Guitarist Charlie Hunter and drummer Scott Amendola teamed up in the mid ’90s as part of T.J. Kirk, an outfit that played the music of Thelonious Monk, James Brown and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Amendola, who also appears on a few of Hunter’s mid-’90s Blue Note recordings, has worked with a…
The Psychedelic Furs formed in 1977 in the wake of the explosion of punk rock in England. By the 1980s, the group had evolved from its earlier musical impulses into a kind of atmospheric, at times brooding, at times celebratory, post-punk band with a broad emotional and sonic palette. See…
Wampire is a five-piece whose music doesn’t seem fixed to a particular musical period, especially the current era. If anything, the band’s gently swirling, swaying melodies are buoyed almost imperceptibly by a distinct if informal structure that keeps the music from wandering completely where it will. It’s almost like psychedelic…
It took decades, but Joan Baez has finally overcome her stage fright. The legendary folk singer and activist, who initially found fame during the folk renaissance of the 1960s, partnering with Bob Dylan on stage and fighting for a wide range of causes into the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, says…
Since first opening its doors in 2008, Beta Nightclub has been at the top of numerous “best of” lists, and it currently holds the top spot for clubs in North America. In commemoration of the club’s fifth anniversary, being celebrated this week, we caught up with the folks behind Beta…
John Digweed is a twenty-year veteran of the international DJ scene. As such, his story is punctuated by numerous high points. Among them: pioneering the art of the mix album with longtime DJ partner Sasha on Renaissance: The Mix Collection; refining it with the classic Northern Exposure chill-out trilogy; and…
Geeks love metal more than the computers on which they listen to it. They yearn for heavy metal that was forged by Orcs in the mountains of Mordor, smuggled halfway across the universe on Serenity and then discovered by Silver Surfer while scouting for delicious planets. These bands aren’t necessarily…
Soundgarden formed in 1984 as a three-piece with Chris Cornell on drums on vocals, Kim Thayil on guitar and Hiro Yamamoto on bass. Though noisier in the beginning, the band would go on to be one of the main purveyors of a slow, sludgy, intense, punk-rooted rock that was dubbed…
ZZ Ward released her debut album, Til The Casket Drops, in 2012. Growing up, she honed a talent for writing bluesy R&B songs. Her knack for that can be heard prominently on that disc, and well as her proclivity for hip-hop, which is even more prevalent on her Criminal EP…
Kev Kash is a rising talent from the local scene who has songs with the likes of Innerstate Ike, Myrical and Mr. Midas. Kash says 2Pac is his biggest influence, but he says his style is comparable to Lupe or Kendrick Lamar. We recently caught up with the rapper, who…
A lifetime of music fandom and a voracious appetite for new things has given me a wide-ranging (if sometimes shallow) knowledge of musical styles, forms and history. Despite that, there are holes. Big holes. And some of those holes are, well, embarrassing. I’ve decided the time has come to fill…
There are many different versions of DJ Babyshoe running around Denver, depending on who you ask and when they last saw him. On any given weekend, Babyshoe (aka Eric Talledo) is crisscrossing the city spinning forgotten hits at the Lost Lake, playing a party hosted by TheHundred or unleashing late…
This week’s crop of new local hip-hop jams is particularly eclectic, ranging from boom-bap to electronic to jazzy to funk. We’ve got tracks from Wheelchair Sports Camp, Bullhead*ded, Molina Speaks and PIKE. Keep reading to see what’s good. See also: – Fresh local hip-hop from Atak One, Planes!, Foodchain and…
Kylesa got its start in 2001 when former members of sludge-metal band Damad teamed up with guitarist and visual artist Laura Pleasants. From the beginning, this Savannah, Georgia-based band has shown no loyalty to a specific genre; as a result, the outfit’s discography has been fascinatingly varied. See also: -…
Drawing on a hardcore background, Turbonegro combined glam metal with punk to create a sound it has cheekily called “death punk.” With lyrics and imagery that both celebrate and make a mockery of the gaudy aspects of glam and its thematic tropes. The band’s 1996 album, Ass Cobra, established the…
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…
