Best Shows in Denver and Beyond 11/7/19 – 11/13/19

Frankie Cosmos performs at Bluebird Theater on November 7, photo by Jackie Lee Young

Thursday | November 7

Stephen Steinbrink circa October 2009, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Frankie Cosmos w/Stephen Steinbrink and Ashley Koett
When: Thursday, 11.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The latest Frankie Cosmos album is called Close It Quietly (out on Sub Pop) which is a title reflecting the tender, sensitive and utterly sincere quality of Greta Kline’s songwriting and psychologically insightful lyrics. Stephen Steinbrink’s golden voice and talent for inventive soundscapes in his pop songs has been brewing for more than a decade while he toured regularly in the DIY world. His 2018 album Utopia Teased is a pinnacle of his recorded output with a diverse array of moods and textures.

What: Juan MacLean DJ set w/boyhollow and Retrofette (DJ set)
When: Thursday, 11.7, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box

What: HXXS (KC), Luxury Hearse, Kid Mask, Blood Wolf (NM)
When: Thursday, 11.7, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Tennyson’s Tap

Friday | November 8

Kyle Emerson, photo by Rett Rogers

What: Houndmouth w/Kyle Emerson
When: Friday, 11.8, 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Kyle Emerson’s new album Only Coming Down is a thoughtful collection of songs written while the songwriter was splitting his time between his adopted home of Denver and Los Angeles. Emerson is from norther Ohio but moved to Denver in his late teens/early 20s where he fell in with an up and coming psychedelic pop band Plum which made waves before moving to the City of Angels and, as is often the cliché, broke up shortly thereafter. Since then Emerson moved back to the Mile High City where he established himself as a solo artist with the release of his sophisticated and introspective, folk inflected pop album Dorothy Alice. For this set of shows he’s opening for bluesy indie rock band Houndmouth from Indiana.

FILTH circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Ultra Metal 2 Night 1
When: Friday, 11.8, 5 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Since Denver Noise Fest isn’t happening this year, Johnathan Cash of Sunk Cost is picking up that slack again with the biggest noise festival in Colorado across two nights at Rhinoceropolis bringing together a wide range of artists from Colorado and well beyond. Go expecting the broad spectrum of noise from the presumed harsh noise, to prepared environment soundscaping, ambient, beat-driven industrial drone, noisy post-punk, glitch, weirdo techno, post-metal, organic sound composition, sound collage, field recording processing and more. Honestly, greater diversity here in purely sonic terms than any other festival in Colorado since the last Ultra Metal. See the schedule below.

5pm – doors open
5:40pm – J. Westerman
6pm – Blarney Mumble
6:20pm – Harms
6:40pm – Kid Mask
7pm – Dragging
7:20pm – Voight
7:40pm – Pat Hopewell
8pm – Genital Stigmata
8:20pm – Culled
8:40pm – John Ingram
9pm – Sounding
9:20pm – Ritual Chair
9:40pm – Developer
10pm – Kiran Arora
10:20pm – Xome
10:40pm – Conscious Summary
11pm – Baby Daddy
11:20pm – PCRV
11:40pm – Scathing
12am – VX Bliss
12:20am – GNO
12:40am – FILTH
1am – H Lite x Techno Allah
1:20am – Clutch Plague
1:40am – J. Hamilton Isaacs

What: Clan of Xymox w/The Bellweather Syndicate and The Siren Project
When: Friday, 11.8, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is a Dutch post-punk band that influenced a generation of second wave Goth bands with its imaginative and bracing sounds and imagery. Adam Wingard featured Xymox tracks in his 2014 action thriller The Guest.

What: Codename: Carter w/SPELLS and Zephyr
When: Friday, 11.8, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: The Roots
When: Friday, 11.8, 8 p.m.
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium

Saturday | November 9

Pedestrian Deposit circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Ultra Metal 2 Night 2
When: Saturday, 11.9, 5 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: See above regarding Ultra Metal. Schedule for night 2 below.

5pm – doors open
5:40pm – ilind
6pm – French Kettle Station
6:20pm – Goo Age
6:40pm – Earth Control Pill
7pm – Pet Sounds
7:20pm – Rush Falknor
7:40pm – Illicit Relationship
8pm – Sunk Cost
8:20pm – A Fail Association
8:40pm – Primordial Wound
9pm – T.E.F.
9:20pm – Sects
9:40pm – Jackson Pratt
10pm – Sissisters
10:20pm – Blind Date
10:40pm – Circuit Wound
11pm – Ancient, INC.
11:20pm – Tralphaz
11:40pm – Pedestrian Deposit
12am – Dromez
12:20am – Purism
12:40am – Blank Hellscape
1am – Total Mom
1:20am – Many Blessings
1:40am – Page 27

Necropanther, photo courtesy the artists

What: Necropanther w/Methane, Incarnit, Draghoria
When: Saturday, 11.9, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Death/thrash metal band Necropanther from Denver is celebrating the release of its latest album The Doomed City although it has those great, distorted vocals that you’d expect from a black metal outfit there’s always been something tuneful and catchy about the band’s output.

What: Pink Hawks’ Scorpio Party: Pink Hawks, Los Mocochetes, Brothers of Brass, DJ A-L
When: Saturday, 11.9, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s

What: Zebroids, Mr. Pacman, The Half Hearts, Ladies Night
When: Saturday, 11.9, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair

What: Integrity w/Limbwrecker, Victim of Fire and Clusterfux
When: Saturday, 11.9, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

What: Houndmouth w/Kyle Emerson
When: Saturday, 11.9, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

Sunday | November 10

Pile, photo by Elisabeth Fuchsia

What: Pile w/Slow Code and Moon Pussy
When: Sunday, 11.10, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Pile formed in 2007, the same year as the Canadian band Women, and has exerted a similarly strong influence on underground guitar rock by going off the map of conventional structure, dynamics and tone. Its new album Green and Gray has all of its signature contorted and noisy angularity. Opening is Denver noise rock Moon Pussy whose Big Black-esque bluster is a revelation.

What: Vincent Comparetto Going Away Party
When: Sunday, 11.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Vincent Comparetto has been calling Denver home for over 20 years and is now moving to New York City. He got involved in the skating community in the 90s and discovered the local world’s punk and post-punk communities and has been avidly documenting the music scene and the cityscape for years as can be found in his ‘zines Follow Focus, particulary #2 in which he shared several of his shots of shows and the arts world in Denver. Here’s a public chance to say farewell to one of local cultures most cordial and thoughtful preservers of what has been and advocates for what is going on.

What: FUTUREBIRDS w/Rowboat and Paul DeHaven
When: Sunday, 11.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Monday | November 11

Hippo Campus, photo by Pooneh Ghana

What: Hippo Campus w/The Greeting Committee
When: Monday, 11.11, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Hippo Campus released two albums in 2019 as Demos I and Demos II. While they sound a bit like the titles suggest and recorded between 2017 and 2018, the spare, raw quality of the recordings actually serve to highlight the band’s songwriting further. Its 2018 album Bambi showcased its knack for expertly produced pop songs while the new batch of material is almost the polar opposite like the experiments Magnetic Fields have engaged in over the years with its creative and varied use of technology in songwriting and processing sounds. But whatever its approach, Hippo Campus has proven its mastery of dynamics and tone.

Aquabats, photo courtesy the artists

What: The Aquabats
When: Monday, 11.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: It’s odd to think that The Aquabats has been around for over twenty-five years now. Hailing from Huntington Beach, California, the quintet’s mixture of ska, punk and pop is as surreal as it is playful. Its singer The MC Bat Commander (aka Christian Jacobs) is better known for his involvement with the kids’ show Yo Gabba Gabba! these days but The Aquabats was a good natured send-up of the Orange County punk scene as the opposite of a macho, violent band. Instead The Aquabats have assumed the personae of super heroes and its multi-media presentation through its own TV shows and sillymusic videos has allowed the band to transcend not just genre appeal but appeal beyond the realm of punk and ska, which the group has long since left behind in favor of greater musical diversity in its songwriting. Go expecting more than just a musical performance, expect the full integration of that with theater and comedy routines and special guest performers along with its usual incorporation of the audience into the proceedings as well.

What: RAREBYRD$, Staple (WI), Gone Full Heathen, Heathen Burial and Denizens of the Deep
When: Monday, 11.11, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Glitter City

What: Ulthar w/Nightfell, Malum Mortuus and Saeva
When: Monday, 11.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Decide Today (ex-Realicide), Watabou, Church Fire and Techno Allah
When: Monday, 11.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

Tuesday | November 12

Emerald Siam, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Elephant Stone w/Frankie and the Witch Fingers and Emerald Siam
When: Tuesday, 11.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Elephant Stone’s psychedelic pop songs have weathered the glut of wannabe psychedelic rock of the past several years by going beyond the tropes and creating transcendent melodies incorporating traditional Indian musical styles and methods for a sound that seems to drift in from some brighter realm than our own. Frankie and the Witch Fingers is a little more traditionally garage psyche but the sheer momentum of its performances elevates it beyond the languid pace and laid back style we’ve come to expect all while maintaining a delicacy of feeling. Emerald Siam from Denver has some of that psychedelic garage rock in its musical DNA but is more like a moody, dark, post-punk band that discovered that musical catharsis comes from overcoming one’s personal momentum rather than sinking deeper into it.

What: FKA Twigs
When: Tuesday, 11.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: FKA Twigs brilliantly fuses downtempo with experimental electronic music. Her new album Magdalene is basically an environmental noise record with elements of R&B and soul in a pop format in the foreground.

What: Big Freedia w/Low Cut Connie
When: Tuesday, 11.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Big Freedia’s “sissy bounce” is like some hip-hop performance art spell-casting that is disorienting yet utterly riveting.

What: At the Heart of the World w/Lowfaith and Polyurethane
When: Tuesday, 11.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

Wednesday | November 13

The Coathangers, photo by Jeff Forney

What: The Coathangers w/Control Top and Rocket Dust
When: Wednesday, 11.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Coathangers have evolved a lot since the incendiary and thrilling chaos of their earlier punk rock without losing any of that raw power. Now touring for The Devil You Know, The Coathangers have completely integrated its instinct for tearing down convention with sharply focused songwriting.

What: Sun Seeker w/Duncan Fellows
When: Wednesday, 11.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Duncan Fellows from Austin unexpectedly makes a blend of Americana, psychedelic pop and 2000s indie rock work through creative layering of instrumentation and vocals giving its songs great dynamic range and an element of unpredictability. There’s a lot of imitation in music at the moment and while Duncan Fellows may not strike some as incredibly original, give them a good listen and it becomes obvious they’re at least following their musical instincts where the mood flows rather than where pre-existing style suggests. In that way the group is a bit like Foxygen and Unknown Mortal Orchestra without sounding like either. Its use of synths as a full compositional element sets it apart from most of its peers as well as heard put to full effect on the group’s latest release the Eyelids Shut EP.

