Best Shows in Denver 02/14/19 – 02/20/19

Kikagaku Moyo performs at the Hi-Dive on Feb. 18 and The Fox Theatre in Boulder on Feb. 19 with Weeed. Photo by Jamie Wdziekonski

Thursday | February 14, 2019

Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy

What: An Ambient Valentine’s Day: Benefit for Resilience Rising: School Dance, Allison Lorenzen solo, Midwife, God of Water and Bell Hoss
When: Thursday, 02.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Rosehouse
Why: This show is a benefit women’s shelter Resilience Rising and includes more sonically ethereal and low key artists such as ambient slowcore star Midwife and the like-minded but less abstract artist Bell Hoss who sounds like she fled some pocket dimension that was perpetually the early 80s but where people didn’t get why Joni Mitchell is one of the coolest, most important artists in popular music.

Who: Grivo w/DH and Madelyn Burns
When: Thursday, 02.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Surfside 7
Why: Grivo is an experimental shoegaze/psychedelic rock band from Austin with music out on Holodeck Records.

Who: The Dead & The Daylily w/Turvy Organ, Avifauna and Tiffany Christopher
When: Thursday, 02.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: This is Matthew Rossi’s first show as a guitarist in indie rock band Turvy Organ. You’ve seen him play in Tyto Alba assuming you’ve seen that underrated and great Denver dream pop band. Rossi has helped bring to that band a certain elevated emotional tonal palette and he’ll bring some of that to Turvy Organ as well.

Who: Codename: Carter w/Tonguebyte
When: Thursday, 02.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Spy-surf phenoms Codename: Carter don’t play so often but when they do, it’s a worthy catching because they coordinate outfits and write songs that remind you that surf rock can have chops and imagination behind it.

Friday | February 15, 2019

Who: Scream Screen: Poltergeist
When: Friday, 02.15, 8 p.m.
Where: Sie FilmCenter
Why: The latest in Theresa Mercado’s Scream Screen series celebrating the life of master horror filmmaker Tobe Hooper. Tonight, 1982’s haunting classic Poltergeist.

Who: The Pollution, Perry Weissman 3 and DJ AKA Miggy
When: Friday, 02.15, 9 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: The Pollution is rooted in the politically conscious but non-didactic punk of the 80s DC scene but influenced by psychedelic rock and weirdo 70s prog. Perry Weissman 3 is definitely within the experimental wing of jazz. Not necessarily free jazz but that element is in there too.

Who: Maya Jane Coles
When: Friday, 02.15, 9 p.m.
Where: The Church
Why: Maya Jane Coles is the UK DJ whose production and engineering work is noteworthy separate from her career as music maker. In the latter capacity Coles is known for her dark techno sets with a deep house and dub sensibility. Her compositions usually have a gently urgent quality amid moody synth swells and a finely crafted and separation of tones and textures as part of her layers of rhythm bumped along by expertly sculpted low end. Which is just another way of saying her music sounds like something you’d want to hear in the inevitable virtual experiential product of the future that tries to convey what it was like to go to a 2000s underground experimental dance music event in an illegal but safe warehouse in the middle of fall. Plenty of sonic allusions and nods to style can be found in one of her sets for the heads that work well whether you’re familiar with those references or not.

Saturday | February 16, 2019

Turkuaz, photo by Dani Brandwein

Who: Turkuaz with Eminence Ensemble
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Turkuaz is a nine-piece, Brooklyn-based funk band whose sound is as eclectic as it is layered and multi-cultural. Though incorporating elements of psychedelia, R&B and rock Turkuaz’s sound can be readily compared to like-minded bands more associated within the cross section of jam bands end electronic dance music. Think on the more interesting end like Lotus, STS9 and The Disco Biscuits. That kind of flow of sounds and rhythms but rooted in executing the sounds with all live instrumentation and sounding more akin to Kool and the Gang or a Bernie Worrell band than something that has much in common with the EDM realm.

Who: KGNU Quarterly Showcase: The Milk Blossoms, Lady Gang, My New Dad (members of Dandu), Joshua Trinidad and Gregg Ziemba – DJs Joel Davis aka The Vibrarian and TerraSonic
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: This edition of the KGNU Quarterly Showcase is, reliably, a fantastic showcase of some of the more interesting artists in Denver. The Milk Blossoms provide a gentle yet heartfelt emotional catharsis with every show with meaningful and experimental pop music by not trying to fit in any genre and giving you the raw, delicately rendered experience. Lady Gang is Jen Korte’s one woman, loop station composition extravaganza. Joshua Trinidad and Gregg Ziemba will kick the serious space jazz science and stretch the boundaries of consciousness in the process.

