An Evening with CAKE, Ogden Theatre 6/14/11

I Had a blast at this show. It was a a Packed house at the Ogden. This brings a energy that is ideal for CAKES quirky and fun sound!One of my Favorite highlights of the show was a crowd singalong with cake on "Satin is My Motor" and "Mexico" from their album Prolong the Magic. This brought up heat in the Ogden.








CAKE also performed some hits from the album Fashion Nugget: ""Frank Sinatra"", "Sickshifts and Saftybelts", and "Italian Leather sofa" just to name a few. Please enjoy he photos and feel free to leave your thoughts and reactions to this super cool Two nights in the Denver Music scene!

Yellowcard Interview

Groovey interviews Ryan Key and Sean Mackin of Yellowcard. Video by The Camurai himself Stu Kennedy of skfunphotos.com

EARTH WIND & FIRE @ Red Rocks: a Photo Blog 6/7/11

Rich Williams of the Legendary Band Kansas Interview

The multi gold and platinum album selling band Kansas has a new symphonic DVD out entitled There’s Know Place Like Home and will be playing Red Rocks on June 8^th. I spoke with the band’s guitarist Rich Williams who has been with Kansas since 1974 about what it was like to add 50 people to their band for the DVD, how he felt about reuniting with some former members of Kansas, and his thoughts on Red Rocks.

The new Kansas symphonic DVD There’s Know Place Like Home looks like it was a pretty huge undertaking. What was it like putting it together?

Rich Williams: You know the performing is really the easy part. We’ve done it lots of times ourselves and lots of times with symphonies. The hardest part was deciding where we were going to do it so that it made sense. You could have gone to Baton Rouge and played and I’m sure it would have been fine but it doesn’t make any sense. It wasn’t until we looked at going back home where we got our start in Topeka that things started to gel. We contacted White Concert Hall at Washburn University in Topeka to check out that facility and it turned out that the girl who runs it her father owns the music store that we hung around in back then so it really started to become a coming home event. Then every twist and turn started to make sense. So then we advanced the charts to the school and they had a chance to work on it long in advance so the music part was actually the easiest thing. Getting the stage prepared, the lights in, mobile trucks prepared, all that was a huge undertaking none of which fell on my shoulders. (laughs) That was a management and record company that handled all those things. We just stood there looked pretty and played that’s what our job was. (laughs) Afterwards, after the event there’s a tremendous amount of work in post production. There were ten cameras shooting so you have to look at every camera shot, determining which ones to take and then mixing the entire album with us plus a fifty piece orchestra.

When you approached the symphony what was their reaction to all of this?

Rich Williams: We did an album with the London Symphony Orchestra 13 years ago and we have been doing symphony shows ever since. So we’re pretty used to doing this and we have worked with a lot of colleges already. So we kind of knew what questions to ask and how to approach them plus we had a product to show in terms of something that they could hear. Larry Baird who is our conductor, he wrote all the scores, he started with the Moody Blues doing all the stuff for their shows he’s been doing this for a very long time so he know the way to explain through all of this to the schools or whatever. With a school it’s different because they’re not set up for advertisement, set up for marketing, or set up for selling tickets to these things so the learning curve is a lot different. Which means it will take more time to set it all up.

So with the college symphony shows do you ever get somebody who gets all star struck on stage with you guys?

Rich Williams: Well sometimes we’ll pull people from the city orchestras who are a little bit jaded and they have to be there and other times it’s “Hey this show is coming and who would like to perform on it?” and then you get fans who really want to do it and that’s fun. For some of the college kids they have never even heard of us, maybe some of them know us from their parents or from playing video games like Guitar Hero or Garage Band where we have stuff on it. The fun part working with the college kids is that they bring so much excitement to the table. They know that we have been doing this for a long time and it is inspiring to be around that energy.

For the DVD what was it like playing with Steve Morris again?

Rich Williams: We hadn’t worked with him since he was in the band and so that was really fun it was just like another day. He popped in and we had rehearsal and he was ready to go. He’s so good it doesn’t take him long to jump back in the saddle plus it was fun for Kerry and Steve to play together because they had never played together before because they were both in Kansas at separate times.

Were there any songs that didn’t work with the symphony and had to be shelved?