What: MONO w/Bell Witch
When: Wednesday, 11.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s

What: The Get Up Kids w/Kevin Devine and The Whiffs
When: Wednesday, 11.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

What: Mr. Phylzzz w/Simulators, Church Van and Moon Pussy
When: Wednesday, 11.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Glitter City

Best Shows in Denver 09/12/19 – 09/18/19

Summer Cannibals perform at Lost Lake on September 13, photo by Jason Quigley

Thursday | September 12

Sheer Mag circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Sheer Mag w/Tweens and The Born Readies
When: Thursday, 09.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sheer Mag sounds like a band that grew up listening mostly to Thin Lizzy, 70s power pop and AC/DC but invented punk rock without ever having heard it. It’s new record A Distant Call finds the band having refined some of its raw power without blunting it.

Friday | September 13

Dub Trio, photo by William Felch

What: Soulless Maneater, Sweetness Itself, Sad Bug
When: Friday, 09.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Sad Bug is sort of a neo-emo pop punk band. Sweetness Itself might come off as a bit of a fuzzy psychedelic band but sometimes Cyrena Rosati’s guitar work verves into bendy waves akin to something you might hear from My Bloody Valentine via No Joy. Which is to say gloriously loud and noisy but also tied to tight songwriting and accessible hooks. Soulless Maneater is what happens when you give doom metal more of an abrasive edge and more pointed and political lyrics aimed at where a critical eye belongs.

What: Summer Cannibals w/Mr. Atomic and Knuckle Pups
When: Friday, 09.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Summer Cannibals have for the past seven years charted a path out of the neo-garage rock that dominated American underground rock for several years. Its own songwriting more fluid and dynamic than just the adolescent release and raw, youthful enthusiasm that was both what was exciting but ultimately limiting and tiresome about the new garage bands. Summer Cannibals didn’t just have a healthy sense of humor but the band also seemed to take seriously its songcraft but without overthinking it. Its new album, 2019’s Can’t Tell Me No is Summer Cannibals in high form with its contrast of melodic vocals, grit, attitude and confessional lyrics.

What: Dub Trio w/Incubus
When: Friday, 09.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: It shouldn’t work and maybe for some it doesn’t, but Brooklyn’s Dub Trio took inspiration from King Tubby and applied the principles of dub to heavier music in terms of shaping sound, production and signal processing. Surface level, the group comes across like an arty doom band and it has served as part of the backing band for Mike Patton on the 2006 Peeping Tom tour and on its new album The Shape of Jazz to Come, it worked with Buzz Osborne of Melvins fame. But the bass is sculpted in a way to sync up with the sampled and manipulated sounds fed back into the mix for a disorienting yet hypnotic effect. Sure, opening for a pretty famous nü metal band but worth going to see for their set alone.

Saturday | September 14

Strand of Oaks, photo by Alysse Gafkajen

What: Dub Trio w/Incubus
When: Saturday, 09.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: For Dub Trio see above on 9.14.

What: Day of the Green Fish: Emerald Siam, Pale Sun, No Gossip In Braille, Wild Call, Kilonova and Palehorse/Palerider
When: Saturday, 09.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Really a showcase for some of Denver’s greatest practitioners of darkly atmospheric rock from the post-punk, shoegaze, tribal drone and psychedelic underground.

What: Test Dept w/Acidbat, eHpH and DJ Dave Vendetta
When: Saturday, 09.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Antero Hall (formerly Eck’s Saloon)
Why: Test Dept is indeed the legendary early industrial band from London touring through Denver before it performs at the Cold Waves festival in Chicago. Percussion heavy, full, mind-altering assault to the senses in the vein of those early industrial groups of the 80s. Different from but definitely for fans of Einstürzende Neubauten and Crash Worship.

What: Total Trash, Vampire Squids From Hell, Lords of Howling
When: Saturday, 09.14, 8 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: September’s Get Your Ears Swoll will include “doom surf” band Vampire Squids From Hell, avant-folk Lords of Howling and psychedelic indie rock phenoms Total Trash.

What: Strand of Oaks w/Apex Manor
When: Saturday, 09.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: As Strand of Oaks, Timothy Showalter has had a prolific career writing delicate and thoughtful, introspective, folk-inflected pop songs. One might call it pastoral but by candlelight. There’s an intimacy to Showalter’s songwriting that sets it apart from some other songwriters exploring similar sonic territory. That and Showalter’s attention to the rhythm side of the music so that all parts compliment each other well. His new album, 2019’s Eraserland, was never supposed to happen until some friends convinced him to get back into the studio to write the record and it’s a particularly touching testament to rediscovering the strength to continue on and do what you love even if it feels to you at the time pointless and hopeless. It’s a personal reinvention with music that feels gently reinvigorating as well.

What: KGNU Quarterly Showcase, Smash it Back Edition: Sputnik Slovenia, Little Fyodor & Babushka and The Hinckleys – DJ Andy Z
When: Saturday, 09.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This edition of the KGNU Quaterly showcase features Jim Yelnick of hardcore band Pitch Invasion playing his solo material and probably treating you to some unusual humor. And of course the great, avant-garde punk band Little Fyodor & Babushka will be putting in a, these days, rare appearance and demonstrate how punk can push the boundaries of the songwriting and subject matter while writing incredibly catchy music. There is no fashion victim type stuff with Fyodor because he already looks like an accountant who burned down his office and started a cable access show about underground culture and the impending collapse of civilization.

Sunday | September 16

Altas, photo by Evan Semoìn

What: RETIFest: Los Mocochetes, iZCALLi, Roka Hueka, El Cro, Altas, Sierra Leon, 2MX2, Modulor, Puete Libre
When: Sunday, 09.15, 10 a.m.
Where: Mile High Flea Market
Why: This is sort of an all day festival featuring some of Denver’s best bands whose membership is largely of Latinx extraction from the psychedelic funk band Los Mocochetes, hard rock group iZCALLi, experimental post-rock powerhouse Altas and hip-hop crew 2MX2.

Monday | September 16

Lower Dens, photo by Torso

What: Of Monsters and Men w/Lower Dens
When: Monday, 09.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Mission Ballroom
Why: Icelandic pop band Of Monsters and Men are currently touring in support of its 2019 album Fever Dream and will provide the expansive, emotional, melodic songs made for the larger club setting. Opening the show is experimental dream pop band Lower Dens. The group’s earlier albums were in the realm of dub-inflected post-punk but its newer material, particularly on its new record The Competition, combines its lush melodies with an almost disco flavored adult contemporary sound. Like Jana Hunter and company mined 80s pop music and removed the cheese but kept the solid songwriting and production.

What: Roselit Bone, High Plains Honky and Erika Ryann
When: Monday, 09.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Roselit Bone is like a honky tonk, cow boy high desert Gun Club and visually reminiscent of the same. Intense live performances and riveting storytelling. Its new album Crisis Actor is a storybook of American skullduggery, misdeeds and a celebration of life.

Tuesday | September 17

GRLwood, photo by Mickie Winters

What: Man Man w/GRLwood
When: Tuesday, 09.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: GRLwood from Louisville, Kentucky sound like an emotionally nuanced math-y emo band on its 2018 album Daddy. Though there is a smoldering sensibility to the vocals the band is able to reconcile powerful feelings with actually feeling its hurt and transforming that into a melancholic catharsis that bursts forth in fiery riffs and introspective passages. And it will contrast well with Man Man, the psychedelic art rock band formerly form Philadelphia who made it “indie big” in the 2000s with its ambitious albums and theatrical and bombastic live shows.

Hatchie, photo by Alex Wall

What: Hatchie w/Orchin and Slow Caves
When: Tuesday, 09.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Hatchie’s 2019 debut full length Keepsake is the rare dream pop offering of late with a keen ear for the low end to give the music some weightiness and drive. Maybe there’s no surprise there since Harriet Pilbeam has played bass and guitar in her musical career up to now and the songwriting on Keepsake reflects an appreciation for a broad spectrum of how the music can stimulate your emotions. It’s breezy in dynamic and Pilbeam’s vocals warmly melodic but the songs always seem to be reaching forward to draw you in.

Wednesday | September 18

Torche, photo by Dan Almasy

What: Kælan Mikla (Iceland), No Gossip in Braille, French Kettle Station and Shadows Tranquil
When: Wednesday, 09.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Kælan Mikla is an Icelandic post-punk band whose desperate vocals paired with lush, brooding bass and synth tracks are an entrancing contrast. Definitely for fans of Tollund Men.

What: Torche w/Pinkish Black and Green Druid
When: Wednesday, 09.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Torche formed in 2004 in Miami and came out of the heavy music underground of the 90s when Steve Brooks and former member Juan Montoya were members of doom/sludge legends Floor. Torche was a different animal and as the band has developed over the years it is difficult to really call it a sludge or doom band, especially with its 2019 album Admission with its sometimes shimmery and gritty melodies, expansive vocal dynamic and sinuous rhythms. The fuzzy drones seem to have more in common with the likes of Swervedriver than what you’re likely to hear on a doom record and yet often enough Torche employs a colossally blunt riff but then sends it spiralling in different trajectories giving the songs a sound like what might happen if a psychedelic metal band left behind its limiting tropes and explored the inherent possibilities of its sound palette.

What: Man Man w/GRLwood
When: Wednesday, 09.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: See above on 9/17 for Man Man and GRLwood.

Best Shows in Denver 05/16/19 – 05/22/19

Tav Falco’s Panther Burns performs at Lion’s Lair on May 18. Photo by Klaus Pichler

Thursday | May 16

Johnny Marr, photo by Nial Lea

What: Old Time Relijun w/Shooda Shook It and Moon Pussy
When: Thursday, 05.16, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Colliding Captain Beefheart-esque outsider atonality with non-western elements of rhythm, Old Time Relijun’s shamanistic, Sun City Girls-esque jazz was unlike much of anything else going on when it launched in the late 90s. Now back together after nearly a decade hiatus, OTR is touring widely in the wake of the release of its 2019 album See Now and Know. Also on the bill for the night is Tucson-based No Wave funk-esque quartet Shooda Shook It and Denver’s confrontational, deconstructionist noise rock stars Moon Pussy.

What: An Evening With Johnny Marr
When: Thursday, 05.16, 7/8:30 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Johnny Marr is the iconic guitarist from post-punk legends The Smiths. His solo career is also full of worthwhile material in which he gets to show off his gift for complex yet seemingly simple melodies. Live, Marr performs material from across his career and anyone that has seen him might even say the unlikely and point out that his vocals for classic Smiths material are at least as good as Morrissey’s. As the title of the show suggests, an entire evening of Marr’s music and selections from catalog of The Smiths and some choice covers.

What: Glissline
When: Thursday, 05.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Ross-Broadway library
Why: Tommy Metz has been making beautiful and affecting ambient/IDM music for over a decade. With Glissline he pushes the production methods further than ever while making very experimental music so accessible it always takes you by surprise.

What: John Catdog and Sobremarcha Musicgroup
When: Thursday, 05.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: John Catdog’s boundary pushing mix of what might be described as abstract industrial dance music and noise informed by radical politics. At other times more downtempo and chill but always interesting. Sobremarcha Musicgroup is a project of Amber Gomez, a formerly Chicago-based DJ and producer whose bright, gently urgent tracks will definitely fill out the room and beyond this night.

