Alright, we’ve got another fresh batch of local hip-hop for you. Hope you’re ready. We’ve got a Slam 1 collab with Tech N9ne from the Last Dragon mixtape, Trev Rich, the rapper formerly known as Rockie, reaches for new heights on a cut called “Top of the World,” TC Crook…
As a teenager in the late’80s, tenor saxophonist Chris Potter performed with the great Red Rodney. He later went on to collaborate with luminaries like Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Paul Motian, Dave Holland, and, more recently, he was a member of the Pat Metheny Unity Band. While he’s played as…
Today, Westword welcomes the latest addition to our family: our new, improved and ready-to-use Westword mobile app. Like the previous version, you can use it as a handy, thumb-friendly guide to Denver arts, entertainment and dining. Hungry for Asian? We’ve got you covered. Bored, with no weekend plans? Just check…
Besides being a long, seemingly unfounded piece of local-music folklore, as well as a now well-documented and utterly fascinating part of the Smiths mythology, the story of James Kiss is a redemptive one. It’s a case study of desperation, certainly, but it’s also a cautionary tale of a troubled young…
On Wednesday, March 6, Barry Fey will be inducted into yet another hall of fame, this one the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame. In honor of his induction, we’ll be running the stories that didn’t make his memoir all this week. Today, the late Leslie Haseman with a…
Some bands want to rock your face off. Some want to make you swoon with emotion. And still others are just looking to scare you half to death. Genessier, the new project featuring Ryan Policky of A Shoreline Dream and Eddie Breidenbach of the Omens, fits in that last category…
Passion Pit began in as a solo project of lead singer and keyboard player Michael Angelakos in 2007. The project quickly fleshed out into a full band that combined a keen sense for upbeat pop melodies with lyrics that didn’t exactly try to sugarcoat the complex emotional life and experiences…
On Wednesday, March 6, Barry Fey will be inducted into yet another hall of fame, this one the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame. In honor of his induction, we’ll be running the stories that didn’t make his memoir all this week. Today, Pam Moore shares what it was…
Glucose (aka Ben Gleason) makes hallucination-inspired music, so it’s seems only fitting that for a living he owns and operates an isolation tank — yeah, just like Altered States, only without William Hurt or the primal-DNA time portals. It’s a job that leaves him plenty of time to work on…
See also: More than a fascinating piece of Smithsology, the ’80s radio takeover is a story of redemption After examining the letters he wrote to his parents, which were included in the original Lakewood police file, and the details of that harrowing and fateful day in the fall of 1988…
On Wednesday, March 6, Barry Fey will be inducted into yet another hall of fame, this one the Denver & Colorado Tourism Hall of Fame, and that couldn’t be more fitting. Next to sports, music is probably our state’s biggest attraction, and we have Barry Fey to thank for that…
Mouse on Mars is a German duo made up of Jan St. Werner and Andi Toma, who started the project from their respective home cities of Cologne and Düsseldorf as a means of exploring sounds and organizing them into unconventional compositions. Whether this meant using traditional instrumentation, synthesizers, samples of…
Update, 2/25/13: The Smiths ’80s radio station takeover: Here’s what really happened according to the original offense report filed by the Lakewood Police Department, plus letters written by the suspect to his parents prior to the incident. By Dave Herrera and Josiah Hesse Well, so, we finally got to the…
Whoa, whoa… We just had a batch of killer local hip-hop to present last week. Are you telling me there’s already a whole new set of juicy cuts to be enjoyed? Yes. That’s exactly what we’re telling you. It can’t stop and it won’t stop. First, we have a new…
Toro y Moi started as the solo project of Chaz Bundick, who took his solo musical endeavors to greater and greater heights of sophistication on a series of releases with the encouragement of his friend from school, Ernest Greene of Washed Out. Live, Bundick has likewise progressed from his early…
Aside from touring as a solo act under the VibeSquaD moniker, Aaron Holstein has found the perfect balance between being a highly sought-after EDM producer and his duties as a father. Following a successful stint on Bassnectar’s Vava Voom tour, Holstein has settled in for 2013 by touring with electro-jam…
There’s nothing wrong with cover songs. In fact, before Sam Cooke and the Beatles shifted the established paradigms, singer and songwriter were two entirely separate professions. And there’s also nothing wrong with a musician recording a cover album in the twilight of his career (Johnny Cash’s American Recordings attests to…
The Ruby Suns are the brainchild of Ryan McPhun, whose New Zealander ancestry led him to the land of his father before he joined his first band. Before that, he had played along to Nirvana in his parents’ garage. That experience, coupled with what he learned as a member of…
Kaoru Ishibashi (aka Kishi Bashi) came straight out of Berklee with a degree in film scoring and went right into performing, first with Barnum’s Kaleidoscape and then with his own group, Jupiter One. Along the way, he had stints with Regina Spektor and Sondre Lerche, and he was also a…
Country singer Mindy McCready is thought to have taken her own life this past weekend, on the front porch of her home in Arkansas. That part of her story has been widely reported. What you may not know, however, is that toward the end of her career and, ultimately, her…
Update, 2/22/13: So this story of the Smiths fan who held a station here hostage in the ’80s? It’s true…well, sort of. We caught up with former station employees and found the news coverage. Everyone has a different recollection it seems. “In 1987 a distressed young man in Denver, Colorado,…
By David Thorpe While perusing Insane Clown Posse’s Twitter timeline, like a person does, I came across something interesting: Our favorite rap clowns announced a new update to their official smartphone app, which I didn’t even know existed. For the advancement of pop journalism and human knowledge in general, I…
