It’s one thing to brave I-25 traffic to get to Riot Fest, or even to make the hour-long drive from the Byers (the original site of the festival), but a lot of people made a real trip out of this year’s festival. Walking around the parking lots at Sports Authority…
“Punk rockers are nice,” says Owen Clark, who, at five years old, is one of the younger attendees at Riot Fest in Denver. His mother, Tyanne Clark, says she wrestled with the decision to bring Owen and his brother, two-year-old Noah, from Colorado Springs to see the festival. “It was…
If music festivals are good for one thing it’s seeing great new bands. If they’re good for anything else it’s seeing bands you used to really like play again after a long hiatus. This year’s Riot Fest has a great crop of both new and old acts, so for anyone…
A lot can happen over the course of a decade. Even the punkest of punk bands aren’t immune to the curve balls life can throw. Toronto’s Fucked Up definitely falls into the category of “punkest of punk.” Since its inception in 2001 Fucked Up has done just about everything possible…
“It was really cool, like completing a circle,” says Adam Revell of the first time he realized he already knew Stephen Thurston, a fellow keyboardist he’d begun to collaborate with. Years earlier, Thurston had taken piano lessons from Revell, formerly of the funk/jam colossus The Motet. Revell didn’t remember Thurston…
Learning to play guitar came late in life for John Hollenbach. The Louisville carpenter wasn’t a stranger to the instrument but had trouble finding the time to really focus on music. “I always had a guitar,” he says. “There’s always been one around me but I never really took it…
Marni Pickens wasn’t always the easy-going bluegrass picker she is today. “I’m a rocker chick,” she says. “Even though I grew up in Colorado, I never listened to much country or bluegrass at all.” After moving from Colorado to New York City at eighteen years old, Pickens started playing bass…
All told, the entire incident was more embarrassing than scary. In 2006, Rick Roberts, songwriter and singer of the country-rock-blues sensation Firefall and the Flying Burrito Brothers, stumbled on a rug in his home, sending him head-first into a kitchen island…
In the basement of his ranch-style home in the Welshire neighborhood of South Denver, Greg Daniels is putting the final touches on the merchandise for his band Glass Hits’ final show. It’s Friday morning and the show at Eslinger Gallery for the Underground Music Showcase (UMS) is just hours away…
There was a lot going on all the time at this year’s Underground Music Showcase (UMS). Bands were setting up and breaking down to keep to the festival’s tight schedule, fans clogged the sidewalks for blocks on both sides of the street, and food trucks and other purveyors of trinkets…
Planes Mistaken for Stars was one of Denver’s most beloved punk bands, as respected around the country as it was here at home. After a seven-year hiatus, the band returned with a West Coast tour. In this week’s music feature, now posted on the Backbeat blog, Oakland Childers explains why…
Gared O’Donnell is back in Denver now. He wants a cigarette badly, but with six smoke-free months under his belt, he’s keeping his cool and just enjoying being back in the city he loves, despite occasional cravings. He even ran a half-marathon a little over a month ago. “I no…
