Julian St. Nightmare (L-R: Sergio Castorena, Genevieve Fulton and Tan Garren), photo by Tom Murphy
Anyone that has been paying attention to the Denver music underground beyond a very superficial for the past two years has at least heard about Julian St. Nightmare. Its five members are a force with a bit of a mystique to their live performances and its music rooted in post-punk, darkwave, surf and garage rock, synthpop, shoegaze and the various styles of music most prominent in their collective youth in the 2000s and 2010s. The group formed in 2018 among friends including current members Chico Arellanes (guitar, bass, vocals) and Rudy Morales (guitar, vocals) who by July of that year invited Genevieve Fulton into the band knowing them from shows and their interest in being in a band only to discover that Fulton had a talent for keyboards, singing and guitar. Before the group could really get off the ground the pandemic hit. Yet in that first year of the pandemic Sergio Castorena (guitar, vocals) of Los Narwhals came into the fold as did drummer Tan Garren, both adding unique musical gifts and perspective that expanded the band’s sonic palette and performance style.
Julian St. Nightmare has since 2021 been a staple of the DIY and small club scene in Denver earning the respect of its peers. Opening slots for French darkwave pioneers Martin Dupont, Chicago post-punk luminaries French Police and NYC dark synthpop duo Tempers, Julian St. Nightmare seemed like peers of the more well-known acts. The band’s most recent shows revealed a broader sonic palette with a boosted confidence in its own powers and its show in July 2023 with now defunct shoegaze band Dream of Industry and EBM solo project Sell Farm made its own inclinations toward creative soundscaping more prominent. There is as yet no Julian St. Nightmare album but its songs can be found on the various streaming platforms and there is a new single due out by late winter or spring with production by Fulton. Alas, it is around that time that the quintet will call it quits with one final show in the works ending a run of one of the most interesting, engaging and powerful of modern bands out of the broad milieu of post-punk and darkwave precisely because it never adhered to the limitations of genre.
Friday | 09.01 What: Seraphim Shock w/Faces Under the Mirror and The Siren Project hosted by Sid Pink with DJ Slave 1 When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Iconic Goth-industrial band Seraphim Shock returns to the Oriental Theater for a set of its theatrical performance are rock. After many years of being not as overtly creatively active, Charles Edward has been releasing the new set of Seraphim Shock EPs as the Fairmount Chronicles. Chapter One dropped in 2020 and now Chapters Two and Three are set to release in 2023/early 2024. Opening the show are long-running EBM project Faces Under the Mirror which has been going since around the time Seraphim Shock became an active band in the early-to-mid-90s and downtempo, dream pop band The Siren Project who themselves are aiming to release a follow up to its 2016 debut Denouement. The Siren Project will include Andrew Novick of Warlock Pinchers on guest vocals for this set too. Give a listen to our interview with The Siren Project here.
John Gross, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 09.02 What: Human Fluid Rot (FL), Many Blessings, Castration Pact, Whitephosphorous (TX), Sounding and John Gross When: 7 Where: D3 Arts Why: A night of noise running the gamut of harsh noise, power electronics, industrial soundscapes and dark ambient. Check out our interview with John Gross here and with Many Blessings here.
Saturday | 09.02 What: Billy Idol at Budweiser Events Center When: 6:30 Where: Budweiser Events Center Why: Billy Idol is the charismatic singer and songwriter whose career spanned early English punk through the New Wave and hard rock. With his shock of bleach blonde hair and Elvis-esque snarl paired with commanding vocals Idol first caught attention as the frontman of punk group Generation X but garnered widespread mainstream fame releasing music under his own name. Scoring a string of hits throughout the 80s holstered by iconic music videos from the early days of MTV onward Idol’s songs have somehow become closely associated with the decade with an appeal that transcends pure, generational nostalgia. Songs like “White Wedding (Part 1),” “Dancing With Myself,” “Rebel Yell,” “Eyes Without a Face,” and “Flesh For Fantasy” are staples of any 80s and New Wave playlist but whose sound has aged well because of the strength of the songwriting. Idol has continued to release music since his heyday including the 2022 EP The Cage and his live performances remain vital. He performs a headlining show this night in Loveland and the next evening for Jazz Aspen sharing the stage with Foo Fighters and Jade Jackson (linked below).
Monday | 09.04 What:Blushing w/Wave Decay and Calamity When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Austin-based shoegaze/dream pop band Blushing returns to Denver touring behind the 2023 reissue of its first two EPs Tether/Weak out now in vinyl. Whereas the 2022 album Possessions was a collection of exuberant and spirited rock songs, the earlier material is more introspective and delicate in sound but live the band has a forcefulness that its recorded output might not lead you to expect and you can hear that behind much of the newer arc of songwriting as well. Opening are Denver dream pop band Calamity lead by Kate Hannington (who also plays guitar in psychedelic garage rock group Easy Ease) and Wave Decay, the Krautrock infused shoegaze band also from the Mile High City.
Bruno Major, photo by Neil Krug
Monday | 09.04 What:Bruno Major w/Lindsey Lomis When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Bruno Major is from England and has a degree in jazz and started his formal music career in the 2010s though a session guitarist in his mid-teens. But listen to any of his records especially 2023’s Columbo and he sounds like he came out of somehow both the same worlds that produced the great soft rock of Laurel Canyon in the 70s and Nick Drake and Fairport Convention in the UK from the same time period. Not that you’d want to make a direct correlation but there is a sophistication and depth to his songwriting and a gentleness of spirit to his particular vocal style that is as soulful as it is insightful. Many modern artists have mined that territory in the past decade and more but Major seems to have truly tapped into the creative zeitgeist of an earlier era and translated it into the sensibilities and sentiments of our current place in history with an awareness of the personal challenges people face in reaction to the collective challenges crashing into all of our lives. You get the feeling Major understands and offers some moments of solace and solidarity in his music.
Glassing, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 09.06 What: Glassing w/Deep Cross, Psychic Killers and Palehorse/Palerider When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Glassing is a black metal band from Austin, Texas whose 2021 album Twin Dream spanned the splintered emotional catharsis of the genre and its more distorted ghostly melodicism. Fans of later Daughters and maybe a touch of The Locust will appreciate Glassing’s seething, brooding soundscapes. Deep Cross also from Austin is musically somewhere betwixt ambient drone and industrial noise whose 2023 album Royal Water is as meditative as it is noisy and feral. Psychic Killers have been around awhile in the deep underground with its urgent lo-fi industrial noise. Palehorse/Palerider is Denver’s desert doom and ambient psychedelic post-rock whose own aesthetic dips into what you might expect but also an organic tribal sound.
Grandbrothers, photo by Toby Coulson
Thursday | 09.07 What:Grandbrothers When: 6 Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: Grandbrothers are a duo from from Düsseldorf, Germany comprised of pianist Erol Sarp and engineer/software designer Lukas Vogel who are making their debut North American live date at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox in Denver, Colorado. The project recorded its most recent album Late Reflections inside the Cologne Cathedral marking its own first time place as a site for recording an album. Sarp and Vogel wrote the music for the venue and in crafting the music doing so as though recording in the cathedral and with the actual building and setting as the studio. The electronic rhythms and elegantly arranged melodies alongside the elabroate, staccato piano work weave in and out of each song and mutually enhance a mood of something suggestive of the title and taking late night moments of clarity to express what needs to be expressed with creative intention. There are only five dates on the tour and Denver is fortunate to get one of the dates of what promises to be a special musical experience of an evening of avant-garde electronic music, prepared piano and modern classical fusion.
Unwed Sailor, photo by Charles Elmore
Saturday | 09.09 What: Unwed Sailor w/TREMOURS and Los Toms When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Unwed Sailor is a post-rock band based out of Seattle that started in 1998 whose body of work is largely without vocals but whose instrumental rock has a style of composition that is accessible in the way of a pop or rock song but communicating with pure mood and rhythm. The band’s leader and bassist Johnathan Ford was originally a member of Roadside Monument and Pedro the Lion before embarking on a path of songwriting that has meant experiments in not just instrumentation and form and lineup but also presentation from what you might expect from a post-rock band to live film scoring and a companion piece to an illustrated children’s book called The Marionette and the Music Box (2003). The latest Unwed Sailor album Mute the Charm (2023) seems to be a series of musical vignettes expressing the essence of a time and place with its ambient mood and textures and pace captured with a poetic elegance of composition.
Animal Bite, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 09.09 What: Animal Bite w/Gutter Hair, Indecisive and Propane When: 7 Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Animal Bite is a noise rock band from Casper, Wyoming whose sound is somewhere betwixt an Amphetamine Reptile artist, an industrial rock band and a psychedelic hardcore band. But really with its own aesthetic and a ferocious live show. Gutter Hair is the kind of noise and noise rock-adjacent band that should have been on Siltbreeze. May be from Casper as well but also possibly Laramie. Either way its 2020 sprawling collection of pieces called Dead Horse Sled is the kind of abrasive, self-indulgent, lo-fi affair that fans of the aforementioned label or of acts on Holy Mountain might appreciate. Indecisive is the kind of punk band that seems to have drawn some inspiration from straightedge hardcore but also touch of Dinosaur Jr and Black Sabbath.
Terravault, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 09.09 What: Golden Donna w/CXCXCX, Terravault and FOANS When: 8 Where: Glob Why: Joel Shanahan has released music under various monikers over the years but as Golden Donna (his 2020 album Hush is a modern underground techno classic) his experimental electronic dance music could be described as the kind of rave soundtrack to the American DIY underground with vibes adjacent to IDM and early 90s techno and minimal synth. FOANS is in a similar realm of music with his own underground dance music roots as one of the artists that was a regular on the Deep Club circuit of nearly a decade ago. CXCXCX is generally a noise artist but aspects of his own sound are beat driven and he’ll probably cater his set more in that direction for this show. Terravault utilizes analog synths and fuses it with sequenced beats and punk rock spirit. Dark, spooky techno for the whole night.
