tearing it up at SXSW Just received word that Kirk Rundstrom passed away today. Though Rundstrom was not from Denver, his main band, Split Lip Rayfield, passed through here often enough that, to many, he and his crew felt like locals. Last spring, he was diagnosed…

Before Winger was the butt of many jokes, the Denver-bred Bon Jovi doppelgänger and his bandmates undoubtedly had busloads of Betties on standby in every zip code and were printing their own money, thanks to two consecutive albums that went platinum (a feat nearly unheard of in today’s digital age)…

I feel bad about not liking Rob Drabkin’s music. I really do. He seems like such a quality individual. It would be so much easier if he were a narcissistic asshole or something. But he didn’t come across that way to me. Between sets last Thursday night at Dazzle, the…