Rich Williams: The song Portrait it doesn’t work that well it sounds a little bit trite and it kind if takes some of the oomph out of it where a song like Cheyenne Anthem really comes alive with a symphony.

You guys are playing Red Rocks on June 8^th. Now what’s your take on that venue?

Rich Williams: I think this is our fourth time there. Of all the places to play that definitely has got to be in the top three and I really can’t think of anything I would put above it. There’s just something incredibly special about playing at Red Rocks. Universally with any musician I talk to when we start talking about favorite places when you mention Red Rocks its “Oh yeah, that is the place.” There’s a few places that you almost get nervous to play and Red Rocks is one of them. It’s an unexplainable feeling of “This is not a normal show”. There’s something like “This is an event” and an honor almost to be there. I don’t get butterflies very often but Red Rocks will do that. It’s just a very special night for the performer to be there.

The June 8^th show at Red Rocks is you and Jethro Tull do you have any openers on that show?

Rich Williams: No, I think it’s just the two of us. They invited us to play on their whole tour and we wanted to but they are not doing a lot of dates in the states, only select dates and the offer for us to go to Europe for a month came up do we had to jump on that but we said, “We can make the Red Rocks show.” If that would be okay and they said “Sure” which is really where we wanted to play (laughs) so it all worked out and I haven’t seen Tull in a long time so I’m looking forward to that.

kansasband.com

Interview with Klayton from Celldweller

Totally rad dude, awesome band, and we microwave pop tarts.

Loudness at Summit Music Hall

Japanese mega metal band Loudness made their mightyness be known at Summit. Jason Paul Roberts captured all the crazy decibels with his camera.

Come see the guitarist from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band!

Check it out! John McEuen co founder of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is giving a FREE workshop on: Recording Techniques, Live Playing Techniques, Guitar Tricks, Music Industry, Film Scoring, and More!!! Thursday April 21st Starz Theater # 6 at the Tivoli!! Hosted by Chris Daniels!!

A Butt Load of Local Bands Together for Japan!

MOUNTAIN OF ARMS // JAPAN EARTHQUAKE RELIEF BENEFIT - LIMITED EARLY BIRD TICKETS!

18+

Saturday, April 23 at 4:00pm - April 24 at 2:00am

Location

City Hall

1144 Broadway

Denver, CO

By bringing Denver together using music and creative expression, we aim to raise money and awareness within our community for Japan.

100% proceeds goes to AmeriCares: A disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization.

Performances include:

Bop Skizzum - http://www.facebook.com/bopskizzum

Churchill - http://www.facebook.com/churchilltheband

Petals of Spain - http://www.facebook.com/PetalsOfSpain

The Foot. - http://www.facebook.com/findthefoot

Eldren - http://www.facebook.com/EldrenMusic

My Body Sings Electric - http://on.fb.me/g113f0

Air Dubai - http://www.facebook.com/airdubai

Rob Drabkin - http://www.facebook.com/robdrabkin

Prime Element - http://on.fb.me/dTdU7E

Snubluck - http://on.fb.me/eQmcra

Carbon Choir - http://www.facebook.com/carbonchoir

Fresh Breath Committee - http://on.fb.me/fHhdDH

The HeyDay - http://www.facebook.com/theheyday

Input - http://www.facebook.com/InputHipHop

Caleb Slade - http://www.facebook.com/calebslademusic

Sam Lee - http://www.facebook.com/samuel.pritchett

Mirai Daiko - http://on.fb.me/i9Ypzo

Deejay Lobot - http://on.fb.me/fLxIB2

DJ Soup - http://www.facebook.com/LikeDJSoup

Water Babys - http://www.facebook.com/waterbabys

DJ Nutmeg - http://on.fb.me/fwXU7H

and more...including a special guest.

Artists include:

Benjamin Wright Coleman - http://benjaminwrightcoleman.com/

Isaiah Espinosa - http://www.facebook.com/isaiah.espinosa

Enrique Parrilla - http://www.eparrillaphotos.com/

Tickets $12 presale at

http://www.coclubs.com/show/detail/42416

Metal Wars in Full Swing

Click on it to view the big one!

