The 2016 Underground Music Showcase: four days of numerous shows, countless forms of entertainment and music fans spilling onto the sidewalks of South Broadway. Yet one of the most striking impressions of this year’s UMS is that it felt smaller. Not smaller in terms of lacking quality or crowds, but…
Chicago rapper Vic Mensa, real name Victor Kwei Mensah, is one of the most respected new names on the circuit. From his beginnings with the group Kids These Days to his collaborations with Chance the Rapper in the collective Savemoney, right through to his recent team-up with Damon Albarn’s virtual…
It’s been a couple of months since we published our list of “Ten of the Best DJs in Denver Right Now,” but the electronic music scene in Denver is so rich and vibrant that we were never going to do it justice with just ten entries. A follow-up was always…
A reunited LCD Soundsystem headlines Red Rocks on Tuesday, August 2 and Wednesday, August 3, while Warren Haynes heads up the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration tonight at Red Rocks and Hard Red Rocks, featuring RL Grime, Savoy, Keys N Krates and more, is at the venue on Thursday. Also this week…
Indie-pop band Strawberry Runners is scheduled to perform at the 2016 Underground Music Showcase tonight, Saturday, July 30, capping off a string of high-profile local dates. You might want to make sure you catch this set, however, as the Denver-based band is about to soon become less Denver-based. Primary songwriter, guitarist…
Music festivals can be cruel to first-timers. While you’re dealing with sunburns and stolen backpacks, there’s always a properly prepared individual nearby, looking effortlessly comfortable — and not sharing their secrets. Denver’s Underground Music Festival presents its own unique challenges, since it takes place over multiple days and an entire…
This weekend two of the greatest rock bands of the ’80s are performing together at Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities. Typically, bands whose greatest commercial popularity happened more than twenty years ago find themselves playing a nostalgia circuit of state fairs and the like, but the Church and…
Yoni Wolf and David Cohn have helped to shape and influence the sound of underground hip-hop as we know it. Under their respective creative monikers of Why? and Serengeti, the two artists have collaborated with several other artists on numerous projects. Yoni & Geti is their current joint effort with…
Bassnectar brings Bass Center to Dick’s Sporting Goods Park this weekend with a stellar lineup that includes Flux Pavilion, Flying Lotus, Lupe Fiasco, Minnesota, Wu-Tang Clan, Porter Robinson and more while festivals like RockyGrass, the UMS and Heavenfest are also happening this weekend. The Avett Brothers continue their three-night stand…
Having played with the likes of the Allman Brothers Band, Gov’t Mule, and Grateful Dead spinoff band the Dead for many years now, guitarist Warren Haynes is like a figure from a jam-band fan’s wet dream. Naturally, the North Carolina native is also a bit of a favorite among Colorado…
In 2016 the Minneapolis-based rock band Poliça released its latest album United Crushers. Recorded as with musicians and songwriters working together more closely and in real time than on the group’s previous records, United Crushers has a more organic feel. The songwriting also suggests a willingness to take greater risks both…
Martina McBride headlines Band Against Cancer: The Sarah Cannon Tour, which stops at 1STBANK Center on Saturday, October 8 and also features Thompson Square, Cassadee Pope and Hudson Moore. Tickets ($33.75-$125) go on sale on Friday, August 5 at 10 a.m. Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees, which features, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller…
The creation of Final Friday — the monthly music walk and urban bazaar in Denver’s River North Arts (RiNo) District — was John McCaskill’s answer to a more “bar-based participating block party” that doesn’t involve blocking off the streets. For five years now, the owner of MegaFauna apparel, art and…
The 2016 Underground Music Showcase kicks off tonight, Wednesday, July 27 and runs through four more hectic days at venues on South Broadway. The whole shebang can be a lot to take in, so below our writers weigh in on a few of their top picks of bands worth staking…
Editor’s Note: The Denver Bootleg is a series chronicling the history of local music venues by longtime Denver cartoonist Karl Christian Krumpholz. Visit Krumpholz’s website to see more of his work…
Last night Denver hosted Pinegrove, the New Jersey-bred indie-rock band whose name you should get used to hearing, as its album Cardinal will no doubt land on many year-end best lists. Yes, it’s only July. But Pinegrove offers an American rock that strikes deep and sticks with listeners: a layered…
The 2016 Underground Music Showcase kicks off this Wednesday, July 27 at 3 Kings Tavern, with a performance from indie-rock band Whitney. The Chicago outfit began as a duo consisting of drummer/singer Julian Ehrlich and guitarist Max Kakacek. Ehrlich was an early member of Unknown Mortal Orchestra, having known UMO bassist Jake…
Less than a month from now, school will be back in session for most students and families across the country and the summer tourist season will wind to an end. If you’re expecting out-of-town guests during the last weeks of summer vacation — and we know you are because everybody…
It’s just before midnight on a Sunday, and I’m lying on the kitchen floor at the Corner Girls’ house. One room over, people are gathered in front of the TV to un-ironically watch Avril Lavigne music videos. Below me, Bourgeois Girl is finishing up recording for its upcoming EP in…
In the fading afternoon light, Joe Mekan sits near the entrance to Gathering of the Juggalos, smoking a Marlboro and watching his fellow Juggalos pour into the festival. He’s wearing a black tank top and black beanie; tattoos cover his arms, including a work-in-progress he’s doing himself, starting with a…
Emo gods never die. At least ones with the passion and musical talent of Andrew McMahon, who last night opened a show lineup in Denver that included Panic! at the Disco and Weezer at Fiddler’s Green. McMahon began playing piano at the age of nine and by the time he…
Every few years, a new band is declared the “New York band” of the moment. And yet, all rock bands who find themselves inextricably intertwined with New York are not necessarily linked to the same New York as those that came before. The Velvet Underground’s clique-y Warholian fantasyland was the not…
