Music

The ratio of bands that play emo to the ones that have any clue about the genre’s rich tradition is pathetically small. But the Forecast serves up more than a history lesson. With its debut album, Late Night Conversations, this coed quartet from Illinois resurrects the taut, melodic urgency of…

What’s in a name? A whole hell of a lot, if yours sucks. After starting life in 2003 with the awkward moniker Tobias Jupiter, The FlashBangs adopted their current tag a few months ago — and picked up a Best of Denver award for Best Band Name Change in the…

DJ John Acquaviva has been blazing a trail in the dance scene since its earliest days. From launching the Plus-8 imprint with partner Richie Hawtin in 1989 to his involvement in pioneering Final Scratch technology (and his subsequent stake in Beatport.com), Acquaviva has been all about pushing the scene forward…

From their perch on the stage of the Bluebird Theater, the members of Matson Jones look almost like shadows. Drummer Ross Harada, limbs splayed, pounds a beat as bare as a rattling skeleton. Next to him, Matt Regan coaxes groaning notes from the belly of his upright bass. Seated before…

After draining a fifteen-dollar bottle of cabernet sauvignon with Eddie Turner, it’s hard not to laugh when he jokingly refers to Park Hill as a “bluesman neighborhood.” Just blocks east of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the renowned electric guitarist shares an upscale home with his girlfriend, Terri,…

In a tiny, cramped bedroom studio in east Denver, producer/MC Solpowa scrolls through beats on his computer while his cohort, MC Fist of Fury, aka Shunfist, alternately scribbles on a notepad and quietly recites the lines of verse he’s just penned. The warm smell of colitas hangs in the air,…

It takes balls to put out a DVD of your band superimposed over historic footage of the Beatles at Shea Stadium. But testicular fortitude has never been in short supply when it comes to Denver’s Wanker. Brains, perhaps — but that’s another kettle of one-eyed fish. On Saturday, June 25,…

It takes a lot more than just being able to mix records and look cool doing it for a DJ to stand out these days. Even well-established jocks like Steve Lawler are aware that to stay ahead of the pack, you’ve got to do something to make your sets special…

Don’t get a Chevy,” warns Sonya Decman, bassist for the Symptoms. “Bad crash-test ratings.” Sprawled in the living room of guitarist Josh Bergstrand’s Highland home, Decman is giving advice to Bergstrand’s roommate, Eli Mishkin, who is shopping for a tour van for his own band, Hot IQs. But like some…

I’m disappointingly normal,” Craig Finn insists. “I watch a lot of baseball. I’m a huge Twins fan. I listen to music, hang out with my wife, drink beer, whatever. It’s very average-American.” The Hold Steady frontman may indeed be normal, but his band is anything but. In fact, the New…

As Brave Combo founder Carl Finch talks about polka from an office phone in Denton, Texas, his passion for the multicultural art form knows no bounds. But get him going about the mainstream perception of his chosen trade (he plays accordion, guitar and keyboards and handles most of the singing…

“People pay me well to work them out, and then they avoid me,” Christophe Cranberri says with a laugh. “You can tell me your goal is to lose fifty pounds — you’ll lose seventy just trying to get away from me.” It’s 2 p.m. on a sweltering Wednesday afternoon, a…

Perhaps the only thing more self-indulgent than issuing a double album is planning a surprise party for yourself and then feigning astonishment when your guests emerge. Many such releases have been ostentatious excursions of masturbatory significance, while others (Bitches Brew, London Calling, Sign of the Times, Life After Death) have…

BEP’s commercial breakthrough, 2003’s Elephunk, may have been a sellout, but the relentless catchiness and gleeful stoopidity of its hip-pop moves generated guilty pleasure. This time around, however, the guilt’s often by association, and the pleasure’s in shorter supply. Several of the cameo-laden tunes here are moderately effective, including “Like…

Just in time for the 32nd edition of Telluride’s namesake bash (June 16 through 19), Rounder has released a CD and separate DVD documenting the event’s thirtieth anniversary, in 2003. Both projects exemplify the non-traditional nature of the gathering — an approach that usually pays dividends but comes with some…

Getting older and wiser means taking the guilt out of your guilty pleasures. Annie serves up opulent dance pop — all white fur coats and milk served in champagne glasses, the kind of thing you might expect from an unlikely mating of Beyoncé and the Tom Tom Club, or Vanity…

Andrew Douglas’s art-house documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus gave David Byrne a good enough reason to expand his worldbeat label with a soundtrack. Accompanying troubador Jim White down the back roads of the ol’ Confederacy with a 300-pound statue of Jerusalem Slim in the trunk, this collection features Appalachian…

With Commit This to Memory, Motion City Soundtrack has carved a milestone in music history. Behold: the worst rock record you will ever hear. Okay, so that’s a pretty strong claim — after all, the CD’s insipid, Weezer-ass- licking-Jimmy Eat World sound is hardly offensive. Tight and spotless, Commit This…

The lo-fi crusade of the ’90s seems to have left almost as many casualties as the Summer of Love did — only instead of burned-out old hippies, we’ve been bequeathed with bummed-out ex-slackers, still slouching in some post-collegiate cloud of dirty socks, pot smoke and scratched Sebadoh records. Landlordland’s laundry…

Stevens is generating big buzz among local scenesters these days, and that acclaim has placed a considerable burden on her latest full-length. But while I’m Okay shows promise at times, it can’t quite live up to the hype. Unlike those singer-songwriters whose repertoire sounds like the same tune with a…