Best Shows in Denver 5/23/19 – 5/29/19

Spirit of the Beehive performs at Larimer Lounge on Saturday, May 25. Photo by Emily Burtner.

Thursday | May 23

Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Onkilter 1 release: Church Fire, Data Rainbow, Felix Ayodele, J. Hamilton Isaacs, Offthesky, Otem Rellik & Patrick Lee followed by DJ Ilind
When: Thursday, 05.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Multidim is a Denver-based experimental electronic record label that recently released its debut compilation of some of the Mile High City’s most interesting and inventive projects. The compilation, as well as this showcase, will donate all proceeds to the non-profit Youth On Record, an organization whose mission is to provide at risk youth with music education from performance, composition, production and the business end of things as well.

What: Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 3: Equine and Julien Miller
When: Thursday, 05.23, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This latest edition of the Speakeasy Series features guitar wizard Kevin Richards’ project Equine. By introducing left field methods, chord structures, signal manipulation and unconventional composition methods in general, Richards is pushing the frontier of the styles and sonics of guitar-base sound art.

What: Necromantic
When: Thursday, 05.23, 9 p.m.
Where: Shag Lounge
Why: Necromantic is an old school Goth DJ night with plenty of the best of the newer darkwave and industrial music mixed in. Each second and fourth Thursdays of every month you can partake of the evening’s main DJs as well as select guests to bring a little bit of that old Denver flavor back into downtown.

Friday | May 24

Refused circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

What: The Hives and Refused w/Bleached
When: Friday, 05.24, 9 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Two power houses of punk and garage rock, Refused and The Hives respective, will make this a memorable night where you will probably be not just pleasantly surprised but inspired by the sheer energy and charisma of both bands. Refused in particular pioneered multiple genres of punk on its 1998 masterpiece The Shape of Punk to Come. Bleached includes former members of irreverent noise punks extraordinaire Mika Miko. And the group went through a phase of exploring various sounds before fully developing its knack for intimate pop songs with some bite, attitude and punk energy.

What: Tommy Wright III
When: Friday, 05.24, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Tommy Wright III must be considered one of the early progenitors for the style of underground hip-hop that one hears echoing in the work of the various members and associates of A$AP, Odd Future and Migos. The creatively profane lyrics and subject matter of his songs, the lo-fi-but-deep production style with the finely treated loops as heard in so much modern trap is present in one form or another in Wright’s 90s output through today. This is a rare chance to see the legendary producer live in Denver and witness his mastery of outsider gangster rap up close and personal.

What: Cloud Rat, Gadget, Immortal Bird and 908
When: Friday, 05.24, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Sort of a deathgrind show given Gadget from Sweden and Cloud Rat from Michigan are on the bill. 908 from Colorado Springs definitely fits into what will be a night of short, furious sets.

Saturday | May 25

Rowboat, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Slugger and Michael Thompson
When: Saturday, 05.25, 2-4 p.m.
Where: Wax Trax – Sidewalk outside
Why: Slugger is basically showing where psychedelic rock can go when the musicians focus on the songwriting over adhering to some style. Michael Thompson of Arc Sol will also perform a solo set of his songs informed by a broad range of unusual music.
What: LUTHI at Denver Day of Rock
When: Saturday, 05.25, 6-7 p.m.
Where: 16th Street Mall
Why: The Denver Day of Rock will have plenty of bands, local and otherwise, to see throughout the day and evening all along the 16th Street Mall. In the early evening you can catch LUTHI from Nashville, Tennessee. The seven-piece band perform music that’s a compelling blending of funk, downtempo pop and what might be called post-Daft Punk psychedelia. There’s some unusual X-factor about the band that keeps it well apart from “party” bands in general while also providing suitable music for a dance party.

What: Jello Biafra’s Incredibly Strange Dance Party
When: Saturday, 05.25, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Jello Biafra needs no introduction and this is an edition of his Incredibly Strange Dance Party where he’ll bring some of the most bizarre dance tracks to DJ at the Lion’s Lair and knowing Biafra he may even join in on the dancing, adding to the strangeness.

What: Spirit of the Beehive w/Strange Ranger, Cuckoo and Rowboat
When: Saturday, 05.25, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Spirit of the Beehive could be something like a light psych indie rock band but its aesthetic has a bit of a collage element and its songs sound out of phase with the contemporary world and its sometimes ennervating cultural climate. It’s music is a side step into spaces more dreamlike and mysterious. The rock instruments integrating perfectly with the warping and wefting electronic compositions is beautifully disorienting. In 2018 the band released Hypnic Jerks, a title and songs suggesting the band is coming at the world from a different angle than a lot of people. Like Unknown Mortal Orchestra but more grounded in American 90s weirdo indie pop.

