Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats will release their debut, self-titled album this Friday on the legendary Stax Records. This week’s Westword cover story details Rateliff’s long history in the Denver music scene. But every member of the band has been a notable contributor to the city’s creative community. Over…
The sixth edition of Titwrench Fest will be held at Dryer Plug Studios on October 3 and 4 of this year. 2014 found Titwrench overseas in Sweden rather than Denver, taking the inclusive spirit of the event not just out of Colorado but out of the USA entirely. The festival…
Back in September, on the set of the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, cameras rolled in the parking lot of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium as actors playing prudish protesters hoisted signs (“Crap Rap N.W.A”) and ran over a pile of the group’s records with a steamroller. A little later,…
It would be easy to dismiss Nick Cageao as a hired gun. After all, he didn’t join Mutoid Man, the psych-metal side project-turned-full-time-stunner from guitarist Steve Brodsky and drummer Ben Koller, until after the band released its blistering, ornate debut EP, Helium Head. But even the fact that Cageao is…
Danielle de Picciotto is a multimedia artist who co-founded Berlin’s long-running and highly influential Love Parade electronic-music festival. Her husband, Alexander Hacke, is the bassist for legendary and foundational industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten. The two are currently touring together, presenting a unique combination of music, film, visual art and literature…
An inevitable phenomenon in any music community where there are newspapers, weekly magazines and ‘zines with coverage of local music is that of the the writer and musician. Naturally, due to reasons of a conflict of interest, if you do happen to fall into both categories, there’s a great chance…
Damien Rice, due tonight at Red Rocks, is a singer songwriter capable of many things. His latest record My Favourite Faded Fantasy is a vast and expansive record that starts with a traditional acoustic structure and then turns into full orchestral symphony with strings and piano bouncing around his fragile and…
The Little Bear Saloon, which is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year, is legendary — and not just to folks in Colorado. People around the globe have heard about the Evergreen bar, which was formerly a church, a drugstore, the Red Ram Saloon and the Round Up Dance Hall. “Visitors…
On Saturday, August 1, Khemmis unleashes the physical copies of its debut full-length, Absolution, on 20 Buck Spin at the hi-dive. The four-piece came together in Denver at the end of 2012 when bassist Dan Beiers spotted recent transplant Ben Hutcherson’s Craigslist ad and got in touch. The ad featured…
In certain circles, conventional wisdom holds that there is a “Denver sound” — the Gothic Americana embodied by the likes of 16 Horsepower, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, The Denver Gentlemen and whatever project of Jaysun Munly’s you’d care to name. Absurdly enough, some people even try to place all kinds…
When Matthew Shipp writes music, he says he thinks about the people he’s playing with, and the innovative jazz pianist tries to get material that works with their personalities. Then he just lets it unfold like a play. “I’m always thinking of Scene One, Scene Two, Scene Three and some…
Everybody knows the haiku formula: three lines — five syllables, then seven, then five — and some shit about nature. Boom. Haiku. Of course, there’s a little more to it than that. At its essence, each a haiku is a shifting picture, a series of three images that color each…
For a year and a half, Kaji was mostly a secret band that singer Kevin Gentry was developing. Kaji’s debut show, on January 30, 2015, at Syntax Physic Opera, unveiled a fully formed project, with guest musicians and backup singers. Without any official promotion, just word of mouth among friends,…
In Savvi Neufer’s kitchen is a large plastic tub with everything she needs to cook a meal at a moment’s notice: spices, baking powder, Ziploc bags, cookie cutters, olive oil, cutting boards, corkscrews, boxes of rice, paper plates and more. The tub is nearly as big as she is, so…
If you grew up watching Headbanger’s Ball every weekend, it’s impossible not to associate the term “pop metal” with unequivocal shills like Slaughter, Trixter and Firehouse. It says a lot about how crotchety the international metal scene is now — and how heavy the music has become — that a…
“It’s pretty much made to fail, because nobody really wants to see a guy with a laser pointer doing a PowerPoint, especially at a concert,” quips Andrew Novick. He’s talking about his own work as GetYourGoing, a sing-along show turned PowerPoint performance project that is currently on tour with the…
Thursday | October 23rd, 2014 | Chicago, Illinois: Going into Illinois, we had to pass through the largest truck stop in the United States, equipped with full showers, laundromat and what seemed to be a kind of mini-mall where you could get stuff you will likely never find at even a…
In October 2014, Denver-based industrial/avant-garde band Echo Beds embarked on a tour of the American Midwest. Without a booking agent — working instead with friends and friends of friends — members Keith Curts and Tom Nelsen were able to put together a resoundingly successful tour that paid for itself. But…
When the members of the punky rock-and-roll quartet Bud Bronson & the Good Timers walk into a room, their camaraderie — which conjures up classic American-youth ensemble flicks like Bad News Bears — is obvious. The genuine kinship among them is easy to see, whether the group is on stage…
Healing Power Skyrider hopes for salvation through music. D enver-based electronic-music producer Skyrider (aka Bud Berning) has a complex relationship with music. On one hand, it saved his life. When he was trapped in bed, recovering for a year after a near-fatal car accident in Mexico that left his body…
It’s a rarity that any band lasts ten years and remains interesting up to the end, much less a band of people who have played music together since the members were in middle school. Fissure Mystic started in 1998, when Taylor Evans-Rice, Fernando Guzman and Andrew Elkins were in middle…
Nneka (who will make a stop at Lost Lake Lounge tonight) may be one of the most famous international artists who is mostly unknown in America. But if perseverance and talent are any indicators, that won’t be the case for long. Born Nneka Egbuna in the Niger Delta region and half-German…