Sweeping Promises, photo by Shawn Brackbill
Saturday | 09.09 What:Sweeping Promises w/The Tammy Shine and Cheap Perfume When: 8 Where: Lost Lake Why: A time not so long ago Lawrence, Kansas was known for great, underground indie rock if you were plugged into the DIY circuit. But like all college towns phases of who is around and active changes as the demographics change. So to hear about Sweeping Promises releasing their sophomore album Good Living Is Coming For You on Feelt It and SubPop came as a bit of a surprise. The duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug got their start in bands together n the late 2000s while at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas and then being involved in the Boston underground scene forming, according to Grant Sharples in a July 2023 profile on the band in Pitchfork, Sweeping Promises in 2019 after trying out different styles of music as Silkies, Dee-Parts and Mini-Dresses. In 2021 the group found a place in Lawrence near University of Kansas where Schnug has set up a studio and already recorded numerous bands. The new record is reminiscent of the kind of thing you might have heard on Kill Rock Stars or K Records in the 90s or out of Athens, GA in the 80s and 90s with punk rock spirit, pop accessibility and lo-fi charm. That Tammy Shine of Dressy Bessy fame is opening the show with her own effusive performance and Cheap Perfume with its righteous, feminist punk energy makes this a perfect lineup for a Saturday night.
Sarah Shook & the Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinon
Sunday | 09.10 What:Sarah Shook & The Disamers w/Porlolo and Lines of Drift When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Outlaw country, country-punk, whatever designation fits Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Sarah Shook is one of the most distinctive voices in modern country music on the still fairly underground level where a great deal of the best of that and other musical styles are found. Shook’s voice has enough of a rough edge to be interesting but their melodic resonance serves well stories of every day life written in a way that seems so specific yet relatable in spirit and substance. Speaking of, Pololo is more an indie rock band but Erin Roberts has a gift for turning a sense of humor into music with a sharply observational and existential bent. This is a bit of a make-up show for an event that had to be canceled in May 2023.
Becca Mancari, photo by Shervin Lainez
Sunday | 09.10 What: Joy Oladokun w/Becca Mancari When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Acclaimed songwriter Joy Oladokun released her latest album Proof of Life this past April. The record solidified her reputation as an artist who is capable of unvarnished honesty and vulnerability with expression of her struggles and using that as a vehicle for emotional insight in crafting songs that are hopeful and fortifying without waxing into the performative. It is a pure fusion of folk and R&B in a fashion that hits with an immediacy and sophistication that lends its spirit of uplift an authenticity rare in mainstream pop music. Opening the show is Becca Mancari whose own 2023 album Left Hand propels their folk-rooted songwriting into new territory. Lead single “Over and Over” is a queer joy anthem featuring Julien Baker and at the heart of the song is an expansive quality that makes each song on the record feel like being able to stretch out and feel free after prolonged periods of being cramped by circumstance, by culture, by one’s surroundings. Because of that the album’s music feels like something that settles in your brain with a gentle touch that soothes out ambient anxieties.
Generationals, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 09.11 What:Generationals w/Ramesh When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Generationals formed in New Orleans in 2008 in the wake of the dissolution of their critically-acclaimed band The Eames Era. Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer still wanted to pursue music while the other three members of the earlier band didn’t. It was a pivotal year for America in terms of the collapse of the real estate market and the election of the nation’s first black president with all its attendant hope for change in the national culture. But in terms of underground music Generationals were part of a wave of the new indie pop when it still had a creative leg in the older incarnation of the 90s. But Generationals incorporated elements of soul and R&B as well as vintage, pre-1970s pop music. It was an aesthetic the group has been able to spin into a consistently fruitful body of work. But in 2021 the duo more or less scrapped what would have been its seventh album after some studio sessions mainly because they didn’t want to release something that they didn’t feel was up to snuff. So they went back to file sharing as well as recording and experimenting in person and taking advantage of various would-be unfortunate situations that you can read about in the bio for the album on the Bandcamp page for the same. What came about in the end is Heatherhead, arguably the group’s most fully-realized album to date with the usual sharply observed pop songs with an experimental edge and more than its fair share of amalgamating its early influences with a modern take on dance funk and electronic dance music highlights.
Tuesday | 09.12 What: Dead Boys w/Fast Eddy and Flight Kamikaze https://theorientaltheater.com/event/415754/Dead-Boys When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Dead Boys are the influential and notorious punk band from Cleveland whose legacy of rowdy shows and brilliantly nihilistic and lurid songs proved incredibly influential on American and UK punk beyond its initial 1975-1980 run. Its 1977 debut album Young, Loud and Snotty is a classic of punk with its song “Sonic Reducer” as one of the essential tracks of the genre. These days only lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome from the original lineup is in the band anymore but it is his guitar work that has endured as well as the late Stiv Bators’ sneering, acidic vocals.
Public Memory, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 09.15 What:Plack Blague w/Public Memory, Voight and Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Plack Blague is the now legendary industrial dance performance artist from Lincoln, Nebraska who has established itself as one of the most dynamic and visually striking artists in that realm of music now. Sure, Plack has recorded releases but the live show with Raws Schlesinger dancing and gyrating in his spiky, leather daddy outfit to heavy, relentless beats is where the real joy in a Plack Blague experience is to be found. Denver is fortunate to have had Plack Blague come through several times. But not so much with Public Memory. The latter is the project of Robert Toher who was once a member of experimental electronic pop group Eraas who once opened for TR/ST in 2013 at Larimer Lounge but when that project fizzled out he retooled his gift for soundscaping and songcraft and emerged as Public Memory the debut album for which is a modern classic of darkwave and ambient industrial pop in 2016’s Wuthering Drum. The most recent Public Memory record Elegiac Beat dropped on September 1, 2023 with a more downtempo sound but with the gritty lo-fi lost VHS science fiction cinema aesthetic still in place. Opening the show is Voight from Denver whose seamless fusion of shoegazing post-punk and industrial techno is imbued with an emotional intensity that releases in cathartic bursts throughout the set. That the lyrics often scorch the horrible bastards of society is a bonus.
Harmony Rose of The Milk Blossoms in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 09.15 What: The Milk Blossoms, Isadora Eden and Bell Mine When: 7 doors, 8 show Where: The Black Buzzard Why: The Milk Blossoms is the kind of indie pop band whose sound really isn’t in line with the more conventionally commercial form of that peddled to people through the “indie” branding in radio stations, playlists and festivals. There is something idiosyncratic and homespun and thus more original and endearing than most of the music that has been marketed to us. Fronted by Harmony Rose the delicate melodies and vulnerable and emotionally-charged music has an uncommon power because it feels raw and uncompromised. Isadora Eden’s brooding yet luminous new album forget what makes it glow swims in the same stylistic waters as Fiona Apple’s sultry pop, a noisy shoegaze band and PJ Harvey’s art rock. It’s a cathartic listen and the live band has amble amounts of that mysterious, dark energy as well. Bell Mine is a solo project whose gossamer atmospherics and textural sonic details lend it a mythological flavor that wouldn’t be out of place on a Panos Cosmatos soundtrack or touring with Laurel Halo.
King Krule in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 09.15 What: King Krule w/LUCY (Cooper B. Handy) When: 8 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Archy Marshall as King Krule is one of the few artists of recent years to have truly fused disparate styles and genres together and made something genuinely compelling, cool, inventive and creatively satisfying. You hear elements of hip-hop, post-punk, shoegaze, psychelic rock, indie pop and jazz. Listen to any of his records, his latest Space Heavy for instance, and you hear a disregard for conventional structure unless it serves the mood and message of the song. And every song feels like it was written for that specific emotional resonance with the instrumentation and production geared to enhance the effect. It’s tempting to compare King Krule to Unknown Mortal Orchestra in this way and like the latter, King Krule is a powerful live band that has this trippy and hypnotic music but delivered with a punk attitude.
Alice Cooper, photo by Jenny Rishe
Saturday | 09.16 What:Rob Zombie w/Alice Cooper, Ministry and Filter When: 4:30 Where: Fiddler’s Green Why: Halloween is on the horizon and with the advent of fall this is the perfect concert to usher in spooky season. Rob Zombie is of course the songwriter and musician who was the frontman of gonzo, psychedelic heavy metal band White Zombie from 1985-1998 after which time he embarked on a music career under his own name with a similar aesthetic of grindhouse meets schlocky horror and bombastic live shows. But chances are Zombie took more than a few cues from Alice Cooper, a band most closely associated with the lead singer/songwriter of the same name. Cooper combined vaudeville showmanship with campy horror cinema, hard rock and exploration of themes of struggle with personal demons and the inner contours of identity and its outer expression in conflict with restrictive social norms. Multiple songs are staples of classic rock and metal including “I’m Eighteen,” “School’s Out,” “No More Mr. Nice Guy,” “Welcome to My Nightmare” and “Under My Wheels.” Cooper indisputably established himself as the “Godfather of Shock Rock” for his 1970s concerts and their over the top stage shows with costumes, simulated death and elaborate props. These days Cooper is still a commanding presence who delivers a dramatic and theatrical performance and worth catching for that alone. Ministry too is likely an obvious touchstone for Zombie when that band transitioned from haunting and intense, pioneering EBM band to dark and highly political industrial rock from the 80s through the 90s. Apparently the group has been performing some of its older material, something largely unknown after the late 80s so you may catch a mix of its broad spectrum of musical styles. Filter is an industrial rock band that formed after Richard Patrick left Nine Inch Nails as a touring guitarist in 1993. In 1995 the group had its breakthrough single with “Hey Man Nice Shot” from its debut album Short Bus. Founding member Brian Liesegang left after the release of that record but has now reunited with Patrick for the writing and recording of the 2023 Filter album The Algorithm bringing his imaginative production and performances back into the mix.
