When Alkaline Trio got its start in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago, it probably had no intention of being an exemplar of emo, the brand of melodic punk that dared to talk about feelings. Nonetheless, the band’s earnest songwriting and emotionally charged live shows struck a resonant chord with plenty…
Shortly after forming their band in 2000 in Concord, North Carolina, the Avett Brothers, led by Scott and Seth Avett, released their debut album, and they’ve seemingly been on tour ever since. Their diligence has paid off — not just artistically, in terms of having experiences worth writing songs about,…
Many bands pare things down for unvarnished, uncluttered songwriting. The five members of Hindershot (due Friday, July 8, at 3 Kings Tavern) seem to have decided to go in the other direction — except that their songs never seem cluttered so much as richly imagined and executed. These guys could…
When Meat Puppets (due tonight at the Bluebird Theater with Bad Weather California and The Black Box Revelation) formed and released its first few records on SST in the early ’80s, the Phoenix-based act challenged punk rock conformity with its eclectic blend of countrified psychedelia and what later came to…
THE SKIVIES at THE MEADOWLARK | 06.25.11This show almost didn’t happen. A little after 9:15 or so, the power went out in the neighborhoods north of Broadway. About that time, you could hear Danimal from Osyluth playing his drum kit from outside the Meadowlark. Inside, plenty of people had shown…
Subterranean yet otherworldly sounds — like what you might hear if you were to somehow set up microphones in the endless tunnels of H.P. Lovecraft’s Mountains of Madness — start off this live recording from the 2011 Denver Noise Fest. At points, the creeping, ambient noise of bio-mechanical entities in…
Sacramento’s Garrincha & the Stolen Elk has had a prolific year, with three releases in the last six months. Matt Kretzmann and Davy Bui have been involved in Sacto’s noise scene outside of this project, with Kretzmann running the experimental music label Weird Forest. Garrincha is often reminiscent of the…
Chop Chop probably got a boost in popularity recently when the band’s song “Play” was featured in an episode of How I Met Your Mother. However, principals Catherine Cavanagh and Christy Cheng had already been veterans of the underground scene in Los Angeles. Early on, their glitchy indie-pop sound drew…
While someone else could probably stake claim to the designation of “Godmother of Denver Garage Rock,” that title rightly belongs to Sarah Fischer — even though she would never claim it. A commanding yet gracious and friendly figure in the scene for more than two decades, Fischer has spent time…
For the past eight years, Action Friend (due Saturday, June 25, at the Meadowlark) has been evolving the kind of music played by what many would say is “a musician’s band.” Although all the players in the band are highly skilled, it’s the inherent weirdness to its compositions that has…
Since the fall of 2003, The Skivies (due Saturday, June 25th at The Meadowlark Bar) has graced stages in Denver with its alchemical brew of bizarro psychedelia and hard-edged, experimental guitar rock warped by unexpected twists and turns born of progressive structures turned on their head. Always seemingly up for…
Jason Webley (due at the Mercury Cafe, Saturday, June 25) started out playing punk rock as a teenager in Seattle, but it wasn’t until well into his twenties that he shed that musical skin. It would be difficult to pin Webley with a genre, but it could be said that…
Bill Callahan (due Monday, June 27th) started releasing music under the moniker Smog in 1990. He was connected to the then-emerging underground network of music that included the indie label Kill Rock Stars, which included his song “37 Pushups .” Callahan’s emotionally vibrant lyrics serve almost as a counterpoint to…
When Michael Trundle, Tyler Jacobson and Tim Cook started Lipgloss in the summer of 2001, they had no idea that it would become something of a Denver institution. From humble beginnings as a dance night at the club 60 South (now 3 Kings Tavern) once a month on Mondays, Lipgloss…
Even though these jokers have taken at least a year off, anyone lucky enough to have seen the band can attest to the fact that the Skivies are not quite like any other band. Yeah, the Butthole Surfers comparison is obvious, especially considering that DJ Von Felt uses a device…
Grant Hart’s had a rough go recently. Upon returning home from a tour he describes as disastrous, his house caught fire and burned to the ground, and exactly one month later, his mother died. “It’s been kind of a rough time since then,” Hart admits. “I had gotten home from…
YO LA TENGO at #WMS11 | 06.18.11″After two or three songs, Ira Kaplan said there were notes all over the stage saying not to use profanity and that if that were the case, they had nothing left to play.”…
Who are you excited about seeing at this year’s Westword Music Showcase? Kind of a loaded question, isn’t it? Depends on what time you ask, right? The lineup is pretty insane from top to bottom, even if we do say so ourselves. In addition to hosting the hottest acts in…
Kaia Wilson (due tonight at Yellow Feather Coffee) was a teenager in the late ’80s and early ’90s in Oregon when she became involved in the Pacific Northwest’s underground music scene. Although she played shows with many of the famous bands of the era with her band Adickdid, she first…
Beginning with a sample of waves coming in off the ocean, Curse All Summers conjures the kind of day where low-hanging clouds gray the sky from horizon to horizon. Akin to an even more low-fi Elliott Smith, the Transformations make no bones about their melancholic tone, but there’s less desperation…
Few people not close to the band would ever have suspected that four of the guys from the pop band Fellow Citizens would do music like this. Not because Fellow Citizens doesn’t have an experimental edge in its songwriting; it does. No, it’s because Kevin Costner Suicide Pact (due Friday,…
The first show was petrifying,” Ira Kaplan confides of Yo La Tengo’s live debut. “We had a party and played at it, and we learned — not that quickly — that it’s much easier to play for strangers than it is for your friends.” When they formed Yo La Tengo…
