Friday the 13th is like the poor man’s Halloween — and luckily, it comes with the same drink-til-you-ward-off-evil-spirits traditions. But then, pretty much any excuse is a good excuse to partyeven if it’s just an outdated superstition whose relevance has been lost to tacky theme nights. Get that spooky shit…
Darkest Hour’s MySpace headline is a life mantra: “Live to thrash/Thrash to live.” The band hails from the nation’s capital and has been brutally thrashing death-metal anthems into hardcore punk fervor for the past decade. Its double-bass pedal insanity antagonized by complicated tech-guitar work has pretty much become the model…
When the dance-punk wave hit a few years back, synthesizer-heavy acts like Adult. were suddenly swimming in the same waters as guitar-based bands like the Rapture and Death From Above 1979. It was easy for trendy DJs to follow up “House of Jealous Lovers” with a quirky Adult. electro-laden number…
Erika Wennerstrom, a native of Dayton, Ohio, speaks with a slight country drawl. Her voice has a homespun grittiness that rumbles softly, like worn-out tires on a dusty dirt road. When she sings, however, she summons a deep-throated hum that, when provoked, lunges into a bellyache howl. Her Cincinnati-based band,…
Rockbar has the kind of buzz that can’t be bought — or can it? The kitschy club at 3015 East Colfax Avenue opened in late August, has already garnered more press than a Michael Jackson courtroom drama, and last week held a belated grand-opening party to keep the scene whisperers…
So if psychedelic folk is the coming trend in music, then Wooden Wand should be the next Kill Rock Stars fluffer in line to goad the big, fat hard-ons of the industry’s elite tastemakers. Wooden Wand, aka James Toth (who is also sometimes labeled as Wooden Wand Jehovah), carries the…
There’s more than one Zombi out there. Down in Texas, there’s a tinker-punk Zombi. Across the ocean, there’s a Finnish black-metal Zombi. And then there is Pittsburgh-based Zombi, whose endless touring has probably logged the most miles on that name. The East Coast two-piece — comprising multi-instrumentalists Steven Moore and…
Blue Ice is like the well-groomed black sheep of the Baker neighborhood. Located at 22 Broadway, the nightclub borders the hipsterland territory of hi-dive/Sputnik and is just a block up from the rocker haven of 3 Kings Tavern. It’s also just a hop, skip and handcuffed jump from the Crypt,…
One of the quickest ways to break into the biz or revitalize a stagnant career is to modernize someone else’s hit song a decade or so after its release with a clever cover version. It worked wonders for Marilyn Manson and Alien Ant Farm — even Johnny Cash cashed in…
How to make a KMFDM album: Pair sexy-girl vocals with a frog-throated male lead spitting angry, Euro-style slow-paced raps (à la Trent Reznor on “Down in It”), synthesize every beat to the max and then cover it all up with iconic Brute! artwork. Stick the group’s acronym in a chorus…
Big-budget bands, on average, take anywhere from two to five years to produce a full-length album. Wolf Eyes takes about a week. The act is a record collector’s nightmare, with an extensive discography that stretches far into the annals of self-produced cassette tapes, CD-Rs and the occasional etched vinyl record…
Sandeigh Barrett never understood the Holy Trinity. Just six years old and she was already causing trouble by asking too many questions. At the time, Barrett’s devoutly Southern Baptist family was living in a trailer park in a tiny Texas village called River Oaks. While most kids her age were…
Guys, don’t be fooled. When gals squeeze their asses into tight skirts and prance around in uncomfortable heels, we’re really trying to entice you to do only one thing: buy us drinks. So keep your sweaty hands on your wallets and give thanks for Tuesday night, when you’re relieved of…
Listening to the up-tempo early-’70s garage reverb of Deadboy and the Elephantmen, it’s hard to reconcile that lead vocalist/guitarist Dax Riggs is the same metal dude who once fronted the influential Southern-fried sludge outfit Acid Bath. Riggs’s musical ardor has developed substantially beyond the swampy drone of his past endeavors;…
American performance artist Chris Burden once noted that the dwindling fan base of most bands can be attributed to changing tastes or reactionary disinterest. Xiu Xiu, however, has had the unfortunate problem of often losing fans to suicide. (Oh, how very Goethe.) The San Jose-based act sits on a bummer…
Rockabilly is an especially specific genre. Despite technological advances in hair goop in the past fifty years or so, the style hasn’t deviated too much from slicked-up pompadours and thumping slap-bass lines (even psychobilly counterparts remain true to the general approach). Take stylized guitar riffs and bop ’em out with…
Towers of London would be the most original rock band to ever come out of England — if this was 1975. Sadly for Towers, it’s not. The London mates, with their ultra-party-coiffed manes, come off as third-generation wannabes so devoid of pure inspiration that even their influences look asinine. The…
Jayson Marrs is bringing sexy back. Again and again and again. The club owner uses that tongue-slithering adjective to describe just about every corner of The Lure (1434 Blake Street), the latest late-night club/restaurant combo to come to LoDo, now set to open on September 22. The lounge? “We have…
Get Three Coffins Ready doesn’t need no stinkin’ vocalist. The Denver-based purely instrumental band makes dance-floor toe-stepping goodness that’s as much sock-hop shtick as it is rockabilly crass. Riding the waves of ’50s and ’60s beach-bum pop and crashing it into mid-’70s grungy garage, Get Three Coffins Ready offers an…
Kurt Cobain loved the Melvins. And if he hadn’t shot himself into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, then biographers and dutiful note-takers of music history might not have paid any attention to this small fact. And here’s another one: Without the influence of the Melvins, there would be…
Converge had the good fortune to tour through Boulder a few years back during the heyday of sports riots and couch-burning. One particular show fell on the same night as CU versus Somebody (like it mattered who was playing), and as hardcore kids stormed the inside of Tulagi, football maniacs…
Seeing Michael Reisinger without his hands down his pants is like attending a birthday party without cake. Motheater’s unabashed vocalist has made the dirty deed a staple live — one that’s immodestly hard to pry your eyes from. Reisinger says its an entirely subconscious, I’m-just-totally-lost-in-the-moment thing. Whatever the case, it’s…
