PUBLIC ENEMY at SUMMIT MUSIC HALL | 12/21/13 One of the most powerful moments of Public Enemy’s set came when Chuck D told us they were reaching back to It Takes A Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back for the next song. It was hard to say what was…
Jello Biafra has made an unmistakable and enduring impact both punk and counterculture internationally. The iconoclast grew up in Boulder and moved to San Francisco in the late ’70s, where he formed the Dead Kennedys and established the Alternative Tentacles imprint. As an outspoken critic of the more unsavory aspects…
SPELLS (due this Friday, December 20, at 3 Kings Tavern) got together when Chuck Coffey and Rob Burleson, two longtime veterans of the scene, realized they shared a mutual love of East Bay pop-punk and San Diego noise rock. When the pair decided to form a band, they enlisted Ben…
Odesza is a production duo from Washington State that set out to make electronic music that isn’t necessarily following in the traditional EDM mold. Inspired by indie rock but utilizing software in writing and production, Odesza’s music recalls the early era of M83. Last year, Odesza released its debut album,…
Every Christmas for the past four years, Kissing Party has released a song in honor of the holiday, but this year, the band has put together an entire EP. Cheekily titled Winter in the Pub, the digital platter, which contains past songs along with two new ones, can be downloaded…
Exhumed (due at Denver Black Sky this Saturday, December 14, at the Gothic Theatre) started in San Jose, California when Matt Harvey, the band’s sole original member, was just fifteen years old. Rather than following the trends of the genre at the time, Exhumed has remained faithful to the older…
The Head and the Heart (due tonight at the Ogden Theatre) came together when its members met while playing open-mic nights at a pub in the Old Ballard section of Seattle and decided to join forces. The band writes earnest, hushed, folk-inflected pop songs that recall Déjà Vu-period Crosby, Stills,…
Fans of bands like Felt and the more twee side of the Church will find something to like on Abandin Pictures’ Who Killed the Dinosaurs, with its soaring dynamics and simple melodies highlighting subtle sonic textures and details. “Recess” has the kind of down-tempo, slightly melancholy vibe of Within and…
EOTO at FILLMORE AUDITORIUM | 12/7/13 When Jason Hann sang the opening line of “In The Air Tonight” by Phil Collins towards the end of EOTO’s set, it seemed more appropriate than cheesy. Also a singing drummer, Hann offered a heavier dub take of the song, rather than the pounding…
Formed in 2003 as a side project of the more ska-punk-oriented Disasterbators, the Dendrites became a primary concern when the band’s members became more interested in the roots of ska, particularly in artists from the late ’50s and the ’60s. The all-instrumental band soon made a name for itself with…
EOTO (due this Saturday, December 7, at Fillmore Auditorium) started as a String Cheese Incident side project between Michael Travis and Jason Hann, a studio musician who also played with Dr. Dre and was a member of Isaac Hayes’s band. Out of the practicality of the living situations of both…
The title track of Courage, the new Prism Waves EP, establishes an overarching aesthetic of melancholic yearning, which can be heard not just in the plaintive singing, but in the way the guitar notes are plucked, arranged and paced. The song sounds like something the Cure might have done for…
JELLO BIAFRA & GUANTANAMO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE at SUMMIT | 12/31 Jello Biafra first came to the attention of the world as the charismatic, hyperkinetic and relentlessly intelligent frontman of the Dead Kennedys. Never one to mince words, Biafra became a lightning rod with his unapologetic critiques of the regressive…
FRI | ALPHABETS at RHINOCEROPOLIS | 12/13/13 When Colin Ward was thirteen years old, he was already making an impression on older members of the underground music community in Denver with his project Pocket Dove. With Nick Peelor, Ward formed the experimental indie-pop band Tudaloos and made music that seemed…
Thanks to David Mead’s flute playing, “The Black,” Black Stitch in Eternity’s opener, could be part of the soundtrack to an early-’60s Japanese ghost movie. Elsewhere, “Weight for Dusk” introduces the tenor sax and recalls the hard bop of late-’50s jazz figures, while “Rotting Cage” displays Mead’s deeper roots in…
It comes down to Alan introducing us to indie rock,” declares Confluence frontman Ian Gassman, speaking of bassist Alan Hubbard and summing up the eventual musical direction of the band. “I was listening to Bob Dylan a bunch, and Jack Johnson…. I’m just saying my want to get better at…
CAT POWER at GOTHIC THEATRE | 11/23/12 It was somewhere around an hour between the end of opener Nico Turner’s set and the beginning of the Cat Power set. By the time Chan Marshall took the stage, some people seemed to be getting restless. Marshall more than made up for…
MORBID ANGEL at BLUEBIRD THEATER | 11/22/13 Although this tour was dedicated to Morbid Angel playing its landmark third album Covenant in its entirety, the guys treated us to at least one song from each of its full-length releases. Before the band took stage, the lights went low and the…
Big Freedia (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Bluebird Theater) is the stage name of Freddie Ross, who began performing in his home town of New Orleans as a backup dancer and singer for Katey Red, a local drag queen who performed bounce music. Nicknamed “Freedia” by a friend,…
David Bazan (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Denver Music Summit) is perhaps best known for his songwriting for Pedro the Lion. His skill in crafting delicate, gently evocative music with subtle but powerful emotional resonance earned him fans and critical accolades from early on. Although Pedro was ostensibly…
Will Johnson (due this Saturday, November 23, at the Denver Music Summit) made a name for himself in the ’90s in Centro-Matic. A gifted songwriter, Johnson has a knack for penning elegant, emotionally rich and subtly powerful, folk-inflected songs. Over the years, he’s toured endlessly on his own and with…
The Devil Wear’s Prada (due this Sunday, November 24, at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom) first came together in 2005. Formed in Dayton, Ohio, by members who came up in the local hardcore scene, the act is a Christian band, but it has never traded on that aspect of the band with…
