Who:Tokyo Rodeo w/The Born Readies, The Vashon Seed and Landgrabbers When: Thursday, 02.21, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: There’s a not insignificant segment of Denver underground music consisting of bands that play all the dive bars and small clubs, garnering an audience but playing music that isn’t being championed much by the local press. But solid bands with good energy and presence and songwriting chops. Some of it straight ahead, bluesy, or southern fried, rock, some of it with a leg in other styles of music but always respectable. In recent years some of these bands included Cutthroat Drifters, The Patient Zeroes and, of course, Tokyo Rodeo. Meaningful storytelling, unexpectedly interesting moods mixed in with layered dynamics and nuanced rhythms that a straight-ahead rock band eschews in favor of run-of-the-mill rocking. There’s more depth to Tokyo Rodeo than all of that and while probably not for everyone that might read this site for the weird music, absolutely worthwhile.
Who:The Gones, Calamity Champs and Sunrise Drive When: Thursday, 02.21, 8:30 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Matt Sumner and Kelly Prestridge are the rhythm section of weirdo art pop band The Inactivists. Sure, plenty of humor there, but also a lot of respectable musical talent. The Gones are their power pop band. Because of who they are along with songwriter and guitarist Jef Krauth there is a sense of humor informing the music but really just a great pop band with some punk energy driving it.
Friday | February 22, 2019
Bison Bone, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Bison Bone album release w/The River Arkansas and Jess Parsons When: Friday, 02.22, 8:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bison Bone is releasing Take Up The Trouble tonight. The Denver-based Americana band has always written sonically diverse story songs with a literary flair. The new set of recordings seems less dusky than previous offerings but ineffably more direct and confident. Live, like a great honky tonk band that hasn’t devolved into self-parody.
What:Lifeforce 35mm When: Friday, 02.22, 9:30 p.m. Where: Sie Film Center Why: This concludes The Scream Screen series celebrating the films of Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist. Lifeforce is his 1985 homage to Hammer horror films in the science fiction disaster fame with the antagonists in the form of three naked vampires from space. Which sounds more lurid and corny than this dark and unusual movie happens to be.
Who:The Bellrays w/The Atom Age and Hot Apostles When: Friday, 02.22, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: The BellRays are what a lot of bluesy garage rock bands want to be. From Riverside, California, sounding like they hung out with the MC5 in the late 60s. Fronted by the charismatic Lisa Kekaula since the early 90s, The Bellrays are one of the greatest American rock and roll bands right now.
Who:How to Think, Full Bleed, I’m a Boy When: Friday, 02.22, 7:30 p.m. Where: The People’s Building Why: The latest in the Get Your Ears Swoll series at The People’s Building in Aurora. I’m A Boy is one of the most underappreciated, yet best, most dynamic live rock bands out of Denver. Part glam, part power pop, the group includes former and current members of 40th Day and Gata Negra. How to Think claims to be an experimental rock band and it is but its soundsculpting on various songs is like if a funk band abstracted that a whole lot and made use of loops and a sampling aesthetic. Other times How to Think is an unadulterated yet unusual, noisy rock band the likes we saw more of in the heyday of alternative rock before that whole thing got reduced to a limited genre.
Saturday | February 23, 2019
It’s Just Bugs, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Plastic Daggers EP release w/Its Just Bugs, FATHERS When: Saturday, 02.23, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Kind of a Sailor Records showcase but this time in celebration of the release of Plastic Daggers’ latest EP Stitches. Somewhere between punk and bluesy garage rock, Plastic Daggers are appropriately named with their fuzzy riffs honed to a fine edge propelled by a nearly mechanistic drive. Its Just Bugs blends hip-hop, metal, punk and noise for a sound and presentation that seems coherent and of a while despite its eclectic sonic palette. FATHERS is a post-hardcore band for fans of the likes of Glassjaw and Dillinger Escape Plan.
Who:American Standards, Kenaima, Tuck Knee, Didaktikos When: Saturday, 02.23, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This is a hardcore show featuring some of Denver’s best younger bands in that vein of music. Catch them early on in their development before they have it figured out.
Who:Rat Bites (last show), Grave Moss (last show), Moon Pussy and Dead Characters When: Saturday, 02.23, 9 p.m. Where: Carioca Café Why: Noise rock band Grave Moss has the vibe of an early death rock band but the exorcistic quality of some 80s and/or early 90s performance art like something Diamanda Galas or Karen Finley might have done. Unfortunately, the band is calling it quits after this show. And so is Rat Bites, a group that might have fit in best during the heyday of 31G Records where its unconventional punk wouldn’t have seemed as out of step with where punk went boring. Moon Pussy is similarly-minded and its use of truly inventive guitar treatments built from the onboard electronics out alongside cathartic vocals and rhythms that operate at odd angles against rock orthodoxy makes it one of the most interesting bands in Denver or anywhere now. For fans of Daughters and Parts & Labor.
Sunday | February 24, 2019
Bryce Vine, photo by Frank Maddocks
Who:Bryce Vine w/Travis Thompson and 7715 When: Sunday, 02.24, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Bryce Vine is not yet widely known but that’s likely to change with the spring 2019 release of his debut full-length Carnival on Warner Brothers. His deftly executed raps combine aspirational fantasizing (while making it seem attainable if not already inevitable) and introspective speculation. His coolly confident vocals seem to transfer that quality to the listener. With beats that wouldn’t be out of place in a well-crated, electronic indie pop song, Bryce’s music has a cross-genre appeal with undeniable swagger and elegance.
Monday | February 25, 2019
Talos, photo by Niall O’Brien
Who:Talos with Aurora When: Sunday, 02.24, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Talos, aka Eoin French, recently released his second album Far Out Dust on February 8, 2019. It’s emotionally soaring, richly melodic synth pop. French is skilled at putting together tiny details in a song like he’s live composing an impressionistic film that evolves into something with greater density of detail and color as it progresses on its timeline. His vocal range lends his songs an unconventional range of sonic texture with interesting upper register intonation. Fans of Perfume Genius will find much to like with Talos and his articulation of yearning without desperation.
Who:Peter Murphy with David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus When: Monday, 02.25, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Peter Murphy and David J were two of the four founders of influential art rock/post-punk band Bauhaus. For this tour the two musicians will perform selections from the band’s iconic albums in celebration of the forty years of the group’s founding. Though inspired by glam rock, punk and dub, Bauhaus was also steeped in the avant-garde in film, music, literature and theater. It gave their performances a ritualistic quality that its members took to their projects after Bauhaus initially split up in 1983 (with reunions in 1998 and a brief return from 2005 through 2008). With Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins having toured in 2017 playing Tones On Tail songs as Poptones, maybe we’ll get to see a Love and Rockets tour for Hot Trip To Heaven (as the band never toured for that record, one of its best) or even a full-fledged Bauhaus reunion. Until that now remote possibility this is as close as you’re going to get to seeing these songs get their proper delivery.
Tuesday | February 26, 2019
Frankie And The Witch Hands, photo by David Evanko
Who:Serengeti w/French Kettle Station and R A R E B Y R D $ When: Tuesday, 02.26, 8 p.m. Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: David Cohn aka Serengeti is a prolific musical and artistic chameleon. He often adopts a persona that shapes the aesthetic of a musical project so that when he performs those songs you’ll get a truly idiosyncratic show. Whether that’s as Kenny Dennis or his numerous collaborations with other notable underground/alternative hip-hop artists like Why?, Jel & Odd Nosdam, Sufjan Stevens Sicker Man, Cohn’s imagination and creative vision brings a focus to the project that would be difficult to duplicate or imitate. Opening the show is synth pop/performance art superstar French Kettle Station and R A R E B Y R D $, Denver’s premiere ambient gangsta rap/abstract dub mystic trio. Maybe the only one but an act not to miss on any bill.
Who:Peter Murphy with David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus When: Tuesday, 02.26, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: See above for 2.25 entry on Peter Murphy and David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus.
Who:Bob Mould Band w/The Trujillo Company When: Tuesday, 02.26, 7 p.m. Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: For those not in the know, Bob Mould was the pioneering guitarist for Hüsker Dü, a band that operated between the late 70s through the late 80s and one that often played and toured in the punk underground of its hometown of Minneapolis and far beyond. But it never fully fit in with the hardcore scene because its sonics were too weird and its knack for beautiful melodies amidst sometimes abrasive music too much like pop. Hüsker Dü was making a music for the future and exerted a massive influence on all guitar music of the alternative rock era by the early 90s. Mould would start a new band called Sugar as well as launch a solo career immediately after the 1987 dissolution of Hüsker Dü and has navigated a respectable musical career since. Mould still plays with the drive and passion that informed any of his previous projects and his 2019 album on Merge, Sunshine Rock, could be a safely personal record, and it’s not short on that, but Mould injects some of the sharp social and political critique that made Hüsker so interesting but poetically taking on modern concerns with an ear for nuance.
Who:Frankie and the Witch Fingers w/Lot Lizard and Eye and the Arrow When: Tuesday, 02.26, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Frankie and the Witch Fingers sound like they absorbed a ton of early garage and surf rock and the Nuggets compilation then realized they couldn’t simply regurgitate and mime it in the 2000s after so many other bands had done that so well since the 60s. Their music isn’t that fast, silly riffing and then primal scream formula that “worked” for too many bands in the 2010s. Rather, as evidenced on the group’s excellent full-length ZAM, Frankie and the Witch Fingers brought the elegant and intricate leads and the imagination to its songs. They have songs called “Dracula Drug,” “Dark Sorcerer” and “Head Collector” so clearly an offbeat sense of humor and appreciation for kitsch is part of the group’s musical DNA. Yet, the band never comes off as gimmicky or silly. Direct support is post-punk band Lot Lizard from Sioux Falls, South Dakota (read our interview with bassist Patrick Nelson here) whose own ghostly garage psych underpinnings fit in well with this bill.
Wednesday | February 27, 2019
Thumpasaurus, photo by Cody Choice
Who:Thumpasaurus w/Boogie Mammoth and Denver Jamtronica When: Wednesday, 02.26, 7:30 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Sure, Thumpasaurus drummer/producer is Henry Was, son of Don Was. But pedigree is not necessarily and indication of one’s artistic talent. But Thumpasaurus, on the surface a wildly eclectic, weirdo funk band and one informed by a bizarre creative vision that incorporates meme culture (see their video for “You Are So Pretty”), outfits that look like someone borrowed liberally from designers who were told to make clothes for an adult contemporary punk band inspired by a peak EDM light show and the strangeness of Frank Zappa telling listeners to talk to any vegetable. Whatever the constellation of influences, Thumpasaurus have made it their own and now the group is touring in support of its 2018 album The Book of Thump.
Who:Hockey Dad w/Hunny When: Thursday, 02.07, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Australia is not the first place one thinks of when it comes to hockey but New South Wales has ski resorts so maybe the name of the band Hockey Dad, from Windang, isn’t as cheeky as seems but it’s a surf rock band so kudos. But Hockey Dad grew up surfing and skating so it’s sound reflects the spirit of that lifestyle more so than simply falling into trendy sound. With Hockey Dad think more like The Saints gone power pop.
