At the end of the Swans’ hypnotic set last night at the Bluebird Theater, frontman Michael Gira told the crowd he’d be at the merch table in ten minutes if anyone wanted to talk or have him sign anything. He seems to do that every show. On stage, the guy…
On a recent Wednesday evening at Cold Crush, a customer sits on a high bar stool, eating a shrimp po’ boy. The bar is half filled with twenty- and thirty-somethings, talking and sipping cocktails. Original art hangs on the red-brick walls. There are about twenty people in the building, but…
Bob Dylan & His Band headline the Bellco Theatre on Saturday, November 1, and tickets ($49.50-$129.50) go on sale on Friday, September 5 at 10 a.m. Slipknot, along with opener Korn, hit the Denver Coliseum on Tuesday, November 11 as part of its Prepare for Hell tour, which kicks off…
[jump] Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver shares his ongoing story of an 80’s rocker on a road trip through his past with the readers of Backbeat. You can see more of Van Sciver’s work in his new book YOUTH IS WASTED. Previous episodes of Rufus: Rufus Baxter:…
It didn’t take long to run into weed at the Phish show. Within thirty minutes of going into Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday, we saw concert-goers generously sharing hits on their pipes and puffs on their joints and vape pens. THC wax and shatter were also being passed around…
Editor’s note: A writer sent us this essay on her experience at one of this weekend’s Phish shows at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park — the first with recovering-addict support she’s seen since she stopped drinking six months ago. We’re publishing it anonymously to protect her privacy. When I tell people…
For the last handful of years, some rock bands of an older vintage have been brought in to Lava Room inside the Reserve Hotel and Casino. Over the weekend, it was L.A. Guns, the band that helped spawn Guns N’ Roses. When you’re thinking of going to a rock show,…
A lot can happen over the course of a decade. Even the punkest of punk bands aren’t immune to the curve balls life can throw. Toronto’s Fucked Up definitely falls into the category of “punkest of punk.” Since its inception in 2001 Fucked Up has done just about everything possible…
Hey, weed is legal in Colorado for all fun-loving adults! Phish is a band best understood while the listener is in a state of mind unlike the one required to do things like pay taxes and wear slacks. This year’s three-night stand by the Vermont band at Dick’s Sporting Goods…
The building at 1330 27th Street has been a number of different thing over the last eight decades or so: it was a manufacturing space for dozens of years, a warehouse, an artist loft, a rave spot. A drummer lived there for awhile and it’s the former home of NoDo…
Phish returns to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park this weekend for its 84th, 85th and 86th shows in Colorado. I know that thanks to the meticulous documentation available at phish.net. Also thanks to phish.net, I can tell you when the band first played in Colorado (July 28, 1988 at the Roma…
It’s Phish weekend in Denver, but there are plenty of options for those of you who practice different musical religions as well. Delightful weirdo Bob Log III plays Larimer Lounge, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott hits town and the Labor Day Experience comes to Snowmass. Our full list of picks for the…
When you purchase a ticket to any concert, you run the risk of not getting the experience you paid for. Outdoor shows get rained out. Favorite songs don’t get played. Opening bands go over their allotted time. Sometimes a musician is just having a very bad night. The one variable…
The way Sam Herring moves on stage can be frightening: One moment he’s slashing at the air with a balled-up fist, the next he’s pounding that fist into his chest with brute force. He crawls across the stage on his knees, sweating and wailing in frustration, but will look up…
The way a do-it-yourself music community/scene works is exactly like it sounds: by doing it yourself. DIY is an ethos that transcends genre. Regardless of what your music sounds like, you can create it, perform it and essentially sell it, through your own channels and own means without the hand…
“It was really cool, like completing a circle,” says Adam Revell of the first time he realized he already knew Stephen Thurston, a fellow keyboardist he’d begun to collaborate with. Years earlier, Thurston had taken piano lessons from Revell, formerly of the funk/jam colossus The Motet. Revell didn’t remember Thurston…
First impressions have always been important in pop music, but in an era where bands seems to outnumber people, it’s become our primary currency. In three minutes you can go from reading about a band, to typing their name in Spotify, and writing them off permanently. These are strange times,…
The Jazz Aspen Snowmass nonprofit started throwing an eclectic music festival on Labor Day more than twenty years ago. Now it has expanded to three days, and this year includes headliners like Carrie Underwood and Fun. In this week’s music feature, now posted on the Backbeat blog, A.H. Goldstein explores…
To hear most people tell it, the history of rap goes like this: MCs were originally rapping primarily to showcase their DJs. That is, until Sugar Hill Gang put out “Rapper’s Delight” in 1979. It was the second rap record of all time and an enormous hit, proving there was…
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The word “festival” carries some tricky connotations for the organizers of Jazz Aspen Snowmass, or JAS. For the past 23 years, they’ve used the term as a shorthand descriptor for the three-day concert series that falls on Labor Day. At first glance, that seems perfectly fitting. Every August, a faithful…
Joe King Carrasco has traded his crown and cape for a cowboy hat and sparkly Lady of Guadalupe shirt, but he is still just as eccentric and entertaining as he was decades ago, when a particularly wild performance got him banned from Saturday Night Live. Carrasco, who grew up in…
