BEACH HOUSE @ BOULDER THEATER | 10/7/12 It’s easy to be enchanted by the music of Beach House. The Baltimore outfit brings an underlying darkness to its warm, beached-out dream pop for a sound that is alluring, complex and, most of all, hypnotic. At the same time, Victoria Legrand and…
GARBAGE @ OGDEN THEATRE | 10/6/12 After opening the show with a vigorous take on “Automatic Systematic Habit,” and then following with the equally charged up “I Think I’m Paranoid” and “Shut Your Mouth,” Garbage frontwoman Shirley Manson was greeted by a blast of applause from the sold out frenzied…
HOSPITALITY @ HI-DIVE | 10/05/12 Hospitality’s set made you think of a time when rock bands weren’t trying to mine classic rock territory or go for a specific genre, especially at the end of the show when the foursome performed “All Day Today” from its self-titled, debut full-length. Along with…
YASIIN BEY @ CERVANTES’ MASTERPIECE BALLROOM | 10/5/12 When Yasiin Bey stepped on stage at about half past midnight, the crowd was hungrily awaiting his arrival, freshly energized from an impressive set by Binary Star and ready now for the main event. Dressed in fitted white slacks, white collared shirt,…
Last night at Auraria, MC Lyte shared her views on the current state of hip-hop, a broad range of topics ranging from the diminishing role of females to the dwindling voice of hip-hop overall and its lackluster effectiveness to her personal triumphs and downfalls. With style and grace, she left…
Max Cooper spends his Afterhours at NORAD this Saturday The world of electronic music is lucky that Max Cooper, a computational biologist who earned his Ph.D. at Nottingham University, decided to pursue a life behind the decks. Before 2010, music was an evenings-and-weekends gig for Cooper, who was working as…
Welcome to the weekend, amigos! Cold enough for you this morning? Yeah, we’re feeling all sorts of brrrrrr over here. Only in Colorado can you go from eighty degrees to the thirties in the expanse of a couple of days. Alas, though, there’s relief on the horizion, plenty of hot…
SAINT VITUS @ BLUEBIRD THEATER | 10/03/12 When Saint Vitus came on stage, the quartet went right into “Blessed Night,” with Dave Chandler letting out a wail or siren sound with wah and distortion from his guitar. From there, guitar and bass rumbled together like a high idling engine, as…
With Flobots, we had the right song at the right time in 2008,” observes Andy Guerrero, aka Andy Rok, about his former group. “If not for that, we would probably just be another band here. A lot of that is about timing and realizing you have those opportunities.” For six…
Reed Fuchs is the ringmaster of Décollage, a collection of like-minded, freely associating outsider-art terrorists who take collaged sounds and turn them into coherent pop songs. When you see these people perform, you can’t help but think that some freak folks got weirder and hooked up with crust punks, challenging…
The most disappointing — but apparently necessary — stipulation for being a mega-sized rock band is that your sound must grow poppier and less identifiable to older fans as time rolls on. But once in a while, an album like Garbage’s Not Your Kind of People — the group’s fifth…
Matt Gangi and Eric Chramosta grew up together in La Crescenta, California, which may account for some of the free-flowing energy of their musical collaboration. Often dubbed “electronic psych,” their music definitely has a mind-altering quality to it in terms of the layers of sound and the insistent underlying beat…
With five critically acclaimed mixtapes and an independent release already under his belt, it’s easy to forget that Kendrick Lamar’s first major-label LP hasn’t even dropped yet. The much-blogged-about good kid, m.A.A.d city isn’t due until later this month, but Lamar is already generating more media attention than a Mitt…
Following Ian Curtis’s suicide in 1980, the remaining members of Joy Division processed their grief in part by carrying on. While New Order’s stark and brilliant 1981 debut, Movement, sounded like what might have been Joy Division’s next step, the band went on to be innovators in electronic dance music…
In his attempt to compose a soundtrack to a novel — Lair Hunt’s The Impossibly — Roger Green, with the help of Mark Harris on saxophone and bass clarinet, Janet Feder on prepared acoustic guitar and James Han on piano, delivers an emotionally complex, sonically inverted collection of instrumentals. By…
It’s hard to articulate exactly what it is that makes a person charismatic, but it’s obvious when someone has that subtle something that sets him or her apart. Black Mask’s Aklock, who’s captivating, plain and simple, is just such a person, and Build Small showcases his down-to-earth personality while highlighting…
Local trumpeter Ron Miles and former Denver native Bill Frisell have performed and recorded together on a number of occasions, but they’ve only teamed up with drummer Brian Blade a handful of times. One of the reasons this trio works so well is that its members share certain sensibilities, and…
True to her moniker on the fittingly titled The Rebellion Vol. 1, J. Rebelz rebels against the misogynistic stereotypes of self-deprecating females cast upon many of her contemporaries. On the album, which boasts meticulous production, J. Rebelz evokes the feel of a ’90s female MC, with a demeanor that’s ladylike…
Three decades into her career, Aimee Mann remains as consistently fresh and challenging a singer-songwriter as in her days fronting the mid-’80s new-wave band ‘Til Tuesday. Since then, Mann has had a strong solo career, delivering one of the greatest film soundtracks in recent memory for P.T. Anderson’s Magnolia. With…
The world of electronic music is lucky that Max Cooper, a computational biologist who earned his Ph.D. at Nottingham University, decided to pursue a life behind the decks. Before 2010, music was an evenings-and-weekends gig for Cooper, who was working as a post-doctoral genetics researcher at University College London. These…
The Twins of Evil Tour last night at 1STBANK Center featuring Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson drew an ardent array of fans from all walks of life, all united by their unrelenting love and devotion of Zombie and Manson. Eric Gruneisen had the profound pleasure of meeting many of these…
ROB ZOMBIE & MARILYN MANSON @ 1STBANK CENTER |10/2/12 With the theme to Suspiria pumping out through the speakers as a preamble, Marilyn Manson took the stage with a huge, glowing, red, psychic cross hanging overhead — a nice touch. The distorted, driving bass line of “Hey, Cruel World” let…
