Unlike many acoustic-guitar-playing solo acts today, Joe Pug was not previously part of an established band; in fact, he’s never played in a band, period. So when his debut EP, 2009’s Nation of Heat, sold 20,000 copies, it was not because of an already established fan base, but because of…
Ten years ago in 2005, I went to my first Ultra Music Festival. Back then, it lasted just a day. Moby played, but he brought a full band and did all original material. The Carl Cox & Friends tent was still actually a tent. No one yet knew what a…
Over the weekend, drama prone DJ Joel Thomas Zimmerman, also-known-as Deadmau5, asked an Ultra related question that has Twitter buzzing: Did Krewella, the electronic music producing female sister-duo, fake their set? This all started when Deadmau5 tweeted “Aw man. Krewellas got them new completely wireless DJMs??? I’m jealous.” During their set at…
Melbourne Australia’s Smith Street Band, due tonight at the Summit Music Hall, is a passionate and earnest group, whose world travels and experiences have offered its members unique perspective on politics, passion and self-evaluation. Their latest, Throw Me In The River, is an account of these experiences and emotions. The…
Any veteran of Ultra Music Festival who attended this year’s three-day event was pleasantly surprised by the increased organization and overall maturity of the audience. Certain seemingly simple measures, like an 18-and-over age policy and significantly improved perimeter security, taken following 2014’s trampling of security guard Erica Mack and the…
Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver shares his ongoing story of an 80s rocker on a road trip through his past with the readers of Backbeat. You can see more of Van Sciver’s work in his new book SAINT COLE from Fantagraphics books. Last Week’s episode of Rufus…
There have been a lot of changes at Ultra Music Festival. The audience is over 18 now. And many of rave culture’s familiar accouterments — finger gloves, glow sticks, rage totems, etc. — have been banned under the fest’s new Prohibited Items policy. There are those of adult age who…
This week’s best concerts include Black Milks, Natalie Merchant and plenty more. The complete list of our picks follow! Ani DiFranco $35-$55 7:00PM, Mondy, Boulder Theater Generationals $13.75/$15 8:00 PM, Monday, Bluebird Theater Black Milk $13/$15 9:00 PM, Monday, Cervantes’ Other Side Foxygen $15 7:30 PM, Tuesday, Fox Theatr Robert DeLong $15 9:00 PM,…
Master jazz organist Dr. Lonnie Smith (who’s due tonight, March 30 and Tuesday, March 31 at Dazzle) and says the Hammond B-3 is a part of him, that it’s an extension of himself. He’s been eating and breathing the organ for the last five decades since starting to play it…
Jay Bianchi, owner of the Grateful Dead-centric bars Quixote’s True Blue and Sancho’s Broken Arrow, is resurrecting the Owsley’s Golden Road name in Boulder, seven years after opening a venue of the same in Denver. While Bianchi is currently booking shows at the Goose Bar (1301 Broadway) in Boulder as…
Downtown Miami’s 32-acre Bayfront Park is swarming with some 60,000 glistening, glittered bodies. The lights on Ultra Music Festival’s Main Stage make the Vegas strip look like the ass of a dying lightning bug. The minimally dressed millennials are dancing like they’re mad at the ground, and Snapchating every second…
Once home to O.P. Baur Confectionery Company in the late 1800s, Baur’s Ristorante and most recently, Le Grand Bistro, which closed last year, the building at 1512 Curtis Street has a long history. Now the Baur’s name is getting a reboot with Baur’s, Est. 1872 restaurant and its music venue,…
It’s a great weekend for live music in Colorado, as people continue to make their way back from SXSW. You can see the great Hurray for the Riff Raff tonight. Elsewhere: Turquoise Jeep, Cold War Kids, Arlo Guthrie and more. Our picks follow. Hurray For The Riff Raff $15/$18 9:00…
Since opening five years ago in Capitol Hill, the Denver Beauty Bar location been home various weekly dance nights, like Liplgoss and Motown Thursdays, and hosted some high profile talent like Prince Paul, Victor Duplaix, DJ Nu-Mark, the Smiths’ Andy Rourke and Love and Rockets/Bauhaus guitarist Daniel Ash . But…
This Friday, March 27th, the Japan Nite! tour comes to the Hi-Dive featuring Tsushimamire, QUORUM, The fin. and mothercoat, representing a small sliver of what underground music in the Land of the Rising Sun has to offer. Over the years, several Japanese bands have found a larger following, or in…
The Best of Denver, our annual love letter to the city, is on newsstands now. Within, you’ll find 200-some pages filled with the things that make Denver interesting, from the best handheld burrito to the best twerking workout. We found plenty to celebrate in Denver music and nightlife, too —…
After a fifteen-year run with the Jello Biafra-founded label Alternative Tentacles, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has launched its new label, SCACUNINC, which will also release material for Auto Club projects DBUK, and Munly & the Lupercalians. “We just kind of wanted to take control,” Cessna says. “We just wanted to…
The last time Jake Gould, a.k.a. Northcote, came through town, he played a solo acoustic show at the hi-dive and, even without musical accompaniment, his songs were powerful and resonant. This time through, at the Ogden Theatre, opening for The Gaslight Anthem, he brought with him a full backup band,…
Tweedy, due March 28th at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, is a collaboration between, longtime Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy, and his son Spencer. Together, the group released the album, Sukierae, in September 2014. The album carries with it a somber tone as most of the songs address Jeff’s wife, and…
After selling out its June 6 Pepsi Center show earlier this week, U2 added a second show on Sunday, June 7 as part of its iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour 2015. Tickets ($65-$275) go on sale on Monday, March 30 at 10 a.m. Swallow Hill announced its Summer Stage Concert Series at the…
Grant Kwiecinski, also known as Griz, has made a name for himself in the electronic music world by creating self-described “future-funk,” or combining pre-produced electronic music with live jazz saxophone playing. The Detroit born, Denver-based 24-year-old DJ and producer has put out three full length albums with another one debuting…
For Eazy-E, the concept of gangster rap was fully formed in his mind. By 1986 the genre, which nobody then called “gangster rap” (“reality rap,” please) had begun to sprout in LA by way of Ice-T’s “6 ‘n the Mornin’,” which was patterned after Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D’s “P.S.K. What…
