A new 20,000-capacity summer music festival will take place August 4-7, 2016, on a ranch outside Buena Vista, put on by Madison House Presents and AEG Live. Organizers’ lips have been tight on details about the festival, for which the permit was approved by Chaffee County Board of Commissioners last…
Summer is almost here, and this season at Red Rocks Amphitheatre promises plenty of opportunities for emotional catharsis with its sunshine and good vibes. Here are the ten best indie rock and emotional (while spanning many rock genres) shows coming to Red Rocks in 2016. Pack your tissues and a poncho…
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…
It’s easy, if all you’re familiar with is the shtick, to form a negative opinion of Violent J, one half of the Insane Clown Posse. Rarely seen in public without his trademark makeup, the man plays up to the role in which he’s cast himself like the most committed of method actors. There are…
Turner Jackson has a theory about the often overlooked hip-hop scene in Denver. According to him, Denver isn’t the kind of town to accept genre restrictions. Denver wants multitudes, what Jackson calls “alloys.” “Denver is a kind of town where alloys win,” Jackson says. “What I mean by that is…
The music business is a cruel mistress. There’s rarely rhyme or reason as to who gets the few-and-far-between big-money deals — even among worthy artists who are more than ready for a bigger spotlight. If there were justice, then the following eight talented local bands would be as adored nationally…
By the time Melissa Aldana won the 2013 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition at the age of 24, she’d already logged nearly two decades of playing under her belt. This experience is thanks in part to her father, renowned saxophonist Marcos Aldana, who got her started on saxophone when…
August Burns Red and Between the Buried and Me co-headline the Summit Music Hall tonight and the Prettiots are at Lost Lake Lounge while Future is at the Fillmore Auditorium tomorrow night, John Hiatt is at the Oriental Theater on Wednesday and Jose Gonzalez performs with yMusic at the Paramount Theatre on…
For more than two decades, the Westword Music Showcase has celebrated Colorado’s dynamic music community — and this year’s festival promises to reflect the scene’s growth. The 2016 Showcase, on Saturday, June 25, will be bigger and better than ever, featuring national headliners and local favorites on two main stages,…
The fourth annual Trapfest, featuring Vinnie Mansicalco, Lookas, Nghtmre, PawS and Carnage, is at the Fillmore Auditorium tonight while Ty Segall & the Muggers are at the Gothic and Z-Trip is at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom. Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen play an acoustic show tomorrow night at the Boulder…
Alfie Granger-Howell and Nick Harriman make up Dusky, an award-winning electronic music duo out of England, and this Sunday, March 13, they will be reaching deep into the lovelorn and party-hungry souls at Beta with their familiar yet fresh take on acid, jungle, rave, and techno-inflected house. Below, Westword talks…
It’s almost 6 p.m. in New York, but Kay Kasparhauser and Lulu Prat of The Prettiots aren’t quite sure which time zone they’re in. They’ve just returned from a show-heavy two weeks in the U.K., and their luggage is still lost somewhere between Oslo Airport and JFK. They have less…
Gregory Decker owns Music Gear Guys, the guitar specialty store on South Broadway, and he’s a touring guitarist with four decades of playing experience. He also happens to invent tech for musical instruments and has over on hundred patents. He’s been working on one of his inventions, Lok-N-Roll, for several…
Bob Dylan and His Band headline Red Rocks on Sunday, June 19. Mavis Staples, who first met Dylan at a gospel concert in New York in 1962, will open the show. Tickets ($49.50-$134.50) go on sale on March 11 at 10 a.m. Lyle Lovett and His Large Band and Emmylou Harris…
Sir George Martin, who’s died at age ninety, had a full, rich and varied life in music. But he will forever be known as the man who produced the vast majority of recordings by a little pop combo known as the Beatles. As such, Martin helped capture some of the very…
Denver’s population boom has brought all kinds of new industry and opportunities to Denver — and also a steady stream of new musicians. While new bands continue to pop up left and right, the argument surrounding the deficiencies in Denver’s music scene has never been one revolving around lack of…
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…
Audiodrome was born out of necessity. When artist and musician Mitch Pond returned to Colorado in 2011 after attending college in Wisconsin, he had trouble booking shows for himself. As Man Mantis, the crate-digging digital scientist performed music that was spacey, referential and beat-heavy, with hip-hop written all over it…
Andrew Trim was born near Chicago but in 1988, when he was five years old his parents, who were missionaries, moved their family to Nagano, Japan. Trim guesses that the six people in his family were probably the only white people in a city of sixty thousand people at the…
Since 2013, Denver Public Library cardholders have been able to download albums by local artists at the website volumedenver.org. The library, which pays artists a set fee to offer this music to patrons for a period of two years, has the ability to host 200 albums at any given time…
He drove from San Antonio to Boulder with a piano in his Prius. Say again? “It’s just the piano harp, actually,” says composer/performer Mark McCoin, referring to the massive steel-and-wire gut of a piano. “It was still pretty tough to get in there.” He needs it for the upcoming show…
There’s an old adage that is often attributed to Frank Zappa but, according to QuoteInvestigator.com, actually originated with actor and musician Martin Mull. It goes, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” Despite the fact that it’s meant as a slight, we’ve always liked the line because, when you…
