Five of the Best Free Bands at the Five Points Jazz Festival

For the last fifteen years, the Five Points Jazz Festival has celebrated the neighborhood’s rich jazz history. The neighborhood, which was once dubbed the Harlem of the West, used to be home to a number of jazz clubs. This year’s festival, which is from 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., on Saturday, May 20, includes more stages and more bands than previous years. While there are dozens of stellar bands performing this year (you can see the band lineup here), these are five acts definitely worth checking out.

Ten Chris Cornell Songs That Explain Why He Will Outlive Us All

This is all getting horribly familiar, isn’t it? We’ve lost another one — a great musician and songwriter taken far too young. We’ll never know quite why Chris Cornell, of Soundgarden and AudioSlave, made the decisions that he did, but it’s not for us to judge. Here are ten of his best songs.

The Best Concerts in Denver This Weekend

Project Pabst returns to the RiNo Neighborhood on Saturday, May 20 with a weighty lineup that includes Ice Cube, Phantogram, Danny Brown, Kurt Vile & the Violators, STRFK, while the Five Points Jazz Festival and the Global Dub Festival (featuring Flux Pavilion, Illenium and more) is at Red Rocks on Saturday as well.

Twelve of Denver’s Best Independent Music Venues

Colorado is lucky to boast many music venues run independently of corporate giants. Some of these spaces are big, others small. All keep this city’s scene original and vibrant. Here are twelve of Denver’s best independent music venues running today.

Everclear’s Art Alexakis Gives a Damn About His Lyrics

When Art Alexakis’s Everclear formed in 1991 in Portland, Oregon, just three hours from Seattle, the alt-rock band was inevitably lumped in with the grunge scene. And sure, there were superficial similarities, from Alexakis’s gaunt demeanor and drug stories to the fashion, but there was very little grunge in Everclear’s…

Paramore, Mary J. Blige and Every New Denver Concert Announcement

Paramore, which released its new album After Laughter last week, brings its Tour Two to Bellco Theatre on, Thursday, September 21 with Best Coast opening. Tickets ($38.50-$59.50) go on sale on Wednesday, May 24, at 10 a.m. Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Woman North American tour stops at Bellco Theatre on Wednesday, September 6. Lalah Hathaway will open. Tickets ($49-$150) go on sale on Friday, May 19, at 10 a.m. HARD Red Rocks returns to the venue on Friday, July 28, with Dillon Francis, DJ Mustard, Destructo, AC Slater, Wax Motif and Kittens. Tickets ($49.75-$99.75) go on sale on Friday, May 19, at 10 a.m.

A Storm’s Brewing: Alaska Thunderfuck Croons About Makeup and, Um, Anuses

Fans of Emmy Award-winning reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race know all too well the legend of drag oddity Alaska Thunderfuck whose bizarre take on the classic art form charmed audiences as she broke all the rules. Well, buckle up, Denver. Thunderfuck is coming back to town this Saturday with a batch of songs and a live band, and it’s going to be a bumpy night.

Here Are Fifty More Bands Playing Westword Music Showcase 2017

Westword Music Showcase is right around the corner, and the lineup keeps getting better. Earlier this year, we announced the national acts gracing our main stage – Shakey Graves, the Revivalists, Cut Copy, Bob Moses, COIN and A R I Z O N A – as well as a handful of the locals who will be playing. Today, we’re announcing fifty more local acts who will perform at venues throughout the Golden Triangle.

Three Decades Later, Primus Still Sucks

Waiting in a line that spanned almost two Boulder blocks before Primus’s sold-out show at the Fox Theatre last night – part of the renowned Boulder venue’s twentieth-anniversary celebration – I heard a guy in his mid 20s tell a friend incredulously, “My cousin said he’s never heard of Primus. He didn’t even know fucking ‘John The Fisherman!’”

Five Red Rocks Security-Line Hacks

Have you ever been stuck waiting to go through security at Red Rocks Amphitheatre? Depending on what time you choose to venture inside, the security line can seem to stretch on for an eternity. Many people grumble about security’s snail-pace, but the reality is the speed of the line depends on all of us.