Due to the Coronavirus-related cancellations we will include the shows we already had planned for coverage but indicate that they are cancelled as appropriate and as that information is available.
Thursday | March 12
Thundercat circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Thundercat w/Guapdad 4000 When: Thursday, 3.12, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Stephen Lee Bruner, aka Thundercat, has been the go-to bass playing genius in the hip-hop world and beyond for over a decade including performing on albums by Kendrick Lamar, Erykah Badu, Kamasi Washington and Flying Lotus. His own music is equally distinguished for its surreal creativity.
What:Harry Tuft and Brad Corrigan (of Dispatch) When: Thursday, 3.12, 6:30 p.m. Where: Swallow Hill Quinlan Cafe Why: Harry Tuft was instrumental in cultivating and fostering the folk music scene in Denver through first the Denver Folklore Center and then through Swallow Hill. He is also one of the great interpreters of that music and a talented artist in his own right and this intimate show will be a good setting to catch him in action.
What: CancelledThe Decibel Magazine Tour: Mayhem and Abbath w/Gatecreeper and Idle Hands When: Friday, 3.13, 6 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Mayhem is the legendary/notorious black metal band from Norway whose early history was the subject of the 2019 biopic Lords of Chaos. But the current band is equal parts occult rock theater and crushing black metal of devastating power.
What:Robyn Hitchcock When: Friday, 3.13, 7 p.m. Where: Daniels Hall at Swallow Hill Why: Robyn Hitchcock first came to public attention as a member of post-punk band Soft Boys in the early 80s but later in the decade through to today he has established himself as one of the most consistently creative, thoughtful and wryly humorous songwriters of the modern era. With an eclectic songwriting style that weaves in elements of jangle rock (which he helped to pioneer) and psychedelia, Hitchcock’s observational story songs articulate vividly snapshots of the core human zeitgeist of the moment through his lens of an Englishman who has remained open to the world.
Why:Concert for Indigent Defense/Death Penalty Repeal Party: Tokyo Rodeo, Cyclo Sonic and The Slacks When: Friday, 3.13, 9 p.m. Where: Skylark Lounge Why: Tokyo Rodeo is a rock band that by not tying its songwriting to a trendy aesthetic or some classic style has been able to cultivate its own voice in writing songs that delve into the personally meaningful in the musical language of a rock and roll universality. Cyclo-Sonic is a Denver punk super group with former members of Rok Tots, The Fluid, Frantix and The Choosey Mothers. But pedigree is not enough. Fortunately Cyclo-Sonic’s unvarnished rock theater and strong songwriting recommends itself.
What:Snakes w/Colfax Speed Queen and No Gossip in Braille When: Friday, 3.13, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Snakes is a band that includes George Cessna as well as Brian Buck of High Plains Honky and Kim Baxter of several bands including Gun Street Ghost. Sharing the stage for this inaugural show is psychedelic garage rock powerhouse Colfax Speed Queen and the radically vulnerable post-punk stylings of No Gossip in Braille.
Saturday | March 14
Ned Garthe Explosion circa 2014, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Ladies Night, Ned Garthe Explosion, Slugger, Despair Jordan When: Saturday, 3.14, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ned Garthe Explosion could have a career as a comedy band but its songwriting is too strong and clever for being a mere novelty act. Its nearly unhinged psychedelic rock is always surprisingly compelling. Slugger somehow managed to emerge over the last few years influenced by 70s rock and psychedelic garage rock without sounding like a rehash of a rehash, instead, vital and visceral.
Sunday | March 15
Ásgeir, photo by Anna Maggý
What:Bolonium, Damn Selene and Gort Vs. Goom When: Sunday, 3.15, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bolonium is part weirdo pop band and game show including a section involving audience participation. Damn Selene’s mixes underground hip-hop, darkwave, noise and industrial music. Gort Vs. Goom is like if the Minutemen fully embraced prog rock and Blue Oyster Cult.
What: POSTPONEDÁsgeir When: Sunday, 3.15, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Ásgeir is an Icelandic songwriter whose blend of folk with electronic production has garnered him a bit of an audience in his home country and abroad. His falsetto combines a sense of intimacy and transcendence couched in transporting tones and grounding musical textures. Currently the artist is touring in support of his latest album Bury the Moon.
Monday | March 16
Wax Lead, photo by Kristi Fox Fräzier
What:Cancelled Wax Lead, Vio\ator, Voices Under the Mirror and Voight When: Monday, 3.16, 7:30 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Minneapolis-based post-punk band Wax Lead brews its catharsis from lushly brooding female vocals and bass-driven minimalism and a willingness to pointedly tackle social and political issues. Also on the bill is the great, Denver-based industrial post-punk band Voight and one of the few good local EBM acts Voices Under the Mirror and its emotionally rich vocals and songwriting.
What: CANCELLED or POSTPONEDKronos Quartet When: Tuesday, 3.17, 7:30 p.m. Where: Newman Center Why: Kronos Quartet has helped to make classical music cool and relevant since its founding in Seattle in 1973 through creative interpretation of foundational works and the contemporary avant-garde. The Quartet has also been known to indulge in fascinating covers of music in genres beyond its presumed wheelhouse as well as working with noted artists like Laurie Anderson and Pat Metheny.
What: CANCELLEDJonathan Wilson w/Other Worlds When: Wednesday, 3.18, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jonathan Wilson (Erykah Badu, Father John Misty, Laura Marling etc.) brings a lot of skill, experience and talent to bear on his new album Dixie Blur which he didn’t record at his studio in Los Angeles, where he has produced plenty of high quality material, but in Nashville to be closer to his Southern roots as a musician who grew up in North Carolina. Whether setting matters much in an ultimate sense, the record and lead single “Oh Girl” is informed by a warmth and sensitivity that elevates songs that are already noteworthy for their diverse dynamics and broad palette of emotional coloring.
Demoncassettecult (Junior Deer on left), photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Speakeasy Series opener: Demoncassettecult When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Glasss Records is kicking off the 2019 edition of its experimental music showcase the Speakeasy Series at Hooked on Colfax tonight. The artist ringing in the season is Demoncassettecult, Glasss’ Vahco Before Horses solo loops, noise, sample and and synth based soul project.
Who:A Light Among Many w/Ghostsong Elegy and Endless, Nameless, Causer When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Abstract doom juggernauts A Light Among Many returns from its latest tour with this show with experimental guitar/prog band Endless, Nameless, South Dakota post-rock band Ghostsong Elegy and the debut of Causer.
Who:Kyle Emerson w/Anthony Ruptak and Modern Leisure When: Friday, 04.05 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Three of Denver’s great songwriters on one bill. Kyle Emerson’s pastoral psychedelia has enough interesting musical flourishes in each song to elevate his work beyond most of his peers. Anthony Ruptak’s conceptual songwriting steeped in his sensitivity to the world around him and deeply informed by his compassion for his follow living creatures, human beings most certainly not excluded, gives his compositions a warmth and richness of emotional expression. Casey Banker of Modern Leisure has been writing insightful and well-crafted pop songs with an undercurrent of intensity and self-awareness that has made his songs going back to his time in The Don’ts and Be Carefuls incredibly compelling.
