Best Shows in Denver 3/5/20 – 3/11/20

Lower Dens performs at Globe Hall on March 6, photo by Yassine El Mansouri

Thursday | March 5

PUP, photo by Vanessa Heins

What: PUP w/Screaming Females, The Drew Thompson Foundation
When: Thursday, 3.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: PUP started out as one of the new wave of pop punk bands but the inherent psychological insight of its early albums blossomed most fully on its unusually thought-provoking 2019 album Morbid Stuff.

What: Paul DeHaven album release Echoes and Overtones w/Lake Mary/Chaz Prymek
When: Thursday, 3.5, 8 p.m.
Where: Ubisubibi Room
Why: Paul DeHaven (formerly of Paper Bird) is releasing his latest album Echoes and Overtones tonight at an intimate show at Ubisububi Room in the basement of The Thin Man. Time time out DeHaven assembled songs from a large batch of material and found a tonal and thematic resonance among his more mellow compositions and brought in old live favorites “Souvenir American Gun” and “I Love You Love Me” to round out an album of pastoral, vivid stories tied to specific times, seasons and places in DeHaven’s life.

Friday | March 6

Down Time, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Lower Dens w/:3LON
When: Friday, 3.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Lower Dens once again gave us a vibrant, evocative electronic art pop album with 2019’s The Competition in which the band uses creativity as a vehicle for exploring the pain and confusion of the current era of history with human civilization at a perilous crossroads between environmental apocalypse and fascism and a path toward a more compassionate and sane future.

What: Down Time – Hurts Being Alive release w/Bluebook and Bellhoss
When: Friday, 3.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: A sonically diverse billing with three of the best bands out of Denver’s indie rock underground will perform this night with Down Time releasing its latest album Hurts Being Alive.

What: Day of Jubilee: Marcus Church and Sliver
When: Friday, 3.6, 5 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: Rescheduled from February – Marcus Church is a Denver-based power pop trio. Its gently jangle-y and fuzzy melodies sound like singer/guitarist Dustin Habel spent a whole lot of time obsessively listening to only records produced by Mitch Easter and the complete discographies of Teenage Fanclub and Big Star. That also means there’s a tender earnestness to the songwriting imbued with an uncommon tenderness and humanity. Sliver bypassed the 90s grunge nostalgia wave of recent years by making no bones about its musical roots in its hard driving, explosively emotional guitar rock. Mudhoney influence aside, its aesthetic is most informed by both the self-effacing, sensitive, introspective side of Pacific Northwest noise punk and the wiry, politically conscious end of DC hardcore.

What: Murder By Death w/Amigo the Devil
When: Friday, 3.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre

What: Church Fire, R A R E B Y R D $, Kid Mask, Scary Psychological, Motherfucker Theresa and Buttstuff
When: Friday, 3.6, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Kool Keith w/DJ A-L opheliasdenver.com/e/kool-keith-85677324183
When: Friday, 3.6, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

What: Cult of Luna w/Emma Ruth Rundle and Intronaut
When: Friday, 3.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall

Saturday | March 7

Best Coast, photo by Eddie Chacon

What: Best Coast w/Mannequin Pussy
When: Saturday, 3.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Best Coast is touring in support of its 2020 album Always Tomorrow, its first in five years following a period in which singer Bethany Cosentino felt creatively tapped out and the record is about coming back from that space of feeling trapped inside your own anxieties and emotional exhaustion.

What: Dale Watson w/Chella & The Charm
When: Saturday, 3.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

What: The Trujillo Company, Elektric Animals, Boot Gun, Holy Roller Baby
When: Saturday, 3.7, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Monday | March 9

Victoria Lundy, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Freq Boutique 36 featuring Victoria Lundy
When: Monday, 3.9, 8 p.m.
Where: Fort Greene
Why: This is the three year anniversary of synthesizer showcase Freq Boutique that includes good food and drink as well as a synth open mic. This edition will include a performance from Theremin and synth artist Victoria Lundy whose own compositions are steeped in pop and the classical avant-garde. She has performed in various Denver bands including The Inactivists, The Goofus Device and Carbon Dioxide Orchestra.

Wednesday | March 11

Plague Garden, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Gene Loves Jezebel w/Red Wing Black Bird and Plague Garden
When: Wednesday, 3.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box
Why: This is the Michael Aston version of Gene Loves Jezebel, the influential 80s post-punk/new wave band whose eclectic aesthetic and lush melodies influenced a segment of what became alternative rock in the 1990s. Opening is darkwave/shoegaze one-man act Red Wing Black Bird whose 2019 album Too Klaus For Comfort was a unique fusion of synth pop and industrial post-punk and swirling guitar. Plague Garden’s flavor of modern death rock seemingly draws inspiration from the early Cure records and Valor Kand-era Christian Death. The duo recently released the haunting and harrowing LEFT IN THE GRAVE.

