Meese’s Atlantic Debut Nearing Completion

Photo by Chandra Carney. Looks like Meese is just about finished recording its new as-yet-titled album. Since inking their deal with Atlantic this past fall, the guys have been hard at work in the studio with producer Sean Beaven, who grew up in the Meese brothers’ hometown of Cleveland. Aside…

MySpace? More Like OurSpace, Suckas. Denver Music Represents.

Whoa! Did y’all happen to catch a glimpse of who’s being touted on MySpace’s music page today? Both 3OH!3 and Flobots are featured prominently: The former is previewing tracks from its forthcoming album, Want, while the latter is the subject of the site’s Who Knew feature. To paraphrase Pete Wentz…

Q&A With Cee-Lo Green of Gnarls Barkley

In 2006, Gnarls Barkley, the subject of a June 26 Westword profile, scored with what to most ears was the song of the year – a little single called “Crazy.” Although lead singer Cee-Lo Green makes it clear in the Q&A below that he never attempted to repeat this feat,…

Q&A With Ryland Blackinton of Cobra Starship

Cobra Starship, a June 26 Westword profile subject, is among the more unlikely passengers on the runaway train known as the 2008 Warped Tour – a band whose members didn’t truly come together until after a song released under its name was already well on its way to becoming a…

Tonight: 2008 Westword Music Showcase Awards!

After months of polling, tonight is the big night, when we’ll announce the winners of the 2008 Westword Music Showcase. Please join us at at the Bluebird Theater this evening at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. Hope to see you there!…

Last Night…Wolf Eyes and Aenka @ hi-dive

Photos by Chris Velarde Wolf Eyes and Aenka Tuesday, June 25, 2008 Hi-Dive Better Than: Soft-rock Wolf Eyes are hard to describe without superlatives. They’re one of the loudest, heaviest, most intense onstage and most approachable offstage bands out there. Phrases like “from the primordial ooze, they emerge” or “like…

Rock Band: Denver Dream Team

So Jason Hayes from the Last Seen and I were standing around smoking outside the Atomic Cowboy this past Friday night before the Fluid show, when he presented me with a hypothetical proposition: If I were to form and front a band right now and could choose any musicians in…

Beautiful Music from Ghost Buffalo

The convenience and portability of MP3s may make the them the de facto music standard, but vinyl, despite its weight and relative fragility, is making a big comeback. Maybe it’s the warmer sound, the reassuring physicality of it, or maybe it’s just simple nostalgia. Or maybe, just maybe it’s absolutely…

Rose Hill Drive’s New Album and Video

Rose Hill Drive’s new record, Moon Is the New Earth, which we reviewed in last week’s issue and which earned three stars in the latest issue of Spin, hits stores today. After the jump, check out the outfit’s rad new video for “Sneak Out,” directed by former Boulderite Mendel Rabinovitch…

Flobots’ eMusic… Uh…Conversion?

Flobots’s music has been characterized as a lot of things. Socially conscious? Check. Political? Sure. Insurgent? Sure. Incisive? Most definitely. But Spirtual? Perhaps to some, I guess. Christian? Uh… really? That’s a new one. Nonetheless, that’s exactly how eMusic — or somebody, CD Baby maybe? — has classified Platypus, the…

Over the Weekend…Robert Plant & Alison Krauss @ Red Rocks

Photos by Soren McCarty. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss Red Rocks Amphitheater Saturday, June 21, 2008 Better Than: Being at Stonehenge for summer solstice. As the electrifying frontman of Led Zeppelin nearly three decades ago, Robert Plant was the epitome of the über-rockstar. But Saturday’s show with bluegrass queen Alison…

Rearview: The Week in Review (6/14/08-6/20/08)

Here’s a wrap-up of all the spectacular coverage you missed this week on Backbeat Online while you were transfixed by Ice T’s calling out Soulja Boy for ruining hip-hop and telling the young star to “eat a dick” …..

Mile High Makeout: Missing In Action

Lately, a lot of people have been asking me where I’ve been. Once a fixture of the scene – whatever that might mean to you or your mom – I seem to have disappeared. A Facebook friend – yes, I’m over thirty, and I Facebook (I also verb) – recently…

Last Night…Creative Music Works @ the DAM

Photos by James Mitchell Evans. Creative Music Works Thursday, June 20, 2008 Denver Art Museum Better than: A typical Thursday night at the DAM Last night, I walked into what has to be one of the strangest events that the two-year old Hamilton Building in the Denver Art Museum has…

Last Night…Tom Waits @ Orpheum Theatre, Phoenix

Tom Waits played a extraordinary show in Phoenix at the Orpheum Theatre this past Wednesday night as part of his twelve-city “Glitter and Doom” tour. As far as we’re concerned, Waits is a god among men. The guy doesn’t tour a lot and his shows have taken on the holy…

Steve Porter

Steve Porter calls his brand of dance music Porterhouse, and if you’ll forgive the terrible pun, it is indeed pretty meaty. His mixes are full of thick, dense progressive tracks that meld the airy, sweet tendencies of trance with earthy, ass-shaking bass lines. By injecting a healthy dose of funk…

Spiralling Stairs

With the demise of Motheater last year, the Denver scene lost one of its brightest lights. Because of its artier, more adventurous use of sound and volume, the outfit never fit in with the post-hardcore scene or the experimental metal scene. Thankfully, Michael Reisinger and Weston Wilson bring that vision…

Q Blues and Jazz Lounge

I grew up in Cherry Creek North in the ’70s and ’80s, and it’s hard not to think about the days before the Cherry Creek Shopping Center replaced the old mall. To think about the very first record I bought: the twelve-inch single of the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”…

Mini Reviews

The Beach Boys, U.S. Singles Collection 1962-1965 (Capitol). Another dismal example of how the harmony-laced music of the Beach Boys can be whored out. Technology is lost on this sixteen-CD set. Without any notable bonus tracks, listeners are subjected to “singles” they already hear on the radio every day for…