Saturday | April 6
Doo Crowder circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Doo Crowder w/Rachael Pollard When: Saturday, 04.06, 9:30 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Doo Crowder, former member of indie pop orchestra Pee Pee and indie rock/punk band The Dinnermints, is finally releasing his album One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims). His earlier releases have all been insightful explorations of the human experience in its myriad manifestations. The new album sounds like he took the Harry Nilsson route and added great production flourishes and imaginative treatments to solid yet minimal foundations of song. He does not spare himself self criticism (listen to “Doo Crowder Song”) but as with every Crowder record there’s much more than meets the eye while not hiding the essential meaning. It’s made to be able to be taken on and comprehended at one’s leisure and in the ways that suit you. The first truly great indie pop record of 2019 and one of the best of the past decade by virtue of sounding effortless while clearly being the product of much work, much soul-searching, much refinement and in the end something that feels like it manifested like a perfect backed good that is delicious and nutritious and makes the labor that went into it part of one’s appreciation of it.
Who:FAVX w/Ned Garthe Explosion and Total Trash (tape release) When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: FAVX from Madrid aren’t easily musically defined outside of rock. But it’s sometimes noisy, sometimes driving, sometimes poppy, sometimes heavy, sometimes whimsical but always emotionally nuanced music is performed with great enthusiasm. Good thing because Ned Garthe Explosion, for a bunch of guys who have been playing for “10 trillion years,” you know, since the Big Bang or whatever has happened several times, they’re able to muster some verve in humorously delivering their surreal punker than punk and psycher than psych songs. They’ve been road dawgz since before there were roads and after people didn’t need roads where they were going and back to no roads and then roads again. The never ending cycle. Seems legit. Total Trash is comprised of current and former members of Lil’ Slugger, Eye Beams, Fissure Mystic, Fingers of the Sun and Quantum Creep. Which means nothing if you’ve not been steeped in Denver underground music for the past decade and a half but it does mean that the band’s music and songwriting has the level of sophistication and sonic inventiveness that is immediately striking and, well, it doesn’t sound much like any of the aforementioned. It is more melancholy but the sonic details and evolving dynamics across each song of its debut album Field Guide (released this night) give the music a sonic depth, diversity and emotional complexity that seems rarer than it should be these days.
Who:Dirty Few “Losing Our Minds Farewell Show” w/Gymshorts, Bud Bronson & The Good Timers, Lloyd and Saviour When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m. Where: Marquis Theater Why: Sure, sure, “party rock” and the Stone twins raise hell, cans of beer tossed on stage and off, rowdy, nearly unhinged performances, some of them sloppy and chaotic. But always performed with heart with songs that are fun, surprisingly well-written and which encapsulate an era of Denver music that all but began and ended with Dirty Few. So the group will probably pull out the stops for this final rager with some of its friends and peers including the great power pop band Bud Bronson & The Good Timers from Denver and Lloyd and Saviour from Boise.
Kero Kero Bonito, photo by Tracey Ng
Who:Kero Kero Bonito w/Jaakko Eino Kalevi When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Kero Kero Bonito sounds like its music is made in the early morning as the sun is rising and also as the sun is setting. That sometimes hazy quality of light that can blur the landscape some as the sun comes to dominate the sky or retire for the night over the horizon, burning away fog and casting colorfully through the dusk pollution. Even from its earlier more straightforward electropop phase its lush production and fluid dynamics has given the band’s songs an air of self-awareness that feels futuristic while tapping into the cooler end of classic commercial pop sensibilities. The band’s producers, Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled, were influenced by Japanese hip-hop and pop and found Sarah Bonito, herself half-Japanese, who could give voice to a synthesis of cultures particularly since Bonito sings and raps in both English and Japanese. The group’s 2018 releases, the TOTEP EP and the album Time n’ Place, displayed the influence of rock bands, at least according to interviews with Fader and i-D, like Mount Eerie and My Bloody Valentine who are no strangers to creating and sculpting atmosphere in ways that feel entirely organic. Formerly pretty much all electronic instrumentation and vocals, for its current tour Kero Kero Bonito is bringing on board a guitarist and a drummer. Difficult to pigeonhole, one might even clumsily call it indie dream jazz, Kero Kero Bonito’s international flavor of the amalgam of hip-hop, dance music, J-pop, downtempo lounge and melancholic guitar rock is undeniably interesting.
Opening the show is Finnish multi-instrumentalist and producer Jaakko Eino Kalevi whose 2018 album Out of Touch could be a cousin to the aforementioned Kero Kero Bonito’s album Time ‘n Place. Its tone has a liminal quality that allows for the melodies to operate at an almost subconscious level, dream-like. A decade ago maybe someone would have called it “chillwave” and it resonates with the better end of what made 80s synth pop bands and their own production methods so compelling and ultimately influential.
Who:Bad Sounds and Broods When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Bad Sounds are opening for the great electro pop band Broods. But its blend of R&B and hip-hop beats, like a modern take on the rich musical hybrids that were part of the 70s Stax roster, will probably win over more than a few fans. The duo’s 2018 album Get Better goes beyond mere throwback imitation and with expert production and attention to sonic detail it attains the soulfulness of some of its influences.
Who:An Evening With Spiritualized When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Even at his most soul-and-R&B-inspired moments, and there are many on Spiritualized’s 2018 album And Nothing Hurt, J. Spaceman brings to bear a broad range of subtle emotional expression and its counterpart as a controlled tidal wave of feeling. The shows also tend toward a well-selected set list that gives the performance a dynamic quality that somehow feels just right. Folk, soul, R&B, ambient space rock from across Spaceman’s career in Spiritualized. Maybe you’ll even get to see the band cover Laurie Anderson’s “Born Never Asked” as its been known to do well beyond the 1995 touring cycle for Pure Phase.
Sunday | April 7
SUSTO, photo courtesy the artist
Who:SUSTO w/Whitacre and Frances Cone When: Sunday, 04.07, 8 p.m. Where: Fox Theatre Why: SUSTO’s new album Ever Since I Lost My Mind has all the sophistication and beautiful subtlety of instrumentation of its previous records. But this time it sounds like the band has added a layer of atmosphere that gives the typically affecting and introspective lyrics a more focused immediacy that can be a bit slow slipping into your mind but when it hits it strikes deep. SUSTO excels at giving the songs room to breathe and manifest and bringing listeners in with a warmth of tone and a sense of understanding.
Monday | April 8
Mdou Moctar, photo by Nikkl Cells
Who:Acid Mothers Temple w/Yamantaka//Sonic Titan When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple may “only” have been around for nearly a quarter a century but its rotating and core membership, including band leader guitarist Makoto Kawabata, has roots going back to Japanese folk, psychedelic, noise, punk and prog bands of the 70s and 80s. With AMT the musicians create a mind-bending sonic experience that blurs the lines between the aforementioned genres of music to make the kind of space rock that should inspire a generation of manga artists writing stories in a future where interdimensional and intergalactic communities are interacting, thriving and exploring worlds and cultures as yet unimagined by our current creative collective unconscious.
Who:Mdou Moctar w/Galleries and Kwantsu Dudes When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: It’s incredibly rare to get to see a musician from Africa in Denver much less a Tuareg phenom from Agadez, Niger like Mdou Moctar. The guitarist is an early adaptor of traditional Tuareg guitar pop into the electric context. As with the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Baaba Maal and, of course, Fela Kuti before him, Moctar’s lively and fine crafted songs (steeped in folk music of Africa and the Islamic world) garnered fans outside of Africa. Because of that touring has been a viable prospect including his current run through the USA. His latest album is 2019’s Ilana.
