Last night, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra debuted its Turn Over the Keys series, wherein the ensemble serves as the backing band for a handful of local artists. The inaugural roster included Ian Cooke, Land Lines and Megan Burtt. We’ll have much more on the event in the coming days, but…
We all know that Colorado is home to many renowned bands, and the annual Westword Music Showcase celebrates our local music scene like no other. We’ve paired 100 bands alongside some pretty serious national talent (Flume, the Black Angels, MisterWives, Roadkill Ghost Choir, Robert DeLong and Wave Racer, to be…
DeVotchKa’s Tom Hagerman has been working with the Colorado Symphony, helping the group with writing the orchestrations for the music of various bands, since his own group’s first show with them in February, 2012. DeVotchKa’s lush orchestration and arrangements make them an ideal band for a symphony to collaborate with, and…
The Boulder home known as Goss House, which also functions as a music venue, studio and art gallery, is closing down. The house’s residents are being forced to leave, as the landlord elected not to renew their lease this summer. Come July, Goss House will join Astroland and Dead Leaf…
If you haven’t been to Lost Lake in a little while, it’s very different inside. Where once the black-walled room and the small stage stood is the bar with a shelved wall lit up with small lights where the bottles of alcohol sit like they would at a place that…
On Wednesday, May 27th, The Decemberists perform at Red Rocks with Spoon and Courtney Barnett. In certain circles, it’s de riguer to refer to Portland, Oregon’s the Decemberists as a pretentious hipster band. Let’s first dispense with the term “hipster.” Hasn’t it lost its currency as a criticism at this…
Sunday: A day that, especially on a late-May three-day weekend, is made for beer, friends, music and the hope that the deluge of rain will let up for one afternoon. If you didn’t spend your Sunday evening at the Larimer Lounge, surrounded by packs of Denverites, draft beers and the…
This weekend, one of Colorado’s most celebrated dance clubs will celebrate seven years of operation. In that time, Beta has won accolades both locally and nationally for its impressive roster of talent and its exceptional Funktion One sound system. The creator of that system, Tony Andrews, was in town this week…
Hey, Westword readers. You love commenting on our stories, and we love reading what you have to say — the bad and the good. Late yesterday, we changed the way you can comment online: We’re be using Facebook comments for the foreseeable future. The bad news: all of your previous comments have…
Guitarist David Torn has scored a number of films, including Traffic, The Order and Lars and the Real Girl, and has played on dozens of film scores, so it’s not surprising that much of the material on only sky, his brand-new solo album on ECM, has a cinematic quality. Torn…
Jon Spencer is prolific, taking turns in underground noise-rock and garage acts like Shithaus and Pussy Galore. He formed Jon Spencer Blues Explosion almost 25 years ago in New York City, and the trio has not lost an energetic step, as its nearly seamless set at the Bluebird Theater in…
Denver music lovers: We are excited to announce some new additions to the 2015 Westword Music Showcase lineup. Join us on Saturday, June 20 for the 21st annual Showcase featuring some of the most interesting acts working in Colorado today, including Land Lines, Rubedo, The Dirty Few, Bud Bronson &…
The Fort Collins Musicians Association (or FoCoMA) announced the winners of its 8th Peer Awards, which are determined by a vote among musicians. The list is a worthy introduction to the incredibly robust scene going on north of Denver. Many of this year’s winners are also nominees in our own…
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…
Global Dub Festival brought Excision, Zomboy and plenty more to Red Rocks over the weekend. They did not manage to violate the venue’s new noise restrictions, but it was a party nevertheless. Photographer Miles Chrisinger was on hand to take pictures of happy teens, Colorado gear, weed gear and weed/Colorado…
There are few cultural events in Denver as well-run and enjoyable as Five Points Jazz. Evey year, the city’s Arts & Venues division organizes the fest, which features an impressive array of local and touring musicians along with food, shopping and a general block party feel. This year, photographer Brandon…
Tour de Fat — New Belgium’s comedy, music, art, pageantry, beer-drinking, and bike riding fest — will be celebrating its fifteenth year later this summer. For the first time, the tour will visit ten cities, with as many as 25,000 attendees at each stop. The musical lineup for the Denver…
British pop stars are a different caliber of performer than their American counterparts; there’s an authenticity to their onstage banter, like when they move from behind the shiny persona for a few moments between songs to talk with the audience, it feels like there’s an actual human person underneath the…
The video for “Making Breakfast” — Twin Peaks’ infectious, sarcastic mid-tempo Ween-meets-Pavement love song — is one of the most uplifting things the Internet has been blessed with in recent memory. Just try not smiling as young Clay Frankel sings lines like “I’m the one who loves you / don’t…
On Friday, May 15, Youth on Record will open its brand-new, state of art, Youth Media Studio in the La Alma neighborhood. The studio will give Youth on Record students a chance to record the songs they have been working on in the classroom as well as a chance to…
FaceMan is currently preparing for the two-day Journey to the Sun Festival, which is centered around a spaceship with a metaphorical message. The Denver band isn’t new to odd concepts; after all, this is the same trio that once played inside a giant shark installation at Lost Lake Lounge and,…
Bands performing classic albums in their entirety is hardly a new thing at this point. But it isn’t every band whose material has struck a chord across multiple decades. When the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy was first released in 1985, it was a piece of music out of step…
