Gregory Alan Isakov, Bela Karoli, the Widow’s Bane and the Blue Maddies Saturday, May 15, 2009 Fox Theatre Better than: A real “folk punk” show surrounded by a bunch of sweaty dudes in denim vests. Amy Ray from the the Indigo Girls once erroneously dubbed Gregory Alan Isakov’s music “punk…
Flight of the Conchords, Iron & Wine, Arj Barker Saturday, May 16, 2009 Red Rocks Amphitheater Better than: Going to a show to see bands that take themselves far too seriously. I’m leery about using the word “comedy” when describing the music of Flight of the Conchords. Don’t get me…
Looks like we’ve got dueling fliers in this week’s pole position. Not that the one picked by our esteemed colleague this week isn’t completely worthy, because it most certainly is; it’s just that this particular one, hyping a Sunday, May 24, date at 3 Kings featuring Yerkish, Burn Sand Burn…
Seems like just yesterday I was writing about the influence of horror movies on my musical taste (okay, it was two days ago) when along comes a flier sporting an image of the kind of thing I’d expect to see chasing some hapless victim in the next Silent Hill movie…
Last year, the Mighty 4 Colorado event at Beta Night Club (19th and Blake) saw hip-hop heads and b-boys from all over Colorado and surrounding states converge on downtown Denver. The day consisted of intense b-boy battles, and performances from Infinite Mindz and the Break EFX dance crew. This weekend…
The Diamond Boiz made it on to the Westword Showcase ballot this and are campaigning hard for people’s votes. So much so that they quickly finished their mixtape project, Calm Before the Storm, in order to get people familiar with their sounds. The release features a mix of original songs…
Gojira, Krallice and Wolves in the Throne Room Wednesday, May 13, 2009 Marquis Theater, Denver Better Than: A nationalist rather than socially conscious black metal show. Krallice opened the show. A four-piece whose membership includes Mick Barr, one of Marnie Stern’s primary influences, the outfit at first sounded like a…
I can’t even drink yet,” notes Havok frontman Dave Sanchez. “But I’ve probably played and been inside more bars than people who are 25 years old.” One look at Sanchez, whose baby face is framed by long, dark, wispy curls, and his vintage is unmistakable — which makes the thrash…
It’s always been a challenge to lure foot traffic from the 16th Street Mall to a club three levels up at the Denver Pavilions — and it’s especially challenging now, with the space undergoing a major renovation. But Jazz@Jack’s (500 16th Street, #320) came up with a simple solution: Pipe…
Anyone looking for a more sanitized version of pop music would do well to steer clear of the bands on the Siltbreeze label. In the world of lo-fi indie rock, the dirty, distorted aesthetic of Siltbreeze bands like Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit exert a strong influence. And that’s…
Talk about an unlikely combination. The meditative sounds of Iron and Wine, driven by the earnest lyrics and Travis picking of frontman Sam Beam, usually make for a calm and staid live performance. Comedy, meanwhile, plays a central role in the music of Flight of the Conchords, whose shows boast…
Though very young, Louise Harman, performing under the moniker Lady Sovereign, has already made a mark for herself and broken unspoken barriers; in the male-dominated world of grime, she’s the genre’s most high-profile female MC, and she was also the first non-American female artist to be signed by Def Jam…
Vancouver, British Columbia, is a rich breeding ground for experimental bands of all stripes, and this act is one of that scene’s shining stars. Listening to Modern Creatures is not unlike watching an especially entrancing but unfamiliar Edgar Allan Poe movie on a TV station with snowy reception: Distorted, grittily…
Director John Paul Burgess’s No One Said It Would Be Easy is more than a simple documentary about Cloud Cult, a Minnesota group that shares this bill with Say Hi and Ice Palace. It’s also a visually stunning tribute to Cult frontman Craig Minowa, whose earnestness is positively off the…
House With No Home, the latest album by Horse Feathers, is a positively gorgeous bummer. The Portland, Oregon-based combo (currently gigging with Joe Pug) is fronted by Justin Ringle, whose tenor voice seems as wispy and fragile as the light strums and delicate finger-picking that form the backbone of his…
Following in the tradition of artists like Elliott Smith and Nick Drake, Gregory Alan Isakov has the ineffable ability to convey a wide variety of emotions without ever raising his voice above a whisper. Save for “Dandelion Wine,” in which his poetic croon soars just slightly above understated strings and…
Producer Steve Albini is typically thought of as a noise-master — a guy capable of taking a rough sound and turning it into something even rougher. But he takes a different tack on Nine Skies. The Delby L threesome of Jeff Eliassen, Dave Devine and Brian Lenherr, whose credits include…
With a lot of heavy rock leaning toward doomy and psychedelic, it’s refreshing to hear an EP like the Nod’s Twisted Romance, where solid, catchy hooks are favored over sludgy riffs. On the opener, “White City,” the band subverts the stoner-rock template by being putting less emphasis on doom and…
Jeffrey Wentworth Stevens and Joseph Kersey Sampson return with a second EP of eccentric, atmospheric cowboy pop in which Sampson’s plaintive vocals and obliquely melancholic lyrics nestle languidly into Stevens’s delicately wrought illusions. With only a couple exceeding three minutes, many songs fleet by, like half-remembered dreams. “Adore,” for instance,…
The Jim Jims formed in March of 2007 when Adam Martin and Tony Terrafranca reformed an older musical project and ditched the name Dirty Yellow T-Shirt. With new members came new influences, resulting in a band that clearly owes an artistic debt to the edgier post-punk and new-wave bands of…
Mike Watt, the autodidactic, blue-collar-intellectual elder statesman of punk rock, is back with another punk-rock opera. After spending five and a half years in the Stooges’ classroom — as he lovingly refers to his time spent with Iggy and the brothers Asheton — Watt has devised a new power trio…
Well known for his intensely idiosyncratic approach to music, top-notch sound design and prolific output, the enigmatic Tipper has made waves throughout his career. Early on, he carved out a place as a breakbeat tastemaker by producing huge, body-shaking slabs of God’s own breaks layered with gut-wrenching sub-bass frequencies, shifty…
