Freeloader, SXSW edition: Download free tracks from Denver’s finest

Fuck what you’ve heard. We’ve got the the best day parties at SXSW today. Period. Hands down. We’ve seen New Music Tipsheet’s free list. Granted, we’re a little biased, but still, personal investments aside, have you seen the line-up? XX! Superchunk! The Pains of Being Pure At Heart! Surfer Blood!…

Will cutting the prices of CDs get you back into stores?

Yesterday Universal announced that it’s cutting the its base CD prices from the average $12-$16 to an astonishingly low $6-$10. It’s good news for those of you still buying CDs regularly, but what exactly does it mean for the rest of us and why are they even bothering at this…

SXSW 2010: Fucked Up embodies its name at the Fader Fort

Fucked Up | Fader Fort | 03.18.10 You’ve seen this before. At least a thousand times. And better. Probably much better. With far more blood. Still every time you witness a reckless, unpredictable frontman like Damian Abraham, it’s exhilarating. Doesn’t matter who you are. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. Guaranteed. Even…

SXSW: Bocumast Records Day Party takes over Union Park

Married In Berdichev • Hunter Dragon • Tim Pourbaix Bocumast Records Day Party | Union Park “I can drink all day here, and it’s socially acceptable,” utters Tim Pourbaix, as he takes a sip of his brew in between songs during his brief set at the Bocumast Records day party…

Last Night: St. Patrick’s Day Debauchery

The dust is settling on the drunkest holiday of the year. And today you have a choice: you can relive with exactly 100 of the night’s best photos spread over three slideshows, or you can work. Aaron Thackeray was there for Kegs and Eggs at Lodo’s and still found time…

Pentagram at the Marquis: “It’s more like Penta-jam”

Pentagram • Space in Time • Kingdom of Magic 03.17.10 | Marquis Theatre A night of exceptionally interesting hard rock that ended with ’70s metal legends Pentagram began with the new-look Space in Time. They were surprisingly confident and assured. The band’s new singer, Mike, sounded like a young Ozzy…

St. Patrick’s Day on the streets of Denver

If you can read these words on your computer screen today, you have shamed St. Patrick. Also, you were probably not anywhere near Colfax last night. Fortunately for you, that is exactly where a pad of paper and I were, so we bring you an after-the-fact-live blog. Or a tape-delayed…

Itchy-O at Old Curtis Street

Itchy-O (due at Old Curtis Street on Friday, March 19) isn’t a band so much as a multimedia art project designed to be an all but complete sensory experience for those who witness its performances. Truth be told, though, the troupe is probably working on its being a wholly immersive…

Dustin Zahn at MESS’s Spring Equinox Party

The complex, intricate techno favored by Dustin Zahn is miles away from the mainstream conception of techno as brainless, soulless, repetitive thump-thump-thump. While he does deliver the thump-thump-thump, his work incorporates delicate, fleeting strands of melody that dance around deep, layered percussion and synth work. And while repetition is a…

The Congress is what happens when hired guns band together

Dwight Thompson was ready to quit. After years of playing bass for hire, he’d simply had enough. “I was actually at a point this year when I was like, ‘I’m giving this two more years and then I’m done,'” he recalls. “I’d rather have a day job than play music…

The Robert Glasper Experiment

Robert Glasper’s latest Blue Note effort, Double Booked, shows just how well the pianist straddles the jazz and hip-hop worlds. On the first half of the disc, Glasper flexes his jazz chops within the confines of an acoustic trio setting, cutting through four brilliant originals before diving into the angular…

Ray Davies

Ozzy Osbourne has suggested that Ray Davies invented heavy metal with his signature guitar-riff opening on “You Really Got Me.” While that may be true, Davies’s career with and without the Kinks has shown mainly that the guy has a true knack for inventive pop songwriting and for writing incisive…

Jay-Z

Here’s the thing about Jay-Z: When he says “I. Will. Not. Lose. Ever… Fucker” in “U Don’t Know,” he’s not kidding. Of his studio albums, three are instant-classic, holy-shit ridiculous, and all eleven hit number one on the charts. That’s one more than Elvis. Quite the American Dream for a…

John Mayer

Remember Dusty Dinkleman in Just Friends, the hapless sap vying with Ryan Reynolds for the affections of the ever-illusive Miss Jamie Palamino? On the surface, the dude was unbearably sweet — we’re talking elderly-serenading, kitten-cuddling, hold-your-hair-while-you’re-puking sweet. Beneath the facade, however, lurked a completely depraved, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing ultra-perv, who, when…

The Autumn Film

The Autumn Film has gone from beautiful to stunning. Tifah Al-Attas’s voice flows like warm honey, but it did that before this album. What it has this time around is a more suitable canvas of instruments. Before, Tifah was the sad spotlight, and now she is sunken into an ebb…

Dust on the Breakers

Bridging the gap between dream pop, dark Americana and orchestral indie rock, the songs on this EP manage to be eclectic without seeming artistically overburdened. “Charred Metropolis” has an air of spiritual turmoil just shy of being melodramatic, while the down-tempo “Frontiers” shimmers with the music’s impressionistic dynamics. “Summer Rainstorms”…

The Dominant 7 and the Jazz Arts Messengers

In its ten years of existence, the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts has seen some 600 teenagers participate in its programs, camps and workshops. Fourteen Channels, the organization’s latest release, features two different groups — the Dominant 7 and the Jazz Arts Messengers — that comprise members of the…

King Rat

For fifteen years, King Rat has held down its own small, smelly corner of Denver’s punk scene. That kind of longevity alone is commendable — especially considering the volatile, at times self-destructive nature of King Rat’s music, a crackling blitzkrieg of hard rock, ’80s hardcore and Mike Ness-style confessionals. On…

The Lovely and Talented creates a New American Fable of its own

The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist JT Nolan, the Lovely and Talented seems eerily similar to fellow Denver outfit DeVotchKa. After all, both gather sounds from a similar pool of eras and genres, and Nolan has even appeared on stage with DeVotchKa — not to mention the fact that that group’s drummer,…