In its seemingly never ending pursuit of keeping things fresh for itself and fans, veteran rock band the Melvins are releasing their latest record, Basses Loaded, on June 3 through Ipecac Recordings. The record will feature six separate bass players across twelve songs. This will include Steve McDonald of Redd…
When Magic Sword debuted at Treefort Music Fest in 2013, no one but the band’s members could have known what the audience was in for: two space knights playing the kind of high-fidelity synth rock that embodies everything glorious about 1980s epic science-fiction movies. The unabashed bombast of intricate guitar…
Bleached recently released its latest record, Welcome the Worms, and with it, the band took an artistic leap forward. The band worked with veteran producer Joe Chiccarelli, who has produced or recorded with Frank Zappa, Oingo Boingo, the White Stripes and Tori Amos, to name a few. But an album…
Space Team Electra formed in Denver in late 1994 during an especially active era of local music. It was a time when Twice Wilted still roamed the musical landscape along with 40th Day, the Elephant 6 bands, Psychodelic Zombiez and Sympathy F. Initially calling itself Dive, Space Team Electra quickly…
This weekend, beginning Friday, April 22, the annual Fort Collins Music Experience, or FoCoMx, will take place across numerous venues in downtown Fort Collins. You can find out more information on the event and buy tickets at the FoCoMx website as well as scope the complete lineup. While there are a…
We are pleased to debut the release of the new video for the song “Desert Minded” by Fort Collins-based rock band Slow Caves. The song will be issued on the band’s upcoming EP of the same name on the Grouphug imprint. Slow Caves, nominated for a 2016 Westword Music Award,…
Randall Frazier has long been a staple of the Denver music scene as an artist with experimental electronic/space rock band Orbit Service and, for the past eight years, as the production manager and talent buyer at Walnut Room. In those capacities, Frazier turned the venue into arguably the best-sounding small…
With a stage set like a mythical rendition of childhood in the ’50s and ’60s, which included a giant TV center stage and radio studio lights on either side, Elvis Costello spent a full two hours presenting an autobiographical, retrospective performance piece with music rather than anything like a conventional…
When Banned In DC was first published in 1988, it was one of the very few tomes to thoroughly document the world of hardcore punk. It was certainly the first to provide a true snapshot of a time in America’s capital when youth culture and a vibrant underground music had…
Over the course of her career, Mile High City entertainer Lannie Garrett has worn many (flamboyant) hats. In this week’s Westword, we profile the beloved Denver chanteuse before her induction to the Colorado Music Hall of Fame on April 16. Here is a photo gallery of Garrett’s looks and costumes across…
Over the years, Denver has birthed more than its fair share of DIY labels, including Local Anesthetic Records, Gift Records, Soda Jerk, Suburban Home, Relapse, Best Friends Records, Long Spoon and Elephant 6, which have proven to be important locally and beyond. More recently, Sailor Records, Black Box Tapes, Heart in Box,…
On April 16, singer Lannie Garrett will be inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, and the festivities will take place in the Glenn Miller Ballroom on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. Garrett will perform songs with her band in tribute to pioneers of twentieth-century music from Colorado,…
The inaugural edition of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival (or LEAF) takes place this Friday, April 1, at Founders Hall at Colorado Music Festival Center/Center for Musical Arts in Lafayette. The festival will feature live performances by artists who bring together music and visual components as part of an integrated…
Joanna Newsom’s 2015 album Divers showcased how the songwriter could fill in her compositions with rich sonic colorings akin to orchestral arrangements. Newsom recorded with members of the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra. But her spare compositions have always been imbued with a haunting yet warm quality that transports the…
Like many significant bands, X never garnered the commercial success that should be commensurate with its influence. X’s mixture of poetry, folk and punk resonated with Americana and rockabilly while not fitting snugly in any sub-genre of music. In that way, X was alternative rock before that became an umbrella…
The Ultimate Music Experience (UMX), Denver’s annual battle of the bands, takes place during the day on Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 3, at Pearl’s, and is your chance to catch competing local bands and vote on the finalists who will perform at the Capitol Hill People’s Fair, June…
When Queensryche’s third album Operation: Mindcrime was released in 1988, it drew immediate comparisons to concept albums like Pink Floyd’s The Wall and The Who’s Quadrophenia. The album is a thoughtful and incisive social and political commentary that told the story of a drug addict recruited into a world of…
Gazebos got off the ground in 2014 but its members have been around the Seattle scene for nearly two decades. As in any big city with an active music scene, people come together organically from going to shows and working at similar jobs. The members of Gazebos found in each…
Kevin Haskins was still his teens in 1978 when he became a founding member of post-punk band Bauhaus. Along with his brother and bassist David, guitarist Daniel Ash and singer Peter Murphy, Bauhaus brought together ideas from punk, glam rock and the avant-garde and created a brooding yet dynamic and…
Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho runs this week from Wednesday, March 23 through Sunday, March 27. The festival, inspired by organizer Eric Gilbert’s experience with the UMS. At that time, the musician’s band Finn Riggins was on tour for most of the year. That heavy touring brought the band through…
Tripp Wallin has been an active performer and prolific creator of music and performance art since he moved to Denver from Tucson, Arizona in 2002. When he said that his next Tripp Nasty show on Wednesday, March 23, at Club Scum would be his last, it came as a bit…
They Might Be Giants is one of the most well known bands from that pre-alternative rock era in the 1980s when there wasn’t an all-encompassing, vague umbrella term for music that wasn’t punk, wasn’t mainstream pop, not quite straight-ahead rock and yet accessible. The band’s self-titled 1986 debut album was…
