Denver is full of excellent artists and designers, whose images successfully articulate the mood of a show before anyone hears the music. Here are thirteen of the best, from the most commercially successful artists to those starting out, from those who have worked for major music festivals to those who…
We’ve had some good times, Chris Carrabba. It wasn’t pretty, but I fell pretty hard for Dashboard Confessional. But that was a long time ago. This is where I say I’ve had enough, Chris. It’s over. I hoped it wouldn’t be. But after that show last night at the Bluebird,…
This week’s cover story, “Rocks and Roll,” is about four concertgoers who were injured by falling rocks at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in September 2011. They’re now suing the city of Denver, which owns Red Rocks. They allege that the city was lax in its efforts to prevent such an incident…
Andrea Petrucelli is standing on the street in Austin during SXSW, handing out cards printed with directions for downloading a song by the Denver band You, Me and Apollo. She is committed to her task, yelling to the hordes of music fans walking by that the song is a must-have…
The original spirit of punk rock lives on in Denver’s vibrant DIY music scene, where shows are open to all comers and the surroundings are as likely to include books as they are beer. We talked to a handful of fans about the scene and about the stories behind their…
[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…
Four people who were injured by falling rocks at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in September 2011 are suing the City of Denver, which owns Red Rocks. In all, seven people were hit by rocks during the encore of a Sound Tribe Sector 9 show, but only four have filed lawsuits. They…
Guitar wiz Nels Cline says he used to envy people who could stick to one genre, like musicians who’d say, “All I do is play swing, or all I do is play bluegrass, or all I do is play prepared guitar.” But for Cline, due tonight at Dazzle, focusing on…
In a world where you can buy a Dead Kennedys T-shirt at Urban Outfitters, the “punk” label has lost some of its ability to describe anything at all. We spent the past couple of months going to the shows that still embody the genre’s original spirit, the ones that now…
Over the last six months, Cervantes’ has been at work on a new patio and outdoor stage by the Other Side portion of the venue. Woodworker Tommy Lyle of Wood of a Kind built the outdoor stage, seating and bar using wood from trees that fell during the floods last…
Although frontman Chris Anderson moved to Boston last year, indie-rock outfit Fierce Bad Rabbit, originally from Fort Collins, hasn’t broken up. On the contrary, the quartet is busy making music and playing gigs across the country. Even so, distance has affected the dynamic of the band and its members in…
The Westword Music Showcase is less than two months away. On June 21, 130-ish Colorado bands and artists of every possible variety will play assorted venues around the Golden Triangle, and an outdoor stage on Acoma Street and 12th Avenue will host Diplo, 2 Chainz and more. We’ll announce the…
The Blasters, due at the Lion’s Lair tonight, May 6, and tomorrow, May 7, were founded in 35 years ago in Downey, California, by brothers Phil and Dave Alvin along with drummer Bill Bateman and bassist John Bazz. Steeped in American music traditions, the band easily traverses through blues, rockabilly,…
It’s been a hell of a long time since Beck played these parts. Now touring in support of his new album, Morning Phase, which he’s called a companion piece to 2002’s Sea Change, Beck headlines Red Rocks on Friday, August 15. General admission and reserved tickets ($49.95-$57.50) go on sale…
There’s a lot of bad music out there. There are always people debating genres like contemporary country and Western and Top 40 music, but at the end of the day, the most reviled and defenseless genre of all is nu-metal. Too whiny to be intimidating and too dumb to be…
[The one and only Henry Rollins writes a weekly column for our sister paper, LA Weekly. You can find it every Thursday on their music blog, West Coast Sound. This week, he wrote about his trip to Denver for 4/20.] 4-19-14 Denver: 2250 hrs. In Denver to cover tomorrow’s Cannabis…
There are many kinds of charmers in Denver this week: Holly Golightly brings her impressive catalog and excellent humor to the hi-dive, and later in the week cock-rocking joker/not joker Steel Panther plays the Ogden. The rest of our picks follow…
Are you a music lover with a burning desire to carry a tiny guitar wherever you go? Don’t fret (Ha! See what we did there?), because Avon-based inventor Mark Roebke has created just the thing: the FretPen! What is the FretPen? It’s a pen – just a normal pen -…
Kaskade is embarking on a small-venue tour, which is quite the change for the Grammy nominated EDM producer. Ask any DJ and producer who was spinning/attending shows in the ’90s, or even into the early 2000s, and the general consensus would be that it’s a great lifestyle, but not one…
Robert Castro has spent over a decade running music blogs, so that’s about a lifetime in Internet years. He ran A Walking Disaster for a while, but school and work forced him to give it up around 2009. On a 2011 trip to SXSW, he got into a conversation with…
One month after the full Mayhem Fest tour announcement which includes only five of the boasted 19 bands at Red Rocks July 14, the tour has announced an accompanying Taste of Mayhem show. The Fillmore will host the other 14 acts on July 13, including Cannibal Corpse, Suicide Silence and…
FaceMan, helmed by the uni-monikered frontman Steve, is just as interested in performance art as it is acoustic guitars. Case in point: the elaborate shark-shaped stage the band set up at Lost Lake last year, which added a theatrical dimension to the band’s music (it also picked up an award…