French Police, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 09.17 What:French Police w/Closed Tear and Lesser Care When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Chicago’s French Police are prominent practitioners of that more lo-fi end of the modern post-punk spectrum that embraced that thin guitar sound and minimal electronic percussion. But its thoughtful, introspective lyrics and solid, melodic bass lines and fine use of space make up for what can come across as cookie cutter, Euro-post-punk style. It’s most recent album is 2023’s appropriately titled BLEU. Closed Tear is like the Los Angeles equivalent of the French Police but with its guitar style more in the realm of shoegaze and its bass lines generally more robust. Lesser Care, though, from El Paso, Texas is consistently a powerful live band with real sonic and emotional heft and intensity behind its performances. Like a band that was inspired by picking up some Chameleons records, early 90s shoegaze and maybe came up in the local punk and/or metal scene before deciding on charting a different musical path and one that has made it one of the most interesting rock bands out of the underground now.
Atmosphere, photo by Dan Monick
Sunday | 09.17 What:Atmosphere w/Danny Brown, Souls of Mischief, The Grouch & Eligh, DJ Fresh, DJ Mr. Dibbs and Breakbeat Lou When: 5 Where: Red Rocks Why: Atmosphere returns to Colorado to headline Red Rocks as one of the stars of hip-hop that emerged out of the 90s underground to attain mainstream success. Comprised of Slug and Ant, Atmosphere’s songs employ a cinematic musicality in which it embeds raw and vulnerable lyrics about life and the challenges and joys it can throw our way. Its prolific body of work and commanding live shows seem like creative demonstrations of exploring the human condition and embracing the flaws and virtues of existence with a solidarity of spirit and basic compassion that can be disarming and hit with an unexpected poignancy. This stacked lineup of modern hip-hop luminaries includes Souls of Mischief are legends of West Coast alternative hip-hop and inside and outside its membership in Hieroglyphics have demonstrated a deftness of lyricism embedded into jazz beats and deeply atmospheric production across its long career. Danny Brown might be too weird to fully fit into a mainstream hip-hop context but this isn’t his first time at Red Rocks either. His music is very much in the tradition of hip-hop but his unique and eccentric rapping style can sound both abrasive and playful as he modifies his delivery to suit the mood of the song and its subject matter. And his beats freely dip into jazz samples, punk, psychedelic rock and electronic music and the avant-garde to craft his own fascinating set of stories to the point that his albums seem like commentary not just on life and media but casting it as science fiction stories from a parallel society in either Utopian and/or dystopian fashion. His forthcoming album Quaranta has been in limbo for reasons you can read about on the internet but hopefully you get to see some of that live at this show but even if not, Danny Brown is one of the most entertaining rappers of his generation.
Arctic Monkeys, photo by Zackery Michael
Monday | 09.18 What:Arctic Monkeys w/Fontaines D.C. When: 6:30 Where: Red Rocks Why: Legendary poet John Cooper Clarke said in a 2014 interview for Esquire that Arctic Monkeys were the closest we had to the Beatles at that time. He was referring to how big a splash the post-punk band from Sheffield had made even before its epochal 2013 album AM was released and broke the group to the USA with the single “Do I Wanna Know?” fairly ubiquitous on modern rock and indie rock-adjacent playlists and radio stations. The Monkeys had borrowed Clarke’s words for the song “I Wanna Be Yours” from his poem of the same name and drawing on that resonance with UK popular music and culture going back decades. The band’s body of work has shown that it has been willing to evolve its sound in interesting new directions during the course of its career including the futuristic sounds of its follow-up album Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino and the darker, moodier 2022 album The Car behind which its touring now. Fortunately someone somewhere in the Arctic Monkeys camp brought on board for this tour the Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. whose own sound brings together the brooding, post-punk grittiness with a scrappy political folk spirit that should appeal to fans of the band’s peers like IDLEs and Shame.
Strange Ranger, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 09.19 What:Strange Ranger w/Roseville and Fragrant Blossom When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: With its 2023 album Pure Music, Strange Ranger has shifted significantly from its already respectable, earlier indie rock phase. Replacing the guitar pop is a more electronic sound palate that’s moodier and more steeped in a creative use of space that has more in common with 90s electronic pop and downtempo than 2010s rock. It sounds a bit like something Matthew Vaughn would put in his next action noir film. Fragrant Blossom is something like a psychedelic, non-Western folk and jazz band from Denver.
Nuovo Testamento, photo courtesy the artists
Wednesday | 09.20 What: Nuovo Testamento w/Church Fire and Desasociado and Niq V https://theorientaltheater.com/event/421388/Nuovo-Testamento When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Nuovo Testamento is a synth pop band from Los Angeles whose vintage electronic dance sound hearkens back to an 80s aesthetic like a fusion of italo disco, Madonna, Bananarama and New Order with a commanding live show that feels like a club music performance from that era as well. The group released its new album Love Lines in March 2023. Church Fire from Denver has a similarly energetic live show but its musical roots are more in an industrial and synth pop vein of a more modern era and its politically charged lyrics very of the moment. Desasociado is a more minimal synth and coldwave style band from Denver and DJ-ing the night is Niq V who is perhaps best known for his manning the turntables and other music playing devices for Outrun and Dark Tuesdays.
The Walkmen, photo courtesy the artists
Thursday | 09.21 What: The Walkmen w/Yeah Baby When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: The Walkmen were one of the big names of the New York City post-punk revival at the turn of the century forming out of the ashes of influential NYC cult band Jonathan Fire*Eater and The Recoys from Boston. The group’s 2004 album Bows + Arrows propelled The Walkmen into indie stardom and critical acclaim with singles like “The Rat” (recently performed on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEg_8mpp_Kk) and “Little House of Savages.” The band’s scrappy spirit and nimbus of psychedelic melody around driving, noisy garage rock stuck a chord with audiences widely. But in 2013 The Walkmen went on indefinite hiatus until 2022 when it announced a string of shows in April 2023 and later in spring of this year a more full reunion tour.
Chromeo, photo by Grady Brannan
Friday | 09.22 What:Chromeo: Funk Yourself Tour w/Coco and Breezy When: 6pm doors/8pm show Where: Mishawaka Amphitheatre Why: Chromeo were early purveyors of electro-funk in the indie world in the 2000s after Dave 1 and P-Thugg took the skills they learned producing hip-hop tracks to make an adjacent kind of electronic dance music in the vein of funky synth pop but more rooted in the sounds of late 70s and early 80s disco and the compositional sensibilities of Bernie Worrell. But always in the way Chromeo presented itself and in its style of music embracing the irony of the bombast and making it both a celebration of the hedonistic aesthetic and a healthy sense of self-awareness that meant that they didn’t take themselves so seriously even as they made genuinely well-crafted dance party music. The group used to tour annually and bring some of the best more underground electronic rock and pop acts of the day regularly at large venues shining a light on those lesser known but the pandemic put the kabosh on that for a bit and now Chromeo is headling for the first time in four years and bringing the funk to the Mishawaka where it is very much needed and likely most welcome.
Infected Mushroom, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 09.23 What:Danceportation: Monstercat Takeover featuring Infected Mushroom, Koven, Godlands, ShockOne, Whales and more When: 9:30 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Canadian electronic music label Monstercat lands at Denver’s Meow Wolf for a night of psychedelic visuals and psy trance, bass music, glitchy EDM, progressive dubstep and dark, ambient IDM. Monstercat was started by two university students in 2011 with a passion for the then ascendant broad world of EDM and its adjacent styles more in the underground. The label focused on helping artists reach their audience with having a brand known as a portal of discovery and because of that unconventional approach to doing a label Monstercat quickly became a commercially successful concern that has partnered with various festivals and sought various avenues or promotion including the now defunct Pluto TV channel. The artists for this event which begins at 10:30 pm and runs through 2 am have all had releases on Monstercat demonstrating a sampling of its range and musical identity.
Chance Peña, photo by Shervin Lainez
Saturday | 09.23 What:David Kushner w/Chance Peña When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: David Kushner is a young singer-songwriter whose career got a massive boost from TikTok when his single “Miserable Man” went viral in 2022 and his music started charting outside of his home country of the United States. His introspective folk style and a voice capable of conveying emotional gravitas beyond his 23 years of existence has resonated with fans and even a casual listen to his music hits you with the sophistication of its songcraft and command of atmospheric mood. For the April 2023 release of his single “Daylight” and its enigmatic/borderline science fiction-themed video Kushner created the TikTok trend “You look happier, what happened.” Also on this tour is another rising folk pop artist Chance Peña who at 22 is a bit of a music industry veteran having worked in making music for film and TV as well as contributing to the work of other artists as with John Legend’s “Conversations in the Dark” from his 2020 album Bigger Love. Peña’s latest EP Lovers to Strangers (2023) with lead single “In My Room” dropped in the summer but has major fall energy with its melancholic yet emotionally effusive and vulnerable melodies and tales of life as a thoughtful young person in this very challenging and conflicted period in our culture.
Husbands, photo by Kelsey Davis
Tuesday | 09.26 What:Wilderado w/Husbands When: 7 Where: Boulder Theater Why: Indie folk rock group Wilderado originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma is touring ahead of a forthcoming sophomore album teased with the August release of its pastoral pop single “In Between.” Opening the show is Oklahoma City’s Husbands whose own new and appropriately titled fourth album Cuatro is due out October 13, 2023 through Thirty Tigers. The early singles including “Can’t Do Anything” have a touch of early 2010s chillwave atmospherics and post-Animal Collective, psychedelic indie pop but a fresh take on any possible influences. The new album has an undeniable post-summer reflective quality even when its melodies hit upsweeping, exuberant passages.
Tassel, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 09.26 What: Tassel w/Street Fever, Teller, Desasociado and Kill You Club DJs & DJ Precious Blood When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Depending on where you check in with Tassel from Phoenix you’ll hear a different side of the songwriting and hear beautifully stark and noisy post-punk, industrial EBM, minimal dark techno and deathrock. Also on the bill is the enigmatic and epic transformation of what electronic dance music and darkwave and minimal techno and electronic dance music are supposed to sound like with a performance that is both confrontational and mysterious. Desasociado sits in the realm of post-punk and electronic coldwave with some nods to the Russian variety of both.
