Every year, Denver delivers up worthy new bands in various genres, or non-genres, and this past year has been especially rich in that regard. In a future list, perhaps we can include artists like Born Dumb, Herse, Jimmy V, Julien, Bag, Total Goth, Silver Face, eHpH, Never Kenezzard and PterrorFractyl,…
Editor’s Note: Trawling the Small Print is a new feature wherein we squint hard at big festival lineups and spotlight a few gems that may have been hidden below the headliners. The Rocky Mountain Folks Festival has existed for a quarter of a century,; in that time, it has survived…
Flogging Molly and Trampled by Turtles are at Red Rocks this week, and Eric Church will be at the venue for a two-night stand; Demi Lovato and Nick Jonas are at the Pepsi Center, Peter Frampton and Lynyrd Skynyrd are at Fiddler’s Green, and Norah Jones is the Ellie Caulkins Opera…
As today, the day Frank Ocean fans have been waiting for since 2012, winds down, we can only focus on one sad fact: Ocean’s new album still hasn’t arrived. Despite all of the hype this week, we knew this was going to happen. In fact, we didn’t even get excited…
Frank Turner, who joins Flogging Molly at Red Rocks on Monday, August 8, doesn’t hide his feelings — and that makes some people uncomfortable. Over the course of his prolific solo career, launched after a memorable stint as lead vocalist for the incendiary act Million Dead, Turner has established himself…
Festival season is in full swing this weekend with Vertex, featuring Alabama Shakes, Odezsa, Trey Anastasio Band, Duke Dumont and more, Telluride Jazz Festival and ARISE Music Festival. This weekend’s line-up also includes Slipknot, Marilyn Manson and Of Mice and Men at the Pepsi Center, Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy…
Hey, we all pay our taxes, right? Some of that money goes toward the upkeep of city facilities like libraries and museums, so in a way, we pay for music without knowing it, because many of those places host musical events and/or have music to borrow. If you haven’t already,…
Since 1994 Michael Franti has been best known for his band Spearhead, a funk and soul outfit with lyrics that commented on social issues with an uncommon level of sensitivity and a measured critique. Prior to that, Franti had been the main vocalist in industrial rap acts the Beatnigs and…
Though South Broadway was teeming with hundreds of fest-goers last Friday evening — it was day two of the sweet-sixteen edition of the Underground Music Showcase — it was still easy to spot my friends in Tacocat. Like shiny pastel buoys bobbing among a sea of beards and black clothes,…
While there a ton of bands playing at this year’s Riot Fest there are several official after-shows that were just announced, including the Aquabats, Against Me!, Lagwagon, Thursday, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes, Pouya and more. Tickets go on sale on Friday, August 5 at 10 a.m. Widespread Panic…
“I’ll be playing some new stuff, if that’s okay with y’all,” John Paul White told his audience at the Bluebird last night. Enthusiastic cheers and applause rippled through the crowd, indicating they too were ready to look beyond White’s past achievements. White, half of Grammy-winning duo the Civil Wars, has…
It’s been ten years since James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem graced the hallowed annals of Red Rocks, but last night, after the first performance of their sold-out two-night stay, it was like they never left. They never seem to do that, do they? A band that started as a lark…
After the big ol’ hoo-ha that Bassnectar caused at Red Rocks last year, you would think that every booking agent, venue manager, city official and their dogs would be prepared for the deep, bassy rumblings that the DJ and producer Lorin Ashton creates. Last September, Bassnectar performed at Red Rocks…
In 1996, Robbie Fulks and Bloodshot Records weren’t the oddest couple in the underground music scene, but they weren’t exactly a natural pair, either. Based in Chicago, Bloodshot was establishing its reputation as a hotspot for what it called “insurgent country,” putting out breakneck punk-meets-twang records by bands like the…
On Friday, August 5, the Open Media Foundation hosts its next monthly free Open Music Session event, which will feature musical guests Me Me Monster, the Corner Girls and Kenny Lee Young, as well as comedian Miriam Moreno. Last month, the July 2016 Open Music Session welcomed indie rockers the Take. The…
The who’s who of Colorado’s marijuana industry gathered Saturday night for the unveiling of Willie’s Reserve, Willie Nelson’s new cannabis company. To launch his new product, Nelson hosted two kick-off concerts, one last week in Washington state, and another on Saturday, July 30, at Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre in Greenwood, Colorado…
Deerhoof has been unleashing frenetic, eccentric rock music upon the world since 1994. That the San Francisco-based band’s sound is impossible to pigeonhole has long been a part of its appeal. It has never aimed to embrace a single genre or genre at all beyond loosely categorized “rock.” “We’ve never…
In the rapidly developing River North Arts District, an underused lot is being transformed. So what’s the fenced-off, tree-bordered tract of land going to turn into? An artisanal succulent-potting co-working space? A forty-story capsule hotel/craft brewery? No. The field will remain a field — but one that will be used…
This Saturday, hip-hop duo Calm. will play its first show in three years, opening for Extra Kool at the release show for his latest album, Eight. The two acts more or less came up together, forming the early core of local underground hip-hop imprint Dirty Laboratory in the mid-2000s. Calm.’s…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
“Bassnectar Chocolate! Bass Center 2016! Golden Tickets! A world of imagination!” This was the tweet posted by Lorin Ashton aka Bassnectar that ignited a buzz among Bassheads across the country on December 7, 2015. Prior to this announcement, EDM fans were concerned that this year’s incarnation of the DJ/producer’s popular…
The 2016 Underground Music Showcase: four days of numerous shows, countless forms of entertainment and music fans spilling onto the sidewalks of South Broadway. Yet one of the most striking impressions of this year’s UMS is that it felt smaller. Not smaller in terms of lacking quality or crowds, but…
