Not so long ago, MGMT was like many underground bands in America playing small clubs and relatively low key shows. But even by the time of the release of its second album, 2007’s Dave Fridmann-produced Oracular Spectacular, the band was already in the midst of its meteoric rise to popularity…
Andy Bothwell, aka. Astronautalis, has oft times been labeled as the Tom Waits or Hunter S. Thompson of underground hip-hop. Like many others in his position, he began honing his skills in high school, battling on corners while climbing rank amongst industry-friendly peers. His unhurried and intelligent prose quickly became…
Justin Mauriello, head of the I Hate Kate trio, is only in his mid-twenties and already has a seasoned career. At the beginning of the last decade with his first band, Zebrahead, he found respectable success both here in the States and in Japan. In 2004, he put all of…
Since 2005, Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire has been fusing the spiky and hyperkinetic dynamism of grindcore with death metal’s unremitting darkness and sonic heaviness. Never content to settle on a mere sound, this Denver band challenges itself to create new depths in the expression of the…
With close to six months of postponed release dates under its belt, two official videos already out in advance of its supposed release on June 15, and almost every one of its tracks leaked all over the internet, Drake’s much anticipated first full-length, Thank Me Later, has generated a ton…
Our Rough Mixes entry focusing on 50 Cent in this week’s issue only contained excerpts of our recent conversation with the rapper. In advance of his show tonight at the Fillmore, we’ve posted our entire exchange with the stunningly emaciated MC after the jump…
For the second week in a row, album sales reached their lowest point in the history of the SoundScan era. “Indie” bands, meanwhile, continue to chart unexpectedly high: This week, The Black Keys are number three, Band of Horses is number seven and LCD Soundsystem is number ten. But these…
Trace Bundy has quietly been going about his business as a musician for about ten years now. But, really, calling him a musician doesn’t quite do justice to what the guy does with a guitar. With a pioneering finger-style technique that incorporates up to five capos across various strings of…
The Disco Biscuits aren’t just about the jam scene – this year’s installment of their summer music festival Camp Bisco will feature, among many others, LCD Soundsystem, Method Man, Ghostface Killah & Raekwon and Denver’s own Pretty Lights. The Biscuits have actually been incorporating electronics in their music since their…
This week’s signs of the music industry’s apocalypse: 1. The National had the highest selling debut album in the country this week, good for number three overall (behind Justin Beiber and Lady Antebellum). 2. This was the worst week for album sales since SoundScan started keeping track in 1991. Q:…
This week’s Rough Mixes entry focusing on Emily Frembgen contained excerpts of our recent chat with the singer-songwriter, who’s packing up her guitar at the end of June and heading by to New York. Luckily she’s not leaving us empty-handed: Her new CD, Always With You, is a gorgeous disc…
Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats (and kittens) behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up…
Some bands require creative tension or mercurial relationships to provide a spark. In our Local Natives Rough Mixes piece this week, we learned that this is not the case for these five So-Cal dudes. They’re in a band because they like being around each other, and the music starts with…
Looking for something to smooth out your Friday and ease you into the weekend? Oh, man, look no further. We’ve seriously got just the thing. Glass Gold, the brand new album from the Greg Harris Vibe Quintet is as easy on the ears as Brooklyn Decker is on the eyes…
In this week’s paper, we ran excerpts of Andy Thomas’s recent conversation with the members of Kinetix in Rough Mixes. That Q&A barely scratched the surface. After the jump, you’ll find not only Thomas’s exchange with band in its entirety but the transcript from Dutch Seyfarth’s recent chat with the…
Makeout Point is a relatively new Denver band you can call post-punk because it’s literally true: At least two of the four members used to be in hardcore bands. They’ve settled down now with fuzz pedals and melody, and you can hear the lead single from the upcoming 7-inch Night…
Every Friday we spotlight the hottest cats (and kittens) behind the decks in the MHC, grilling them to gain some insight on what it takes, exactly, to get the party rocking, to find out about their most treasured crate digging experiences and what they really think when we stumble up…
As expected, B.o.B.’s Adventures of Bobby Ray is the number one album in the country this week. Of course, it only needed to sell 84,000 copies to do it. As Billboard notes, this is the first three-week run of no albums breaking 100,000 since February of last year. Cue alarm…
Being a junior in high school is all about experiencing things for the first time — your first girlfriend, your first kiss, your first car. But seventeen-year-old Cherry Creek High School junior Zach Heckendorf is clearly not your typical high schooler. While his peers are still trying to figure out…
With his latest album, Orchestrion, Pat Metheny takes the player piano concept to a completely different level, putting a new spin on what could be considered a “solo” project in the process. He’s backed by an ensemble of acoustic instruments (several pianos, drum kit, marimbas, “guitar-bots,” dozens of percussion instruments…
First known as Oblio Duo and then Oblio Duo + the Archers, the newly christened Oblio’s Arrow makes music as mercurial as its name. Over the past few years, the ever-shifting outfit — which revolves around singer-songwriters William Duncan and Steven Lee Lawson — has crafted a body of work…
That a person could be in two hugely influential bands is rare enough, but John Lydon also became something of an icon for punk rock and experimental music. The Sex Pistols were instrumental in bringing punk rock to the attention of people worldwide, whether they liked the music or not…