Who:A Light Among Many, Kenaima, URN. and Giardia When: Thursday, 02.07, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: A Light Among Many is heavy drone drenched in the primal spirits of the local landscape. URN includes former members of Skully Mammoth and thus doom with a sense of humor yet somehow still gritty and epic. Kenaima sounds a collision of Converge-esque post-hardcore and thrash. Giardia is pushing the envelope of heavy music by finding the sweet spot where drone-y bass, saturated synth work, jazz-inflected drums and weirdo prog intersect.
Friday | February 8, 2019
Marcus Church, photo by Claudia Woodman
Who:Marcus Church EP release w/Kali Krone, Artless Bravado and Sweetness Itself When: Friday, 02.08, 9 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Dustin Habel has been grinding away writing songs since at least the mid-2000s. Under the moniker Marcus Church he’s done solo work, playing all the instruments and recording the songs, as well as in collaboration with a small circle of bandmates. The prolific songwriter has perhaps not garnered the recognition he deserves for his lo-fi, Dinosaur Jr/Yo La Tengo-esque compositions, but the project’s latest effort, the Marcus F. Church EP, has a touch of jangle like something Mitch Easter might take an interest in producing—introspective and warm but upbeat. The band has been a trio for a bit now and tonight you can catch the new set of songs, as well as choice cuts from Habel’s catalog, live.
Who:Gun Street Ghost with The Regular, The Threadbarons and Paul Kimbiris & The Dark Side of Pearl When: Friday, 02.08, 8 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Mike Perfetti has been involved in many of Denver’s most interesting bands for going on two decades in his capacity as a bassist, drummer and guitarist. But with Gun Street Ghost Perfetti gets to share his gift for storytelling. Perfetti orchestrates the details of the story and the essence of the people in them with a masterful hand with the help of his talented bandmates. It’s been some time since Gun Street Ghost has put out a record but in the live setting you’ll likely get a taste of the new material and with any luck 2019 will see the release of the group’s full-length.
Who: Sonorous: Gregg Ziemba, Alex Trujillo, Joshua Trinidad When: Friday, 02.08, 6 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: This is a dinnertime show from some of Denver’s most talented practitioners of jazz and experimental music including Gregg Ziemba and Alex Trujillo of Rubedo and Joshua Trinidad whose free jazz band Cougar Legs and psychedelic fusion project GoStar have showcased his prodigious talent. Trinidad and Ziemba also perform in Wheelchair Sports Camp. Heavy hitters.
Who:Bud Bronson & The Good Timers, Muscle Beach, SPELLS When: Friday, 02.08, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Bud Bronson & The Good Timers are one of the few reliably great and spirited straight forward rock and roll bands anywhere. A touch of punk but BBTGT aren’t trying to be limited by subgenre. Muscle Beach is impossible to simply call post-hardcore or post-metal or even noise rock but are an inspired distillation of all three. SPELLS is a C+ party punk band but they really work for that C+ and are more fun than many B+ punk acts. They’re no Refused but who is?
Saturday | February 9, 2019
Don Chicharrón, photo by Spencer Higbee
Who:Don Chicharrón album release w/Los Mocochetes, High Plains Honky and DJ A-Train When: Saturday, 02.09, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Don Chicharrón is a band whose blend of chicha (Peruvian cumbia with roots in popular music of the 1960s and 1970s that incorporated psychedelic rock and Andean folk music), metal, spaghetti Western and other musical forms is lively and fluid for a group of nine people who come from disparate musical backgrounds. Anyone that has been able to catch the group live knows it’s musicianship is expertly integrated so it never feels like anyone is doing too much at once. The group’s debut, self-titled full-length will be available at this show and its expansive compositions sound like the soundtrack to the Love and Rockets comic series in its multi-cultural aesthetic and ineffable sense of the futuristic.
Who:An Evening With Nels Cline 4 When: Saturday, 02.09, 9 p.m. Where: Ophelia’s Why: Nels Cline has been involved in more noteworthy music than any modern human has any right to claim including turns with Geraldine Fibbers, Wilco and John Zorn. This is one of his experimental jazz groups so expect plenty of left field improv.
Who:Alphabet Soup #40: Felix Fast4ward, Furbie Cakes, MYTHirst, Yung Lurch and Dashwoo When: Saturday, 02.09, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Why: This is the latest edition of Alphabet Soup, a showcase for some of the most forward thinking and innovative producers and soundscapers in Denver. The event used to take place mostly at Deerpile but with the demise of that performance space the event has been moved to other venues including tonight at Thought//Forms gallery.
Sunday | February 10, 2019
Pedro the Lion, photo by Ryan Russell
Who:Pedro the Lion w/Tomberlin When: Sunday, 02.10, 8 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why:Phoenix is more than just a clever title for the first Pedro the Lion record in fifteen years. David Bazan spent years touring as a more or less solo act and releasing a series of acclaimed records. But like most artists he hit a wall at some point and in 2016 he got to the place of a low point crossroads. Two years later he was writing and recording songs that made sense for Pedro the Lion with words of reinvention, rediscovery, reclamation and embrace of the spirit of one’s past self and past creations that helped to define the person you are now. While personal to Bazan and his bandmates, one thing Bazan has been able to do as a songwriter is to write material that transcends the personal, transcends any faith or philosophical orientation that informs it and to articulate with sensitivity and kindness the struggles and pain everyone seems to experience.
Monday | February 11, 2019
Plume Varia performs Friday, 7/27 at Gary Lee’s. Photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Gang of Four w/Plume Varia When: Monday, 02.11, 8:30 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Gang of Four is the influential post-punk band that perfectly combined punk with disco and a sharp cultural critique that took aim at more universal issues in Western and global culture of the 1970s onward. After all, the band named itself after a Chinese political cabal involved in the Cultural Revolution. The first three Gang of Four albums (1979’s Entertainment!, Solid Gold from 1981 and Songs of the Free released in 1982) were a blueprint for 90s and 2000s dance punk as well as a direct influence on Red Hot Chili Peppers from the beginning (GOF guitarist, and sole original member, Andy Gill produced the 1984 self-titled debut from RHCP). But few of the band’s descendants could match Gang of Four in its intensity, sonic inventiveness much less socio-critical acumen. The band’s latest album, with its current line up, is HAPPY NOW released in 2019 via PledgeMusic. A little more topical than usual, naming, presumably, Ivanka Trump in a song, Gang of Four hasn’t exactly taken the gloves off. Opening the show is Denver-based downtempo dream pop duo Plume Varia performing one of its now rare shows.
Wednesday | February 13, 2019
Glissline, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:SMRT, Big J. Beats, Glissline, Escapism When: Wednesday, 02.13, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Glissline is Tommy Metz who has been releasing gorgeously lush, brightly melodic, beat-driven IDM for more than a decade. As Glissline, Metz has been melding visual elements with his musical compositions for a multi-sensory experience including a well-crafted low end. It’s dance music for dreaming. Big J. Beats is a producer whose work is most often, and justifiably so, associated with hip-hop but his imaginative soundscaping transcends genre completely which is why he is one of the Mile High City’s greatest beat makers.
Who:Richard Thompson Electric Trio w/Ryley Walker When: Wednesday, 02.13, 7 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: Richard Thompson was one of the leading lights of influential folk project Fairport Convention. He also played guitar on the first two Nick Drake albums. From the 1970s onward, Thompson has created a body of work that should be more well-known outside folk circles with brilliant rock and pop songs. There is also his prodigious work as a collaborator and contributor to other people’s recordings. His final album as the duo of Richard and Linda Thompson, 1982’s Shoot Out the Lights is a masterpiece of folk rock. Following the tour for that record the Thompsons split and Richard went on to a critically acclaimed and prolific solo career as well. As the name of the group suggests, this will be a showcase of Thompson’s electric music rather than the acoustic songs, though you never know, maybe Thompson will bring in some of his classic material written originally for acoustic but reconfigured for the electric trio. In 2018 Thompson released the dark and moody 13 Rivers.
Who: Mac Sabbath w/Franks & Deans bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/359843 When: Thursday, 11.22, 8 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Mac Sabbath performs Black Sabbath covers, with fast food themed lyrics, in the guise of fast food characters from some chain gone dark. Are they really aliens from another dimension like Bizarro or escaped mental patients? Who can say, really. But when Black Sabbath gives you the nod of approval maybe your weirdo cover band has some legitimacy. The group has two official music videos released since its inception in 2014 and a flexi disc for the “Pair-a-Buns” single and nothing else yet since singer Ronald Osborne has declared a complete denial of the existence of technology after the 70s. Why not record or, even more quaint, an 8-track? We may yet see such releases from the mysterious band. But for now, and for purposes of the sheer spectacle of the thing, Mac Sabbath is best seen live.
Sunday | November 25, 2018
J. Hamilton Isaacs, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Elvis Costello & The Imposters When: Sunday, 11.25, 7 p.m. Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Elvis Costello is probably too famous for any introduction. What he contributed/contributes to music is a gift for perfectly capturing a mood, a moment, a frame of mind with detail and humanity. This doesn’t always mean he’s writing songs that fit in with what some people might think of as the “appropriate” way to think and feel about the subject of the song. You may even listen to one of his songs and think, to put it charitably,“What a jerk!” But that’s the point. Whether a character created for the song or a bit of an abstraction of his actual thoughts, Costello’s songs are compelling because whether or not you share the sentiments the songs are poetic and believable pulling up just shy of being sentimental even if he does often employ a sense of nostalgia. His character sketches are vivid and resonate with an emotive familiarity. Currently the songwriter is touring with his band The Imposters in support of Costello’s 2018 album Look Now.
Who:Centered: Steve Hauschildt, Reighnbeau and J. Hamilton Isaacs When: Sunday, 11.25, 7 p.m. Where: Savoy at Curtis Park Why: Steve Hauschildt probably became first known to a national audience during his 2006-2013 run with experimental electronic trio Emeralds. The group fused ambient music with pop and the minimalist end of Twentieth Century classical music. As a solo artist, Hauschildt has delved further into exploring the possibilities of minimalism in composition and creating an sound environment with depth and texture. His 2018 album Dissolvi is reminiscent of a Squarepusher record with the beautiful level of tonal detail but after any deep house influence. Not an ambient dance record, per se, but it could be considered one of the best. Reighnbeau from Santa Fe, NM is a band that includes Bryce Hample, Colleen Johnson and Madeleine Johnston. So for the uninitiated, heavy hitters in underground ambient and experimental pop. Its sound tends toward an organic tone while employing plenty of sonic material that could only come from a computer or other electronic device. The group has a layered sound suggesting a complex mixture of emotions. J. Hamilton Isaacs has been a fixture of Denver’s experimental music scene for over a decade whether he is often acknowledged for it or not. His own beat-driven electronic experiments blend together sequencing/sampling and modular synthesis. Always different, always interesting.