What: Lav Andula, Asymptote, I Hate It Here, Causer and Tepid
When: Saturday, 05.25, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: A night of experimental techno and noise including the debut of Tepid, the solo project of Voight’s Nick Salmon.

Sunday | May 26

Shocker Mom, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Shibui Denver #3; Shocker Mom, Space Geist and DJ Vahco
When: Sunday, 05.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Shibui Denver is a monthly event last Sundays of the month at Mutiny Information Café. It’s designed to start and end early and aims to showcase some of the best Denver underground acts and the occasional touring band that fits the format of being a little different. Tonight’s featured guests are Shocker Mom, Robin Walker’s ambient beat driven pop act whose album >^^< will be included in our much belated Favorite Albums of 2018 listing. Walker has been a prolific songwriter and collaborator in Denver as a solo artist under her given name, while a member of indie pop duo Cougar Pants, in hip-hop outfit Nighttimeschoolbus, sitting in with rapper Time and folk pop artist Jason Horodyski. Vahco Before Horses heads Glasss Records through which he boosts, produces and finds spaces to showcase the music of some of Denver’s most forward thinking underground artists. This night he will DJ Denver bands and several from the Glasss Roster. Space Geist is a solo guitar band in which riffs will be looped and manipulated in post to produce, with any luck, disorienting tones and rhythms.

What: Alien Weaponry w/Dreadnought and Palehorse/Palerider
When: Sunday, 05.26, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Alien Weaponry is a band from Waipu, New Zealand. While operating somewhat in the realm of melodic thrash its lyrics are often in Maori because its three members are of that extraction and it suits the music in a way for which English sometimes seems inadequate. Opening the show are psychedelic doom folk band Dreadnought and heavy ambient noise/industrial dark psychedelic band Palehorse/Palerider also from the Mile High City.

Tuesday | May 28

Sebadoh, photo by Justin Pizzoferrato

What: Sebadoh w/Flower and Race to Neptune
When: Tuesday, 05.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Sebadoh didn’t invent lo-fi rock but in the early 90s it helped to chart the direction much of that style of music would go by incorporating field recordings alongside off the cuff recording and an emphasis on feeling over precise capture of “professional” fidelity in the studio. Naturally the band went on to take that aesthetic into actual recording studios but the spirit of play and fidelity to emotional honesty and spontaneous energy remained. Currently Sebadoh is touring in support of its newly released record Act Surprised. Flower was and is now again from New York City that in the 80s reflected the city of legend and its mixture of evolving Bohemian subcultures, melting pot ethnicity, gritty urban decay, a sense of possibilities and the avant-garde alongside emerging popular culture. Musically that meant Flower was well within the realm of post-punk at the time. It wasn’t so far in the past that The Ramones, Patti Smith Group, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Suicide and countless others had built the foundation of what punk could be and even less far back since the bands that emerged out of that milieu, directly inspired by it in various ways like the No Wave groups, Sonic Youth, SWANS, Live Skull, Bush Tetras, Arthur Russel, Liquid Liquid, ESG, The Lounge Lizards and other unfortunately less-well-known bands that made up the ecosystem of the New York underground. Flower formed in 1986 while Richard Balulyut was still in college and its sound fit into the rich diversity of the then NYC scene. The group split in 1990 soon after which Balulyut and two of his brothers formed indie/alternative rock band Versus which went on to some acclaim in the 90s. The latter band reconvened in 2017 and it dawned on Balulyut that he could write new music in the more post-punk, some might now say darkwave, style of Flower and now the band is on tour in support of its new material and there’s a better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of its older material live as well.

What: Closet Witch, Law of the Night and Bi-Proxy
When: Tuesday, 05.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Kind of a grind-y hardcore night including a set from Closet Witch from southeast Iowa. Molly Piatetsky’s feral vocals are something to witness.

Update: This show was combined with another at Syntax Physic Opera at 8 p.m. with a line up that is now Full of Hell, Primitive Man, Genocide Pact, In The Company of Serpents and Closet Witch.

