Concerts

“I didn’t know what to say with a gun in my face,” Michal Menert recalls, “but I figured if they were going to kill me, I’d better make my move.” In December 2006, Menert’s means of generating income had brought him face to face with the barrel of a shotgun…

Kristina Murray’s honeyed vocals and bright guitar style can be deceiving on Unravelin,’ especially as conduits for angry tirades and tales of all-night benders. But her vocal artistry tempers words that can feel like parodies of old-fashioned country-and-Western lyrics: “You’re a cheater and a bastard, and I can’t tell you…

If the ThreadBarons’ moniker is a play on the word “threadbare,” it fits the weathered Americana made by the Denver quartet. On this self-titled disc, the act takes a well-worn, no-bullshit approach, injecting a mid-tempo country shuffle on tunes like “Window in the Winter” and “West Virginia” — the latter…

On Welcome to the Future, Prime Element is a finely tuned old-school hip-hop machine, equal parts lyricism, musicality and swaggering flair. As the only MC, A.V.I.U.S. may be the assumed face of the group, but Prime Element believes that each member speaks through his medium, and Welcome to the Future…

Starting off with the big beat of “Phase 5,” Blackcell’s In the Key of Black is a hybrid of modern and classic EBM, but there’s a darkness and density of sound here that seem to have eluded most modern purveyors of the genre. “Creatures of Habit” has a subtle and…

JESSIE WARE at LARIMER LOUNGE | 11/12/13 Not five minutes into her performance at the Larimer Lounge last night, soul singer Jessie Ware slipped out of her album cut “No to Love” and seamlessly into “I Want You,” by Marvin Gaye. It was a simple trick with a big payoff…

STEVE AOKI at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/12/13 Before Steve Aoki took the stage, as the lights dropped and the crowd chanted the headliner’s name, two human pillars of symmetrical hexagons took the stage on each side, and a digitized voice slowly intoned “A-O-KI.” As soon as the Aoki took his…

MAZZY STAR at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/10/13 At about the halfway through Mazzy Star’s show last night at the Ogden Theatre, the stage went dark, and most of the band had left the stage. When the low lights came back on, they illuminated the forms of Hope Sandoval and David…

STIR FRIED at DONKEY O.T. | 11/8/13 Deadhead bars and Denver go hand in hand, and Jay Bianchi’s new bar/venue, the Donkey O.T., near Mile High Stadium in the space of old club Atmosphere, is one of the swankier deadhead bars you’ll step foot in. It’s clean, big and connected…

KREATOR at GOTHIC THEATRE | 11/8/12 One of the most arresting moments of Kreator’s show at the Gothic Theatre came when the band performed “Phobia.” The way the melody seemed to swim inside the aggressive main riff gave the song a layer of atmosphere without compromising how hard the song…

GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV at BOETTCHER CONCERT HALL As he spoke to the massive crowd at Boettcher Concert Hall, you could tell that Gregory Alan Isakov was still getting used to the scope of the venue and the caliber of the musicians he was playing with. “I’ve been very, very nervous…

WEDS | NINE INCH NAILS at 1STBANK CENTER | 11/13/13 After what had originally been billed as the band’s retirement in 2009, Nine Inch Nails returned from the dead this year to release a new album, Hesitation Marks. The project received a mixed response from fans and critics: Some bemoaned…

Next summer, The Colorado Music Hall of Fame is moving to Red Rocks. All of the exhibits from the inductees, which have been on display at the 1STBANK Center in Broomfield since the hall’s inception in April 2011, will be moved into a new home at the Trading Post in…

It wasn’t all that long ago that Gregory Alan Isakov was striving to make a name for himself playing shows at the Meadowlark. Before his music was being touted in the New York Times, he was a humble singer-songwriter who lived in an Airstream trailer outside Niwot with a voice…

SUN | MAZZY STAR at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/10/13 David Roback was a leading light in the Paisley Underground movement with his band Rain Parade. When that group split up in 1986, Roback formed another outfit, called Opal, with former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith. Opal released Happy Nightmare Baby…

CLAUDE VONSTROKE @ CITY HALL | SAT, 11/9/13 Claude VonStroke, founder of the illustrious Dirtybird record label, flirts with genres from all over the spectrum, nodding to hip-hop, garage and soul while infecting the dance floor with his playful, upbeat take on house. Although he’s long been a presence on…

Steve Aoki is singularly focused on making sure your ass is partying. As founder of the now-famous Dim Mak record label, Aoki has built his dance party into an empire. Live, his over-the-top antics range from paddling through the crowd on a raft to tossing cake into the screaming audience…

TORO Y MOI at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/6/13 Toro Y Moi’s earliest shows were sometimes poorly received because they weren’t what people were expecting. It’s safe to say that Chaz Bundick has stepped it up considerably since then, and not just as a songwriter, but as a performer whose former…

Up-and-coming producer Beni Haze has been a fixture in certain areas of the music scene for a while now; although you might not necessarily recognize his name in conjunction with dance music (that’ll change soon, we’d wager), he played keyboard in Pnuma Trio with Paper Diamond’s Alex B., and he’s…

This is a new day for Turner Jackson. He’s completely reshaped, reinvigorated and ready to take on everything that’s in store for him. He has a whole new perspective these days, but it came at the immeasurably high price of losing friend and mentor Marcus “Arrilius” Hayes. Before his untimely…