Who:Textures: Wonderlust, Chromadrift, Crimson Highways When: Sunday, 11.25, 7:30 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This months’ Textures Ambient Showcase features post-rock/ambient soundscape artist Chromadrift whose Drew Miller also composes soundtrack-y music in a more abstract shoegaze vein as Brother Saturn. Also, Daniel Mescher as Crimson Highways uses loops and electronics to compose impressions and textured emotional colorings to transport you away from the tonight’s cold.
Monday | November 26, 2018
Author & Punisher, photo courtesy Relapse Records
Who:Pale Waves w/Kailee Morgue and The Candescents When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Manchester, UK band Pale Waves doesn’t overtly flout conventional song structure and what makes for solid pop melodies. But the band’s early material, upbeat in tone and pacing, hit some of the same emotional touchstones as artists like CHVRCHES and Lorde. But Pale Waves look like an updated version of a dark post-punk band from the 80s and many of its songs, particularly on the 2018 full-length debut My Mind Makes Noise., explore themes of loss, existential uncertainty and identity with an assurance and sensitivity one might not expect from a pop band with a strong visual aesthetic. About the title, singer Heather Baron-Gracie told us that it is an acknowledgment of how our minds are filled with ideas and emotions and it can sometimes be overwhelming but that we can, to some extent, also choose which noises we amplify and feed. In providing interesting contrasts that challenge assumptions (Goth-ish-presenting band making emotionally rich pop songs, pop songs with deeply melancholic themes), Pale Waves demonstrates to people who care to pay attention that one needn’t adhere to narrow expectations in music or in one’s own life.
Who:Echo & The Bunnymen w/Enation When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m. Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Echo & The Bunnymen didn’t just write that song in Donnie Darko, what was it, “The Killing Moon”? Or for an earlier generation, didn’t just do that Doors cover for the soundtrack to The Lost Boys. “People Are Strange,” though. At any rate, Echo & The Bunnymen for post-punk connoisseurs was one of the most consistently interesting bands of the 80s because until it’s 1987 self-titled album, the one that broke the band to the mainstream, of course, with the hit “Lips Like Sugar,” the group had had a string of fascinating, critically acclaimed records. There was an elegance of sentiment, a poetic sensibility and a deeply imaginative quality to the band’s music. Like it was tapping into the unconscious and creating its own mythology cast in dreamlike detail—shrouded in indigo lights and fog, early morning sunlight and mist. The first four Echo & The Bunnymen records are post-punk canon and for the rest of its career there’s been plenty of strong material, even on 1990’s fan-reviled, Ian McCulloch-less album Reverberation. McCulloch remains an enigmatic, romantic weirdo mystic of rock and roll which some my find confounding at times but, really, don’t we all need someone out there maintaining their own mythology in that way that is not harmful but gives hope to anyone who dared to dream of a more interesting world and had the guts to see making it a reality as an iconic band.
Who:The Body, Author & Punisher and Many Blessings When: Monday, 11.26, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Two of the best bands that don’t fit too well into the world of metal or heavy music but don’t really fit into any other realm of music either except for maybe noise are sharing the stage tonight. And with Denver’s Many Blessings, a solo noise project of Primitive Man’s Ethan McCarthy. The Body from Providence, Rhode Island have long blurred any lines between doom, grindcore, hardcore, noise, industrial, electronic pop and ambient music. Just depends on the album. The group has been fairly prolific across its 19 years of existence but perhaps none more so than 2018 when the band produced a split industrial group Uniform as Mental Wounds Not Healing, an early 2018 record I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer (a grinding dirge that never seems to get boring) and the fall release O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, Judge of the Earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve. Live, the band unleashes intense energy while keeping it weird. No mean feat and The Body does so brilliantly. Author & Punisher is a one-man industrial band. Tristan Shone is an artist and a mechanical engineer who builds his unique instrumentation. One his early tours he definitely played DIY spaces in Denver but has made a bit of a name for himself outside noisenikdom and recognized for his innovative methods of composition. His latest album, 2018’s Beastland out on Relapse Records, is simultaneously possibly his most accessible and challenging record to date. As a frame of reference, imagine a late 80s Ministry and late 90s Neurosis collaboration album.
Tuesday | November 27, 2018
Street Sects, photo courtesy the artist
Who:Street Sects w/Ten Foot Beast When: Tuesday, 11.27, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: Street Sects fills the room with fog in order to disorient you already before its barrage of sounds, lights, rhythm and, on occasion, a bladeless chainsaw brought forth to make for a performance designed to take you out of your comfort zone. Is it noise? Industrial? Inspired by confrontational punk? Perhaps specifically by tales of Alan Vega swinging that bike chain at early Suicide shows in New York? Who can say. What is certain is that while its live shows are not short on visceral thrills, its records stand on their own as well. Its latest record, 2018’s The Kicking Mule is like a futuristic industrial noir with darkly amusing and hardboiled titles like “269 Soulmates,” “Suicide By Cop,” “Dial Down the Neon” and “Still Between Lovers.”
Who:Sharone (“I Love You, Goodbye” single release) w/Melody In Heart, Blake George, Sean Hennigan When: Tuesday, 11.27, 7:30 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Sharone Borik debuted as a talented singer-songwriter before launching her dark, hard rock band Sharone & The Wind in 2016. For this night, Borik is releasing her new solo single “I Love You, Goodbye.” Given Borik’s gift for songwriting and performing with a theatrical flair it should be interesting to see how she presents her solo work this time around.
Who:Glenn Jones and Janet Feder When: Tuesday, 11.27, 7 p.m. Where: Baur’s Why: Two of guitar’s avant-garde greats on one bill. Glenn Jones has been a member of experimental rock band Cul de Sac since 1990 but he was also a collaborator and friend of John Fahey and he has written a film score for Roger Corman. His solo work is often very much in the folk vein but more elaborate and imaginative than too much of what passes as folk these days. Janet Feder was born in Boulder, raised in Denver, and has been pushing the guitar envelope in a variety of ways with form and composition for decades now. While her work might rightfully fall under the umbrellas of prog, the avant-garde, experimental folk and modern classical music, her actual songwriting is fairly organic and highly imaginative. This is a rare chance to see both artists on the same bill.
Wednesday | November 28, 2018
Cult Leader, photo by Bobby Cochran
Who:Blockhead w/Yppah, Arms and Sleepers, Mikey Thunder and Jordan Polvina When: Wednesday, 11.28, 8 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Other Side Why: Tony Simon has been making some of the most interesting and transporting beats in hip-hop for nearly 20 years including his collaborations with Aesop Rock, Ilogic and Murs. His solo releases on the respected Ninja Tune imprint paint a tapestry of New York daydreams of the Big Apple of myth and journeys far beyond to places exotic to a city dweller. His compositions, part immersed in classic sampling tradition of taking bits of jazz and funk records and recontextualizing them, part weaving in experimental electronic music—his own and those possibly borrowed., are immediately captivating and mostly on the downtempo vibe. Live the music can be a bit like the DJ on a laptop sort of affair but on the sound system at Cervantes’ it’ll have a full sound.
Who:Cult Leader, God Mother, Call of the Void and Kenaima When: Wednesday, 11.28, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Salt Lake City’s sludge-grind band Cult Leader recently released its second album A Patient Man. While some of the material is what you might expect of a highly energized band out of its expected realm of music, the group took some hauntingly introspective turns on the record including the track “To: Achlys,” which sounds more like a dire, metallic, brooding post-punk song akin to a late 80s Swans song with a visually stunning music video depicting a man seeking solace in the arms of a stylized figure that resembles a Kali-esque death goddess. The group has been making waves lately and in December is taking Denver-based organo-industrial legends Echo Beds on a short tour. On the bill for this night is the great Denver death-grind outfit Call of the Void and adrenalized mathrcore band Kenaima.
Who:Screwtape EP release w/Noogy, World Movement, Dox and HYFY When: Wednesday, 11.28, 6 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Screwtape, one of Denver’s greatest political hardcore bands, is finally releasing its second EP and celebrating the occasion at this show at The Oriental Theater with some of its like-minded peers. By hardcore don’t take that to mean a young band imitating some earlier era of the music but taking those roots as inspiration for making something vital and of the now.
Who:Ryanhood w/Matt Cox When: Thursday, 06.07, 7 p.m. Where: Walnut Room Why: Ever since Mumford and Sons and The Lumineers, at a minimum, popularized folk pop to a massive audience more than a few musicians have tried their hands at that style of music. But Ryanhood predates that wave having started in 2003 in Boston (now based in Tucson, AZ where Green and Cameron Hood met in high school). And beyond that, Ryanhood has established itself as a popular live act on the college and small club circuit. Ryan Green’s proficiency with guitar got him a scholarship to Berklee but as a songwriter it gives some dimensionality to the songwriting that might not be there with a musician who came to playing more casually. Green’s songs with Hood, at this point, have the polish and tunefulness of anything you’re likely to hear on mainstream radio combined with the synergy that mostly comes from musicians who have known each other for a good deal of their lives growing together as artists. The duo’s 2017 album Yearbook is a record diverse in its emotional colorings and songwriting dynamics giving its positive sheen depth and listening longevity.
Who:Stella Luce 7” release for Gloria w/Señorita Sometimes and Seven Inches of Heaven When: Thursday, 06.07, 9 p.m. Where: Surfside 7 Why: Stella Luce is presenting its sixth release, the Gloria seven inch, tonight at Surfside 7. The Fort Collins-based experimental rock band combines an Eastern European musical sensibility with the kind of baroque pop that The Dresden Dolls and DeVotchKa perfected. Stella Luce, though a little weirder than both, and noisier, has created a body of work thus far with the same cinematic sweep and nuanced emotional colorings.
Friday | June 8, 2018
Isenordal, photo courtesy Isenordal
What:71 Grind IV Day 1 (see below) When: Friday, 06.08, 2 p.m. Where: The Black Sheep and Triple Nickel Tavern Why: This is the major metal festival in Colorado. Independently run and promoted it features some of the most interesting acts in extreme and death metal, doom and grindcore. Things get kicked off at 2 p.m. at The Black Sheep and finishes in the late night hours at The Triple Nickel Tavern. For this first day you can catch Denver’s deathgrind stars Of Feather And Bone at the Black Sheep at 6:40 p.m.. The trio just started its tour in the wake of the release of its latest album, Beastial Hymns of Perversion. Immediately after at 7 p.m. on the main stage is Seattle’s black/folk metal act Isenordal will bring its layered, orchestral sound. For fans of Giant Squid and SubRosa. You can’t really miss with any of the bands but it would also be a good chance to see Wyoming’s great, grind-y, post-hardcore band Euth, Denver’s melodic doom giants, Wayfarer and Denver D-beat/thrash juggernauts Rotstrotter. Full schedule below.
