MAZZY STAR at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/10/13 At about the halfway through Mazzy Star’s show last night at the Ogden Theatre, the stage went dark, and most of the band had left the stage. When the low lights came back on, they illuminated the forms of Hope Sandoval and David…
STIR FRIED at DONKEY O.T. | 11/8/13 Deadhead bars and Denver go hand in hand, and Jay Bianchi’s new bar/venue, the Donkey O.T., near Mile High Stadium in the space of old club Atmosphere, is one of the swankier deadhead bars you’ll step foot in. It’s clean, big and connected…
KREATOR at GOTHIC THEATRE | 11/8/12 One of the most arresting moments of Kreator’s show at the Gothic Theatre came when the band performed “Phobia.” The way the melody seemed to swim inside the aggressive main riff gave the song a layer of atmosphere without compromising how hard the song…
The lineup for the 2014 edition of Icelantic’s Winter on the Rocks has been revealed. Jurassic 5 will be filling the spot at the annual frozen fiesta previously filled by Atmosphere, who headlined the inaugural show, and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, who heated things up last year. Tickets for the…
GREGORY ALAN ISAKOV at BOETTCHER CONCERT HALL As he spoke to the massive crowd at Boettcher Concert Hall, you could tell that Gregory Alan Isakov was still getting used to the scope of the venue and the caliber of the musicians he was playing with. “I’ve been very, very nervous…
After more than two decades of living in the United States, synthpop pioneer Thomas Dolby (due at the Bluebird Theater this Thursday, November 14) returned to the coast in Suffolk, England, where he grew up and later built a studio called Nutmeg of Consolation in a 1930s lifeboat, and that’s…
WEDS | NINE INCH NAILS at 1STBANK CENTER | 11/13/13 After what had originally been billed as the band’s retirement in 2009, Nine Inch Nails returned from the dead this year to release a new album, Hesitation Marks. The project received a mixed response from fans and critics: Some bemoaned…
Equally gifted as a bassist and composer, Ben Allison has released some outstanding and forward-thinking recordings over the course of his career, beginning with his 1996 debut, Seven Arrows, through his forthcoming release, The Stars Look Very Different Today. Slated for release in December, the album reflects his lifelong fascination…
Tonight at the Meadowlark, the Solution is presenting the third installment of the Art of Records, its unique artistic series, which combines music and art in a compelling way by having local artists offer up their interpretations of classic hip-hop albums. This time, the talented cast of artists include Xencs…
Next summer, The Colorado Music Hall of Fame is moving to Red Rocks. All of the exhibits from the inductees, which have been on display at the 1STBANK Center in Broomfield since the hall’s inception in April 2011, will be moved into a new home at the Trading Post in…
Pop. 1280, which formed in Brooklyn, New York, in 2008, is a band whose music is informed by the energy of punk and the eruptive and menacing sounds of the darker end of post-punk and early industrial music. The surrealistic atmospheres are bracing and chilling rather than soothing. Pop. 1280’s…
Sit down. Are you sitting down? Good. We’ve got some news for you that’s going to completely knock you on your ass, and we really don’t want you to break anything. Okay. Ready? So the bad news is that Yasiin Bey is no longer headlining SoGnar’s Shredded Beats show at…
It wasn’t all that long ago that Gregory Alan Isakov was striving to make a name for himself playing shows at the Meadowlark. Before his music was being touted in the New York Times, he was a humble singer-songwriter who lived in an Airstream trailer outside Niwot with a voice…
SUN | MAZZY STAR at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/10/13 David Roback was a leading light in the Paisley Underground movement with his band Rain Parade. When that group split up in 1986, Roback formed another outfit, called Opal, with former Dream Syndicate bassist Kendra Smith. Opal released Happy Nightmare Baby…
CLAUDE VONSTROKE @ CITY HALL | SAT, 11/9/13 Claude VonStroke, founder of the illustrious Dirtybird record label, flirts with genres from all over the spectrum, nodding to hip-hop, garage and soul while infecting the dance floor with his playful, upbeat take on house. Although he’s long been a presence on…
There are countless bands that stray from the traditional song formula and jam the hell out live. Many of these acts fall under the amorphous indie tag, but there are a few that have notable prog- and psychedelic rock undercurrents flowing through their music, which is naturally conducive to improvisation…
Steve Aoki is singularly focused on making sure your ass is partying. As founder of the now-famous Dim Mak record label, Aoki has built his dance party into an empire. Live, his over-the-top antics range from paddling through the crowd on a raft to tossing cake into the screaming audience…
TORO Y MOI at OGDEN THEATRE | 11/6/13 Toro Y Moi’s earliest shows were sometimes poorly received because they weren’t what people were expecting. It’s safe to say that Chaz Bundick has stepped it up considerably since then, and not just as a songwriter, but as a performer whose former…
Up-and-coming producer Beni Haze has been a fixture in certain areas of the music scene for a while now; although you might not necessarily recognize his name in conjunction with dance music (that’ll change soon, we’d wager), he played keyboard in Pnuma Trio with Paper Diamond’s Alex B., and he’s…
This is a new day for Turner Jackson. He’s completely reshaped, reinvigorated and ready to take on everything that’s in store for him. He has a whole new perspective these days, but it came at the immeasurably high price of losing friend and mentor Marcus “Arrilius” Hayes. Before his untimely…
Songs like “Getting Live” — which opens this album and drips with funky guitars and gritty bass lines before reaching a crescendo of futuristic sounds and robust beats — notwithstanding, it’s clear that GRiZ (aka Grant Kwiecinski) is much more interested in letting Rebel Era tell a story with emotion…
The Blue Rider’s self-titled release has a number of touchstones, among them Nuggets-era garage rock, the Stooges and the Cramps, and the resulting music sounds like something out of an early-’60s Louisiana juke joint, especially songs like the ultra-short “Innertube.” The record encompasses a variety of sounds — from psychedelic…