Wednesday | May 29

Skeletonwitch, photo by Nico Poalillo

What: Sleep w/Big Business
When: Wednesday, 05.29, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Sleep is one of the most influential bands out of the world of doom metal. Though its sound was lumped in with “stoner rock,” which seems apt seeing as it’s until recently latest album was called Dopesmoker comprised of a single track over an hour long. Its psychedelic, towering drones live up to the hype as do the more concise songs, like those on the 1992’s Sleep’s Holy Mountain. Sleep is almost as heavy as it gets and its high volume show as engulfing as you would hope for. Big Business is a sludge rock band well suited to the bill. The members of the band were part of The Melvins for around a decade and recently released a new record. The Beast You Are is a collection of dynamic, triumphant songs with unconventional melodies and an elevated updraft of tone. Big Business has always been, if nothing else, heavy but buoyant. On The Beast You Are, Big Business experiments further in the songwriting with its use of space and pacing. There’s still the headlong rush you’d expect from the band but also an imaginative application of its palette of sound that has kept the band from being predictable, an uncommon quality in heavy music. For Big Business it is not enough to pummel with its colossal sound but to have emotional and thoughtful intentionality behind it.

What: Skeletonwitch w/Soft Kill and Wiegedood
When: Wednesday, 05.29, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Skeletonwitch has been perfecting and then evolving its technical melodic death metal sound since its inception in 2003. Its latest record, 2018’s Devouring Radiant Light finds the band bringing in even more unconventionally atmospheric elements into its brutal and unrelenting soundscape. All while maintaining the dark imagery and animalistic, distorted vocals like they are telling stories of a mythical past in our current impending, post-apocalypse after climate change has cleansed the earth of much of human civilization.

Best Shows in Denver 4/4/19 – 4/10/19

Acid Mothers Temple perform at Larimer Lounge on April 8. Photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | April 4

Demoncassettecult (Junior Deer on left), photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Speakeasy Series opener: Demoncassettecult
When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: Glasss Records is kicking off the 2019 edition of its experimental music showcase the Speakeasy Series at Hooked on Colfax tonight. The artist ringing in the season is Demoncassettecult, Glasss’ Vahco Before Horses solo loops, noise, sample and and synth based soul project.

Who: A Light Among Many w/Ghostsong Elegy and Endless, Nameless, Causer
When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Abstract doom juggernauts A Light Among Many returns from its latest tour with this show with experimental guitar/prog band Endless, Nameless, South Dakota post-rock band Ghostsong Elegy and the debut of Causer.

Friday | April 5

Modern Leisure circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Faim, Sore Eyes (Springs), Bi-Proxy (first show, members of Herse, Caffeine and Eternal) and Implied Risk (first show)
When: Friday, 04.05 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Faim is one of the great, noisy hardcore bands from Denver. Eruptive and pointed in its energy. If you go, you’ll also get to see the first show from a couple of other like-minded bands who are keeping local hardcore alive and interesting.

Who: Kyle Emerson w/Anthony Ruptak and Modern Leisure
When: Friday, 04.05 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Three of Denver’s great songwriters on one bill. Kyle Emerson’s pastoral psychedelia has enough interesting musical flourishes in each song to elevate his work beyond most of his peers. Anthony Ruptak’s conceptual songwriting steeped in his sensitivity to the world around him and deeply informed by his compassion for his follow living creatures, human beings most certainly not excluded, gives his compositions a warmth and richness of emotional expression. Casey Banker of Modern Leisure has been writing insightful and well-crafted pop songs with an undercurrent of intensity and self-awareness that has made his songs going back to his time in The Don’ts and Be Carefuls incredibly compelling.

Saturday | April 6

Doo Crowder circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Doo Crowder w/Rachael Pollard
When: Saturday, 04.06, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Doo Crowder, former member of indie pop orchestra Pee Pee and indie rock/punk band The Dinnermints, is finally releasing his album One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims). His earlier releases have all been insightful explorations of the human experience in its myriad manifestations. The new album sounds like he took the Harry Nilsson route and added great production flourishes and imaginative treatments to solid yet minimal foundations of song. He does not spare himself self criticism (listen to “Doo Crowder Song”) but as with every Crowder record there’s much more than meets the eye while not hiding the essential meaning. It’s made to be able to be taken on and comprehended at one’s leisure and in the ways that suit you. The first truly great indie pop record of 2019 and one of the best of the past decade by virtue of sounding effortless while clearly being the product of much work, much soul-searching, much refinement and in the end something that feels like it manifested like a perfect backed good that is delicious and nutritious and makes the labor that went into it part of one’s appreciation of it.

