Sleater-Kinney at The Ogden Theatre October 13, 2019: A Sustained Spark of Hope in Bleak Times

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

When Janet Weiss, longtime drummer of Sleater-Kinney, said she was leaving the band and partly due to creative differences on the band’s 2019 album The Center Won’t Hold, it came as a shock to most fans. I had seen Sleater-Kinney the first time in October 1998 at The Fox Theatre in Boulder and Weiss was a standout performer among impressive turns by Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker. Having then found out about the band through Brownstein’s insightful commentary on her influences in Roni Sarig’s book The Secret History of Rock I was not let down when I decided to see if it was possible to see Sleater-Kinney in Colorado. Picking up Call the Doctor and then most recent album Dig Me Out felt revelatory like this band was saying things that needed to be said at a time when not a lot of that was in the public discourse. I also saw Weiss perform in other bands over the years. In Quasi basically I was awestruck by her raw power and versatility and how her style seemed different in that band as well as when she was a drummer in Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks.

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Before Sleater-Kinney split that first time I’d seen the bands four times and bring along noteworthy artists on the tours the way independent bands used to and sometimes still do. Bands like Ailer’s Set, The Gossip and The Quails. I was in retrospect impressed with how the band brought on Rainbow Sugar and The Pauline Heresy to open at The Fox as Rainbow Sugar became one of my bands at that time and so did Pauline Heresy when Yoon Park and Claudine Rousseau formed the post-punk band Sin Desires Marie with Germaine Baca of Rainbow Sugar. Going to see them always seemed inspirational and transformational. Their records seeming to be exactly what I wanted to hear when they came out. When Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 it felt like the beginning of the end of an era of music.

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Then the reunion happened and following the release of No Cities to Love in 2015 it was obvious the trio was back into the swing of things and the band’s show at the Ogden Theatre with Lizzo as the opening act was fantastic. When Sleater-Kinney returned for Riot Fest in 2016 I felt I had seen a lot more music during the interim and braving an injury I decided to stick around to see them, though feeling for some reason I’d seen the band several times already and knew what they were about. I don’t know what I was expecting but it felt like the band was having fun and rediscovering their power even more as a live band and keeping the vibe casual but electric. It hit me as refreshing and as though somehow the band was tapped into some general mood a lot of people were in with culture and politics. It was a bracing reminder that this band still had something to offer someone like me who has seen and heard so much and didn’t even want to be at a festival given aforementioned injury. It’s easy to get jaded especially when you’re not feeling well. Yet Sleater-Kinney made it seem worth it even if only to catch the band’s set (I also saw Danny Brown, Vince Staples and Ween before going home, all also worthwhile).

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

So what would a post-Janet Weiss Sleater-Kinney look and sound like live? The album The Center Won’t Hold certainly showcased a band that was evolving in a direction that maybe many fans didn’t appreciate. But it also contained some of the band’s best songs to date and let us know that the band felt the need to do something different and not get stuck in a rut. Weiss has publicly said why she left the band and one can hardly blame her given her reasons. There’s no replacing someone like Janet Weiss whose unique and powerful style uplifts all of her projects. But for this tour Angie Boylan of Aye Nako and Freezing Cold stepped in and more than ably performed songs that would have to be challenging for most other drummers to play. So much so that it felt like Brownstein and Tucker were able to relax and project a sense of joy and solidarity. Katie Harkin and Toko Yasuda helped fill out the instrumentation especially on keyboards so bring that deeply atmospheric sensibility of The Center Won’t Hold.

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

The set with the current touring lineup felt like a sustained spark of hope in a bleak time in America. Once again, to me, Sleater-Kinney was singing about the things people need to hear, about which many of us are thinking. They also brought to bear insight into the insecurities and psychological trauma that seems to be striking our lives with increasing regularity whether economically, our social lives, the death of friends whether you’re young or old through illness, murder or suicide. The songs on the new record also addressed issues of isolation, being able to look forward when world events seem so paralyzing with a sense that everything is broken and beyond our ability to repair or redeem. The songs don’t try to sugar coat or to say that everything will be okay. But it also isn’t a set of nihilistic songs as that mindset is its own form of despair obsession. The show felt like the band sharing with us a sense that we’re going to need each other in a real and vulnerable way if we have any hope of getting through this period without throwing up our hands and letting the fascists and their cronies take over the world and dictate what’s left of the future of the human race if their program prevails.

Sleater-Kinney at Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019, photo by Tom Murphy

Set List:

The Center Won’t Hold
Hurry On Home
Price Tag
The Future Is Here
Jumpers
Reach Out
Bury Our Friends
RUINS
What’s Mine Is Yours
Ironclad
One More Hour
Bad Dance
The Fox
LOVE
Can I Go On
A New Wave
Animal
The Dog/The Body
Entertain

Encore:
Broken
Oh!
Words and Guitar
Modern Girl

Encore 2:
Dig Me Out

Sleater-Kinney photo pass for Ogden Theatre, October 13, 2019. When a band makes special photo passes for their tour it definitely signals they care.

