Concerts

When the question arises as to whether or not it’s possible to party on Thursdays, we have the definitive answer. Fridays are, of course, a definite, and Wednesdays, well, Wednesday is a hard night to hit the town if you have to work the next day. Thursday, however, is the…

A few months ago, we wrote about the Time Capsule master reels that were discovered when the iconic Denver studio went into foreclosure. Thanks to the foresight of Martin Anderson and the graciousness of Decibel Garden Studio, who agreed to serve as custodians of the reels, the tapes were salvaged…

FENCES (performing tonight at the hi-dive with Chimney Choir and the Crook’s Coat) is the name for Chris Mansfield’s body of work, a collection of crisp, heartbreaking songs he’s been crafting since around 2004. Like the older brother of Dashboard Confessional, FENCES brings self-awareness to a new level through the…

Lots of rad stuff is happening in the world of Modern Witch, including Mario Zoots impending move from Denver to Amsterdam at the end of August. The group’s creative fluidity has led to four sets of hands stirring the creative pot at times, but Zoots and partner Kristy Fenton, who…

Held down by the Billie Holiday-channeling vocals of Erin Austin, OK Sweetheart (performing tonight at the Meadowlark with Megan Burtt, Jamie Mefford, Teresa Storch and Chris Webb) offers a comforting blend of vintage tones and straightforward pop music. The band’s moniker — which is short for Oklahoma Sweetheart — was…

UMPHREY’S MCGEE @ RED ROCKS | 7/3/11 Fans began lining up for this show on the lower north staircase at 10 a.m. to prepare for the tarp run, a race to get the best spot and claim your place for the entirety of the concert. It was mayhem from the…

Dark Castle (due tonight at the Larimer Lounge, with Yob and Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire) from St. Augustine, Florida, is often lumped in with doom or death metal — or whatever heavy music seems to be at least a few steps removed from mainstream metal. But…

The Glitch Mob at Red Rocks | 7.2.11The Glitch Mob is currently on its largest tour to date. After a few bumps in the road, one actually taking a wheel right off their tour bus while in transit, the act arrived at Red Rocks to show off what they’ve been…

Arkansas native Sarah Slaton (playing tonight at the Walnut Room with Caleb Slade, Tricia Scully, Kate Moreland and Carl Hauck) has been kicking around Denver for quite sometime now, sharing stages with locals like Kyle Simmons, Nathaniel Rateliff and Danielle Ate the Sandwich. This evening, the singer-songwriter brings her sweet…

Christian Blochinger remembers stopping his band’s tour bus on a rural Missouri highway in 2006 and flipping on the blinker. He’d been driving in the wrong direction on the isolated and narrow road, and he was turning left to switch course. “This was a county highway that was intersected by…

As a drummer with local punk act Gina Go Faster, Mark Armijo always thought karaoke was kind of cheesy — especially since he’d written, recorded and played his own music. The few times he’d been to karaoke nights, people were always singing Sinatra, Elvis or Patsy Cline. But that was…

Many bands pare things down for unvarnished, uncluttered songwriting. The five members of Hindershot (due Friday, July 8, at 3 Kings Tavern) seem to have decided to go in the other direction — except that their songs never seem cluttered so much as richly imagined and executed. These guys could…

Because Chris Isaak’s pompadoured mug might as well be the picture of eternal California youth, it’s a little discomfiting to realize that the Golden State singer-songwriter is now five years past his fiftieth birthday — and that it’s been almost twenty years since his black-and-white beach romp with Helena Christensen…

Considered a legend as much for his distinctive production style — which helped propel the West Coast movement in the ’90s — as he is for his perfectly groomed head of hair, DJ Quik is a staple in the hip-hop game. Stepping onto the scene with his debut album, Quik…

Shortly after forming their band in 2000 in Concord, North Carolina, the Avett Brothers, led by Scott and Seth Avett, released their debut album, and they’ve seemingly been on tour ever since. Their diligence has paid off — not just artistically, in terms of having experiences worth writing songs about,…

When Alkaline Trio got its start in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, it probably had no intention of being an exemplar of emo, the brand of melodic punk that dared to talk about feelings. Nonetheless, the band’s earnest songwriting and emotionally charged live shows struck a resonant chord with plenty…

A sequel, almost by definition, must accomplish two fundamentally conflicting tasks: It must be like the original, but it must simultaneously differentiate itself from the original. Generally, that second task is accomplished through the prodigious addition of extra. Extra explosions. Extra deception. Extra hilarious poop jokes. Whatever the original had,…

Throughout history, men have muttered a multitude of cheesy lines in attempts to lure women into bed. On their latest album, Spark the Revival, members of the Alan Baird Project seem to have gathered as many of these lines as they could and put them to music. With a sound…

If you didn’t know better, you’d think Sparkler Bombs had just stepped out of a time machine dialed back to the period following the release of Modest Mouse’s The Moon and Antarctica — at least that’s the era the first three tracks of this EP recall, particularly the music’s ability…

Independent, the latest release from the rapping/producing duo of James Ray and Lenny Lenn, is brilliantly unapologetic from the start. Over the course of fifteen solid tracks, which are chock-full of guest appearances, the brothers declare their independence with sturdy rhymes over diverse prodution. On the standout “You’ll See,” featuring…

For the past decade, Playground (also known as the Playground Ensemble) has been one of the few groups to delve into adventurous, forward-thinking, avant-garde chamber music while also exploring a variety of other genres such as jazz, world music and rock. “NO one To kNOW one,” the opening track on…