Who: FAVX w/Ned Garthe Explosion and Total Trash (tape release)
When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: FAVX from Madrid aren’t easily musically defined outside of rock. But it’s sometimes noisy, sometimes driving, sometimes poppy, sometimes heavy, sometimes whimsical but always emotionally nuanced music is performed with great enthusiasm. Good thing because Ned Garthe Explosion, for a bunch of guys who have been playing for “10 trillion years,” you know, since the Big Bang or whatever has happened several times, they’re able to muster some verve in humorously delivering their surreal punker than punk and psycher than psych songs. They’ve been road dawgz since before there were roads and after people didn’t need roads where they were going and back to no roads and then roads again. The never ending cycle. Seems legit. Total Trash is comprised of current and former members of Lil’ Slugger, Eye Beams, Fissure Mystic, Fingers of the Sun and Quantum Creep. Which means nothing if you’ve not been steeped in Denver underground music for the past decade and a half but it does mean that the band’s music and songwriting has the level of sophistication and sonic inventiveness that is immediately striking and, well, it doesn’t sound much like any of the aforementioned. It is more melancholy but the sonic details and evolving dynamics across each song of its debut album Field Guide (released this night) give the music a sonic depth, diversity and emotional complexity that seems rarer than it should be these days.

Who: Dirty Few “Losing Our Minds Farewell Show” w/Gymshorts, Bud Bronson & The Good Timers, Lloyd and Saviour
When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Sure, sure, “party rock” and the Stone twins raise hell, cans of beer tossed on stage and off, rowdy, nearly unhinged performances, some of them sloppy and chaotic. But always performed with heart with songs that are fun, surprisingly well-written and which encapsulate an era of Denver music that all but began and ended with Dirty Few. So the group will probably pull out the stops for this final rager with some of its friends and peers including the great power pop band Bud Bronson & The Good Timers from Denver and Lloyd and Saviour from Boise.

Kero Kero Bonito, photo by Tracey Ng

Who: Kero Kero Bonito w/Jaakko Eino Kalevi
When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Kero Kero Bonito sounds like its music is made in the early morning as the sun is rising and also as the sun is setting. That sometimes hazy quality of light that can blur the landscape some as the sun comes to dominate the sky or retire for the night over the horizon, burning away fog and casting colorfully through the dusk pollution. Even from its earlier more straightforward electropop phase its lush production and fluid dynamics has given the band’s songs an air of self-awareness that feels futuristic while tapping into the cooler end of classic commercial pop sensibilities. The band’s producers, Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled, were influenced by Japanese hip-hop and pop and found Sarah Bonito, herself half-Japanese, who could give voice to a synthesis of cultures particularly since Bonito sings and raps in both English and Japanese. The group’s 2018 releases, the TOTEP EP and the album Time n’ Place, displayed the influence of rock bands, at least according to interviews with Fader and i-D, like Mount Eerie and My Bloody Valentine who are no strangers to creating and sculpting atmosphere in ways that feel entirely organic. Formerly pretty much all electronic instrumentation and vocals, for its current tour Kero Kero Bonito is bringing on board a guitarist and a drummer. Difficult to pigeonhole, one might even clumsily call it indie dream jazz, Kero Kero Bonito’s international flavor of the amalgam of hip-hop, dance music, J-pop, downtempo lounge and melancholic guitar rock is undeniably interesting.

Opening the show is Finnish multi-instrumentalist and producer Jaakko Eino Kalevi whose 2018 album Out of Touch could be a cousin to the aforementioned Kero Kero Bonito’s album Time ‘n Place. Its tone has a liminal quality that allows for the melodies to operate at an almost subconscious level, dream-like. A decade ago maybe someone would have called it “chillwave” and it resonates with the better end of what made 80s synth pop bands and their own production methods so compelling and ultimately influential.

Who: Bad Sounds and Broods
When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Bad Sounds are opening for the great electro pop band Broods. But its blend of R&B and hip-hop beats, like a modern take on the rich musical hybrids that were part of the 70s Stax roster, will probably win over more than a few fans. The duo’s 2018 album Get Better goes beyond mere throwback imitation and with expert production and attention to sonic detail it attains the soulfulness of some of its influences.

Who: An Evening With Spiritualized
When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Even at his most soul-and-R&B-inspired moments, and there are many on Spiritualized’s 2018 album And Nothing Hurt, J. Spaceman brings to bear a broad range of subtle emotional expression and its counterpart as a controlled tidal wave of feeling. The shows also tend toward a well-selected set list that gives the performance a dynamic quality that somehow feels just right. Folk, soul, R&B, ambient space rock from across Spaceman’s career in Spiritualized. Maybe you’ll even get to see the band cover Laurie Anderson’s “Born Never Asked” as its been known to do well beyond the 1995 touring cycle for Pure Phase.

