Melt-Banana on the Influence of Video Games

Melt-Banana brings its manic and disorienting noise punk back to Larimer Lounge this Friday, July 24. Melt-Banana is pretty much impossible to forget — its shows are such an electrifying barrage of sounds and dynamics. To the group’s credit, it looks like it’s unleashing personal demons on stage as well…

The Eleven Best Concerts and Festivals in Colorado This Weekend

This week’s best concerts include massive celebrations in Denver and Lyons: UMS and RockyGrass, respectively. There’s plenty more, though, including the String Cheese Incident’s weekend at Red Rocks and the first Colorado show by TV on the Radio in some time. The complete list of our picks follows:  ALL WEEKEND…

High Fiction Wants You to Sing on Its Record

To say that High Fiction is a relatively obscure pop duo that has yet to release a record would be strictly true, but its members — Gary Grundei and Amy Shelley (who, turns out, is distantly related to the Mary Shelley who wrote Frankenstein) — have had a pretty atypical career,…

Force Publique Found a New Scene and a New Identity in Portland

Sometimes a geographical change is necessary for a band to find its own path. For Cassie McNeil and James Wayne, the Pacific Northwest felt like the right part of the country to re-root the duo’s work as Force Publique. Both musicians grew up in different parts of Colorado, eventually landing…

UMS 2015: A Guide to Things You Won’t See Anywhere Else

The Underground Music Showcase launches on Thursday, July 23 and runs through Sunday, July 26 in various venues, from as far north as 6th Avenue to Alameda. The yearly festival, originated by the Denver Post, brings together a huge array of local and touring bands, and the event as a whole…

Every New Colorado Concert Announcement

Mac Miller and Action Bronson team up for the first every Halloween show at Rocks on Saturday, October 31. Flatbush Zombies, Tory Lanez, Goldlink and Domo are also on the bill. General admission tickets ($39.99) go on sale on Friday, July 24 at 10 a.m.  Nearly five decades after the…

I’m Going to Write a Haiku About Every Band in Denver

Everybody knows the haiku formula: three lines — five syllables, then seven, then five — and some shit about nature. Boom. Haiku. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that. At its essence, each a haiku is a shifting picture, a series of three images that color each…

Riot Fest After Shows: Thrice, Doomtree and More

Riot Fest is a little over a month away. The lineup includes some monster names (Iggy Pop, Run DMC, etc.), but you don’t necessarily have to go in for the whole thing in order to get a sampling. Today, the organization announced a series of after-shows, featuring artists like Rancid,…

Meet Kaji: The Secret R&B Project of Former Metalhead Kevin Gentry

For a year and a half, Kaji was mostly a secret band that singer Kevin Gentry was developing. Kaji’s debut show, on January 30, 2015, at Syntax Physic Opera, unveiled a fully formed project, with guest musicians and backup singers. Without any official promotion, just word of mouth among friends,…

MCA’s Summer Concert Series Brings Side Projects to the Rooftop

The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver has a particularly gorgeous rooftop, one that comprises plants, downtown views and a charming cafe. For the past few summers, the MCA has brought musicians and patrons together in that space for a small concert series. This year’s set of shows, dubbed the B-Side…

Savvi Neufer Gives Bands a Home-Cooked Meal

In Savvi Neufer’s kitchen is a large plastic tub with everything she needs to cook a meal at a moment’s notice: spices, baking powder, Ziploc bags, cookie cutters, olive oil, cutting boards, corkscrews, boxes of rice, paper plates and more. The tub is nearly as big as she is, so…

Red Rocks Will Host Its First Halloween Show This Year

In a concert season that continues to expand, Red Rocks Amphitheatre has officially announced its first-ever Halloween show on October 31, featuring headliners Mac Miller and Action Bronson, with Flatbush Zomies, Tory Lanez, GoldLink, Domo Genesis. Tickets will be available for purchase this Friday July 24 at 10:00 a.m., starting…

Tuneful Doom: Torche Breaks the Metal Mold

If you grew up watching Headbanger’s Ball every weekend, it’s impossible not to associate the term “pop metal” with unequivocal shills like Slaughter, Trixter and Firehouse. It says a lot about how crotchety the international metal scene is now — and how heavy the music has become — that a…

The Nine Types of People You Meet at Global Dance Festival

Global Dance Festival took over Red Rocks Amphitheatre for the weekend — it’s the last true, unapologetic rave at this historic frontier. EDM lovers brought the heat, the light up swords, and the cannabis. The artists sets are stacked one on top of another, not giving the audience members time…

The Many Denver Connections to the Melvins

There were serious Denver connections at this weekend’s Melvins show. Andrew Novick did one of his GetYourGoing slide shows to start off the night. The affable and intelligent Novick can be found at all sorts of events, including his own a pop-up ramen shop, a Beyond Thunderdome-themed party and —…

Good Old War Finds New Ways to Connect at the Bluebird

Good Old War took a high-energy and lively crowd at the Bluebird Theater and, by the end, transformed it into a quiet and transfixed audience that hung on the band’s every word. The Philadelphia trio managed this by playing a show full of carefully written pop songs that are poignant…

The Eleven Best Festivals and Concerts in Colorado This Weekend

ALL WEEKEND Global Dance Festival$99-$210 6:00PM Red Rocks Amphitheatre Winter Park Jazz Festival$25-$75 12:00PM Hideaway Park FRIDAY, JULY 17 Darius Rucker$25-$99.50 7:00PM Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre Jurassic 5$35-$40 9:00PM Ogden Theatre The Melvins$17/$20 8:00PM Summit Music Hall BLKHRTS$6 8:00PM Herman’s Hideaway Heems$15 9:00PM Larimer Lounge SATURDAY, JULY 18 The Fray$30-$99.50 7:00PM…

Why Apple Music Made Me Give Up on iTunes

I loved you, iTunes. I loved you, and you betrayed me. You and your evil, malformed henchman, the iCloud, have trashed my 20,000-track music library and I don’t know what to do. I admit, I adopted you reluctantly at first — I was proud of my CD collection, and those…

Photos: Death Cab for Cutie Returns to Red Rocks

Death Cab for Cutie, playing its first tour without founding guitarist Chris Walla, stopped at Red Rocks earlier this week. After an opening set by tUnE-yArDs, the legendary band proved it still had plenty of power. Photographer Miles Chrisinger was there to capture the scene — check out a few of…