Best Shows in Denver 2/28/19 – 3/6/19

Teenage Fanclub performs at the Bluebird Theater on March 2

Thursday | February 28

Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Endless, Nameless tour kickoff w/Soulless Maneater, Lightstory, Giardia and Sliver
When: Thursday, 02.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Math rock band Endless, Nameless is headed to SXSW and to launch the group on its way some of its friends and peers are playing this show including gloom and angst festooned post-punk band Soulless Maneater, psych jazz abstract metal trio Giardia as well as post-grunge poseurs Diet Nirvana. But, really, Sliver is a great band inspired by grunge-era bands, Wipers and DC punk.

Who: Starjammer w/Joshua Trinidad
When: Thursday, 02.28, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Squidds Madden has been bringing his gift for improvisation to various funk, rock, jazz and ska bands over the past two decades. But Starjammer is his one man avant-garde dub reggae project in which he pilots an integrated multi-instrumental vehicle. Lately he’s been crafting stories to go along with performances and this is one of a handful of events where he’s trying that out while bringing in some of the greatest players in Denver to round out the bill. Tonight it’s trumpet player extraordinaire Joshua Trinidad who some may know for his masterful turns in Wheelchair Sports Camp and GoStar.

Friday | March 1

Blood Incantation, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Decibel Tour: Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Necrot and Blood Incantation
When: Friday, 03.01, 6 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Cannibal Corpse is known for having some of the most cartoonishly brutal and horrifying lyrics in metal. But it’s all in fun and if one can’t appreciate the absurd, even in bad taste, maybe you take yourself too seriously. The death metal legends share the stage tonight with one of the pioneers of death metal from, where else, Tampa, Florida (where Cannibal Corpse is now based): Morbid Angel. Opening the night is Blood Incantation, a Colorado band with a cult following in the death metal realm. While clearly self-aware, Blood Incantation is a powerful live act whose songs push the genre in interesting directions rather than get stuck like it’s 1985.

Who: Venus305 physical album release w/Gold Trash, EVP, Düll Haus and Techno Allah
When: Friday, 03.01, 9 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: Molly McGrath is perhaps better known for her rock band Surf Mom. But for Venus305 she’s left behind the guitar and punk-esque vocals for electronic dance tracks and a vocal style more fitting for the type of downtempo and what one might call progressive lounge that is the music of Venus305. Also on the bill for this release show of the project’s physical album is screamy electroclash Gold Trash, industrial punk/dance duo EVP, the glitchcore for the dancefloor sounds of Techno Allah and Düll Haus, a band that seems to navigate the sonic territory traversing minimal synth dance and IDM.

Who: The Scientist w/Dr. Israel and DJ Imeh
When: Friday, 03.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: The Scientist learned his craft partly under the tutelage of dub legend King Dubby and went on to contribute greatly to the genre himself—which is reason enough to go if you’re into the roots of sound sculpting production.

Who: eHpH, TetraKroma, Redwing Blackbird
When: Friday, 03.01, 9 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: None more synth on this night. eHpH makes a good case for why EBM and industrial rock isn’t essentially dead these days because the duo brings an emotional resonance to the music that isn’t just trying to be as angsty and nihilistic as possible. TetraKroma, that’s a lot of analog synths for making dark dance music but the depth of sound makes it obvious having the layers in hardware are worth it. Redwing Blackbird mixes samples and low-end heavy tracks to make some gritty EBM like early Front 242 but darker.

