Concerts

Behold nine-year-old Ezra Lux, possibly the world’s first (and greatest) pre-teen metal blogger. Over at his barely a month old metal blog Crud Wizard (which is also the best name for a metal blog we’ve heard in a long, long time), Ezra is dropping some serious wisdom, such as this…

Need a robot to harmonize on your latest opus, but Autotune got you down and vocoder too kitschy and retro? Well, local electronic music mastermind CacheFlowe (aka Justin Gitlin) has got a treat for you! As of today, his custom vocal processing software Rob.Vox is available for the low, low…

Alright, now this is a frightening proposition, just utterly frightening — and mind you, this is coming from a guy who files taxes each year with somebody who actually has Elvis’s visage tattooed on her person. I, perhaps more than most people, have a firm grasp on maniacal, inexplicable fanaticism,…

Hollywood-based Andrew Bagg, aka DJ Cobra, touched down in Denver around 9 p.m. Friday night and was spinning records at Suite 200 downtown a few hours later. Photographer Aaron Thackeray brings back these photos from the party…

20:12 Mixtape and Video Release Party 07.30.10 | Casselman’s Bar and Venue Maybe it was the free vodka. Or maybe it was the hundreds of ladies dressed to the nines. Or perhaps it was the unmistakable family vibe. Hard to say. Whatever it was, though, 20:12’s release party at Casselman’s…

Miniature Tigers • Sprinto Band • The Dont’s and Be Carefuls 07.30.10 | Larimer Lounge, Denver At this point, the Dont’s and Be Carefuls’ “new” keyboardist, Dane Bernhardt, formerly of the Silver Cord, is fully integrated into the band. At least that’s how things sounded this past Friday. These guys…

Reverend Deadeye 7.31.10 | Paris Wine Bar It just takes one glance at the Reverend Deadeye’s rig to get a good idea of what’s in store for his gigs. There’s the washtub snare with a tambourine attached to it, a kick drum, hi-hat with a mannequin hand on top, an…

Michael Franti & Spearhead with Brett Dennen 7.31.10|Red Rocks Amphitheatre Since 1986, Michael Franti has been making music with a social conscience — from his industrial punk days in the Beatnigs to the hip-hop leaning Disposable Heroes to his current (and most commercially successful) project, Michael Franti & Spearhead, which…

Spilling Over Every Side: That’s the name of Pretty Lights’ latest release, and what a perfectly fitting title it is. Derek Vincent Smith simply just doesn’t stop. Smith, of course, is Pretty Lights’ mastermind. When we last checked in with Smith in March, he had just released his new EP,…

Growing up in rural Missouri, it’s doubtful that the prospect of being written up in the pages of prestigious publications like the New York Times ever crossed Nathaniel Rateliff’s mind. That said, you’ve gotta think that the thought of one day having his music reviewed in the pages of Mojo,…

To be honest, it could have gone either way. I don’t exactly spend a ton of time at Tracks, I’ll admit, and the venue might — and probably did — have had something to do with it. One thing’s certain, though: There were a lot of freaks at Lady Gaga’s…

There’s something to be said for a singer or band who can compel their fans to not just buy a T-shirt or sticker or button, but to actually dress like them, as well. Usually these fanatics, as a whole, earn a nickname like Army or Legion or Nation. With the…

LADY GAGA Monster Ball Tour, with Semi-Precious Weapons 7.28.10 | Pepsi Center, Denver, CO Before last night’s show, I wasn’t a fan of Lady Gaga. I liked her, mind you. I enjoyed her bizarro-world take on pop, her outlandish videos, the way she she combined all of that and her…

First there’s the noise — the random, free-form fiddling musicians do at practice, waiting for everyone to get set up, dial in their tone. Bassist Dave Lierman slaps out a funk line while drummer Victor Acquilla pounds out a few rolls and adjusts a pedal. In terms of cohesion, it’s…

Fusing electronics with rock music is hardly the most original thing a band can do these days. But Sunset Curse does so with a complete immersion in both musical realms. The insistent beats are straight out of dance music, but the forceful rhythms and soaring guitar leads sound like these…

“Weird Al” Yankovic’s zany parodies of hit songs like “Beat It” (“Eat It”) and “Like a Virgin” (“Like a Surgeon”) catapulted him to infamy in the ’80s, back when pop culture was in dire need of some deflation. He never got critical props for his oddball iconoclasm, though, and after…

Originally based in Phoenix, Arizona, Miniature Tigers relocated to Brooklyn in the past couple of years. The band’s charmingly confessional debut full-length, Tell It to the Volcano, is full of catchy pop songs clearly influenced by post-“White Album” Beatles and the Beach Boys. On the outfit’s latest release, Fortress, the…

With 1995’s Rubberneck, the Toadies became radio mainstays across the country and hard-rock icons at home in North Texas. But somehow they couldn’t keep the attention of label Interscope Rec­ords. As was the plan, the band went into the studio, but the Interscope higher-ups didn’t approve of Feeler, the disc the…

Bands like Tokyo Police Club are drastically changing the definition of the term “indie rock.” Sure, the group possesses the shrill, lightly distorted guitars and cutesy nice-guy vocals that have become synonymous with the genre, but when you’re a band as big as this one, the term “independent” really no…

A good chunk of Paper Bird’s new album has already been released. In the Internet age, this may not seem uncommon, but in the case of Paper Bird, it’s because five of the songs on When the River Took Flight (due to be issued on Friday, July 30, at the…

Chie Imaizumi knows a few things about new beginnings. After studying piano in Japan, she studied composing at Berklee College of Music, assisted legendary Miles Davis/Thelonious Monk producer Teo Macero, spent time in Denver, and recently moved to Los Angeles to work with hero and mentor John Clayton. So it’s…