Music

The Fray, who released Through the Years: the Best of the Fray earlier this month, play an intimate show at the Fox Theatre on Friday, November 25 before headlining 1STBANK Center the following night. Leftover Salmon performs the music of Neil Young at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox on Friday, November 25 and headlines the Fillmore Auditorium the following night with Los Lobos opening. This week’s lineup also includes FIDLAR, 12th Annual Last Waltz – Revisited, Paper Bird and Snow Tha Product.

Evan Stephens Hall wanted to make sure I heard him right. A few hours before Pinegrove’s show last July, and we were sweating over pints on Larimer Lounge’s back patio, nearly shouting over the clanging of soundcheck. The young rock band’s lead singer-songwriter was describing a song cycle he wrote…

Multi-instrumentalist Kris Drickey is an eternally creative spirit. Her work in the Denver-based folk/americana/whatever-the-hell-you-wanna-call-it band Chimney Choir has always had a sense of collaboration and whimsy. The group’s latest effort Dream is a continuation of these sensibilities while creating a new world, which may be a dream after all. Growing up in the cassette-tape generation, Drickey’s love of tapes continues to this day, as well as her somewhat guilty love of Mariah Carey.

Charleston, South Carolina’s Shovels & Rope is at the Ogden Theatre for two nights this weekend while Rufus du Sol and Faceman also have two-night stands. This weekend’s lineup also includes Life Aquatic’s Tribute to David Bowie featuring Seu Jorge at the Gothic, Darlingside at L2 Church,  Glen Phillips at Swallow Hill, the Posies at the Oriental Theatre, Andy McKee at the Soiled Dove Underground. See the full list of our picks below.

“Everyone always thinks I’m the one that did this, but I’m not,” Steve “Faceman” says about his latest mastermind, “Faceman’s 100 Year Storm,” a two-day festival taking place this weekend at the Oriental Theatre during which 100 bands will perform twenty-minute sets. “Everyone can come up with an idea, but if other people don’t put their hearts in it as well, nothing comes of it. I’m always fearful that it’s a selfish endeavor.”

“The Other Black comes from the idea that music should help,” says Denver musician Wesley Watkins. “People are very afraid of the unknown. I’ve spent a lot of time as an outcast in my life, in the black community, specifically in Denver, but just in the community. I’ve had some very unconventional things happen to me in my life, and with all this election and everything I really want to encourage people to love themselves, so that they can start to love others.”

Few bands can point to one event or festival as a catalyst and jumping-off point for its success. For Massachusetts’s Darlingside, however, much of the group’s recent success can be traced back to the Westin Hotel in Kansas City, where last year’s Folk Alliance Festival was held.

Bruno Mars, who set to release his new album on Friday, brings his 24K Magic World tour to the Pepsi Center on Monday, October 30; tickets ($49.50-$150) go on sale on Monday, November 21, at 10 a.m. New Kids on the Block headline the Total Package tour at Pepsi Center on Saturday, June 10, with Boyz II Men and Paula Abdul; tickets ($29.95-$199.95) go on sale on Saturday, November 19, at 10 a.m. As we announced earlier this week, Sting will be at the Fillmore Auditorium on Tuesday, February 14, and Devendra Banhart is coming to the Boulder Theater on Friday, February 3.

Charleston, South Carolina duo Shovels & Rope, which plays the Ogden Theatre on Friday, November 18, and Saturday, November 19, know that some seeds are worth watering, allowing them to grow and bloom — while others are best left in the cold, dark ground.

Nearly a year ago, Pearl’s opened at 603 East 13th Avenue in the space that been the Beauty Bar for the last five years and a longtime home of the Snake Pit before that. Mike Barnhart, who was a co-owner of the Beauty Bar, and Tucker Schwab, a Beauty Bar bartender and manager, opened Pearl’s with a dance club in one room and a neighborhood bar in another room. But now they’re trying to keep the venue afloat with an Indiegogo campaign to raise $60,000 over the next twelve days.

As the line for the sold-out, highly anticipated “Evening with Morrissey” at the Boulder Theater snaked around the block, one could not help but notice an ambulance parked directly in front of the entrance.

Sting, who teamed up with Peter Gabriel at the Pepsi Center last July, returns to the area but at the much more intimate Fillmore Auditorium on Valentine’s Day, Tuesday, February 14. The tour is in support of the singer and bassist’s brand new album, 57th & 9th, and features his longtime guitarist Dominic Miller, drummer Josh Freese and guitarist Rufus Miller.

Monica Birkenes, known as Mr Little Jeans, came into musicianship in a way that many of us fantasize about: She ran into Beyoncé’s entourage, expressed her interest in making music, was taken gracefully into the studio where she laid down some poignant tracks and began her career as a musician. Her latest EP, Fevers, was released late September, and now Birkenese is making her way around the country with her latest tour. She spoke to Westword from the road somewhere in Nebraska to talk about touring, her upcoming full-length album and her creative process post-Beyoncé.