Best Shows in Denver 10/10/19 – 10/16/19

Sleater-Kinney performs Sunday 10/13 at The Ogden Theatre. Photo by Nikko LaMere

Thursday | October 10

Joshua Trinidad, photo by Tom Murphy

What: The Comet is Coming w/Joshua Trinidad
When: Thursday, 10.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Comet is Coming is a London-based trio whose synthesis of jazz, Afrobeat and electronic music is true improvisational kosmische for the modern era. Its two 2019 albums Trust In the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery and The Afterlife take you on a journey to the outer edges of inner space with soundscapes that wouldn’t be out of place on the long running NPR ambient program Hearts of Space or in a musical realm of the 1970s where Tangerine Dream, Fela Kuti and Gong played the same circuit and mutually influenced each other. So who from Denver could open for this outfit? Only one name really comes to mind and that’s jazz scientist improviser supreme, Joshua Trinidad and his own daring displays of mind-altering sonic experimentalism within an expanded realm of jazz.

What: Cécile McLorin Savant
When: Thursday, 10.10, 6:30-10 p.m.
Where: Dazzle
Why: Cécile McLorin Savant brings major late night vibes to this other great jazz show in Denver tonight. She takes feelings and stretches them out into a form more easily comprehended than the sometimes gnarled shapes they can take in our hearts. She gives them an air of elegance and soulful comprehension they deserve and interprets them back in her soaring, sonorous voice.

What: Vic N’ The Narwhals w/Claire Morales, Easy Lovin’, The Rewind and 21 Taras
When: Thursday, 10.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Friday | October 11

Adia Victoria, photo courtesy the artist

What: Tank & The Bangas w/Adia Victoria
When: Friday, 10.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Adia Victoria’s 2016 album Beyond the Bloodhounds introduced the world to the songwriter’s brooding, expressive, bluesy songwriting. Her 2019 album Silences finds Victoria expanding her sound, now operating in a realm somewhere between Rubblebucket’s soulful pop and Nick Cave’s smoldering intensity. Tank and The Bangas’ hybrid of hip-hop, jazz and R&B is deeply eclectic, lively, layered and uplifting in a way that feels sincere and wholesome without being hokey or self-righteous.

What: Cadaver Dog Japan tour kickoff w/Nekrofilth, Videodrome, Chair of Torture and Pontius Pilate
When: Friday, 10.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

What: ’68 w/The Inspector Cluzo, The Messenger Birds, Plastic Daggers
When: Friday, 10.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Gun Street Ghost, Ryann Lee, George Cessna
When: Friday, 10.11, 7 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern

Saturday | October 12

Muscle Beach, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Muscle Beach w/Palehorse/Palerider, Church Fire and Simulators
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It’s been a few years since the release of Muscle Beach’s self-titled album. But that time has seemingly been spent honing its sharp edges and wiry and explosive dynamics. Now we have Charms, the new full-length being released at this show. Each track has the irreverently humorous and surreal titles you’d hope a band that sounds like a barely controlled psychotic break with every track would have to let you know that this music is an outlet for the kind of frustration and outrage that is part of everyday life these days. “Ballistic Medicine,” “Rage Charles,” “Swim Team Six,” “When Horns Grow Teeth”? Crazy stuff and the sort of precise yet unhinged post-hardcore that is easy to get wrong. The band’s shows are supercharged and dynamic minus any of the machismo the genre can indulge in too often. But Muscle Beach has never fit neatly into a genre and in its clashing crashing sound there is mood and moments of introspection spliced together with angst blown out into shards of pure catharsis. And the bill is fortunately not a lot of music like that. Palehorse/Palerider is like a doom band gone into some pagan tribal version of industrial space rock. Church Fire is purging ritual, politically incendiary, darkwave dance pop. Simulators is thorny, angular, ebullient post-punk. Easily the local line-up of the week to catch a nice representative slice of Denver underground.

What: Cherubs w/Moon Pussy and Quits
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Moe’s Original BBQ
Why: Cherubs formed in 1991 in Austin, Texas and were plugged into the milieu of noisy, weirdo post-punk that one might have associated with the Amphetamine Reptile record label. Except that Cherubs were signed to Trance Syndicate, the label owned by Butthole Surfers’ drummer King Coffey. Think something like Jesus Lizard, Unsane and a doomier Failure. The band broke up in 1994 but came back together twenty years later and have been back to making heavy psychedelic music not much like anything else that overtly claims to mix either. Its new record, 2019’s Immaculada High, is a colossal slab of disorienting riffs and surreal imagery. Opening are two of Denver’s own finest noise rock outfits. Moon Pussy is a trio who improbably combine fluid dynamics with sharp edged soundscaping and emotionally exorcistic vocals. Quits includes current and former members of Denver noise rock legends Git Some, Hot White and Sparkles.

