It takes more than musicians to make a scene: Venue owners, event planners, media members and people who just find ways to contribute to the music community play a critical role in ensuring that Denver is a great place to be a fan. Here are just a few of the…
After headlining the 1STBANK Center last month, Canadian EDM duo Adventure Club returns to the area on Friday, May 8 to play Red Rocks. General admission tickets ($39.95) and VIP tickets ($75) went on sale yesterday morning. Dada Life will be at the 1STBANK Center on Friday, March 13 as…
“It wasn’t anything necessarily about the Denver scene itself,” Heffron says about his idea to start Strings and Wood five years ago. “But working as a booking agent I’d reach out to places and they would laugh or pay artists pennies. I saw how poorly the best musicians were treated.”…
The Fort Collins based band, You Me & Apollo ended its career on Saturday night by singing the Beatles balled “With A Little Help From My Friends,” and they had plenty. The sold out show at Hodi’s Half Note in Fort Collins was completely sold out. “It was an emotional…
Although experimental music has been a part of the Denver scene for decades and the bands who perform it have enjoyed some critical acclaim, those artists are still largely unknown in this town. But 2014 was a breakout year for the city’s experimental-music scene, with a few key tours, label…
SPELLS set up on the floor along the south wall of the hi-dive. Wearing matching Christmas sweaters, which each member later took off, the band set the mood for what turned out to be a rowdy and light-hearted performance. Their set was perfect way to end an entire night of…
Crash 45 ended its three-year run on Saturday, December 20. It was a place you could see experimental music, bike clubs, “burners” and b-movies. Its very unassuming facade hid the array of metal art inside. When you stepped inside on the final night, the staff cheered you in welcome and…
Bummeroo, Denver’s first online music festival, occurred on YouTube this weekend. You can read all about the idea here, but basically artists uploaded sets to a YouTube playlist and, as described on the Facebook page, “u can enjoy it from the comfort of yr bed as they are uploaded or…
[jump] Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver shares his ongoing story of an 80’s 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 YOUTH IS WASTED. Last week’s episode of Rufus Baxter…
When some people think about noise as a genre, they think of harsh noise. But this show was somewhere else on the spectrum. Using samples, guitar, processed vocals, theremin and beats, Tom Smith and Mark Morgan, performing as T/SMM, created an immersive environment with their own musical language, enhanced by…
It’s a little bit of a quiet weekend in Denver, but there are still plenty of great shows, including Nathaniel Rateliff pulling double-duty tonight at the Ogden and T/SMM at Glob. The rest of our picks follow! Enjoy your weekend…
It’s now been almost an entire year since marijuana was legalized for recreational use here in Colorado. The experiment, by most accounts, has been a successful one, with other states following in our footsteps. It seems inevitable that we’ll see the entire country follow in the next decade. Although, because…
The Goth and industrial bands from Denver enjoyed a kind of heyday in the ’90s in Denver, with several active bands playing live. There was even a high-profile festival for a handful of years: the Denver Dark Arts Festival (later Tte Colorado Dark Arts Festival). When the momentum behind any…
“I had never really gone to music festivals until last year, when I went because I was playing them. I thought, this fucking blows. I didn’t like the experience at all — I see a bunch of people I like, but it’s not fun. It’s harder for me to be…
It is no secret that rent in Denver is climbing rapidly — so much so, in fact, that some artists feel they can no longer afford to live in the city. The Arts & Venues department of the city’s government wants to help. Together with the Minneapolis-based nonprofit Artspace, it…
The last time we talked to Guy Gerber (in 2012), the up-and-coming electronic music producer and DJ told us about his new project with P.Diddy, 11:11 — which was just released this year. Gerber will be back in Denver to play a show at Beta this Saturday night, December 20;…
The last major electronic show I attended was Porter Robinson’s World’s tour. The 21-year-old DJ used to be known for his wild drops and ultra-fast techno sounds, as heard in his 2011 hit single Spitfire. But in his newest album, he uses sampling to thread together beautiful melodies with gut-wrentching…
There’s something about carrying a torch for art that no one else seems to give a fuck about — when you love a band or a record or an artist so deeply but goes unnoticed by the general populace it starts to feel like it’s your own special secret to…
On November 17, Denver City Council passed an ordinance establishing AXS, a ticketing company co-owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, as the exclusive ticketing provider from January 1, 2015, until December 31, 2019, for venues owned by the City of Denver. You can read all 47 thrilling pages of the agreement…
Colorado’s last great soul-funk band was formed in 1966 in Phoenix, Arizona, where it was known as Freddi-Henchi and the Soulsetters. In 1968, founding members Freddy Gowdy and Marvin “Henchi” Graves decided to move the band to California in hopes of engaging a national audience and obtaining a record deal…
The members of good-times punk band SPELLS will happily share their opinions on any number of things. Mythical creatures, for example: “I think Bigfoot is just John Lithgow in a costume,” says Peter “P” Bohner. “That’s where he vacations. Some people go to Vail or Aspen…”A band that isn’t short…
“Denver is tight,” says P.O.S with a chuckle when asked about the music scene here. The rapper, producer, part-time punk-rocker and founding member of Doomtree will be heading here at the end of this week. He’ll be playing the Bluebird Thursday night, and Friday night he will be heading to…