April 2011 Cover Story

CMB - What makes us tick?
Click here to read

Kirk Windstein of Crowbar Interview

Kirk Windstein of Crowbar pretty much does my favorite intro of all time in this interview on the Metalliance Tour.

Live Local Music Series' first outdoor show of the year: Bluegrass band Kantankerous

Drowning Pool: A night at The Summit

Drowning Pool: A night at The Summit.
by Scott Barker

We had the chance to see Drowning Pool on tour in support of their latest self-titled album the other night. The band was coming off a three month hiatus and came to town to celebrate St. Patricks day with KBPI. After going 1-1 at foosball with some lucky KBPI contest winners, and waiting for the five opening acts to warm up the crowd Drowning Pool was ready to smack Denver right in the face, and Denver LIKED it. Drowning Pool is known for their in your face, aggressive rock as well as their soul wrenching and melodic ballads. They didn't disappoint on this official night of Leprechauns and green beer, and the energy they gave off was palpable as the crowd rocked all night long with the hard luck band from Texas. Drowning Pool is on their third vocalist thus far, having lost their first lead man to an unexpected death from an undiagnosed heart condition and their second when he cited "personal reasons" on the eve of a hometown show. Luckily for Drowning Pool, the old saying third time is the charm has a ring of truth to it in this case, and Ryan McCombs appears to be here to stay. Drowning Pool on St. Patrick's day took a tried and true formula of kick-ass rock and excellent musicianship and reminded everyone in Denver why they belong in the upper echelon of hard rock acts. If you had the luck O' the Irish with you on March 17th, you were at the Drowning Pool show, and you got rocked green style with DP.

Pics by Matthew Zinke

Trust Company Interview

Chattin with Trust Company, who are one of my fave bands, in their tour van about the new album and why you should never eat ham that's been floating in the cooler for 3 days.

Interview with Travis from The Human Abstract

Darkest Hour at the Marquis

The Atticus Metal Tour 3 hit the Marquis with headliners Darkest Hour and wicked awesome support acts like The Human Abstract. Lens ninja Matthew Zinke was on site to snag up a bunch of cool pics.

T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow: Wants to Thank All their Fans and the CMB Crew

T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow had the amazing opportunity to work with Colorado Music Buzz in the CMB Bandwagon/ Best band in Denver contest! Working with Chris, Groovey, WARGOD, Stu, and all the people that were involved was an experience that will never be forgotten! Over 70 awesome screaming fans made their way out to Summit Music Hall to take part in the show case! Unfortunately, T4T fell a few votes short of advancing, being beat out by eventual overall champions James and the devil. T4T wants to thank all of their fans for coming out and making this an awe-ing experience for the band!

 T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow were, thanks to the fans, the winners of the online voting portion of the competition. For winning, they received 16 hours of recording in Cherry Sounds Studio, and a photo shoot with Stu Kennedy at SKFUNPHOTOS.comThe photo shoot was AMAZINGLY FUN, as the guys and Stu hung out down town in short shorts and knee high sock's getting some cool photos that you will all reap the benefit of March 19th!


above -- Stu receives a Special thank you for a successful photo shoot!--

Ethan from T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow says "From beginning to end, this whole experience was something unforgettable for us. From the voting process, to the show, to the awards we are still receiving, it was just awesome!" The boys in T4T really felt like rock stars with the "red carpet" treatment that CMB gave them. They were especially excited about the video interview part with Groovey! "It was something we all dream, and talk about doing" says Ethan "We felt like rockstars. We always youtube interviews with our favorite bands, just this time we were the band!"


 
Keep an eye out for upcoming T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow events! They will be releasing their EP Midnight Marathon: March 19th at the Marquis Theater. Soon after the T4T boys hit the road to Gunnison, CO. to play along for long time idols, REEL BIG FISH! Make sure your going daily tobattleofthebands.com to vote for T-Shirts 4 Tomorrow to be a part of Warped Tour 2011!!!!
 

Darkest Hour interview

Groovey sort of interviews Darkest Hour but it's basically just festive good times. Darkest Hour swears a lot so don't teach your kids how to speak using this video.