What: Stiff Little Fingers w/The Avengers
When: Saturday, 10.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Stiff Little Fingers from Belfast, Ireland and The Avengers from San Francisco, USA formed the same year, 1977. The Avengers even opened for the Sex Pistols at their final show at Winterland in 1978. Both bands had significant releases in 1979 and Stiff Little Fingers’ Inflammable Material took the subject of the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland at the time as a through line for the songs and their stark depiction of life in their hometown and the violence and political oppression then hitting hard. The Avengers’ self-titled EP minced no words on critiquing American culture and racism. Seems the subject matter of their songs are all too relevant again so this tour together is timely.

What: Zizia, Ryan Mcryhew and Ryan Seward
When: Saturday, 10.12, 7:30-10 p.m.
Where: Glitter City Nights
Why: Zizia is Amber Wolfe and Jarrod Fowler who perform a kind of environmental audio experience. Like ambient but it brings in field recordings that bring a sense of place with more traditional instruments and sound-making objects for a unique listening experience. Ryan Mcryhew has performed as Entrancer making forward thinking electronic dance music with modular synths and he is currently expanding his methods to explore the possibilities of those methods in expressing ideas and concepts beyond the purely artistic. Ryan Seward is an avant-garde, improvisational percussionist who for this show will perform Michael Pisaro’s 2011 composition, “A drum acted upon by friction, gravity and electricity.”

Starcrawler, photo by Autumn de Wilde

What: Starcrawler w/Poppy Jean Crawford and Pink Fuzz
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: On the Starcrawler’s latest album Devour You, the band’s fetchingly fuzzy punk reaches new heights as the group expands its song dynamics and refining its fiery delivery and mixture of distorted and clean sounds across the board. The crashing atonality the group is willing to entertain in the new batch of songs delivers on the promise of its earlier efforts as it moves beyond the sort of sludgy post-grunge doom pop that rightfully garnered it attention as a band to watch with a charismatic frontwoman in Arrow de Wilde.

What: Tank & The Bangas w/Adia Victoria
When: Saturday, 10.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

What: Digable Planets w/5ve and GaDJet
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

What: The Heroine, Tokyo Rodeo, Lost Relics and Stone Deaf
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern

What: Heavy Shit at Streets: Messiahvore, Never Kenezzard, Sounds Like Words, Audio Dream Sister
When: Saturday, 10.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets Denver

Sunday | October 13

Ron Pope, photo by Nicole Mago

What: Sleater-Kinney w/Joseph Keckler
When: Sunday, 10.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: In the mid-90s Sleater-Kinney brought some raw emotional power and intellect to its wiry post-punk and spent the next twenty plus years or so refining that vision and making poignant and inspiring social commentary about what you can aspire to and achieve as a woman in a culture hostile to your dreams. The trio touring for the first time without long time drummer Janet Weiss, and with new drummer Angie Boylan, is taking the music of it’s latest album, the St. Vincent produced The Center Won’t Hold.

What: Ron Pope
When: Sunday, 10.13, 6 p.m.
Where: eTown Hall
Why: Ron Pope is a prolific songwriter from Marietta, Georgia who now calls Nashville home. In a city with numerous singer-songwriters, Pope has stood out with his keen ear for hearing and articulating the thoughts and feelings of the most lonesome times in your life when you’re in your own head sorting through and processing the feelings you don’t often get to when you’re meeting the demand on your psyche of everyday life. His introspective lens and ability to communicate that interiority in a relatable way can be heard across his catalog of spare yet evocative songwriting.

What: Preening, Horse Girl, Harms, Fragrant Mummery
When: Sunday, 10.13, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Jeremy Porter and the Tucos, The Born Readies, Television Generation
When: Sunday, 10.13, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern

Tuesday | October 15

Chameleons Vox circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Chameleons Vox and Theatre of Hate and Jay Aston
When: Tuesday, 10.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Herman’s Hideaway
Why: Chameleons Vox is Mark Burgess, iconic vocalist of Manchester-based post-punk band The Chameleons (in the USA often as The Chameleons UK) who started up in 1981 and whose deeply atmospheric and emotionally raw songs were a major influence on most of the shoegaze bands of the late 80s and beyond with echoes of influence reverberating throughout the post-punk revival of the 1990s and early 2000s to the darkwave of the past decade. Socially critical and thought-provoking, The Chameleons’ body of work had plenty of style but as a kind of compelling delivery system for psychically nourishing content.

What: The Rifle, Pure Weed, Jess Parsons and Bellhoss
When: Tuesday, 10.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Too Many Zooz w/Thumpasaurus
When: Tuesday, 10.15, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater

Wednesday | October 16

Nashville Pussy circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Big K.R.I.T. W/Rapsody and Domani Harris
When: Wednesday, 10.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom

What: Nashville Pussy w/Wild Call and Last Rhino
When: Wednesday, 10.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake