Sometimes an artist has to go deep into himself in order to produce a product built from pain, tragedy, triumph, motivation and creativity. Whenever this watershed moment happens for the greats who make and love music, the explosion is ground-shattering and usually changes the artists’ repertoire forever. Turner Jackson is…
Children of Bodom (due tomorrow night at the Gothic Theater) formed in 1993 in the Finnish town of Espoo. Lead guitarist and singer Alexi Laiho and drummer Jaska Raatikainen formed the band around the age of fourteen under the name Inearthed. By the time the outfit released its debut album,…
Forget the New York Giants and Eli Manning. The true winner of yesterday’s Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis was pop music. Heralded in by Queen Madonna herself, the halftime show was truly an entertainment spectacle unseen since Nipplegate ’04, when everybody’s favorite boy-bander, Justin Timberlake “accidentally” exposed Janet Jackson’s breast…
David Amram, who will perform at the Neal Cassady birthday tonight at the Mercury Cafe and tomorrow night at Dazzle, shared a close connection with Cassady, Jack Kerouac and other Beats, while also being a jazz musician who collaborated with Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus and Oscar Pettiford. Amram has also…
With Chuck Morris now back with Lotus, the group embarks upon a nation wide tour before buckling down for the festival season this summer. With bass in hand and a plethora of samples at his fingertips, Jesse Miller and the rest of Lotus are coming to the Fillmore Auditorium tomorrow…
Madonna’s “Give Me All Your Luvin'” video, which premiered only hours ago on her YouTube channel, is proof perfect that she is still the Queen of Pop. The song itself isn’t particularly innovative. It’s instantaneous dance-pop infused with elements of a previous era, the 1980s, while still attempting to sound…
Achille Lauro’s new full-length release came partly from a sense of smugness. According to Matt Close, the band’s sample master, rhythm guitarist and lead singer, Flight or Fight came as the quartet recorded material for what was originally envisioned as the latest in a series of singles. When the group…
Arguably the biggest DJ ever to come out of Denver, Eric Galaviz aka Hipp-E made his bones promoting and deejaying at some of the earliest raves in Colorado. After leaving his indelible mark on our city, he moved to San Diego in the ’90s, where he became an influential part…
Tantric Picasso (due Thursday, February 2 at the Bluebird Theater) started in 2008 among a group of friends who met at school, which is typical enough, but in naming the band, the fivesome created a personal mythology (partly detailed below) that is somewhat embodied in the name with hints of…
Negative Degree, one of the more active hardcore bands in the Denver punk scene for the past year or so, is part of a small wave of new local bands playing hardcore punk music, which first sprang up in basements in the ’80s and has been romanticized and gold-plated in…
What happens when contemporary electronic musicians, DJs and producers are teamed with old masters of rock, jazz, soul and country? That’s the question posed by the new documentary Re:Generation, which opens for a limited run of screenings around Denver on February 16. The film follows musical collaborations by some unlikely…
Chris Brown singles have always come in two flavors: Sexy & Braggadocious and Song & Dance — songs that are either about busting a nut or busting a move, regardless of production or tempo. Edgier singles from his catalogue, like “Look at Me Now,” “I Can Transform Ya” and even…
Descendents (due tomorrow night at the Fillmore Auditorium) didn’t exactly invent pop punk, but the band’s musical influence can be heard throughout that movement whether latter day poppy punk bands know it or not. Starting in 1978, Descendents were early compatriots of what later became the hardcore scene in southern…
Leo Kottke (due tonight at the Boulder Theater) is a legendary and beloved master of finger picking guitar and a gifted raconteur. He got his start with John Fahey’s Takoma Records in the late ’60s, and he’s been releasing noteworthy albums of some of the most inventive and interesting acoustic…
Ghost (due tonight at the Marquis Theater) is a metal band from Sweden that might also be considered a bit of a performance art troupe. With one member dressed as the Satanic counterpart to the Pope and the other five as hooded, essentially faceless acolytes, all decked out in reverse…
See Also: Hindershot trashes Spencer Alred’s backyard in its new video. Stuart Confer can’t pin down exactly where the inspiration for the tunes on his band’s latest EP, Curse Us All, comes from. Confer, the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter for Hindershot (due at 3 Kings Tavern on Friday, January…
Good day and good rap! This week we have a ton of fresh local hip-hop for you, some new videos, some new cuts and some new faces. We’ve got new videos from the Foodchain, TC Crook, Babah Fly, as well as a sneak peek at Prime Element’s new clip for…
While guitarist Janet Feder has made a number of instrumental recordings, she sings on most of the songs on her latest effort, the fittingly titled Songs With Words, slated for release tonight at the Mercury Cafe. Producer Joe Shepard encouraged Feder to do anything that she wanted. At first, she…
Secret Chiefs 3 (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater) is the brainchild of Trey Spruance, whom you may know from Mr. Bungle. With Secret Chiefs 3, Spruance seemingly follows every musical idea he can think of down every rabbit hole imaginable. Along the way, he has learned to play a…
Dengue Fever (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater) was born of Zac and Ethan Holtzman’s fascination with the pop music that had come out of Cambodia prior to the Khmer Rouge takeover of that country in 1975. Pre-Khmer Rouge Cambodia had a thriving pop and rock scene that was influenced…
The Chemical Brothers have been touring as an electronic-music duo for more than a decade; the team has won Grammy awards and accolades for its hard-hitting dance music — and the amazing visual show that the act puts together. On Wednesday, February 1, select movie theaters around town will screen…
Forget Lil Kim. At this point in her career, Nicki Minaj’s only enemy is herself and “Super Bass.” That track, which catapulted Minaj into a mainstream as cross-genre artist and onto the iPods of Taylor Swift fans everywhere, will be her “Lose Yourself” — the song that defines Minaj’s career…