Death Cab For Cutie, photo by Jimmy Fontaine
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday | 09.26, 09.27 and 09.28 What: The Postal Service & Death Cab for Cutie w/Warpaint When: 6:30 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Postal Service was something of a supergroup that formed after Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie did guest vocals on the 2001 debut Dntel album Life Is Full of Possibilities. That record went on to be a classic of electronica and glitch and at the time Death Cab was still very much an indie band. But the song, “(This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan,” performed well and embraced by other artists for remixes and Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) decided to continue with their collaborative efforts. In the process of writing and recording songs Jenny Lewis, then of Rilo Kiley, came on board to contribute vocals before becoming a full time member. The trio’s debut Give Up (2003) is a modern classic of indie rock that helped to define that sound with the “Such Great Heights” single as one of the defining songs of that period in American popular music. Then in 2005 the group went on hiatus with a 2013 reunion tour celebrating the tenth anniversary of its debut and still sole album. Fast forward another ten years and The Postal Service is on tour perhaps celebrating 20 years of its only album but this time touring with Gibbard’s also rightfully respected band Death Cab For Cutie who have somehow managed to have a long career of emotionally rich and inventive pop music that has evolved from its more tender early releases that didn’t make it as obvious how much of a sonic powerhouse the group was even then to its more experimental later albums with fully integrated electronic elements that have broadened the group’s palette of sounds and widened its range of emotional expression. For these shows you also get to see one of the more pioneering modern shoegaze/psychedelic rock bands in Warpaint who are no stranges to bursting expectations with inventive use of electronics and left field production both live and on recordings.
Hannah Jadagu, photo by Sterling Smith
Wednesday | 09.27 What: Hannah Jadagu w/Miloe and Isadora Eden When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Hannah Jadagu’s 2021 debut EP for Sub Pop What Is Going On? was one of the most promising releases by a new artist in recent years with her fusion of bedroom pop and robust and sonically inventive guitar rock. But Aperture, her 2023 debut full length album also on Sub Pop, made good on that promise of lush sounds, sophisticated arrangements and lyrics that get to the core of what’s going on in the world but casts them in a way that has immediacy and intimacy that’s accessible. Live, Jadagu is a commanding yet inviting and soulful performer whose command of an orchestral array of sounds is impressive.
Everclear, photo by Ashley Osborn
Thursday | 09.28 What: Everclear w/The Ataris and The Pink Spiders When: 6 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: In the alternative rock era probably no one was assuming their careers would span three decades but in 2022 Everclear celebrated its 30 years of existence with a national tour and a reissue of its 1993 debut album World of Noise. On September 8, 2023 the group released the 17-track Live at The Whiskey A Go Go comprised of songs recorded on the 2022 tour as well as two bonus studio recordings “Year of the Tiger” and “Sing Away.” Everclear burst out of the aftermath of the implosion of grunge and the first wave of alternative rock with heartfelt and vulnerable songs with grit and a clear sense of joy for life even when the songs tackled challenging subject matter. Fortunately for lead singer and primary songwriter Art Alexakis and his bandmates the music has aged well because it never fully fit in with alternative rock trends being too punk for grunge, too hard rock for punk and not short on memorable hooks and a live show that even now comes off raw and authentic.
Macula Dog, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 09.29 What: Macula Dog w/Beau Mahadev, Docile Rottweiler, Pete Swanson (DJ) and Luke Petet When: 9 Where: Glob Why: Macula Dog is a New York City duo that maybe set out to write rock songs of a more left field variety but even its most accessible releases are filled with glitchy electronic mutant pop from a near future of failed states strewn with technological debris from which a diasporic human species will hobble together an existence before the next bubbling up of a coherent civilization. Or maybe it sounds like a glitchcore version of Anthony Braxton’s late 60s avant-garde albums. But Macula Dog also presents the music with self-made puppets and outfits to enhance the sense of something from a parallel universe visiting our own. Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans fame will be doing a DJ set.
Son Volt, photo by Auset Sarno
Friday | 09.29 What:28 Years of Son Volt: Songs of Trace and Doug Sahm w/Peter Bruntnell When: 8 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Son Volt emerged out of the ashes of foundational alt-country band Uncle Tupelo in 1994 when Jay Farrar left to forge a different path while his former bandmates morphed the remains of their previous band into Wilco. Son Volt kept more closely to the roots rock and alt-country aesthetic over the course of a career of emotionally vibrant songwriting that has helped launch a musical movement beyond its modest 1980s beginnings. For this tour the group is celebrating its 1995 debut album Trace and the songwriting of Tejano luminary Doug Sahm.
John Gross, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 09.29 What: Granular Breath (IA), Dead Hawk (Springs), A Light Among Many and John Gross When: 7 Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Granular Breath is a drone artist from Iowa whose body of work is unsettling, deeply textural ambient music crafted from processed guitar and electronics hearkening back to a time in the 2000s when you would see a noise project perform that seemed rooted in metal but making something much more abstract yet no less intense and sonically engulfing. Also on the bill is Denver noise godfather John Gross as well as the like-minded A Light Among Many from Denver but whose soundscapes are closer to black metal and incorporate drums, vocals and Theremin and whose music has a darkly menacing quality.
Chameleons Vox in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 09.30 What:The Mission UK, The Chameleons and Theatre of Hate When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Three legends of UK post-punk on one bill. The Mission UK formed after Wayne Hussey and Craig Adams left Sisters of Mercy in 1985 and recruited members of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Artery, two of the great post-punk bands of the day, to join the band within a year and by late 1986 the new group had released its debut full-length God’s Own Medicine, one of the landmarks of 1980s Gothic rock followed two years later with another in 1988’s Children. The group would go on to evolve with a more dream pop sound that has persisted after the group has experienced two hiatuses and now the core and early trio of Hussey, Adams and guitarist/keyboardist Simon Hinkler have been actove since 2011 with new drummer Alex Baum since 2022. The Chameleons were one of the great post-punk bands that came out of Manchester, UK in the early 80s but its sound quickly progressed to weave earnest and impassioned vocals courtesy bassist and singer Mark Burgess with orchestral atmospherics from original guitarists Reg Smithies and Dave Fielding. The group’s songs tackled working class struggles and politics with a poetic sensibility and uncommon emotional power that helped its ethereal melodies transcend into something more elegant. Its sound seems a clear influence on the shoegaze bands of the late 80s and early 90s and long term a massive influence on modern post-punk bands whether they know it or not. For a number of years Burgess performed the band’s music as Chameleons Vox but with Reg Smithies back on board since 2021 you’ll get to see as close to the genuine article as we’re likely to witness minus Dave Fielding rejoining since founding drummer John Lever tragically passed away in 2017. Theatre of Hate bridged the gap between New Wave, post-punk and death rock in 1980 and its membership has included Billy Duffy of The Cult and Mark Thwaite who was in The Mission not to mention Craig Adams also currently in the mission. The band came out of the London street punk scene and from early on it brought in saxophone to give its dark melodicism an otherworldly yet playful element but the driving bass, gorgeously gloomy guitar work and Kirk Brandon’s unorthodox vocals has set the band apart from many of its peers.
Joy Subtraction in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 09.30 What: A Lifetime of Ephemera release party w/Cyclo Sonic and Elegant Everyone and spoken word by Brian Polk and Charly Fasano When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Author and musician Brian Polk is releasing A Lifetime of Ephemera, his memoir of attending shows with ticket stubs and other memorabilia, for this show. Polk has been a fixture of Denver’s punk and literary scene for over two decades as a member of various projects including post-punk band Joy Subtraction and one of his other bands Elegant Everyone will perform this night alongside Cyclo Sonic, one of the best local punk and garage rock bands with former members of The Fluid, Frantix, Choosey Mothers and Rok Tots. Poet Charly Fasano will be on hand as well to do readings from his own body of extraordinary poetry.
Dethklok, photo courtesy Dethklok
Saturday | 09.30 What: BABYMETAL and Dethklok w/Jason Richardson When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Dethklok emerged out of the immortal ether in 2006 with an animated television program in 2006 called Metalocalypse on the Adult Swim block of Cartoon Network. The group was said to enjoy an immense popularity and whose wealth and organization was ranked as the seventh-largest economy on the planet by the conclusion of season 2. Of course it was a fictional band but it released a debut album The Dethalbum in 2007 and in 2009 following the release of Dethalbum II the group toured with Mastodon, High on Fire and Converge. But in order to do so an actual live performance a real group was in order and series co-creator Brendon Small did vocals and played guitar (and other instruments for the studio albums) while heavy metal legend Gene Hoglan (Dark Angel, Death, Strapping Young Lad, Testament, Fear Factory etc.) played drums. And although Dethklok the band from the animated series was a ridiculous caricature of some melodic death metal band from Sweden with absurd lyrics and alleged lifestyles the live, actual human version of the band has proven to be surprisingly viable beyond the gimmick of being the live band version of an cartoon. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2023 album Deathalbum IV and it recently released a direct-to-video film on Blu ray and digital based on the series called Metalocalypse: Army of the Doomstar. Co-headlining this show is Japanese kawaii metal band BABYMETAL. It’s a gimmick but the show is dramatic and big production with screaming and dancing from the trio of frontwomen if that’s your thing.
Cut Worms, photo by Caroline Gohlke
Saturday | 09.30 What: Cut Worms w/Ryder the Eagle When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: For the last several years Max Clarke has made a name for himself under the moniker Cut Worms. His variety of countrified garage rock had built into it a clear separation from the trendy garage rock of the 2010s and his unaffected pop songcraft has always come across as earnest and direct. His earlier music drew on obvious influences out of 1960s pop rock. The 2023 self-titled album which dropped on July 21 found Clarke in a different end of that sensibility by tapping into the mood of summer nights and a time in life when summer meant fewer real life responsibilities and the potential for the kinds of adventures that seem attainable and sustainable and which endure even if they’re not so dramatic. On the record Clark further refines his ability to say just enough with economical songwriting and bring to spare sounds a touch of atmospherics to give his songs the air of the urban mythical Americana.
