BLKHRTS Ball at Glob, 01/08/11

BLKHRTS With The Pirate Signal, Lust-Cats of the Gutters Flashlights and PDRBLK 01.10.11 | Glob Yonnas Abraham has often referred to BLKHRTS as a “gang” and flippantly pointed out how formidable and imposing the crew — which also includes King FOE and Karma — is. From only minor cameos, though,…

Brewski’s is coming back

After 45 years in the bar business, seventy-year-old Chuck Persichetti is ready for one more round: He’s resurrecting Brewski’s, a bar at Highway 36 and Pecos Street that he ran for ten years and sold a decade ago. “Once you get something in your blood, it seems like it just…

Critic’s Choice: The May Kit, January 16 at the hi-dive

Clearly there are some nods to Nick Drake in the way that the May Kit’s Max Winne puts a song together. It’s there in his ability to conjure images of flights of fantasy — the kind that strike you during your workday in a moment of reprieve from the prosaic…

Jackie Greene

You can’t throw a vintage Western shirt these days without hitting another Americana revivalist — and few are worth the faded plaid they’re dressed up in. Then there’s Jackie Greene. Nimbly sidestepping the inherent corniness of too many contemporary twang-mongers, Greene has used his association with the jam scene —…

Zoo Animal

Based in Minneapolis, Zoo Animal has sometimes been identified as a Christian band, but you’re not going to get vapid Songs 4 Worship fare or the sort of thing that gets featured at a Cornerstone festival from this act. Instead, Holly Newsom’s plaintive vocals and the group’s introspective, minimalist pop…

Lissie

Lissie is what Taylor Swift claims to be. It’s going to take the rest of this to dig out of that analogy, because she’s nothing like the Taylor Swift you know. What she is: A singer with country roots and pop leanings, singing about youthful love and loss. But there…

Darwin Deez

Darwin Smith, like certain prominent musicians on the indie circuit of recent years, once attended Wesleyan University. Either there’s an alien virus on campus that imparts a knack for an inventively catchy pop song, or it’s pure coincidence. As part of the band Darwin Deez, Smith and his Deez-surnamed compatriots…

School Knights

There seems to be a big influx of reverby, neo-garage rock everywhere lately. School Knights fares better than many bands because its youthful exuberance is not a pose. It’s obvious from these four songs that this duo has listened to more than its fair share of No Age and Siltbreeze…

Makeout Point

Hungry, simple, unpolished, unposed: Indie rock used to be a beautiful thing. But all is not lost in the age of hipster Hyundai commercials. For instance, there’s Makeout Point. Or at least there used to be: The outfit broke up recently, soon after the release of its latest EP, Don’t…

Bigwheel Electrosoul

Bigwheel Electrosoul’s The Guac Vol 1. features the intricate live instrumentation you expect from Bigwheel, boosted by the turntable skills of DJ Vajra, who chops things up and keeps them fresh and full. The ambience of the set, recorded live at Lola, is perfect for a progressive brunch crowd. Not…

Mr. Midas: Crack killed us and fed us

Mr. Midas has finally put his stamp of approval on his debut, Son of the Crack Era, which details the ills and spills of the crack epidemic on society from a hip-hop perspective. Not only is Midas using his laid-back, honeyed voice to create a line of storytelling that will…

Liz Phair talks about her haters

After releasing a short run of independently released cassettes titled Girly Sound in the early ’90s, Liz Phair quickly garnered critical acclaim for her offbeat sense of humor and knack for quirky, inventive pop songs. On the strength of those releases, Phair signed to Matador Records, which released her debut…

Conspirator, January 14 at the Fox Theatre

Whether or not you dig the heavily trance-influenced livetronica group the Disco Biscuits, you should give the Biscuits’ side project, Conspirator, a fighting chance: Instead of trance-jam-band fusion, Conspirator draws heavily from trance, downtempo and drum-and-bass, creating soundscapes that are eerier, subtler and more interesting to the trained electronica ear…

Tonight: Cowboy Mouth at the Bluebird

For some bands, touring is a natural state of being. This is absolutely true for Louisiana’s Cowboy Mouth, as the quartet comes through Denver tonight on it’s 16th annual “Mardi Gras tour.” Making country-twinged pop-rock since 1990, the band pulls from influences like The Clash — heard loud and clear…

Boldtype tapped to open Guttermouth tour

Hey, what do you know? Performing at the Showcase can actually be beneficial to your career. Well, so to speak. In a roundabout way, playing at the Showcase helped the men of Boldtype land an opening slot on the upcoming Guttermouth tour. Well, it sealed the deal, anyway. We’ll let…

Tonight: Dave Aude at Beta

Even if Dave Aude’s name isn’t immediately recognizable, it is impossible to have missed his work over the past two decades. The prolific DJ and producer has worked with Katy Perry, Mary J. Blige and Lady Gaga on Billboard-charting remixes this year alone, and put his precise ear to task…