Critic's Notebook

Yazman Azimi, who performs as YaSI, says, “Music is just about relating to people; the only thing that changes is the sounds.”

Before associates of Beyoncé Knowles recruited Too Many Zooz to perform on her hit 2016 album Lemonade, the trio had established itself as a standout act in New York’s subways.

Monique Ortiz and Mike Howard of Alien Knife Fight met while both were working, in two separate buildings, for Grav Labs in Austin, Texas, but they didn’t really know one another. One day, in 2010, they ran into each other while practicing with their then projects: Ortiz’s not so serious band, which mostly jammed, and Howard’s stoner-rock band Bay of Pigs.

WesDawg, one of Denver’s best rappers, has a unique voice and a style that can switch from chill to pissed at the drop of a hat.

A brief comic history of Tennyson’s Tap.

Southern metal bands Norma Jean and He Is Legend will be in Denver this Wednesday, March 22, during their Polar Similar Tour. Their Denver stop is sure to be one of the most Southern fried shows this side of the Mississippi River. To amp you up for the concert, below are…

Pam Puente, a fixture in Denver’s punk scene since she was 14-years-old, died in early March. Known as a wild-child, she earned praise and ire — often from the same people, says Jill Mustoffa, a Denver punk-show promoter who knew the musician for decades.

SuperMagik, the Denver disco-funk band formerly known as Filthy Children, has seen lineup changes, a shift in its sound and a new name.

KUVO DJ and storied singer Venus Cruz says that when she arrived in Denver from New York, she felt like “the first Latina on the surface of Mars.” It was 1992. As Cruz tells it, the city was poor, economically and culturally. But for someone fleeing a tumultuous past, in…

Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…

P.O.S., born Stefon Alexander, started playing music in punk bands like Om, but by the turn of the century was doing hip-hop. He’s a founding member of Doomtree, a hip-hop collective that began as a production project that turned into one of the most successful underground hip-hop crews of recent…

Reed Bruemmer was in the band DDC (Death Destruction Chaos) as a teen before going on to the thrash band Speed Wolf; the latter toured internationally with Napalm Death, among others. Now Bruemmer is in Poison Rites, which is releasing its self-titled debut LP at the Larimer Lounge on Thursday,…

Vince Staples didn’t set out to be a rapper when he was growing up in Long Beach, California. But a chance trip with some friends to Los Angeles, where he met and befriended members of the Odd Future collective, changed his life trajectory. Now considered not just a promising rapper,…

Since its inception in 2003, Emmure has been one of the most polarizing metalcore acts. Vocalist Frankie Palmeri hasn’t shied away from Internet trolls, meeting trash talk with a no-fucks-given attitude. He’s had beef with bands like the Acacia Strain, rattles off offensive lyrics like “Ask your girl what my…

Stewart Copeland, drummer and co-founder of the Police, wants people to know that if they see him and the Colorado Symphony perform Tyrant’s Crush, his concerto for trap set and orchestra, this weekend, that “they can make as much noise as they want. This ain’t Mahler.” Tyrant’s Crush, Copeland’s first concerto,…

The members of the influential hip-hop crew Hieroglyphics grew up within walking distance of each other in Oakland. They steeped their psyches in the city’s diverse cultural offerings and cultivated their instinct for originality on their own terms.

Molina Speaks is not demure. His new podcast, about different perspectives on art, healing and activism, which he’s co-producing with his partner and fellow artist and poet Sheree “Lovemestiza” Brown, is called Brown Genius. Molina, who used the tag “Chicano Picasso” on works he’s created in the past year, made…

Thundercat has had a career that would be the envy of any modern musician.

Last week we brought you a list of twelve defunct DIY spaces that shaped Denver’s music scene; this week we’re focusing on alternative venues. Though the distinction between the two is blurry, what distinguishes an alternative space is that it has another function entirely: Perhaps it’s a coffee shop, an art gallery or a bike repair shop, but it also hosts occasional concerts.

The Colfax Tattered Cover Was Once the Historic Bonfils Memorial Theatre

Opera has a bad reputation of being so exorbitantly epic that it’s hard for all but the wealthiest to access. Boulder Opera challenges that notion.

Perched high above the basketball court, nearly in the rafters, Cassidy Bednark watches Pepsi Center workers prepare for another game: the Nuggets versus the Clippers. Bednark is nestled into his signature yellow and powder-blue DJ booth. Going over his playlist before tip-off, Bednark — who is the official Denver Nuggets DJ — steps behind his turntables and becomes DJ Bedz: The White Shadow, ready to rock the stadium.