Sunday | April 7

SUSTO, photo courtesy the artist

Who: SUSTO w/Whitacre and Frances Cone
When: Sunday, 04.07, 8 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: SUSTO’s new album Ever Since I Lost My Mind has all the sophistication and beautiful subtlety of instrumentation of its previous records. But this time it sounds like the band has added a layer of atmosphere that gives the typically affecting and introspective lyrics a more focused immediacy that can be a bit slow slipping into your mind but when it hits it strikes deep. SUSTO excels at giving the songs room to breathe and manifest and bringing listeners in with a warmth of tone and a sense of understanding.

Monday | April 8

Mdou Moctar, photo by Nikkl Cells

Who: Acid Mothers Temple w/Yamantaka//Sonic Titan
When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple may “only” have been around for nearly a quarter a century but its rotating and core membership, including band leader guitarist Makoto Kawabata, has roots going back to Japanese folk, psychedelic, noise, punk and prog bands of the 70s and 80s. With AMT the musicians create a mind-bending sonic experience that blurs the lines between the aforementioned genres of music to make the kind of space rock that should inspire a generation of manga artists writing stories in a future where interdimensional and intergalactic communities are interacting, thriving and exploring worlds and cultures as yet unimagined by our current creative collective unconscious.

Who: Mdou Moctar w/Galleries and Kwantsu Dudes
When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: It’s incredibly rare to get to see a musician from Africa in Denver much less a Tuareg phenom from Agadez, Niger like Mdou Moctar. The guitarist is an early adaptor of traditional Tuareg guitar pop into the electric context. As with the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Baaba Maal and, of course, Fela Kuti before him, Moctar’s lively and fine crafted songs (steeped in folk music of Africa and the Islamic world) garnered fans outside of Africa. Because of that touring has been a viable prospect including his current run through the USA. His latest album is 2019’s Ilana.

Tuesday | April 9

Claudzilla, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: WaZeil & UaZit w/Claudzilla, f-ether and Kandin
When: Tuesday, 04.09, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: UaZit’s music is like if alternative hip-hop got even weirder and more experimental. Working with WaZeil the production and sound design is even more unusual like what Harmony Korine might make if he went into creating music after Mister Lonely. F-ether isn’t quite as much of a weirdo but his original and playful take on electronic music craft is decidedly outside the conventions of that broad genre. Claudzilla, though, full-on weirdo since its “keytar rock” with surreal lyrics and let’s just call it eccentric picks of covers but surprisingly solid renditions of the originals through her peculiar lens of interpretation.

Who: Erik B & Rakim w/Stay Tuned
When: Tuesday, 04.09, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Erik B & Rakim are clearly one of the most influential duos in hip-hop. Rakim’s rhyming had great versatility and range because he broke with the simple rhyme schemes of early hip-hop and had more in common with free jazz and free verse poetry. So while not sounding too avant-garde the duo’s music could be as out and fluid in its rhythms as its presumed jazz influences. Eric B’s heavy use of sampling and creatively crafting and sculpting the sounds could also be heard echoed in most hip-hop since the 1987 release of the Eric B & Rakim album Paid in Full. Splitting in 1993, Eric B & Rakim reunited in 2016 to perform live in 2017. Will there be a new record? We can only hope but for now catch one of the legends of hip-hop on this tour.

Wednesday | April 10

Morlox, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: HXXS w/Church Fire, Morlox and Feigning
When: Wednesday, 04.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: HXXS from Portland, Oregon make a kind of dance-dub darkwave with glitchy edges. When minimal synth was all the rage in various corners of the American underground, HXXS seems to have taken that foundation and the sort of 8-bit crushed beat-making to make a surprisingly playful, surreal form of synth pop. Good match with Denver’s Church Fire whose tribal industrial dance music came out of similar impulses toward melding hip-hop beat production with dark, noisy pop informed by insightful, sociopolitical commentary. That the group worked with gifted producer Morlox whose career has been steeped in the noise, glitchcore and underground hip-hop scene in Denver and beyond makes this booking perfect. Haunted, dark drone project Feigning is just a bonus.

Who: DeVotchKa
When: Wednesday, 04.10, 6 p.m.
Where: Twist & Shout
Why: It would help if you bought a copy of the 2018 DeVotchKa album This Night Falls Forever in order to get first entry into this intimate show at Twist & Shout. Otherwise, the Denver-based gypsy-punk chamber pop group usually doesn’t play places smaller than The Gothic. The following night the band will perform at e-Town in Boulder.

Who: Boy Harsher w/Special Interest and Poptones DJs
When: Wednesday, 04.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The Boy Harsher show is sold out but if you can get in you can see the fog-shrouded, enigmatic, New-Order-gone-full-dub-minimal-synth duo Boy Harsher at a small club before its crowd expands to larger venues.