Rose Hill Drive tour with Stone Temple Pilots

Looks like the Rose Hill dudes are back in action at full throttle. We just received word that the former power trio — now a new and improved quartet with the addition of scene stalwart Jimmy Stofer on bass — is about to hit the road for a string of…

Unrequited love at Girl Talk and String Cheese Incident

It keeps people up at night, Googling and searching Facebook until they’re bleary-eyed zombies at 4 a.m. There are entire genres of film dedicated to it. And with concert season warming back up, the chances of finding yourself on Craigslist Missed Connections are pretty high, especially if you were pretty…

Hot Congress brings the color to the party

This week was possibly one of the most difficult weeks we’ve ever had choosing a flier of the week. There were a few really noteworthy, awesome fliers out there, but it was this Hot Congress Label Night one that really left a lasting impression…

Jared Mees on Tender Loving Empire and Only Good Thoughts Can Stay

Even though Jared Mees & The Grown Children don’t write strictly confessional music, even a cursory listen to the band’s songs reveal that Mees and company are certainly heart on sleeve types. To describe the music as merely Americana would be overlooking the group’s penchant for unconventional hooks, which recall…

DJ Chase Dobson hits the road with Mike Posner

Analog Space regular and former resident Lipgloss DJ c.db.sn, aka Chase Dobson, is heading to Los Angeles this week, after landing a gig with pop and R&B star Mike Posner. Dobson will be keyboard and Ableton Live technician on Posner’s upcoming tour, working behind the scenes during shows to make…

Creative Music Works re-emerges after hiatus with benefit show tonight

Since Alex Lemski started the Creative Music Works in 1989 with the “vision of uncompromising freedom of expression for musicians,” the organization has brought in a number of pivotal artists in the jazz and avant-garde realms such as David S. Ware, Joseph Jarman and Andrew Cyrille, Nels Cline, Larry Ochs…

Tonight: Telekinesis at the hi-dive

On record, Telekinesis is essentially the one man show of Michael Lerner, who writes, plays and sings every part. For live shows, however, the Merge recording artist brings a small cadre of musical souls with him to recreate the simple beauty of his straightforward love songs, while he plays the…

The 1Up Arcade and Bar plans to score big

Jourdan Adler collects vintage games. Over the past year, he’s acquired close to thirty original uprights, including Galaga, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, that all date back to 1985 or earlier. He’s even found a handful of cocktail-table video games, and he’s restored them all to mint condition. Soon he’ll be…

Rocky Votolato

Rocky Votolato built himself a sturdy platform for going solo. When his band, Waxwing, imploded in 2005, Votolato was in the right place at the right time. Emo had taken the nation by storm, and teenage girls were replacing their Backstreet Boys posters with depictions of sensitive tattooed boys. Votolato’s…

St. Vitus

It’s probably just a coincidence that St. Vitus formed the same year Ozzy Osbourne parted ways with Black Sabbath. Nonetheless, this Los Angeles outfit was central to evolving Sabbath’s classic sound and dynamics into the kind of metal that was more concerned with genuine heaviness and mood than the party-time,…

Akron/Family

Akron/Family started in 2002 as what some might call a “freak folk” band. But the group quickly headed in its own idiosyncratic direction. In 2004, the Family became involved with the Young God label and served as Michael Gira’s band on that year’s Angels of Light tour. It would be…

Foster the People

Okay, this has the potential to either be one of those shows that you can tell people you were at in a year or two and they’ll be like, “No shit? Nice!” — à la the Killers or Arcade Fire at the Larimer Lounge — or one of those shows…

American Idol is giving us a ticker-tape parade of the same boring B.S.

When Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” exploded into ubiquity in 1991, the traditional American model of the recording industry was having a heyday. Major record companies dominated the way people consumed music, and to stay on top, they stayed on the lookout for the Next Big Thing. And they were…

Pacific Pride

On songs like “Left-Right,” Pacific Pride sounds like a conjunction of the Buzzcocks and Pavement, with simple lyrics worthy of sarcastic Devo slogans. And yet there’s something exuberantly un-ironic about the way Pacific Pride plays its music. There’s no tongue-in-cheek, even with a song titled “Yankee Soda.” Paul Garcia comes…

The David James Band

On the David James Band’s first full-length, it’s clear that the group’s namesake has a deep affinity for Ben Folds, particularly in his vocal phrasing. At times his voice is a dead ringer for Folds. Musically, James’s piano-led quartet owes a lot to Folds, too, especially on cuts like “Stored…

The Black Dots

To call the members of the Black Dots voyeurs might be a stretch — but they certainly like to watch. For the past few years, singer/guitarist Wade Henderson and his wife, bassist Nicole, have been staples at numerous shows throughout the metro area — up front and singing along to…

My Body Sings Electric

Pop-punk stalwart My Body Sings Electric used to lean heavy, but the band heads more toward pop on its latest release. Recorded at Interlace Audio in Portland, Changing Color is a highly polished affair of airtight instrumentation and squeaky-clean vocals. This album would have no problem finding airwaves a half-decade…