Mugsy’s Bar takes over part of the former Naughty Prince

The Naughty Prince had a nice run as “Denver’s premiere dart bar” at 7950 East Mississippi Avenue before it finally closed at the end of last year. Now Mugsy’s Bar has opened in about 1,800 of the 4,500 square feet (three strip-mall units) of space that the Naughty Prince occupied…

Damn, it feels good to be a DJ

Doritos, a 64-ounce drink, a shoulder massage and a fan keeping you cool, all handled by some incredibly lovely ladies — really, does it get any better than that? Probably not. Witness Denver house DJ and man about town Uriah West, photographed at Vinyl. Clearly, being a DJ has it’s…

Tonight: Hip Hop Fest at Cervantes’ featuring Fashawn

Though his debut album, Boy Meets World, came out in 2009, rapper Fashawn has flourished more within the realm of the mixtape, a format he’s been using since 2006. Among his many mixtape releases came Ode to Illmatic, a track-by-track take on the classic Nas album that showcased Fashawn’s uncanny…

Swans at Summit Music Hall, 2/22/11

SWANS With Wooden Wand 02.22.11 | Summit Music Hall Last night, James Jackson Toth, aka Wooden Wand, was joined by two other guitar players — Brian Lowery and William Tyler. And although there were three guitars and the guys were playing through Orange amps, they did not produce a huge…

Toby Keith in town for his bar’s grand opening

Country superstar Toby Keith says he used to play in Colorado quite a bit, including five-night stints at the Grizzly Rose, and so it made sense to open his ninth and largest Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill in Denver. Keith stopped by his 22,000 square-foot Northfield Stapleton…

Rev Run on Auraria campus today

Reverend Run was on the Auraria campus today talking all about how he parlayed his position from a life of ‘hood proportions, growing up in Hollis, Queens, to one of an almost royal standard. Using his inspirational synthesis, which, if you follow him on Twitter, you can spot from a…

Tonight: One Night of Queen at the Bluebird

There is only one Freddie Mercury, and there will never be another performer like him — but Gary Mullen is an excellent reminder of why and how Queen changed the landscape of modern music forever. Along with his band, The Works, Mullen brings Mercury and company’s epic existence back to…

Rick Kulwicki memorial slated for this morning

The Backbeat flag is flying at half staff today. In case you haven’t heard, services for Rick Kulwicki, the legendary Fluid guitarist who passed away last week, are being held at Fairmount Cemetery (430 South Quebec Street) this morning at 10 a.m., with a viewing taking place at 9 a.m…

Denver musical acts to watch in 2011

Every year, a new group of artists and acts makes its way to the head of the class. Some are more advanced than others; they’ve been steadily building their names at shows, creating a healthy buzz. Others have been toiling in virtual obscurity, holed up in basements or apartments, driven…

Miracleman, March 2 at Rhinoceropolis

Miracleman started life as the British Captain Marvel in the 1950s. But he got a makeover in the early 1980s when he benefited from the brilliantly dark imagination of Alan Moore. Later, Neil Gaiman picked up where Moore left off and imbued the series with his own genius for the…

Elitist

You could be excused for thinking every metal band out of L.A. did its time on the Sunset Strip. Thankfully, Elitist is too young for all that nonsense and isn’t really made from the same stuff anyway. Sounding like a true alloy of crust punk, hardcore and death metal, Elitist…

Immortal

With vocals that sound like an evil, croaking frog over a torrent of percussion and an assault of guitars, and with a bass that has dynamics not unlike nests of churning mutant wasps, Immortal helped to define the sound and aesthetics of Norwegian black metal from its earliest days. While…

Linkin Park

Linkin Park, once a cautionary tale on how rap rock could go wrong, reinvented itself with last year’s A Thousand Suns. The reinvention garnered Radiohead and Pink Floyd comparisons, and, maybe even more amazingly, that’s what the guys were going for. Whether it qualifies as daring to mine either band…

Yao Guai

“Boo” starts this odd collection of ambient tracks from David Britton with what sounds like mechanical cicadas in the distance under the strains of a ukulele treated with an effect to sharpen its tone while trying to find a melody. Each song is an exercise in drones both ambient and…

Fred Hess Big Band

After releasing more than a dozen albums with smaller ensembles, saxophonist Fred Hess released his first big-band recording, Hold On, in 2009. While Hold On represented Hess’s love for the big bands of the 1950s, it also had some forward-thinking moments. Hess and company push the envelope even further with…

Babah Fly

With Trealyph 3, Babah Fly aims for the fundamental hip-hop lover in us. He’s a true creative master and has an obvious ear for beats and production, and those are the things that end up standing out the most. Although Fly has a unique flow, he doesn’t have the strongest…

Tantric Picasso

From the way the first cut, “Cherry on Top,” opens, it’s pretty clear that Tantric Picasso’s Life’s a Bitch and Then You Die So Why Not Laugh Until You Cry is going to be a bizarre journey. Layers of indecipherable voices over a swinging beat and walking bass line soon…

Abe Vigoda brings its new, polished pop to the hi-dive

After starting Abe Vigoda in high school, Michael Vidal and Juan Velazquez took their fledgling project and unintentionally helped spawn the so-called “tropical punk-rock” genre. The band’s joyous live shows and reverb-drenched guitar sound — which is part surf rock, part psychedelic and part noisy punk, among other things —…