Meet 100(ish) of Denver’s best bands: Part three

Your new favorite band is from Denver — you just have to find it! No small task in a city with thousands of artists and hundreds of venues, we know — but you can start this weekend at the Westword Music Showcase. More than 140 of our favorite local artists…

Looking to the future for Denver’s music scene

This weekend’s Westword Music Showcase, a one-day festival in the Golden Triangle neighborhood, will feature more than 140 of Denver’s best bands. But they aren’t the only people who make up the music scene here; it takes venue owners, label heads, talent buyers, engineers, fans and so much more to…

The six best reasons to go on tour

There are a lot of ways to travel the world. Most of them involve being extremely wealthy. However, if you weren’t born with the gift of mommy and daddy’s golden checkbook, you can still find a fairly respectable way to see the world, provided you’re OK with sleeping on a…

Meet 100(ish) of Denver’s best bands: Part two

Your new favorite band is from Denver — you just have to find it! No small task in a city with thousands of artists and hundreds of venues, we know — but you can start this weekend at the Westword Music Showcase. More than 140 of our favorite local artists…

How Diplo and 2 Chainz are flourishing in a dying industry

Once upon a time, 2 Chainz and Diplo were working toward fame in the traditional lanes of the music industry. But that was before they learned the lucrative art of making the Internet laugh. 2 Chainz gave Skip Bayless one of his chains on ESPN2. You can order Diplo-ordained weed…

Meet 100(ish) of Denver’s best bands: Part one

Your new favorite band is from Denver — you just have to find it! No small task in a city with thousands of artists and hundreds of venues, we know — but you can start this weekend at the Westword Music Showcase. More than 140 of our favorite local artists…

The (Illustrated) Westword Music Showcase map

Editor: This Saturday’s Westword Music Showcase features over 150 bands on 17 stages. That’s a lot to navigate — you can see the full schedule here. But while the venues aren’t completely divided by genre, there is a certain type of music you can generally expect in some of these…

Tom Petty, Phantogram, Bastille tickets on sale this weekend

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, who are set to release Hypnotic Eye in July, visit Red Rocks for a two-night stint on Tuesday, September 30 & Wednesday, October 1. Steve Winwood opens both nights. Tickets ($51.50-$127) go on sale on Friday, June 20 at 10 a.m. Phantogram returns to the…

Booka Shade on the difference between DJs and producers

Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger are the two Germans behind Booka Shade (which plays Beta on June 21). The group, in its latest iteration (it played briefly in the ’90s as well), has developed a sort of cult following in the American EDM market. Its sound is different from much…

The eight best concerts in Denver this week

There’s plenty to keep you busy this week. James Taylor brings his musical featherbed to Red Rocks for a couple nights, and Nas and Flying Lotus will headline Feed the Rocks right after that. The outdoor activities continue with the kickoff of both Sonic Bloom and Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Note…

Premiere: The new “Culture” video from hip-hop collective Planes!

Denverites Adrian Garcia (A-Trax), Lennard Daniels (Lennyx Dublyn) and Jeremy Barnes (JT) make up the core of the hip-hop collective Planes! The three have all been rapping since they were young, in the last few years started working together. “It just kind of came together,” Garcia said. “Everybody compliments each…

The eleven best shows in Denver this weekend

Summer was underway. It was. But just in case you were waiting to roll down the windows and put away your sweaters, the Ink Monstr pool party series kicks off on Sunday. There are shows for those of us no interested in thigh exposure as well — Reckless Kelly is…

No one is topping Lionel Richie at Red Rocks

Lionel Richie is real, there’s no question. His star was born decades ago and solidified through so many hits that I had even forgotten some of them were his (and the Commodores’, of course.) It was refreshing to see someone so real perform; the last time I was at Red…