Church Fire and Morlox, both from Denver, might seem like unusual collaborators on a split cassette release. The two acts don’t have much in common at first glance: Church Fire could be considered a synth-pop act, and Morlox is more in the realm of IDM. (Each side of the tape…
In 1969, Miles Davis started recording sessions for his landmark jazz-rock fusion album Bitches Brew, using close to twenty musicians over six months. Pianists Herbie Hancock, who spent five years in Davis’s second great quintet, and Chick Corea were both on that album, as well as Davis’s In a Silent…
Garth Brooks is the best-selling solo artist of the 20th century in America, and he’s used plenty of that money for philanthropic goals. He has also been exceedingly giving of his time and gone above and beyond for his fans. These six moments prove that he is one of the most…
The 42nd Telluride Bluegrass Festival will take place from June 18 to 21, 2015. As they often do, four day passes sold out before the lineup was even announced (it took ten minutes for fans from all 50 states and several foreign countries to snatch them all up). You can…
Doro Pesch is performing this Wednesday, March 11th at the Bluebird Theater. Pesch got her start as a rock and roll singer at the age of three when she started singing Little Richard’s “Lucille” around the house. It was a perfect start for a woman who would go on to…
Colorado is set to take over Austin in a month, with the Colorado Music Party, as we originally announced last week. Over 120 bands will flock out of the cold winter, south, to the land of concerts and partying for SXSW 2015. Headling acts include Denver’s Rubedo, The Yawpers, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kitty…
Widespread Panic returns to Red Rocks for three nights (Friday, June 26 through Sunday, June 28) and will also perform at the two-day Ride Festival (Saturday, July 11 and Sunday, July 12) in Telluride that also includes Gov’t Mule, Jonny Lang, Trigger Hippy, North Mississippi Allstars, The Temperance Movement and more…
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…
The Sloths will make its Denver debut on Tuesday, March 10th at the Hi-Dive. Early purveyors of California garage rock in the mid-1960s when its members were teenagers, The Sloths in its earliest incarnation released a two-sided 45 of “Makin’ Love” and “You Mean Everything to Me” in 1965 and…
We did it! We survived our two-week winter! Now that it’s definitely, officially spring, get out and see a concert. There are plenty of good ones this week, including Talib Kweli at Cevantes’ and the start of Greensky Bluegrass’s three-night stand in Boulder. Monday, March 9 Misterwives $5-$13 8:00PM Bluebird…
Witch House started as a kind of joke between Travis Egedy of Pictureplane and his house music producing friend Shams in 2009. It was a reference to the darker electronic music that they and artists like Salem and Crystal Castles were making. Though, truly, the music wasn’t necessarily dark and…
Before essentially disappearing from live music in 2012 and quietly releasing its most recent album, Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time, in 2013, Candy Claws was one of the few bands around on a small budget that managed to create a genuine sense of the otherworldly with its music…
Over the last six months Scott Mattson and his wife Nicole have been transforming the building at 1330 27th Street from a warehouse-type space into Nocturne, a modern take on the 1940s jazz supper club, which opens to the public on Monday, March 9. Mattson, who graduated from Metro State…
“There was a time when there was a thriving music scene in Boulder. At least [there were] a lot of record stores and shows, places with interesting music,” says filmmaker Dan Schneidkraut, whose feature-length documentary Old Man — about his father, Andy Schneidkraut, and his iconic record shop, Albums on…
This weekend’s best concerts includes a pair of SXSW kickoff shows, the debut of Sound of Ceres and the return of Bleachers. See the rest of our picks below. Friday, March 6 Datsik $26 8:00PM Ogden Theatre Doomtree $20 9:00PM Gothic Theatre Mix Master Mike $10 9:00PM Beta Illegal Pete’s…
As musicians love to explain to anyone stupid enough to listen to them, organizing and playing shows can be a lot of work for little reward. In addition to wrangling multiple groups of morons in the same room at the same time, setting up shows also requires dealing with various…
Join us on Saturday, June 20, 2015, for the 21st Westword Music Showcase, featuring the inventive producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist Flume as well as Austin psych-rock titan the Black Angles, pop genius Misterwives and over 100 more of the best bands and artists from Colorado and beyond on a dozen stages in Denver’s…
Some of the most prominent members of the Denver hip-hop scene came together at the Bluebird Theater last night for a spotlight performance of the 3hree Project. Spearhead by Denver Promoter Francois Baptiste and born out of KMG studios, the 3hree Project vision started in late 2013. Over a year…
While inches of snow accumulated in Denver earlier this week, the evening becoming a quiet, the city felt quaint and the Bluebird Theatre was accosted by the guttural sounds of a pair of Detroit and New York’s finest, who combined form PRhyme. DJ Premier and Royce da 5’9 come from…
Musicians Daisy Mauterer and Brian Weikel live in a quiet Fort Collins neighborhood with bright street lights, lawns separating one property from the other and neat driveways. After returning from a gig around 2 a.m. recently, the couple chose sleep over unloading their packed CR-V. In the morning, when they went…
Joshua Fairman and Jordan Linit have been playing music together since they were thirteen. In middle school, their parents would drop them off at Blues Bars with state-issued papers giving the teenagers permission to play music in an adult venue. Then, the boys would go home and listen to their…
When keyboardist and singer Mark Shusterman, bassist and singer Rhett Rogers, guitarist Alex Eschen and drummer Scott Beck first formed the Blue Rider four years ago, the band was doing a lot of covers of soul and R&B songs from the late ’50s and early ’60s, with some psychedelic stuff…