Tuesday | April 9
Claudzilla, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:WaZeil & UaZit w/Claudzilla, f-ether and Kandin When: Tuesday, 04.09, 9 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: UaZit’s music is like if alternative hip-hop got even weirder and more experimental. Working with WaZeil the production and sound design is even more unusual like what Harmony Korine might make if he went into creating music after Mister Lonely. F-ether isn’t quite as much of a weirdo but his original and playful take on electronic music craft is decidedly outside the conventions of that broad genre. Claudzilla, though, full-on weirdo since its “keytar rock” with surreal lyrics and let’s just call it eccentric picks of covers but surprisingly solid renditions of the originals through her peculiar lens of interpretation.
Who:Erik B & Rakim w/Stay Tuned When: Tuesday, 04.09, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Erik B & Rakim are clearly one of the most influential duos in hip-hop. Rakim’s rhyming had great versatility and range because he broke with the simple rhyme schemes of early hip-hop and had more in common with free jazz and free verse poetry. So while not sounding too avant-garde the duo’s music could be as out and fluid in its rhythms as its presumed jazz influences. Eric B’s heavy use of sampling and creatively crafting and sculpting the sounds could also be heard echoed in most hip-hop since the 1987 release of the Eric B & Rakim album Paid in Full. Splitting in 1993, Eric B & Rakim reunited in 2016 to perform live in 2017. Will there be a new record? We can only hope but for now catch one of the legends of hip-hop on this tour.
Wednesday | April 10
Morlox, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:HXXS w/Church Fire, Morlox and Feigning When: Wednesday, 04.10, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: HXXS from Portland, Oregon make a kind of dance-dub darkwave with glitchy edges. When minimal synth was all the rage in various corners of the American underground, HXXS seems to have taken that foundation and the sort of 8-bit crushed beat-making to make a surprisingly playful, surreal form of synth pop. Good match with Denver’s Church Fire whose tribal industrial dance music came out of similar impulses toward melding hip-hop beat production with dark, noisy pop informed by insightful, sociopolitical commentary. That the group worked with gifted producer Morlox whose career has been steeped in the noise, glitchcore and underground hip-hop scene in Denver and beyond makes this booking perfect. Haunted, dark drone project Feigning is just a bonus.
Who:DeVotchKa When: Wednesday, 04.10, 6 p.m. Where: Twist & Shout Why: It would help if you bought a copy of the 2018 DeVotchKa album This Night Falls Forever in order to get first entry into this intimate show at Twist & Shout. Otherwise, the Denver-based gypsy-punk chamber pop group usually doesn’t play places smaller than The Gothic. The following night the band will perform at e-Town in Boulder.
Who:Boy Harsher w/Special Interest and Poptones DJs When: Wednesday, 04.10, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: The Boy Harsher show is sold out but if you can get in you can see the fog-shrouded, enigmatic, New-Order-gone-full-dub-minimal-synth duo Boy Harsher at a small club before its crowd expands to larger venues.
Who:RUMTUM mural unveiling w/Nasty Nachos and DJ YOLOLO When: Thursday, 03.07, 6:30 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: John Hastings who performs ambient/IDM/instrumental pop music as RUMTUM recently received a commission from Meow Wolf to do a mural at The Oriental Theater. Tonight is the unveiling and the evening will incorporate interactive visual installations by WMD and FOREST and performances/DJ sets from Nasty Nachos and DJ YOLOLO.
Who:Rhadoo w/Peter Blick (Below Radar) and Liminal When: Thursday, 03.07, 9 p.m. Where: The Black Box Why: Rhadoo is known to connoisseurs of electronic music internationally but in his home country of Romania, he’s a star, a legend of his scene, who is all but mainstream. He brings his chill and hypnotic mixture of house and techno to Black Box for a night of music including a set from Peter Blick of Below Radar (a Denver and San Francisco curator of choice underground electronic music events) and the Liminal collective.
Who:Satin Spar, Ruehlen/Seward and TARP When: Thursday, 03.07, 7 p.m. Where: Madelife Why: Experimental music label Shadowtrash Tape Group and the Madelife gallery present this evening of synth and percussion duos.
Friday | May 8
And the Kids, photo by Guzman
Who:Low w/Rivulets When: Friday, 03.08, 8:30 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: For going on three decades Low has written some of the most affecting, emotionally raw, tender and thoughtful music in America. Its influential early albums are classics of slowcore which is to say it was music in direct contrast to the louder and more bombastic trend of popular music of the day. It required and deserved your attention and reflection on the songs. Toward the turn of the century the band’s palette of sounds expanded and it embraced dynamics of volume and its ability to make the ambiance and the mood of a song more nuanced yet immediate. For 2018’s Double Negative, the trio basically reinvented its use of sound. Rather than the pastoral grandeur of years past and the emotionally rich and vibrant offerings of its more rock period, Low seems to have inverted those elements to make something that would be more expected in the realm of abstract industrial music, textured ambient and the avant-garde generally. Except all the songs have a pop quality. Maybe it’s the structures, or the way the band is able to make the dark, fractured music accessible. It is arguably the band’s most interesting album in years from a career that isn’t short on arresting and noteworthy material. What might be even more interesting is how this band will pull off such unusual and challenging material live.
Who:The Playground Ensemble perform 8 Songs For a Mad King When: Friday, 03.08, 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. Where: The Mercury Café Why: Denver’s Playground Ensemble will put on a production of Peter Maxwell Davies’ ambitious, 1969 masterpiece Eight Songs for a Mad King. The work includes unusual vocals, shifting musical styles, pointed depictions of Mad King George III and a theatrical presentation with elaborate stage props. There will be two performances on this night, as indicated above, and it’s guaranteed there won’t be much like this in Denver in 2019.
Who:Judah Friedlander When: Friday, 03.08, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Judah Friedlander is most known for his unusual and brilliant stand-up comedy and for appearing in and writing for some of the most interesting television series of the last twenty years including Wonder Showzen, Spin City, Flight of the Conchords and LateLine. But he is also one of the country’s most sharp and insightful cultural critics and commentators. For this performance there will be plenty of both. Few comedians worth their salt are essentially content free and Friedlander most certainly is not.
Who:Heathen Burial, Masons and Clutch Plague When: Friday, 03.08, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Form Why: A show that bridges the gap between abstract metal and noise.
Who:And The Kids w/Toth and Corsicana When: Friday, 03.08, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: And The Kids’ When This Life is Over has one of the most fetching album covers of 2019. Fortunately it represents well the reticence and exuberance and sensitivity informing the music within. Musically it’s fuzzy, upbeat rock in the modern indie vein but And The Kids are willing to veer off the mid-tempo, safe path and indulge passages that sound like they could go off the song’s rails. Also, in “Champagne Ladies” we get lyrics like “Life is a bastard, life wants to kill you/Don’t get old/Life is a bastard, it wants to kill you/Don’t let go.” Which about sums up too much of life for people grinding away and struggling to not just survive but create for oneself a life worth living even with seemingly insurmountable challenges in place. Also on the bill is Toth, the side project of Rubblebucket’s Alex Toth whose eclectic instrumentation and gift for utilizing space in his songwriting shines with this project as well. The deeply imaginative and soothing debut full-length from Toth, Practice Magic and Seek Professional Help When Necessary comes out on May 10.
