Working-class songs Mitt Romney should study

It’s news to no one that Mitt Romney is having difficulty finding common ground with the voters in his home state of Michigan. His image as a fortunate son of wealth and privilege often clashes with the down-home, middle- to low-class voters of the Great Lakes state. These coupon-clipping, Walmart…

Year of the Dragonfly

Having teamed up with Madeline Johnston of Mariposa for this new project, called Year of the Dragonfly, Hunter Dragon embraces a more consistent, accessible sound. The duo’s debut release, Pupil, is a chilled-out gem of an album that explores the intimate, comfortably sad sounds of Massive Attack or Kid A-era…

Nick Drake’s Pink Moon turns forty

In his best selling book Killing Yourself to Live, Chuck Klosterman asserts that “the best career move any musician can make is to stop breathing.” When examining Kurt Cobain’s post-mortem transformation from junkie dad to iconic voice of a generation, Klosterman notes that the suicide told everyone that “he wasn’t…

MACC Jewish Film Festival opens today

The Mizel Arts and Culture Center will launch the sixteenth annual Jewish Film Festival today. “This is our most far-reaching event,” says Lisa Korsen, marketing director for MACC. “It’s where we get our most diverse audience, patrons who may not be Jewish but are interested in the culture. We have…

Damned Damned Damned turns 35

It’s unfortunate that so many people assume that U.K. punk was all about politics. When Bill Maher interviewed Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong on his show Real Time with Bill Maher last year, he questioned the singer’s punk credibility for working to help elect Barack Obama in 2008, referring to…

Growler Records offers discount to DIY music scribes

Molly Zackary’s Growler Record Distro is changing the way we talk about music in Denver. More than just another storefront box of commerce, Growler is actively engaging the music community with new events and programs. “I have an agenda,” says Zackary. “I think artistic movements and scenes are created because…

Neil Young’s Harvest turns forty

The year 1972 saw the death of the hippies — or, at the very least, the decline of the movement from idealistic young go-getters playing with the fire of radical social change to an out-of-control inferno of hard drugs and failed dreams. Neil Young’s Harvest wasn’t the first to comment…

Bad Weather California

Bad Weather California’s latest, Sunkissed, is a multifaceted treasure of new influences and euphoric production that will serve Denver well through the late-night summer parties to come. Recorded in Detroit with Seth Olinsky of Akron/Family, Sunkissed is clean and expertly structured. From the “Ballroom Blitz”-y rockabilly energy of “Skate or…

Denver Zine Library’s non-crisis campaign: Book it!

The Denver Zine Library has declared February the month of online fundraising, to help “sustain and grow the zine community in the Denver area,” says DLZ co-founder and longtime caretaker Kelly Shortandqueer. At the start of February, the group launched a month of events and awareness-raising campaigns, but instead of…

Bearsnail: full of bare-naked sincerity

Kyle Harris began writing songs at the age of twelve, but it was another two decades before he decided to play them publicly. “I just never saw a reason to play any of it for people,” he says. “I’d been writing songs regularly that whole time, but I never thought…

Pumped-up hits: Songs we loved until they got played to death

“Man, I used to really love that song until it got played to death!” How many times have you heard somebody say that? It’s a legitimate gripe, especially if you work in place where the radio is played day and night. You inevitably suffer hearing the same goddamn songs hundreds…

Talk nerdy to me at Bop Skizzum’s first annual Nerd Prom

Hey, all you super-squares, time to dig out that sparkly prom dress with the puffy sleeves and the ill-fitting leisure suit. Run to that dusty box in the closet to bust out the retainer, the horn-rimmed glasses and the D&D magic decoder ring. No room for hipsters here: This party…

Photos: Neon Knights at the Meadowlark was a snug-fitting sweat-fest

On Saturday night, the Meadowlark was once again invaded by Neon Knights, the monthly dance romper put together by DJ Shannon Kelly. The crowd in the basement venue morphed throughout the night from a snug-fitting sweat-fest of tightly packed, jittering bodies to a reasonably thinned-out space, giving room for those…

Poets Row

Taking its name from the Capitol Hill neighborhood where its founders met, Poets Row is an indie-folk outfit made up of Emily Hobbs and Mickey Bakes. Exquisite Corpse, the duo’s new EP, is a delightfully organic collection of sparse, harmony-laden tracks reminiscent of Gram Parsons’s duets with Emmylou Harris. The…

Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival kicks off on 2/4

Those looking for a little rowdy cinema to warm up those dreary final months of the season should look no further than Growler Distro’s Mid-Winter Punk Film Festival, which features only the most hard-core selection of underground punk-rock movies of the ’70s and ’80s through today. The series is a…