Saturday | March 2

Praga Khan of Lords of Acid, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Teenage Fanclub w/The Love Language
When: Saturday, 03.02, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Teenage Fanclub came out of the fertile musical ground of C86 influenced by the bands that influenced the jangle, twee and garage rock of that era. Its second album, 1991’s The King, came out on Creation Records, the imprint better known for being home to shoegaze giants of that period like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive. But Creation also nurtured the cooler end of power pop (later Creation signed Oasis but that’s a whole other story). In the USA, Teenage Fanclub hit the college radio charts in a big way with its later 1991 album Bandwagonesque. At the time there was a revival in the interest in power pop pioneers Big Star and its soulful and melancholic catalog—a band that somehow sounded mournful and sad even when it rocked in a celebratory fashion on its songs. Bandwagonesque evoked Big Star powerfully on songs like “What You Do To Me” and “The Concept.” But Teenage Fanclub had its own voice and its sophisticated songwriting evolved over its now long career. 1993’s Thirteen sounded like the band had absorbed a bit too much of grunge or grebo or whatever and yet its delicate psychedelia and emotionally vibrant vocals remained part of the sound. 1995’s Grand Prix dispensed with the grunge affectations going forward. Teenage Fanclub doesn’t get nearly enough credit for being an important band in the development of Britpop but probably because there’s too much rock and roll in its songwriting and not enough of the dance music/Madchester element. It is precisely because of that disconnect with that 90s trend that the group’s music has aged well.

Who: GoStar
When: Saturday, 03.02, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Dazzle
Why: If a trumpet-guitar-and-percussion-driven jazz fusion band of the early 70s (Bitches Brew period Miles, Mahavishnu Orchestra) adopted mind-altering psychedelic flourishes and then traveled forward in time to hang with Arrested Development and A Tribe Called Quest in the early 90s before hopping again and landing in the 2010’s, that band would sound like GoStar.

Who: Lords of Acid w/Orgy, Genitorturers and Little Miss Nasty
When: Saturday, 03.02, 6 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: There will be a lot of ridiculous antics and NSFW stuff at this show. Including from headliner Lords of Acid. The band’s songs are all about hedonistic activities and aspirations up to the line of self-parody. Its industrial dance music and live show is also good fun and maybe vocalist and band leader Praga Khan will push someone off stage into the audience for an impromptu and unexpected stage dive. But even if he doesn’t, Khan is a charismatic and entertaining frontman who draws you into the playful chaos of the band’s music.

What: Nightshift
When: Saturday, 03.02, 9 p.m.
Where: The Meadowlark Bar
Why: Nightshift is an all vinyl dance party on first Saturdays curated by Meghan Meehan and Laura Conway, focused on synth pop, disco and new wave.

Who: Duos From The Abyss: Gort Vs. Goom, The Swamp Rats, Triplip, Still Frames
When: Saturday, 03.02, 6 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap
Why: None of these bands are particularly from the abyss unless you’re only into punk that doesn’t color widely outside the musical lines. Gort Vs. Goom is the They Might Be Giants of Blue Oyster Cult tribute bands. Triplip is the Daikaiju of prog. Gort is not a tribute band but that’s the sort of mashup that comes to mind, among other things, seeing one of the duo’s sets.

Monday | March 4

Hunter Dragon circa 2009, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Hunter Dragon album release of Universal Basic Income w/Lazarus Horse and Shockermom
When: Monday, 03.04, 8:08 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Hunter Dragon’s catalog is vast and widely varied in his methods and songwriting styles. But it’s unified by an imagination focused on a future that could or should exist now. Whether that’s a desolate post-disaster setting or, as the title of his new album suggests, a future where everyone can use the time they would normally expend on scrambling to survive on whatever suits their natural interests and talents. The new songs have a meditative, spacious folk quality. For the occasion of this release show Hunter has brought on board Lazarus Horse (a band that sounds like it realized that even the cooler weirdo psychedelic rock of the 2000s and 2010s would be and is played out and injected a lot more imagination and unusual rhythmic and tonal ideas into the mix) and Shockermom. The latter has been writing the soundtrack to everyone’s emotional return to peace and tranquility during the collective long dark night of the soul that’s been coursing through the world like a psychic cognate of the collapse of the global ecosystem. Essential listening.