Black Sheep Side Floor Stage
2-220 Weaken
2:40-3 Berrated
3:20-3:40 Anakusha
4:20-4:40 Euth
5-5:20 Portrayal Of Guilt
5:50-6:10 Falter
6:40-7 Of Feather And Bone
7:30-7:50 Void Omnia
8:20-8:40 Closet Witch
9:10-9:30 Gaff
Main Stage
2:20-2:40 Full Bore
3-3:20 Salems Bend
4-4:20 Rotstrotter
4:40-5 Bleubird
5:20-5:50 Zeta
6:10-6:40 Wayfarer
7-7:30 Isenordal
7:50-8:20 Brainoil
8:40-9:10 Transient w/Bastard Noise
9:30-10:40 Mizmor
Triple Nickel
11-11:20 Cursus
11:30-11:50 Ice Sword
12-12:20 Modok
12:30-12:50 Hexist
1-1:30 Tejon St. Corner Thieves
Who:Today’s Paramount, Samvega and Archipelaghost When: Friday, 06.08, 9 p.m. Where: Goosetown Tavern Why: This is a bill where none of the bands really fit in any musical subscene. Nor are they trying and the show is the better for that. Today’s Paramount has bits of gypsy folk, Americana, psychedelia and metal but really it’s more like some kind of odd glam prog band that dresses up like they’re all lead gumshoes in a noir novel. Samvega similarly skirts the edges of sludge metal, psychedelic rock and prog without being tied down by the conventions of any of it. Its sonically powerful shows feel orchestrated but only in that they have played the music so much they’re comfortable executing it in a way that leaves plenty of room to change moods, tempos and emotional colorings to fit the environment. If Archipelaghost’s recent single “Spinach” is any indication, those guys listen to a lot of the better hip-hop utilizing trap tracks while crafting their own electronic beats and burned the memo on not using kinda crap autotune. Archipelaghost takes musical ideas that shouldn’t work and puts it together in a way that seems more like a beyond ironic to legit and inventive take on electronic indie pop. Meta in its musical touchstones to the point of avant-garde.
Who:The Descendents w/The Potato Pirates and In the Whale When: Friday, 06.08, 7 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: The Descendents’ story sounds like it couldn’t be true. Drummer Bill Stevenson met future Black Flag and Circle Jerks vocalist Keith Morris before the latter’s stint in Black Flag and worked for Morris’ father as a fisherman. Of course Stevenson would spend some years as Black Flag’s drummer while also playing in The Descendents, a band he started with some friends from school when most of them were still in high school. The band’s blend of pop, surf rock and punk made for one of the earliest pop punk bands and its sound and lyrics throughout the 80s articulated teen angst, insecurities and simple aspirations better than a lot of music in the mainstream ever could and thus the band’s enduring popularity and viability. Even as its music is framed in the teen experience there was an evolution in thought and complexity of emotion that happened during the course of the band’s career. These days, seeing The Descendents is a great reminder that punk, even pop punk, can be silly, kinda dumb, but also thoughtful and vibrantly energetic in ways that don’t seem tamed by the compromises mainstream commercial success has exacted on some of the bands The Descendents have influenced.
What:Intendence Film Fest Opening Party with Sympathy F When: Friday, 06.08, 9:30 p.m. Where: Denver Open Media Why: When Sympathy F began in the early 90s Denver was in the prime of its period of urban decay. LoDo as we came to know it in the mid-90s didn’t exist. Squatters lived in buildings downtown and the Fifteenth Street and Twentieth Street viaducts led to areas of glorious industrial yesteryear. Denver felt dark, a little grimy and gritty while not as dangerous as larger cities. The band’s music, a moody, jazz-inflected post-punk, fit that milieu perfectly and it was one of the era’s classic alternative rock bands and one of the very few to have survived through the decades to now. Until a few years ago, the band had only released one record and soon it will release a third. Live, the band creates a lush but electrifying sound and for those that remember those older times in Denver, it’s like getting a taste of that vibe for the time the band drifts into its set.
Saturday | June 9, 2018
The Corner Girls, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:71 Grind IV Day 2 (see below for lineup) When: Saturday, 06.09, 1 p.m. Where: Black Sheep and The Triple Nickel Tavern Why: This second day of 71 Grind IV includes performances from powerviolence pioneers Infest, longtime Albuquerque grind legends Noisear and Colorado Springs death grind band 908 which includes 71 Grind organizer Bryan Ostrow. Things get started at 1 p.m. at The Black Sheep and finishes once again in the late hours at Triple Nickel.
Black Sheep Side Floor Stage
1-1:20 Aerial Ruin
1:40-2 Nite Kidz
2:20-2:40 Blunt
3-3:20 Minimum Wage Assasins
3:40-4 Sentient Divide
4:20-4:40 Funeral Chic
5-5:20 Bandit
5:40-6 Pavel Chekov
6:30-6:50 Test
7:20-7:40 Noisear
8:10-8:30 Remission
9-9:30 Stapled Shut
Main Stage
12:40-1 Modern Color
1:20-1:40 Fortunes Fool
2-2:20 908
2:40-3 Addaura
3:20-3:40 Haunter
4-4:20 Badr Vogu
4:40-5 Apocalyptic Noise Syndicate
5:20-5:40 Cryptic Void
6-6:30 Dead In The Manger
6:50-7:20 Un
7:40-8:10 Scorched
8:30-9 Despise You
9:30-10 Infest
Triple Nickel
10:30-10:50 The Stalk
11-11:20 Pris
11:30-12 Anonymous Inc.
1210-12:30 Saus
Who:The Corner Girls (single release) w/Vic N’ The Narwhals, Kinky Fingers and Cocordion When: Saturday, 06.09, 7:30 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: A year after excellent 2017 Popcorn EP, The Corner Girls release the “Boyfriend” single. Given the band’s gift for giving songs with incisive and irreverent lyrics titles that could come from a vapid pop song, “Boyfriend” probably isn’t just a song about someone’s boyfriend in that tired, classic vein. From the imagery of the band’s artwork to its surf-y punk sound, The Corner Girls aesthetic resonates with that of early K Records bands and 90s indie pop, which in its time was a rejection of the masculine rock world. It isn’t an attack on the latter as much as creating something not defined by it.
Who:Screwtape, Gutter Villain, The Uglys and No Chance When: Saturday, 06.09, 7:30 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: The Uglys somehow mixed screamy posthardcore with sludgy riffs for a sound that is like what would have happened had grunge developed a decade and a half later with The Deftones as an influence. That sort of desperation delivered with a manic intensity fits in well on a bill with Denver hardcore stars Screwtape whose songs blur the radical political with the personal in a way we need to see more of right now.
Sunday | June 10, 2018
Who:71 Grind IV Day 3 When: Sunday, 06.10, 12 p.m. Where: The Triple Nickel Tavern Why: This third and last day of 71 Grind takes place at Triple Nickel and sort of a showcase of some of Colorado’s heavy bands. Still Valley is the kind of band that maybe got inspired by the stoner/sludge rock bands with that steady, slow cymbal work going like a hypnotic metronome but its sound is more uplifting, more melodic and ultimately more transporting. In that way Still Valley has a lot in common with Earth, taking the blues roots of the music and exploring its outer possibilities. Tricoma from Denver has similar influences but its sound is more like a fierce thrash/crossover and its heaviness more cutting. The Munsens’ 2016 album Abbey Rose sounds like a doom meditation on the darkened passages and cosmic terror merely hinted at by early Gothic literature, for example Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto. But whatever band or bands you catch, it’ll be a great slice of heavy music’s current underground scene.
12-12:20 Ultraviolet
12:30-12:50 Still Valley
1-1:20 Tricoma
1:30-1:50 The Munsens
2-2:20 Innoculated Life
2:30-2:50 Scepter
3-3:20 Kenaima
3:30-3:50 Gutpest
4-4:20 Commonear
4:30-4:50 Remain & Sustain
5-5:20 Bonus Surprise!
5:30-5:50 Druids
6-6:20 Tower
6:30-6:50 Article 15
7-7:20 The Mutations
7:30-7:50 Broken Dead
8-8:20 Demerit
8:30-9 SMD
9:10-9:40 Homewrecker
9:50-10:20 Sledge
10:30-11 Dead Set
Who:Daikaiju w/TripLip and The Savage Blush When: Sunday, 06.10, 9 p.m. Where: Tennyson’s Tap Why: Daikaiju is a surf rock band that on the surface sounds like a band in that vein with some punk oomph behind it. But its shows are famously tribal affairs during which the band performs in kabuki masks, uses pyrotechnics in its sets and otherwise brings those who show up into a ritual of rock and roll chaos. Experimental jazz thrash prog band TripLip and surf rockers The Savage Blush will ably set the stage for the mayhem to follow with Daikaiju.
Monday | June 11, 2018
Sleep circa 2010, photo by Tom Murphy
Who: Sleep w/Primitive Man and Oryx When: Monday, 06.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Nearly twenty years after the release of its most recent album, 1999’s until then posthumous release, Dopesmoker, the princes (naturally the kings being Black Sabbath) of stoner rock/doom Sleep released a new album in 2018 called The Sciences. Of course its laden with fanboy references to Sabbath (there’s a song called “Giva Butler”), science fiction and arcane knowledge. Oh, and cannabis. “Marijuananaut’s Theme” begins with someone taking a hit off a bong. But it seems as though Sleep has sculpted its sound ever so slightly giving it greater dynamism and fluidity. Don’t worry, the guitars still sound like the tone is in a constant state of splintering and the rhythms are off enough in the right places to be hypnotic and deftly launch the main melodies into spaces that Moebius might have drawn for one of his lost Jodorowsky collaborations—psychedelic, alien and raw. That deathgrind titans Primitive Man and doomdeath stars Oryx are on the bill just make the whole show twice as good.
Who:Violent Femmes When: Monday, 06.10, 6:30 p.m. Where: Denver Botanic Gardens (York Street) Why: Four decades on, Violent Femmes went from jazz-inspired folk-punk-pop weirdos who were perfect for the college rock world of the 80s to a still surprisingly powerful live band whose sound has been influential but not widely imitated. On recordings and on stage the Femmes bring in more than the usual rock instruments and since its early days the band has brought on a group of people called The Horns of Dilemma to play raw, chaotic sounds on a couple of songs in the set. For the Denver dates of the past several years The Horns of Dilemma has included avant-garde improvisational band Animal / object, a group in which Femmes singer Gordon Gano has been known to play violin. Several of the Femmes’ songs have entered the lexicon of popular music through the college and alternative rock path and even if you weren’t around or old enough for the band’s music to impact you the first time it was coming around its music has held up well because it was never grounded in any trendy sound or style but rather an premium on creativity and imagination. Go and be surprised by how of the moment and so not rote the Femmes remain today.
