It’s funny that Brooklyn’s Antlers are touring with England’s Editors, seeing as how each band represents a distinct type of overdone, over-hyped indie rock that hopefully will be put to pasture now that the new decade has come. Like stalwart soldiers who don’t realize the war is over, the Antlers…
In a parallel universe, the ukulele — not the electric guitar — is the preeminent instrument of popular culture. It’s not a stretch to say that Swallow Hill Music Association’s Michael Schenkelberg yearns for such a world. As co-creator of the Denver UkeFest, he’s long been celebrating and raising awareness…
In the ’90s, Conrad Kehn stretched boundaries as the vocalist for the dark, progressive Denver rock group Skull Flux. He’s still chipping away at the walls today — only now he does so as the director of Playground Ensemble, the artists-in-residence at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music…
There’s nothing remotely new about Girls, the brainchild of San Francisco-based songwriter Christopher Owens. But what the band brings is in short supply today: tender but not affected pop music with strong overtones of classic songcraft — Elvis Costello and Jarvis Cocker surely rank highly in Owens’s personal pantheon —…
Coming on like Brian Wilson clad in the leathery hide of Captain Beefheart, the five young men of Hermit Thrushes have no problem gutting indie rock and playing gleefully with its innards. On the Philly group’s two full-lengths, Slight Fountain and Benaki, it uses a mostly conventional batch of instruments…
A gritty dreamscape dominated by rival rock bands. A sizzlingly sexy Diane Lane. A sizzlingly androgynous Willem Defoe. What’s not to love about Walter Hill’s 1984 cult classic Streets of Fire? The director brought his neon-lit yet grimly cartoonish take on urban fantasy — one that he established in The…
The best punk rock always has a busted heart shivering beneath all the bluster and distortion. It’s a stretch to say that Throwaway Sunshine can be so simply labeled, but there’s no denying the punch, grit and world-weary determination of its full-length debut, For Everything We’re Not. Fronted by Cory…
In this economy, it’s hard to begrudge anyone trying to make a buck. Most rock stars, though, only want to rape your wallet — not molest your memories. Open Wings Broken Strings teams up three of the least essential singers of the alt-rock era — Eddie (formerly Ed; apparently Eddie…
Lest you think all modern-punk package tours are monolithic blocks of terrible music, look beyond headliners Brand New and Manchester Orchestra — headlining the Fillmore on Saturday — to one of the opening acts: Dusty Rhodes and the River Band. The California-based sextet has somehow gotten away with a rootsy,…
Everyone from John Denver to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band has recorded Chuck Pyle’s songs. But it’s Pyle’s adopted home that he’s most proud of, as heard on his new CD, Higher Ground, a collection of old and new tunes about Colorado that displays his rich, emotive songwriting as much…
The Boulder-based online publication Elephant Journal typically takes a holistic, humane approach to everything from yoga to popular culture, and its journalists’ quiet passion extends to a series of soirées it hosts called the Salon Party. The latest edition takes place in conjunction with the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Arts’…
“Won’t you dance with me?” is the first line that comes oozing out of the speakers from Eyes, the new disc by Almost Legends. That might as well be the statement of intent for the entire CD: Rife with smoothly jazzy funk, breathy hooks and tinges of singer-songwriter cheekiness, tracks…
The toughest band to ever take its name from a Counting Crows lyric, Between the Buried and Me snuck into the nascent metalcore scene at the beginning of the ’00s with its raw, self-titled debut from 2002. From that modest beginning, the group has gone everywhere but down — but…
Zach Boddicker, who plays pedal steel in Drag the River, covers similar alt-country ground with his own project, 4H Royalty. The subtle differences between Drag and 4H, in which Boddicker sings and plays electric guitarist, become more pronounced the more you listen. Veering from twangy power pop to sultry Southern…
The toughest band to ever take its name from a Counting Crows lyric, Between the Buried and Me snuck into the nascent metalcore scene at the beginning of the ’00s with its raw, self-titled debut from 2002. From that modest beginning, the group has gone everywhere but down — but…
On its recent and aptly named Tour EP, Canada’s Cancer Bats cover Tegan and Sara, the Faint and Murder City Devils — which, of course, gives not the slightest indication as to what the band actually sounds like. Bred on metal and honed by hardcore, Cancer Bats infuse their latest…
It’s been a few years, but U2 will finally return to Denver — on June 12, at the Pepsi Center. If you’re impatient, on a budget and/or prone to arena-phobia, however, you have another option: Under a Blood Red Sky. Since 2005, the Denver-based band has paid tribute to Bono…
The Baltimore Sun most recently came to the attention of the pop-culture world as the backdrop for the fifth season of The Wire — the groundbreaking cop drama whose creator and writer, David Simon, served as a Sun police reporter for twelve years. But Simon is far from the only…
Too many country-music purists of the past couple decades brag about keeping the true sound of country alive. Oklahoma native Jason Boland, though, just does it. Bearing a catalogue of gritty, twangy songs that sound as natural as falling off a horse, Boland and his Stragglers have spent the last…
While it might be hard to believe in the age of metalcore, heavy metal and hardcore punk used to dwell on opposite ends of the spectrum. Back in the early ’80s, fans of one genre wouldn’t be caught dead listening to the other. With its aptly named 1987 album Crossover,…
Like so many people who helped remake the American landscape and identity in the 1800s, Augustus Saint-Gaudens wasn’t born in the United States. But the Irish immigrant was raised in New York, and his work — stately, noble sculpture that adorns everything from monuments to U.S. coins — crystallized a…
Thousands of words have been spilled in gushing praise of legendary director François Truffaut’s Small Change, but leave it to equally legendary film critic Pauline Kael to sum up this 1976 movie most succinctly, describing it as “a poetic comedy that’s really funny.” A series of vignettes filmed with Truffaut’s…