COLD WAR KIDS 3/8/11, Ogden Theatre, Denver

Playing to nearly sold out crowd at the Ogden; Cold War Kids came through with a strong show built of fan favorites such as "Hang me up to Dry" , "Hospital Beds" and "Santa Ana Winds" to name a few!









Making sure to add in a mix of songs from their newest Album "Mine Is Yours". featuring songs such as "Royal Blue" , "Skip the Charades, "Louder Than Ever". Cold war kids gave the house an overall great evening of a soulful rock along with an easy likable stage presence.

Links to learn or listen:

Band Web

Social:

March 2011 cover - James and the Devil - BW2 Winners!

Bandwagon 2 Finals Slideshow! Enjoy and props to all the Bands in the Contest!

BandWagon 2 Finals! - slide show

Straight Line Stitch Interview

Less Than Jake at Summit Music Hall

Stu Kennedy of skfunphotos.com was at the sold out Less Than Jake show this past weekend and got some seriously wicked shots. Here a few of them be:

The Wedding Singer - Aurora Fox Theater

The Aurora Fox is pleased to present the regional premiere of The Wedding Singer - The Musical Comedy (with music by Matthew Sklar, lyrics by Chad Beguelin, and book by Chad Beguelin and Tim Herlihy) running February 11 - March 6, 2011 (Feb. 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26, March 4, 5 at 7:30 pm and Feb. 13, 20, 27, March 6 at 2:00 pm). Tickets: Adults - $24/Seniors and Students - $20/Groups of 10+ - $18. Not appropriate for young children due to adult language and situations. For reservations contact The Aurora Fox Box Office at
303-739-1970 or order tickets online: www.AuroraFox.org.

Based on the hit movie starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, The Wedding Singer celebrates the 80’s in earnest. Nominated for five Tony Awards, and with a score that pays loving homage to the pop songs of the 1980s, The Wedding Singer offers three weddings, a bar mitzvah and a zany trip to a Vegas chapel of love, keeping things hopping in this affectionate look back to the days when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer just might be the coolest guy in the room.

Robbie Hart (Ben Dicke) is New Jersey's favorite wedding singer. He’s the life of the party - until his own fiancée (Amanda Earls) leaves him at the altar. Broken-hearted, Robbie proceeds to make every wedding as disastrous as his own. Enter Julia (Brianna Firestone), a sweet, girl-next-door-type who befriends Robbie and wins his affection. But Julia is about to be married to a slimy Wall Street shark (Travis Risner), and unless Robbie can pull off the performance of the decade, the true girl of his dreams will remain nothing more than a dream.

The Fox is excited to welcome special guest Emmy-nominated Director/Choreographer Mandy Moore back to Colorado for this production. Ms. Moore has been a choreographer and guest judge on FOX’s hit dance show, So You Think You Can Dance for the past 6 seasons. She has also appeared on television shows such as The Drew Carey Show, Malcolm in the Middle and That '70s Show, as well as the films Austin Powers and Bubble Boy. In addition to So You Think You Can Dance (for which she earned an Emmy Nomination during Season 3), Mandy has choreographed for several television shows including American Idol.

Specializing in jazz and contemporary dance, she also worked for Celine Dion on her Taking Chances concert tour. She currently teaches at the Edge Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles.

Mandy and her sister Missy Moore (a local actress, theatre arts instructor, fight choreographer and Assistant Director for The Wedding Singer), both from the Denver area, are pleased to be teaming up together to bring the retro splash and color of the 80’s to the Aurora Fox stage, including several outstanding production numbers, and a few fun surprises.

THE CAST:
Ben Dicke* as Robbie Hart
Brianna Firestone as Julia
Sue Leiser as Rosie
Piper Arpan* as Holly
Amanda Earls as Linda
David Nehls* as George
Robert Michael Sanders as Sammy
Ensemble: Travis Risner . Noah Lee Jordan, Rob Costigan*, Benjy Schirm, Danny Harrigan, Steven Burge ,
Michelle Sergeef*, Ashlie Amber Harris, Jennifer Gilliam, Andrew Fisk, Emma MacNeil, Wyatt MacNeil
Band: David Nehls, Jason Tyler Vaughn, Scott Smith, Tag Worley, Robert Michael Sanders
* member of Actor’s Equity
Directed/Choreographed by Mandy Moore, Assistant Director – Missy Moore, Music Direction by David Nehls, scenic design by Charles Dean Packard, costume design by Meredith Murphy, lighting design by Nick Kargel, sound design by El Armstrong, Props design by Katrina Niemisto, and Stage Management by Equity Stage Manager, Lindsay Sullivan.

