Little Fyodor started playing out live at the end of 1985, around the same time that the legendary experimental band he was in, Walls of Genius, was winding down. For the first two years, Little Fyodor (aka Dave Lichtenberg) was a solo act; his partner, Babushka, came on board in…
Daniel Ash was the influential and iconic guitarist for Bauhaus, Tones on Tail and Love and Rockets, and he’s also released a number of noteworthy albums under his own name over the years. His ability to mix melody, raw emotive sound and moving atmospheres into his guitar style has meant…
THE UNCLUDED @ MARQUIS THEATER | 7/5/13 The heaviest part of any show that Aesop Rock and Kimya Dawson play together is almost always “Walk Like Thunder.” There’s a raw, poetic honesty and heaviness to the track, which comes from Kimya Dawson’s Thunder Thighs, and this performance certainly proved to…
A lot of people in their mid-teens probably cut their teeth playing punk or surf or garage rock. The young guys in the Baltic, though, sound as though they’ve absorbed the expansive spirit and introspective sounds of post-rock bands like Sigur Rós, particularly on “Green Girl.” They don’t fill every…
It seemed that at its core, it had this sense of honesty about it,” says Dan Treanor of the blues and how it has become a lifelong obsession. “It seemed like it touched something inside of me that allowed me to look at things from a different perspective. “The blues…
Five Finger Death Punch formed in 2005, when Zoltan Bathory and Jeremy Spencer started putting together their next band. Ivan Moody, a singer who’d moved out to L.A. without knowing a soul and had been sleeping in his rehearsal space, heard the nascent project’s demos and ended up joining the…
MAYHEM FESTIVAL @ FIDDLER’S GREEN | SUN, 7/7/13 Established in part by Kevin Lyman, one of the founders of the Warped Tour, this traveling showcase features a stacked lineup that caters to metal fans, with side activities for your downtime throughout the day. With a roster including acts as diverse…
SHANNON & THE CLAMS @ LARIMER LOUNGE | 6/30/13 Before the last song of the Shannon and the Clams’ set, a woman up front yelled out for “Troublemaker,” inspiring Cody Blanchard to flash a smile. Turns out, that’s exactly what the band had saved for last, and that’s when Shannon…
In a scene oversaturated with bands mining the 1960s, Shannon and the Clams manage to stand out in stark contrast to their peers. That’s partly because their songwriting is simple and strong, but mostly because of Shannon Shaw’s powerful, soulfully melodic and emotionally gripping voice. Shaw sounds like she took…
Vitamins’ latest release, Motions, starts off in a buoyantly psychedelic mode with the song “No Notion of Anything Only Whatever Is What” and its all but motorik beat and urgent melody. What separates this album from the rest of the band’s fine output, though, are the transitional pieces between songs…
Music-scene veterans Chuck Coffey and Rob Burleson talked about playing together for a long time. Coffey played in a number of local acts, including Eyes & Ears, while Burleson has been in many groups over the years, including the Symptoms and Lion Sized. For SPELLS, their eventual collaboration, Burleson suggested…
Queensryche was formed in 1982 in Bellevue, Washington, by friends who played in various metal bands from the region. Since the band’s debut EP in 1983, Queensryche has consistently set itself apart by incorporating progressive elements into its music with a vivid, almost dystopian, reflection of society in a way…
Every year at the Westword Music Showcase, we enlist our army of Backbeat wordsmiths to host various stages. In addition to their emcee duties, we ask them to pull double duty by submitting a travelogue of their individual stage. Tom Murphy hosted at Bar Standard this past Saturday. Keep reading…
Trampled By Turtles, due at this weekend’s Westword Music Showcase, was started in 2003 by a group friends from Duluth, Minnesota, who knew each other from playing in various bands. Liberated by the freedom and mobility of playing acoustic instruments, the players honed a sound that happened to benefit from…
The nineteenth annual Westword Music Showcase — otherwise known affectionately as the hottest party of the summer — is here! Our little celebration is all grown up now, and the party just keeps getting bigger. This year’s edition, featuring more than 150 artists performing on sixteen different stages, is no…
The Mowgli’s was started by a group of friends who wanted to make music with universal appeal. The act’s sound is rooted in the kind of breezy, folk-inflected, psychedelically tinged music from Southern California that dominated the ’60s and ’70s, and its outlook is imbued with a positive spirit that…
JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION @ BLUEBIRD THEATER | 6/15/13 Saving one of the most blistering numbers of the show for the end of the set, Jon Spencer and the Blues Explosion cut loose with “Blues X Man.” Making his way to the front of the stage amid a squall of…
Native Daughters was formed just before local guitarists Eddie Maestas and Thomas Chagolla wrapped up their affairs in the inventive and cathartic post-hardcore band Mustangs and Madras. The two wanted to start a heavy instrumental band inspired in part by Isis and Neurosis, so Chagolla switched to drums and they…
On Westerner, Tjutjuna’s latest album, it seems as though the band is creating the musical equivalent of a moving sculpture crafted to give the semblance of life. “Mousetrap” is like a psychedelicized Neu! song, but with uncoiling whorls of bright drones and tones, while the pounding, pulsating rhythm of “Heavy…
THE DANDY WARHOLS @ GOTHIC THEATRE | 6/11/12 When Peter Holmström put on his orange Telecaster and Zia McCabe strapped on a bass guitar rather than helming the Moog she plays most of the time, you knew what song was coming: “Bohemian Like You,” of course, the band’s biggest hit…
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS @ GOTHIC THEATRE | 6/8/12 As good as the Psychedelic Furs’ records are, there is just something about seeing Richard Butler, who was all smiles on this night, and hearing his heartfelt thank yous at the end of various songs, and then seeing the collective happiness of…
Sometime in the last year, Force Publique shifted its focus a bit to include electric guitar rather than bass and the opted for using an MPC over playing pre-crafted beats made on software. The resulting sound is still darkly moody as it was during the band’s more post-punk period, but…