Who:Yes (Howe, Downes and White iteration) When: Monday, 06.10, 2 p.m. Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Progressive rock has a reputation as an overly intellectual music made by snobs for other technically proficient musicians and fans capable of appreciating the intricacies and compositional sophistication of the music. But most of those bands were seeking to create something deeply imaginative and capable of expressing ideas and emotions beyond the bare bones rock and roll sonic vocabulary. Yes wrote music that aimed to explore and articulate the dreams and aspirations of humankind. Sure, some of it got pretty out there and abstract but largely its songs came from a personal place writing about love, anxiety, fear and a broad range of emotions and the very individual experience of our struggles and triumphs. Yes just didn’t dumb it down. For this show you’ll get to see master guitarist Steve Howe, Alan White’s drumming wizardry and Geoff Downes’ gift for weaving together various keyboard and synth elements to create one of the sounds that has established Yes as a legendary live act for the past few decades.
Tuesday | June 12, 2018
Covenhoven in Ojai, CA, photo courtesy Joel Van Horne
Who:Covenhoven album release w/The Still Tide When: Tuesday, 06.12, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Joel Van Horne has been writing beautifully introspective songs under the moniker Covenhoven for several years and now, with A Kind of Revelation, three records. It was within a week of finishing the mixes for A Kind of Revelation that Van Horne’s brother Ben died from a pulmonary embolism following years of struggling with ulcerative colitis. As with his previous releases (the 2013 self-titled album and 2015’s The Wild and Free), Van Horne immersed himself in a natural environment, taking in the patterns, energies of the place and as much of its essence as possible to drive his creative inspiration. For A Kind of Revelation that place was Olympic National Park and Big Sur. Perhaps a kind of pastoral folk and pop is the form of Van Horne’s songs but the musical language feels like an emotional recreation of the places that influenced their writing. Since it’s at the Bluebird, chances are it’ll be a full band presentation of the music where Covenhoven will share the evening with dream pop/rock band The Still Tide.
Who:Calexico w/Julia Jacklin When: Tuesday, 06.12, 7 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: Calexico and Mojave 3 were doing psych-folk-inflected pop Americana before it became a massive feature of “indie” radio in the past ten to fifteen years. Calexico, though, also absorbed a good deal of Mexican folk stylistic flourishes giving its sound a more exotic edge. The group released its latest record, The Thread That Keeps Us, in January 2018. Employing keyboards and synths alongside more traditional instruments has been one of Calexico’s hallmarks from its early days but the new record feels even more expansive and open as though maybe somewhere the band aimed to simplify its sound without sacrificing its full and rich tones.
Wednesday | June 13, 2018
Ancient Elk circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Of Feather and Bone tour kickoff w/Tomb Mold and Casket Huffer When: Wednesday, 06.13, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver deathgrind band Of Feather and Bone played 71 Grind in Colorado Springs this past weekend and it will kick of its tour in support of its new album Beastial Hymns of Perversion with this show at the Hi-Dive alongside like-minded bands Tomb Mold, from Toronto, Ontario and Casket Huffer from Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Who:Sunmonks, Ancient Elk, Avifauna and GALLERIES When: Wednesday, 06.13, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Sacramento’s Sunmonks has been honing its blend of R&B, indie pop and world music since 2012. Entertainment Weekly said the band was a “Worthy successor to the Talking Heads.” That seems like hyperbole and lack of life experience and knowledge of recent and older music history. Nevertheless, the band’s willingness to experiment with the form of pop music across various cultures as well as the sound and rhyme schemes to great effect makes it one of the most interesting bands to have bypassed being a psychedelic rock band but effectively making psychedelic pop music. Also on the bill is experimental, psychedelic folk band Ancient Elk, psych hard rock band GALLERIES and the windswept electropop soundscapes of Avifauna.
Who:Glasss Presents The Speakeasy Series Season 2: Left Handed Electronics, Grrrl, Bianca Mikahn When: Thursday, 05.24, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Bianca Mikahn’s combination of almost free verse poetry and beats should be well within the canon of hip-hop and ultimately is. But her delivery and her crafting of her songs has as much in common with the kind of hippie-ish, open mic, slam poetry world as it does with any hip-hop context. Mikahn’s ability to critique society at large while speaking to those issues with a compassion and positive spirit minus any note of insincerity sets her apart from most other artists. That her beats contains elements of noise and melodic ambient music makes her immediately accessible music an otherworldly dimension even as the songs are grounded in fairly earthbound experiences.
Who:High Plains Honky 7” release w/Casey James Prestwood and the Burning Angels Band and Danny Dodge & The Dodge Gang When: Thursday, 05.24, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: If Ronnie Milsap had gone a little more honky tonk with a grittier voice, the results might sound a bit like High Plains Honky. The group is releasing its latest seven inch record tonight at the Hi-Dive joined by a couple of other bands who are no slouches in the local country scene. Maybe comparing a Denver band to a best selling artist like Milsap seems like a bit much to some but what made him such a compelling songwriter beyond the masterful combination of musicianship and an ear for catchy and evocative melodies is the vivid storytelling. High Plains Honky have both qualities as well as no holding up of the nose at pop conventions used in a country context. “Goin’ All The Way” and “I Know Where You Go,” the two sides of the record, seem so relatable even if country music isn’t your thing. A tastefully tiny hint of psychedelia haunts the edges of the music and the aspirational, anthemic quality of the stories suggest a deep knowledge of personal reality but needing to write the songs to escape being too bogged down by current circumstances to go after what you really want while also honoring the emotions subsequent to the potential disappointment, pain and lack of resolution that is a part of everyday life. High Plains Honky invites its listeners to dream just a little bit and to embrace their heartsickness.
What:Girls Rock Denver: Showcase series 7-11 p.m.: Dressy Bessy, Rotten Reputation, Contender, Cheap Perfume, Surf Mom, The Catcalls and Mirror Fears When: Thursday, 05.24, 6:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: This is a fundraiser for Girls Rock Denver to give some of the young women who want to be involved a scholarship to this summer’s programme and beyond. For your donation you get to see some of the best local bands from the indie pop legends Dressy Bessy, punk rock phenoms Rotten Reputation and Cheap Perfume, fuzz rock feminist rock band Surf Mom and electronic dream pop start Mirror Fears.
Who:DOA and MDC When: Thursday, 05.24, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: In the annals of hardcore outside of American coastal cities, DOA and MDC have to be considered two of the most important acts out of that movement. DOA from Vancouver, British Columbia, was one of the hardest touring bands for years, spreading the gospel of hardcore across the continent and whose album Hardcore ’81 is, perhaps apocryphally, is often cited as the first use of the term in connection to the musical movement. DOA’s political songs struck personal tones in Joe Keithley’s deft songwriting allowing the band’s music to have an appeal beyond agreeing with every iota of the band’s politics. MDC started in Austin, Texas as The Stains with similarly political punk songs that were more left than most of its peers at the time. It didn’t hurt that singer Dave Dictor seemed to havea personal agenda to push the envelope with fans in his stage persona as the ultimate freak and always with the aim of challenging reductive notions of animal and human rights. Listen to that first MDC album and it’s clear that Dictor was an unabashed critic of police brutality and creeping fascism in a way that makes those songs and their specific anti-authoritarian tone even more relevant now.
Who:The Blackouts w/Adrian Conner (Hell’s Belles) and We Are Invisible and Wild Call When: Thursday, 05.24, 8 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: The Blackouts are an all female rock band that really shows how you can have a fairly straightforward hard rock band and not fall to the boring tropes that happen with too many bands with roots in punk and metal. Adrian Conner from the great all-female AC/DC cover band Hell’s Bells is also playing this show as well as Wild Call, a band whose forthcoming album is reminiscent of White Hills and Medicine.
Who: Amy Shark and Tomi globehall.com/event/1663566-amy-shark-denver When: Thursday, 05.24, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Amy Shark is a pop songwriter from Australia whose 2016 single “Adore” caught the attention of tastemakers in Australia and the song was reissued by Sony Music Australia. That Shark was either in her late 20s or 30 when the song came out explains a bit how her voice and the perspective present in the song had a bit of depth and more of the weight of experience than would be the case of a pop artist a decade or more younger. Shark’s debut full-length, Love Monster, will drop in July 2018 so you can catch her live tonight at Globe Hall before everyone has heard of her.
Friday | May 25, 2018
Demo Taped, photo by Savannah Ogburn
Who:Amber Mark w/Demo Taped and Adiel Mitchell When: Friday, 05.25, 8 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater Why: Amber Mark seemed to come out of nowhere when she uploaded her song “S P A C E” to Soundcloud in February 2016. Her voice strong and assured, drawing immediate comparisons to Sade for those qualities and a soulfulness one rarely hears in someone just twenty-two years old. But Mark had something to say and in subsequent singles like “Monsoon,” Mark revealed herself to be a brilliantly poetic songwriter. The 3:33 a.m. EP followed in 2017 and in 2018 Mark released the EP Conexão. Joining her on the Denver date of the tour is Adam Alexander, aka Demo Taped. His electronic pop songs are bright and upbeat but the subject matter of his songs run a broad range of subjects including struggles with anxiety and insecurity. His nuanced and layered songwriting manifested especially strongly on his 2018 EP Momentary.
Who:Orbit Service, Church Fire, The Drood and DJ Mudwulf When: Friday, 05.25, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Denver ambient/space rock legends Orbit Service don’t play many shows these days and even less often at a dive bar like Lion’s Lair. The project’s primary figure, Randall Frazier, has been responsible for maintaining and putting together some of the best live sound in Denver rooms like Walnut Room and Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox as well as championing experimental music in the local scene and collaborating with Edward Ka-Spel of Legendary Pink Dots fame. And that would be reason enough to go to this show but also on the bill are Church Fire, a band one might describe as industrial synth pop but its inspired and emotionally fiery performances elevates what could be considered excellent dance music to a higher level. Also, The Drood, a dark, psychedelic, avant-garde prog band.
Who:How To Measure the Weather: Tobias Fike, Ryan Wade Ruehlen, Kari Treadwell, Scott Ferguson When: Friday, 05.25, 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Where: Emmanuel Gallery Why: This show has been described as a “migratory sound installation” meaning the performers, members of the Flinching Eye Collective, will move their respective sound-making rigs to take advantage of the Emmanuel Gallery on Auraria campus, one of the oldest buildings in Denver, and its architecture to provide a truly unique, one-off environmental sonic experience.
Who:Muscle Beach w/Colfax Speed Queen, Kenaima and Voight When: Friday, 05.25, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Confrontational, arty hardcore. Furious post-psych garage punk. Crushing, post-hardcore noise rock. Emotionally-charged, industrial post-punk. Also, four of Denver’s best, most interesting and always compelling and entertaining live bands.
Who:Super Bummer album release w/Eye and the Arrow and King Eddie When: Friday, 05.25, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Super Bummer may be both one of the most ironic and yet accurate names in Denver underground music. The band’s melancholy compositions sure do articulate life’s downbeats with sincerity and self-deprecating humor—a rare combination. Its new album, Big Ambition, out on GROUPHUG, comes out tonight at Syntax where the band will share the stage with the broodingly melodic Americana band Eye and the Arrow and King Eddie, whose 2017 album Holographic Universe is a rabbit hole of beautifully enigmatic sounds and ideas to get lost in across its nine tracks.
