Concerts

The management of the Oriental Theater (4335 West 44th Avenue) has changed hands. The owners of 3 Kings Tavern, who’d operated the historic 700-person venue for the past year, signed a deal last week with Absolutely Huge Entertainment, which will take over the place. Headed by Anna Muniz, who has…

Ralph Gean’s storied life can best be read about on his eponymous website. Before that site existed, most people who knew about him probably either saw him at warehouse spaces like Monkey Mania or learned of him through those affiliated with the DIY underground. Often seen wearing a thin mask…

Pilot Talk, the latest album from the New Orleans-based rapper known as Curren$y (Shante Anthony Franklin), is a guaranteed smoker’s delight, taking the listener for a trip down the sonic rabbit hole with the help of his Island Def Jam labelmate Ski Beatz, the producer largely known for his production…

Avi Buffalo’s Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg looks and sings like the bastard son of Wayne Coyne and Kevin Drew. Nevertheless, it’s more than just an excess of cute faces that makes his Long Beach-based band so powerful. The group’s self-titled 2009 Sub Pop debut warms up any room it’s played in with…

Like labelmates MSTRKRFT, Bloody Beetroots have a penchant for performing live in costume. Instead of looking like psychotic ax murderers, though, Bloody Beetroots prefer that their “Death Crew 77” looks like Spider-Man villain Venom. Although joined on stage by a variety of musicians, including a live drummer, producer Bob Rifo…

If the term “industrial” wasn’t already fairly synonymous with the heavy, dark electronic music made popular in the late ’80s and early ’90s, it would certainly apply here. It’s as though Ethan Ward, while living in big cities across the country, heard the clashing ambience of construction and factory production…

Ft. Collins-based reedsman Andrew Vogt keeps his chops sharp by playing out three or four nights a week, whether it’s with ZARO, which he co-leads, the Subterranean Quartet, or a number of other groups he performs with. On Cats Afoot, Vogt shows he obviously knows his way around both alto…

Young Cities, formerly Hearts Like Lions, took a trip to Los Angeles last year to visit friend and One Republic guitarist Drew Brown. Brown used his clout to open the doors of the legendary East West Studios, the place where Pet Sounds was recorded and where Brown ultimately produced the…

As a genre, metal has made an incredible amount of progress over the past decade. Denver County Death March couldn’t give a fuck. Not that the band needs to: Packing meat-hook riffs and more misanthropy than a serial-killer convention, the foursome uses its self-titled full-length as a blistering tirade against…

Among the most popular and successful of the bands associated with the Elephant 6 collective, Of Montreal started off as a sort of indie pop band with an experimental edge. Instead of sticking to a strict formula, however, the band evolved dramatically across several records, fearlessly exploring lyrical themes of…

Trip-hop producer and live PA artist Emancipator (known day-to-day as Doug Appling) got his start producing electronic music in 2002 at age fifteen when he procured a copy of ACID Pro software. After dabbling as a drummer, Emancipator moved into producing trance and electro-pop before settling on his current sound…

Adept at both production and turntablism, Gaslamp Killer — known for many years as the Motherfucking Gaslamp Killer (he’s since dropped the Oedipal reference) — is as new-school as it gets. A frequent guest on L.A.’s Low End Theory monthly podcast, the Killer’s hip-hop stylings are all over the place:…

Woodsman and Gauntlet Hair have joined psychedelic forces for a two-week West Coast tour, starting November 5. While the former act has already made a few trips to the closest coast, aligning with its fellow ambient wave-crashers in Gauntlet Hair will offer a nice taste of what Colorado has been…

As you might have heard or read, Social Distortion was in town over the weekend, playing Friday and Saturday night at the Fillmore Auditorium (Read our review of Social Distortion at the Fillmore on Saturday.) Photographer Aaron Thackeray, ever a man of the people, brings back these photos from Social…

Did you catch Undercover Boss staring Bryan Bedford, the CEO of Frontier Airlines? No? Yeah, can’t say we blame you. The show, which premiered with a fairly promising premise, has quickly devolved into a one-dimensional series with almost Real World-worthy typecasting. Each of the boilerplate vignettes, which seem to center…

PS I LOVE YOU With Van Louvin and Paean 10.17.10 | hi-dive Van Louvin opened this show. Those who have been around the Denver scene long enough would recognize its members from some of best indie pop bands of the past decade, namely Kent Phillips and Al Rich from Thank…

Sad news this morning coming out of Minnesota. Over the weekend, City Pages, our sister paper in Minneapolis, reported that Michael Larsen, better known as the underground hip-hop artist Eyedea, passed away. The cause of death of the young rapper, who was just 28 years old, is uncertain at this…

Social Distortion With Lucero and Frank Turner Fillmore Auditorium| 10.16.10 See Social Distortion at the Fillmore photo slideshow When Social Distortion opened the second of a two-night stint at Fillmore with not one, but three songs from Mommy’s Little Monster, you’d think a crowd would have gone bat shit to…

VINEFIELD AGENCY SHOWCASE 10.16.2010 | Casselman’s Bar & Venue It’s an ambitious task fitting close to a dozen diverse acts into a five and a half-hour show, but the folks at the Vinefield Agency pulled it off as part of new company’s launch party and showcase. Local standouts like the…

Fresh off two successful nights at the Fillmore, DJ Deadmau5, aka Joel Zimmerman, rocked Beta on Thursday night. Photos by Soren McCarty. Here’s the full slideshow: Deadmau5 at Beta. Below are a few highlights…

Prime Element. That’s the new name of the trio formerly known as 3 the Hardway. But that’s not the biggest news coming out of that camp today. After years of hard work, the threesome, made up of A.V.I.U.S., Cysko Rokwel and Es Nine, has linked up with Kamikazi Airlines, an…