Back again with more fresh Colorado-grown hip-hop. This week’s batch features a hustle anthem from Richie Rich, and Monte Burns showing his versatility. F.Lawless, meanwhile, drops a new video from his solo debut, Limbo, and Tommy Brown shows off his ink and moolah. Continue on to see what’s good. See…
After finishing their tour in support of 2010’s High Violet, the members of the National didn’t have any immediate plans to record again. But guitarist Aaron Dessner, whose daughter had just been born, ended up with a lot of time on his hands. He began writing songs in his backyard…
Master luthier Scott Baxendale lives in Athens, Georgia, these days, but he still has Denver on his mind. In fact, he says he has plans to move back here at some point. Right now, though, the guitar maker and former Colfax Guitar Shop owner has his hands full in Athens,…
Sweden is to death metal what Norway is to black metal. Norway’s sixth sense for finding black metal with the right amount of heavy guitar distortion, banshee shrieking vocals and an unrefined recording quality gives them a black flame kick that fuels the fire of many metal fans. Keep reading…
Space In Time was started by some friends from the local punk and metal scenes who had rediscovered their love of early ’70s hard rock. In 2007, guitarist Javram Ciel-Tilton and drummer Yancy Green tapped some other friends to start a band in that vein, and for the next six…
What makes a great country song? Well, if David Allan Coe is to be believed, the songs require a few things: mama, trains, trucks, prison or gettin’ drunk. There’s got to be more to it than that, though, right? Like, at least five more things. Country music draws on the…
Underground is hotter than ever! Slow Pain… Razakel… Komatose… Claas… Killa C… Lunacy 3:33… KidCrusher… Mars… and many more!— Violent J & 2 Dope (@icp) December 5, 2011 Sitting upstairs in what once was the projector room of the Roxy Theatre, Troll is in front of two desks piled with…
Flume is the musical project of Harley Streten from Sydney, Australia. At 21, Streten has come a long way from where he started, making electronic music using a bit of production software he got from a box of cereal at age thirteen. His sparse but evocative soundscapes defy easy categorization…
Like any other town, Denver has its share of cover bands. For the most part, the outfits here don’t merely perform somebody else’s music; rather, they put time, energy and effort into really channeling the acts and eras they’re emulating. And they often tend to get overlooked, because, well, they’re…
Animal Collective is one of the most critically acclaimed and popular bands to come out of the American underground in the past fifteen years. The outfit’s true synthesis of the avant-garde with pop and psychedelia has yielded a handful of albums that have had a profound impact on a huge…
Supposedly, albums are where it’s at. That’s when the artist is supposed to bring their A-game, convert the doubters, all that good stuff. So why is it that a lot of the time it’s the mixtapes that are the most enjoyable? Maybe it’s because so many mixtapes are when artists…
Like any other town, Denver has its share of cover bands. For the most part, the outfits here don’t just merely perform somebody else’s music, but rather they put time, energy and effort into really channeling the acts and eras they’re emulating. Often times these acts tend to get overlooked…
Hip-hop and it don’t stop. Surely you’ve heard this expression. For those immersed in the culture, this is more than just mere words or even a category on the Backbeat blog — it’s a way of life. And this Friday, August at the Savoy Ballroom on 27th and Arapahoe, there’s…
With the exception of players like Thelonious Monk or Art Tatum, piano players don’t quite have the name recognition of their horn playing counterparts. All the same, these ivory ticklers play an equally integral role in jazz. As such, just like our lists of the ten best sax players and…
Patrick Lee has taken a Jekyll and Hyde approach to music. He leads several musical lives that rarely intersect — so much so that you could see him in one context and not recognize him in the next. There’s Patrick Lee, the virtuoso piano/organ/keyboard player, who views live music as…
Mark your calendar — naw, scratch that — don’t mark it, clear it: On Saturday, September 7, Colorado Crush is going down once again. And from the sounds of it, the fourth edition of this annual hip-hop block party is going to be a block buster. Seriously. If you’re an…
Welcome back to another edition of That’s a Rap, the regular feature in which we spotlight some solid tracks from the Colorado hip-hop scene. This week, we’ve got another a fresh batch of homegrown hip-hop for you, including new cuts from Young Doe, DC Smiles of the Cash Addicts, Foo…
Using a greater palette of digital and physical controllers, modern electronic musicians are making music that is quite different from the current wave of EDM. Watt? Amplified and Supercharged Music Expression is a collaborative performance between Darren Kramer, Victoria Lundy and Mark Mosher that will effectively demonstrate some of the…
Before grunge scrubbed the smeared makeup off of the face of hair metal and trimmed its flowing locks, an endless parade of longhaired dudes did their level best to destroy the ozone layer, fueled by a steady diet of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Oh, and, well, depending on…
By Jason Roche One year ago, Baroness was touring Europe in support of its critically acclaimed record Yellow & Green. The ambitious double album was generating a strong buzz for the Georgia-based band. The momentum came to a screeching halt, though, on a rainy morning in August, 2012, when the…
Izm White (aka Hayden Laybourn) has been immersed in the local hip-hop scene since the mid-’90s, when he first started heading down from the Western Slope to Denver to compete in MC battles and attend shows. During that time, he’s had some ups and downs, including releasing multiple albums, taking…
Metal can’t get any more cold blooded than in Sweden, where you’ll find brain-freezing, below zero temperatures and snow drifts taller than concert halls. Despite having the most frostbitten, blackened and disfigured hands in the metal world, the Swedes rip apart metal like nobody else. As brutal as a ceaseless…
