Concerts

It’s that time again. This year’s edition of Westword Music Showcase is quickly approaching…okay, so it’s not actually taking place until Saturday, June 23, so maybe it’s not approaching that quickly. But still, it’s time to start getting amped: For one, tickets go sale on Monday, March 5, so you’ll…

If you’re a hip-hop head in Denver, there is simply no place else to be tonight than Beta for #TheSolution5’s kickoff event, the Solution’s 6th Annual J.Dilla Celebration, which of course is a celebration centered on the life and music of the late J. Dilla. Actually, if hip-hop’s your thing,…

Twin brothers Charly and Vincent Fasano believe that art belongs on Broadway. “Showing your work at a Santa Fe gallery is like having Mom and Dad home during a party,” says Vincent. “I like my art to be surrounded by punk-rock music; I’d take that over a gallery any day…

As an accurate reflection of his life, the music of Hunter Dragon remains both erratic and inspired. You never can tell what the backpacking one-man noise circus will be up to next. He could be settled down and employed with a residence one minute, then out on the road, playing…

Fresh off his Grammy win for best R&B album and dropping a pair of remixes with Rihanna, Chris Brown was attacked by seagulls Sunday while on vacation in Miami. The Daily Mail (of course) has a pretty hilarious photo essay of the whole thing. Why did this have to happen…

It’s funny,” says Keith Curts of Glass Hits. “It’s been said a million times, and I know it’s completely trite, but punk totally did save my life, because I found people somehow, the people that became my friends, that came from broken homes or were latchkey kids.” Growing up in…

Charles Ballas is the kind of record nerd a lot of people wish they were but could never be. He’s probably heard most things you’d throw his way, but he’s too good-natured and smart to be a jerk about it. While attending the University of Colorado in Boulder, he was…

The most interesting thing about Turner Jackson’s Star Destroyer is that Jackson appears to be doing everything he can here not to self-destruct. He exhibits a notable level of control in his delivery, in contrast to his typically flamboyant flow; there’s a steady ebb and flow to his usually frenetically…

A cigarette-shop owner by day and MC/producer by night, Status uses his business mind and nicotine habit to leverage his newest solo project, Marlboro Man. All of the beats employed on this album are relics from Status’s collection that until now had not seen the light of day. From a…

Harry Tuft, who was just inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame, may be best known for having run the Denver Folklore Center for the better part of its fifty-year existence, but he’s also a fine musician and singer in his own right. Joined by a number of local…

After a sample from Robocop, Roskopp crashes headlong into “Microbial Warfare.” Though running along at a breakneck grindcore pace, the percussion and dynamics take some moments to let passages hang precariously. Taking a break mid-point with a sample from Walk Hard, Roskopp finishes out its side of this split with…

Singer-songwriter Coles Whalen originally planned to release her third full-length, I Wrote This for You, last November, but while the CDs were in production, she listened to a copy of the master and realized that there were four up-tempo rocking country songs that she didn’t want on the album.  “I…

Collaboration is a beautiful thing when it works, and it’s worked beautifully for P.U.N.C.H.I.S. and AAMP with the PM//AM event lineup. The concept features underground DJs in Beta’s Beatport Lounge (presented by P.U.N.C.H.I.S.) followed by an after-hours shindig (presented by AAMP). This go-round, the team is bringing in Martin Buttrich,…

Whether you hate him or love him for it, T-Pain is the man most responsible for popularizing the use of Auto-Tune. Using the pitch-correction software to further melodize his lyrics, the Tallahassee native emerged onto the scene with hits like “I’m Sprung,” “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper),” and later…

Nika Roza Danilova grew up in rural Wisconsin. Without access to the usual distractions available to most children living in a big city, Danilova had to use her imagination and natural curiosity to keep her mind stimulated, which clearly contributed to the timeless, haunting sound of her subsequent musical project,…

Korn has proven impervious to trend: The act instigated nu-metal in the ’90s and, less than ten years later, stuck around to witness the genre’s crushing death. Making records through it all, the Bakersfield, California-based band carved out a previously uncharted radio niche with a heavy but sludge-less 1994 self-titled…

Lemmy Kilmister is a living legend: He was a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and an integral member of space-rock pioneers Hawkwind; he got kicked off an airplane for refusing to give up his whiskey at the last minute and has done more drugs than anyone except for maybe Keith Richards…

From a medical standpoint, it wasn’t immediately clear what caused Whitney Houston’s untimely death at the age of 49 in her room at the Beverly Hilton a couple of weeks ago. But who cares about facts, amiright? Lack of a toxicology report notwithstanding, it took the media less than 45…

This past weekend, Show and Tell, our sister blog, hijacked Backbeat’s resident cartoonist/funny man Noah Van Sciver and asked him to sketch out his impressions of Artopia. Unsurprisingly, his impressions turned out to be hilarious, awkward and awesome, the work of staggering genius. Well it made us laugh anyway, particularly…

Talk about sensory overload. Touring the five venues of Artopia over the course of three hours felt overwhelming at times. Skipping from band to band and exhibit to exhibit in the clubs along Broadway was a frenetic way to take in the best of Denver’s visual and musical acts. The…