Saturday | March 9
Cloud Catcher circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Chimney Choir w/Ramakhandra When: Saturday, 03.09, 8 p.m. Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: Superficially one might describe Chimney Choir as an experimental folk band. But the thought and creativity that goes into the songwriting and especially the always captivating live shows, most of them interactive and often involving elaborate sets and costumes, sets the band apart from most its peers but not competitively, not by setting the bar higher for others to reach but as an example of what’s possible if you’re willing to challenge yourself and put in the time as a creative person to achieve something for yourself that hopefully resonates with others.
Who:Cloud Catcher EP release w/Bleakheart, Cadaver Dog When: Saturday, 03.09, 9 p.m. Where: Tooey’s Off Colfax Why: Cloud Catcher is supposedly breaking up later this year so this is one of your last chances to catch the great Denver sludge metal act with bands that may not be in its usual wheelhouse like the hardcore outfit Cadaver Dog. Cloud Catcher is also gifting us with one final EP available at the show. Perhaps we’ll also hear what Rory Rummings and company are up to next soon.
Who:Graves w/Hex Cougar and Gangus When: Saturday, 03.09, 8:30 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Not the post-Misfits band, Graves is DJ and producer Christian Mochizuki, He did production work with Kanye West, Kid Cudi and Big Sean, for example, and his hybrid hip-hop and progressive trance style of bass music has earned him an audience of his own. He’ll probably be doing sets at bigger venues before too long so if this is your thing, catch it at a small club like Larimer Lounge.
Who:Ned Garthe Explosion, The Savage Blush and Palo Santo When: Saturday, 03.09, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: After many of the lesser psychedelic garage rock bands have passed into irrelevance, three of the standouts from Denver are playing on a bill together tonight. Ned Garthe Explosion is clearly the craziest, weirdest and funniest of the bunch. But The Savage Blush makes the most of its minimalist instrumentation and Palo Santo always sounds like it’s from a few decades ago but yet not a throwback.
Sunday | March 10
Tuck Knee, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Tuck Knee w/No Sign of Remorse, Secticide and didaktikos When: Sunday, 03.10, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: Tuck Knee is releasing its debut album. Fans of Minor Threat may cry foul at the comparison but Tuck Knee has that kind of energy and conviction and instincts for fairly non-doctrinaire hardcore songwriting. Didaktikos? No slouches in that vein either.
Who:The Sound of Animals Fighting w/Planes Mistaken for Stars and Lorelei K When: Sunday, 03.10, 7 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: The Sound of Animals Fighting was a brilliant amalgamation of math-y post-hardcore and ambient. Comprised of prominent musicians in the post-hardcore world and lead by Rich Balling of Rx Bandits, the group operated between 2004 and 2009. Also on this tour is one of post-hardcore greatest bands, Planes Mistaken for Stars from Denver. That band’s emotionally searing songs were anthems for the pulsing and tortured collective heart of underground punk in the 2000s.
Monday | March 11
Animal / object circa December 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Freq Boutique 024 When: Monday, 03.11, 8 p.m. Where: Fort Greene Why: This is the twenty-fourth edition of Freq Boutique, the WMD-sponsored showcase of synthesizer tech and gear as well as a sort of open mic for which one can sign up on the event page.
What:Solos/Duos – Denver Avant-Garde Music Society featuring Animal / object When: Monday, 03.11, 7 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: This is the monthly avant-garde open mic curated by Denver Avant-Garde Music Society. The evening opens with a performance from Animal / object, the spontaneous composition group whose evolving membership includes long-time Denver avant-garde musician Kurt Bauer at the core often with contributions from Paul Mimlitsch, Arnie Swenson, Reed Weimer and Gordon Gano.
Tuesday | March 12
Carlos Medina, photo courtesy Meow Wolf
Who:Carlos Medina w/Pink Hawks and The Savage Blush When: Tuesday, 03.12, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Carlos Medina, the “psychedelic Mariachi” has already built a sizeable underground following for his unique brand of music that is rooted in Mariachi but with pop flourishes and a fascinating takes on rhythm and use of tone to set the music outside the realm of pure tradition. His touring circuit has taken him to a wide variety of venues treating audiences (knowing or otherwise) to his corridos psicodélicos. As an artist-in-residence at George RR Martin’s Jean Cocteau Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Medina had a direct connection to the Meow Wolf collective who produced and released his debut full-length El Cantador. Perhaps his exquisitely crafted songs don’t scream out “psychedelic” to those that don’t speak Spanish. But check out the darkly beautiful video for “No Le Digan” and you get a taste of the creative context of the music and Medina’s rich vision that sees the imaginative possibilities inherent in his cultural background and his place as an artist within it. Medina gets compared to Tom Waits but probably because he too is an interpreter and re-interpreter of culture par excellence.
Who:A Night to Survive: Right to Survive Campaign Kickoff Concert When: Tuesday, 03.12, 6:30 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: This is a “Yes on 300” fundraiser/kickoff featuring musical performances from some of Denver’s finest: Esmé Patterson, Laura Goldhamer, Wheelchair Sports Camp.
Wednesday | March 13
Who:Sandy Ewen (NYC) + Ryan Seward, Cash/Westerman, Channel Worker When:Wednesday, 03.13, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Why: Sandy Ewen is, according to the bio on her website, a “sound artist, visual artist and architect who moved to New York City from Houston in 2018. Her sound art incorporates the use of prepared guitar, the use of textures and objects not conventionally associated with music (like railroad spikes, steel wool, bolts and so on) as well as an array of offbeat instruments used as vessels or raw sound to create an environment and experience. If you’re looking for conventional music, this show won’t be that. Rather, how sound can be an artform that doesn’t fit within the confines of song structure in any tradition.
Who:The Damned w/Radkey and The Darts When: Thursday, 10.25, 7 p.m. Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: The Damned famously released the first UK punk single “New Rose” on October 22, 1976 through Stiff Records. While the group didn’t cause as much of a stir as the Sex Pistols or garner as much fame as The Clash, it has, long term has arguably been as influential as both on not just punk generally but also post-punk and Goth with its aesthetic, musically and in terms of visual style. After several lineup changes, including founding member Captain Sensible coming and out of the band, The Damned have persisted as a vital live act. In 2018 the group released its first album in a decade: Evil Spirits. Easily the band’s best, most satisfying record since the late 70s, Evil Spirits doesn’t break new ground, it just reaffirms the fact that The Damned may have been punk but it’s also one not short on strong songwriting. Sounding somewhere between a more raw 70s glam band and thoughtful 80s post-punk, the new set of songs from The Damned are a somewhat melancholic take on the state of the world but inside that tonality is a spirit of defiance through creativity. Also on this tour is Radkey, a trio comprised of the Radke brothers whose style of garage punk is more in the vein of early pioneers like Death and, well, The Damned.
Who:Demeoncassettecult, bios+a+ic + Equine, Pearils & Perils, Juniordeer, Sobremarcha and SADnois When: Thursday, 10.25, 7 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Why: Demoncassettecult will perform material from his time in industrial noise duo Dr. Montgomery Maxwell at this show. Biostatic will team up for a unique set with guitar drone artist Equine. Pearils & Perils will bring some dusky atmospheric, downtempo R&B..
