So What! The club turns twenty this Saturday

Twenty years ago this Saturday night in the basement of City Spirit on 14th and Blake, DJ K-Nee hosted the very first edition of So What! with DJ L7-Square. Little did K-Nee know back then that So What! would not only go on to become Denver’s longest running club night,…

The five best concerts in Colorado this week

Hi. Uh, erm, happy Monday? Yes, we know: A certain sports team let everybody down (grumble, grumble, f*@king Broncos! grumble). Not to mention it’s overcast and bitterly cold. So what’s happy about it, right?! Music. That’s what. Nothing picks up spirits like, well, spirits and music. And since you live…

The five best concerts in Denver this weekend

Welcome to the weekend! And, oh, fingers crossed, what a weekend this will be. The sun was orange and the sky was blue when we woke up this morning. We’re taking that as an omen or something. That could just be the tequila shot from last night talking, though. Saw…

Trampled by Turtles at the Ogden, 1/10/13

TRAMPLED BY TURTLES @ OGDEN THEATRE | 1/10/13 Eerie sounds were coming out of the fiddle, the base of which Ryan Young had lodged into his chest. With his elbow bobbing up and down furiously with the movement of the bow, he summoned tones from those four strings that sounded…

Learn how to kick ass from the men of Havok

Alright, so, admittedly, you’re going to have to suspend disbelief a little as we frame this next item, and you’ll need to operate under the premise that A) time travel is a reality, and B) the internet existed in the mainstream realm in 1983. Got it? Okay, good. Now imagine…

SnowBall 2013 full lineup revealed

Just before Christmas, the folks behind SnowBall Music Festival began revealing the lineup for the third edition of their annual mountain music festival, which is moving to Winter Park this year from its previous location in Avon. Pretty Lights, Big Gigantic, Kendrick Lamar and Zion I were among the first…

Communikey 2013 lineup partially revealed

Organizers for Communikey (aka CMKY, Boulder’s annual electronic music festival) have revealed the first part of the lineup for this year’s festival, which is slated to take place from Thursday, April 25, through Sunday, April 28. A limited number of $100 passes for the sixth edition of the four-day festival…

Jack’s Smirking Revenge brings energetic folk punk to Seventh Circle

Alex Pelissero was one of the people behind the Danger Zone, a short-lived DIY venue in Boulder. In addition to helping maintain welcoming places for people to play, Pelissero, as Jack’s Smirking Revenge (due Tuesday, January 15, at Seventh Circle Music Collective, 2935 West Seventh Avenue), also writes wonderfully profane,…

Reel Big Fish

Third-wave ska was last in vogue when people still thought Y2K was a threat, but the passage of a decade hasn’t changed the fact that many of those bands still make an awfully accessible and enjoyable racket on stage. See: well-vetted Huntington Beach six-piece Reel Big Fish, the main attraction…

The Used

There’s surely some sort of official story behind the origin of the Used’s name, but it might as well describe the elements that make up the band’s music. The threads of pop punk, metal and even good old-fashioned rock and roll that are woven into the screamo-tinged tunes are well…

Quicksand

Quicksand formed in New York City in 1990, when Walter Schreifels’s band Moondog broke up. Schreifels, however, may be better known for his part in the hardcore bands Youth of Today and Gorilla Biscuits. Quicksand was a different type of entity altogether: The band’s dynamic flow wasn’t made up of…

Ash Reiter

There’s a notable ’60s influence in Ash Reiter’s laid-back California style and sunny, well-crafted pop songs. And while that sort of thing has been trendy lately, Reiter and her band also play music that is bright but has a social conscience — one that delves into a refreshingly open exploration…

Matt Rissi takes his small-town electronica to Beatport Lounge

Matt Rissi (previously known as DJ Sonar) is proof that you don’t have to be from a big (or EDM-centric) city to master mixing beats for dance floors around the world. This Iowa native has been weaving sets since the mid-1990s, but he’s never been exactly what you’d call traditional; his…

R.I.P., Donnie Eden

Some sad news to pass along today, in case you haven’t heard: We’ve just received word that local blues drummer Donnie Eden passed away last week, and last night at El Chapultepec, a spot where he used to perform at regularly, a memorial wake was held for the drummer. Eden,…

The five best metal shows in Denver this month

January is a monster month for metal in the Mile High City, from Impending Doom tonight at the Marquis Theater to Down at the Summit Music Hall at the end of the month to a couple of killer local bills. If you’re a completist, we’ve got all of this month’s…

Photos: Midnight on Market Street

When it comes to nightlife in Denver, Market Street is always thriving year round, even when its bitterly cold outside on nights like this past Saturday, when we sent out our roving nightlife photographer Brandon Marshall to capture the scene. Marshall made his way up and down Market and brought…

The ten best scenes from Old Curtis St.’s last call

While it’s uncertain right now if the storied downtown bar at 21st and Curtis will ever host live bands again — or even scarcely resemble the beloved dive we’ve all come to know and love, for that matter — Old Curtis Street sure went out on a high note this…