It’s already that time again. Kids are gearing up for their return to school and just as quickly as summer arrived, it is coming to an end. But you wouldn’t really think it’s winding down by looking at the many excellent acts coming here this week.
Music gossip-mongers have been expecting an album battle between Lizzo and Beyoncé, who dropped Renaissance (Parkwood/Columbia) at the end of July. Normally, the two artists wouldn’t be lumped together, though Beyoncé’s turn from the serious politics of Lemonade to the dance mélange of the n…
It’s hard to draw a lot of attention when you’re on the same stage (or in the same studio) with Wayne Coyne. The Flaming Lips frontman has been the focal point of his band since the dawn of alt-rock, with longtime producer Dave Fridmann coming in a distant second.
Mike Pettiford was a treasure to the 719 punk community. With “Ideas are bulletproof” proudly tattooed across his chest, he lived his life his way, and his way was punk as fuck! Pettiford was most commonly known up here in the Springs as Pueblo Mike, and in his hometown of Pueblo, his monike…
The summer of 2021 belonged to young artists in the emerging genre of pop-punk, exemplified by Olivia Rodrigo and Pom Pom Squad. This year, Beach Bunny and The Linda Lindas take the bold sound up a notch. Emotional Creature (Mom + Pop), the second full-length by Beach Bunny (founded by Lili …
It’s not all that unusual for bands to radically evolve their sound over time, but Mexico City’s Petite Amie have somehow managed to do that over the course of a single album.
The words “Afrobeat” and “Afrobeats” may not sound all that different, but the music they describe definitely does. The former dates back decades, to a time when the politically strident Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, universally recognized as the “King of Afrobeat,” combined West African rh…
Colorado Springs Post-hardcore band Castele is embarking on a two-week West Coast tour with fellow 719 metalcore group Mnmlst. They’re playing shows out west with California’s He Films in the Clouds on the first half of the tour, and down through Montana/Wyoming/Colorado on the second half w…
In the seven years since Charley Crockett’s self-released debut album reached No. 11 on Billboard’s blues chart, the Texas honky-tonk soul musician has covered a lot of ground, both musically and geographically.
The tearful expression in the cover art of Lizzo’s latest, Special (Nice Life/Atlantic), combined with the album’s opening lines, might mislead the uninitiated into thinking Lizzo is offering a grief-filled confessional. But within minutes, savvy and well-produced cuts like “The Sign,” “Abou…
For up-and-coming performers, there is a tacitly acknowledged four-step process when landing a choice booking, reveals red-hot Tennessee troubadour Amythyst Kiah, speaking from first-hand experience. First she says, comes the initial idea — Band X is considering you for a specific number of …
The son of parents with Czech and Mexican roots, Ryan Flores’ eclectic music embodies his multicultural identity. He calls it “Chex-Mex” — the Gypsy-Latin flair of his songs uniquely reflect Flores’ identity, history and personality. Flores, who will be playing the next show in the Music at …
‘Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” So said Henry Ford, the 19th-century industrialist who, apart from that, has nothing to do with this story. But the collaborative spirit he spoke about is still being carried on, albeit in a more…
I’m currently sitting in a van while driving through Kansas while on tour. The smell of body odor, chips and the open road rises through my nostrils. Being on the road allows me to appreciate the music scenes in other towns. Touring especially makes me appreciate the incredible music scene w…
‘It’s hard to emerge from the shadow of a successful parent in any walk of life, and it seems to me particularly hard in the arts,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Larry McMurtry once observed. “Those who are wise, I think, generally don’t stay in the same art.”
Ever since their 2002 breakthrough album Source Tags and Codes, the Austin prog-rock ensemble ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead has moved ever further into sci-fi storytelling, even offering graphic novels and text short stories as album companions. The new XI: Bleed Here Now (Din…
Lettuce and Tower of Power with the Colorado Symphony, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, Morrison, July 20
This expert says there must be something like 72 different subgenres of metal, and so many artists have been combining elements to create different and newer sounds. It just so happens, there are several genre-defying events this week showcasing that outside-the-box artistry — and it ain’t …
Kentucky roots songwriter Joan Shelley has often expanded her repertoire with guest producers and engineers, like Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy. But her new album The Spur (No Quarter Records) reaches great heights without fancy production tricks or guest stars. She relies on Nathan Salsburg and James…
Look up “All-Star Band” in the dictionary of live music and the first entry you’ll find is Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, the former Beatle’s perpetually touring supergroup with a rotating cast of veteran pop stars taking turns covering their own hits. James Taylor & His All-Star …
Judging by the operatic precision of his vocals, fans might never guess that Grammy-nominated baritone Josh Groban actually possesses a razor-sharp sense of humor, one of the liveliest in showbiz. In fact, it took the film and TV world a few years to discover his secret, starting with a tent…
Colorado Springs’ nightlife scene continues to grow, and whether it’s music, performance art or comedy you’re searching for, there will be something going on somewhere this week that’s sure to make your evening.