What: Jenny Lewis On the Line Tour 2019 w/Karl Blau
When: Thursday, 05.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: On The Line is Jenny Lewis’ latest record and it is the exquisitely composed, lush pop that Lewis has made so well for years with her usual literary flair. But in promoting the record, Lewis might have struck some people as very unvarnished and disarmingly off-the-cuff. But we kind of need that from more artists these days especially those whose art gives one the impression of their embracing classic forms of art and established ways. Jenny Lewis has always been a bit subversive and a little different in the humor department, one might say a secret weirdo who operates in the open, which is why her creative output remains worthwhile because all the weirdness, the eccentricity is there amid the expertise in presenting a conventional front.

Friday | May 17

Calpurnia, photo by Pooneh Ghana

What: Nitzer Ebb w/Liebknecht and DJ n810
When: Friday, 05.17, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: With the stridently urgent rhythms and confrontational feel of its 1987 album That Total Age, Nitzer Ebb, like Front 242 and D.A.F., established a template for much later EBM with any bite and vitality.

What: No Gossip in Braille release show w/Emerald Siam and Weathered Statues
When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Mercury Café
Why: No Gossip in Braille is releasing its debut effort Bend Toward Perfect Light on Cercle Social Records at this show. The post-punk duo of Keith Curts of Echo Beds and formerly of Ghost Orchids and Subpoena The Past and Bryan S. Becker formerly of experimental guitar band Annik has crafted a brooding post-punk album of refined emotional expression and lush atmospheres driven by gently urgent electronic percussion. Vocally it’s a bit of a different direction for Curts than most people who have seen his bands in the past two decades are used to as rather than the screaming and highly processed sounds in Echo Beds or Glass Hits, Curts hits some truly melancholic and introspective depths to match the elegant and ethereal guitar work.

What: Duncan Barlow and Natalie Rogers reading
When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Duncan Barlow is known to many for his time in hardcore and post-hardcore bands (Endpoint, Guilt, By the Grace of God) from Louisville, Kentucky as well as punk and Americana bands from Denver (D. Biddle, Lion Sized). But lately he’s been a professor living in Vermillion, South Dakota teaching at the University of South Dakota and continuing to write literary fiction including his 2019 novel A Dog Between Us. Natalie Rogers is a writer whose diverse work background (911 dispatcher, adult caretaker, teacher etc.) informs her own works of fiction. Both will read selections from their body of work.

What: Calpurnia w/Slow Caves
When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Calpurnia’s fuzzy indie rock sounds a bit like a throwback to 70s power/bubblegum pop like The Sweet or The Raspberries though likely filtered through the lens of latter day practitioners of related sounds like Twin Peaks and The Strokes. The band is really young with singer and guitarist Finn Wolfhard turning 17 in December so the band will grow beyond its most obvious current influences. Tracks like “Greyhound,” though, more than hint at promising uses of sound ahead.

What: Slothrust w/Summer Cannibals and The Velveteers
When: Friday, 05.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: Jenny Lewis w/Karl Blau
When: Friday, 05.17, 6 p.m.
Where: Mishawaka Amphitheatre

What: The Beeves (album release) w./Augustus, Nate Cook and Meeting House
When: Friday, 05.17, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

What: Denver Hex Pre-Party: Muscle Beach and Church Fire
When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Saturday | May 18

R A R E B Y R D $, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Fem Fest 2019: 2 Kayla Marque, 3 RAREBYRD$, 4 The Milk Blossoms, 5 YaSi
When: Saturday, 05.18, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Museum of Contemporary Art Denver
Why: The 2019 edition of Fem Fest is a celebration of female identified artists and musicians with workshops, a bazaar, DJs, a photo book and live music throughout the course of the event. Of course attendance is open to people of all ages and genders. The numbers listed above before the band/artist is the time slot in the afternoon/evening you can expect to catch their set. Experimental hip-hop and whatever kind of pop one might like to use to describe The Milk Blossoms. But no matter who you choose to check out there are only some of Denver’s greatest on the festival.

What: KGNU Quarterly Showcase: Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Florea (solo), Ghost Tapes and The Guest List
When: Saturday, 05.18, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: All the local bands on this bill would be worth going to see alone. But the surprise announcement of a performance from Tav Falco’s Panther Burns put the show at the top of our list for this week. The group started in Memphis and its membership included the likes of founding member Alex Chilton of Big Star who performed and toured with the band until 1984 including the well-known 1979 television appearance on Marge Thasher’s Strait Talk program. The host attempts to skewer the band’s performance but Falco deftly turns her criticisms into a chance to make a case for music that truly is rock and roll and not an attempt at following established formula. Falco’s eccentric and brilliant, arty, psychedelic blues punk has exerted a strong infuence on the likes of Jon Spencer, The Oblivians, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream and The Gories. Currently the band is touring in support of its 2018 album of inspired covers (and some originals) ranging 80 years of American music: Cabaret of Daggers. Don’t sleep on this one because a band as legendary and as unique as Tav Falco’s Panther Burns rarely makes an appearance in Denver much less at a small club like Lion’s Lair.

What: Calpurnia w/Slow Caves
When: Saturday, 05.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Aggie Theatre

What: Kirin J. Callinan w/Jorge Elbrecht and French Kettle Station
When: Saturday, 05.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

What: Time (FL), TetraKroma, Atonal Stimulant
When: Saturday, 05.18, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis

What: Sutphin (KS), TWINK, Felony Charge, Tuck Knee and No Sign
When: Saturday, 05.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery

What: Proud Souls Backyard BBQ feat. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Zeparella the All-Female Zeppelin Powerhouse, Saddle of Southern Darkness and New Ben Franklins
When: Saturday, 05.18, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre

What: Cub Sport w/Minor Poet and Modern Suspects
When: Saturday, 05.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater

Monday | May 20, 2019

Xiu Xiu, photo by Andrea Petrovicova

What: Xiu Xiu w/Elyria Sequence
When: Monday, 05.20, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Since 2012’s Always, Xiu Xiu’s albums have become darker and like collections of harrowing stories commenting on the horrors of society. None more so than 2019’s Girl with Basket of Fruit. It could have had its own season of the now canceled SyFy series Channel Zero. There is the experimental folk side of Xiu Xiu that was compelling and thrillingly emotionally raw, a quality that Jamie Stewart developed further in the context of the synth-driven exorcisms of his most recent records. Reminiscent of Suicide in both evocation of stark psychological spaces and richness of tone and mood, Xiu Xiu now embodies what many darkwave bands would like to be but are not yet there.

Christine and The Queens, photo by Suffo Moncloa

What: Florence + The Machine: The High as Hope Tour 2019 w/Christine and the Queens
When: Monday, 05.20, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Was it an accident that Florence + The Machine are playing Red Rocks the night after the airing of the final episode of Game of Thrones on Sunday, May 19? Probably. But it’s more interesting to speculate that is no coincidence for a band that wrote the chilling ballad “Jenny of Oldstones” based on the quasi-mythical wife of Duncan Targaryen, ancient ancestor of Daenerys, of course. Either way, Florence + The Machine’s music has a deserved reputation for its uplifting and diverse mix of pop styles and expansive moods buoyed by Florence Welch’s refined yet soulful vocals. Opening the show is Christine and the Queens, or, simply, Chris, the performance moniker of Héloïse Adelaide Letissier who has used the project and even the name of the project to experiment with adopting a persona and to discuss in song and performance the nature of identity itself. A heady proposition, perhaps, but it has been very much a part of Letissier’s push to writing pop music that challenges assumptions while somehow remaining incredibly accessible. Fans of David Byrne and Laurie Anderson will appreciate Letissier’s almost free association yet coherent compositional style, especially as manifested on her 2018 album Chris, and the sheer playfulness of her songs and stage persona.

What: Omni w/Vic N’ The Narwhals
When: Monday, 05.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: Lord Buffalo w/Palehorse/Palerider, Matriarch and Shadows Tranquil
When: Monday, 05.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Tuesday | May 21

The Twilight Sad, photo by Debi Del Grande

What: The Twilight Sad w/Kathryn Joseph
When: Tuesday, 05.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Being a cult band can be rough going knowing that you’re doing something special and different, pushing music in a similar vein forward by taking chances and not following trends. Well, to some extent anyway, that has paid off for Scotland’s The Twilight Sad. Post-punk and shoegaze has been a crowded field for the past two decades especially lately when it seems everyone that suddenly realized they liked The Cure and dark post-punk started a band. But The Twilight Sad’s willingness to utilize raw noise and sing with urgency instead of with an affectless, almost disengaged style has always seemed vital and reminiscent of bands like The Comsat Angels and The Sound more than some other bands who might claim similar influences. The group nearly called it quits half a decade ago but it started garnering unexpected attention for its then new album, 2014’s Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, as well as an opening slot on tour with The Cure where the band distinguished itself well. In 2019 the group released its latest album It Won/t Be Like This All the Time and reaffirming itself as a band that doesn’t try to sugarcoat or downplay life’s down sides in its songwriting while providing an excellent soundtrack to work through those times. That part of what informed the writing of the record was tapping into some old Brian Eno songs using Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards as an impetus to writing songs that would be fun to play live sets the new record apart from much of modern rock music by trusting in processes outside of conscious thought to inject creativity into your art.

What: Hyperdontia, Mortiferum, Spectral Voice and Of Feather and Bone
When: Tuesday, 05.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera

What: Florence + The Machine: The High as Hope Tour 2019 w/Christine and the Queens
When: Tuesday, 05.21, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks

What: Camp Cope w/An Horse and Oceanator
When: Tuesday, 05.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Wednesday | May 22

Radkey, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Radkey w/One Flew West and And the Black Feathers
When: Wednesday, 05.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Radkey gets lumped in with punk and, oddly, proto-punk probably because its sound is crunchy, dynamic rock music with great, melodic vocal harmonies. But it is a rock and roll band comprised of three brothers whose songwriting owes no stylistic debt to any particular movement or artist. Maybe you could say its reminiscent of Thin Lizzy combined with a good, modern pop punk band. Wherever Radkey is coming from with its music, its high energy live shows are always entertaining. In 2019 the group released its latest album, No Strange Cats…P.A.W where it switches the pace of the songs up more than ever expanding its already respectable dynamic range.

The Faint, photo by Bill Sitzmann

What: The Faint w/Choir Boy, Closeness and boyhollow
When: Wednesday, 05.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Before it became fairly trendy in the late 2000s and 2010s, The Faint was drawing upon 80s synth pop and mixing it with emotionally-charged post-punk. The band’s second proper album Blank-Wave Arcade from 1998 was a bit of an anomaly somehow reminiscent of Falco, Duran Duran, The VSS and the more interesting 90s emo. By the time of 2001’s Danse Macabre the group had refined to perfection a fusion of electronic and post-punk without sounding like much of anyone else. Eighteen years later The Faint is pushing itself in interesting directions as evidenced by the release of its new album Egowerk. The songwriting straddles the world of electronic dance music and post-punk and with lush production and Todd Fink’s always expressive and melodious vocals swimming in atmospheric grandeur. It is the band’s least traditionally rock sounding record and chances are most suited to the group’s visually dynamic light show.