What: The Wonder Years w/Free Throw, Spanish Love Songs, Pool Kids
When: Wednesday, 3.11, 6 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall

Best Shows in Denver 04/13/18 to 04/18/18

Sharone & The Wind, photo by Nic Smith Photography

Friday | April 13, 2018

Fever Dreams, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Fever Dreams, Galleries, Baby Baby, Hair Club
When: Friday, 04.13, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: The psych rock and neo-classic rock wave that energized and later burned out in an underground music world in America and beyond perhaps inadvertently spawned a post-wave of rock bands who took those roots and did something more interesting and original. That’s what this show represents. Fever Dreams is a noisy psychedelic band in a gentle mode. Not dream pop because it’s more gritty than that, but fans of that music will find much to like with Fever Dreams. Galleries came out of some guys who listened to a whole lot of Led Zeppelin and fuzzy 90s rock but through the process chamber of imagination and practice Galleries manages to not really sound like their forebears.

Who: Sharone & The Wind album release w/Mr. Atomic, The Undertakers and Amalgam Effect
When: Friday, 04.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Sharone & The Wind releases its powerful sophomore album, Enchiridion of Nightmares tonight. Check out our interview with Sharone here.

Who: Diva 93 (Minneapolis), 269 Bone (Minneapolis), Merma & Roberta (ABQ), Polyurethane
When: Friday, 04.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Diva 93 sounds like a combination voice sampling, tape collage infused minimal synth band. What public access stations were to cable conglomerates in the 80s and 90s, Diva 93 is big, synth pop bands—making a virtue of lo-fi, low budget sounds with sheer creativity.

Who: Big City Drugs, DJ Erin Stereo, Mara Wiles, Louis Johnson and Adam Cayton-Holland, benefit for Corey Rhoads who needs a new kidney
When: Friday, 04.13, 10 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Some heavy hitters in the local comedy and music world are coming together for this event to benefit Corey Rhoads who needs a kidney transplant. In a sane world, events like this wouldn’t be necessary but we haven’t lived in one for a long while now. So if you show up you get to see Denver-based comedy stars Adam Cayton-Holland, Mara Wiles and Louis Johnson as well as DJ sets from Erin Stereo and a musical performance from Big City Drugs, a band that is comprised of comedians but whose take on punk rock is cathartic and not trying to fit into some subgenre of punk with riveting results.

Saturday | April 14, 2018

Jonny Fritz, photo courtesy jonnyfritz.com

Who: Meet the Giant, Plastic Daggers, Dead Orchids
When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Meet the Giant is releasing its “Drive” single this night. The Denver-based post-punk band makes some pretty lush and moody music for a three piece. “Drive” in particular is reminiscent of the criminally overlooked L.A. 80s post-punk world and bands like 3D Picnic and Opal. Except that Meet the Giant doesn’t sound dated or retro. Also on the bill are Plastic Daggers, a punk band with a drop of rockabilly in its sound without sounding like they’re trying to cop some neo-classic rock vibe, and Dead Orchids. The latter has a kind of chamber pop quality except the music sounds more like the members of the band are more than passingly familiar with Crime and the City Solution and its raw emotional quality is enhanced, not tempered, by melancholy melodies and introspective atmospherics.

Who: The Residents
When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The Residents have been outweirding most other bands since 1969. This is the legendary avant-garde pop/performance art troupe’s first time in Denver and you can read more in our interview with The Residents’ art director Homer Flynn here.

Who: The Still Tide (EP release) w/Panther Martin and Bluebook
When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Still Tide have long been one of the most interesting pop bands in Denver. So it comes as no particular surprise that the band has developed a bit of a following outside the Mile High City as well. Anna Morsett’s voice, seemingly well suited to Americana as well as rock, with her widely expressive intonations is immediately striking but inside the context of well-crafted melodies that balance a sense of yearning and acceptance. The group’s new EP, Each, After is more introspective and sparse than 2017’s Run Out but not short on that EPs energetic quality. Since art-folk band Bluebook is also on the bill, perhaps Julie Davis will join The Still Tide on a number or two.