Who:La Luz w/Savila and The Kinky Fingers When: Friday, 05.25, 8:30 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: La Luz may have originally been (and continue to be) inspired by 60s surf rock giants and the great girl groups of the era. But the Los Angeles-based group have long since made their own mark in music, especially with its 2018 album Floating Features, out on Hardly Art. Spooky and soulful, La Luz have mastered the art of nuanced emotional textures and mood so that its songs can be urgent and spend passages of sound swirling in the sweeping heat of a memory that unexpectedly rushes back into your consciousness triggered some moment or detail you encounter in the present. Denver’s The Kinky Fingers possess similar powers of evoking vivid emotions and imagery with their own surf-rooted rock songs.
Saturday | May 26, 2018
Victoria Lundy, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Victoria Lundy, Snails and Oysters, Sporehive, Denizens of the Deep and Floating Cave, DJ sets by Franklin Bell and visuals by Orchidz3ro When: Saturday, 05.26, 2:30 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: An entire afternoon of some of Denver’s most interesting experimental and avant-garde bands. For instance, Snails and Oysters used to be just Joe Mills but is now a duo creating organic ambient music using rock instruments in unconventional ways. A project that cites psych folk legend Sandy Bull, the artist that did an arrangement of Carl Orff’s symphonic opera masterpiece “Carmina Burana” for five-string banjo and released it on a debut album in 1963, is definitely not coming from predictable places. While every act on the bill is worth checking out and nothing really much like each other, the star of the show is Victoria Lundy who at one time people might have said is better known for being the Theremin player in The Inactivists. But by now she has established herself locally as a gifted composer of electronic and ambient music with the Theremin and synth. One thing that sets Lundy apart is that her music tends to be free of transient, modern culture reference tropes and is rooted in 20th century classical and the first wave electronic music avant-garde. And yet, Lundy makes her music accessible and emotionally engaging. There is plenty of intellect going into the making of the music and the craft and technology but the art comes from the heart.
Who:102 Wires When: Saturday, 05.26, 5 p.m. Where: Bar Max Why: This is a celebration of the possibilities of guitar in music beyond the typical use of the instrument in popular or even experimental music. Read our interview with organizer Kevin Richards here.
Sunday | May 27, 2018
eHpH, photo by Tom Murphy
What:A Life Celebration For Steve Gordon When: Sunday, 05.27, 1 – 4 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: This will be an event honoring the late, great, Steve Gordon. Steve was a visual artist, sculptor and musician who contributed greatly to the local avant-garde improvisational and ambient music scenes in Denver. Steve passed away in early May following a prolonged battle with cancer but as a widely admired figure, his legacy of excellence, originality, humanity and humor will continue to have an impact in the Denver art world for years to come. For the event friends and collaborators will share stories, music, poetry, food and drink. Read Lauri Lynnxe Murphy’s excellent piece on Steve for Westword here and our own interview with the artist from November 2017 here.
Who:Textures featuring Tunica Externa, paperbark, Lepidoptera When: Sunday, 05.27, 7 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This will be John Mulville’s last show in Denver for a while as he’s moving back to Minneapolis for the duration. His ambient project paperbark has brought some of the most compelling, textured to grace Denver spaces in recent years. Generating sounds with treated modular synth tones, Mulville’s compositions suggest natural spaces with a physicality suggested by the earlier reference to texture. It’s like you experience a tactile sensation through a creative crafting of atmosphere. Though Mulville will be back through town, we won’t have the luxury of catching any of his soothingly hypnotic sets regularly.
Who:ManifestiV, Bloodied, eHpH and Keldari Station When: Sunday, 05.27, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: ManifestiV from Vallejo, California sounds like it came out of the intersection of the burner community that embraces both industrial music, electronic dance and New Age concepts in the use of sound. But it works though at times you expect it to be the soundtrack to some kind of hippie-esque cyberpunk video game. But who wouldn’t want to play that game? Denver’s Keldari Station sounds like it’s coming from a similar place but its own music is more pop, has more elements of dub and old school glam rock. eHpH, like the other bands on this bill, is a duo with a penchant for dark, atmospheric music. Except this duo has managed to combine EBM with industrial rock without sounding like they’re trying to fit in with the tired old Goth scene sound of the 90s and 2000s. The band’s music is more experimental, more nuanced in its emotional expressions, than bands who really want to be a new version of Suicide Commando.
Tuesday | May 29, 2018
King Tuff, photo by Olivia Bee
Who:King Tuff w/Cut Worms and Sasami When: Tuesday, 05.29, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: At the end of his last tour, Kyle Thomas was sick of the party monster persona he had cultivated for years as King Tuff. The pressure to live up to something you’re not because it benefits you professionally and to some extent artistically erodes you more than a little on the inside and Thomas was feeling it. “I was a lost soul,” Thomas posted on his website regarding the release of his 2018 album The Other. “I didn’t know who I was anymore.” The new record is certainly a bit of a departure for Thomas. Any trace of the garage rock that informed his earlier releases is pretty much gone. There is a soulfulness and an overt spirit of experimentation running through all the songs for the release. In moments its tinge of futuristic funk and glam prog are reminiscent of I Robot period The Alan Parsons Project.
Also playing this show is Cut Worms. The band’s main creative force is Max Clarke who seems tapped into a mid-60s pop sort of sound and aesthetic. There is a simplicity and clarity of melody and songwriting that we’ve heard plenty of, likely, in this era of mining past decades for artistic inspiration. But especially on Clarke’s 2018 album Hollow Ground the subject matter isn’t so clean and tidy and his songs, like the era it perhaps sonically echoes, reflect a self-aware sense of social anxiety, a painful yearning but struggling with real or endlessly imagined inability to not fuck things up somehow and a willingness to stumble and scrape through even if life doesn’t always, or never does, turn out as planned or hoped. The brilliance comes in striking that balance—being real alongside the sounds of a time many romanticize in spite of the dark and grisly underbelly of people’s lives and the culture itself.
Who:Broncho w/The Paranoyds and Valen When: Tuesday, 05.29, 8:30 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Broncho formed in 2010 in the wake of the dissolution of indie pop weirdos Starlight Mints. Ryan Lindsey of the latter, went on to play guitars, keys and perform lead vocal duties in Broncho. The four-piece has always been kind of an outsider in the music world in that it never really fit in with any emerging trend and was probably too weird to hit it big time in the mainstream. But Lindsey knows he doesn’t belong there. At this point, Lindsay has already done his time deconstructing pop in Starlight Mints and it’s obvious that subverting the tropes of indie, garage and psych rock this past decade isn’t as interesting as it might have been a few years ago. 2016’s Double Vanity found Broncho excavating and exploring some of the sonic ideas that Phil Elverum was onto on those final two The Microphones records, 2001’s The Glow Pt. 2 and 2003’s Mount Eerie. But without imitating Elverum’s richly imaginative and innovative soundscaping. With any luck, this version of Broncho will represent the band’s next phase of its injecting the pop format with expansive ideas and sounds.
Wednesday | May 30, 2018
Gang of Youths, photo by Sergey Osipov
Who:Gang of Youths w/Hannah Wicklund & The Steppin Stones When: Wednesday, 05.29, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Gang of Youths’ 2017 sophomore album Go Farther in Lightness garnered near universal acclaim in the band’s home country of Australia. Rightfully so. It has the poetic insight and depth of early Bruce Springsteen and more recent from Titus Andronicus. Like both of those artists, Gang of Youths has a gift for taking the mythical/universal aspect of everyday experiences and giving it a poignantly personal expression. There’s a song called “What Can I Do If the Fire Goes Out?” that goes beyond that whole rediscovering your bliss and your passion nonsense. But it’s a whole record of songs that might seem like a collection of trite platitudes but in the end are the exact opposite. It’s highly energetic indie rock but the emotional and intellectual content run a lot deeper with Gang of Youths.
Who:Nunofyrbeeswax w/Open to the Hound, Claudzilla and Rat Bites When: Wednesday, 05.30, 8 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: Berlin’s Nunofyrbeeswax brings together aspects of indie pop, naïve lo-fi rock and outsider pop in its music. Good thing its on a bill with local weirdos in keytar punk Claudzilla, gritty indie pop outfit Open to the Hound and Germs-esque noise punkers Rat Bites.
White Hills, photo by Simona Dalla Valle
Who:Ufomammut w/White Hills and Tjutjuna When: Wednesday, 05.30, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Saying Ufomammut is a doom metal band from Italy is a bit like saying that Neurosis is a post-hardcore band from the Bay Area. Clearly Neurosis found some kinship with the trio from Tortona, Italy because Neurot Recordings issued the group’s most recent four records in the USA. Ufomammut’s music has elements of doom and sludge metal but its psychedelic drones and industrial sounds have more in common with the other bands on the bill than a straightforward doom band.
New York City’s White Hills has been exploring past settled territories of modern psychedelic rock since its 2003 inception. The duo of Dave W and Ego Sensation use drum machins and sampled rhythms to set a frame in which each can weave a mind-altering and hypnotic soundscape of vivid tones and dark atmospheres. The band’s storytelling and Dave’s vocals are reminiscent of what one might hear on a Legendary Pink Dots or Skinny Puppy album in which there’s no rockist self-aggrandizement or empty calories rhetoric. Dave has something to say, observations to make and narratives to give in his songs that are frankly worth listening to in themselves but couched in an immersive experience in the listening and especially so in the live setting. The group’s 2017 album Stop Mute Defeat, out on Thrill Jockey, is a major leap forward in terms of capturing the band’s masterful use of mood, texture and atmosphere to craft psychological experiences in the form of song.
Denver’s Tjutjuna rarely plays live shows these days, but the band and its talent for krautrock-inspired mind-expanding drones and percussion was always ahead of the curve of so-called “psychedelic rock” bands in the Mile High City. Like White Hills, Tjutjuna is no stranger to employing motorik beats except with a live drummer and the clear melding of the aesthetics of psych, noise and the avant-garde sets the group galaxies ahead of indie rockers who recently discovered how to maybe use reverb pedals with chorus. Quaint. Tjutjuna? Not so much.
October continues to be the busiest live music month for Denver but one with few if any festivals, thank goodness. As usual here are several offerings worthy of your attention.
Thursday: October 19, 2017
Who:Din Virulent & MGNLP w/Rasmussen and Juice Up When: Thursday, 10.19, 7 p.m. Where: 7th Circle Music Collective Why: This is basically a harsh noise show but one thing lost on people that either actively despise it or don’t get it at all is that most noise artists are completely unlike every other noise artist. Juice Up has some disorienting arrangements of samples and sounds that’s something like a completely unconventional rhythm but there is a humorous playfulness there. Rasmussen is John Rasmussen of Denver noise legends Page 27. Rasmussen’s solo output is so diverse in texture and tone that even his “harsh” noise sets tend to have a subtlety and nuance that suggests the serious composition and planning that undergirds sounds that aren’t trying to fit at all into a pop song format. Din Virulent sounds like what happens when you chain a few delay pedals together and have them feed back off each other while manipulating the signal for an effect like watching white noise on TV if that image was sound and occasionally felt like it was aggressively charging out at you.