What: Rhett Miller of The Old 97’s w/Anthony Ruptak
When: Wednesday, 05.22, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater

Best Shows in Denver 12/27/18 – 1/2/18

Church Fire drops Summer Camp Doom Diary @ Hi-Dive this Saturday, 12/29/18.                       Photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | December 27, 2018

Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Drink Drank Punk w/Sliver and Denver Meatpacking Company
When: Thursday, 12.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Drink Drank Punk sounds like a party game of some kind but it’s actually a punk band that sounds like some 90s grunge-inspired musicians decided to call themselves punk because that’s where grunge came from anyway. On the band’s “About” section on Facebook words have semi-randomly capitalized letters and other odd bits of bravado. Listing one of your own other projects as an influence on the band you’re in? Really? Hopefully the band is good. Fortunately, the other two bands, clearly own the influence of grunge and 90s alternative rock and make it their own. Sliver’s fury and emotionally raw performances feel like they come from a very real place. Especially with Demry West on drums playing with a joy that balances out Chris Mercer’s churning anomy. Denver Meatpacking Company could have been a solid pop band but there’s something cathartic about playing music with a bit more grit even if you’re old enough to remember when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was toppling the glam metal temples in the early 90s without even trying. That comes across in DMC’s songwriting and shows.

Who: Sleepy Animals EP release, Bluebook, Lowfaith
When: Thursday, 12.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Sleepy Animals releases its EP Mirrored Polygons today. Its downtempo indie rock is in good company with the avant-garde indie pop of Bluebook and Lowfaith’s gentle and expansively moody post-punk.

Friday | December 28, 2018

 

Green Druid, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Khemmis w/Dreadnought, Green Druid
When: Friday, 12.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Doom band Khemmis has been making waves well beyond Denver for a few years at this point and this weekend is doing a two night run showcasing some of the best metal local metal bands including tonight with Dreadnought and its majestic, folk-inflected, atmospheric doom and Green Druid’s psychedelic tinged brand of heavy music.

Who: Joseph Lamar, Talking Mirrors, My New Dad
When: Friday, 12.28, 9 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Joseph Lamar has been a bit of a musical alchemist and chameleon with his songwriting steeped in dream pop and R&B while taking on various roles as a musician in his band an in other projects. His live show is a mixture of the intimate and the mystical.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Denver Broncos UK and Midwife
When: Friday, 12.28, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has, since its beginnings in the early 90s, established itself as one of the definitive bands of the Denver music outside the mainstream. With an international fanbase, SCAC, like many of the Mile High City’s best bands, plays small club shows in its hometown. The group’s lively performances of harrowing yet ultimately life-affirming music is reliably compelling, moving and, though highly theatrical, human. For this three night run (also including 12/29 and NYE) the band is bringing in refreshingly different opening act from the usual “same genre” billing. For this show, sure, dark post-punk Americana side project Denver Broncos UK, well worth seeing, but also the delicate, ethereal outsider folk brilliance of Midwife.

Saturday | December 29, 2018

Mirror Fears at UMS, July 30, 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Church Fire: Summer Camp Doom Diary release w/The Milk Blossoms, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Mirror Fears
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church Fire’s latest album Summer Camp Doom Diary was many years in the making from shedding the quaint but necessary early compositional ideas and methods represented by the phase in which the duo was calling itself Sewing Buttons on Ice Cream. When the band emerged into the type of group that could make powerful tribal, industrial dance music infused with a sophisticated sociopolitical orientation it really found its core audience among people who don’t see why bangers are irreconcilable with rich and thoughtful content. The new record is the apex of Church Fire’s most recent wave of artistic development which, in many bands, is where its future music will plateau even if it’s worth a listen hereafter. But if you’ve seen Church Fire in the last half year you’ve seen hints of the future direction of the band all of which is more than hinted at across Summer Camp Doom Diary like mini-prophecies, Easter eggs, of self-liberation for both the band and listener alike. For this show Church Fire is joined by other local visionary artists in the more experimental realm who make music that stretches the brain and expands your inner horizons.

Who: Khemmis w/Of Feather and Bone and NightWraith
When: Saturday, 12.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Second night of Khemmis’ local showcase with the grindcore-esque Of Feather and Bone and the thrash-core doom of NightWraith.

Who: Pale Sun, Emerald Siam and Wild Call
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: When silly people talk about the “end of guitar rock” they should be so lucky as to catch this line-up with Pale Sun’s hypnotic and moving post-shoegaze ambient rock, Emerald Siam’s left field stretch beyond brooding post-punk by incorporating hooks and emotional depth and Wild Call’s gritty, dreamy, visceral songwriting.

Who: Itchy-O w/PPL MVR
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O is doing a three night run for the new year beginning tonight with costume weirdo metal band PPL MVR. While a lot of its music is some kind of sludgy hard rock the yeti-looking group freely plays with sounds and methods from other styles of music including psychedelia and hip-hop.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Munly & The Lupercalians and Voight
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: This second night of three of SCAC’s NYE run at Globe Hall includes performances from the spooky, costumed ritual folk band Munly & The Lupercalians and shoegaze/industrial post-punk duo Voight.

Sunday | December 30, 2018

Cloudless Rain (left) with Sheet Metal Skin Graft (left) circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Textures: Brother Saturn, Cloudless Rain, Gutter Spirits
When: Sunday, 12.30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: The final Textures ambient showcase of 2018 with performances from post-rock/loop-shoegaze/electro ambient project Brother Saturn and Cloudless Rain whose own music seems to be one of freefloating, endless horizons as one would expect from a persistent virtual world chillout zone.

Who: Wildermiss w/The Solid Ocean and Panther Martin
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Red Fox Run was a promising band that realized that ambition when some of those guys got together with Emma Cole to form Wildermiss. It’s upbeat, earnest indie rock with interesting tonal flourishes and imaginative song dynamics that separate its musical offerings from the current spate of cookie cutter indiedom. The Red Fox Run guys also bring to the project much of what they learned about promoting themselves beyond just overplaying and oversaturating the local scene in the seemingly aimless manner of many of their peers. This is the first night of a two night run to ring in the new year.

Who: The Beach Boys
When: Sunday, 12.30, 6 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: It is indeed The Beach Boys probably performing choice cuts from across its career with some surprises thrown in because Brian Wilson isn’t a rote creative talent.

Who: Itchy-O w/Radio Scarlet
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Second night of Itchy-O’s run at The Oriental, this night Denver deathrock band Radio Scarlet will open the show.

Who: cindygod EP release
When: Sunday, 12.30, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Pon Pon
Why: cindygod is the newest band from the former members of noise rock band Gauntlet Hair. When the group emerged in the spring/summer of 2018 it had grown to a four-piece with a new name but with sounds that fans of the old band would find immediately likeable. Live, cindygod has been a reminder of what a great band Gauntlet Hair was but one that has evolved beyond that era of musical development but with the same frantic yet nuanced dynamics and joyous outpouring of sound. The group recently released the digital version of its debut EP with the vinyl available at this event.

Monday | December 31, 2018

Rubedo at We Labs with Ikey Owens (3rd from left), November 15, 2013. Photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Rubedo w/Fed Rez, R A R E B Y R D $, DJ Polyphoni
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rubedo doesn’t play too many Denver shows these days. Its winning, accessible and energetic mixture of funk, noise rock and prog has found an audience beyond Denver. In 2017 Rubedo released Vaca, a sort of farewell album to the trio’s late mentor and musical partner Isaiah “Ikey” Owens. Perhaps this show will include some of the material that will make up its next chapter. For this NYE show you also get to see raucous, insightful and witty hip-hop group Fed Rez and R A R E B Y R D $, another hip-hop group but one whose soulful, even spiritual, sound is rooted in an ability to channel pure emotion in nuanced, gentle yet powerful ways.

Who: Wildermiss w/Retrofette, Coastal Wives, Levi Double U
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: This second night of Wildermiss’ NYE run at Larimer Lounge will include performances from synth pop band Retrofette, indie blues rock band Coastal Wives and hip-hop production-influenced house music artist Levi Double U.

Who: Itchy-O w/Mr. Pacman
When: Monday, 12.31, 9 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O concludes its three-night run of shows this NYE with peformance art/synth pop group Mr. Pacman. Traditionally the 3 or 4 members of the latter have performed in costume like something out of an 80s cartoon cosplay demonstration but the confrontational performance will fit in well with what follows with the onslaught of Itchy-O.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Wayfarer and George Cessna (solo)
When: Monday, 12.31, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The third and final show of SCAC’s NYE residency featuring opening sets from Denver doom band Wayfarer and George Cessna performing a solo set.

Wednesday | January 2, 2019

Adam Selene, photo by Spookie Darling of Darling House Media

Who: Weird Wednesday: Adam Selene, The Jinjas, Vampire Squids From Hell
When: Wednesday, 01.02, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This is the first Weird Wednesday of 2019. The series, curated by independent, underground promoter Claudia Woodman, aims to highlight the stranger or more eccentric and/or more experimental music happening in Denver or dropping in on tour. For this show it’s poet/hip-hop artist Adam Selene whose beats are definitely not the standard faire and incorporates a broad palette of sounds and instrumentation, being more akin to the likes of Eyedea & Abilities and other hip-hop projects that don’t hesitate to use straight up rock and other noisy samples to give the music some edge. A good pairing with synth rock/pop weirdos The Jinjas. Psych/Americana-twinged surf rock band Vampire Squids From Hell aren’t overtly weird except when you consider that at times the group sounds like a strange hybrid of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and a mellower Man Or Astroman?

Best Shows in Denver 11/1/18 – 11/7/18

Tank and the Bangas will perform at The Ogden Theatre on Friday, November 2, 2018 with Big Freedia and Naughty Professor, photo by Gus Bennett Jr.

Thursday | November 1, 2018

The Goon Sax, photo by Ryan Topaz

Who: Holy Wave w/Pale Sun
When: Thursday, 11.1, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Holy Wave is a band from Austin, Texas that weaves together a kind of motorik beat driven, Krautrock wall of sound mixed with the sort of folk and rock and roll that produced the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. So sort of garage psych but more imaginative and with more nuanced, layered songwriting. With the band’s most recent album Adult Fear, it’s drifted in a more 60s futurist pop direction akin to Pink Floyd gone French pop akin to a psych garage version of Stereolab. Pale Sun’s dense washes of mind-bending tones and hypnotic rhythms will be a good match as its own atmospheric rock has some resonance with weirdo electronic music.

Who: Dia De Muertos Celebration with Altas, Plume Varia, Vic N’ The Narwhals and Church Fire
When: Thursday, 11.1, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Four of Denver’s best bands on one bill for this celebration of Dia De Muertos. Altas’s instrumental rock music conjures the visual element for you in your mind with its dynamic compositions and keen sense of texture and rhythm. Plume Varia’s downtempo dream pop is not something you get to see much live these days—an effective and evocative blend of R&B, synthpop and darkwave. Vic N’ The Narwhals found a way to keep surf rock vital and not another victim of genre oversaturation. Church Fire has long been the band to embody an instinct for great pop hooks, emotionally electrifying and confrontational performances, raw chaos and noise and making elements that aren’t often in one place work in a way that’s accessible and powerful. Church Fire will release an album at the end of the year and change up its direction so you may see hints of that in its upcoming live shows.

