Robyn Hitchcock Lives in Nashville, but He Hasn’t Gone “Twangy”

Robyn Hitchcock spent a good chunk of his life in England, including his tenure with the psych-rock band Soft Boys and through his solo career with and without the Egyptians. These days, however, Hitchcock’s living in Nashville, where he’s working on a new album. He’s been living in Nashville since…

Pretty Lights Announces Two More Colorado Dates

Pretty Lights, who is set to play two nights in Telluride on August 26 and 27, also announced a two-night stand at Red Rocks on Friday, August 12 and Saturday, August 13.  Tickets ($49.75-$60), and a limited number of two-day GA passes, go on sale on Friday, June 3 at…

Metal Meltdown: Denver Metal Shows in June 2016

Every month in Denver, there are many metal shows and metal-centric events, but its can be hard to keep track of everything. Here’s a rundown of the best metal-riffic happenings in the area this June, with information on why these shows are worth dragging yourself away from the Judas Priest…

M83’s Triumphant Pop Music Tugged at Nostalgic Heartstrings

M83 is undoubtedly a band of its times, which, of course, means it takes as much from the past as it does from the future. At Red Rocks Tuesday the band took full advantage of its brilliant surroundings and presented its luminous, spacious and triumphant music the way it was intended…

The Eight Strangest Lineups at Red Rocks for Summer 2016

Most of the bills for Red Rocks concerts tend to make sense in both an artistic and commercial sense. Even when Soundgarden played the show there in the summer of 2014 with Nine Inch Nails and Oneohtrix Point Never, it felt like a good fit since Trent Reznor has had…

Joey Shithead on D.O.A.’s Musical and Political DIY Roots

D.O.A. from Vancouver is considered one of the foundational bands of hardcore punk. Its album Hardcore ’81 is generally believed to be the first time the term was used in connection with punk’s second wave. As with contemporaries like Black Flag, Bad Brains and Middle Class, D.O.A. drew inspiration from early…

Pete Pidgeon on Working With Levon Helm

Pete Pidgeon was just a toddler he heard Garth Hudson’s organ solo on “Chest Fever” from the Band’s 1968 debut, Music From the Big Pink. When his parents put the record on in their living room and he heard the organ, he says it was the first time he remembers…

The Broke Music Fan’s Guide to Denver: The Internet

While we would never recommend illegally downloading somebody’s art, the Internet is still a veritable garden of riches for the broke music fan. If you’re reading this, you’re online already. All you have to do is navigate. 1. Youtube. Youtube is a solid place to start to get your fix…

The Kills Held Nothing Back in a Flood of Rock-and-Roll Power

Blasting out the gates with “No Wow,” The Kills spent little time with preambles and set the stage for a ferocious energy that lasted for the rest of the show. The Kills aren’t really known for low-key shows, but this performance was especially generous. Even with the drummer, the keyboard…

Ten Great, Vanished Denver Music Venues — 2016 Edition

Denver has been home to many music venues that have had major impact on the local scene and, to some extent, the national music scene. A list of those noteworthy concert venues that are now gone could easily be five times as long. Below are ten clubs, studios and spaces…

Florence + the Machine Brought the Love to Denver

The Pepsi Center is a cavernous place to watch a concert. There are arenas like it all around the world. Basketball jerseys hang from the incredibly high ceiling, concrete stairs run top to bottom, and the sound can echo all around the joint. On Thursday evening, however, Florence Welch’s voice…

Trawling the Small Print for Denver’s Day of Rock Lineup

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. Saturday is the Day of Rock in Denver, a one-day festival this Saturday, May 28, aims to benefit Amp…

Jamie Hince of the Kills on Taking the Trans-Siberian Express

Not so many years ago, Jamie Hince, guitarist and electronics-and-production wizard for the Kills, might have had to give up playing guitar completely. After complications from cortisone injections into his knuckles to treat the strain of playing guitar so much, Hince had to have multiple surgeries and a tendon removed…

Air Guitar Elevated to Performance Art — Yes, Really

When this scribe was a blossoming wee headbanger in the late 1980s and early ’90s, air guitar was what we did instead of dance when we went to clubs underage. It was the tribal ritual for the terminally uncool — those of us without any sense of rhythm and next-to-no…

How Much Did You Hate Prom? Do It Over at Denver’s Goth Prom

Desiree Albee has hosted her music-and-fetish night, Repent, for nearly two years, but she’s always known that the event represented only one flavor of Denver’s goth scene. In a flash of inspiration, she conceived of an event that would bring together the city’s various goth-themed nights and include as many…

Latin-Ska Group Roka Hueka Drops Politically Charged Party Soundtrack

Three years after forming, the Denver-based Latin ska band Roka Hueka will release its self-produced debut album Red at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox on Saturday, May 28, with fellow local Latin-Caribbean fusion acts Quilombo and ArteCura opening. Mixing influences and transcending borders is a recurring theme for Roka Hueka, in both…