“Gzajvaredinze” by Guram Tsagareishvili has some charm and energy in its post-punk style with the urgent, almost pointillist guitar lead over spare drum machine. But the distorted vocals and parallel melodic, more elaborate guitar lead opens the song up emotionally and musically while honoring mixed and intense feelings of melancholic catharsis. The title is Georgian for “At the Crossroads” and the songwriter offers a tidbit of its inspiration being how “everything happened at the crossroads” including a breakup and a promise “the next song would be called ‘Crossroads’ and it would be the best thing I’d ever write.” Certainly this song expresses a mood of being at a point where everything has crashed in on you and you have nowhere to go but forward in any direction that seems right in that moment. With any luck there’s plenty more to come and further creative achievements but this song should appeal to fans of French Police, Haunt Me and Molchat Doma. Listen to “Gzajvaredinze” on Spotify and follow Guram Tsagareishvili at the links below.
Friday | 07.01 What:Aldous Harding w/H. Hawkline When: 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Ever since the release of her 2014 self-titled debut album Aldous Harding has been crafting some of the most unique songs in the realm of indie folk of the past few decades. With each album Harding offers songs that seem like a blend of the deeply personal, the mythical and the conceptual. Her song titles suggest a surreal aesthetic that lends itself to her imaginative story telling and a willingness to seek beyond tropes and clichés for ways of signing about relationships, identity, aspirations and dreams and commenting on society. 2017’s Party and her subsequent North American tour revealed Harding to be a truly and fascinatingly idiosyncratic artist whose emotionally powerful and riveting performances were reminiscent of Joni Mitchell with a touch of Kate Bush. Her latest album Warm Chris (2022) puts the focus on fusing the jazz elements of her songwriting with the avant-garde pop for a set of songs that sound like lounge music from a parallel universe where creative weirdos are in charge and creativity is more valued than affirming popular trends.
Reverb and The Verse, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.01 What:Yonbre Netz w/Reverb and The Verse When: 9 p.m. Where: Broadway Roxy Why: Yonbre Netz is a Boulder-based hip-hop and experimental electronic artist whose varied collaborations can be heard on his Spotify account where his keen ear for colorful, percussive melodies can be heard. But this is also a rare chance to catch Reverb and The Verse who recently put out their tenth and supposed final album BLACKWALL under this project name. Shane Etter and Jahi Simbai have been at it since the late 90s making hip-hop that has always been rich with creative soundscaping and truly clever wordplay informed by incisive commentary on society and the travails of everyday life. Seemingly never content to repeat the same musical ideas album to album the duo’s catalog of material is a great trail of creative evolution and experimentation. BLACKWALL is a little like if Public Enemy collaborated with Nine Inch Nails with the gift for emotionally charged and politically and poetically astute as that comparison might imply. You may not get many chances to catch those guys in action and the Broadway Roxy would be a great room to make that the opportunity to witness one of the finest hip-hop acts Denver has to offer.
Friday | 07.01 What:Vmthanaachth w/Church Fire, Sell Farm, Ray Diess (album release) and Coma Roulette When: 8 p.m. Where: Glob Why: Vmthanaachth from Dallas, Texas combines ambient music and industrial with classical avant-garde in a way that fans of Pedestrian Deposit will appreciate. Church Fire has been really upping their game with making irresistible bangers that also dismantle status quo sentiments and ways of being. For those not in the know Church Fire is something like an alchemical mixture of synth pop, industrial dance music, confrontational feminist punk and one of the best bands out of Denver or anywhere of the past decade. Ray Diess is releasing his latest album the hyperpop inflected and rawly honest It’ll Always Ache. It sounds like something that might have come out of Manchester in the late 80s or early 90s but with musical references and more obvious inspirations of a couple of decades later. There is some fine shade and ascerbic wit across the album but in the end it’s about seeking the authentic in experiences and embracing one’s own feelings as valid and does so with passion and playfulness.
Spyderland, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.01 What:Spyderland video/EP release w/Machu Linea and Random Temple When: 8 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge/Bobcat Room Why: Spyderland is an electro pop duo comprised of Marie Litton and Drew McClellan. The two have been veterans of the Denver underground scene for years and to their credit this project is really unlike anything else they’ve done. Rather, they’ve taken their strengths as artists and applied then to crafting a different style of music meaning an experimental form of pop that can at times be a bit downtempo but with a spirited sense of play running through how they spark off each other as performers. It comes off as a bit of a musical dialogue which lends itself to a body of imaginative and fresh songwriting. For this show Spyderland is releasing a new animated video and its new EP. Machu Linea is a likeminded artist who can often be seen DJing around town but it turns out Armando Garibay has a gift for assembling beats and sounds that transform popular styles into something far more inventive. The 2020 album HeXotica showcased Garibay’s range as an artist and collaborator with some of the most talented artists in the local hip-hop and electronic music scenes. Random Temple has been in various types of bands over the years but under this moniker his ambient and IDM music freely weaves together textures, tones and even musical structures as a way to deconstruct conventions of genre.
sleepdial in June 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 07.04 What:Zach Rowden, Terravault Network, Tripp Nasty and sleepdial When: 9 p.m. Where: Glob Why: Zach Rowden is a member of collaborative improvisational project Crazy Doberman that began life as a series of collaborations with John Olson of Wolf Eyes fame. But since its inception in the late 2010s Crazy Doberman has had a prolific output of recordings. Under his own name or with Tongue Depressor Rowden has been running experiments in texture and environmental sounds as they intersect with a hypnotic, almost ritualistic form of ambient. Terravault Network is Eli Windler (Spectral Voice, City Hunter, No Thought and others) and Kevin Wesley (Hot White) making industrial ambient soundscapes that sound like abstracted and processed environmental field recordings at a distance from an active factory late night near the train tracks and processed to preserve rhythms and an enigmatic mood. Tripp Nasty has had quite the eclectic run of music experiments over the years from modern classical music to performance art, weirdo punk and now an almost academic analog/modular synth composition project that he recently displayed opening for legendary avant-garde musician William Basinski. Sleepdial is Luke Thinnes’ musical alter ego to French Kettle Station. Whereas the latter pushes the boundaries of electronic dance music and new age pop, the former is Tim Hecker-esque textured ambient music that layers subtle running pulses and flowing drifts of white noise and purely abstract melody that conveys a sense of endless space and wonder.
Darkest Hour, photo by Rick Ceauliue
Tuesday | 07.05 What: Darkest Hour w/Toxic Holocaust and Necropanther When: 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Darkest Hour from Washington D.C. has been evolving its particular flavor of melodic death metal mixed with post-hardcore since its inception in 1995. Its epic guitar progressions and apocalyptic visual style makes the band sound and look like something from the near future after the fallout of the collapse of worldwide civilization as we know it has been sorted out. This tour represents the group’s first with new lead guitarist Nico Santora and Darkest Hour will perform its 2007 album Deliver Us in its entirety and subsequent to the tour the group will return to the studio to record its tenth album. Opening the show is blackened death thrash mutants Necropanther from Denver as well as veteran thrash band Toxic Holocaust from Portland, Oregon whose own music has more than a leg in hardcore and grind as evidenced by its blast beats fused with acidic, Venom-esque menace.
Grief Ritual October 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Tuesday | 07.05 What:Under the Pier, The God Awful Truth, Vexing and Grief Ritual When: 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Under the Pier is a math-y post-hardcore outfit from Baltimore whose songs feel chaotic even as they are guided by a bizarre precision of execution. Vexing from Denver is difficult to pin down even though it clearly has roots in extreme metal and post-hardcore mainly because it also comes off like a grindcore band that’s dialing back the onslaught a little to let sounds hang in the air and hit you differently than a persistent force. Makes its gruff vocals and mathematically precise accents in a riff seem more nuanced and creative. Grief Ritual is going through some transitions since long time guitarist Mykel Monroe is departing but this may be a last chance to check out his guitar wizardry with Grief Ritual. Its own hardcore stylings have a brutal elegance from guitar pyrotechnics, to finely executed, cathartic vocals to surprisingly spare yet interlocking rhythms that allow for the songs to switch moods and focus of forcefulness with great flexibility. Its most recent album The Gallows Laugh may be more in the realm of metallic hardcore but has the beautifully confrontational and caustic quality of a melodic black metal record.
Puscifer, photo by Travis Shinn
Wednesday | 07.06 What: Puscifer w/Moodie Black When: 7 p.m. Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Puscifer is Maynard James Keenan’s vehicle for a plethora of creative musical ideas that don’t really fit in with the art prog of his more famous band Tool. So he’s been able to infuse it with some of his more innovative experiments in sound and theatrical performance. The group hasn’t toured the U.S.A. since 2016 and reports of shows and footage that has made it onto the internet reveals what you might hope for and expect with elaborate sets and Maynard performing almost like a cosmic variety show host and his cohort of weirdos. The most recent Puscifer album Existential Reckoning (2020) must have been a head scratcher for anyone expecting industrial rock or hard rock in general. Its extensive and evocative use of synths and other keyboards as the drivers of melody and dramatic vocals is tempting to compare to something Peter Gabriel might be doing now but also not unlike something Gary Numan might do and really one of the most sonically fascinating records of Keenan’s career thus far.
Thursday | 07.07 What:The Pine Hill Haints w/Glueman and George Cessna When: 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Pine Hill Haints from Auburn, Alabama perform fairly traditional bluegrass and folky country with great the intensity and energy. Fans of rockabilly will probably appreciate what the Haints have to offer but its music also seems just slightly out of frame of normalcy to be interesting. Opening the show is George Cessna whose 2021 album Lucky Rider is a beautifully and paradoxically warmly haunting piece of work that transcends “alt-country” into the realm of slowcore and pastoral, Lanois-esque Americana that feels like reading an idiosyncratic noir novel comprised of impressionistic vignettes about navigating a culture and society in decline and trying to do something worthwhile with integrity in spite of one’s personal limitations and the weight of one’s history and attachment to tradition and sentimental notions.
Gila Teen, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday – Sunday | 07.08 – 07.10 What:Compost Heap Music Festival V When: 3-11 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Can’t sum up why better than the verbiage from the FB event below which includes set times and other information.
“It’s happening again! July 8th, 9th, and 10th! One of the biggest temporary DIY music festivals you’ll ever see! Three days of great music from underground bands from across the nation and local support that you may have never heard of but you will definitely love!