Friday: October 20, 2017
Who:Tera Melos w/Speedy Ortiz, Holophrase and Meet Me In Montauk When: Friday, 10.20, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Tera Melos might be one of the more misunderstood bands of the last several years because it sounds like its member spent some time playing in one of Trey Spruance’s projects: lots of unusual rhythms and dynamics requiring a precise musicianship while not sounding too in the pocket; heavy guitars, disorienting tones and an alternating driving and and hanging melodies. Its 2017 album, Trash Generator, is like a math rock shoegaze album with a touch of brutal psychedelia. In that way Tera Melos could be said to be a bit of a musical cousin to noise rock phenoms Deerhoof. Speedy Ortiz sounds like it picked up where The Breeders and Throwing Muses left off in the mid-to-late 90s with captivating, fuzzy melodic songs that take a walk out of every day mundane life while commenting on that life with with and sensitivity. Holophrase is a Denver band that has come out of being a guitar-based indie rock band (albeit one that didn’t sound much like anything contemporary and only slightly like Magazine) into being a mostly electronics-based band with deep atmospheres and Malgorzata Stacha’s layered vocal melodies serving as an emotional and sonic locus for the group’s hypnotic, chilly soundscapes.
Who:Thurston Moore w/The Diary of Ic Explura When: Friday, 10.20, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: It is indeed Thurston Moore of influential No-Wave-and-punk-inflected rock band Sonic Youth. His new album, Rock and Roll Consciousness, showcases Moore’s gift for writing moody pop songs bolstered by dynamic and complex yet tasteful guitar work. It’s melancholy stuff but much of Moore’s best material is yet he also manages to lend his songwriting a thoughtfulness not mired by despair. He can create a gritty image and imbue it with some future hopefulness not yet obvious in the moment he documents in his words—being in the moment but knowing that you can never fully get stuck there unless you try really hard. The Diary of Ic Explura is Toni Oswald’s ambient, sound collage experiments that she sculpts into coherent songs by adding instrumentation to elements that aren’t necessarily inherently musical. Like musique concrète with a soundtrack. Which is nothing new in the world of avant-garde music but Oswald’s vibrant and transporting music demonstrates well how noise and composition can work together.
Who:The Juan MacLean When: Friday, 10.20, 8 p.m. Where: Bar Standard Why: Deep Club 3rd Fridays brings The Juan MacLean to a relatively small venue. John MacLean’s first chapter in influential music came with his tenure as a guitarist for Providence, Rhode Island-based, experimental post-hardcore band Six Finger Satellite. The band was an early practitioner of fusing electronic elements with the usual punk rock instrumentation and operating in the same musical realm as bands like Arab On Radar, Lightning Bolt and Mindflayer—though predating them all. When SFS split near the turn of the century, MacLean left music for a few years before Six Finger Satellite’s sound engineer, James Murphy (who some may know as starting DFA Records and as a member of LCD Soundsystem) helped convince him to make music again. But instead of doing the noisy punk stuff he’d been doing, MacLean focused instead on forward thinking electronic music and a mutant form of modern disco. And that’s what you can more or less expect at this event.
Who:Don Strasburg, Cuckoo, Ashley Koett When: Friday, 10.20, 8 p.m. Where: Denver Bicycle Cafe Why: Don Strasburg isn’t just a clever name for a band. The Boulder-based outfit doesn’t bother to trace any lines on the punk rock spectrum but fans of modern, mathy emo will find something to like but so will anyone that is into the most genre-bending, noisy post-hardcore. Cuckoo is lo-fi dream pop that would have fit in well on the Siltbreeze imprint or so it’s 2016 album Mermaid’s Don’t Exist would suggest. For fans of stuff like early Sebadoh, Eat Skull, Times New Viking, No Age and Microphones. — update, Don Strasburg no longer on the bill, now Terremoto.
Who:Allout Helter & Black Dots FEST sendoff w/faim, The Larimers, Andy Thomas’ Dust Heart When: Friday, 10.20, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Fest has been happening in Gainesville every year since 2002. It’s a mostly punk festival and this year’s festival includes the likes of Against Me!, Pegboy, Hot Water Music, Beach Slang, City of Caterpillar, Hum, Snapcase, Atom and His Package and Rainer Maria. But it will also feature Denver political punk thrashers Allout Helter and melodic hardcore band Black Dots. Sure, both bands play Denver regularly but here they are on one bill to send them on their way to one of punk’s most prestigious festivals.
Saturday: October 21, 2017
Who:Afghan Whigs w/Har Mar Superstar When: Saturday, 10.21, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Afghan Whigs both predated and embodied what was great about the alternative rock era. The group started as a kind of garage rock band but infusing that sound with soul and R&B, with lyrics revealing a keen insight into human psychology, yielded some of the best records of the 90s. 1993’s Gentlemen was the band’s major label debut, after an independently released 1988 debut and two fine records for Sub Pop, and the record that was a departure from the fuzzy psychedelia of its earlier efforts. As “alternative rock” was running out of steam by the middle of the decade, Afghan Whigs continued to write and record vital music for 1996’s Black Love and 1998’s 1965 before the band amicably split in 2001. Singer Greg Dulli kept on battling his personal demons in other projects throughout the 2000s but in 2011 Afghan Whigs announced it was reuniting. A lot of bands from the alternative rock world have reunited and most of them have had respectable tours and the Whigs were no different. Dulli was and is an electrifying frontman and the band’s performance startlingly powerful overall. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2017 release In Spades. Har Mar Superstar has stylistically been all over the map from silly hip-hop early in the life of the project (Sean Tillman is also in pop band Sean Na Na) to a more Motown-esque soul and R&B sound while often performing all but nude and making an oddly compelling spectacle of himself. But the music is legit and if it’s tongue in cheek it is in the way that only someone with a deep respect for the musical style could pull off.
Who:Sound of Ceres album release of The Twin, Plume Varia and The Milk Blossoms When: Saturday, 10.21, 9 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: When Ryan and Karen Hover started Sound of Ceres in 2015, setting aside their dreamy indie pop band Candy Claws for the time being, they seemed to be tapping into a daydream realm of freely associating ideas and sounds and something about the purity, honesty and transcendent beauty of the music translated well onto the recording of 2016’s Nostalgia for Infinity. On the 2017 follow-up, The Twin, the band is spending less time drifting through shimmering gossamer and luminous fog. The minimalist songwriting approach this time leaves enough space for greater clarity of tone and distinctness of sounds working in conjunction with each other. It is not a better record but it sounds very focused. Denver dream pop greats Plume Varia and The Milk Blossoms open the show potentially opening a vortex into some realm Lord Dunsany would have written about. At least emotionally speaking. Vampires and werewolves aren’t real either, kids.
Who:Torres w/The Dove & The Wolf When: Saturday, 10.21, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Torres is an artist like PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, EMA or John Vanderslice who are difficult to pigeonhole, whose high imaginative and powerful work cannot be reduced to a simple genre. Mackenzie Scott, the person behind Torres, doesn’t limit her songwriting to a single instrument so her sound has a layered cohesion even as it sounds like she’s going off the rails. There is an honesty, power and vulnerability to her music that comes across perhaps most vividly on her new record, Three Futures. Interestingly enough, Mackenzie got Rob Ellis, a longtime collaborator with PJ Harvey, as well as Portishead’s Adrian Utley.
Who:The Rotten Blue Menace reunion show w/Short Bus Rejects, The Beat Seekers, The Beeves and Sentry Dogs When: Saturday, 10.21, 7 p.m. Where: 7th Circle Music Collective Why: The Rotten Blue Menace spent a few years being one of the most entertaining and active ska bands in Denver so it’s only appropriate that it would have its reunion show sharing the stage with a band it likely influenced, Short Bus Rejects, who are playing their final show this night. It won’t all be ska or ska punk because street punkers Sentry Dogs and melodic grunge wonders The Beeves will fill out the bill.
Who:Kitty Crimes (DJ set), Snubluck, DJ Polyphoni and Just, Kevin When: Saturday, 10.21, 8 p.m. Where: Fort Greene Why: Kitty Crimes is normally a fast rapper with some explicit content in her lyrics and always pretty entertaining. For the DJ set who knows what might be in the mix because Maria Kohler, aka Kitty Crimes, has fairly diverse taste in music and the rest of the night will be some form of electronic dance music including experimental beatmaker and soundscaper, Snubluck.
Sunday: October 22, 2017
Who:Daikaiju w/TripLip, Kenaima and Chaff When: Sunday, 10.22, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: Since 1999, surf rock band Daikaiju from Huntsville, Alabama, has been performing shows that are the stuff of legend. Fire, acrobatics, the kind of exuberant energy that’s impossible to not be swept up in at the show. They play in costume so you might think of them being, overall, something like Peelander Z and Crash Worship, lucha libre and kabuki. People often use the word “chaotic” to describe the show and fair enough but more like an explosion of fun. Also playing the show is TripLip, which is comprised of people who used to live at the late, great Five Points Denver DIY venue Mouth House. TripLip is more psych and prog but very much in the same spirit as Daikaiju, a band that somehow hosted Daikaiju’s wild live show more than once in a residential neighborhood.
Who:A Giant Dog w/SPELLS and Class President When: Sunday, 10.22, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: It’s odd that Austin’s A Giant Dog hasn’t broken to a much larger audience. But for now count yourself lucky you’re getting to see the band in smaller venues in Denver for now. Its rowdy, tuneful mélange of early glam rock, punk and power pop is celebratory without coming off insincere. That’s probably because the songs are about things that anyone that isn’t living a glamorous or pampered life can relate to and delivered with an unlikely combination of vulnerability and conviction. In 2017, A Giant Dog released Toy, its most fully-realized album to date, through Merge Records. Denver’s SPELLS is cut from a similar cloth as a brash, minimalist punk band not short on melody in its own right.
Monday: October 23, 2017
Who:Daikaiju, TripLip and Today’s Paramount When: Monday, 10.23, 7 p.m. Where: 7th Circle Music Collective Why: For Daikaiju and TripLip see above. Today’s Paramount is sort of a psychedelic jazz rock band with touches of carnival music and ska. But it works and Today’s Paramount doesn’t sound much like anything else in Denver except for maybe a band where the chops, songwriting and humor are blended together well and developed to a high degree like The Inactivists.
Who:Shadows Tranquil, Voight, Equine When: Monday, 10.23, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Shadows Tranquil is a band including longtime music fan, often threatening to be musician, finally is, Doran Robischon, and this is the band’s EP release show. Knowing Robischon’s taste for noise, witchouse, dark atmospheric music and stuff on the moody spectrum of all of that, his band will probably be interesting. Voight is the post-punk band that has interwoven strong strains of noisy shoegaze and industrial. Equine is the solo project of Kevin Richards and it’s guitar soundscaping stuff that comes off like a sculpted version of ambient and musique concrète.
