If you’re unfamiliar with METZ, you’re behind on the buzz. Their loud, crunchy, loud, fun, loud, shit-hot, loud and aggressive (did we mention LOUD??!!) style is exploding into venues and destroying hipsters in its wake. It was on display last night at the Larimer Lounge, and we were there with HeyReverb.com. Take a few...
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At the risk of eliciting a chorus of jaded groans: Yes, Peter Hook & the Light, led by the bassist for the influential Joy Division, performed a rousing rendition of the post-punk swan song “Love Will Tear Us Apart” last night at the Bluebird in the first of two encores. Did you think they...
Read more →The mighty UMS weekend may be drawing to a close, but it's far from done. The last day brings some of the best of the bunch, and you won't want to miss any of it. All three days previous have been more than spectacular - and have shown off the Denver scene for...
Read more →The 11th Annual UMS is now in its third day, and rounding the inside corner to slingshot itself into full, reckless, dangerous and foolhardy speed, and you're going to want to grab on for dear life about now, and hold on. It's going to get a lot more beautiful before too long, and there'll...
Read more →Day one's in the books, and it looks as if the 11th Annual UMS is off to a roarin' start! But - if you thought last Thursday night's activities were brilliant, epic, miraculous - or tragic, melancholy, maudlin - hold on to your pants. The momentum's just beginning! Friday is the New Black Here are our toppers...
Read more →It's here! And it's definitely THE highpoint of Denver's summer music season! A full Red Rocks schedule, the Warped and other festival tours, multiple nights of Widespread Panic - even the monster U2 show in Invesco Field at Mile High - all pale in comparison to the magnitude of this weekend's pinnacle. The 11th...
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Kevin Barnes doesn’t need to play the omnisexual androgyne anymore. That was how it felt Sunday night anyway, when Of Montreal played the Bluebird Theater. While their Sgt. Pepper’ed, more pastoral oeuvre has long since faded, some of the over-the-top erotic energy that the band is known for...
Read more →At the Larimer Lounge on Saturday night, Jenn Wasner mentioned that she and bandmate Andy Stack of the Baltimore band Wye Oak, were tired. And justifiably so, having come from Salt Lake City that day, and in the very beginning of a 10-day stretch of their current tour that travels through the midwest and...
Read more →What a delight Kate Nash turned out to be at her first-ever visit to Denver for an Ogden show last Saturday night. I expected her to be perfectly satisfactory; what I didn’t expect was to be challenged by and enthralled with this rising Brit-pop sensation, right from the first warbling of her remarkable voice...
Read more →After last Monday night’s show at the Ogden Theater, I’m convinced that Sonic Youth are immortals - beings that refuse to age. What else explains their uncanny ability to remain constantly relevant, prescient - and continuously young - in the face of a culture hell bent on replication of the popular, and often the...
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Having seen Jim Yelenick in his other bands — the hardcore Pitch Invasion and the hilarious acousti-punk Sputnik Slovenia — I figured I’d seen the gamut of his personas, and loved them all. But none topped his loose adaptation of Joe Strummer in a full nun habit, wildly leading a packed house through a...
Read more →I reviewed Bobby Bare Jr.'s show at the Hi-Dive on South Broadway last Wednesday, September 15, for Denver Post Reverb, and Bobby took the time to comment. I was shocked, and pretty stoked - but not too surprised. I've seen him a number of times, and have known him to be damned personable, approachable...
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Cheerleaders, men in diapers (one of them covered in blood) and a clown with a mohawk making balloon animals. That was the scene on the Gothic Theatre’s stage last Friday night. All of that, and there was also a rock band — Warlock Pinchers, one of Denver’s legendary locals from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s —...
Read more →One impossibly acceptable truth: four days and nights of anything might be just about too much. This is what I found myself thinking last night as I carried pieces of a guitar, smashed onstage at the 3 Kings Tavern by a member of the local band Gangcharger, from venue to venue at the end...
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Now that we've got two, fat and sassy days of the Underground Music Showcase under our belts, the real monster is being unleashed. This weekend, as in festivals past, begins the real UMS proper, and there are more bands, artists, venues, drinks and awesome food today than both of the previous two days combined! ...
Read more →Here's to the hope that you had a fantastic first night of the 10th Annual Underground Music Showcase all along about a mile of South Broadway last night! Having been to all ten years' shows, I have to say last nights showing was among the most impressive so far. There were lines about 20...
Read more →Denver, The UMS, Day 1, Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 - It's come around again. The UMS - Denver's pinnacle celebration of the local music scene - is upon us, and this year, the festival's tenth anniversary, this beast has grown, nearly to the point of bursting. Four days, over 20 venues, and over 300 bands,...
Read more →Judging from the sounds that burst from the Larimer Lounge stage last Saturday night, Colorado is no longer landlocked, and Denver now sports beachfront property. Those sounds came from local instrumental legends Maraca Five-0, who have reunited after six years to debut as opener for Slim Cessna’s Auto Club — one of a short list...
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Mud. Mud and muppets. Those two words best describe the feeling inside the Ogden on Tuesday night, as the Melvins took over the venue on their last U.S. date before heading up to Canada.
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As far as psychobilly goes, you’re not likely to find a better practitioner than Jim “Reverend Horton” Heath and the rest of his legendary trio, the Reverend Horton Heat. The Texas group graced the Boulder Theater last Friday night in the middle of a multiple night tour in Colorado. Too bad the Boulder crowd...
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Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band kicked off their tour of the American West last Saturday night at the Larimer Lounge fresh and full of their characteristically furious country blues spirit, and added some punchy humor to the mix, to boot.
Read more →Leave it to Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, who have put on one of Denver’s best live shows for more than a decade, to be the only band that could outdo their own reputation. That’s what happened last Wednesday at the Bluebird in the first of two New Year’s Eve celebratory shows. The six-piece not...
Read more →For the first 25 minutes of their set at the Bluebird Theater Monday night,Melt Banana blasted the crowd with a melange of noise and darkness — pierced only by the members’ head-mounted lights — that felt like my imagination of shock therapy, without the benefit of that thick piece of rubber they shove in...
Read more →It’s no shock that DBCs are gaining a following, and quickly. As Banker said in a recent interview: “We want to play music that is crazy fun, but also has some substance to it. We want people to have so much fun they shake where they stand.”
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