Electric Six (due Friday, March 7, at the Larimer Lounge) formed in Detroit in 1996. Not content to strictly follow any particular style of rock, the band has forged its own strange and surprisingly original path. Its greatest commercial and popular success came in 2003 with its debut, Fire, which…
SKINNY PUPPY at OGDEN THEATRE | 2/24/14 The outrageous outfit Ogre is seen wearing above is just one of many he donned during his band’s show last night at the Ogden Theatre. Over the course of the show, the Skinny Puppy vocalist changed costumes at fairly regular intervals, the most…
Formed in 1982, Skinny Puppy (due tonight, February 24, at the Ogden Theatre) is a pioneer of electronic industrial music. The band’s dark aesthetic and its visionary amalgamation of rhythm, texture and tone cast an indelible shadow on virtually all industrial music that followed in its wake. Throughout its career,…
LORD HURON at OGDEN THEATRE | 2/21/14 When the members of Lord Huron took the stage, they looked snappy, as though each member had actually taken the time to look like he was in a band but without hitting us over the head with a visual representation. The band’s music,…
The Lawrence Arms (due Saturday, February 22, at The Summit Music Hall) started in 1999 when former members of the Broadways, Brendan Kelly and Chris McCaughan, decided to do a more melodic punk band focused on often startlingly detailed and personal but emotionally vibrant music that didn’t wax into the…
Superhumanoids (due this Friday, February 21, at the Ogden Theatre) formed in Los Angeles in 2009, when friends and multi-instrumentalists Cameron Parkins, Sarah Chernoff and Max St. John came together over a mutual interest in R&B and ’80s pop music. Though much has been made of the group’s connection to…
DEAFHEAVEN at MARQUIS THEATER | 2/16/14 There was some real emotional heft to Deafheaven’s set at the Marquis last night that was more visceral than most mere post-rock. Musically it felt like a fusion of black metal and a late ’90s post-hardcore, even treading into emo territory. The heaviness was…
Since its inception in 2003, Man Man (due Monday, February 17, at the Fox Theatre) has made music that defied easy categorization; if anything, it suggests that the bandmembers have listened to a whole lot of Captain Beefheart. The act’s album titles, often seemingly surrealistic, make interesting and creative cultural…
PIXIES at FILLMORE AUDITORIUM | 2/13/14 Like the Ramones, the Pixies took stage and had little in the way of breaks between songs. There was no banter, no awkward joking and no meandering dialogue while anyone tuned or tried to read a set list. The only interruptions came when the…
STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS at GOTHIC THEATRE | 2/12/14 During their time in Denver, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks were apparently staying in a hotel in Cherry Creek. We know this because Malkmus asked if anyone hung out there or skateboarded in Cherry Creek or went rafting in it…
Deafheaven (due this Sunday, February 16, at the Marquis Theater) formed in San Francisco in 2010. Starting modestly, writing its earliest demos on acoustic guitar, the outfit has since made its mark with a unique sounding hybrid blend of black metal, shoegaze and post-rock. The band’s expansive songs deal unflinchingly…
“Fox,” the opening track on Paw Paw’s new three-song EP, 3 Eye, immediately separates this release from the band’s 2012 album, Lay Down In the Flower Bed. Whereas that effort was bright and glistening with luminous, uplifting tones, these songs are darker and more organic. They’re the next step in…
PAUL SIMON & STING at PEPSI CENTER | 2/11/14 When Paul Simon and Sting took the stage together, they were each accompanied by their full bands, which often appeared on the stage with them at the same time throughout the set, working together to create an even more lush and…
The Pixies (due this Thursday, February 13, at the Fillmore Auditorium) formed in 1986, and by the time the landmark album Surfer Rosa was released, in 1988, they had become one of the most important and influential bands of the alt-rock era. Though credit for the loud-quiet-loud dynamic the foursome…
Pixies (due at the Fillmore Auditorium on Thursday, February 13) formed in 1986, and within two years, the act became one of the most important and influential of the bands of the alt-rock era. Though credit for the loud-quiet-loud dynamic the Pixies made famous more properly belongs to another Boston…
The latest EP from déCollage feels like a collage-pop, Animal Collective-esque, psychedelic version of Stevie Wonder’s 1979 weirdo masterpiece Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants” — except that Reed Fuchs and company probably had none of that in mind when they made it. Rather, the players were…
I made all the wrong moves,” says Stephen Malkmus. “Don’t you think sometimes life is about making all the wrong moves? In the end, it’s making the wrong choices — trying the wrong drugs, dating the wrong girl, taking the wrong class, crashing into the wrong tree when you’re drunk.”…
NAKED RAYGUN at SUMMIT MUSIC HALL | 1/31/14 Everyone who got to see Naked Raygun at Riot Fest last year got to see a good set, but it wasn’t near the caliber as this show. Jeff Pezzati was even more of an unconventionally charismatic and eccentric frontman than usual, prowling…
It’s clear from opener “Artist’s Way” that the new release from local hip-hoppers the Abstract Collective is more organic than electronic. The rapping, meanwhile, blends the rapid-fire delivery favored by Anticon artists — particularly Yoni Wolf — with the more R&B/jazz-inflected instincts of Blackalicious. Despite the soothing effect of Cody…
I remember it was always such a cool, hip place,” recalls Kid Congo Powers of Denver and his trips to the city. “I remember playing there with the Bad Seeds in this beautiful old theater, a small, ornate place. It was a small theater, and I just remember it struck…
Rocket From the Crypt (due Saturday, February 1, at the Summit Music Hall) formed in 1989 after the split of Pitchfork, an act that featured John Reis, who was also a member of influential noise rock/experimental punk band Drive Like Jehu at the time. Rocket’s playful spirit and its sound…
Prefuse 73 (due this Wednesday, January 29, at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom) is the alias of Guillermo Herren. Having learned the nuts and bolts of hip-hop production as an employee at a studio in the ’90s, Herren created the sort of left-field electronic music that didn’t fit in with that style…
