Black Rebel Motorcycle Club formed in the late ’90s after Peter Hayes left the Brian Jonestown Massacre, when he and his high school friend Robert Been, son of the late Michael Been of the Call, started the band, influenced by acts like the Verve, Loop and the Jesus and Mary…
More than fifteen years after the release of Three Dolla Bill, Y’all, Limp Bizkit is back with a brand new album, Stampede of the Disco Elephants, on the Cash Money imprint. In advance of the band’s return to Denver in support of that album this weekend, we caught up with…
Mike Servito is a New York-based DJ and resident of the monthly Brooklyn techno club night, the Bunker. He came of age in Detroit during the 1990s, and you can hear it in his sound, which pays a substantial debt to many of the legendary mixmasters of that era. Equally…
These days, South Broadway is a thriving nightlife district that has undergone a cavalcade of changes in the past few years. As much of a makeover as the strip has had, though, not everybody’s stoked with the changes. If you’ve logged on to Facebook, you’ve no doubt seen posts from…
Although Black Moth Super Rainbow’s dreamlike, psychedelic melodies sound like they could’ve been part of those ’70s era Sid & Marty Krofft shows, the band actually formed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 2003 in the wake of earlier projects from the act’s singer and multi-instrumentalist, the unimonikered Tobacco (aka Thomas Fec)…
Havok, on tour in Europe right now with Cephalic Carnage, Suffocation and Fallujah, is preparing to release its new album, Unnatural Selection, on Tuesday, June 25. The ten-track album, the band’s fourth release overall and the followup to 2011’s Time Is Up, was produced by Havok frontman David Sanchez, mixed…
The men behind the Hamburg duo Digitalism have been blowing out all the stops on their tour, which hits just nine cities. Their DJ-Kicks mix last year was well received, and they’ve got new remixes out showcasing their take on Bloc Party’s “Truth” and the Rapture’s “Sail Away.” We spoke…
Forget everything you know about the man known as Nathaniel Rateliff. Whatever image that name conjures for you will be obsolete the next time you see him. The extraordinarily talented musician, whom we first came to know as the frontman of Born in the Flood and later came to love…
Born Jewel Cameron III, Esi Juey was born in California, and he moved around as a child, living in places like Ohio, before eventually landing in the Mile High City. One of the most promising local rappers to emerge in recent years, he’s swinging for the fences. “I’m trying to…
Prince became a household name after the release of his third album, 1982’s 1999. Over the years, his perfectly realized blend of rock, pop, funk and jazz has proved equally popular with audiences and critics. Throughout the ’80s, Prince released hit records that broke genre barriers, not just in terms…
Remember Bela Karoli, the band fronted by Julie Davis? Yeah, it seems like a bazillion years since we’ve heard anything from that act — and for good reason. Davis has been busy touring the globe with Nathaniel Rateliff and tending to her other groups, Fairchildren and Miss America. Now she’s…
Yngwie Malmsteen is a guitar god known for his supremely technical fretwork. The virtuosic guitarist burst into the world of international music in 1984 with Rising Force. At the age of seven, Malmsteen says, he saw a documentary about the death of Jimi Hendrix and was so taken by Hendrix’s…
Welcome back to another edition of That’s a Rap. This week, we’ve got another a fresh batch of homegrown hip-hop for you. Whether you’re looking for a rugged, classic sound or a laid-back joint, we’ve got you covered with new cuts from Atak One, Planes!, Foodchain and Zome of Diamond…
The parking lot is a perfect place to mingle and get your pre-game on before a show, particularly at Red Rocks. But Brandon Chavez is taking tailgaiting to another level. At select EDM shows, you can find Chavez, aka DJ Rufio, and his crew of party people gathered around a…
Seris is a mathy metal band with a footing in technical death metal that has found a way to blend all of that into something far more accessible than either would suggest. There is a groove and fluidity underlying the band’s sound that gives the heaviness a paradoxical kind of…
J.Rebelz is steadily making a name for herself in the local hip-hop scene. Known otherwise as Jaqueline Rodriguez, J.Rebelz came to Denver from El Paso more than a decade ago and says Nas is the one who sparked her passion for rhyming. We recently caught up with the MC, who…
Jimmy De Martini’s musical background is rooted more in Jimmy Page than Jimmy Dean, more in the work of rock acts like Guns N’ Roses than contemporary country artists like Alan Jackson. But for nearly a decade, De Martini has played fiddle for the Zac Brown Band, one of the…
The American Express Centurion Card is the ultimate status symbol. Otherwise known as the Black Card, the card is issued on an invitation-only basis — according to Wikipedia, whose word we’re going to have to take because we know precisely zero cardholders — to the upper echelon of the upper…
A genuine craftsman from the days when DJs played actual records and an encouraging reminder that some in fact still do, Derek Plaslaiko is truly a DJ’s DJ. The Michigan native was a fixture on the Detroit rave scene from the mid-’90s until 2004, when he relocated to New York…
A. Tom Collins, the five-piece band fronted by Aaron Collins, has a sound that’s equal parts ragtime, honky tonk blues and tin pan alley. The outfit, which has smartly left its rough edges intact, is driven by Collins’s piano and impassioned vocals, and while the act may teeter on the…
Backbeat is continuing to count down the twenty most fabled moments in Denver music history. Today we take a look back at the time when Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson spit on a woman at 7-Eleven because she had the audacity not to recognize him. Two months after getting kicked…
Simon Posford of Shpongle sees the world through a unique creative lens, and he delivers his view with stunning visual imagery soundtracked by ethereal music that speaks to all the senses. This weekend, in honor of Earth Day, he’ll be at Feed the Rocks (with the Disco Biscuits and RJD2)…