Who:Hissing w/SUTEKH HEXEN, Of Feather and Bone, Worm Ouroboros, Vermin Womb and Casket Huffer When: Monday, 10.23, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why:Hissing and Sutekh Hexen recently released a split record, fitting since both are more on the brooding end of death grind. Disorienting, hypnotic pummeling through sound and rhythm. Minimalistic yet loud and aggressive. Both are in good company with the rest of this bill. Of Feather and Bone is certainly the more in-your-face style of deathgrind that is thankfully too alienating for casual fans of metal. Vermin Womb is similarly-minded but has more hanging dynamics and sounds closer to the roiling chaos bordering on nasty atmospherics in some black metal. Cheyenne, Wyoming’s Casket Huffer has a flavor that still has some connection to thrash, at least in the guitar work. Oakland’s Worm Ouroboros, however, will be a bit of an anomaly with its beautifully expansive, minimalistic and melodic, ethereal metal rooted in themes of nature and humankind’s relationship with the environment. If you’re fans of SubRosa, Dreadnought and Wolvserpent you’ll probably find something to like about Worm Ouroboros. Update: Worm Ouroboros no longer on the bill, instead Un, the “Aetherical Doom” band from Seattle. Also, it appears Sutekh Hexen dropped out of the show too.
Tuesday: October 24, 2017
Who:Hans-Joachim Roedelius w/Xambuca and Dream Hike When: Tuesday, 10.24, 10 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Hans-Joachim Roedelius is one of the true pioneers of krautrock and synthesizer-based music generally. His diverse body of work influenced the development of the aforementioned as well as new age music, psychedelic rock, ambient and electronic music generally. He was one of the co-founders of Zodiak Free Arts Lab in West Berlin in 1968, one of the most important spots for experimental music and the avant-garde of its time. Along with Conrad Schnitzler and Dieter Moebius he formed Kluster (later Cluster after Schnitzler left the group), a band for which any idea seemed a go and its’ mixture of standard rock band instrumentation (albeit used toward unorthodox ends), cello, synths, feedback manipulation and unusual devices to use in music like car batteries and signal generators. Kluster didn’t exactly hit the charts but its legacy of experimentation and recontextualizing sounds continues to this day.
Roedelius has since then been a prolific artist whose projects (solo and otherwise) and collaborations have pushed the boundaries and horizons of experimental music and synthesizers. With Cluster and Harmonia, Roedelius took truly unusual and groundbreaking musical ideas and made them accessible. Cluster collaborated with Brian Eno on 1978’s ambient music classic After the Heat. In the next decade Roedelius’ work helped to refine and further define the aesthetic of techno. But, interestingly enough, Roedelius’ most prolific years came in his mid-sixties around the turn of the century. This is a rare opportunity to witness one of the founders of modern music and especially at a small and intimate venue like The Mercury Café.
Who:Ariel Pink w/Bite Marx When: Tuesday, 10.24, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ariel Pink as much as Animal Collective and Deerhunter can be said to have been responsible for inspiring a whole generation of musicians to use reverb on their vocals and guitars in an attempt to create a dreamlike soundscape that pre-dated the full-on psychedelic rock revival by half a decade. Except that those three acts did that and pushed the aesthetic further than most of the people they influenced. AC released a few of Ariel Pink’s earlier records before he was a touring act or one that played live much at all. To his credit, like Animal Collective and Deerhunter, every one of Ariel Pink’s albums pushes his own envelope and his new record, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, is a fitting homage to the late, great cult songwriter of transporting psych folk.
Who:Dinosaur Jr w/Easy Action When: Tuesday, 10.24, 7 p.m. Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Dinosaur Jr is the clear draw for this show and rightfully so. The band has inspired more great guitar music to have come along since the early 80s out of proportion to their level of fame than most other bands you could name. Certain an influence on shoegaze, noise rock, alternative rock in general and any kind of left field music that dares to use guitar sounds with a nod to classic rock virtuosity and punk rock’s willingness to repurpose and deconstruct rock tropes. But get there early and catch one of the greatest frontmen in the history of rock music in John Brannon of Easy Action. One, the band is like a psychedelic version of Black Flag with that kind of forcefulness and ability to write guitar riffs that also disorient the senses. Brannon first came to the attention of most people in the know with his hardcore band Negative Approach. But in the mid 80s, Brannon formed legendary noise rock band Laughing Hyenas with the late Larissa Stolarchuk, Jim Kimball and Kevin Munro. For a decade the band set a high bar for intense live performances and songs that really articulated the harrowing struggle between desperation, inspiration and dreams of a more meaninful existence. Easy Action formed near the turn of the century and alongside a re-formed version of Negative Approach it has been Brannon’s outlet for his unique vocal style that is as terrifying as it is riveting.
Who:Tei Shi w/Twelve’len When: Tuesday, 10.24, 7 p.m. Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Valerie Teicher was born in Buenos Aires and spent part of her childhood in Bogotá and Vancouver, BC. So maybe somewhere along the line her knack for gently but vibrantly soulful vocals started to develop. However it happened, her early singles as Tei Shi found an audience among fans in her then adopted home city of New York, where she moved after attending Berklee. After a string of acclaimed EPs, Teicher released her 2017 full-length Crawl Space. It is an expansive gem of a downtempo, R&B-inflected synth pop album named after a place Teicher used to go to confront her fears of darkness. An apt metaphor for the various situations (emotional, social, professional, personal and so forth) Teicher discusses with nuance and insight across the album’s fifteen tracks.
Who:Dayglo Abortions w/Serial Killer Sunday School, The New Narrative and Self Service When: Tuesday, 10.24, 9 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: With a name like Dayglo Abortions the Canadian punk band was never going to have to worry about being co-opted by mainstream music outlets. During its existence, Dayglo Abortions have been punk, hardcore and crossover but its messaging has been the same—a big middle finger of irreverence for mainstream normalcy. Read the track list to the 1986 classic Feed Us a Fetus and you might even wonder where this band is coming from except for a healthy and vitriolically humorous disdain for right wing politics and racism and other aspects of Western culture that make it a bummer for anyone trying to live an authentic life. This is also the band that named its 1991 album Two Dogs Fucking. That level of surrealistic humor and pointed political statements didn’t exactly end, thank goodness. Opening the show are Denver’s Serial Killer Sunday School, The New Narrative and Self Service, all great punk bands that aren’t just irreverently funny but who have some fairly pointed commentary on the ills of American society.
Who:My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult w/Ritual Aesthetic and DJ Ritual When: Tuesday, 10.24, 8:30 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult is celebrating its 30 year anniversary with this tour so they’ll be playing a whole lot of early albums Confessions of a Knife (1990) and I See Good Spirits And I See Bad Spirits (1988) so you’ll get to see some vintage material. The show is the best kind of spectacle and it perfectly blends B-movie horror kitsch, a carnival, trash culture and industrial dance music into an inspired whole. Chances are it will be one of the most fun shows you’ll see all year even if you’re not necessarily into industrial music. DJ Ritual will spin his relatively eclectic set at the show and between bands. Ritual Aesthetic is an industrial rock band from Denver in the vein of stuff like Electric Hellfire Club and Stabbing Westward when that band is more industrial than metal.
Wednesday: October 25, 2017
Who:Arcade Fire w/Bomba Estereo When: Wednesday, 10.25, 6:30 p.m. Where: Fillmore Auditorium Why: Arcade Fire quickly became one of the most popular of early 2000s indie rock bands following the release of its 2004 debut album Funeral. On that tour the band played in Denver at Hi-Dive and Larimer Lounge. By the time Neon Bible came out in 2007, Arcade Fire had become too commercially successful to play small clubs. And that’s where it cold have ended with all the pressures of the music industry guiding the band into tried and true territory. But Arcade Fire actually risked alienating fans with 2013’s Reflektor and its emphasis on the electronic side of the band’s soundscapes. For 2017’s Everything Now, the band recruited Pulp’s Steve Mackey, Thomas Bangalter of Daft Punk and Geoff Barrow of Portishead to come in and do production work and the resulting set of songs is lush and has a warm, sweeping quality that one might expect out of a 70s glam rock record. As such the live show is sure to not skimp on a visual component to aid in the elevated tone of the songwriting. It’s kind of a past time of music critics and older fans to trash Arcade Fire today but it’s arguable the band is writing the most interesting music of its career by being willing to push forward instead of sticking to what some people think is what they do best. Bomba Estéreo is an alternative Cumbia band from Colombia.
Who:KMFDM w/OhGr and DJ Ritual at Summit Music Hall When: Wednesday, 10.25, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Kein Merheit Für Die Mitleid does not in fact mean “Kill Mother Fucking Depeche Mode,” per the long-running joke. The industrial band was founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1984 and has undergone numerous incarnations and stylistic shifts from its early performance art-oriented shows to its full embrace of bombastic kitsch, sardonic humor and thoughtful social critique. You can probably start anywhere to get an idea of what the band’s music is about but for beginners give 1997’s Symbols a listen. Which is appropriate enough because Ogre from Skinny Puppy will perform his solo material as OhGr as a kind of co-headliner for this show. His set lists have included a good deal of material from Welt and SunnyPsyOp. And it’s Ogre so his set will have plenty of the inspired weirdness that has made him one of industrial music’s most interesting performers and artists. And who knows, maybe he’ll join KMFDM on stage for “Torture” as he did during KMFDM’s tour for that album in the 90s.
Who:Guided by Voices When: Wednesday, 10.25, 8 p.m. Where: Fillmore Auditorium Why: Robert Pollard is by now both a godfather of modern lo-fi rock and one of its most accomplished and prolific artists. Had he ended Guided By Voices after 1994’s epochal Bee Thousand he would still be a legend. But 18 albums later, Pollard is still going strong with two 2017 albums: August By Cake (Pollard’s 100th recorded album) and How Do You Spell Heaven. Not every song is a winner but even Bob’s “lesser” material is worth a spin. The live show is an unabashed flood of splintery rock and roll in an era when there’s too much emphasis on being smooth and polished or faking grit. There’s no fake grit with Guided by Voices except maybe as an inside joke with fans and the audience.
Who: Bell Witch w/Primitive Man, Urn and Oryx When: Wednesday, 10.25, 8:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Seattle-based doom band Bell Witch released one of the genre’s most haunting and crushing albums of 2017 with Mirror Reaper. The duo manage to conjure spectral horror and primal energies crying out in drawn out triumph with processed bass, drums and vocals. A perfect pairing with tourmates Primitive Man from Denver whose own 2017 album Caustic not only beyond lives up to and embodies the album title, it is an evocation of sustained despair, desperation and frustrated rage transmogrified into colossal and punishing songs that somehow also serve as a catharsis and a channel into an inner peace that are the opposite of the songs themselves. Opener Oryx is a sort of doom grind duo and the other opening act, Urn, injects some psychedelic elements into its own brand of doom. Probably the loudest show of the week outside of that Dinosaur Jr and Easy Action show on October 24 but also easily one of the best lineups of heavy music all month.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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