ACCESSIBILITY INFO: This event will be wheelchair accessible. ADA portapotty onsite. Proof of vaccination is required. Masks are strongly encouraged. Denver will be hot and dry, dress in breathable and moisture wicking clothing and avoid dark colors. There will be shade provided and cooling misting fans throughout the day. This event will be live-streamed. We created this festival with a goal, it’s organized to center and amplify the music and art of marginalized folks, and to celebrate radical perspectives and ideologies in general. It’s focus is to try and raise awareness about oppressive institutions that stunt our ability to flourish as individuals and communities, and to come together to resist against them for our collective liberation, express solidarity and make some new friends.
FRIDAY, JULY 8TH 4:00-4:25 Team Nonexistent 4:35-5:00 Mx Wander (PA) 5:10-5:35 Old Scratch & The Holy Mess (AZ) 5:45-6:10 Bird Teeth (WA) 6:20-6:45 Chatterbox and the Latter Day Satanists 6:55-7:20 Endless, Nameless 7:30-7:55 Gutter Town (AZ) 8:05-8:30 Fables of the Fall 8:40-9:05 Shooting Tsars (TX) 9:15-9:45 RAT BATH (WI) 10:00-10:30 Ceschi Ramos (CT) 10:45-11:15 Crow Cavalier
SATURDAY, JULY 9TH 3:00-4:00 OPEN MIC 4:00-4:25 Marissa. 4:35-5:00 Loud in the Morning (WA) 5:10-5:35 Sunnnner 5:45-6:10 HappyHappy (IN) 6:20-6:45 Fruiting Body of the Larger 6:55-7:20 Straight Line Arrival (ND) 7:30-7:55 Gila Teen 8:05-8:30 Danbert Nobacon (WA) (x Chumbawamba) 8:40-9:05 Ludlow (OR) 9:15-9:45 Self Neglect (NM) 10:00-10:30 Lo Cash Ninjas (NN) 10:45-11:15 Doom Scroll
SUNDAY, JULY 10TH 3:00-4:00 OPEN MIC 4:00-4:25 The Michael Character (MA) 4:35-5:00 Rumbletramp (NC) 5:10-5:35 Hello the Camp (ID) 5:45-6:10 Helga Pataki 6:20-6:45 Gone Full Heathen 6:55-7:20 The Ragetones 7:30-7:55 Mr. Atomic 8:05-8:30 Dana Skully and the Tiger Sharks (IN) 8:40-9:05 Caustic Soda 9:15-9:45 Noogy (TX) 10:00-10:30 Plasma Canvas 10:45-11:15 Anxiety Cat (LA) (x Taxpayers)
Compost Heap music festival is a not-for-profit event. All festival revenue will be used to pay touring bands, or donated to the Harm Reduction Action Center in honor of Marci, a dear friend who is no longer with us. Thank you for your support.
$45-75 suggested donation for a weekend (3 day) pass
$20-25 suggested donation for a day pass
+$5 SEVENTH CIRCLE MEMBERSHIP FEE (if you don’t have one already): In order to attend any event at the venue you must posses a membership card. This helps 7C stay afloat and protects them from getting shut down, help keep DIY alive in Denver!
If you would like to pre-order your weekend pass, please email us @ compostheap2022@gmail.com (please put “Compost Heap 2022 pass” in the subject line) You should get an immediate response, but if for some reason you don’t, please email wormfooddiy@gmail.com instead.”
New Standards Men, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 07.09 What: Derek Monypeny w/New Standards Men, Sex Funeral and Pythian Whispers When: 2 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Derek Monypeny is coming from communing with the Methuselah tree to bring his accumulated musical wisdom fostered while living in Joshua Tree. Think drone and “free jazz” if you were hanging with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Werner Herzog. Sex Funeral brings their celebration of the transmogrification of tantric rites through the necromantic meditation practices cultivated in secret sites in southern Iowa. The manifestation of these mystical energies will emerge as improvisational ritual drone for guitar and electronics. New Standards Men are fresh off a sabbatical merging analog synth and guitar as synth alchemy as structured exercises based on the deep secret knowledge shared by Robert Moog, Don Buchla and Morton Subotnick as conducted by Terry Riley. And probably opening this afternoon of high psychedelic frequency modulation is Pythian Whispers. Lore has it the three early members of the band that wrote and performed the album The Dark Edge of Hippie Life met on a mountaintop, perhaps at Machu Picchu, perhaps at Alamut Castle, perhaps in the secret chamber below the skeletons of ancient trees at the top of Mount Evans. Whatever the truth might be and whatever arcane secrets of improvisational music learned it will be unleashed in short form by those ragged vagabonds of psych prog ambient. So what do you have to lose and trust me everything of something to gain? Probably donation based. We’ll see if Jodorowsky can come from Paris to do tarot readings for the event but no promises. Tamam shud.
Hulder, photo by Liana Rakijian
Sunday | 07.10 What: Skeleton and Hulder When: 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Austin’s Skeleton started out as a hardcore band but has since its 2014 inception morphed into something that has clear sonic roots in thrash and black metal. Its 2020 self-titled album is too slow to be some kind of crossover thing but not slow enough to be some kind of doom project. Its blunt yet jagged riffs are reminiscent of early thrash but without be defined by that aesthetic. Also on the bill is HULDER whose own black metal style weaves together an elegant classical music sensibility with a refined black metal onslaught that reaches epic peaks of evocative and gritty atmospheres like the elevated subjects of her songs. The new album The Eternal Fanfare finds HULDER expanding her sonic palette so that melody and texture seem to work in perfect tandem to cinematic effect like scoring the saga of an ancient heroic journey to the underworld and back.
duck turnstone, December 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 07.11 What:TV Star w/Broken Record, Flor De La Luna and Duck Turnstone When: 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: TV Star from Seattle apparently aimed at being somewhere between the sound of dysfunctional era The Brian Jonestown Massacre and the more dream pop period of The Jesus and Mary Chain. But it ended up more in the realm of late period Sarah Records jangle pop with delicate melodies and warm vocals. Denver’s “Flora de la Luna” talks about being a “tough guy boy band” but really sounds more like an angsty power pop band with really tight songwriting and enough sneer to keep it from being safe. Maybe that’s what they meant by the whole “tough guy” thing that one presumes was a more humorous and ironic thing you write about your band as an inside joke. Broken Record also from Denver is like if an emo band discovered Dinosaur Jr and didn’t shed some of its roots including drawing some slight inspiration from Rainer Maria. duck turnstone is the band fronted by Melissa K. Jones who moved to Denver in 2018 with her then partner, apparently had an ugly break-up, and then shortly thereafter the pandemic happened and she had the opportunity to pour some of her heartbreak into writing music that in 2021 she was able to turn into a full band shortly after she released the album Howling & Crying under her own name. The album is a collection of vivid and delicate portraits of human vulnerability and exploring the nuances of rebuilding your life on your own terms. The live band is more in the power/indie pop vein.
Tuesday | 07.12 What: Kill You Club Presents: Haunt Me w/Weathered Statues, S!ntax and Precious Blood When: 8 p.m. Where: Glob Why: Haunt Me is a post-punk/darkwave band from Austin whose 2021 album This Sadness Never Ends had some familiar hallmarks of the genre with the spidery guitar melodies and Paul Banks-esque vocals. But Haunt Me tends to switch up the rhythms and dynamics in unexpected ways and never full stays the same vibe for the whole song thus setting itself apart from many of its peers. Weathered Statues is a post-punk band from Denver with roots in the local punk scene. S!ntax is an industrial noise project with some grounding in confrontational performance art.
Mondo Cozmo, photo courtesy the artist
Tuesday and Wednesday | 07.12 and 07.13 What: The Airborne Toxic Event w/Mondo Cozmo When: 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: [Rescheduled from April 2022] Joshua Ostrander aka Mondo Cozmo made a name for himself as the frontman for Laguardia in the the first half of the 2000s and then for a decade as the lead singer for Eastern Conference Champions. But since 2015 he has been recording and performing under the Mondo Cozmo moniker and crafting heartfelt and genre eclectic music. His new album, 2022’s This Is For The Barbarians takes Ostrander deep into his roots in rebellious folk artists like Bob Dylan and his more experimental electronic interests at the same time. The album is like a Radiohead album but more informed by folk and more overtly pop but with the appropriately rough around the edges quality to suit the times that surrounded the process of writing the songs with Ostrander commenting on the highs and very low depths of the world in the past half decade and his insight into personal psychology and the American zeitgeist is as cathartic as it is inspirational. And yes, opening for Toxic Airborne Event whose own long career of luminously gritty alternative rock has garnered a bit of a cult following. Its 2020 album Hollywood Park, sharing the title with singer Mikel Jollett’s memoir of the same name from the same year, was unsurprisingly as literarily as musically as poignant album as any in the group’s career to date and certainly seemingly its most personal.
The Black Keys, photo by Jim Herrington
Wednesday | 07.13 What:The Black Keys w/Band of Horses and Ceramic Animal When: 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: When The Black Keys started out of Akron, Ohio in 2001 it seemed very much like a niche, blues rock outfit like the lesser cousin of The White Stripes. When the duo first rolled through Denver it played small venues like Lion’s Lair where it opened for Reverend Dead Eye. But Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney stuck it out and developed their sound and songwriting and transformed what was likely a stripped down initial configuration into something more akin to a minimalist funk phenomenon as embodied well by its 2022 album Dropout Boogie. With the expansion of sounds and textures for the album the touring line-up of the band is also much more expansive than the core of Auerbach and Carney that will showcase how The Black Keys are a bit like a blues based rock version of ELO which is no bad thing. Opening is the well-known indie rock power pop group Band of Horses whose expansive songwriting is irresistibly uplifting especially its 2006 hit “The Funeral.” The proceedings will begin with a set from Ceramic Animal whose Dan Auerbach produced new album Sweet Unknown is brimming with warmly melancholic songs informed by a poignantly tangible sense of loss and reconciliation with emotional devastation and the inadequacy with which life and culture prepares one for the loss of the most significant people in your life.
