Before coming to rest in 2006, Laymen Terms often got lumped in with the pop-punk milieu of its day. But a keen listener could tell that Andy Tanner and company were coming from a different place than their contemporaries, with roots more in ’90s Midwestern indie rock and emo. These…
After doing the M.I.A. album, I was asked if I would be interested in writing some stuff for it,” says Christopher Mercer almost nonchalantly of his recent production work for the upcoming Britney Spears album. “A good rule of thumb is that more tracks won’t make it than will make…
Tennis • Flashlights • Gauntlet Hair • Vitamins 09.10.10 | Larimer Lounge, Denver If its last three albums are any indication, Vitamins seem to reinvent their sound every year or so. The band’s latest material has the foursome stretching out quite a bit. While Vitamins has always been an experimental…
PAVEMENT With guests Jenny and Johnny 09.09.10 | Ogden Theatre, Denver Jenny and Johnny opened this show and received a mixed reception from the crowd at first. But appreciative cheers for the group, which features Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice, increased with every song. The band’s sometimes bluesy, jangly guitar…
Kristín Anna Valtýsdóttir was part of the popular Icelandic dream pop group múm, which she fronted with her twin sister Gyða. Before leaving the band in 2006, Valtýsdóttir, also known by her stage name Kría Brekkan, performed on the 2005 Animal Collective album Feels. A talented multi-instrumentalist, Brekkan performed mostly…
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone started out in 1997 as a solo project for songwriter Owen Ashworth. Initially using just a keyboard and a basic drum machine, Ashworth challenged himself to make the most of minimal elements. The result has been a body of work that not only speaks directly…
If not for Pavement all but deconstructing the dominant paradigm of rock music throughout the ’90s with albums like Slanted and Enchanted, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Wowee Zowee!, so much of the underground rock that’s come out since the band parted ways in 1999 would have been much more…
Listening to side one of this cassette-only release, you can’t help but think of the scenes from Videodrome where James Woods watches the TV show of the same name and becomes both repulsed and obsessed with the programming. The textured drone is reminiscent of those distorted images, and, while abstract,…
Daralee Fallin is working with drum machines and synths with effects — familiar elements of electronic music — across this four-song release. From the jump, though, there’s an undeniably organic feel to the music and a warmth that doesn’t just cradle the listener in a sense of comfort and well-being;…
Owen Ashworth started Casiotone for the Painfully Alone in 1997 as an electro-pop one-man band. But over the years, the act has made its sound more organic, especially as Ashworth started playing with various collaborators. The seemingly confessional lyrics are really snapshots of American life, and the kinds of portraits…
Despite having been together for only a short time and not playing many local shows, Tennis (due on Friday, September 10, at the Larimer Lounge) has stirred some buzz outside of Denver through write-ups on Pitchfork, Gorilla vs. Bear and, most recently, the New York Times blog. Inspired in part…
Pavement is among the most influential rock bands of the ’90s, despite not quite becoming a household name, and you can hear the band’s influence in virtually all underground rock since then, from the slightly off-center rhythms, the jagged but melodic guitar riffs and the fascinatingly obtuse lyrics. Taking some…
SLEEP Git Some • Russian Circles 09.05.10 | Gothic Theatre view full slide show From brutal, clipped guitar work to huge, foreboding sounds created by guitars that are more akin to synths, Russian Circles scrolled through a wide range of styles that it executed with both ease and precision, like…
Vampire Weekend Dum Dum Girls • Beach House 09.03.10 | Red Rocks Amphitheatre view full slide show Dum Dum Girls opened the show with a notable display of confidence and music reminiscent of Elastica with a ’60s girl-group vibe. The combination of chiming textures and flowing atmospheres in the guitar…
The Gamits were one of the classic, melodic punk bands of the late ’90s. Unlike many of their peers, they survived well into the new decade before calling it quits, shortly after releasing the best album of their career, Antidote, in the summer of 2004. After touring extensively across the…
Safe Boating is No Accident is the musical/performance art project of Leighton Peterson and Neil McCormick, who both came to Colorado within the last several years. Forming Safe Boating about two years ago, Peterson and McCormick found a way to combine their love of old timey music with a modern…
In the late ’90s, the Gamits were part of a relatively small but thriving punk scene that included artists like Pinhead Circus, the Fairlanes and Four. Unlike most groups of that era, the Gamits survived beyond the first couple of years of the new century and, with numerous national and…
The down-tempo “I Had Another Dream Last Night That You Were a Ghost” sets the pace and tone for this album. Something about this set of songs has the feel of a Shirley Jackson novel: It’s all haunted moods and impressionistic imagery, tied together with scenes of striking emotional power…
Le Tigre made feminism, leftist politics and sexuality seem fun and confrontational at the same time, and the act’s mixture of electronic music and rock crystallized during its live shows. When Le Tigre went on temporary hiatus in 2007, JD Samson and Johanna Fateman started MEN as a DJ and…
These days you hear that sludgy, crypto-psychedelic heavy metal called “stoner rock” all over the place — or at least the influence of such when so many bands rediscover early metal influences like Deep Purple and UFO. Sleep didn’t necessarily pioneer stoner rock or doom metal, but its 1992 album,…
If Ahab had lived to write a memoir, its title might have been the inspiration for the name of this band. Just the same, Safe Boating Is No Accident’s lyrics aren’t as overtly tempestuous as hunting for the great white whale on the Pequod. Even though the outfit’s sonics are…
DENVER DOES DENVER 08.28.10 | Meadowlark view full slide show This second installment of Denver Does Denver took place on Saturday night at the Meadowlark, both upstairs and downstairs, as well in the Flobots Community Space. The bulk of the acts I caught played in downstairs at the Meadowlark, beginning…