Tuesday | March 5

In The Valley Below, photo by Jaimie Skriba

Who: Daughters w/Gouge Away and HIDE
When: Tuesday, 03.05, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Daughters are the legendary post-hardcore noise rock band whose mournful and abrasive music sounds like the purging of the world’s anguish. Except Daughters make it darkly beautiful. Gouge Away is a forceful, cathartic hardcore band that isn’t trapped in early 80s SSD worship. HIDE is a performance art-oriented industrial duo from Chicago whose visceral, ritualistic live show will probably confuse punk purists but which will fit right in with everyone on the bill.

Who: Albert Hammond Jr. w/In The Valley Below
When: Tuesday, 03.05, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Albert Hammond Jr. is best known for his membership in The Strokes. But his solo career has yielded better songs than The Strokes have in years. There’s a bright and fresh quality to his upbeat pop songs and his performances that are likeable even when it sometimes sounds like he’s leaning on past creative laurels. Opening the show is synth pop band In the Valley Below from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Its bass and melody-driven songs differentiate it from what one would assume are its peers in bands like CHVRCHES, Phantogram and Poliça while sharing a sense of elevating moods and positive energy.

Wednesday | March 6

Acidbat circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Weird Wednesday: Acidbat, Satin Spar, Ruehlen/Seward
When: Wednesday, 03.06, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Acidbat doesn’t play many shows in general much less outside of some super underground show. His ambient yet beat driven, glitchy IDM is more imaginative than a lot of music out of that milieu. Also on this night’s Weird Wednesday is avant-garde improvisational/spontaneous composition duo Ruehlen/Seward.

Best Shows in Denver 11/15/18 – 11/20/18

Gouge Away performs at the Hi-Dive on Friday, November 16, 2018. Photo by Ron Yamasaki

Thursday | November 15, 2018

Daughters, photo by Reid Haithcock

Who: Daughters w/Echo Beds
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: When noise/experimental rock band Daughters reunited in 2013 there was no guarantee the group would do more than play a limited number of shows before going on hiatus again. Its first attempt at a record was scrapped because it didn’t feel, according to vocalist Lex Marshall, authentic to what the band was about. Its music was confrontational and visceral, executed with a savage precision and it didn’t fit too well into the boxes in which the group was often thrown: grindcore, math rock, art-metal, post-hardcore. Daughters bridged the gap between the disorientingly surreal and amped emotional immediacy. Its 2018 record You Won’t Get What You Want pushes the band’s sound into greater vistas of experimentation with its core sound, coming upon what sounds like some forgotten chapter of an industrial, post-punk and noise hybrid from the 80s. The words and the sounds of the record, however are very much of the now with a world teetering on the brink of chaos, a darkly liminal period that might make for the perfect backdrop to a J.G. Ballard novel. That Echo Beds, which recently released its own similarly-minded record, Buried Language, will open the show and set the stage for the sonic mayhem to follow.

Who: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Claudio Simonetti and his band Goblin created some of the most iconic horror movie soundtracks of all time having done those for Dario Argento’s Deep Red as well as the European release of George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. But perhaps the group’s crowning musical achievement was the score for Argento’s 1977 supernatural horror classic Suspiria. The haunting music and unsettling vocalizations (often done by Simonetti himself) was the perfect companion to a movie not short on rich color and deeply affecting atmosphere. This version of Goblin lead by Simonetti will perform the soundtrack live during a screening of Suspiria with what Simonetti jokes about as Goblin’s other “greatest” hits following the film.

Who: Galleries, Grass and Wild Call
When: Thursday, 11.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: There was a time not so long ago that Denver had, to put it charitably, way too many “psych rock” bands in the trendy mold. But lurking around in that world and a step or more apart from it were bands developing decidedly in their own directions while still rooted somewhat in the realm of psychedelic rock. Wild Call’s gritty, atmospheric, emotionally-charged songs seem like something from another era when subgenre’s didn’t matter so much as ethos and approach, finding your own voice rather than operating in a style even if you pulled from various styles in your songwriting but having something meaningful to say and an interesting way to say it. Grass borrowed a bit of that warped warble from My Bloody Valentine but sounds more like it learned a lot about edgy and nearly unraveled sounds from some of the more blustery bands on Siltbreeze in the 2000s like Times New Viking and Psychedelic Horseshit. Maybe a few nods in the direction of the Reatards. A maximalist lo-fi. Galleries is more like a band re-imagining classic rock through the lens of the influence of grunge and 2000s garage rock so it sure does sound a little different from any of that.