Ceramic Animal, photo by Up in Smoke PhotoElizabeth Colour Wheel in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.15 What:Primitive Man w/INDIAN, Jarhead Fertilizer, Body Void, Spirit Possession and Elizabeth Colour Wheel When: 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Primitive Man assembled one of the most interesting lineups of heavy music you’re likely to see in Denver all year in celebration of its 10 year anniversary as a band. The death-grind trio has long created some of the most brutal, crushing and exciting music of the past decade obliterating the line between noise, extreme metal and doom while making commentary on a world all but ruined by international corruption and collusion in diminishing the lives of everyone below the 1% of the 1% of the economic and political power scale in ways deranged and in the end self-destructive. It’s cathartic stuff and in its sharp edges and raw ugliness holds a mirror up to the world we all feel hitting us but may not see or hear concentrated so powerfully in one place. It will also be one of the few times to see the band locally for a good deal of time to come. Chicago’s INDIAN has for nearly 20 years crafted a sound that wouldn’t be out of step with what one hears out of a band on Amphetamine Reptile or Touch and Go but with more sludge rock flavor and songs that go in for a more fluid and wide ranging dynamism than most bands that get lumped in with the canon of doom. Elizabeth Colour Wheel is a startlingly energetic fusion of a noisy shoegaze band and a grindcore outfit as unlikely as that combination sounds. Body Void’s ominous, clashing guitar and drum interplay has a somehow both feral and elegant quality that lends the desperate, distorted vocals an elevated outrage and pain like a harsh noise duo using more standard instrumentation to deliver a dense, caustic and textural soundscape.
Knuckle Pups in October 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.15 What:Knuckle Pups “TV Ready” album release w/Jeff Cormack of South of France and Earth to Luna When: 7 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Knuckle Pups is an indie pop band that has been around for a few years but which is finally putting out its debut album TV Ready. Oliver Holloway was once a member of the great folk punk band The Fainting Fansies that used to hold shows at a place where some or all of the band members lived back when people could rent out a house in neglected or underutilized houses or buildings in Denver. That time in deep, DIY “Old Denver” days has stuck with Holloway and Knuckle Pups isn’t a band short on charmingly earnest expressions of joy helped by the fact that the group’s multiple singers harmonize extraordinarily well.
Sky Creature, photo by Noah Kalina
Saturday | 07.16 What:The Velveteers w/Sky Creature and Holographic American When: 2 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: This is probably the smallest venue you’re going to see The Velveteers play for some time. The band that has taken a foundation of a modern interpretation of classic blues rock and infused it with sharply observed lyrics, imagination and youthful energy has been and will go to keep touring with Greta Van Fleet and playing big cities and the hinterland to large crowds. And that will be quite a contrast with Queens, NY-based experimental pop band Sky Creature whose new album Bear Mountain is exuberant and ethereal and by all indications mostly electronic. Majel Connery has a voice that is both intense and fey which suits being paired with music that sounds like something you’d want to hear if you could travel to a museum of snow globes and spend time in each exploring the worlds of which each gives you a surface level taste. It’s otherworldly stuff and has a cool energy that will be welcome on what is likely to be a hot day in Denver. Holographic American is a trio consisting of guitarist Caleb Tardio formerly of math rock wizard weirdos I Sank Molly Brown and currently of doom metal greats NightWraith and drummer Matt Grizzell who some may know for his time with prog indie band Alan Alda and indie rockers Instant Empire along with bassist Owen Pearson. So of course it’s a little different with some of that math rock vibe in its songs thus far released in demo form but moody and delicately and intricately yet not busily melodic.
Green Typewriters in 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 07.16 What:Green Typewriters album release w/Falcon’s Eye When: 7 p.m. Where: Enigma Bazaar Why: After fifteen years the psychedelic indiepop band Green Typerwriters are finally releasing its debut EP The Solar Anus which brings together musical ideas across its entire existence for a beautifully coherent and moving experimental pop album with as much wisdom as whimsy. Engineered and produced by Zach Bauer, one of Denver’s secret, genius pop songwriters and recordists, who most that know who he is know for having been a member of avant noise punks Zombie Zombie, stoner doom trio The Outer Neon, psychedelic post-punk art rock band Wicked Phoenix and Can tribute band Future Days. Among others. So you know the album is going to sound good and for the show the band is bringing in guests and making it the kind of show that you’re not going to get to see every day. Look out for the Queen City Sounds Podcast episode featuring Gioja and Jared Lacy from the band.
Saturday | 07.16 What: Emerald Siam, Cyclo Sonic and Bridey Murphy When: 8 p.m. Where: 1010 Workshop Why: Denver is fortunate that some of its elder statesmen and stateswomen are still out there making valid, interesting and imaginative music. So Emerald Siam and its flood of brooding atmospherics and rich emotional colorings help to turn finely honed songwriting into something that seems larger than life and will seem like you’re getting to see something mythical outside at 1010 Workshop. The band’s blend of post-punk darkness and the way The Church took that framework into a more psychedelic and expansive realm of music as a platform for telling meaningful stories with arrestingly poetic lyrics. Cyclo Sonic may be basically a garage rock punk band but when it’s Matt Bischoff formerly of The Fluid and Arnie Beckman formerly of Choosey Mothers and other luminaries of the local punk scene the songwriting just hits as stronger and the precision of rhythm pushed forward and working in tandem with a ferocious energy it makes a lot of other operating in a similar realm of music seem quaint. Bridey Murphy includes Jay Tonne (Black Forest Fire), John Call (Baldo Rex, Veronica), Rich Groskopf (Boss 302, The Black Smiths, The New Idols etc.), Collette St. Clair and Dave Harrison so it’s going to not be short on rock theater and surprisingly fun songs in the garage rock and soul vein.
Cola, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 07.16 What:Cola w/Voight and Gazes When: 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Cola consists of Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy formerly of great now defunct Canadian post-punk band Ought along with Evan Cartwright. When Ought split in 2021 ending a decade-long run as one of the more interesting and inventive guitar rock bands of recent years Cola came along shortly after and its 2022 debut album Deep In View (Fire Talk) with its offbeat song structures and hypnotic rhythms will appeal to fans of Ought for sure but also anyone who appreciates the art rock proclivities of a band like Pile. Voight may still be a guitar band at this point and not yet committed to being a full-on dark techno and power electronics project so you’ll get to see the post-punk/darkwave band scorch the rafters with its own intense and emotionally charged music. This is the first Gazes show and it features former Tyto Alba members Melanie Steinway and Andrew Bair along with former Male Blonding vocalist/guitarist Noah Simons. It’s a curse to call a band a supergroup but considering the membership of Gazes expect great things in a vein that will fit in with this bill overall.
Itchy-O, photo by Studio Apocalypse
Saturday | 07.16 What: Itchy-O’s Tetrapolar Purification Ceremony w/BleakHeart When: 7 p.m. Where: Fillmore Auditorium Why: Itchy-O has seemingly found ways to imbue its few shows on the large scale with an aspect of the mystical and tie it to a new dimension of the band’s sound and performance. This time the Tetrapolar Purification Ceremony will signal the debut of the SÖM SÄPTÄLAHN, a massive instrument inspired by the gamelan assembled from over six hundred pounds of cynbals and gongs donated from local percussionists and crafted in collaboration with the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, a prestigious academic institution that specializes in geology and engineering. The show will include an audience participation aspect involving three elemental themes of Fire, Air and Water. Perhaps the fourth in the “tetrapolar” theme of earth is the SÖM SÄPTÄLAHN itself. For Patreon supporters of the band there will be a ticket giveaway to an “augmented reality scavenger hunt.” It’s always an extravaganza of sights and sounds and with the addition of the new instrument it’s going to be a new era for the band that has consistently found ways to augment already familiar elements in new ways with new ritualistic creativity.
Steve Von Till, photo by James Rexroad
Wednesday | 07.20 What:Steve Von Till and Helen Money When: 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Steve Von Till is the charismatic singer and guitarist from influential post-metal band Neurosis. Anyone familiar with the long arc of stylistic experiments in that band will probably appreciate what Von Till has done as a solo artist. His raspy vocals often sound like they’re harboring haunted memories and a flood of emotion that he has released in focused, cathartic bursts. His most recent albums No Wilderness Deep Enough (2020) and A Deep Voiceless Wilderness showcase the songwriter’s ear for organic song structure like his instrumentation is a direct reflection of the moods and feelings as weather patterns that swirl around you when you take a long period to reflect deeply on life and the often hidden wells of emotions you neglect as you spiral through life in a cultural hellscape that does little to nurture our humanity. Alison Chesley as Helen Money has contributed imaginative and evocative cello work for the likes of Bob Mould, Mono, Russian Circles, Broken Social Scene, Chris Connelly and Thalia Zedek. But her own arresting compositions have a stark yet maximalist beauty. With her cello, a spare chain of effects and a looping pedal, Chesley creates an orchestra of one that is both surprisingly heavy and elegantly ethereal, imbued with the compositional architecture of classical music. Her most recent album Atomic (Thrill Jockey, 2020) likely didn’t get the proper presentation as Von Till’s own most recent records didn’t and the sets of both artists seem like the perfect complement to each other’s.
Helen Money, photo by Natalie EscobedoFrench Police, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 07.20 What:French Police w/Wisteria and Julian St. Nightmare When: 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: French Police from Chicago have a brooding and delicate, darkly melodic sound like they dug deep into Italian and Russian post-punk of the 80s and wrote a set of songs in a cold apartment and had to do so through headphones so as not to get a noise complaint from a neighbor. That’s probably not how the music came about but it has that intimate and mildly claustrophobic quality that is also part of its downtempo charm. Wisteria from Los Angeles seems to have come out of a similar process of crafting the darkwave equivalent of bedroom pop with a thin synth sound that is somehow also evocative in a tender way that is a bit like one imagines what would have happened had New Order had to construct its music given similar limitations on writing the music. Julian St. Nightmare is a great example of when people discover an eclectic musical palette at a young age and find a way to integrate it all into a coherent and vibrant sound so you hear in its songs the influence of surf rock, Molchat Doma and The Cure—all performed with a for now self-effacing confidence and charm.
