Denver’s hip-hop scene is ripe with talent, especially in terms of the great DJs that fans have access to. You can walk into dozens of clubs, bars, patios, pool parties or even corporate events that just happen to be hosted by one of the town’s best. The competition is stiff,…
Did you watch the most recent Wrestlemania? I didn’t. I also haven’t had a Mountain Dew in seven years. I guess this means I’m finally an real adult, which means I should do the mature thing and write a list for an audience of people who are mostly hung-over and…
Bob Marley wasn’t a particularly successful commercial artist during his lifetime. This week’s Backbeat feature explores how he became a household name around the world with the help of one greatest-hits compilation…
When Gregory Alan Isakov and Nathaniel Rateliff played The Aggie in Ft. Collins earlier this year, the audience was silent. The only time the crowd made a peep during the music was when a diabetic girl fainted in the audience. It was weird. It was beautiful. It may have been…
When Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds went into “Stagger Lee” from the 1996 album Murder Ballads, it was an iconic moment of an evening of music in which the band took the tradition of American folk mythology and breathed into it a larger-than-life electricity. Cave brought raging emotional intensity…
[jump] Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver shares his sunny outlook with the readers of Backbeat. You can see more of Van Sciver’s work and even buy it on his website. • BACKBEAT’S GREATEST HITS • – The fifty best rap lyrics of all time – The ten…
At the time of his death, in May 1981, Bob Marley was 36 years old, reggae’s biggest star, and the father of at least eleven children. He was not, however, a big seller. For Dave Robinson, this presented an opportunity. Two years after Marley’s passing, Chris Blackwell, the founder of…
The twentieth annual Westword Music Showcase brought over 11,000 people to the Golden Triangle to watch more than 150 bands of every possible variety. Our writers and photographers saw excellent lunacy and affecting songs — the bands and artists of Denver have built a music scene that contains the best…
CP 208 closed out the night at Roostercat Coffee House for the Westword Music Showcase. Most of the crowd had filed out following Echo Beds’ set. Their loss. The four-piece took to the stage and sprawled out a herky- jerky, noise-jazz, No Wave-esque post-punk. Its sounds are used like a…
As the town of Telluride changes hands from tourists back to locals, and “festivarians” everywhere and finally cut off the last vestiges of Festivaria, including their wristbands, we look back at one of Colorado’s most popular music festivals. The list of the best things about the Telluride Bluegrass Festival is…
Those who know Max Winne from his current folk project the Maykit might be surprised to learn about his first band. As a teenager, Winne played in the hardcore band Call to Arms with Jeremy and Adam Fisher (the latter was a founding member of Fear Before). But as he…
Drake and Lil Wayne bring their 30-plus date co-headlining tour to Red Rocks on Wednesday, September10. Tickets, which run from $49.50 to $149.50, go on sale on Saturday, June 28 at 10 a.m. This year’s installment of the Rockstar Energy Uproar Festival with Godsmack, Seether, Skillet, Buckcherry and Pop Evil…
After months of planning and lead-up, the twentieth Westword Music Showcase arrived promptly at noon on Saturday. I started my day watching SF1 both tap dance and absolutely nail down a cover of “Bombs Over Baghdad,” and the next ten hours passed in a blur of sweaty singers and silly…
We’ve talked plenty about the artists who played at this year’s Westword Music Showcase. But, as many of them noted, there isn’t much worthwhile about a music scene without fans. So videographer Bailey Geoghan talked to attendees at this year’s Showcase. She collected advice from them on summer festival fashion…
The Westword Music Showcase brought several thousand fans to see over 150 bands in the Golden Triangle over the weekend. You can find more coverage of the festivities elsewhere on Backbeat, but we wanted to give the bands a moment to weigh in. Earlier, we asked several artists playing the…
Although Arish Ahmad “King” Khan (of King Khan and the Shrines fame) lives in Berlin — which isn’t too far from Amsterdam — he says it’s not common for the crew he runs around with to travel to the Netherlands for pot. But he was beyond thrilled to purchase marijuana…
A few spectacularly heavy hitters come to Colorado this week — both Nick Cave and Merle Haggard are in town. Sharon Van Etten, playing Tuesday at the Bluebird, has plenty to show for her own relatively short career. You can read our extensive interview with her elsewhere on Backbeat this…
Singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten’s work just keeps getting better and better. On Are We There, her followup to the rapturously reviewed 2012 album Tramp, she digs deeper than ever before, broadening her creative scope and her musical palette in ways that are simultaneously moving and enthralling. In advance of her…
The Clark County Coroner is investigating the death of a 24-year-old who collapsed outside Electric Daisy Carnival in Las Vegas Saturday morning. An autopsy was being conducted this weekend, but results aren’t yet available to the media, an official at the coroner’s office told us. If drug use is suspected,…
Editor: We’re sitting here among the folded banners and deflated massive cartoon rum bottles after another Westword Music Showcase. You can relive it with a fairly comprehensive set of photos, and we’ll have some more thoughts from the writers of Backbeat in the coming days. For now, here are some…
We are live from the twentieth Westword Music Showcase. Friends, I can now give you the exclusive news that there are tiny ferns on every table in the VIP section. There are also many bands. More than 150 bands, actually, playing seventeen stages in the Golden Triangle. Stop me if…
Update: More details have emerged about last night’s shooting outside Red Rocks, and it appears the shooter was targeting Schoolboy Q after his performance opening for Nas and Flying Lotus. Schoolboy Q had just gotten into a white SUV near the south entrance of the actual amphitheater when someone who…