Who: The Goon Sax w/Teeth of the Hydra and Chromadrift
When: Thursday, 11.1, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brisbane, Australia’s The Goon Sax harnessed the strong melodic lines and harmonic jangle one heard in C86-era pop bands and those on the Sarah Records imprint, or as heard by bands clearly influenced by that sound, into some surprisingly thoughtful and incisive songs for a trio of teenagers. The group’s 2016 album Up to Anything may sound like a new indie rock album on the surface but there’s something more durable about the compositions like The Birthday Present with less fuzzy edges. With the group’s 2018 album We’re Not Talking finds the band making exceptionally realized use of space and textural elements that give the emotional quality a surprising vividness while enhancing the impact of the introspective lyrics. Opening the show are two experimental bands from Denver, both more on the ambient end of the spectrum, including Chromadrift whose soft, post-rock-esque compositions capture the feeling of fall and winter with an uncanny accuracy. Teeth of the Hydra’s moody, organic drones feel like music for a Bela Tarr movie.

Friday | November 2, 2018

Surfbort, photo by Renee Parkhurst

Who: Black Lips w/Surfbort and Dirty Few
When: Friday, 11.2, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Black Lips are still that notorious garage punk band from Atlanta from whom you’re never 100% sure what you’ll get but the show will be energetic and border on the chaotic. Which suits the energy and aesthetic of Denver’s Dirty Few. But like Black Lips, the band has a gift for solid pop songwriting and Kim Phat’s vocals give otherwise fairly gritty songs an interesting combination of lightness and intensity. Surfbort from Brooklyn breaks modern punk convention in a variety of ways. Not with the music so much as it sounds a bit like 80s and early 90s punk as if the band cutting its teeth learning to play along to The Damned, Crass, Black Flag and Tribe 8. But Dani Miller looks like a real punk who has seen some rough days but is now channeling that into powerful vocals not unlike an American Eve Libertine thirty years hence. The band’s debut full length Friendship Music is everything punk should be—loud, sometimes obnoxious, irreverent and willing to experiment with sound as a complete and utter middle finger to convention and expectations. Miller is in her mid-20s and her bandmates in their 40s and 50s so there is a sensibility and dynamic that makes this band always a little different and for the better.
Who: Tank and The Bangas and Big Freedia w/Naughty Professor
When: Friday, 11.2, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Some of New Orleans’ finest will grace the Ogden stage tonight. Tank and The Bangas’ flavor of that hip-hop, jazz and R&B hybrid is deeply eclectic, gently lively, layered and uplifting in a way that feels sincere and wholesome without being hokey or self-righteous. It’s the musical equivalent of a nutritious meal with a perfect blend of delicious flavors that mutually enhance and satisfy all palates. Big Freedia is a pioneer of sissy-bounce but at this point really pushes hip-hop in interesting directions with his larger-than-life live show and refusal to be contained by an aesthetic that might contain the prodigious energy of his musical instincts. Live, Freedia’s songs can go off the rails in surreal and heady directions because of that more open-ended songwriting style and performance. Maybe now Freedia has honed the act and songwriting to be more precise in its effectiveness but one of Freedia’s main appeals is a nearly overwhelming sense of liberation from convention. Naughty Professor is a six-piece, improvisational jazz-funk band on the more experimental end of that sort of music—an example of when a real jam band can make some magic on stage rather than self-indulgently wank.

Who: Nnamdi Ogbonnaya w/Sen Morimoto and Triplip
When: Friday, 11.2, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Nnamdi Ogbonnaya is an artist everyone that think they’ve seen everything should check out because he is like a recombinant DNA mad scientist of musical genres. Punk spirit, sometimes sound, always that energy fused with hip-hop, avant-garde improv, weirdo funk, indie jazz and whatever else goes in to give life to his unusual song ideas and surreal-yet-meaningful-and-insightful-playful lyrics. Maybe he’s too weird to go to some bigger level of touring but don’t count on it and see him when he’s still playing these smaller rooms.

Saturday | November 3, 2018

Drahla, photo by Bianca Wallis

Who: Quits w/Americas (Chicago), Reptoid (Oakland) and Arctobog and Bert Olsen
When: Saturday, 11.3, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Denver based noise rock band Quits shares the Seventh Circle stage with math rock/neo-emo band Americas from Chicago, Oakland’s menacing, industrial-esque, noise rockers Reptoid, poetry/avant-garde punk lo-fi act Arctobog from Denver and Folk Implosion-esque lo-fi rock project Bert Olsen.

Who: Hot Apostles, The Patient Zeros, Dead Pay Rent and Crimson Days (Robin Heitman, Nathan King, Garrett McGaugh and Nicolas Kjolhede)
When: Saturday, 11.3, 8 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge
Why: Nicolas Kjolhede recently moved back to Michigan after around a decade in Denver where he performed in the rock band Cutthroat Drifters. His signature moves, his clear passion for the music and his affable nature made him a true fixture in Denver’s underground music scene. Tonight he’ll perform with one of his new bands, Crimson Days, at the Squire Lounge with other noteworthy rock bands whose own musical vision isn’t limited to simple subgenre convention and who managed to be straight ahead rock bands with personality and not miming past classic rock glory as has been the temptation, unresisted, among too many bands today.

Who: Tera Melos w/Rumble Young Man Rumble and Dandu
When: Saturday, 11.3, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Tera Melos definitely puts the weird in math rock with technically challenging song structures and dynamics. Radical shifts in direction like a post-hardcore Don Caballero gives Tera Melos’ songs a wiry momentum that one might expect an early band on the 31G imprint or out of late 90s DIY scene Providence, Rhode Island. Dandu from Denver can vibe with the math rock and angular jazz flow but its own music is also brimming with atmosphere.

Who: CT-X (Captured Tracks 10 Anniversary Tour) w/Drahla, Lina Tullgren, Wax Chattels
When: Saturday, 11.3, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Indie record label Captured Tracks is celebrating its first decade with tour featuring a fairly representative slice of it roster. Wax Chattels is what might have been called a dance punk band fifteen years ago but it’s far noisier and keys rather than guitar and reminiscent of 90s post-hardcore, synth heavy bands like The VSS and Milemarker. Lina Tullgren’s songs would fall within the realm of dream pop if they weren’t imbued with an urgency and sense of melancholy. Drahla from Leeds, UK is a post-punk outfit that has adopted a bit of the unpredictable guitar melodies one would have heard in Sonic Youth from the 80s or from northeast Canada’s noisier guitar bands like FRIGS or Preoccupations.

Sunday | November 4, 2018

Wild Nothing, photo by Cara Robbins

Who: Love Hope Strength benefit w/The Alarm
When: Sunday, 11.4, 3:30 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: The Alarm may not have been as famous as U2 (in fact The Alarm toured as support for U2 on the 1983 War tour), The Call or The The but its music was within that wheelhouse of uplifting, melodic, thoughtful rock with songwriting that tapped into the brighter places in your imagination. Its 1987 hit “Rain in the Summertime” remained a staple of college radio and modern rock format radio stations for years. In 2005 singer and main songwriter Mike Peters discovered he was suffering from a form of leukemia which inspired him to start a foundation called Love Hope Strength which benefits those suffering from cancer and raises awareness of the issues those stricken with the malady face. It’s an afternoon show so you can catch the band and help out a good cause and, you know, have plenty of time for everything else on a Sunday that you might get up to.

Who: Wild Nothing w/Men I Trust
When: Sunday, 11.4, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: When Wild Nothing first emerged to a national audience, albeit on the more underground circuit, the group’s C86-inspired jangle rock seemed to incorporate post-punk moodiness and rhythms struck a sweet spot for a lot of people who maybe though the whole “chamber pop” thing and the wave of bands imitating 60s and 70s rock was wearing thin. That singer/guitarist Jack Tatum could convincingly evoke The Smiths without completely ripping off the Mancunians certainly had an appeal when the music industry seemed inundated with artists aiming for the mundanely rustic. The band’s 2018 album Indigo is a natural progression from its earlier records but its breezy melodies and synth washes are reminiscent of Kitchens of Distinction, The Teardrop Explodes, The Church and maybe even Soft Boys. And yet, Wild Nothing has added to the post-punk cannon by not at all sounding like a clone of any of its influences through finding consistently inventive ways of melding the aesthetics of electronic music, rock and pop.

Men I Trust from Montreal is a decidedly independent band whose DIY ethos one doesn’t often associate with a group making lush, jazzy, R&B-inflected dream pop. Fans of Toro Y Moi and Purity Ring will find a good deal to like about this trio.

Monday | November 5, 2018

Molly Burch, photo by Dailey Toliver

Who: Molly Burch w/Jesse Woods and Pure Weed
When: Monday, 11.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Molly Burch’s 2017 debut album Please Be Mine was remarkable not just for Burch’s delicately powerful voice and uncommonly superbly voiced instrumentals, but for how Burch can not only write from a place of hurt but doing so with an awareness of the humanity of those who hurt her and who she undoubtedly hurt in return. Her use of words honors the complexity of life and relationships with an immediacy and accessibility that usually comes a few albums in. Her sophomore effort, 2018’s First Flower finds Burch focusing more on exploring fraught moments of relationships outside the realm of the romantic as well as her issues with anxiety with the same insight and warmth that characterized her previous work.

Tuesday | November 6, 2018

Acid Dad, photo by Devon Bristol Shaw

Who: Acid Dad, Serpentfoot and Emerald Siam
When: Tuesday, 11.6, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Acid Dad is one band that answered the question about whether a band could come out of the rock milieu/era when psychedelic garage rock and surf was the prevailing trend and still have something interesting to say using similar musical language. The answer is, of course, yes, and the band’s self-titled LP may be a nod to stuff like Wooden Shijps, Ty Segall and early psych classics but its subject matter is a refreshingly different take on social issues and personal travails. At times you’ll hear echoes of Madchester and Spacemen 3 as in the song “Marine” and early tracks like “Brain Body.” But even in their more languid moments there’s an energy to Acid Dad’s performances that makes them more than a cut above of the bands that sound like they listened to “Anemone” by Brian Jonestown Massacre too many times and made it their template except when they want to fuzz up some lazy surf rock licks. The local support for this show includes Fort Collins’ Serpentfoot who do that surf and psych thing better than most because there’s more than a little bite to its lively songs. Denver’s Emerald Siam draws on some of the same influences as Acid Dad but comes from a place of deep knowledge of garage rock, psychedelia and post-punk out of which it has woven a bright, sometimes brooding yet expansive, and uplifting yet gritty futuristic rock and roll.

Who: Jim James w/Alynda Segarra from Hurray For the Riff Raff and Andrea Gibson
When: Tuesday, 11.6, 7 p.m.
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Jim James is of course known for his iconic work in My Morning Jacket. But his solo albums are always worth checking out and his 2018 album Uniform Distortion was, according to an April 2018 interview with NPR, inspired by his “fascination with The Last Whole Earth Catalog.” Whole Earth Catalog being the visionary publication that took emerging awareness of ecology, sustainability, DIY/self-sufficient culture and shared uncommon knowledge with anyone open to a counter cultural perspective grounded in fairly pragmatic information. The album itself sounds like James spent some time hanging out with 70s hippies who turned their idealism into informal institutions that still exist to this day. All the while absorbing musical ideas and translating them for the current era. It’s a fascinating aesthetic of retro-futurism that takes the concept of holism seriously and applies it to the music and how it’s presented.