Back before the dawn of ’80s electro-funk, horn sections played a major role in the world of R&B, and none more so than Tower of Power. While best known for their mid-’70s work with vocalist Lenny Williams, the Oakland band has broken the Top 100 no less than eight times with singles lik…
It seems almost a crime to have Regina Spektor be just the opening act for The Avett Brothers at Red Rocks July 10. The Russian-born singer-songwriter wrote some of the finest personal pop tunes of the 2005-2015 period, but remained largely silent after 2016 until the release of Home, Before…
There’s a long and often proud tradition of family bands: The Jackson 5, The Osmonds and The Cowsills are among the most well-known among those. Now there’s a new — and decidedly more modern — addition to that musical heritage: Liliac. Launched in Santa Monica and now based in Georgia, the g…
Do you hear those fireworks? Do you smell “freedom” and hot dogs? That’s probably because Fourth of July weekend is already upon us. The Fourth lands on a Monday this year and the lineup of shows leading up to the big day should get you ready for that long weekend.
Given Johnny Iguana’s track record, it would be all too easy to assume that his current band The Claudettes traffic in blues and R&B. This is, after all, a musician who spent his early 20s playing keyboards, onstage and in the studio, with the legendary Junior Wells, and has since worked…
East Bay, California, singer-songwriter Nicki Bluhm has released both solo albums and ensemble efforts with her band, The Gramblers, since the early 2000s. Her new album Avondale Drive (Little Knickers/Compass Records) clicks with near-perfection — slide guitars in opening track “Learn to Lo…
It’s been great seeing The Broadmoor World Arena have big production rock shows again. I get to visit the same place I frequented as an adolescent now that I’m an adult and watch others make the same memories I have. It’s great seeing younger kids experience their first big show and watch th…
Jonathan Meiburg had temporarily shelved his Austin, Texas, Shearwater band well before the pandemic, working with Emily Cross on the Loma project through two albums. Shearwater’s 10th studio album The Great Awakening (Polyborus) is the first new work since 2016, not counting several live an…
While he’s been described as a “living legend” and “national treasure” countless times, Charlie Musselwhite would probably prefer to be known as a down-to-earth Delta bluesman. With 40 albums, 14 Blues Music Awards and a couple of Grammys under his belt, the masterful harmonica player, South…
June 19, 1865, is an important date in American history, one that for too long went unnoticed by a big chunk of the country. Though the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on New Year’s Day 1863, it took 2½ years for the news to spread to all states where slavery was allowed. June 19, 1865 …
Post Malone (Austin Richard Post) has been one of the most difficult to characterize of modern R&B/pop singers. Though often tagged as a rapper, his first three albums have been largely melodic affairs with little spoken street poetry. His 2019 release Hollywood’s Bleeding began a proces…
One of the most well-attended events at this year’s Cannes Festival was a nighttime beach screening of This Is Spinal Tap, the 1984 mega-cult film that would inspire a generation of parody bands, mockumentaries and guitar amps that go to 11.
‘God’s wounds! It’s a ‘rock’ version of the myth of Hermaphroditus!” sniped the self-professed “Dean of American Rock Critics” Robert Christgau in his review of Nursery Cryme, an early-’70s Genesis album that helped birth Britain’s much-maligned progressive rock genre. Rolling Stone reviewer…
It was May 26, 1999 — Oh wait! I mean May 26, 2022. Music often has a way of acting as a time machine in our lives. When we hear a certain song or album, it can transport us back to where we were when we first heard those tunes. On May 26, 2022 in Loveland, the nostalgia was deep as Limp Biz…
Shed no tears for drummer Janet Weiss, who left Sleater-Kinney three years ago, because she can still rely on her long-standing duo Quasi with former husband Sam Coomes and her status as a member of Jon Spencer’s new band HITmakers. Now, she’s unveiled the debut album of yet another new band…
‘For every action,” Issac Newton once said, “there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Canadian-bred vocalist Megan James learned that lesson the hard way in April of 2020, when Purity Ring — her ethereal duo with keyboardist/producer Corin Roddick — decided to roll the dice and release thei…
At The Black Sheep on East Platte Avenue last week, it took less than 20 minutes for GWAR’s lead singer, Blothar the Berserker, to "decapitate" their President Joe Biden onstage, and you’d be surprised how much blood spurted out (some of which narrowly missed our camera). But it’s a routine …
Swedish songwriter Lykke Li and Northern Ireland vocalist SOAK (Bridie Monds-Watson) began careers as outsider stylists, but both singers’ new works make significant changes by adding 1990s arrangement elements. Li’s EYEYE (PIAS Recordings) shifts production to a distinct lo-fi ethic, and th…
‘They thought i was their queen but i said no no you must self govern with kindness and patience,” tweeted Sarah Beth Tomberlin (who records under the name Tomberlin) last week during a break from driving with her band through the endless prairies of Wyoming.