Friday | November 16, 2018

Escort, photo by Tom Edwards

Who: The Flux Crew in concert
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Pine Street Church Boulder 1237 Pine Street
Why: Dino J.A. Dean will be the conductor of this fifteen piece ensemble that will engage in, according to the Facebook event page “real time collaborative composition.” What this means is essentially improv in the overlapping contexts of jazz, contemporary classical and the avant-garde. The musicians performing come from a broad spectrum of local artists from noise, jazz, classical, funk, folk, rock etc. all sonically synergizing toward a mutual musical goal. Dean’s illustrious career in theater, jazz, punk, dance and experimental music of a broad stripe from when he was in funk bands in the Los Angeles area, working as a sideman for Ike and Tina Turner and in the 80s playing trombone controlled synthesizer in the 80s with Jon Hassell. Dean has also worked with the late jazz great Butch Morris, acclaimed playright/actor/director Sam Shepard and modern dance choreographer Colleen Mulvihill. To name a few. Dean will bring that experience in collaborating with other artists in guiding the proceedings in this unique performance with his musical group The Flux Crew.

Who: Gouge Away, Drug Church, Heart Attack Man and Cheap Perfume
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Drug Church is an hardcore band from Albany, NY, but one that isn’t on the nostalgia trip that some hardcore has been on in recent years. Drug Church has more in common with IDLES from the UK whose own expansively sonic songs tackle personal and social issues with an unbeatable combination of wry wit and sheer emotional intensity. Gouge Away from Fort Lauderdale has been making some of the most powerfully compelling punk of the last few years. But, and especially on its 2018 album Burnt Sugar, Gouge Away brings a particularly imaginative approach to its headlong rush of energy by not just writing most songs with the same dynamic, injecting atmosphere into its sustained bursts of fiery noise. In that way it has more in common with 90s noisy punk bands like Unwound and Karp. Unabashedly political, minus any boring didactic perspectives, Gouge Away is one of the bands keeping punk relevant a quarter a decade after it seemed to have been co-opted by the mainstream.

Who: The Motet w/Escort
When: Friday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: The Motet is celebrating its twentieth year as a band in 2018. Founded by drummer/arranger Dave Watts, the group’s blend of Afrobeat, jazz and funk may be something one would expect from a band from Boulder but it’s also surprisingly fresh and the musicianship legitimately respectable. Also joining the veteran Colorado band is Escort from Brooklyn. Like-minded in some ways, Escort performs music that one can trace roots to back to when 70s funk and disco met in fruitful rather than laughable ways. Think more in the vein of Commodores and Chic but updated after American musicians absorbed European influences and the resurgence of jazz reclaimed from academia and the ossified old commercial jazz market. The Motet performs same time same venue on Saturday, November 17 The Motet but with with Cory Wong who will include special guest Antwaun Stanley of Vulfpeck in the line up.

