Last weekend dozens of musicians from Colorado, including myself, traveled to Kansas City for the 2016 Folk Alliance International. Currently in its twenty-eighth year, the conference and festival, draws more than two thousand artists and industry from all over the world. It is five days of performances, classes, lectures, panels and…
Brent Cowles is certain it’s going to be a big year. The singer-songwriter and former frontman of Denver’s You Me & Apollo just signed to the Greater Than Collective label. He has a solo EP in the works. And in a few weeks, he’ll be heading across the globe to…
By the time Pat Martino underwent surgery after suffering a nearly fatal brain aneurysm in 1980, the jazz guitarist already had more than a dozen albums under his own name and two decades of playing professionally, having started his career in his mid-teens. Yet following the operations he hardly remembered…
The Westword Music Showcase returns Saturday, June 25! The 22nd annual festival features national headliners including DJ and moombahton/electro producer Dillon Francis, soulful indie-rock band Cold War Kids, amped-up indie-pop duo Matt & Kim, Danish rockers New Politics, L.A. noise band HEALTH, indie electro-punks Brick + Mortar, Black Pistol Fire,…
Chances are that you’ve heard of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series, that maybe you’ve even fallen down a video rabbit hole, watching favorite band after band cluster around the famous cluttered desk in the NPR offices and perform stripped-down versions of songs you love. For the second year in a…
For years, Bethany Cosentino of Best Coast, which joins Wavves at the Bluebird Theater on Saturday, February 27 and Sunday, February 28, has been among the smartest and most opinionated figures on the current music scene. But earlier this month, she took these attributes to the next level. In “Burgers,…
Throughout its long career, irreverent humor and compassion for the human condition is at the core of Freakwater’s alternative country music. On its latest record, Scheherazade, its first album of new material since 2005’s Thinking Of You, founding members Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin explore modern myths and archetypes…
The 22nd Westword Music Showcase, taking place Saturday, June 25, 2016, is designed to feature more than one hundred fantastic and innovative Denver bands — but it also showcases some kick-ass national headliners. This year the festival will expand to include two main stages in addition to more than a dozen…
On Bill Frisell’s last album, 2014’s Guitar in the Space Age, the guitarist delved into songs from the ’50s and ’60s that initially got him interested in playing guitar as a kid growing up in Denver. On brand-new disc When You Wish Upon a Star, Frisell, who’s been living in Seattle…
Megadeth, fronted by Dave Mustaine whom our writer claims “isn’t a dick,” returns to the Fillmore Auditorium on Tuesday, while Fetty Wap is at the same venue on Wednesday. Meanwhile Bill Frisell brings his When You Wish Upon a Star project to the Oriental Theater. See the full list of our…
Chic featuring Nile Rodgers took the stage last night on a freakishly warm February Friday at the Paramount Theater. Maybe it was the members of Chic themselves who brought the heat to Denver, as they marched audiences through a showing of some of the twentieth century’s hottest jams, starting with…
Luke Thinnes’ relationship with music has always been driven by a genuine love for art and expression. As a teenager, he showed a love for DIY ethic in music, regularly attending shows at local venues like Rhinoceropolis and Glob — which he now calls home. After playing in drone/noise group…
Tonight, CHIC featuring Nile Rodgers headlines the Paramount Theatre while Vance Joy is at the 1STBANK Center and G. Love & Special Sauce is at the Ogden Theatre. Tomorrow, Galactic will be at the Fillmore Auditorium and the Budos Band is at the Gothic Theatre. See the full list of our…
Last week, tickets went on sale for the Minus Zero Festival, which will take place April 2-3 in Winter Park, Colorado, a mountain music festival featuring the “world’s biggest electronic music acts” like Diplo and Kaskade. Upon hearing this announcement, we couldn’t help but think of Snowball, the EDM festival…
Anton Krueger, better known as Bollywood Life, will be cranking out a set of catchy electro-pop at this Saturday’s Artopia. Krueger just came off a U.S./Canada tour with Slow Magic and Giraffage, whom he was running video-art for. Upon returning home to Denver, Krueger’s had some time to reflect on his musical…
Snoop Dogg and Future headline the third annual Merry Jane Wellness Retreat on 4/20 at Fiddler’s Green with Kevin Gates, Tory Lanez and Raven Felix opening the show. Tickets ($55-$85) go on sale on Friday, February 19 at 10 a.m. Ryan Adams headlines Red Rocks Wednesday, August 17 with Kurt…
Diane Coffee is the creation of Shaun Fleming, the drummer of Foxygen, and the band brews an appealing blend of American roots music, blending soul, rock and roll, gospel, R&B and the blues. Fleming combines this survey sound with a strong stage presence reminiscent of Motown and David Bowie, perfecting…
I hope, in years to come, to be proved wrong about Emily Haines and her band, but last night Metric’s disjointed live show at the Fillmore Auditorium left me disappointed. Looking at Metric’s discography, perhaps the live show’s lack of coherence is understandable. The band’s early music landed right between the…
Rock and roll has never experienced a shortage of polarizing characters, those individuals whose music we might adore but, when you hear them talk, they just sound like assholes. Maybe they deliberately pull an Axl Rose and delay going on stage for two hours, leaving the fans waiting around like cattle. Or maybe…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
Across the gulf of 46 years since its first eponymous album was released on February 13, 1970, it might be difficult to imagine how Black Sabbath’s music could have seemed evil and dark. But last night, when it was actually happening — those familiar bells, sounds of rain and Tony…
Mike Peters co-founded the Denver-headquartered cancer charity Love Hope Strength in 2007, but the Welsh musician’s ties to the city date all the way back to 1983, when his new-wave rock band the Alarm came to the U.S. for the first time, with U2. The Alarm was scheduled to play…
