Justin Ringle and his band Horse Feathers played to a half-full Hi-Dive on Monday. Next time he’s through town, expect a lot more people. Photos by Laurie Scavo.
Recently signed to the female-run Kill Rock Stars label, Portland-based Horse Feathers is surprisingly difficult to find current information on. Tidbits online include photos of varying band members, and they mention frontman Justin Ringle’s open mic roots, along with the addition of Peter Broderick to the line-up a few years ago. While Horse Feathers’ live shows are known [...]

Brightblack Morning Light are fans of the great outdoors. File photo.
It’s no secret that certain subgenres of music owe their entire existences to drugs. They wouldn’t have been created had it not been for the illicit substances that brought them out of the human psyche, or they wouldn’t have ever found an audience had it not been for the altered states of teenagers the world over.
Or both.
We could debate this back and forth at length. But even some of the artists recognize this fact. American [...]

As consistent as he is, Chris Isaak could use a little change in his shtick. Photos by Candace Horgan.
Chris Isaak is a smooth cat – the inoffensive guy who flirts with your girlfriend and makes you like it. But over the course of his career, Isaak’s music and shtick has taken on some of that likable, if bland, inoffensiveness.
If you’ve seen Isaak once, you’ve seen him a million times. His music hardly changes, as shown at his Thursday show at the Botanic Gardens. Even the [...]

Idina Menzel, who played the Newman Center on Tuesday, has the chops to carry a show with her singing alone. File photo.
It’s not easy to go from being a singer who does a bit of acting to being an actress who does a lot of singing.
But a diva like Idina Menzel — who scored big by wrapping her powerhouse voice around speaking parts in “Rent” and “Wicked” — has to do something after conquering Broadway. Her new pop album and concert tour make perfect career [...]

Joey Burns and an abbreviated Calexico lineup stopped for a special-engagement show at Boulder’s Fox Theater last Friday. Photos by Nick Groke.
An all-Tucson lineup of Calexico pulled into Boulder for a little respite from the desert heat Friday at the Fox Theatre. The mariachi-spiked indie outfit, which took the stage just after 11 p.m. after opening acts Newton Faulkner and Eric Hutchinson, scorched through a one-hour set of 13 songs.
Called upon to perform in Boulder during a radio convention in town last week, the band [...]

Keb’ Mo’ keeps it clean and bright. Messy, he ain’t. Photo from kebmo.net.
With simple riffs and expressive lyrics, the Type A Mo’ (a.k.a. Kevin Moore) delivers a sort of the dentist’s-office version of the gritty, fiery Delta Blues that spilled from the ramshackled banks of the muddy Mississippi Delta a century ago.
Under a threatening sky at Denver’s Botanic Gardens last Tuesday, Mo’ offered his version of the blues: upbeat, poppy, gospel-tinged and reggae-lilted licks, all anchored in timeless chords. They call it “contemporary blues” and [...]

Hearts of Palm frontman Nathan McGarvey (shown here playing the first of two shows, this one at the Hi-Dive) had a very busy weekend at this year’s UMS. Photo by Brian Carney
FRIDAY
On Friday evening, I tore down the side streets of southeast Denver on my bike, convinced that I had already missed my very first show. Even though the sun had retreated from its savage mid-sky post, I can tell you: It was still a mistake to wear a silk shirt for the ride.
After locking [...]

Joseph Pope III (playing Rock the Cradle at the UMS) will rock your face. Photo by Doug Beam.
The 8th annual Denver Post Underground Music Showcase — or the UMS, as the cool kids call it — took over 20 venues along South Broadway last weekend. It was an outrageous showing of local love with more than 100 local bands and tons of other singer-songwriters, stand-up comics, DJs and more.
Here are Doug Beam’s photos from the weekend.

Yonder Mountain String Band’s lengthy set closed down Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Saturday. Photos and text by Candace Horgan.
Perhaps no other band has so successfully melded a rock ‘n’ roll sensibility with bluegrass music as Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band. While the String Cheese Incident and Leftover Salmon both started as bluegrass, they always played more on the rock and jazz side of the spectrum. Yonder Mountain String Band takes traditional bluegrass, mixes in some rock elements, yet stays close to traditional bluegrass in a [...]

Photos and text by Joe McCabe.
The first time I saw Lucero, they played the Bluebird Theater to maybe 100 people, but they played their unique blend of punk and country for two and half hours. Taking requests from the crowd, ranging from songs from their demo tape to covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jawbreaker, Lucero packed the evening with songs. The band’s charm and swagger won me over.
Since that night five years ago, I have made an effort to see any Lucero show I [...]