Music

Local rock scenes are thriving in Denver and Fort Collins. Earlier this month, the eighth-annual Ft. Collins Music eXperiment festival featured exciting Colorado bands in venues all over town, and Denver, which will soon host UMS and the Westword Music Showcase, has exciting local rock bands playing across the city…

Robert Pollard of Guided by Voices is one of the most prolific songwriters of all time, registering over 1,900 songs in his career. On Saturday night, at the Summit Music Hall, Pollard dug deep into his massive catalogue, performing fifty of those songs with a new Guided by Voices lineup. …

Dopamine, the first album by singer-songwriter Garrett Borns, better known as BØRNS, who headlines at the Gothic Theatre on May 9 and 10, sounds thoroughly modern. At their foundations, however, tunes such as the highly charged single “Electric Love” mirror old-school pop. Sturdy, solid and built to last, they’d still be irresistible…

The 1975 headlines Red Rocks tonight while tomorrow it’s Say Anything at the Summit Music Hall. It’s a good week for metal with Sunn O))), Behemoth and Deicide in town. Also on tap this week are Chris Stapleton, Anderson Ponty Band (featuring former Yes singer Jon Anderson and violinist Jean-Luc…

Any band that wears masks on stage today is, sooner or later, going to be compared to Daft Punk. It’s a lazy comparison, yes, but one that no one is immune to. Deadmau5 got it, Danger got it. But Magic Sword, a Portland trio that performs wearing dark cowls and…

Renowned Chicago house style artist Traxx brings his internationally respected DJ skills to a Deep Club event at 1010 Workshop this Saturday, April 30. Born Melvin Oliphant III, Traxx came up in the Chicago electronic music world listening to WBMX and was impacted by the creative vision of Ron Hardy,…

Guided by Voices, who played at Riot Fest in 2013, headline the Summit Music Hall on Saturday while the Haitian band Lakou Mizik continues its three-night run at Su Teatro on Friday and Saturday. Also this weekend there’s Fred Hersch Trio at Dazzle, Cursive at Summit Music Hall and Jadakiss…

Ah, Natalie Tate. The Denver artist who has a voice capable of calming the most batshit-crazy of loons. She describes herself as merging “the roots sensibilities of her Colorado home with the planes of a more ethereal land,” and that’s pretty accurate. Seamlessly blending traditional singer/songwriter fare with trip-hop/trance, Tate…

For Mexican artist Carla Morrison, a decade’s worth of blood, sweat, tears (especially tears) and hard work as an independent artist brought her to Coachella, where she played an early Friday afternoon set both weekends at the Outdoor Theatre. It was a literal dream come true for the Latin Grammy…

If you were to envision a triple bill where all the artists have international audiences and cult followings and exemplify certain rock subgenres, you could hardly do better than to feature Melt Banana, Melvins and Napalm Death on that tour. Though either Melvins or Napalm Death could have held down the…

This Friday, April 29, Auraria Campus will host The Immediate Music Festival at the Kenneth King Academic and Performing Arts Center. Open and free to the public, the event celebrates collaborative improvisation and it invites attendees to participate in various workshops and demonstrations. Workshops and presentations run from 9 a.m…

Yes brings its Album Series tour to the Paramount Theatre on Wednesday, August 24, and the band will perform Drama in its entirety as well as sides one and four of 1973’s double album Tales From Topographic Oceans, plus a selection of their greatest hits. Tickets ($49.50-$89.50) go on sale on Friday,…

Foals, the Oxford-bred hard-math-rock band, played at Denver’s Ogden Theatre last night, the twenty-sixth date on a closely stacked tour of nearly nightly shows. While heartfelt and genuine, fans at last night’s show experienced a somewhat subdued performance in comparison to the heavy intensity that has become synonymous with Foals’ live shows. Foals put…

Among the many artists making their Coachella debuts this year, Mavis Staples undoubtedly has the most storied résumé. As a solo artist and former member of The Staples Singers, the 76-year-old’s powerful voice has graced over five decades of soul classics, including “I’ll Take You There,” “Let’s Do It Again” and…

At the end of March, we published the first “Broke Music Fan’s Guide to Denver,” packed with handy hints and tips for enjoying live music on the cheap in this great region. We want this to be a regular thing, so allow us to present our guide to the dollar-saving…

Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…

Considering he seemed to have no trouble navigating the stage in his usual dramatic fashion, it was difficult to tell whether or not the cane Bradford Cox wielded on stage was an unusual prop or a necessary aid to his movement. Perhaps it was partly a cheeky reference to the injury…

Despite the proliferation of digital music through downloads and streaming services, vinyl sales have continued to grow. For Louisville-based Vinyl Me, Please, a record club that offers exclusive monthly installments of “must have” albums, the trend back toward analog has been a way to get music that the club thinks…