Saturday | November 17, 2018

J Mascis, photo courtesy Sub Pop

Who: Wax Trax Fortieth Anniversary w/Slugger
When: Saturday, 11.17, 7 p.m.
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Wax Trax might be the longest running record/music store in the Denver metropolitan area. While music stores might be considered a bit of an anachronism today they still serve an important function as a place to discover stuff you may not know about without the awkwardness of algorithms making suggestions based on what you view on a website. They are also places where you can meet other humans who might have a shared interest and where one might encounter something as quaint as a flyer for a show for bands you know nothing about and might find interesting. Also, not all local bands worth your time have a robust, easily found online presence. Besides, what music fan doesn’t enjoy organically finding something by browsing and not having something specific in mind? Wax Trax has been more than that. It has employed local musicians, one of its owners, Duane Davis, wrote incisive music reviews and other articles for several years and he and others at Wax Trax were involved in the local imprint Local Anaesthetic which put out records by some of the best punk and post-punk bands of the 80s. With the documentary about the store and the label that emerged out of that when the store’s founders moved to Chicago having screened in Denver last weekend it only seemed reasonable to have the actual celebration of the store’s first forty years at the Mercury Café. In the 80s both businesses were neighbors on 13th Avenue and Mercury Café was a hub for live, underground music—the relationship was somewhat synergistic. While there may not be a lot of live music for this event, aside from the psychedelic rock band Slugger fronted by current Wax Trax employee Gabriel Abelo, some of the memorabilia and stories shared will be worth attending to witness.

Who: J Mascis w/James Elkington
When: Saturday, 11.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: J Mascis is rightfully known as the influential guitar shredder extraordinaire of influential rock band Dinosaur Jr. His buried vocals amidst blistering yet melodic songs turned out to be perfectly capable of laid back utterances that articulated the feelings and thoughts of someone that was checked out of the sanitized insipidity of much of 80s popular culture, offering an alternative, more personal, and ultimately more truthful perspective of living as a kind of weirdo in Reagan’s/Bush’s America. Mascis wrote most of those songs and for years he’s established a solo career that parallels the subject matter he has explored with Dinosaur except he’s able to be more nuanced in his vocal delivery and in later years, his broad songwriting palette has become more obvious. The 2018 record Elastic Days is lush and eclectic with contributions from Pall Jenkins of Black Heart Procession, Miracle Legion’s Mark Mulcahy and Zoë Randell of Luluc. But on the road, and for this show, it’ll be J and what he describes as “a little fort around” himself of amps, various stands and other refinements. At Ophelia’s the intimacy of the room will surely make this a memorable show.

Who: Hive w/Weathered Statues, Rotstrotter, Aseethe and Vexing
When: Saturday, 11.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Hive from Minneapolis is a melodic crust band not to be confused with the band HIVE from Chicago who are also from the Midwest and no strangers to blackened metal. So the excellent Denver-based crust/grind band Rotstrotter is a good fit on the bill as is the like-minded Vexing. Iowa’s Aseethe is a doom band and not too far removed from the same milieu of heavy music. Weathered Statues, though, are a dark, post-punk band whose musical DNA seems to include Xmal Deutschland, The Cure and DA! But there’s an undercurrent of dance rhythms that thankfully are nothing like what all these post-punk revival era “dance punk” bands were peddling. Just a clear sense of rhythm and pacing that draws you into the song as surely as its dusky atmosphere’s and Jennie Mather’s commanding vocals. Weathered Statues plays first and may confuse some people expecting all conventionally heavy music for the night.

Who: Municipal Waste w/Toxic Holocaust and Haunt
When: Saturday, 11.17, 6 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: At a time when metalcore was reaching its apex, Richmond, Virginia’s Municipal Waste was making the kind of crossover music that would come back into vogue again nearly a decade after its 2001 inception. For the uninitiated, that crossover meaning the kind of music that emerged around the mid-80s when bands like DRI, which may have started out as hardcore punk, fed into its metallic instincts and synthesized hardcore and thrash metal, which itself was informed by punk. Because it was an early re-adopter, Municipal Waste became a bit of a cult band. Toxic Holocaust’s Joel Grind was also someone who was tapping back into that crossover sound in the late 90s but injected into his songwriting some of the evil sound and brutality of black metal.