CXCXCX in May 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.22 What:CXCXCX w/Occidental, Perdi La Luz, K129, Organ and DJ Precious Blood When: 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: This is a Plains Archaic showcase featuring artists affiliated with the Denver-based experimental music label. CXCXCX seamlessly blends noise, techno and power electronics for a sound like dance music for a crumbling civilization. Occidental was once and may still be affiliated with the electronic music collective Deep Club that used to hold some of the most interesting and well curated underground techno and deep house and other forward thinking electronic music events in Denver for a few years. His own sound is more like a fusion of deep house and trance. Perdi La Luz is reminiscent of the kind of fluid and psychedelic techno one heard on some edges of what Underworld and Future Sound of London were doing in the late 90s. K129 plugs some well processed organic percussive sounds into a beat heavy techno mix. Organ is a collaboration between glitch techno noise artist Cremedelacrvvp and industrial glitchcore ambient artist Kid Mask. DJ Precious Blood recently did a solid post-punk set at a Kill You Club event for the Haunt You show but for this event we may hear some deep recent techno and IDM cuts.
Vinny Golia, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 07.22 What: Vinny Golia w/SeFaLoCo When: 7 p.m. Where: Atlas Theater (709 16th St. Greeley) Why: Vinny Golia is a prolific and respected multi-instrumentalist and composer whose career has fused world music, modern classical music and avant-garde jazz. A specialist in woodwinds Golia’s work has been featured in performance with the likes of Anthony Braxton, John Zorn, Patti Smith, Eugene Chadbourne, Lydia Lunch and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. He has led ensembles as small as the trio that will perform a series of three shows in eastern Colorado (this date in Greeley and others listed below) to the 50-piece Vinny Golia Large Ensemble. His music in both the small and larger format are vehicles for his imaginative musicianship with musical ideas that span more broadly and deeply than most musicians will ever attempt. Even in his 70s Golia has been an innovator in the use of texture and atmosphere and his 2020 album Music for Gongs, Singing Bowls and other Metallaphones is like the lost soundtrack for an elevated horror masterpiece (there’s even a song called “King of the Spanish Horror Movies”) while also sounding like a nod to Alex North’s score for 2001: A Space Odyssey and Penderecki. Not many free jazz masters of Golia’s stature roll through Colorado and this series of intimate shows might be a good time to catch him live.
Polly Urethane in May 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 07.23 What:Multidim Records Presents Listening Lawn II: DJ Ilind, Polly Urethane, Deb the Demo, Luke Leavitt, H-Lite and Entrancer When: 5-8 p.m. Where: Carpio Sanguinette Park Why: Multidim has been releasing some of the most forward thinking electronic music of the past few years and this showcase held at the Carpio Sanguinette Park includes a DJ set from avant-garde noise and techo artist Isaac Linder as Ilind, a purportedly more mellow performance from Polly Urethane whose recent live sets have been a bravura display of the blending of contemporary classical, industrial noise and the avant-garde, Deb the Demo’s tracks capture the mood of the modern media environment with both playful and urgent pieces of techno house that really push the brain beyond preconceptions of the genre and the methods of emotional expression, Luke Leavitt is always doing something different and even though many may know him for the expanded Afrobeat No Wave of his time as Cop Circles there will be a conceptual aspect to his performance with an intentional discipline behind the making of sounds, H-Lite has made some bright and upbeat electronic downtempo glitchcore bangers but his own sonic palette is also so broad and imaginative he’ll bring surprises too and of course Entrancer has been steadily refining and expanding his own craft of techno utilizing analog synths and a visionary challenging of where he’s already been as an artist.
Dust City Opera, photo by Gracie Meier
Saturday | 07.23 What: Dust City Opera When: 9 p.m. Where: Broadway Roxy Why: Albuquerque’s Dust City Opera recently released its latest album Alien Summer and perhaps fortuitously making a stop during an unusual summer in Denver and elsewhere with heat waves and social turmoil brewing. So the band’s theatrical performance of songs that sound like a colorful manifestation of years spent taking in campy science fiction and horror cinema and taking away from it all the inspiration to craft songs that don’t fit neatly into a trendy genre. The songs on the album is like a collection of poignant and poetic stories of human life even when the setting is a zombie apocalypse or an encounter with aliens. The pure amalgamation of chamber pop, indie folk and a hard rock edge in the guitar convey a cinematic feel that draws you in for the duration. Intimate and epic the miniature grunge and indiepop orchestra of Dust City Opera is something unique in an era of too much bland imitation.
Saturday | 07.23 What:Vinny Golia w/SeFaLoCo When: 7 p.m. Where: Muse Performance Space (Lafayette) Why: See above for more on Vinny Golia.
Sunday | 07.24 What:Vinny Golia Trio When: 2 p.m. Where: Art Lab (Fort Collins) Why: See above for more on Vinny Golia.
Goo Goo Dolls, photo by Claire Marie Vogel
Wednesday | 07.27 What:Goo Goo Dolls w/Blue October Where: Red Rocks Why: Goo Goo Dolls became a bit of a household name in the 90s due to hit songs like “Name” (1995) and of course “Iris” (1998). But the band originally from Buffalo, New York garnered a bit of a cult following during its early punk and then more power pop years for its potent blend of tunefulness, grit and raw emotional honesty. The group lead by singers John Rzeznik and Robby Takac has made a career of writing evocative songs about relationships, life and finding essential meanings in all of it so that even its ballads, love them or not, are not generally trite or without insightful commentary. The group’s latest album Chaos in Bloom, the first produced by Rzeznik, is definitely more in the realm of modern pop but if you watch the video for “Yeah, I Like You” you can hear more than a touch of that early punk rock verve and sharply observed social and personal commentary that sets it apart from a lot modern pop rock with undeniable instrumental hooks to pair with energetic vocal harmonies. But if you go it seems like there’s a better than average chance the Goo Goo Dolls will dip into its back catalog and not just the biggest hits.
Wednesday | 07.27 What:Roselit Bone w/Snakes and No Gossip In Braille When: 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Portland, Oregon-based Roselit Bone fronted by trans singer Charlotte McCaslin is somehow a rockabilly band, dark Americana, Mexican ranchera and whatever one might call the likes of Gun Club, The Blasters and Lone Justice. It’s a really different take on genre bending so that it can seem like some countrified folk but with the intensity of punk without the sonic trappings. Its most recent album Crisis Actor is a little more gentle in tenor but not in attitude and its songs of daily struggle and working class politics are poignant and powerful. Snakes similarly has the kind of frayed musical roots that bring together a variety of musical instincts in forming its own dark Americana informed by nuanced thinking on the ways one has conversations with oneself in an ongoing process of sorting out the oftentimes perverse misfortunes and charmed moments in life. It’s lively music but more philosophical than expected from music that has a similar flavor. No Gossip in Braille is decidedly not Americana but its ethereal post-punk comes from a similar emotional place in exploring and making meaning of experiences that hit us as vital whatever their essential and specific impact on our lives.
Black Star, photo from talibkweli.com
Thursday | 07.28 What:Black Star w/Dead Prez, Pharoahe Monch and TH1RT3EN When: 7 p.m. Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Yasin Bey and Talib Kweli were already stars of hip-hop in their own right when they formed Black Star in 1997 named after a shipping company founded by Pan-Africanist political activist Marcus Garvey. The project’s debut album Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star (1998) was pretty much an instant classic with thoughtful explorations of black culture with beats more in line with late-80s and early 90s hip-hop with a creative and vivid use of jazz and funk samples as well as more unique sounds that framed the powerful lyrics well in establishing a mood with cinematic resonance. Afterward the duo released a single here and there while focusing on other musical and creative endeavors. But in 2022 Black Star released its most recent record No Fear of Time. The almost existentialist bent of the lyrics remained but seemingly more direct and with music more stark yet no less imaginative and immersive. Black Star has toured in the last 25 years but not often and somehow its music seems even more relevant in subject matter today.
Thursday | 07.28 What: Lost Network, Blackcell and DJ Mudwulf When: 9 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Lost Network might be considered an industrial rock band but more on the industrial side and plenty of its output is more in the realm of darkly ambient soundscapes. Though its guitar sound is more cutting and its sound often more jagged, fans of The Tea Party may find what this veteran band out of the Denver scene has been doing for years. Also on the bill is long-running, legendary EBM band Blackcell whose sharp social commentary and personal songwriting blurs the line between ambient music and classic EBM the first wave of which it emerged out of the tail end. Of course DJ Mudwulf will bring a set of songs that are well curated and also not 100% predictable. A lot of music out of the Goth-industrial world can be corny but that won’t be on display at this show.
TRAITRS, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 07.30 What: TRAITRS w/Radio Scarlet and Wingtips and DJ Luci Ghost When: 8 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Canadian post-punk band TRAITRS on its 2021 album Horses in the Abattoir separated itself from many bands out of that vein of music with creative vocals that don’t sound like a cut-rate imitation of any obvious influences. And its synth work and songwriting has an orchestral aesthetic that establishes a truly enveloping and haunting sound that isn’t driven by the wheedly guitar sound that is the hallmark of too much darkwave now. TRAITRS’ sound is rich and expansive and though melancholic isn’t a downer. Chicago’s Wingtips is more electronic and one hears in its music including 2021’s excellent Cutting Room Floor a touch of influence from Vince Clarke-period Depeche Mode. Its moody songs have strong dance beats and the vocals widely expressive also distinguishing the group from some of its peers that intentionally sing in ways murky and obscure. There is something effusive in Wingtips’ songs that are immediately striking. Radio Scalet is a death rock band from Denver. The title of its 2017 album Too Goth for Punk, Too Punk for Goth sums up its aesthetic well and sure these people look the part but there is a joyful element to its performances that prevents it from slipping into the wrong end of dour. DJ Luci Ghost is a long time DJ in the local Goth-industrial scene but fortunately for anyone that is around for one of her sets her taste is much more eclectic and expansive beyond narrow conceptions of expected music.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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