Train at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, 9/19/12

TRAIN @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE| 9/19/12 Train, the San Francisco band that has been the darlings of radio rock for over a decade, played to a capacity crowd at Red Rocks last night, and if the multigenerational audience’s hoots and screams were any indication, the guys will be welcome back…

StaG brings its spare, catchy melodies to Deer Pile

StaG (due on Friday, September 21, at Deer Pile) formed when its core members were students in Boulder. Somewhat creatively isolated from other musicians in that town, they became friends with the like-minded Fellow Citizens. During that time, StaG’s sound evolved into spare, catchy melodies that seemed to incandesce to…

Amanda Palmer & the Grand Theft Orchestra

Amanda Palmer came to prominence in the early 2000s as one half of the Dresden Dolls. While that band was embraced by goths, its aesthetic was, as Palmer has hinted, more in line with the conceptual musical theater embodied by the work of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. In May…

Killer Mike

First known to hip-hop audiences outside of Georgia thanks to attention-grabbing cameos on OutKast records, Killer Mike has been a steady presence for a decade, mixing Southern street anthems and political consciousness on a handful of records and a laundry list of features. His collaboration with producer El-P, the 2012…

Swans

“SWANS ARE NOT DEAD.” That was the post on Michael Gira’s MySpace page in 2010, stating plainly the guitarist/singer/songwriter’s intent to resurrect his old group, which emerged in the early 1980s from the same New York no-wave scene that spawned kindred noise-rock spirits Sonic Youth before disbanding in 1997. Since…

Firewater

Disgusted with the re-election of George W. Bush, in 2005 Firewater ringleader Tod A left New York — where he’d lived for the previous two decades and where he’d fronted Cop Shoot Cop — and headed out of the country on a three-year journey that took him to the Middle…

Grizz

CrazyWorld begins like a vivid nightmare. The apocalyptic tone of Grizz’s lyrics, along with the urgency in his voice, immediately raises the stakes of the album. Grizz points out the damning omens he finds around him but provides no easy solutions; it’s a bleak picture. Then, near the halfway point,…

Leslie Brown

Save for a rousing take on Duke Ellington’s “Caravan,” Leslie Brown’s Tenderly is an unhurried affair — and that’s as it should be, because the singer’s relaxed delivery is suited to songs that are slow and slinky, such as opener “He Must Be in Love” and the gorgeous title track…

Made Up Minds

With the influx of soulless rap overtaking the airwaves, it’s no surprise that passionate MCs are answering back with deep, soulful interpretations that recall the genre’s golden era. Made Up Minds’ latest release, Of Sound Mind, is the perfect example with its resounding beats, zealous flows and animated wordplay. Zet…

Perry Weissman 3

The first release in nine years from experimental jazz outfit Perry Weissman 3, 3 seems less abstract and slightly more organic than some of the band’s earlier music. The dissonance at the end of “Summer Circus” fits in with a possible covert theme suggested in titles like “Nobody Could Have…

Dragonette’s Martina Sorbara talks cheating…at least in her lyrics

Dragonette has been hot on the underground pop scene for years, but it wasn’t until last year that the band came charging onto the radio with global party-starter “Hello,” a collaboration with Martin Solveig. Almost overnight, the outfit — lead singer Martina Sorbara; her husband, multi-instrumentalist Dan Kurtz; and drummer…

With superhero flair, Stenchman brings his sinister bass to NORAD

Stenchman is one of several monikers that producer, DJ and sometimes MC Jack Carter uses; you might also know him as Henchman, or as half of Suspicious Stench, alongside Suspect. He’s dabbled in dub-style sounds since his early days of production, which involved a lot of drum-and-bass, and his musical…

2Chainz at the Ogden, 9/17/12

2CHAINZ @ OGDEN THEATRE | 9/17/12 The moment 2Chainz took the stage, it became very obvious why this show was moved from the Bluebird Theater to the Ogden at the last minute. When the ATL rapper finally placed the mike to his lips and dropped his verse from “Mercy,” the…

Paper Diamond at the Ogden, 9/14/12

PAPER DIAMOND @ OGDEN THEATRE | 9/14/12 After years of testing out the waters of dance music, Alex Botwin’s solo project Paper Diamond is ready to take it to the next level. At the Ogden Theatre this past weekend, the producer debuted his massive new light show, along with music…

93.3’s Big Gig at Red Rocks, 9/16/12

93.3’s THE BIG GIG @ RED ROCKS AMPHITHEATRE| 9/16/12 Future rock stars of America, when they’re doing their homework by watching all the YouTube vids they can find of fabulous frontmen lathering up a crowd, should instead go catch a Hives show to see how it’s done. Like a rock…

Five best concerts this week: September 17-21

Welcome to another splendid week of music in the Mile High City. As usual, there are plenty of shows to choose from this week, from Kreator and Accept at the Gothic to DeVotchKa and the Airborne Toxic Event at Red Rocks with the Colorado Symphony, and we’ve got them all…

Deltron 3030 at Cervantes’, 9/16/12

DELTRON 3030 @ CERVANTES’ MASTERPIECE BALLROOM | 9/16/12 The futuristic project known as Deltron 3030 and consisting of Del The Funky Homosapien, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura and DJ P-Love (sitting in for Kid Koala, who was apparently stuck in Canada) took over the stage at Cervantes last night just past…

Science Partner at Larimer Lounge, 9/14/12

SCIENCE PARTNER @ LARIMER LOUNGE | 9/14/12After ten songs, the audience didn’t want Science Partner to go — so Tyler Despres, Maria Kohler and Jess DeNicola stayed on stage to do their original Miley Cyrus-themed song. Despres had joked about how if the audience knew the words, it could sing…