There are tons of local bands that claim indie rock, yet most don’t have a trace of the quirkiness and urgency that once made indie a haven for the lonely, the wimpy and the pissed off. But even among this city’s douchebags and fashion victims, there’s still a place for…
Tackling the concerns of adulthood with more lyrical maturity and originality than most bands, Quillion proves it is possible to express one’s pain and disappointment without a vulgar display of melodrama. To the Hilt’s opener, “Take a Bow,” is a disarmingly delicate number with bell tones accenting the rhythms and…
Spoke Shaver’s description on its MySpace profile reads “Progressive/Post-Punk/Country.” But unlike many bands’ deliberately absurd mix of genre classifications, Spoke Shaver is mostly serious about its three choices. Not that it feels bound by them. Over the past few months, the Denver-based group — singer/keyboardist Kristin Garramone, guitarist Rich Haven,…
The term “emo” didn’t always have a negative stigma attached to it. What was once shorthand for music that was emotional and heartfelt has since been marginalized and applied to mainstream acts like My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. Seattle’s Sunny Day Real Estate was at the vanguard of…
DJ Satoshi Tomiie (due at Vinyl Saturday, September 19) is a truly distinctive voice in house music. The Tomiie sound is built on tribal percussion circling crisp, steady beats — driving, but not too pushy. Track selections lean toward the dark and brooding: moody slices of dance-floor euphoria haunted by…
Bold abstraction is the order of the day on this week’s top flier design. The interlocking lines and squiggles on this bold, largely black and white flier come together to strongly suggest circuit boards, computer parts and other high-tech concerns. The big circle puts me in mind of a record…
Dear, metal heads, prepare to be stoked: Slayer has unveiled the artwork for its forthcoming album, World Painted Blood, which is slated for release on Tuesday, November 3. While the music is sure to be dependably bludgeoning, the enticing aspect of this album is the fact that it will be…
Just got word that Mike Freeman, frontman of Gina Go Faster, died of brain cancer yesterday morning. Freeman had been battling cancer for a couple of years and this is a great loss not just for his friends and family, but for the Denver music scene as well. Freeman’s fiancee…
Um, yeah, this kind of speaks for itself. No words, just tears. Thanks, Ralphie…
Okay, if you’re like us and were up at Red Rocks for Monolith this past Sunday night watching the Mars Volta confound the audience with its spectacular over indulgence or — depending upon your perspective — dazzle the crowd with its awe-worthy musicianship, you missed 3OH!3’s thirty second long, blink-and-you-missed-it…
Next month, the Fresh Breath Committee will be releasing their debut album, CPR, at the Fox Theatre on Thursday, October 8. In an effort to get folks hyped for the release, the crew just dropped their first single “Save the Day,” featuring the legendary Masta Ace, who will be on…
Local thash metal titans Havok, who’s in the midst of an extensive cross country tour in support of its Candlelight Records debut, Burn, had to cancel its show in Minneapolis last night due to engine problems the band experienced with its bus after a show in Lincoln, Nebraska this past…
As the Guy Who Sits in the Media Tent and Updates Our Live Music Fest Coverage, there are two perks to my job: 1. Proximity to free food. 2. Opportunity to pick which photos we use in our slideshows and live-review blogs. Monolith, like Mile High before it, served up…
All right, by now you’ve seen the clip of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at this past weekend’s MTV Video Music Awards (see the clip after the jump if you haven’t already), an act of utter douchebaggery that’s been universally condemned: Katy Perry likened the outburst to stepping…
It’s been an insanely busy week of concert announcements that run the gamut from King Kahn & BBQ Show and Melt-Banana, Wolfmother and Ghostland Observatory to Stone Temple Pilots, Insane Clown Posse and Kevin Smith (yep, Silent Bob himself will speak). Steely Dan fans might get a bit giddy to…
From Bill Joel to Trent Reznor, it’s a well-worn story line: a shrewd business manager attempts to hoodwink young musicians under his charge, taking advantage of their inexperience and naivety for his gain, and gets away with it for a while before they know any better or realize what’s happening…
The mysterious Mr. Anonymous, one of the standout artists on Boulder-based label Black Bridge, has a new tune out called “Some Gal a Move,” a shuffling, smile-inducing, head nodding slow jam with autotuned vocals and ridiculous lyrics. And to accompany this fine new song, he’s dropped a fun and weird-ass…
Over the weekend, the New York Times broke the news that Jim Carroll, a thought-provoking poet who made several appearances in Denver and Boulder and whose 1978 memoir, The Basketball Diaries, was immortalized on the big screen in a 1995 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio, passed away from a heart attack…
Elsewhere: See reviews from Saturday, plus photos of the bands and fans from Sunday on the slideshow page. We’re back on the Rocks for what, so far anyway, is looking to be a much more pleasant day than Saturday. In case you missed yesterday’s festivities, it was viciously cold and…
See more photos of the bands at westword.com/slideshow. Is this thing on? We’re live from Red Rocks for Day One of Year Three of Monolith, the indie-hipster-Urban-Outfitted-neon-fest that marks the end of the Colorado music-festival season. The lovely promotional folks at Madison House have moved the media tent from the…
After ripping the Heavenfest stage over the summer and shining on the Gotee Records Hip Hope compilation album earlier this year, Colorado emcee Proxy is out and about pushing his new album Proximus. Released through his own Group Vigilant imprint, the album was predominately produced by Decap, an in-house producer…
If you’ve followed DJ MU$A at all in the last fifteen years, you already know that he’s one of the best, if not the best, mixers coming out of the Mile High City. His eclectic tastes have him mixing hood classics with anything ranging from ’70s soul and ’80s pop…
