dead prez at The Oriental Theatre, 1/18/13

DEAD PREZ @ THE ORIENTAL THEATER |1/18/13 There was a salient theme throughout the night, across the sets of most of the acts, and that was a message of being healthy, both physically and mentally. “Healthy is the new gangsta,” said stic.man of dead prez near the middle part of…

The ten best concerts in Denver this weekend

Welcome to the weekend, amigos! We made it, and we’ve got another fine weekend of tunes to look forward to. From hip-hop and bluegrass to indie rock and southern rock, there’s a variety of options, both local and national, to choose from. We’ve got all of the shows happening on…

Dirty Few at 3 Kings Tavern, 1/17/13

DIRTY FEW @ 3 KINGS TAVERN |1/17/13 Earlier in the night, you wouldn’t have guessed that so many people would have shown up so enthusiastic for a local band, many of them knowing the words to all the songs. But Dirty Few from the beginning hyped people up with antics…

Churchill’s show at the Ogden moved to March

Fresh off sharing a bill with Of Monsters and Men and fun. at KTCL’s annual Not So Silent Night at 1STBANK Center just before the holidays last month, Churchill sent word this morning that it had to postpone its show at the Ogden Theatre, originally slated for Saturday, February 9,…

Mile High Soul Club is moving to Beauty Bar

After successive runs at Rock Bar, where it was founded in 2008, Shag, Paris Wine Bar and the Meadowlark, where it eventually set up shop in 2010, the Mile High Soul Club is on the move again, this time to Beauty Bar on 13th Avenue. According to Tyler Jacobson, who…

Instant Empire sets the modern American struggle to sound

“Instant Empire, to me, really reflects — at least from the band-name perspective — how, in America, everybody wants everything all at once,” declares Instant Empire frontman Scotty Saunders. “Everybody wants it instantly. To me, Instant Empire is the perfect descriptor for sort of this modern time that we’re living…

Live and breathe in Sterile Garden’s sonic environment

Jacob DeRaadt has been the sole constant member of Sterile Garden (due Tuesday, January 22, at Seventh Circle Music Collective). To file the project, which originated in Fort Collins, under “noise” simply doesn’t take into account the preparation and conceptualization involved in its performances. DeRaadt and his collaborators make extensive…

Railroad Earth

The music of Railroad Earth isn’t easy to classify, although most people are happy to label it “jam band” and move on. Still reading? Good, because while there’s definitely some “jamming” going on in the live show, this is not some guitar-noodling Phish knock-off. Bluegrass lies at the heart of…

Bloc Party

For Bloc Party, the smashing success of 2005’s Silent Alarm could have sealed its fate, time-stamped it as a post-Strokes dance-rock band strapped tight to an expired decade. But the U.K. quartet pushed through, continuing to find subtle triumphs, its catchy post-punk style shining through on two more stylistically steady…

God Module

Whether it’s surrealistic horror movies and literature, esoteric knowledge or atmospheric music and death rock, God Module’s output reflects a certain fascination with the dark side of the psyche — a mosaic of interests, perhaps even obsessions, held by founding member Jasyn Bangert. The act is rooted in edgier EBM…

Ben Folds

Ben Folds is probably most vividly remembered for his work in the ’90s, when he seemed to come out of nowhere with his impassioned piano-based pop and a string of hits including “Brick.” But by then, Folds was a veteran musician who had honed his skills as a multi-instrumentalist before…

German techno duo Pan-Pot will experiment at NORAD

Fans of experimental techno know that Pan-Pot is not a reference to something that comes out of a kitchen; rather, it’s a German techno duo that’s named for a panoramic potentiometer — a switch that splits audio signals into left and right channels — and has been taking the production and…

Il Cattivo

From the opening track — “Never Know We’re Coming” — forward, it’s obvious that Il Cattivo has gotten to where it needed to go. Cohesive songwriting has emerged from the original inspired chaos and forcefulness of the band, as though it had harnessed and directed Matt Bellinger’s free-flowing and eruptive…

A-L

A-L’s Future Classic Music would be best enjoyed in a smokey lounge, perhaps with a dry martini or a fine cigar, amid electric light from neon tubes. The album blends classic jazz and golden-age hip-hop samples with elements of futuristic hip-hop and house, so the title rings true, even if…

Qknox

Qknox’s self-titled beat tape is an extravaganza of skills: finessing keys, chopping samples and programming tight rhythms. The producer effortlessly blends jazz and hip-hop, fusing them with more experimental, post-Dilla wonky futurism to create something that’s equal parts chill and bouncy. While his passion for crate-digging is evident on cuts…

Otis Taylor

Otis Taylor My World Is Gone Telarc “My world is gone,” Indigenous frontman Mato Nanji once told local bluesman Otis Taylor, in reference to his people, the Nakota Nation. The heaviness of those four words inspired Taylor to make this album, which, for the most part, deals with Native American…

Photos: Dazzle celebrated fifteen years with a jazzy party

A lot of memories have gone down at Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge over the past fifteen years, not the least of which feature a series of well-respected, agenda-setting shows. (For proof, look no further than our recent conversation with owner Donald Rossa.) To celebrate it all, the club hosted a…