Who: Le Butcherettes w/Stars at Night and Viretta
When: Saturday, 02.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Le Butcherettes make weirdo prog punk within the context of what always seems like inspired performance art as Teri Genderbender channels rock and roll and mythological archetypes of her own creation at every show. Earlier this month the group released its latest album bi/MENTAL, a typically otherworldly and cathartic offering that isn’t much like anything else in rock in re-contextualizing and re-purposing tropes of the genre in creative ways.

Monday | February 18, 2019

Sharon Van Etten, photo by Ryan Pfluger

 

Who: Kikagaku Moyo w/Weeed
When: Monday, 02.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kikagaku Moyo is a Tokyo-based psychedelic rock band whose 2018 album Masana Temples demonstrated further the band’s subtly eclectic sound rooted not just in 70s prog and psychedelic rock but also Japanese traditional music and perhaps 70s Japanese folk artists like Happy End, Karuomi Hosono, Itsutsu No Akai Fusen and Nobuyasu Okabayashi. There is a very organic quality to the band’s music, especially in the live setting where layers of sound are presented in a way that is deceptively simple. Definitely not informed so much by the trendy psychedelic rock wave of recent years. This Hi-Dive show is sold out but there is another day the next night in Boulder at The Fox Theatre.

Who: Sharon Van Etten w/Nilüfer Yanya
When: Monday, 02.18, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Sharon Van Etten has been releasing worthwhile and wise records for close to a decade and a half now but her 2019 album Remind Me Tomorrow is her best work to date. The rough warble reminiscent of Marianne Faithful in her prime heard in “Seventeen” is thrillingly raw and the words imbued with a deeply painful letting go of ideas and associations once deep in one’s heart but no longer useful while the ghosts of those connections remain. But the whole record is flowing with the spirits of loves past and the album a gentle purging and reconciliation.

Tuesday | February 19, 2019

Men I Trust circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Kikagaku Moyo w/Weeed and Ashley Koett
When: Tuesday, 02.19, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The Fox Theatre
Why: See above for the 2.18 Hi-Dive show entry for more information on Kikagaku Moyo.

Who: Men I Trust w/Michael Seyer
When: Tuesday, 02.19, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Men I Trust has been described any number of ways but the live band evokes the mood of dusky nightclub R&B and soft lighting. But without evoking the early 70s Laurel Canyon pop sound so much in vogue lately. The band’s videos look like some kind of cinematic rendering of 1980s home movies and in a way reminds one of fan videos various people have made for Boards of Canada. It’s not often a band can maintain some sense of mystique these days but Men I Trust definitely has some.

Wednesday | February 20, 2019

Alien Boy, photo by Sam Gehrke

Who: Sundressed, Awakebutstillinbed, Alien Boy and Sunsleeper
When: Wednesday, 02.20, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Around the turn of the century pop punk had all but burned out any appeal to anyone but the most die hard fans because it seemed like every other band was still mining that musical territory hoping to play Warped Tour. But then that tide went out. Toward the end of the first decade of the 2000s some musicians in the punk world embraced melody in their songwriting and the relatable and emotionally resonant and urgent quality that the best pop punk and emo had. In the decade since there’s been a renaissance of that style of music but with musicians freely incorporating elements of other musical styles and ideas. This is a good showcase of that development now long since established. Alien Boy, however, has strayed the furthest from the sonics of punk canon and thus, for this writer, it is the most interesting band on the bill with its unabashed use of moody musical ideas from punk, shoegaze, post-punk and its own focus on the most poignant moments of their lives as a loci of inspiration. The band’s 2018 album Sleeping Lessons firmly established it as one of the most interesting punk bands of recent years. Awakebutstillinbed’s crackling and ragged energy also sounds promising for the performance like a less art/space rock Rainer Maria. It’s gloriously titled 2018 album what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way that other people see you is the things of which modern emo legends are made.