Who:Fathers and Muscle Beach Tour Kickoff w/Nightwraith and Limbwrecker When: Thursday, 10.25, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Two of Denver’s metallic, post-hardcore bands are going on tour and celebrating the occasion with this kickoff tour. Fathers includes now former members of Lords of Fuzz, Black Acid Devil, Cult of the Lost Cause and Native Daughters so its heavy music pedigree is respectable enough. But it’s debut, self-titled record, out in Fall 2017 forged a bit of a different musical identity for its members with music akin to the aggressive and thorny drive and dynamism of bands like Converge and Coalesce. Muscle Beach, especially its newer material, compresses a great amount of energy and movement into a small span of time and cuts out the inessential. In doing so, the trio’s songs defy easy genre designation and despite its relentless energy there is a grace and fluidity to music not really designed to possess either quality.
Friday | October 26, 2018
Kamasi Washington, photo courtesy the artist
Who:Kamasi Washington w/Victory When: Friday, 10.26, 7 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Kamasi Washington is reaping the benefits of a lifetime of learning and honing his craft and bringing to the playing of saxophone and composing music a creativity that has some critics and fans placing him among the jazz legends of yesteryear. History will decide if Washington is worthy of such accolades but his body of work and his various collaborations in the worlds of jazz and hip-hop speaks for itself. He is among one of the true talents bridging various realms of music with equal aplomb. In that way he and bassist Thundercat have much in common as both have contributed to albums by the likes of Pulitzer Prize-winning hip-hop producer and rapper Kendrick Lamar as well as releasing acclaimed and innovative albums in their own rights. In 2018, released both a full-length with Heaven and Earth and a companion EP The Choice. Difficult to assess Washington’s legacy at this point but this is a chance to witness his music live at a medium-sized venue either at The Ogden Theatre or tomorrow night in Boulder at The Boulder Theater.
Sharone & The Wind, photo by KMiller Photography
Who:Sharone & The Wind’s Night of Terror 2 w/Shattered Halo, Married a Dead Man, Dead But Fancy, Rotten Reputation When: Friday, 10.26, 8 p.m. Where: Moe’s Original BBQ, Englewood Why: As Sharone & The Wind have developed over the past two years as a band, it has also established itself as a theatrical live act. No holiday is more suited to the group’s dark, emotionally-charged, art metal than Halloween. For the second year running, the band has assembled friends and peers to share a set at Moe’s Original BBQ to ring in the holiday with what will surely be a set that will include props and go beyond a band merely getting on stage and rocking.
Who:1st Annual Halloween Throwdown Night 1: Dragondeer Vs. Bowie w/Def Knock and The Milk Blossoms When: Friday, 10.26, 8:30 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: If the members of Dragondeer weren’t incredibly talented musicians they wouldn’t be able to play their own brand of psychedelic blues much less take on the musical identities of two bands whose music is part of the DNA of international rock music whether acknowledged or not. On Friday night, the group will play songs from the catalog of David Bowie, an artist whose musical corpus combined exquisite, thoughtful, pop music and the avant-garde in various proportions with little regard to strict genre conventions. Opening this first night is The Milk Blossoms, a band whose emotionally tender yet fierce pop songs show how you can seem to be writing from secret places but have the requisite personal bravery to bare the art made from there to the world.
Who:Bluebook EP release w/Shark Dreams and Midwife When: Friday, 10.26, 8 p.m. Where: Fort Greene Bar Why: It’s been a minute since Bluebook released anything. Julie Davis has been busy with other, equally fascinating projects and having a child, among other things. The new Bluebook material, part of which can be heard on the new EP The Astronaut’s Wife, was written with Jess Parsons and while it contains some of the familiar elements that have made Davis’ music interesting from very early on like her vivid, commanding voice and her use of a difficult to manage and master instrument like upright bass along with various loops and the sounds that Parsons brings to the project. There is a mysterious quality to the band’s presentation of the music these days too and that just gives the storytelling a bit of an atmospheric edge. Also on the bill is one of Denver’s most interesting songwriters and organic soundscapers, Midwife.
FIDLAR, photo courtesy the artist
Who:Fidlar w/Dilly Dally and Side Eyes When: Friday, 10.26, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Fidlar could have just been another garage punk band except that Zac Carper and Elvis Kuehn met while working at a recording studio and thus had a better than average sense of what made recordings sound good and what kind of preparation a band might need to undertake in order to not waste a lot of time not getting what they want out of that process. Nevertheless, there is a freshness to its sound that has as much in common with 2010s indie pop as it does with post-Reatards garage punk—catchy tunes, a little loose around the edges, irreverent and self-deprecating. The group will release its new record Almost Free on January 25, 2019 but you’ll get to hear a good deal of it first on this tour.
Who:Rot Congress When: Friday, 10.26, 9 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Hot Congress was the promising indie rock label that, for a time in the late 2000s and early 2010s, galvanized a certain segment of the Denver music scene with releases, promotion, events featuring its artists and an eccentric yet striking aesthetic. The label hasn’t been active in years but it maintains its Halloween tradition of gathering local Denver bands associated with Hot Congress for a show called Rot Congress at which the bands dress up and have, on occasion, taken up humorous alternate names. Here is a schedule for this year’s event, all times p.m.: 9:30 Zealot, 10:15 Kissing Party, 11 The Interesting Times Gang, 11:45 The Jinjas.
Saturday | October 27, 2018
Ian Sweet, photo by Kelsey Hart
Who:Ian Sweet w/Young Jesus When: Saturday, 10.27, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ian Sweet is Jillian Medford’s vehicle for exploring the intersections between one’s own neuroses and her responsibilities to others, some of whom she has taken on a type of caretaker role. Or so she so poetically articulates on her 2018 sophomore record Crush Crusher. With luminous melodies, gentle and textured rhythms and lush soundscapes, Medford crafts songs that reflect a strength of character of necessity balanced against the crushing anxiety that develops when battling your own demons and making sure those under your care, formally or otherwise, don’t go neglected. It’s rock, it’s indie pop., it’s dreamy stuff but because of the subject matter and Medford’s imaginative songwriting it has a heft yet uplifting quality suggesting a complexity not heard enough in popular music. Also on the bill, Young Jesus whose what one might call indie prog songs recall late 90s math rock where that music mixed with 90s emo. A bit like Minus the Bear but more melancholy.
Who:1st Annual Halloween Throwdown Night 2: Dragondeer Vs. The Dead w/Dog City Disco When: Saturday, 10.27, 8:30 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: This second night of Dragondeer’s Halloween show features the band taking on the challenging repertoire of the Grateful Dead. As pioneers of DIY, independent music having a viable existence and the soundtrack to a real moment of American counterculture, the Grateful Dead’s can be polarizing. But its blend of psychedelia, bluegrass and improvisational jazz has often been imitated by hundreds of bands with mixed results. But if you go and check out any one of the group’s early records without having some bias getting in the way, it’s interesting stuff unlike much of anything else going on at the time with truly masterful improvisational live performances captured on some bootlegs and its own official live releases, particularly Europe ’72. Will Dragondeer be up to the challenge and not be like so many wack wannabes in the jam band scene? Likely so given the level of talent involved.