Who: Amigo the Devil w/Jonny Fritz, Hang Rounders and DJ Brian Buck
When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Amigo the Devil took the Gothic Americana thing and focused on the murder ballad tradition of the blues that influenced that music to produce a pleasant-sounding but disturbing body of work about the musings of serial killers and the like. Denver’s Hang Rounders aren’t exactly mining similar thematic territory, it’s just a legit country band from people who aren’t short on a healthy sense of humor and irony. But there’s really no irony here. 2017’s Outta Beer, Outta Here may have an amusing title and maybe the musicians don’t take themselves too seriously but it’s a refreshingly not pop-country or overly retro country offering. Jonny Fritz is to modern country what Ray Stevens was to an earlier era of country. That is to say he takes anecdotes and stories from life most other songwriters among his peers wouldn’t use for fodder for songs. Also, an impeccable sense of melody and the ability to engage the audience with a truly idiosyncratic performance in an established musical style. Turns out Ray Stevens is not just the novelty songsmith for which many may remember him, he’s a talented songwriter with an interesting body of work and the same could be said of Jonny Fritz.

Who: Trevor Green
When: Saturday, 04.14, 12-4 p.m.
Where: Mile High Spirits
Why: Trevor Green is a multi-instrumentalist solo songwriter who performs with a brace of guitars, some didgeridoos and various other instruments that he brings into the mix as he performs. He looks like a guy who wandered into town from looking for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine but got mixed up with Native American mystics in the desert and decided to seek his fortune in making music that reflected the sounds and ideas he learned there rather than delusions of some modern day quest for Cibola. All fanciful references aside, Green’s 2016 album Voice of the Wind is a rewarding hybrid of New Age world music and Americana-inflected rock. That Green can pull this music off live with some creative stage set-up is impressive in itself.

Sunday | April 15, 2018

Trevor Green, photo by Will Thoren

Who: Trevor Green
When: Sunday, 04.15, 10 p.m.
Where: Mountain Sun
Why: See above for 4.14.

Who: The Jinjas, JINMO (Tokyo) and Gothsta
When: Sunday, 04.15, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: JINMO is a prolific avant-garde guitar and synth composer from Tokyo who is currently touring throughout the US with musical performances and demonstrations of the methods and technology he uses to make his often ambient and soundtrack-y songs. Denver’s The Jinjas is a synth/dance rock duo. Who even knows what exactly to call Gothsta except anti-climate and environmental destruction and how she more or less describes herself as “Depression melodica, polka Euroamericana.” Which tells you you’re in for something different than any one of those singly could completely encompass.

Monday | April 16, 2018

Cradle of Filth, photo by Artūrs Bērziņš

Who: Cradle of Filth w/Jinjer and Uncured
When: Monday, 04.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Cradle of Filth has been placed in various heavy metal subgenre buckets. But it doesn’t really fit the black metal mode because Dani Filth has never taken the Satanic imagery itself too seriously—it’s part of the theater and it’s amusing to somehow still rankle stuffy, conservative religious folk without really trying. Maybe Cradle of Filth was in the beginning and certainly now more akin to the kind of Gothenburg death metal sound. Except Cradle of Filth is from England and not tapping into that whole “viking metal” thing either. Is it Goth metal? What does that even really mean? Cradle of Filth is also part punk and the political subtext of much of the band’s music along with its embrace of the feminine in spirituality from its 1994 debut album The Principle of Evil Made Flesh to its most recent record, Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay from 2017. But whatever one might think of the music, Cradle of Filth brings theater to all its shows in a way that some of its more commercially successful peers don’t.

Wednesday | April 18, 2018

The Breeders, photo by Marisa Gesualdi

Who: The Breeders w/Flasher
When: Wednesday, 04.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Kim Deal of Pixies started The Breeders in the wake of the release of Surfer Rosa as an outlet for releasing music she wrote. Early on she recruited Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses and various other musicians to record the first album, 1990’s Pod, and the follow up EP, 1992’s Safari. While the records found an audience on college radio it wasn’t until the 1993 post-Pixies album that The Breeders found a wide audience with the release of Last Splash and its hit single “Cannonball.” While, in terms of publically-released music, The Breeders haven’t been the most prolific band all of its albums have been imbued with a swagger, honesty and sense of humor along with finely crafted, fuzzy rock songs that have a warmth and relatability that many rock bands lack. All Nerve, the group’s 2018 release, its first in a decade, is surprisingly vital and a showcase for Kim Deal’s ear for expressive nuance in tone and creative song dynamics. It’s a mature record without sounding like Deal is toning things down.