Best Shows in Denver 7/26/18 – 8/1/18

Tarmints (circa 2007) perform at The UMS on Sunday, July 29, 2018 at The Hi-Dive

Thursday | July 26, 2018

 

Mr. Pacman circa 2007, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: I Heart Monkey Mania: Mr. Pacman, Robot Peanut Butter & The Shooting Stars, Cyclo-Sonic and Moon Pussy, visuals by Chris Bagley 
When: Thursday, 07.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Mr. Pacman is not a band that should be dismissed as mere gimmick. Yes, the band dresses up like characters from a cosplay of some weird, ancient Japanese video game. But it’s live drums, keytar, electronic drums and other instrumentation with, indeed, fairly silly songs but performed with a disorienting intensity and earnestness. At times it’s fun but moderately scary. Which is what any good band should be at least once in a while. Mr. Pacman is that pretty much every time. Robot Peanut Butter & The Shooting Stars is a more out downtempo band and Cyclo-Sonic includes former members of Denver punk legends The Rok Tots, Choosey Mothers and The Frantix. Chris Bagley, one of the filmmakers of the 2008 documentary Wesley Willis’ Joyrides, will provide visuals and make it even more of a trip.

Who: Glasss Presents: The Speakeasy Series Season 2 Finale w/Brother Saturn, Equine, VAHCO, MYTHirst, Bowshock
When: Thursday, 07.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This is the final show of the second season of Glasss Records’ The Speakeasy Series. It’ll be more of an ambient show with Brother Saturn’s soothing and abstract guitar and synth collages, Equine’s avant-guitar drone and beats, VAHCO’s beat-driven soul,. MYTHirst’s bright soundscapes and ukulele and whatever it is one might call Bowshock’s mixture of influences from space rock, reggae and improvisational composition.

Who: Har Mar Superstar sings Sam Cooke
When: Thursday, 07.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Har Mar Superstar cleaned up but good for this series of shows in which he dresses up in a suit and tie (which may or may not come off before the set is over in the weather Denver has been experiencing as of late). Sean Tillman (Har Mar Superstar) and his band will perform several of Sam Cooke’s classic R&B hits and maybe even some deep cuts. Seeing as Har Mar’s usual schtick is singing R&B and soul and making a spectacle of himself but pulling off the singing like he was born to it, this is not a huge leap for the performer. And at this time, the socially conscious end of Cooke’s music seems more relevant than ever.

Friday | July 27, 2018

Red Baraat, photo by Mark Jaworski

Who: Red Baraat
When: Friday, 07.27, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Where: Clyfford Still Museum
Why: Red Baraat’s syncretic pop spans South Asian musical styles, Western funk, Afrobeat and Caribbean pop to create something that’s celebratory, immediately accessible and deep. The sprawling band is playing this free concert at Clyfford Still Museum in central Denver in the wake of the release of its latest record, 2018’s Sound The People. With its cultural scope and implicit message of human unity, Red Baraat’s music is an international call of all people to come together to resist the rising wave of aggressive authoritarianism plaguing the world today. Beyond the heady messaging, Red Baraat is a reminder that sprawling, seemingly improvisational compositions needn’t be the pure realm of jam bands and that it is a component of popular musical styles across the world.

Who: SUPER PARTY Day 1: Presented by Remixed Gifts and Hot Sauce the Dog
When: Friday, 07.27,7 p.m.
Where: Remixed Gifts 70 S. Broadway
Why: This parallel event to the UMS amidst the dense and varied offerings there is out on by the boutique Remixed Gifts and the Denver culture-centered comic ‘zine Hot Sauce the Dog written and drawn by the gifted singer-songwriter Rachael Pollard whose new band DEN |V|OTHER will kick off the event at 7 p.m. followed by Joe Sampson at 8 and R A R E B Y R D $ at 9. Simply some of the best people from Denver you can see at any time. The event runs two days picking up again on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. with Bonnie Weimer.

Who: Larians, Real Gongs, Jumanjuhad
When: Friday, 07.27, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Larians is Male Blonding frontman Noah Simons’ IDM/experimental electronic project and Real Gongs is that of Male Blonding guitarist Bryce Navin. If the UMS is too much or not of interest for whatever reason or if you have some time Friday night, highly recommended.
Who: Denver Broncos UK, Echo Beds, Simulators and Shadows Tranquil
When: Friday, 07.27, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Denver Broncos UK is sort of a post-punk side project of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club so a good fit with math-y post punk duo Simulators (think like Shellac but stripped down to even more of the bare essentials) and Echo Beds whose forthcoming album Buried Language (due out August 18 on The Flenser) pushes their harsh organic-industrial soundscape further than previous boundaries.

