2015: The Year of the Call-Out This week, Westword music contributors took a moment to call out and shout out the standouts of their year in music, whether their concerns skewed local or national, niche or general, personal or quantifiable. In this week’s print edition and on the web, you…
Odesza, the Washington-based duo comprised of Clayton Knight and Harrison Mills, doesn’t seem to be concerned with state of EDM. Instead, they seem to focus on their music—and then they just work. Work at producing new sounds. Work at incorporating new musicians. Work at their craft. And Odesza’s craft has…
We here at Westword are stoked for the year! Originally, this piece was to focus on five 2016 releases by local bands that we were excited for. But as we compiled the list, that number quickly jumped to ten, then 15, then 20…you see a pattern here. While we know that…
Although there’s not a lot happening around the area early in the week, things ramp up on Wednesday with the first night of many multi-night New Year’s Eve stands, including Decadence at the Colorado Convention Center, Umphrey’s McGee, the Black Angels at the Gothic, Yonder Mountain String Band at the…
Nathaniel Rateliff will sing the national anthem on Monday, December 28, before the Broncos and Bengals play during Monday Night Football. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Rateliff and his band the Night Sweats have had, we would say, a decent year. From late-night TV appearances to an international tour to fans…
This week’s shows include some holiday-centric concerts, including jazz pianist Annie Booth performing A Charlie Brown Christmas, KlezFest featuring Hal Aqua & the Lost Tribe and Rabbi Joe Black, and pianist George Winston, who brings his “Winter Whow” to the Boulder Theater. See more picks below. MONDAY, DECEMBER 21 Sugarsplat…
When the Black Crowes went on hiatus in 2011, frontman Chris Robinson formed his own group, Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and he equated his new project to building a temple brick by brick. “In our case, our temple is one of sound and experience so every show is another brick into…
After headlining the Bellco Theatre, Puscifer returns to Colorado to perform at the Pikes Peak Center on Sunday, March 20. Tickets ($35.50-$55.50) went on sale yesterday, December 23. Dream Theater is set to release its double concept album, The Astonishing, in January and will follow up with a world tour…
2015 was one hell of a year for concert fans in the Mile High City. We saw alternative hip-hop make big venues home, bore witness to The Tank, an acoustic miracle in the middle of the Colorado desert, saw more shows at Red Rocks than any season in history, even…
This past weekend, Denver breakout boys Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats played a two-night holiday homecoming stand at the Ogden Theatre. Here’s the narrative I’ve heard every day since I moved to Denver: After years of teeth-sharpening in stalwart bands, releasing solid albums and wearing deep grooves into local…
Tin Horn Prayer had been considering reuniting for a while. The local folk-punk band had taken an indefinite hiatus in 2013. In late 2014, tragedy struck. The former drummer, Camden Trendler passed away. Tin Horn Prayer got back together to pay tribute to their fallen bandmate, and it felt good,…
Bummeroo, the online-only music festival created by David Castillo of Pizza Time and Panaderia, is back for its second year on Youtube, and is appropriately titled, “BUMMEROO 2.” Bummeroo 2, which will hit the interwebs on December 22, was originally conceived as an all-day real-world music festival at Denver’s Rhinoceropolis…
The “Queen and King of Telluride” will keep watching their thrones as Emmylou Harris returns to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival for the fourteenth year, and Sam Bush headlines the popular festival for the forty-second time. The annual festival announced its initial lineup of artists who will take the stage June…
This weekend’s lineup of shows includes YouTube sensation Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox at the Paramount Theatre, Victor Wooten at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom, Patterson at the Soiled Dove and Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats’ two-night stand at the Ogden Theatre. See the full list of our picks below. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18…
Arrested Development, which performs on Saturday, December 19, at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox, was one of the earliest incarnations of alternative hip-hop, as it would come to be called by critics. That designation is, of course, problematic when part of the reason the group wasn’t immediately embraced by hip-hop culture was…
I once commissioned an illustrator friend to draw an anniversary card for my boyfriend that said “You’re the Ad-Rock to my Kathleen Hanna,” with the living music icons’ likenesses drawn on it. The card never materialized, but the thought has always been there — the thought that to my riot…
Since its 2009 debut album, Recordings Made in Public Spaces, Volume 1, Wrekmeister Harmonies, the musical collective headed by J.R. Robinson, has produced increasingly powerful albums that serve as a kind of manifestation of the horror and beauty of human existence. Robinson borrowed more than his project’s name from Werckmeister…
After more than two decades of living in Athens, Georgia, Drive-By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood moved to Portland, Oregon. Since moving last summer, Hood says he’s written more there than he’s written in the last fifteen years – both songs and otherwise. “I think any time you go through a…
AC/DC’s Rock or Bust Tour hits the Pepsi Center on Monday, February 8 and tickets ($95-$140) go on sale on Friday, December 18, at 10 a.m. My Morning Jacket returns to Red Rocks for a two-night stand on Saturday, May 28, and Sunday, May 29. Tickets ($45-$49.95) go on sale…
For the remaining original members of Caramel Carmela, it wasn’t an easy decision to call it quits. After almost seven years as a band, Jack Roberts and Sha Gipson had weathered van breakdowns, geographical distance from other bandmates and a seemingly constant stream of fill-in members. The band’s hybrid of…
For three decades the Reverend Horton Heat has been raising a ruckus with its rockabilly-meets-county-meets-punk party music, frontman Jim Heath holding countless audiences in the palm of his hand like a TV evangelist. Heath is the consummate rock and roll entertainer, and age hasn’t dulled his passion for his work. Not the performing part,…
Just about every month for the past two years, the words “Red Bull Sound Select Presents” have appeared on the marquees of small venues around Denver, usually accompanied by the name of some major national headliner (Bun B, Viet Cong, The Internet) and, on the ground, a line of eager…
