Massive Music Festival FoCoMX Is Back and (Somehow) Even Bigger

The Fort Collins Music Experiment (or FoCoMX) has, for the past six years, served as the largest showcase for northern Colorado music. Featuring hundreds of bands throughout the city, FoCoMX continues to grow — the Fort Collins Musicians Association (which organizes the event) has just announced some key details about…

How Denver Made Unlikely Tour Mates of Church Fire and Morlox

Church Fire and Morlox, both from Denver, might seem like unusual collaborators on a split cassette release. The two acts don’t have much in common at first glance: Church Fire could be considered a synth-pop act, and Morlox is more in the realm of IDM. (Each side of the tape…

Why Herbie Hancock Loves Playing With Chick Corea

In 1969, Miles Davis started recording sessions for his landmark jazz-rock fusion album Bitches Brew, using close to twenty musicians over six months. Pianists Herbie Hancock, who spent five years in Davis’s second great quintet, and Chick Corea were both on that album, as well as Davis’s In a Silent…

The Complete 2015 SXSW Colorado Music Party Lineup

Colorado is set to take over Austin in a month, with the Colorado Music Party, as we originally announced last week. Over 120 bands will flock out of the cold winter, south, to the land of concerts and partying for SXSW 2015. Headling acts include Denver’s Rubedo, The Yawpers, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kitty…

The Adventures of Rufus Baxter: Blood Everywhere

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…

The Long, Strange, Hollywood Path of the Sloths’ Tom McLoughlin

The Sloths will make its Denver debut on Tuesday, March 10th at the Hi-Dive. Early purveyors of California garage rock in the mid-1960s when its members were teenagers, The Sloths in its earliest incarnation released a two-sided 45 of “Makin’ Love” and “You Mean Everything to Me” in 1965 and…

Candy Claws Debuts New Sound of Ceres Project

Before essentially disappearing from live music in 2012 and quietly releasing its most recent album, Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time, in 2013, Candy Claws was one of the few bands around on a small budget that managed to create a genuine sense of the otherworldly with its music…

Nocturne Jazz & Supper Club Opens Monday

Over the last six months Scott Mattson and his wife Nicole have been transforming the building at 1330 27th Street from a warehouse-type space into Nocturne, a modern take on the 1940s jazz supper club, which opens to the public on Monday, March 9. Mattson, who graduated from Metro State…

The Story of the Man Behind Boulder’s Last Great Record Store

“There was a time when there was a thriving music scene in Boulder. At least [there were] a lot of record stores and shows, places with interesting music,” says filmmaker Dan Schneidkraut, whose feature-length documentary Old Man — about his father, Andy Schneidkraut, and his iconic record shop, Albums on…

The 2015 Westword Music Showcase: Tickets Available Now!

Join us on Saturday, June 20, 2015, for the 21st Westword Music Showcase, featuring the inventive producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist Flume as well as Austin psych-rock titan the Black Angles, pop genius Misterwives and over 100 more of the best bands and artists from Colorado and beyond on a dozen stages in Denver’s…

Candy Claws Is Back, With a New Name and the Apples in Stereo

In its brief run, Fort Collins band Candy Claws made quite the mark, in Colorado and elsewhere. In fact, in the short time that Candy Claws was active, the duo of Karen McCormick and Ryan Hover earned a fan base big enough to include Ben Phelan, John Ferguson and Robert…

Comic: Rufus Baxter Stays at a Scary Motel

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 Baxter!…

A Live Music Fan’s Photo Guide to Winter in Colorado

Hey! I enjoy going to concerts. In order to do that, I have to spend some time outside. So I loved our unseasonably warm February! It was great. I didn’t even think twice about leaving my house. But now it’s cold, and there’s snow, and I’m not sure what to…

Introducing Boutique Denver Record Label Collectible Records

Macon Terry, a long time supporter, player and overall stalwart of the Denver music community, is constantly thinking of ways to use his interests and experiences to help the Denver music scene. His newest endeavor, Collectible Records, aims, not only to give added exposure to some of Macon’s talented musical…