Dragondeer and Jim James are our picks for the best shows around Denver this week. See you there, and if you don’t make it out, follow our music musings on and our selfies on .
Dragondeer — Bluebird Theater
Psychedelia, traipsing blues, plain-old rock ‘n roll — if its in the jukebox at your local dive bar, Denver four-piece Dragondeer can probably do it justice. More often though, they sound like a jukebox on the fritz, smashing the aforementioned genres together into the sort of uncanny hybrid from which the band takes its name. On Friday, Dragondeer will headline the Bluebird Theater, a sizeable show for a local of its stature, and its first since signing with Boulder-based management company Madison House. RL Cole and Mama Magnolia will perform in support. Tickets are $5-$15 via .
Jim James — Paramount Theatre
Behind the beard and ’70s glam sunglasses and in front of the cape he so often sports, My Morning Jacket frontman Jim James has never been coy about singing about open-your-eyes ideals that are as lofty as the mountainous rock that scores them. In his solo project, James can border on preachy, but with a howl of a voice and a keen ear for auditory flavor, is revelatory as often as not. Proggy and funk-flecked, “Eternally Even,” his latest, is in itself reason enough to turn out to see him at the Paramount Theatre on Dec. 3: It makes the last My Morning Jacket album sound like outtakes. Tickets are sold out.
