Guitarist David Torn has scored a number of films, including Traffic, The Order and Lars and the Real Girl, and has played on dozens of film scores, so it’s not surprising that much of the material on only sky, his brand-new solo album on ECM, has a cinematic quality. Torn…
Jon Spencer is prolific, taking turns in underground noise-rock and garage acts like Shithaus and Pussy Galore. He formed Jon Spencer Blues Explosion almost 25 years ago in New York City, and the trio has not lost an energetic step, as its nearly seamless set at the Bluebird Theater in…
Denver music lovers: We are excited to announce some new additions to the 2015 Westword Music Showcase lineup. Join us on Saturday, June 20 for the 21st annual Showcase featuring some of the most interesting acts working in Colorado today, including Land Lines, Rubedo, The Dirty Few, Bud Bronson &…
Colin Ward seemed to be an endless river of music. Ward wrote, played, recorded and produced more than forty albums between 2008 and 2013, releasing a new piece of work every three or four months through the Bandcamp page he held under the name Alphabets. But in late 2013, it…
Charles Joshua Ogzewalla, who went by Josh, died on the evening of April 10 from a combination of colon cancer and liver failure. Doctors originally told him he wouldn’t make it to February. “He had that tattoo on his arm that is the Dylan Thomas quote — ‘Do not go…
Slovenian industrial band Laibach return to the Gothic Theatre this Saturday, May 23rd for its first show in Denver in over a decade. The group, comprising cultural provocateur and multi-media artists will share the bill with Ministry. Whereas the latter came up in a relatively free cultural climate in Denver and Chicago,…
The Fort Collins Musicians Association (or FoCoMA) announced the winners of its 8th Peer Awards, which are determined by a vote among musicians. The list is a worthy introduction to the incredibly robust scene going on north of Denver. Many of this year’s winners are also nominees in our own…
Editor’s note: Each week, illustrator Noah Van Sciver shares his ongoing story of an 80s rocker on a road trip through his past with the readers of Backbeat. You can see more of Van Sciver’s work in his new book SAINT COLE from Fantagraphics books. Last Week’s Episode Of Rufus…
Love listening to music, but hate all the time and effort it takes to pick out something you like? Good news! There’s a burgeoning industry of vinyl subscription services, what they like to call “Netflix for record lovers,” making the rounds. The formerly arduous process of developing personal music taste…
Global Dub Festival brought Excision, Zomboy and plenty more to Red Rocks over the weekend. They did not manage to violate the venue’s new noise restrictions, but it was a party nevertheless. Photographer Miles Chrisinger was on hand to take pictures of happy teens, Colorado gear, weed gear and weed/Colorado…
There are few cultural events in Denver as well-run and enjoyable as Five Points Jazz. Evey year, the city’s Arts & Venues division organizes the fest, which features an impressive array of local and touring musicians along with food, shopping and a general block party feel. This year, photographer Brandon…
This week’s best concerts include Purity Ring at the Gothic, Bette Midler at the Pepsi Center and Diarrhea Planet at the Marquis. Read on for a full list of our picks! Diarrhea Planet$10. 7:00PM, Monday, May 18, Marquis Theater Streetlight Manifesto $22.50. 8:00PM, Tuesday, May 19, Ogden Theatre Purity Ring$25…
Widely considered one of the best live rock and roll bands going now because of its joyously exuberant shows, Diarrhea Planet does one better on the modern reinvention of classic rock without sounding like a specific band from the 1970s. Think more like Thin Lizzy impossibly influenced by modern garage…
This weekend’s FRIDAY, MAY 15 Global Dub Festival$39.95/$75 6:00PM Red Rocks Amphitheatre Chasin’ Crazy$10 8:30PM Grizzly Rose William Elliott Whitmore$16.75/$20 9:00PM Bluebird Theater Denver Ukefest 2015 $27-$130 7:00PM Swallow Hill Music Hall R. Ring$10-$12 9:30PM hi-dive SATURDAY, MAY 16 Five Points Jazz Festival FREE 11:00AM Five Points Tipper$40-$45 4:30PM Red…
It is rare for people to buy tickets to a concert in person anymore, let alone wait in line for those tickets. Tickets these days are more likely a code on your smart phone than a physical item. Rubedo wants to change that, at least temporarily. Tomorrow at noon, the…
Everyone loves a good concept album. We just love it when heavy metal artists take a central theme and develop it over the span of a cohesive collection of tracks to create an experience for listeners that takes us into an alternate world of sci-fi, Norse mythology, wizards, classic literature…the…
Kyle King was a guy you’d see at several Denver shows up through his untimely death on August 24th, 2009. As a student at Green Mountain High School, King was an avid music fan whose unmistakable, loud, silly and infectious laughter is something everyone remembers about the King. That and…
Tour de Fat — New Belgium’s comedy, music, art, pageantry, beer-drinking, and bike riding fest — will be celebrating its fifteenth year later this summer. For the first time, the tour will visit ten cities, with as many as 25,000 attendees at each stop. The musical lineup for the Denver…
The impact of MTV’s work — back when it was an actual channel for music — continues to endure for musicians as they create visual accompaniments to their songs. Sure, YouTube is alive and well today and there were many other ways music was paired with visual art prior to…
British pop stars are a different caliber of performer than their American counterparts; there’s an authenticity to their onstage banter, like when they move from behind the shiny persona for a few moments between songs to talk with the audience, it feels like there’s an actual human person underneath the…
Electro house producer and DJ Zedd brings its True Colors fall tour in support of his new album, slated for release on May 18, to the 1STBANK Center on Thursday, September 10. Tickets go on sale on Thursday, May 21 at 10 a.m. 3 Doors Down and Seether will be…
The video for “Making Breakfast” — Twin Peaks’ infectious, sarcastic mid-tempo Ween-meets-Pavement love song — is one of the most uplifting things the Internet has been blessed with in recent memory. Just try not smiling as young Clay Frankel sings lines like “I’m the one who loves you / don’t…