Wednesday | November 7, 2018

Death Valley Girls, photo by Michael Haight

Who: Death Valley Girls w/Gymshorts and Keef Duster
When: Wednesday, 11.7, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: One of the Los Angeles band’s t-shirts proclaims that “Satan Worships Death Valley Girls.” And, really, wouldn’t love a group of lively hellions that so gloriously hurls together glam, punk, garage, psychedelia and shoegaze like a high camp Stooges. Iggy even appeared in the video for “Disaster (Is What We’re After),” a single from the 2018 album Darkness Rains, which is all the endorsement you need.

Best Shows In Denver 8.16.18 to 8.22.18

Sandra Collins performs in Denver on Saturday night, August 18, at a venue to be announced

Thursday | August 16, 2018

The cover of Returning to a Scorched Earth by A Light Among Many

Who: A Light Among Many album release, Sonic Vomit, Green Druid and Vexing
When: Thursday, 08.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A Light Among Many is the doom drone solo project of Franklin Binder. Using voice, guitar and loops, Binder articulates the spirit of the desolate stretches of Colorado’s high plains stitched with lonely highways and an unseen networks of ley lines. His music has a haunted and tortured yet transcendent menace like a violent storm hovering on the horizon, circling loci of civilization, touching down periodically as a reminder of the primacy of nature over humankind’s hubristic plans. ALAM’s new album Returning to a Scorched Earth drops tonight at the Hi-Dive. It is a beautifully despairing composition of rage at mankind’s abusive stewardship of the earth.

Who: Musical Mayhem: Equine, Space Jail, Full Bleed
When: Thursday, 08.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Musical Mayhem is now happening at the Lion’s Lair. The monthly event curated by Claudia Woodman is a good way to see some of the more unusual or experimental bands not necessarily seeing a lot of time at most clubs. Equine is the soundscaping/future jazz/avant-garde guitar solo project of former Motheater and Epileptinomicon guitarist Kevin Richards whose been having quite a prolific year recently in terms of releases and collaborations with each of his shows being fairly different from one another. Space Jail is what might be described as a psychedelic downtempo space rock band. Full Bleed fortunately doesn’t fit an easy formula either with elements of more tripped out stoner rock and soundsculpting use of distortion. What does that mean? They use distortion to give a drawn out sound texture and evolving qualities of sound that seem to impact your body and ears with modulating levels of volume and physicality. When one learns to control these qualities more it can be an interesting musical and experiential effect on its own despite not necessarily being a feature of most music that fits into a mainstream songwriting context.

Friday | August 17, 2018

 

Old Crow Medicine Show, photo by Danny Clinch

Who: Esmé Patterson and The Still Tide
When: Friday, 08.17, 6 p.m.
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Esmé Patterson will bring her thought-provoking and evocative art folk/pop to Levitt Pavilion tonight to share the stage with The Still Tide. The latter is sometimes referred to as dream pop or indie rock and as vague genre designations they both fit. But singer and guitarist Anna Morsett’s emotionally dynamic voice and stage presence elevates the already excellent songwriting.

Who: Old Crow Medicine Show with I’m With Her (featuring Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan)
When: Friday, 08.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Old Crow Medicine Show’s existence predates the most recent wave of old timey/string band/folk Americana music and it could be argued it’s 2004 hit “Wagon Wheel” (co-written by Bob Dylan and OCMS’s Ketch Secor) helped to popularize that music with the mainstream and influenced a generation of like-minded musicians in its wake. Mumford and Sons covered the song several years later. Nevertheless, Old Crow Medicine Show sounds like it could have come up during the folk revival of the 60s and 70s. Its 2018 album Volunteer is a lively blend of bluegrass and classic country. I’m With Her is a trio of some of the best Americana artists in the land right now all of whom have highly respectable careers outside of the band.

Who: All Out Helter 10 year anniversary, day 1 w/Muscle Beach and Record Thieves
When: Friday, 08.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: All Out Helter is a band that has too much of a hard rock edge to be purely punk and with its progressive politics firmly in place and eloquently expressed, the band’s firebrand energy is very welcome in an era when too many bands shy away from having anything to say without blunting the impact a little for the infirm of heart and mind. To celebrate its first decade as a band, All Out Helter is playing two nights at the Hi-Dive. On this first night a similarly unpigeonholable heavier hardcore band Muscle Beach will share the stage with the veteran group as well as melodic hardcore outfit Record Thieves.

Who: Luke Vibert with Sortof Vague, Seied and Kanyon Walker
When: Friday, 08.17, 9 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Acid jazz/techno artist Luke Vibert, sometimes collaborator with Aphex Twin, will perform tonight at The Black Box. Vibert’s prolific and diverse career has included some time playing in punk band, a hip-hop crew and the electronic composition for which he’s most well known. His most recent record Smell The Urgency might be described as acid hip-hop as it has more in common with the likes of J. Dilla, Flying Lotus and Jonwayne with its favoring chill yet otherworldly beats.

Who: King Buffalo w/Green Druid, Emerald Siam
When: Friday, 08.17, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: King Buffalo from Rochester, New York makes the kind of vibey psychedelic music that has some connection to the hybrid of atmospheric doom and trippy pop. What sets the band apart from many of its peers, though, is partly the expansive, drifty melodies that have more in common with the early period of The Verve than some later era lazy shoegaze wannabe act. But its basslines are exceptional and set the pace and the mood with a fluid strength that channels the songwriting into interesting sonic spaces. That quality can also be found in Denver atmospheric rock band Emerald Siam. While the latter has some roots in psychedelic garage rock and the retrofuturist soundscaping of The Jesus and Mary Chain its more recent music has struck deep into musical darkness with an uncommon originality born of not wanting to sit comfortably in someone else’s shoegaze or psych subgenre.

Saturday | August 18, 2018

Lamb of God/Burn the Priest, photo by Travis Shinn

Who: Slayer, Avenged Sevenfold, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Behemoth and Testament
When: Saturday, 08.18, 3:30 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: This is supposed to be Slayer’s final tour. We’ll see. Nevertheless, the legendary thrash band will share Fiddler’s Green with some of the greats of thrash in New York’s Anthrax and the Bay Area’s Testament. As well as newer bands that managed to come out of the 90s as metal but not nü metal. Poland’s Behemoth on the surface seems to be the most out of place with its occult-y black metal but its root is the same kind of death metal and thrash that Slayer helped to influence. Both Avenged Sevenfold’s and Lamb of God’s sound can also be traced to the first wave of thrash. LoG has recently hinted that it will perform as Burn the Priest with a release harkening back to the time when it performed under that name as a band that was experimenting with a hybrid of death metal and hardcore. In May 2018, as Burn the Priest, Lamb of God released Legion: XX, an album of covers of hardcore, thrash, sludge rock, industrial bands as well as a cover of Big Black’s “Kerosene,” whatever genre that might really be if any. Chances are you’ll get to see a bit of that with this tour.

Who: All Out Helter 10 year anniversary, day 1 w/The Windermeres and Black Dots
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of All Out Helter’s 10 year anniversary weekend at the Hi-Dive includes performances from two of Denver’s better punk bands The Windermeres and Black Dots.

Who: Sandra Collins
When: Saturday, 08.18, 10 p.m.
Where: Venue to be announced
Why: Sandra Collins made a name for herself as a talented trance artist in the world of 90s rave and electronica long before electronic dance music became synonymous with the acronym EDM. Really her roots in that music pre-date the widespread use of the aforementioned terminology. Whatever designations have been applied to Collins’ music her skills as a producer, remixer and DJ have long been widely respected and she was inarguably the first female DJ in electronic dance music to gain wide popularity. Her ear for solid, evolving rhythms intersected with rhythmic melodies and textures has made for a large body of work as a live DJ and on recordings like one of trance’s creative landmarks, 2000’s Tranceport.3. In 2013 Collins’ career was documented in Kandeyce Jorden’s 2013 film Girl (in 2018 the film started steaming on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon). Still traveling the world and doing sets, Collins remains one of the few superstar artists in an especially male-dominated realm of music but one that has become increasingly less so in part due to her encouragement and example.

Who: Bluebook w/Erica Ryann
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Aurora Fox
Why: There are pretty much never any shows in Aurora of this kind going on. Experimental folk/downtempo duo Bluebook at downtown Aurora’s classic theater on Colfax? Hopefully the harbinger of more interesting stuff to come to A-town.

Who: Amen Dunes w/Okay Kaya
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Amen Dunes is often presented as merely some of of psychedelic indie rock artist. But if his latest album, 2018’s Freedom, is any indication he’s been ahead of that curve for some time. If clumsy comparisons must be made his songwriting is as unique, as interesting and as unusual as that of Devendra Banhart or going back some decades, Roxy Music. There is an organic yet otherworldly and sultry quality to the songwriting. It’s also earnest in its emotional outpouring recalling a more mellow Soft Boys or solo Robyn Hitchcock.

Who: Fed Rez (album release) w/Los Mocochetes, R A R E B Y R D $, The Original Ills, DJ Bloodpreshah
When: Saturday, 08.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Fed Rez’s version of hip-hop is one that doesn’t get hung up over genre conventions. Its sample-based compositions don’t shy away from acerbic observations but always informed by a sense of humor that is clever rather than cruel. The quartet releases its latest album this night, On the Regs. To usher in the new record Fed Rez has brought together some of Denver’s finest, like-minded musical entities including Latin funk band Los Mocochetes and dream beat, future jazz, post-apocalypse world beat phenoms, R A R E B Y R D $.

Sunday | August 19, 2018

 

Rope Trick Effect (pictured; Molly Zackary), photo by Kit Chalberg

Who: Rope Trick Effect and Halo Halo
When: Sunday, 08.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Rope Trick Effect and Halo Halo could loosely be called jazz-fusion. If that fusion included R&B, torch song lounge, punk and the expected prog when one speaks of fusion. But don’t expect Mahavishnu Orchestra style musical gyrations so much as something you might expect to share a bill with Leonard Cohen in the early 80s. Rope Trick Effect vocalist Molly Zackary is billing the show as #jazznotjazz #sorrynotsorry because of the short shrift that the original jazz scene in Denver gets from most of the local media and, well, music fans too who may not know such a thing exists in the Mile High City. As with everything else Zackary has done in music in Denver, as a music instructor and musician, there is a great deal of musical prowess and emotional power involved in Rope Trick Effect. Its 2017 EP is so solid and refined it could have come out on Blue Note. But see for yourself at this free and children friendly/but not wack show at Denver’s underground/above ground culture hub, Mutiny Information Café.

