Bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word. The Soiled Dove took flight from its longtime home on Market Street earlier this year, exchanging LoDo for the new-urbanist sprawl of Lowry. But beyond the fact that this venue is nested in the basement of the Tavern Lowry, located at 7401…
The industrial-music scene is an incestuous orgy of member-swapping between synthesizer swingers. These days, you can’t throw a rock into a room of rivetheads without hitting at least one person who did a guest spot on a Revolting Cocks album. Front Line Assembly’s Bill Leeb is no exception (although, to…
Metal dudes are totally cute — those big, burly Hessian beards and pot-bellied pudges of flesh stretching out faded biker T-shirts touting slogans like “If you can read this, then the bitch fell off.” Just like a wicker basket of puppies, those headbanging alpha males are — yup, just like…
Mojave 3 is made up of shoegazing trumpeters Neil Halstead (on vocals and guitar), Rachel Goswell (vocals and bass) and Ian McCutcheon (drums). Formerly known as the entrancing ambient-pop dream outfit Slowdive, the British mates dropped the dive-y moniker in favor of Mojave 3 when their music picked up pace…
Drag the River ain’t your grandpappy’s country — unless your grandpappy used to stitch Op Ivy patches to his hoodies and rock out in prominent local punk bands. Then, yeah, this is that old-timer’s kind of groove. The Fort Collins-based outfit boasts a lineup of luminaries that reads like an…
Oops, Liars did it again: The trio made a concept record. Actually, it’s probably more accurate to say that they made an album and then wrapped a concept around it. At its core, Drum’s Not Dead, released earlier this year on Mute, is a winding rock voyage that maps the…
Kick out the jams, motherfucker. But stay away from cliches, and do it somewhere other than downtown — somewhere like Swimclub 32 (3628 West 32nd Avenue), which recently added live music provided by both DJs and bands Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays. (Fridays are reserved for the owners’ own twelve-inch…
True story: I never used to use profanity. It made me uncomfortable, and every time I tried to utter “shitassdickface,” it just came out an awkward mess of syllables that weighed the same on the grace scale as June Cleaver dropping a “fo’ shizzle.” But like a straight-edge kid selling…
Sugar and spice and indie-pop-star potential, that’s what these little girls are made of — emphasis on girls. Smoosh is a Disney exec’s cha-ching dream of wholesome ‘tween entertainment. Made up of the singly named (how rock star) sisters Asya and Chloe, the duo plays cute keyboard-and-drums pop that rings…
Old Time Relijun subscribes to three basic tenets of life: Eat, drink, fuck. Bred in Olympia, Washington, the band carries a sound that is both primal and urgent — as if barnyard animals were rioting through an uppity art college. The three-piece, fronted by the enigmatic vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Arrington…
Ben Pittz is a nice guy. It’d be hard to peg him as the swell kid next door, however, if the judgment were based on a To Be Eaten show, what with Pittz’s thick, red dreadlocks whipping through the air as he bangs out wicked metal guitar libations between stints…
Owen Pallett is the brains and brawn behind Canadian-based Final Fantasy. He is the frontman and the backing band, and often even seems to act as his own one-man audience. He Poos Clouds expels self-conscious orchestral arrangement into the experimental outhouse of indie singer-songwriter overindulgence. The arrangements of pedal-looped violins,…
Aaron Lazar talks fast and fervently. His language is a swagger. He doesn’t mince words; he uses them like a butcher knife. As the trash-talking frontman of the Giraffes, his don’t-give-a-fuck-who-we-offend attitude is the jet propulsion behind the Brooklyn-based band’s heavy guitar licks and lyrical candor. Sure, it’s kind of…
The weather is getting too pleasant to ignore, and those ’70s rockers in Queen had the right idea: “I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike!” So go ahead, strap on those cycling shoes and strut like Freddie Mercury today at the City Park Criterium. The…
Girls, girls, girls — and Bush. The husband of Gwen Stefani (what’s-his-Gavin-face) should be stoked that his sissy ’90s grunge band is still making the rounds at the DJ booth, especially when it was “Everything Zen” blaring through the speakers last week at La Bohème (1443 Stout Street). Other classics…
So I say to my editor, “How about this Pretty Thigh band?” He turns, looks down at me (because I’m shorter) and, blunt like a cigar, the dude replies, “I’m hip,” and “I like them.” And it’s true. He is hip. But even more, Pretty Thigh is a band to…
At youngliars.blogspot.com, the most recent post reads, “Earth to People: Love is the ultimate truth at the heart of existence. Treat each other with care. To be cynical is no longer useful and wildly irresponsible. Please, be here now.” This is the professed Internet axiom of blogger DAS, who, presumably,…
Summer’s upon us, finals are over, school is out. It’s bike weather and bare ankles as far as the eye can see. Swim trunks and park picnics, making trouble like teenagers in haste — it all makes for a motion-picture soundtrack, and Fifth Hour Hero is the feel-good hit of…
They say rock is dead — but so is Tupac, and that hasn’t stopped him from continuing to chart on Billboard. On occasion, yes, rock’s inappropriate cousin shows up and pisses all over the genre (let’s call him Scott Stapp). But face it: Every family has a douchebag. Cut the…
Take a mental Polaroid of Murder by Death; what will you see? Pretty-boy metal-heads with black-painted fingernails? Starving rockers with welts under their eyes? You just may be surprised by what develops: namely, three guys in button-up shirts and a girl armed with a cello. The Bloomington, Indiana, quartet composes…
The house lights are turned up; the music is fading out. It’s a little before 2 a.m., and a modestly dressed lady is hunched over on a bar stool. Her fist is loosely wrapped around a beer, and she’s arguing with the bartender, who keeps asking her why she punched…
Dear Palisades, Do you like me? Please check yes or no. I know we don’t know each other very well, but with your bubblegum charm and my awkward posture, I think that we could make a good team. Whenever I listen to your sweet pop melodies, it makes me daydream…