Saturday | July 28, 2018

Car Seat Headrest, photo by Mikael Beland

Who: SUPER PARTY Day 2: Presented by Remixed Gifts and Hot Sauce the Dog
When: Saturday, 07.28, 2 p.m.
Where: Remixed Gifts 70 S. Broadway
Why: Day 2 of SUPER PARTY, a free event amidst the UMS. The following is today’s schedule: 2 – Bonnie Weimer, 3 – Jen Korte, 3:45 Ted Thacker of The Red Tack, 4:30 Andy Thomas solo, 5:30 Kissing Party, 6:30 Teacup Gorilla

Who: Car Seat Headrest w/Naked Giants
When: Saturday, 07.28, 8 p.m.
Where:The Gothic Theatre
Why: Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest is one of the most prolific and interesting songwriters of his generation. Having put out nine albums independently before signing to Matador in 2015, Toledo clearly didn’t need a label but the distribution and marketing arm of one helped to get his music to a wider audience. The new Car Seat Headrest album, 2018’s Twin Fantasy (Face to Face), is brimming with what has made the band impossible to dismiss with lazy genre designations. Vocals that sometimes soar with an upsweep of deeply felt emotion, sometimes speak quietly about the concerns of the moment that flood your mind and won’t let go. Lo-fi guitar composition in the vein of maybe a Pavement or Sebadoh but informed more by underground rock of the 2000s like Jay Reatard’s more sublimely ethereal moments and more modern lo-fi stars like No Age, Times New Viking and artists from the Siltbreeze imprint. Beyond just the sonics, though, the new record is an exploration of the concerns, anxieties and self-image of a young person in an era when destructive, and self-destructive messages, have been repackaged and made to seem like a viable option. Car Seat Headrest’s new album is a compassionte and vibrant rejection of much of that as well as a suggestion of a path of discovery/rediscovery of what’s truly important in one’s life.

Tuesday | July 31, 2018

Weezer, photo by Brendan Walter

Who: Weezer and the Pixies w/Sleigh Bells
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 5 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Weezer got to be in on the tail end of the legitimate wave of alternative rock in the early 90s. Its 1994 self-titled album, “The Blue Album,” yielded a couple of hits with “Buddy Holly” and “Undone – The Sweater Song.” The crunchy melodies and quiet-loud dynamics pioneered by groups like Mission of Burma and Pixies, who had then recently split, continued the tradition of nerdy punk rockers making music that took that spirit of punk to different places. Weezer could have been another fuzzy, alternative rock/pop punk band with that kind of sunny Southern California flavor. But Weezer’s songs, even when it’s indulging in some fun-loving goofiness, had at its core an impulse to resist being pigeonholed or musically fitting into a specific trend.

After its first record, singer Rivers Cuomo wanted to change gears dramatically and nearly made a science fiction-themed concept album but what came out instead is what could be argued is the band’s most artistically interesting record to date, 1996’s Pinkerton and its darkly conflicted lyrics. Cuomo has since all but disavowed the album as a reminder of a painful time. And to Weezer’s credit, the group has not spent its time as a band trying to recapture past glory. Its most recent full-length album, 2017’s Pacific Daydream, reflects not only Cuomo’s personal alienation but the anomy of our time when many people feel a disconnect with the lives they might want, however modest the aspiration, and the reality we face with diminished expectations. A melancholy set of songs? Maybe not obviously so but despite the title, a song like “Beach Boys” sounds like something that, psychologically speaking, was written in a vast room lit only by small windows on a cloudy day reminiscing about what once brought one joy. Like a less dire but no less impactful musical version of William Friedkin’s depiction of life in the City of Angels.

That Weezer is co-headlining with Pixies seems fitting. Both bands find themselves perhaps having to reinvent themselves for the current era even as their back catalog speaks for itself. Pixies are obviously the influential alternative rock band from Boston, darlings of college radio in the late 80s and early 90s and breaking up with its legacy intact. The band’s humor, unhinged energy, idiosyncratic songwriting filled with seething emotion, delicacy of feeling, have kept its music fresh decades onward. Like any band worth its salt, Pixies also produced new music post 2003 reunion once its internal dynamics leveled out. The group’s first album with former touring, now permanent, bassist Paz Lenchantin, 2016’s Head Carrier, isn’t generally as immediately cathartic and as vital as the group’s 80s and 90s output, it proved Pixies can still write material worth a listen and highlights the band’s ability to clue in to unusual sounds and rhythm and texture ideas that other established artists often don’t.