Tuesday | August 21, 2018

 

Winter & Triptides, photo by Gabe Fernandez

Who: Winter with Vinyl Williams and Corsicana
When: Tuesday, 08.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Samira Winter grew up in Curitiba, Brazil, the daughter of an American father and a Brazilian mother, but went to college in Los Angeles. The mix of cultures has given her pop songs a decidedly different flavor beyond the bilingual lyrics. With her band, named Winter, Samira has crafted lushy atmospheric pop gems and the band’s 2018 album Ethereality is most suitably titled. It’s reminiscent of late 2000s dream pop and chillwave with a lo-fi aesthetic giving the songs hazy edges of nostalgic whimsy. Winter is also set for a late September release of a collaborative album as Winter & Triptides called Estrela Mágica that sounds like a long lost Latin psych/folk record of the 1970s.

Who: The WHEAL and Voight
When: Tuesday, 08.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Blue Ice
Why: The WHEAL came all the way from Paris, France to perform at Blue Ice. The project supposedly has roots and a lineage in 80s electronic music and post-punk.Whatever its origins, The WHEAL is a modern darkwave band that uses ambient tracks, drum machines and synth compositions to create a dense and deep soundscape. Paired with The WHEAL on the bill is Denver’s Voight, a band whose own fusion of electronic/minimal synth and searing post-punk guitar sounds is unique in the Mile High City.

Wednesday | August 22, 2018

Bad Bad Hats, photo by Zoe Prinds-Flash

What: Centered Volume 3: Ian Sherlock, Mobdividual, Lepidoptera and J. Hamilton Isaacs
When: Wednesday, 08.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Bar Max
Why: This third edition of Jacob Isaacs’ Centered series, which features underground, experimental electronic artists from around the country as well as Colorado, will include local artists Mobdividual, Lepidoptera and Isaacs himself along with Syracuse, New York-based ambient/environmental sound artist Ian Sherlock. Taking place in the basement of Bar Max, the event will make it easy to escape the bustle of Colfax and take in some great, minimalist soundscapes.

Who: Bad Bad Hats w/Cumulus
When: Wednesday, 08.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Minneapolis-based indie rock band Bad Bad Hats recently released its new album, Lightning Round. Singer Kerry Alexander has long written music playing with and often subverting pop clichés. Lightning Round is no different with, according to an August 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Alexander examining the love as drug metaphor as someone who hasn’t indulged in the song “Nothing Gets Me High.” Alexander imagines possibilities in cultural artifacts and their impacts on our lives and popular culture as with “1-800.” Across her career Alexander has commented insightfully on the emotionally/psychologically fraught moments in any relationship as it starts and develops but especially so on Lightning Round with “Absolute Worst” and “Girl.”

Best Shows in Denver 04/05/18 – 04/11/18

Kitty Crimes, photo by Lindsey Webb

Thursday | April 5, 2018

Frankie Cosmos, photo courtesy Loroto Productions

Who: Frankie Cosmos w/Lomelda and Ashley Koett
When: Thursday, 04.05, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: Frankie Cosmos released its third album Vessel on March 30, 2018. Like it’s predecessors there’s a tender sensibility to the songwriting that recalls the lo-fi introspection of Exile In Guyville period Liz Phair and the peek-into-a-strikingly-insightful diary quality of Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Sure, Kline had famous parents (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates) and was once a member of Porches. But Frankie Cosmos doesn’t sound like it’s resting on any of those laurels. Kline uses everyday details as a vehicle for exploring feelings and thoughts long hidden. The results are a refreshing frankness and intimacy even in the context of a pop song without the overpolishing and overproduction that the musical form often gets.

Who: Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series 2: Brother Saturn and Vahco
When: Thursday, 04.05, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This edition of the new season of the Speakeasy Series (all in the basement of Hooked on Colfax) includes some of the most mind-calming artists of the entire programme. Brother Saturn’s dreamlike soundscapes are an entrancing synthesis of ambient and dream pop. Vahco is the solo project of Vahco Before Horses from Demoncassettecult and Gold Trash. Whereas those other two are more in the realm of noise and experimental electronic music, Vahco is more in the realm of pop music with soulful vocals.

Who: Liza Anne w/Valley Queen and Down Time
When: Thursday, 04.05, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Liza Anne’s 2018 album Fine But Dying may sound upbeat and bright and, well, like a conventionally commercial pop record I some ways. But not at all beneath the surface of the music is the fact that, according to a recent interview with Billboard, Anne just laid out her struggles with “panic disorder and depression,” articulating them in a way that could be relatable to almost anyone and hopefully at least putting to rest some of her own anxiety and shame regarding those issues. In putting the struggle in very specific personal terms without sensationalizing it or making it seem like a special taboo subject, Anne brilliantly makes it all seem like something anyone might experience without judgment. Joining Anne for this tour is Los Angeles’ Valley Queen who take a folk/acoustic music foundation to songwriting and make it warm and energetic. There’s plenty of post-neo-Laurel Canyon stuff around in the world today but Valley Queen frontwoman Natalie Carol doesn’t sound like she’s copping someone else’s vibe. Rather, her voice, sometimes quavering from the well of emotion, provides a compelling narrative and vivid imagery. One might compare her in that regard to Esmé Patterson’s own knack for creative storytelling that aims at bigger issues through the language of personal experience.

Who: Ty Segall w/Dirty Few ogdentheatre.com/events/detail/347251
When: Thursday, 04.05, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Probably anyone that’s been paying attention to modern rock music knows who Ty Segall at this point. If not, pick up pretty much any of his records (they’re all worth listening to) and you’ll get an idea of what music Segall makes but keep in mind that he is clearly a songwriter who wants to explore a wide variety of tones, moods, dynamics and songwriting styles. On his 2018 album, Freedom’s Goblin, Segall explores a more lush songwriting style without waxing into the fake soul and ersatz R&B that is being peddled a little too much of late. Covering Hot Chocolate’s 1978 hit “Every 1’s a Winner” was an interesting choice for the record but it all fits in with an album that sounds like Segall is trying to create for himself an emotionally comfortable space in which to express feelings that are out of step with some of the more hard-edged rock and roll that some may have come to expect from Segall who is too much of a creative chameleon to ever fully embody, all the better for fans of musicians who evolve whether their fans are ready for the changes or not. People have been trying to pigeonhole Denver’s Dirty Few  for any manner of reasons for years as just rock and roll hooligans. And they are that but bottom line, the band actually writes solid, surprisingly thoughtful, songs that fit in the context of a rowdy live show.

Who: Kitty Crimes album release w/GVgrace
When: Thursday, 04.05, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Maria Kohler has been performing as Kitty Crimes for several years now and it seems as though many of her fans never really knew her as a talented musician and singer in various past bands including Houses, Science Partner and Mercuria and the Gem Stars. Kitty Crimes sometimes seemed like a goof and a gimmick. The whole white-presenting woman doing “dirty” rap thing. But Kohler isn’t someone easily clowned and she turned an interesting project into something powerful and well-composed beyond the obvious appeal. Her new record, Crimes of the Kitty, Volume 2 has soul, the expected deft wordplay, personal insight and lush production. For fans of K’Valentine and Kari Faux.

Who: Entrancer, Cities of Earth, Staggered Hooks, Glissline
When: Thursday, 04.05, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: This fundraiser for Project Worthmore, an organization dedicated to aiding the refugee community, is also a great chance to catch some of Denver’s most interesting experimental electronic projects. Entrancer’s music is grounded in the production and sensibility of 90s hip-hop and Detroit techno as well as the full breadth and depth of synthesizer music as someone who has more than a passing experience with modular synths. Cities of Earth’s Tangerine Dream-esque IDM sounds like what should be on the soundtrack to a documentary about Warp Records. At least if his 2017 EP Tangra is any indication. Staggered Hooks is probably the latest project from Dean Inman whose up-to-now-most-recent project, Dream Hike, was responsible for some of the most beautifully hypnotic deep house/ambient going. Glissline is the name Tommy Metz (formerly under his given name as well as Iuengliss) is using for his music these days. Metz has a gift for melodies that soothe the mind and his beats seem to employ the interval that releases endorphins. But whatever his music really does, fans of Aphex Twin and Clark should make an effort to see Glissline sometime if not tonight.

Who: Built to Spill w/Rituals of Mine, Black Belt Eagle Scout
When: Thursday, 04.05, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Coming out of post-punk/post-hardcore band Treepeople, Doug Martsch put together a band that could synthesize his musical interests and a path of sonic curiosity that wouldn’t fully congeal in underground culture in quite the same way until the late 90s/early 2000s. He cited Caustic Resin as an influence and brought that band’s brilliant guitar player into the new band, Built to Spill, on bass as well as Ralf Youtz on drums. The group’s 1993 debut album Ultimate Alternative Wavers was an oblique thumbing of the nose at how their music culture had been co-opted and marketed as product rather than a culture parallel to the mainstream. The music sounded like a blend of Neil Young, Dinosaur Jr (a band clearly influenced by Young) and underground Pacific Northwest rock. But inside all of that, Martsch had found a way to bring in extended guitar jams that were emotionally charged and expressive rather than purely self-indulgent and wanky. The development of that sound and dynamic perhaps reached its apex on Built To Spill’s 1997 masterpiece, Perfect From Now On and the 1999 follow-up, Keep It Like A Secret. Along with the visionary indie pop of the Elephant 6 collective, the bands on Merge Records, K and Kill Rock Stars, and unlikely “alternative rock” star bands post-alternative collapse like Pavement, Built To Spill helped to shape indie rock in the first decade of the 2000s by offering yet another alternative vision to what was being pumped by large commercial outlets for music.

Seeing Built To Spill in 2018 is a bit like a glimpse back to a time when it was more easily possible to have a viable career in music without having to get commercially huge or over compromise or have to fit in with a trendy subgenre of the moment and ride that wave. Sure, BTS has been on Warner Brothers since Perfect From Now On but if they’re being encouraged to get more commercial you sure can’t tell from even its most recent record, 2015’s Untethered Moon. If the group’s showing at Treefort Music Fest 2018 is any indication, the trio is still capable of weaving its gritty, hypnotic magic today. And its sonic DNA is in music of most modern indie rock bands whether those bands know it or not.

Friday | April 6, 2018

Palehorse/Palerider, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Immediate Music Festival 
When: Friday, 04.06, 7 p.m.
Where: Metropolitan State University of Denver
Why: The Immediate Music Festival celebrates collaborative improvisation. Throughout the day (for more information click here) there will be workshops on group improvisation, soundpainting, noteworthy avant-garde musician Pauline Oliveros’ presentation Deep Listening. That night, at the King Center, there will be a concert from the avant-garde-improv band Sone which includes some of the local luminaries of that world with Jane Rigler, Janet Feder, Evan Mazunik, Gil Selinger and Mark Harris as well as a performance from Grammy-nominated jazz drummer extraordinaire Matt Wilson.

Who: Dead Meadow w/Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show, Grass and Palehorse/Palerider
When: Friday, 04.06, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dead Meadow is one of the pioneers of the recent psychedelic rock resurgence with its mixture of heavy rock, droning blues, freak folk and densely flowing psychedelia. Read our piece on/interview with Jason Simon of Dead Meadow here. Also on the bill is Palehorse/Palerider, Denver’s own masters of heavy, mind-altering rock that blurs lines between doom, heavy shoegaze and post-rock.