Who:The Crüxshadows, Seraphim Shock, Radio Scarlet and DJ Mudwulf When: Saturday, 10.27, 8 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: The Crüxshadows are one of the very few bands that combine trance and dark wave that doesn’t immediately inspire a chuckle. Mainly because the band has found a way to make that sound good rather than the laughable EBM/Future Pop thing that plagued the late 90s and the 2000s. Joining the Florida band for this show are two Denver bands. Industrial rock/trashy vampire costume performance art band Seraphim Shock are legends in certain Goth circles in Denver. Since the mid-90s, the group has somehow made the schlocky-ness of industrial rock, pop metal and Gothic aesthetics as manifested in the popularity of vampire mythos in the 90s with the novels of Anne Rice and the RPG Vampire: The Masquerade, maybe even Nancy Collins’ Sonja Blue novels, seem not so hokey or gloriously so. Seraphim Shock has been that band to synthesize all of it and make it highly entertaining for over two decades now. Radio Scarlett might be the only legit death rock band in the Mile High City. Even if it turns out it’s the only one, it’s at least good. Okay, there’s Grave Moss too and both are excellent bands.
Who:Cyclo-Sonic, The Gurkhas, Cyanidols and Gata Negra When: Saturday, 10.27, 8:30 p.m. Where: The Skylark Why: Some of Denver punk’s elder, but not elderly, punk musicians who are still playing in respectable bands will take the stage at The Skylark tonight. Cyclo-Sonic includes former members of The Choosey Mothers, The Fluid, The Frantix and Rok Tots and they can still pull off a spirited performance. Cyanidols include a handful of Denver punk and indie rock veterans including former Tarmints and The Symptoms bassist/vocalist Sonya Decman and Chris Kieft and Oscar Pop who have played in too many notable bands to name going back to the 80s Denver punk underground. Gata Negra is Whitney Rehr’s bluesy punk/power pop band when she’s not also playing in I’m A Boy.
Sunday | October 28, 2018
Victoria Lundy, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Textures: Herpes Hideaway, Haunted Sound Lab, Victoria Lundy When: Sunday, 10.28, 7:30 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This edition of Textures will feature a special encore presentation of Herpes Hideaway’s creepy diorama and puppet set to accompany his dark ambient music and usual witches’ costume. Appropriately enough Haunted Sound Lab will perform as well as Victoria Lundy who will grace the night with her haunting, classically-inspired Theremin and synth compositions. Maybe she’ll reprise parts of her Miss American Vampire release show.
Who:Insane Clown Posse w/Clownvis Presley, Dirty Rotten Rhymers, Swizzy J and Hex Rated (LSP) When: Sunday, 10.28, 7:30 p.m. Where: Stampede Why: Insane Clown Posse brings its dark carnival to Aurora, Colorado for a show at Stampede. The latter is a club that has in years past been known more as a home to country music. But its large dance floor and upper floor open to the performance space lends itself well to larger shows in general. No need to explain ICP but it’s live shows are highly entertaining with lots of over the top stage antics and a high level of surreal kitsch and fun even if you’re not into the music. Clownvis Presley is, yes, an Elvis tribute act with a clown version of Elvis providing the vocals and the name of the band. ICP hasn’t been to the Denver area for a long time despite the Mile High City being a place in America where it is most popular so maybe the guys have something special in store for this tour around Halloween.
Tuesday | October 30, 2018
Sugar Candy Mountain, photo courtesy the artist
Who:Black Moth Super Rainbow w/The Stargazer Lilies and Air Credits When: Tuesday, 10.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Black Moth Super Rainbow amalgamated Tom Fec’s sound experiments with making the musical equivalent of collage art, giving it an even more organic and fuzzy around the edges, analog quality than simply processed sampling. As with other artists who mastered their own production style in a like-minded vein such as Boards of Canada, cLOUDED and J Dilla, Fec and BMSR created an otherworldly and transporting sound with a sense of innocence about it yet often profane and frank in content. Adopting stage names (Tobacco and Seven Fields of Aphelion, for instance), BMSR’s shows are often an immersive experience creating an emotional and imaginative zone for the night. The band’s latest full-length, 2018’s Panic Blooms, is an even further reach into abstraction as a means of conveying a direct link into the realms of imagination and emotion. BMSR has always been an alchemical blend of hip-hop, psychedelic electronic music and IDM but one grounded in a working class culture in middle America where a sense of one’s isolation breeds aspirational daydreaming and/or drug abuse as a means of escaping the dream shattering mundanity of everyday life. Where you can see on TV and in media a more glamorous life that seems out of reach of everyone you know and you look at your own life and think, “Is this it? Forever?” BMSR’s music honors that desperation and melancholy while making music suggesting other options and possibilities and finding the extraordinary even within your own psychic angst and disappointment.
Who:Sugar Candy Mountain, Ancient Elk and Palo Santo When: Tuesday, 10.30, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Sugar Candy Mountain’s hazy tropicalia and psych folk pop sounds like what a handful of their music videos look like—the soundtrack to a road trip across the American west in a future imagined by Jim Jarmusch. The band’s new record Do Right takes its songwriting beyond the languid, single note picking that is the specialty of bands nicking the Laurel Canyon inspired garage rock vibe for a kind of retrofuturist sound that might be compared to Kim Stanley Robinson’s Three California’s trilogy, in particular 1988’s The Gold Coast. Nerdy science fiction comparison’s aside, Sugar Candy Mountain may on the surface sound like another pop psychedelia band but its imaginative songwriting and knack for capturing a modern sense of wanderlust and dissatisfaction without going dark is not just refreshing but extraordinary.
Who:Amigo the Devil w/Harley Poe When: Tuesday, 10.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Amigo the Devil’s latest album, Everything is Fine, as in not, is like a collection of modern noir short stories with a darkly humorous bent. That it’s pretty much just Danny Kiranos and his acoustic guitar (with some very minimal percussion and piano on various songs) is even more impressive because it feels full and that anything more would take away from the stark beauty of the songwriting. There’s a song called “Cocaine and Abel,” another called “Hungover in Jonestown,” yet another called “I Hope Your Husband Dies”—all suggesting skullduggery and over-the-top scenes. But there’s a tenderness and sensitivity there too, a nuance of emotion that hits you unexpectedly like the quieter moments in a Cormac McCarthy novel. A great set of music for Halloween week but also enjoyable beyond any seasonal appeal because Kiranos’ music comes from the heart and not a sense of lurid kitsch.
Wednesday | October 31, 2018
Spirit Award, photo by Brenna Nickels
Who:Itchy-O Hallowmass w.Echo Beds When: Wednesday, 10.31, 8 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Itchy-O recently released its best album to date with Mystic Spy | Psykho Dojo. It doesn’t capture the live show because no recording could but as a listening experience it takes you into realms of experience that are an analogue and a companion to the live show that is enjoyable on its own. If you can’t witness the spectacle of a thirty plus member band dressed up as operatives of an inter-dimensional band of mystics and penitents of a an ethos dedicated to human liberation and artistic exploration through group performance art for yourself the record is plenty rewarding on its own. But if you can, make it to one of the band’s infrequent shows and take in its controlled chaos on its terms. For this show the group will share the stage with Echo Beds, the Denver industrial punk band whose own new album, Buried Language, is a leap forward for the band’s presentation in the recorded format. Live, with the oil drum and vocal caterwaul, electronic percussion and cutting guitar work, Echo Beds is as thrilling and forbidding as its recordings suggest and a perfect parallel artist for the way the records translate on the part of Itchy-O.