February 11 – Opening night party (post-show). Eat, drink, mix and mingle with cast/crew/staff and fellow Fox attendees following the opening night performance.
February 13 – Renew Your Vows at The Fox! During intermission, we’ll have an officiant onhand to re-marry love-struck patrons who will receive a special “I got married at the Fox” certificate and a photo of the ceremony. A great gift for that special “Valentine”. There is no charge to participate in the vow renewal ceremony. February 18 – Free Beer Friday. Enjoy a beer on the house before the show!
February 19 – 80’s Karaoke Contest (pre-show). Bust out your inner-Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper, Poison, or Whitesnake for this fun 80’s sing-off. The winner gets to sing with the band following the show.

Saturday's Met Opera in HD: "Nixon in China"

This Saturday, February 12, American composer John Adams makes his Metropolitan Opera debut when he takes the podium to conduct his 1987 opera, Nixon in China. The performance will be seen in movie theaters across America, courtesy of the ongoing Met in HD series and its partnership with Denver's Fathom Events. The opera begins promptly at 11:00 Mountain Time, with a running time (including intermissions) of about four hours.

Colorado venues will include several Denver-area Regal Cinemas (Downtown Pavilions, So. Colorado Blvd, Greenwood Plaza, Colorado Mills), AMC Theatres (Westminster, Highlands Ranch), and Cinemark Theatres (Aurora, Boulder), as well as movie complexes in Fort Collins, Greeley, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Durango. Check local listings for your nearest location.

This Adams opera is appearing for the first time on the stage at New York's Metropolitan. The work received its world premiere at Houston Grand Opera (one of its commissioning agents) and deals specifically with a single historical moment, the momentous face-to-face meeting between Richard Nixon, the sitting American president, and legendary Chinese ruler Mao Zedung. Four other main characters are depicted in the opera (libretto by Minnesota poet Alice Goodman): First Lady Pat Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Jiang Qing ("Mrs. Mao"), and Premier Zhou Enlai.

Appearing as Nixon is baritone James Maddelena, the man who created the role nearly 24 years ago. This is a reunion of sorts since the producer of the Met's debut, Peter Sellars, was also responsible for the Houston premiere. The remaining cast includes soprano Janice Kelly [Pat Nixon], tenor Robert Brubaker [Mao], soprano Kathleen Kim [Jiang], bass Richard Paul Fink [Kissinger], and baritone Russell Braun [Zhou].

Composer Adams is known for his minimalist musical style, and the score to Nixon in China is straight out of his most minimal period. A review of last week's opening night performance by New York Magazine columnist Justin Davidson cites, "the importance of a transformative score that demonstrated the full range of what Minimalism could accomplish." The concept that minimalism has a "full range" seems incongruous, but the music does create a surprisingly fulsome sound behind the singers.

Anyone who has come of age in the decades since Nixon's historic 1972 visit is probably puzzled by all the hoopla. But China was seen then in the role of the great unknown, a Communist giant so intent on its own internal vision of ethnic cleansing— a twenty-plus year orgy of the subjugation of its intellectual elite, even to the point of mass murder on a near-Stalinistic scale— that it had virtually no political or economic links to the outside world during that time. The China of today, with its Western-style industrialization and modernity, is vastly different from the country Mao and his cronies had ruled with an iron fist. Some historians claim only a Republican president like Nixon could have bridged the gap with a Communist regime and survived what might have been another "Red" hunt, had a Democratic president made a similar effort. Others liken Nixon's efforts to those of Commodore Perry in the 1850s, when a Shogun-dominated Japan finally opened its doors to trade with the West.

The events depicted in Nixon in China occasionally seem as distant from us as the world of the Genoan doge appears in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra. But the music serves to remind us that this is truly a modern work, no matter how much librettist Goodman tried to create a timeless story of the clash of two cultures.

BW2 Semi-Final lineup - VIP and all Access tix avail!