Sunday | November 18, 2018

Wrong, photo courtesy Relapse Records

Who: Wrong, Portrayal of Guilt, Abrams, False Cathedrals
When: Sunday, 11.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Wrong is the kind of noise rock band that probably wouldn’t have quite happened in the 90s or earlier. While the Unsane and Helmet influence is there giving the music a precise yet savage edge, one can hear the stretch of sounds into distended otherworldliness as though steeped in the industrial psychedelia of post-Twitch Ministry and the haunted sludge of pre-Superunknown Soundgarden. It also has a bit of the near hysteria catharsis one hears in Daughters. The band’s 2018 album Feel Good has positive intentions but the songs themselves are all about feeling bad and purging that low end of one’s life.

Portrayal of Guilt, photo by Adrian Glickman

Portrayal of Guilt’s 2018 album Let Pain Be Your Guide is a nightmarish set of pronouncements about the acceptance of life’s seemingly unacceptable but all too real aspects. It’s not all relentless, grind-y hardcore because there’s a nuance of sounds and dynamics that give harsh and brutal music a fascinating dimensionality that makes what might be forbidding music to many an accessibility built on how relatable the lyrics really are in the current social and political climate worldwide. Many songwriters express well the pains of some aspects of existence, Portrayal of Guilt’s songs sound like a direct line to that experience in case anyone is confused.

Tuesday | November 20, 2018

Japanese Wallpaper, photo by Giulia Giannini McGauran

Who: Shallou w/Japanese Wallpaper
When: Tuesday, 11.20, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Melbourne, Australia’s Japanese Wallpaper is Gab Strum who seems to be a bit of an electronic music prodigy. In 2014, when he was a mere 17 years old, his song “Breathe In (ft. Wafia)” was featured in Zach Braff’s film Wish I Was Here. Strum’s brightly ethereal compositions sound like the next two steps in the evolution of chillwave and informed by the same production methods born out of hip-hop that informed that musical movement. Soothing without being soporific, Strum’s songs would be perfect for when you want to take some time to contemplate something important with clarity of mood and mind. Some of his newer material like “Fooling Around” is celebratory yet introspective and reveals Sturm’s clear evolution as an artist into realms of music beyond the tranquil minimalism of his earlier offerings.

Who: Odonis Odonis w/Church Fire and Voight
When: Tuesday, 11.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Toronto’s Odonis Odonis sounds like DAF reborn in the techno/rave scene of Detroit 90s. At least on its latest album, 2017’s ominously luminous No Pop. The duo is joined this night by two Denver bands whose own music embody a similar wedding of darkwave industrial beats and a masterful command of incorporating noise with the more electro-dance-oriented Church Fire whose cathartic live show never disappoints and the post-punk/dark techno band Voight who are arcing out of a long period of legit A Place to Bury Strangers worship into more fascinatingly beat-driven territory.

Wednesday | November 21, 2018

Kyle Emerson, photo courtesy the artist

Who: Kyle Emerson, Stelth Ulvang and Down Time
When: Wednesday, 11.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If Kyle Emerson isn’t already making waves on the indie touring circuit, he should be soon. The veteran Denver songwriter has been paying serious dues for a few years now touring small clubs and venues across America. His psychedelic folk pop are imbued with emotional warmth and insight as heard most recently in recorded form on his 2017 full-length album Dorothy Alice. The album closer “Post Egomania” is a perfect way to sum up the emotional and spiritual journey of the rest of the album. For this homecoming show from his most recent tour Emerson will share the stage with Stelth Ulvang of The Lumineers and one of Denver’s best indie rock bands, the not-so-obviously-but-unmistakably experimental Down Time.

Who: Reverb & The Verse
When: Wednesday, 11.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Bonacquisti Wine
Why: Reverb & The Verse is one of the longer running hip-hop crews in Denver and one of the most diverse and boundary pushing in a way that’s difficult to say where the root of its music might lay beyond that of the breadth of palette that exists in hip-hop. Shane Etter, one of the band’s main producers from its early days is well-versed in a wide range of electronic music and recently did mastering on the 2018 album from literate documentarians of dystopian America, hip-hop duo Curta. Here is an infrequent opportunity to catch one of Denver’s finest live.