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…
The trading post at Red Rocks Amphitheatre just made room for a lot of history, as the new home of the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. In the five years since it’s creation, 7 classes have been inducted into the Hall of Fame, all of which represent a varying yet…
When Trevor Yawner moved into Rhinoceropolis in 2012 he brought some of his connections in the then on the rise garage rock underground movement to Rhino and along with John Gross’s long-running involvement in noise locally and far beyond, Rhinoceropolis had some of the key elements needed to bring something…
One summer evening in 2012, the 16th Street Mall was filled with tourists and shoppers dining on outdoor patios and reveling in the agreeable weather. Mark Patterson had a different mission. The street musician was searching for a spot along the promenade to play his guitar. The plan was to…
Shock waves rippled through the tight-knit Denver metal community late last month when the news came that Shawn Tyler Chavez had passed away in Las Vegas. A Denver native, Chavez played a fundamental role in the formation of legendary local thrash-metal band Havok.“Next to me, he was in the band…
For a few years around 2011, it seemed like not as many touring bands were coming through on the DIY venues circuit as there had been. Many bands were going through booking agents at that time and most DIY venues aren’t likely to give a guarantee even though certain bands would…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129kuDCQtHsFact: Bruce Springsteen is an American hero. Also, a genius. Some people don’t put him in the same category as Bob Dylan and Neil Young, just because he looks good in jeans. That certainly shouldn’t be held against him, and admittedly we’re into that part, but mainly he’s the best…
If you’ve ever caught freestyle rap action in person, there’s a chance you’ve been curious to try it out. The bigger names in indie rap, like New York’s Homeboy Sandman, Slug of Atmosphere, and Los Angeles’ Open Mike Eagle, have made freestyling a regular part of their live shows. It’s…
Colin Ward seemed to be an endless river of music. Ward wrote, played, recorded and produced more than forty albums between 2008 and 2013, releasing a new piece of work every three or four months through the Bandcamp page he held under the name Alphabets. But in late 2013, it…
Charles Joshua Ogzewalla, who went by Josh, died on the evening of April 10 from a combination of colon cancer and liver failure. Doctors originally told him he wouldn’t make it to February. “He had that tattoo on his arm that is the Dylan Thomas quote — ‘Do not go…
Slovenian industrial band Laibach return to the Gothic Theatre this Saturday, May 23rd for its first show in Denver in over a decade. The group, comprising cultural provocateur and multi-media artists will share the bill with Ministry. Whereas the latter came up in a relatively free cultural climate in Denver and Chicago,…
