Concerts

With eight shows coming up over the next four months, it’s safe to say Polytoxic, which from all appearances supposedly parted ways some time ago, is still very much an on going concern, despite the fact that Chadzilla is now keeping time with Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and CR Gruver…

These days, it takes a special CD case to merit much more than a glance from me. Truth is, I usually rip the disc, glance at the packaging and then throw it in a closet, never to be seen again (okay, never to be seen until my fiancee makes me…

While we don’t necessarily need it to validate our art or to motivate us to continue creating compelling art — although truth be told, a good many of us, if we’re being honest, still crave the recognition — we have to admit, it’s always nice to be recognized for what…

Lil Wayne, who headlines KS-107.5’s Back to School Jam over Young Jeezy, Drake, Soulja Boy and Jeremih, is in an uncommonly vulnerable position. After the enormous success of last year’s Tha Carter III, a recording that managed to make weirdness irresistible, Wayne, apparently stoned on hubris, announced that he’d follow…

The music made by North Carolina brothers Seth and Scott Avett, joined on this bill by Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside, is about as trendy as a Model-T. But their talent is undeniable, with the best of their material giving sentimentality a good name. Take the Western-themed “Murder in…

With a penchant for dense synthesizers, organic melodies and dressing up in what may well be their grandparents’ suits and dresses, Austin’s the Octopus Project looks and sounds like a beeping, bleeding contradiction. But that quirky paradox has helped the coed group rise above the indie-dance trends of this fading…

Named after enemy beings in the Rigveda and the Bhagavad Gita, the members of Portland, Oregon’s Danava are clearly adherents of the heavy psychedelic rock in vogue of late. Unlike many of their peers, however, the guys in this band were smart enough to realize that stoner rock and sludge…

Punk blues/soul musician Black Joe Lewis is apparently a man of few words, but then again, songs like his own “Bitch, I Love You” pretty much speak for themselves. The track, from his self-titled 2006 debut, marries Lewis’s foul-mouthed man-done-wrong verses (“Come home late at night/Bitch, you know it just…

The biggest sin committed on the Inactivists’ all-love disc is that the first great song doesn’t hit until track four, “Song for Gary Glitter.” Before that, we get some decent material (especially the freak lounge of “Tell Me So”), but the Glitter tribute kicks off a killer stretch. “Taxi Cab”…

Creating fresh-sounding roots music ain’t easy. It’s a bit like trying to make a new antique. Somehow, though, the quintet riding in Fort Collins’s Motorhome manage to pull it off. Singer-guitarist Matt Thornton shakes up the formula with the gruff incongruity of his voice; on “Innocent I Know,” he recalls…

That the members of Denver’s Sin Vida are of Mexican descent won’t come as a surprise to anyone listening to their recent EP, The Westwood Anthem. Besides the disc’s occasional switch from English to Spanish, the track “Mexican BBQ” even comes with a Tejano breakdown — one filtered through gruff,…

The appropriately titled In a Different Time and Place is the result of a collaboration of bandmembers across three years and disparate geographical locations, including recordings done in Romania and Egypt. But there is nothing disjointed about the results. The combination of acoustic and electric instrumentation gives the album a…

“Loud enough in there for you?” a guy asked as Lori and I stood outside of three20south (320 South Main Street) in Breckenridge. Too loud, we told him. Turned out the guy was the soundman for the New Orleans-based Dirty Dozen Brass Band, which would be headlining at the mountain…

The music of Rift (aka Patrick Campbell) is complex, layered and nuanced. Each listen reveals new details in his intricate soundscapes. Drawing from the minimal sound, classic tech house and abstract electronic artists such as Autechre, Rift’s work is full of atmospheric effects and innovative percussion tones and rhythms. His…

A band doesn’t always fit into a specific musical category even though it’s associated with one by default. Burn Sand Burn (due on Thursday, August 20, at the hi-dive) often plays with metal bands, but anyone able to listen honestly can hear that these guys do not bother to play…

Despite the fact that Arvada’s Aloft in the Sundry had previously recorded at the world-famous Blasting Room in Fort Collins, the members had plenty of reason to be intimidated when laying down tracks recently for their new CD, Fore. After all, the studio was co-founded by drummer Bill Stephenson of…

The lushly atmospheric, mysterious and richly resonant music of Bat for Lashes first caught the attention of critics with the release of the single “The Wizard” in 2006. Subsequent releases, including Fur and Gold and the recent Two Suns, have been nominated for the prestigious Mercury Prize and have earned…

As if the title didn’t tip you off, the recent Rocky Mountain Low compilation isn’t a typical attempt at whitewashing a bygone era of music. Compiled by fan Dalton Rasmussen and Joseph Pope, a man whose old band the Instants appears on the comp, Rocky Mountain Low is an exhaustive…

Earlier this year, Young Doe (aka Charles Truth) took the new year by storm with his single, “I Can Do It Too,” followed by an accompanying video. But now he wants you to know what he doesn’t do: To get the buzz started for his upcoming album, The Secret, Doe…

Just caught wind of a set of performances that is slated to take place next Friday, August 28, at Skyline Park, downtown just off the 16th Street Mall on Araphaoe, featuring a trio of my personal faves, Speakeasy Tiger, the Pirate Signal and Danielle Ate the Sandwich. If you’ve yet…