After playing with Denver-based bands including G-Force and Autobahn in the ’80s, James “Rooster” Olson made a name for himself with his company Trailer Trash Pedalboards. Olson essentially revolutionized the pedalboard industry with his award-winning designs, which have been used by top-notch musicians such as Aerosmith’s Joe Perry, Steve Stevens,…
Another week, another fresh batch of Colorado hip-hop. We’ve got a brand new mix from Chris Karns, who is retiring his DJ Vajra moniker. We’ve also got a new single from Pries, along with fresh cuts from Lil Bad and AP and J Dubb. Continue on to see what’s good…
Cicely O’Kain is a magnetic singer with incredible vocal chops. Her first album, Ms. Understood, which came out last October, is filled with feelings of infatuation, joy, pleasure and pain. Every note O’Kain sings is delivered with such conviction that she turns what would normally be a standard R&B jam…
Adam Lufkin and Josh Fairman of Kinetix have formed a new group called Laskin & Robinson that sounds nothing like their other band. The songs the outfit has posted thus far showcase a variety of styles, and they’re done pretty well, from synthy, funk-laden hip-pop on tracks like “Ass Work”…
In the heady pre-Tha Carter III days, Lil Wayne understood language so intuitively that he could skip through convention and construction and arrive at an expression that made him seem like the only dude speaking in colors, while everyone else was stuck in black and white. That’s why he was…
Backbeat is continuing to count down the twenty most fabled moments in Denver music history. Today we take a look back at when an early-’90s DJ Quik show at Mammoth Events Center turned into a bit of a melee. “But still my story ain’t over cause I got one more…
Before Yoko Ono even met John Lennon, she was an active and influential figure in international avant-garde art and music. In the 1950s, she went to school at Sarah Lawrence College, during which time she rubbed shoulders with the likes of La Monte Young. Her mentor was the godfather of…
Led Zeppelin was already a record-setting global powerhouse when Atlantic Records released the band’s fifth album, Houses of the Holy, on March 28, 1973. The English quartet had laid down the basic tracks for the record in the spring of 1972 at the Rolling Stones’ mobile recording studio at Stargroves,…
The battle-rap scene has grown tremendously over the past few years, thanks to video battles like Smack DVDs and Fight Klub, and leagues like King of the Dot, Grind Time and the UW Battle League springing up everywhere. Dizaster — in town this weekend to battle Detour as part of…
Fifty years ago today, the Beatles’ electrifying debut album, Please Please Me was issued in the U.K. Designed to reproduce the manic intensity of an early Beatles’ live performance and hastily produced to meet demand after the group’s song of the same name rocketed to number-one on the British singles…
A prominent figure in the late-’40s and early-’50s cool-jazz movement, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz performed on Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool and performed with Lennie Tristano and Warne Marsh around that same time. While a number of players were copping Charlie Parker’s sound, Konitz took a different approach, opting…
Exodus was founded in 1980 by a group of high school friends that included a pre-Metallica Kirk Hammett and Tom Hunting, the sole remaining original member of the act. The classic line-up also featured Paul Baloff on vocals and Gary Holt, who moved over to guitar when Kirk joined Metallica,…
KMFDM (originally Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid) started as a performance-art one-off in 1984 that evolved into an ongoing endeavor. Founding member Sascha Konietzko was joined by drummer and vocalist En Esch, who formed the core of the band until its temporary split in 1999. With various collaborators, KMFDM developed…
Never straying from its roots in pure house music, Above & Beyond has grown into one of the most sought-after acts currently touring, thanks to high quality music that evokes emotion and movement and, most important, forges a connection with the audience. The U.K.-based trio (Paavo Siljamäki, Tony McGuinness and…
Jonathan Rado and Sam France met as teenagers and formed Foxygen in 2005. After releasing a handful of EPs on its own, the band, which plays a cross breed of collage sound art and psychedelic pop that recalls “White Album”-era Beatles and Obscured by Clouds-era Pink Floyd, signed with Jagjaguwar,…
The Soft Moon started out in 2009 as the solo project of Luis Vasquez. The band developed over the next few years from a stark, Suicide-eque, minimalist post-punk band into something with a dark urgency and expansive song dynamics that recalled Chrome and Cabaret Voltaire. The Soft Moon’s 2011 EP,…
Il Cattivo formed when veterans of the punk and metal scenes in Denver came together to form a band that wasn’t trying to fit distinctly in an already established rock subgenre. The five piece band sounded like it had been influenced by post-punk crossover bands like the Cult but also…
Back again with another fresh batch of homegrown hip-hop. This week, we’ve got new cuts from newcomers Young Tenner and Killa Keezy, while scene veterans 2MX2 deliver a song about the mischievousness of certain women and Panama Soweto works to uplift the voices of the unheard. See also: – Fresh…
On a chilly January afternoon in West Hollywood, the heavily tattooed singer Otep Shamaya can’t hide her excitement about the release of Hydra, her namesake band’s sixth studio album. In the testosterone-fueled genres of aggressive rock and heavy metal, it’s not easy to be a lesbian singer, but Shamaya has…
The Warlocks, one of the earlier bands in the new wave of psychedelic rock, formed in 1999 when founder, singer and sole continuous member, guitarist Bobby Hecksher got some encouragement from Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre to start writing his own songs. The Warlocks took a fairly different…
Blues Control is an experimental rock duo that got started in New York City in 2006 as a kind of side project from their New Age music project Watersports. The greater immediacy and visceral impact of Blues Control connected with audiences, and soon, the side project became the main band…
Tonight at the Seawell Ballroom, Barry Fey will be inducted into yet another hall of fame, this one the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame. In honor of his induction, we’ve been posting the stories that didn’t make his memoir, Backstage Past. Today, Daniela Stolfi, Barry’s assistant, recounts one…