Who: Amigo the Devil w/Harley Poe
When: Wednesday, 10.31, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: For Amigo the Devil, see above for 10/30/18.
Who:Danzig 30 Year Anniversary w/Venom Inc., Power Trip and Mutoid Man When: Wednesday, 10.31, 6:30 p.m. Where: Fillmore Auditorium Why: Danzig will perform cuts from across his solo career. Sometimes the music borders on corny but really melodramatic in the best sense but always dark and honest about that side of Danzig’s psyche. On other tours the band plays the hits but for this one the group will dig a little deeper into the catalog.
Who:Colfax Speed Queen, Ned Garthe Explosion, Vic N’ The Narwhals and Spirit Award When: Wednesday, 10.31, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Spirit Award’s new album Muted Crowd is a good one for the Halloween holiday considering the song “Supreme Truth” is about Japan’s terror cult Aum Shinrikyo and “Witching Hour” is based on singer/guitarist Daniel Lyon’s encounters with the paranormal in a house in Seattle. But the music isn’t spooky so much as dense with energized atmospheres, echoing vocals and urgent rhythms. The Seattle-based trio will be joined by three of Denver’s own off beat rock and roll bands with Colfax Speed Queen’s post-psych garage, Ned Garthe Explosion’s humorous yet intense and colorful take on psychedelic rock and Vic N’ The Narwhals time traveling southern California via the American southwest presentation of R&B-inflected surf rock.
What:2X4 Duo Fest: Smashy Claw, Sugar Skulls and Marigolds, Gold Trash and Gort Vs. Goom When: Thursday, 09.27, 7:30 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: This second annual edition of 2X4 Duo Fest features four duo bands (thus the name, of course). For this edition, as with the 2017 event, organizer Logan Rainard of Gort Vs. Goom assembled a genre-diverse bill. His own band, Gort Vs. Goom would have been considered punk 40 years ago before what that was supposed to sound like got more or less settled by some codification of the genre. Bass, drums, vocals and raw power with some nods to prog and art rock. Gold Trash is part noise, part electroclash and general pop chaos. Sugar Skulls and Marigolds would probably fit easily into a broadly metal world except the band’s musical range includes their “acoustic” set which sounds more like ghostly post-punk. Smashy Claw is what would happen if a couple of very self-aware geeks decided to get into writing eccentric alternative pop songs. Only if those geeks weren’t wasting our time with filking and had a real knack for good songwriting.
Who:Too Many Zooz w/Honeycomb When: Thursday, 09.27, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Too Many Zooz is a percussion and horns-driven jazz band that performs a style of music it calls “brass house” in that it employs acoustic instruments to make sounds that are like the use of samples in an electronic hip-hop beat. The group has performed with Beyoncé on the strength of its chops and creativity and its own albums and shows are an impressive display of what one can do with instruments you’re using to seeing in other contexts once you engage your imagination to see their possibilities in others. The group recently released a video for the single “Car Alarm” in which the trio brilliantly plays around, yes, a car alarm and makes it work.
Who:Slothrust w/Summer Cannibals and Iress When: Thursday, 09.27, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Boston’s Slothrust combines a kind of jazz-inflected R&B mixed with fuzzy rock. It’s sound has been compared to the 90s revival of the past few years but the structure of its songs often have more in common with hip-hop than grunge and its quieter more introspective side with soulful folk. Its new record, 2018’s The Pact, brings these sides together well in a well-sequenced album that has the eclectic musicality and depth of expression in its thoughtful lyrics that we’ve come to expect from the band.
Also on this tour is Summer Cannibals from Portland, Oregon. The band’s sound defies easy categorization beyond hard rock but it has some loose around the edges wildness akin to Babes in Toyland and L7. Except Jessica Boudreaux’s voice is both melodic while cutting through the fuzzy sparks of the band’s driving forward momentum. Some might call Summer Cannibals garage punk but it’s guitar work is much more compelling than most of that wave of music and its musical vision more coherent as well.
Friday | September 28, 2018
Denver Meatpacking Company, photo by Michelle Simutis
Who:Gary Numan w/Nightmare Air and DJ Slave 1 When: Friday, 09.28, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: For those somehow not familiar, Gary Numan beyond his 1979/1980 Top 40 hit “Cars,” was a pioneer of the use of synthesizer as a compositional element in pop music. His old band Tubeway Army was a post-punk project and that sort of moody, brooding element continued on into Numan’s career under his own name. Throughout the 80s, Numan explored themes of alienation, the impact of technology on human civilization and psychology and the ways technology could be used to write and produce music. Numan also experimented with integrating other styles of music outside his perceived repertoire and his body of work and through the 90s were an obvious influence on industrial music generally and industrial rock specifically. In the 2000s Numan has delved further into conceptual work in his songwriting especially his two most recent albums, 2013’s Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) and 2017’s Savage (Songs from a Broken World). Numan is no stranger to using dystopian science fiction ideas or even simply examination of possible futures extrapolated from the present in his music but Savage is one wherein he posits a near future where global warming has caused a worldwide desert. In seeking answers what remains of humanity seeks answers in ancient religion rather than trying to deal with the world as it is with disastrous results. As with most science fiction a warning with some uncomfortable truths about humans contained within it and a suggestion to seek creative solutions rather than what we think is tried and true.
Guerilla Toss, image courtesy the artist
Who:Guerilla Toss w/Black Belt Eagle Scout and H Lite When: Friday, 09.28, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Guerilla Toss came up through the underground/DIY music world of Boston and New York where it experimented with musical ideas and concepts, developing what might be described as weirdo electro No Wave funk. Except that wouldn’t encompass completely a sound and performance style that includes the threads of punk fury and wiry energy, noise, prog and the avant-garde. The group recently released its latest album Twisted Crystal, an album that seems to transform some of the band’s frantic, nervous energy into dense yet beautifully expansive atmospheres while using its angular dynamics straight into those more fluid. It’s a fascinating mixture of ideas and sounds that is both alien and comforting in a way that a surreal cartoon or live action show from your youth can be.
Who:Modern Goon, Luxury Hearse, A Light Among Many, New Standards Men album release When: Friday, 09.28, 9 p.m. Where: Denver Distillery Why: New Standards Men released it’s new album People Wonder digitally on September 24. But it’s celebrating the release of the record with this show with like-minded peers at Denver Distillery. The Denver-based band has been releasing some of the more interesting experimental heavy guitar music of recent years in the Mile High City but the material on the new album has as much in common with 90s, dark math rock legends like A Minor Forest and Don Caballero as it does with even an adventurous doom band of today though some of that style of deep droning is present on the songs “Tanned Womb” and “Thirteen Alaskan Islands/Pacific Blood.” But it’s the sparkle and drift over the driving fuzz that makes the music breathe and invites the imagination to project onto its soundscape.
Who:Flahoola, To Be Astronauts, Denver Meatpacking Company When: Friday, 09.28, 8 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Denver Meatpacking Company may hearken back to early alternative rock in the grunge vein but it does so with a charming self-consciousness that transcends any mere nostalgic kick. Flahoola as well but their sound is more like an early 2000s melodic stoner rock band that injects more energy into the rhythm.
