Punk Rock Bowling & Music Festival, which was started in 1999 in Las Vegas by brothers Shawn and Mark Stern (owners of BYO Records), is coming to Denver for the first time at Summit Music Hall Thursday, June 2 through Saturday, June 4. The initial lineup includes Buzzcocks, Millencollin, FLAG…
Last week we interviewed Frances Quinlan of Hop Along, a genre-straddling indie rock band that’s made music critics (including this one) gush. (That Voice tho!) Our conversation ranged from Chris Brown and Taco Bell to Denver’s “amazing free clinic,” which hopefully Quinlan won’t need to visit again when the band…
“We make fun of people getting underwear for Christmas in childhood,” says Bethany Wallace. “But some people only have the pair they’re wearing, and that’s a bizarre invisibility to our privilege.” Wallace is the organizer of UnderAware: Unmentionables Costume Party and Benefit Show for Urban Peak featuring live music from…
If you’re in Denver, odds are you spent last weekend closely following the Broncos World Championship team (and/or avoiding sports bars and casual conversation, tucked away in your home hiding from the Orange Crush). Meanwhile, another squad of hometown heroes was being broadcast across television screens nationwide: Nathaniel Rateliff and…
At this point in its long and ragged career, going to an AC/DC show is much like watching It’s a Wonderful Life at Christmas. It’s warm, familiar, and you can recite line after line, possibly to the annoyance of the person sitting next to you. To its fans, an AC/DC show is like…
A few minutes before Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s string section took the stage last night at the Ogden Theatre, a slow, bass-heavy drone began washing over the packed-in Denver crowd. Kids who had been jammed against the rail for two hours waiting for the electrifying Montreal symphonic indie-rock act suddenly…
Long before becoming one of the world’s preeminent jazz bassists and performing with celebrated pianists like Keith Jarrett, Bill Evans and Paul Bley, Gary Peacock had an experience in 1953 while playing drums for his high school graduating class when he realized that jazz was his calling. “I had a…
Almost everyday at local record-selling institution Twist & Shout, owner Paul Epstein says he notices the same thing: a constant stream of young buyers all looking at vinyl with “a deer in the headlights” look, examining vinyl “like the monkeys in 2001: A Space Odyssey.” The customers are clueless, and…
Like the rest of Denver, we have been experiencing a deluge of emotions following the Broncos’ victory in Super Bowl 50 — mostly positive, and mostly expressed nonverbally via cheers, happy grunts, the occasional clash with police and tears over Beyoncé. (She dressed as a Black Panther. Does that mean…
As a teenager growing up in Wales, Eddie Roberts, guitarist and founder of the New Mastersounds, started immersing himself in faraway influences: jazz and New Orleans funk. “It’s a bit of a strange one and I don’t quite understand it myself,” Roberts says. “I know for me the music is…
AC/DC returns to the Pepsi Center tonight while Godspeed You! Black Emperor is at the Ogden Theatre, and in the next few days it’s Bullet for My Valentine, the New Mastersounds, Infamous Stringdusters and Hop Along. See the full list of our picks below. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8 AC/DC $95-$140, 7:30 p.m. Pepsi…
This weekend STS9 returns to the Fillmore for a two-night stand, Dressy Bessy celebrates the release of its new album, Kingsized, at the hi-dive, Guster headlines the Paramount and Phish bassist Mike Gordon is at the Gothic Theatre. See the full list of our picks below. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5 STS9 (also Feb…
It’s the first Friday of February, and it’s time to celebrate: Spring is on its way (according to the groundhog) and it’s time for another Open Music Session. Denver’s Open Media Foundation hosts this monthly party at 700 Kalamath, and it’s free and open to the public. The event features…
Say the name “Rossonian” to Denverites, and more often than not, they will recall The Rossonian, the historic hotel in the heart of Five Points and the center of that neighborhood’s storied jazz scene. Over the last few years, local band Rossonian has been making a name for themselves with…
Aspen is fucking weird, man. To celebrate #ThrowbackThursday, we’re looking back to this last New Year’s Eve, which we spent at a bizarre yet quintessentially Aspen party: At midnight we had a clear view of fireworks over the mountains — if only Win Butler would’ve moved his head. In a…
People often ask Gumbo le Funque singer and saxophonist Jason Justice what part of New Orleans he’s from, since the local band he fronts is steeped in city’s music. Justice says he tells them, “’I’m from northern Louisiana: a place called Norman, Oklahoma.’ People are always just floored that it’s…
The Flaming Lips, who have performed their 1999 album The Soft Bulletin live a handful of times over the last few years, will be playing it with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks on Thursday, May 26. Tickets ($39.95-$59.75) go on sale on Friday, February 5 at 10 a.m. The Smashing Pumpkins…
Mardi Gras is upon us. Fat Tuesday officially occurs next Tuesday, February 9, but the celebrations will heat up starting this weekend. Though jambalaya, King Cakes and hurricanes are part of the fun, the soul of Carnival season is found in the music. We’ve rounded up the best bets for…
At 29, Frances Quinlan says she is coming to terms with her flaws. “I’m really just beginning to realize how much of an idiot I was in the first half of my twenties,” says the singer and songwriter of Hop Along. “I cried when I turned twenty. I hope I…
In the fall of 2008, Denver band Dressy Bessy set out on tour to support its fifth album, Holler and Stomp. Shortly after the tour began, the U.S. economy collapsed. The group was suddenly paying four dollars a gallon for gas to drive to empty venues and play to a…
In the city of Longmont, tucked into a quiet, almost-suburban neighborhood off of Main Street, is Wind Over the Earth. A studio disguised by a successful storefront selling music equipment, Wind Over the Earth is home to a new project, Solid State Rocket. The self-described “three-piece indie rock group” is…
It seems amazing, but it’s been eighteen years since metal band Bullet For My Valentine formed in the nice-but-unspectacular Welsh town of Bridgend. The first few years were spent finding their feet and learning their trade but by 2005 the band released debut album The Poison album and in Britain the boys were a…