Who: Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks w/Soccer Mommy
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Stephen Malkmus is obviously the singer and one of the guitarists in lo-fi slacker psyche legends Pavement. But his songs under his own name and with The Jicks are as worthy as anything he did with Pavement. Free to explore unusual melodies, self-indulge a wide range of guitar styles and fusing noise, jangle rock, improvisational instincts, 70s rock, psychedelia and prog, Stephen Malkmus with the Jicks is capable of coming up with refreshingly unusual songs even if they all have the stamp of eccentricity and imagination that Malkmus has brought to all his projects. The group’s 2018 record Sparkle Hard reflects Malkmus examination of the modern world and his place in it as a white man, and father, in his fifties who is still engaged in doing the thing he’s best at—writing unusual rock music—when the world seems to be falling apart and changing at a rapid pace. In typical fashion, Malkmus has a worthwhile and interesting take on all of it.

Opener for this tour, Soccer Mommy, is an interesting pairing because Sophie Allison’s songs have a layered and emotionally rich, compositional style with a sound collage quality that isn’t at first obvious. Her 2018 debut studio album Clean is a solid 10-song collection of sophisticated pop. Unlike many young songwriters, Allison, now 21, doesn’t sound like she’s tapping into a particular era of the 90s or the 2000s except for maybe Mitski and Japanese Breakfast. But, really, those are exceptionally respectable touchstones. What is also noteworthy is Allison’s range of dynamics, command of what, in a film score, might be called sound design, materfully orchestrating textural and atmospheric elements to augment her storytelling. With a debut so strong, one can only hope we’ve not yet seen Allison at her peak.

Who: ModPods w/R A R E B Y R D $
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: ModPods from Los Angeles with its mixture of electronic post-punk and dance music sounds more like some kind of band from Baltimore in the 2000s or the kind of band that would have played The Smell in its heyday with an eclectic spirit not trapped in adherence to a stylistic subgenre. Either way its beat-driven songs have an edge and an 8-bit melodic fringe on its minimal synth melodies. Fronted by Myriad Slits, the trio, including Mindee Jorgensen and Daniel Guzman who switch up instruments regularly so that the musical duties never really become rote, is like an intentionally lo-fi synth pop/dance band.

Also on this bill is R A R E B Y R D $, the hip-hop trio that keeps pushing boundaries, including its own, in terms of beatmaking and Key Lady’s and KoKo La’s alchemical vocal interplay. The way some guitarists create interesting shapes for chords, the members of this group creates interesting synergy of sounds between vocals, beats and Michael Blomquist’s organic percussion. It’s a deeply emotional experience that you share with the band. It’s like alternative hip-hop if made by people who take great joy in seeing exactly what you can do with a synthesizer and a sampler to make something entrancing and meaningful. Hypnagogic post-disco, endorphin releasing, gangsta dub.

Wednesday | August 1, 2018

 

Who: Shocker Mom, Spargob and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Wednesday, 08.1, 8-11 p.m.
Where: Fort Greene
Why: It’s a free show and you get to see some of Denver’s best producers of electronic music in the underground. For R A R E B Y R D $, see above. Shocker Mom is Robin Walker who to the big wide world outside of Colorado is not known at all. But for those that have been able to witness her talents as a solo artist, member of lo-fi pop phenoms Cougarpants or one half of the hip-hop duo Nighttimeschoolbus, Walker is a singular talent. As Shocker Mom, Walker taps into her broad musical experience to produce tracks that blur the line between hip-hop, trap, IDM, ambient, dubtechno and indie pop. Aleeya Wilson is perhaps most well-known for her avant-garde guitar/noise project Death In Space. But now the Girls Rock Denver alumn is writing music as Spargob, her production project so expect something refreshingly weird and imaginative.

Who: Weird Wednesday: Universal Devils, Limber Wolf, The Far Stairs facebook.com/events/509245982828786
When: Wednesday, 08.1, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This edition of Weird Wednesday, Claudia Woodman’s monthly at 3 Kings Tavern, will include Rick Layton’s solo experimental metal project Universal Devils. Layton is a talented multi-instrumentalist who spent several years as the drummer for weirdo punk band Little Fyodor & Babushka Band. The Far Stairs is fronted by former Hindershot keyboard player Jesse Livingston. Imagine a manic New Wave/New Romantics/power pop band influenced by They Might Be Giants. But not just good, but great.