Concerts

Norma Jean, HORSE the Band, The Chariot, Arsonists Get all the Girls Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 Marquis Theater Better than: Seeing an actual Kenny Loggins show — this show had just the right amount of Kenny Loggins. Though, to be fair, I’ve never seen the guy play. It might be…

Three vocal mikes. Three D.I. boxes. A condenser mike, a bass mike, a melodica vocal mike and a percussion mike. Two acoustic guitars. Two amplifiers for a pair of synths. Two drum kits. Moonspeed, which at times boasts an eleven-piece roster, strives to ensure that every note is played exactly…

Fifteen years after I graduated from college, I finally discovered beer pong when I stopped in at Hiccups I (7980 Sheridan Boulevard in Westminster) on a recent Monday. The joint was jumping at 11:15 p.m., with a DJ spinning Bell Biv Devoe’s “Do Me!” At one end of the club,…

A cursory listen to Sandusky’s recorded output might give you the impression that the act has been doing soundtrack work for the next Gregg Araki film. In much of the band’s music, you can almost hear sighing ambience, gentle dynamics and the sort of introspective aesthetic that comes from contemplating…

Compared to airbrushed, frosted-bang pretty boys like the ones in Rascal Flatts, Atlanta’s Zac Brown Band looks like it came straight to Nashville from a bare-knuckled dustup with the Kentucky Headhunters. However, the strand of Southern rock that Brown and company are steeped in most is the free-form Widespread Panic…

Idaho is probably the last place anyone would expect a thriving pocket of experimental rock to exist. But that’s exactly where Finn Riggins was founded, in the small town of Hailey. Four albums and hundreds of shows into its career, Finn Riggins is hardly a household name, but it should…

It would be easy to peg Big D and the Kids Table as the de facto leader of some sort of ska revival. But the truth is, the band has been at the skanking game for almost a decade and a half. Formed in 1995 at the height of the…

In the earlier part of this decade, four post-punk-inspired bands of note from New York came to the attention of the general public: the Strokes, Interpol, the Rapture and Stellastarr*. Of the four, Stellastarr* probably received the least amount of hype, but with the release of its latest album, Civilized,…

Joanna Newsom came on strong earlier in the ’00s, peaked early and has seemed to all but disappear from the limelight now that the decade is winding to a close. But the odd, arty folk of her debut, The Milk-Eyed Mender, lives on in Polka Dot Dot Dot. That’s not…

Trimming most of the flab that the indie world has packed on over the past ten years, Pacific Pride is more than just a fine physical specimen. Airy yet athletic, it’s a tribute to the immaculate jangle of acts like latter-day Pavement and Luna, one that serves only itself, not…

On its debut album, Carbon Choir shows off an undeniable mastery of the piano-and-falsetto, sensitive-guy rock form. The playing is skilled and the songwriting solid, even nuanced. Singer Joel Van Horne has a strong voice that falls somewhere between Thom Yorke and Chris Martin, with a touch of David Gray…

This debut from Crawl, which includes former members of Dethbox, is one track after another of hyper-aggressive punk that sounds like it was recorded in an indoor skate park. Just the same, the songs aren’t a full-on speed-driven assault. Whereas a hardcore band might pummel you until the end, Crawl…

You can almost see the four members of Makeout Point nodding at the beginning of “Breaking Point,” when the guitar rises from the white noise and the drums come tripping in. It’s the band’s moment of arrival, the fifteen seconds when it is clearest that they have something here worth…

After solidifying its lineup in May 2008, the Don’ts and Be Carefuls started playing a string of shows along the Front Range, including a high-profile opening slot with HEALTH at Rhinoceropolis that summer. Capitalizing on the enthusiasm that guitarist and singer Casey Banker and drummer Luke Hunter James-Erickson shared for…

In the world of hip-hop, mixtapes are the currency of the street, the vehicles that many underground artists use to create exposure and build their names outside the confines of major-label marketing campaigns. By creating a street-level buzz, such artists as 50 Cent have forced mainstream tastemakers to take notice…

David Guetta (playing Thursday, December 3, at Beta) may be one of the most in-demand stars of dance music, and it’s all but impossible to understand why that is. There’s no disputing his popularity — he’s recently been voted DJ magazine’s No. 3-ranked DJ in the world, he sells plenty…

Oh happy day! The bitter December chill that has frosted us to our very core this afternoon has been warmed by word that Nathaniel Rateliff & the Wheel’s Daytrotter session, which was recorded during a trip the band took back east this past fall for CMJ, has finally seen the…

Prince of tides: Looks like the Band Formerly Known As Prince is now merely the band fomerly known. Evidently, the uni-monikered members of the curiously named, dancetastic, barely-ready-for-primetime unit have opted to part ways. Aaron the frontman broke the news to fans this past Friday and said for his part,…

The Colorado Music Association has evidently come out of its COMA — uh, literally and figuratively. From hosting round-tables to providing artists one free barcode a year enabling them to sell their merchandise, the volunteer-driven non-profit has been an invaluable resource for some musicians. We’ve heard others, meanwhile, grumble that…

For more than a year, the Swayback have shuttled back and forth to Los Angeles to work with revered knob turner Andy Johns. While this news is not exactly new to us, it has managed to garner the notice of Music Connection Magazine, who included a photo of the outfit…