DJ Soup at Lucky Strike Lanes

To see some really innovative DJs, sometimes you have to go to non-traditional venues — like a bowling alley on a Tuesday night. That’s where you’ll find DJ Soup, last year’s Showcase winner for best non-traditional DJ and one of Denver’s most exciting talents behind the decks. Soup got his…

Stu Basham

When you do it yourself, you get to showcase your talents — but also your faults. Here we have the good and the bad of Stu Basham. He wrote the songs, played most of the instruments, sings and presumably produced. And while he is a talented piano and keyboard player…

Michaela Rae

Should you wait to sing the blues until your voice has changed? That unlikely question is central to this debut by Michaela Rae Knox, who cut Backbone when she was just thirteen. Her guitar playing is plenty solid, if not exactly innovative — unless you’ve never heard Stevie Ray Vaughan…

Fell

For a CD titled A Farewell to Echoes, there sure are a lot of, well, echoes. Fell recorded this during the delay of its upcoming Incoherent Lullabies. Sure enough, there’s a raw, rushed aura here despite its ethereal layering and exquisite eruptions of distortion. “Low at Dusk, Distance at Dawn”…

Burn Heavy/Kingdom of Magic

The Burn Heavy side of this record sounds like Sleep filtered through a doom/grind lens and blended with psychedelic swirls. The prominence of Maia Fortis’s eerie violin drone and John Gross’s undercurrent of noise and samples lend the proceedings an otherworldliness. On “Situations,” Heavy lopes along before shifting into a…

The making of Meese’s “Next In Line” video

A month or so ago, we posted two different versions of the new Meese video for “Next In Line,” the first single from Broadcast, the act’s major label debut. Now, just in case you were dying to see how the clips we’re shot, the Meese dudes have posted a making…

Flier of the Week: Dead Confederate at the Bluebird

Our favorite flier of the week this time out goes to this gem informing us of a lovely show featuring Dead Confederate, The Overcasters and Hawks of Paradise this Friday, July 17 at the Bluebird. It received top honors this week for its vaguely steampunk vibe, reminding us of futures…

The Mars Volta and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to headline Monolith

Update: Just in case you haven’t been keeping tabs, this year’s Monolith line-up has been shaping up rather nicely. On May 18, the masterminds of Monolith began revealing the line-up for the third annual two-day indie-centric music festival every two hours on Twitter and Facebook. Some folks found this approach…

When DJ Dragon wins, everybody wins!

This past Monday at the Gothic Theatre, DJ Dragon took home honors at the Westword Music Showcase Awards. To express his gratitude, tomorrow night at Beta, he’s giving out some free tickets to the Global Dance Festival this Saturday, July 18 at Red Rocks, featuring Benny Benassi, Markus Schulz, John…

KGNU teaches kids the ins and outs of radio next week

Next week, KGNU community radio in Boulder (88.5 FM) is hosting a three-day workshop for kids aged twelve to nineteen, in which they’ll be able to be schooled on the ins and outs of radio, from learning how to be on the air to how to edit audio to field…

3OH!3: Your weekly update on the world’s most ubiquitious act

It’s been a few weeks since our last 3OH!3 post. (Forgive us, father, for we have sinned.) Fortunately, you’ll be happy to know that the Boulder-based hooligans, slated to appear at this weekend’s Mile High Music Festival, haven’t budged from their ubiquitous perch. And their influence appears to be widening…

Last Night: Paul Sprawl at the Laughing Goat in Boulder

Jeremy Facknitz and Paul Sprawl July 14, 2009 Laughing Goat Coffee Shop, Boulder Setting the mood for things to come, local singer-songwriter Jeremy Facknitz mirrored the mood of the crowd with his mellow vibes. Lesser talents attempting to pull this off would have been tiresome, possibly boring, but Facknitz not…

Danielle Ate the Sandwich: Better than a bag of poop on fire!

In case you missed it, Danielle Ate the Sandwich is our favorite singer-songwriter. And thanks to our friends over at Something Like Sound — quickly becoming one of our favorite blogs (what’s not to love about engineers writing about music, really?) — who interviewed her recently, we now know that…

Tickle Me Pink covers that are anything but “Typical”

There’s a number of ways to tell that you’ve quote-unquote made it. Obviously attaining platinum status is a pretty good indicator. Having the number one radio song in the country is also a good gauge. Um, let’s see, how about when your hit song gets parodied — that’s a pretty…

Fake Problems cancels Larimer Lounge date

This just in: Fake Problems, written up in this week’s issue and due to appear at the Larimer Lounge this weekend with Ninja Gun, Eyes & Ears and Throwaway Sunshine, has canceled all of its upcoming appearance through August 2, due to a death in the family. The act is…

Havok’s Candlelight debut garners high praise from Blabbermouth.net

Whoa! Blabbermouth.net just listed Burn, Havok’s Candlelight Records debut, as one of the essential thrash albums of 2009. “By golly, the thrash resurgence ain’t over yet! Candlelight found yet another throwback thrash band with big-time talent in Denver’s HAVOK and ended up with an album in “Burn” that is far…

Deejay Diabolic competing to spin at Lollapalooza

Looks like massive props are due to Deejay Diabolic, who recently place fourth out of fifty in the semi-finals Dell Computers / Lollapalooza Last Band Standing Contest. From here, he’ll be competing to become one of the four finalist selected to remix a track live at the festival and subsequently…

Westword Music Showcase Awards Wrap Up

See more photos at westword.com/slidehow.The picture above pretty much tells the tale of last night’s Westword Music Showcase Awards — drunk and debaucherous. Everyone (well, we think everyone — we didn’t exactly take a formal poll or anything) had a pretty swell time. Hugs were smiles were plentiful, as was…

Picture this: the Mock Show before the rock show

Looking for something to do before the Phish show next Saturday and don’t exactly feel like camping with a bunch of Phisheads? On Saturday, August 1, from 10 a.m to 2 p.m. at the Sheraton Denver West on third and Union, there’s a poster exhibit featuring the work of some…