Who: Steve Gordon Art Show
When: Friday, 04.06, 6-9 p.m.
Where: Vertigo Gallery 960 Santa Fe
Why: Master sculptor, painter and drawing artist Steve Gordon is having what may be one of his last art shows into the foreseeable future. Gordon is also a significant artist in Denver’s experimental music world mostly notably with improvisational composition band Animal / object, which often includes Violent Femmes frontman Gordon Gano.

Who: Doug Spencer: Cave Lovers 
When: Friday, 04.06, 6-11 p.m.
Where: Dateline Gallery 3004 Larimer St.
Why: This is the latest art show from painter Doug Spencer whose creative use of texture and lighting has made his work desired by connoisseurs of the artform wherein Spencer combines 2D design with 3D, sculptural/diorama elements to create truly unique works. Some may know Spencer as the imaginative guitarist in notable Denver and Fort Collins rock bands Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, Monofog and Sweet Tooth Meat Tooth.

Who: Nocturnal Presents: Exos w/Talien and Alex Whittier
When: Friday, 04.06, 11 p.m. – 5 a.m.
Where: TBA
Why: Nocturnal is a long-running event that puts together deep house/experimental electronic dance events akin to a classic rave. So there will be long sets with the artists listed above going from late night until the early morning.

Who: Slugger, Henry and the Kissingers, Galleries, Pelvis Presley
When: Friday, 04.06, 9 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: After too many bands embraced the less interesting aspects of 60s and 70s rock a little too much a group of bands were bound to come along that embraced the more interesting aspects of that music including original songwriting that isn’t so obviously beholden to an earlier band. This is a show that includes a handful of those groups on the local level including Slugger, the band fronted by former Silver Tone songwriter/guitarist Gabriel Albelo.

Saturday | April 7, 2018

Cut Chemist, photo by Joseph Armario

Who: Cut Chemist w/El Dusty and Chris Karns (Pretty Lights Live Band)
When: Saturday, 04.07, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Cut Chemist is perhaps best known for his long term stint as a DJ/turntablist in Jurassic 5 and his involvement in the early era of Ozomatli. His tasteful breaks and ear for unusual and evocative samples brought a an uncommon elegance and depth to Jurassic 5’s beats. But the call to do something outside the context of the influential hip-hop group drew Cut Chemist to a solo career in 2004. His 2006 debut album under his own name was an eclectic and borderline world music and downtempo record called The Audience’s Listening. Since then the turntablist has served as a producer on numerous records, performed live DJ sets including opening for Shakira on her 2007 tour, collaborated with DJ Shadow and, in 2017, started doing a bi-weekly radio show, A Stable Sound, on dublab / 99.1 FM KZUT. In March 2018, Cut Chemist released his second solo album, Die Cut. The record continues Cut Chemist’s masterful treatment of samples into songs with a Dilla-esque use of motes of white noise in the mix, samples processed to sound like you’re getting intermittent transmissions of old radio programs, vintage television shows and commercials and ambient IDM glitch-hop.

Who: Nina Storey w/Michael and Sarah Hornbuckle
When: Saturday, 04.07, 7 p.m.
Where: Soiled Dove Underground
Why: Nina Storey spent years cultivating her sound, songwriting and live show in Denver before relocating to Los Angeles in the 2000s. If you caught Storey in the 90s you probably got to see a singer whose voice was perfectly suited to the bluesy rock music she was writing then. Also, that her powerful voice seemed unlikely coming from someone with such a relatively small frame. Since then (and likely even at that time), Storey has explored the range of her voice and where it fit in and discovered it was well-suited to jazz and R&B as well. On her most recent full-length album, 2013’s Think Twice, Storey blended all her musical impulses into well-crafted modern pop songs. These days Storey still comes through Denver and on this date she is joined by local luminaries in the Denver blues world, Michael and Sarah Hornbuckle.

Who: Suss Law, Rotstrotter, Sentry Dogs, Berated and Florida Man
When: Saturday, 04.07, 8 p.m.
Where: Bar Bar / Carioca Café
Why: Portland, Oregon’s Suss Law could be where power violence, noise and grindcore meet. Its recently released seven inch is a chaotic and relentless assault on the senses with few concessions to accessibility. If you go to this show you can also catch local grind/hardcore luminaries like Rotstrotter and Sentry Dogs. And given the set times of most of these groups, who don’t waste our time by dragging things out, the show may be over by midnight even with five bands.

Monday | April 9, 2018

Acid Mothers Temple circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Acid Mothers Temple w/Yoo Doo Right and Emerald Siam
When: Monday, 04.09, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Acid Mothers Temple in its Melting Paraiso U.F.O. incarnation is now on the Electric Dream Ecstasy Tour. The long-running Japanese psychedelic rock band manages to continuously bring a unique show every tour because its roots can be traced back mainly back to fairly experimental western music whether rock or avant-garde (i.e. Can, Karlheinz Stockhausen and King Crimson) but members of the band past and present have been instrumental, literally and figuratively, in comprising and shaping underground music and noise in Japan. The composition of the band’s songs is influenced more by concept than technique. It is bombastic and wild and simultaneously as gorgeous and as mysterious as an other-dimensional spirit incarnate. A list of the band members and their official role and their real title clues you into the fact that leader Kawabata Makoto has a sense of humor to match his imagination and technical prowess as a musician.

Kawabata Makoto : guitar, voice, synth, voice, speed guru
Higashi Hiroshi : synthesizer, harp, noodle god
Jyonson Tsu : vocal, guitar, bouzouki, electronics, midnight whistler
Satoshima Nani : drums, another dimension
Wolf : bass, space & time

Prepare to be taken to otherworldly emotional spaces during the show if you surrender to the music some. Also on the bill is Denver’s Emerald Siam which has become refreshingly difficult to pigeonhole. Ever since singer/guitarist Kurt Ottaway and the rest of the band has seemingly tapped deeper into a creative muse, the songs have gotten darker yet more open and spacious. Expect a full-length release in 2018.

Who: Primitive Man, Spectral Voice, Prison Glue and Cadaver Dog
When: Monday, 04.09, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Primitive Man is celebrating its return from a long tour with this show at Syntax with like-minded death/doom/grind band Spectra Voice. Joining both bands will be hardcore band Cadaver Dog as well as noise/performance artist Prison Glue.

Tuesday | April 10, 2018

Luna, photo courtesy Grandstand Media

Who: Luna w/Flaural
When: Tuesday, 04.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Luna split for around ten years after its 2005 tour. The disappointment and despair and reality of the music industry at that time is documented in the 2006 film Tell Me Do You Miss Me. If you got to see Luna on that until now final tour, those feelings radiated from singer/guitarist Dean Wareham’s eyes when he looked out into the crowd. And not just because the late-night-hours lush pop that has been Luna’s hallmark ever since Wareham left influential dream pop band Galaxie 500 (which also never got its due during its time together or much since except by aficionados of deeply evocative, melancholy and ethereal gorgeous guitar rock). Wareham genuinely seemed like he was looking out on the last days of his career with plenty of life left to lead knowing he’d created some great music that would only be appreciated in the past tense. You couldn’t help but feel for him unless you’re one of those people for whom music is merely entertainment made not by humans but by functionaries of some kind of Distraction Industrial Complex.

But Wareham didn’t give up. He wrote music with then bandmate now wife Britta Phillips as well as noteworthy solo albums. He also wrote one of the best and most well-written and thoughtful rock autobiographies of all time with 2008’s Black Postcards. The book reads like all the music Wareham has been a part of making, warm and not detached but able to examine one’s feelings and intimate thoughts and express them in a way that is immediate relatable with a passionate yet gentle spirit even when the music is in moments of high feeling. Luna reconvened in 2015 and in 2017 released an album of interesting and not predictable covers called A Sentimental Education as well as an EP of originals, A Place of Greater Safety. That latter being some of the best music Luna has yet released so this would be a tour on which to catch one of the great rock bands of the last 27 years.

Who: Animal / object live on KGNU Radio Kabaret: Kurt Bauer, Steven Gordon, George Figgs and Karen Sheridan
When: Tuesday, 04.10, 7-8 p.m.
Where: Streaming on KGNU.org and broadcast on radio
Why: Animal / object is Denver’s premiere avant-garde acoustic instrument band. For the last several years the group around the current core of Kurt Bauer, Steven Gordon has had a prolific and varied recorded output captured with various other noteworthy collaborators including the likes of Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes, Gordon Pryor, Paul Mimlitsch and for this show, Karen Sheridan formerly of all-female deathrock band 1980s Denver band Your Funeral, experimental rock band Corpses as Bedmates and R.O.C., a kind of deconstructionist pop band that incorporates elements of electronic industrial music and sampling. Over the weekend Sheridan did vocals for an incantation at Steven Gordon’s art show at Vertigo Gallery. So tune in to KGNU for this special performance from one of Denver’s great experimental bands.

Who: Lo Moon w/Kraus
When: Tuesday, 04.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lo Moon spent a great deal of time developing and percolating its sound and then waiting for the right opportunity and format to even let out its September 2016 single “Loveless.” A little under a year and a half later, the full-length self-titled album comes out on on Sony. The single came out at a time when many of the dream pop and neo-shoegaze bands were not drawing on the same inspirations as Lo Moon so it seemed especially sophisticated and sonically and emotionally deep by comparison. The full-length album including “Loveless” doesn’t capitalize on the promise of the single so much as showcase a sound the band had cultivated and perfected in this first stage of its development as a band. The record didn’t exactly blow the minds of critics but it was interesting to see a band not succumb to the pressure of putting out its music as quickly as possible, given the avenues in which to do so, before developing that music to the point it needed to be and without fully submitting to the de-mystifying tendency of the social media game most bands use to garner any excitement for its new material these days. Lo Moon distinguished itself playing larger venues when it toured with Ride in 2017 and getting to see a band with this large a sound on the small stage now would be a great time to see a group that may not be regularly playing such small clubs in the future.

Who: Timber Timbre w/Thor & Friends
When: Tuesday, 04.10, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Timber Timbre has been described as psychedelic folk. But if that’s the case then its 2017 album, Sincerely, Future Pollution is more brooding and darker than that designation would suggest. More akin to Midlake’s artistically ambitious compositions or those of Six Organs of Admittance than Vetiver and early Animal Collective. Thor & Friends is a band lead by Thor Harris who some may know from his stints in Shearwater, Swans and Bill Callahan. Though largely known for his skills with a broad spectrum of percussion instruments, Harris is a multifaceted artist and multi-instrumentalist and this band displays that especially well with creative use of marimba prominent in the mix of percussion heavy, yet gently beautiful and atmospheric music.

Wednesday | April 11, 2018

Ethan McCarthy of Vermin Womb performing as Many Blessings in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Wake, Vermin Womb, Call of the Void and Full Bore
When: Wednesday, 04.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Wake is a deathgrind band from Calgary, Canada. Currently on tour in support of its towering, brutal 2018 album Misery Rites, Wake is joined on this Denver date by like-minded locals. Vermin Womb is a band that includes Ethan McCarthy from Primitive Man as well as former Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire drummer J.P. Damron. Call of the Void took the blunt, abrupt, savage dynamic of deathgrind to another level of creative sonic violence.