Tennis, Friday, September 10, at the Larimer Lounge

Despite having been together for only a short time and not playing many local shows, Tennis (due on Friday, September 10, at the Larimer Lounge) has stirred some buzz outside of Denver through write-ups on Pitchfork, Gorilla vs. Bear and, most recently, the New York Times blog. Inspired in part…

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Owen Ashworth started Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in 1997 as an electro-pop one-man band. But over the years, the act has made its sound more organic, especially as Ashworth started playing with various collaborators. The seemingly confessional lyrics are really snapshots of American life, and the kinds of portraits…

Paramore

Formed in 2004, when its members were still in high school, Paramore has become a rock-radio institution, with several tours down and three albums on the venerable pop-punk imprint Fueled by Ramen under its belt. Hayley Williams’s robust and pitch-perfect vocals shoot the band far beyond contemporary acts like Boys…

Kele

Capitalizing on the best part of Bloc Party, lead singer Kele Okereke has stepped out and found a better place for his vacant and sexy vocals: the club. Enlisting Spank Rock producer XXXChange for his solo debut, The Boxer, Kele released an early-summer single, “Tenderoni,” which served as a dirty…

Titus Andronicus

“Tramps like us, baby we were born to die,” shouts Titus Andronicus singer Patrick Stickles on the opening track of his band’s latest album, The Monitor. The line is an obvious homage to both the Garden State, from which he and his bandmates hail, and that state’s most celebrated Boss…

Reverend Deadeye

With his modified wok-lid resonator guitar, rigged-up drum kit (which includes a metal washtub for a snare), a rusty Falstaff beer-can microphone and assorted other things, you have to wonder how the hell Brent Burkhart, aka Reverend Deadeye, takes the one-man band concept to a completely different level — and…

Five 13

Five 13 trades in a very distinctive blend of metal, minted in the latter part of the second Reagan administration. If the names Fates Warning, Scorpions, Dokken or Warrant make you scoff or otherwise turn up your nose, you’ll want to steer clear of this album, which sounds like a…

Via

Daralee Fallin is working with drum machines and synths with effects — familiar elements of electronic music — across this four-song release. From the jump, though, there’s an undeniably organic feel to the music and a warmth that doesn’t just cradle the listener in a sense of comfort and well-being;…

Deth Spa

Listening to side one of this cassette-only release, you can’t help but think of the scenes from Videodrome where James Woods watches the TV show of the same name and becomes both repulsed and obsessed with the programming. The textured drone is reminiscent of those distorted images, and, while abstract,…

Crowd pleasers: Four questions with Crowded House’s Neil Finn

The promo sticker on Crowded House vocalist/guitarist Neil Finn’s 1998 debut solo disc, Try Whistling This, praised him as “one of the finest songsmiths of his generation.” It was a claim few pop lovers would dare to deny. If you’ve turned on a radio in the past two decades, chances are…

Better the second time? A reunited Pavement playing the Ogden Theatre

If not for Pavement all but deconstructing the dominant paradigm of rock music throughout the ’90s with albums like Slanted and Enchanted, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee!, so much of the underground rock that’s come out since the band parted ways in 1999 would have been much more…

The Martin Brothers at Denver Creative Co-Op Studio

Along with Claude Von Stroke, the Martin Brothers (actual brothers Christian and Justin Martin) have carved out a distinctive brand of dance music on the dirtybird label. The brothers have both notched some notable successes on their own, but their collaborations on tracks such as “Dum,” “Duckface” and “Stoopit” are…

Glitch Mob, Danzig, KT Tunstall shows announced

Glitch Mob, which released its debut, Drink the Sea, this past spring, is slated to perform at the Fillmore Auditorium on Halloween night, Sunday, October 31. In August, the electronic trio also teamed up with MishkaNYC to release Drink The Sea Part 2: The Mixtape, which can be downloaded here…

Sleep at the Gothic Theatre – 09.05.10

SLEEP Git Some • Russian Circles 09.05.10 | Gothic Theatre view full slide show From brutal, clipped guitar work to huge, foreboding sounds created by guitars that are more akin to synths, Russian Circles scrolled through a wide range of styles that it executed with both ease and precision, like…

Wilco at Jazz Aspen Snowmass – 09.03.10

WILCO 09.03.10 | Jazz Aspen Snowmass “Don’t even think about yelling ‘Freebird,” Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy responded to the guy in the crowd who screamed out the name of the Lynyrd Skynyrd tune early in Wilco’s ambitious two-hour set at the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Labor Day festival. “You can wait…

Vampire Weekend at Red Rocks Amphitheatre – 09.03.10

Vampire Weekend Dum Dum Girls • Beach House 09.03.10 | Red Rocks Amphitheatre view full slide show Dum Dum Girls opened the show with a notable display of confidence and music reminiscent of Elastica with a ’60s girl-group vibe. The combination of chiming textures and flowing atmospheres in the guitar…

Photos: Electric Avenue Festival at Five Points

As you might have read here on Backbeat, Electric Avenue Music and Arts Festival is going on this weekend (it wraps up tonight.) Last night, photographer Eric Gruneisen stopped by the festival in Five Points and brings back these photos: Electric Avenue Music & Arts Festival (slideshow)…