Who:Weaponizer and Necropanther When: Friday, 09.28, 9 p.m. Where: Tooey’s Off Colfax Why: Two of the best bands from Denver that in another era would have been considered thrash but thrash already happened and today’s metal bands that aren’t going for pure throwback cachet have been influenced by a broad spectrum of music, heavy and otherwise. Weaponizer’s more gritty style is like a more menacing, grind-esque, speed metal. Necropanther’s sound is closer to melodic death metal but a little too animalistic in the vocals for all of that.
Saturday | September 29, 2018
What:Whaaat!? A Festival for Games and Experimental Interaction When: Saturday, 09.29, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Where: ATLAS Institute at CU Boulder Why: This is a one day event dedicated to experimental games (arcade/video, tabletop et. al.) with featured speakers on the subject of gaming and development. Mattie Brice is not just a game designer but an activist in the games industry whose work includes Mainichi, in which players take on the role of the daily life of a transgender person. Her work has also been important on the subject of diversity in the gaming world generally. Pippin Barr, like Brice, is a game designer and educator who teaches game design and programming. Barr’s games are often unconventional and challenge traditional notions of what computer games can be including The Artist is Present, inspired by and involving performance artist Marina Abramović’s piece of the same name. The event gives attendees a chance to witness and participate in cutting edge games and interact with some of the minds behind them. Those interested should register at www.whaaat.io.
Who:Ned Garthe Explosion, Oxeye Daisy and Church Fire When: Saturday, 09.29, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ned Garthe Explosion makes a good case for why modern psychedelic rock isn’t dead. Even from early on, the show itself has been chaotic and colorful enough to be worthy of the term psychedelic in not only sound, content and presentation. And yet, the songwriting has always been solid and interesting. Oxeye Daisy has seemingly leapt past 90s alt-rock nostalgia into a musical zone that, sure, bears the influences of that era, that is more energized atmospheric pop than anything throwback. Its sound is very much of the present and fans of Wye Oak and Japanese Breakfast should take note. Church Fire has secretly and not so secretly been one of Denver’s most engaging live bands for not just its irresistible dance beats but its willingness to go beyond the map of middle-of-the-road accessibility mixing in noise, industrial dynamic edge and Shannon Webber’s impassioned vocal delivery.
What:Industrial Music For the Masses Vol. 2: DJ Ed Gein and eHpH When: Saturday, 09.29, 9 p.m. Where: Milk Bar Green Room Why: Denver EBM/industrial rock band eHpH has been hitting a strong creative vein of late crafting vibrant and engrossing atmospheric electronic music shot through with a palpable emotional power. Always interesting, the duo is now starting to hit its stride as a band.
Dr. Hamburger
Who:Belly Eater, Curt Oren, Real Dom, $addy, Oxygen Thief and Dr. Hamburger When: Saturday, 09.29, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: Fairly broad spectrum of noise and related music at this show. Belly Eater from Ohio is sort of a noisy, Atari Teenage Riot-esque breakcore punk band. Chicago’s Curt Oren does avant-garde audio-acoustic music including processed saxophone. Real Dom from Iowa threads together synthwave and noise. $addy makes bizarro video game music for stuff way more interesting and haunting than Sad Satan and without the disturbing baggage of the latter. Oxygen Thief is true bedroom techno dungeonwave, or something. Dr. Hamburger has landed in Denver from Rochester, New York to share his processed real time environment noise. Somehow none of these acts sound anything alike and the bill is better for it.
Who:Chelsea Wolfe w/Russian Circles When: Friday, 09.28, 8 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Why: Chelsea Wolfe’s knack for making deep, dark, loud music was built on a foundation of the dynamics and sonics of acoustic, old world folk music. Along with her channeling her experiences with sleep paralysis, anxiety and other psychological trauma into her art, Wolfe’s music has an unexpected depth and emotional intensity beyond anyone trying to pen her music in as doom or Goth or neofolk or anything so narrowly defined. For this tour she’s sharing dates with instrumental metal group Russian Circles whose own music seems to come from a primordial place from which all ancient religions and rituals find their root. Although associated with metal, Russian Circles sounds like its music origins are steeped in posthardcore and, like Wolfe, ancient, certainly pre-Christian, folk music.
Who:Lyrics Born w/Indigenous Peoples, AG Flux and Bukue One When: Saturday, 09.29, 8 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Why: Tsutomu Shimura used to call himself Asia Born because he was actually born in Tokyo. But early in his career he changed his hip-hop moniker to Lyrics Born so that the perception of his work would be a product of its own merit rather than through some essentialist filter. To his credit, Lyrics Born’s fluid delivery and vocal centered, funk-driven, songs bring an experimental dimension to a style of hip-hop that sounds like something from a classic 80s era rather than something that is pushing stylistic boundaries. Lyrics Born is now touring on his first album in a few years, Quite a Life.
Who:Cuckoo, Magpies (MT), Grave Moss and Surrender Signal When: Saturday, 09.29, 9 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Magpies got started in Havre, Montana, close to the Canadian border, in 2006 and given its bright, introspective indie rock probably didn’t find too big an audience at home before moving to Missoula in 2012 where, like most bands that don’t have some kind of marketing budget or an influential PR team, it plays to small rooms regularly. But the band did what not every group does, it went on tour and has released multiple albums including 2017’s Annex. Brooding, fuzzy and anthemic, it’s something for fans of Rainer Maria and Eleventh Dream Day.
Rounding out the bill are three Denver bands that resist pat classification. Cuckoo may have at one point sounded a little like a math rock version of a hardcore band but now that math-y side has become more dominant with intricate guitar work in the context of a spare and simple songwriting context. Grave Moss is sort of like a death rock band if that band wasn’t brooding so much as burning with nervous energy and dynamics. Surrender Signal’s mixture of introspective moods, cool melodies peppered with atonal highlights and emotional urgency is reminiscent of acts on the Teenbeat imprint and early Merge Records.
Who:Courtney Barnett w/Waxahatchee When: Saturday, 09.29, 8 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Courtney Barnett’s witty, self-effacing songwriting goes beyond merely clever wordplay and a poignant observation here and there. It’s often as though she’s tapping into a modern contemporary zeitgeist or able to express her experiences, feelings and imagined scenarios in a way that is immediately relatable to anyone that has taken some time to ponder what life is all about or at least be amused by circumstances that resist immediate interpretation. Throughout her career, Barnett has been especially adept at humanizing anxiety as experienced. Barnett doesn’t treat the experience as simply a condition to be treated in a clinical fashion, rather she articulates with telling details and humor how that emotional wrecking ball affects one’s life in a myriad of ways, shining a compassionate light on its several darkened corners of in the psyche. You can pick up anywhere in Barnett’s catalog and get a record worth taking the time to delve into but her 2018 album, Tell Me How You Really Feel, is a seemingly more subdued affair sonically speaking if not so much in the words. When you call songs “I’m Not Your Mother, I’m Not Your Bitch” and “Crippling Self-Doubt and a General Lack of Confidence” you’re not mincing words and on the new record Barnett spares us the niceties in favor of personal truth.
Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee is no stranger to laying bare a powerful vulnerability in her own songwriting and performances. Her own storytelling has a warmth and intimacy that when coupled with the spacious, expansive quality of the music an impact that lingers with you long after the song is over. Crutchfield transmogrifies the fear, uncertainty and anxiety at the heart of the experiences of most people living today in this crumbling and increasingly demanding civilization into anthems of to soothe and comfort without sugarcoating the way things are. Waxahatchee released the Great Thunder EP in 2018.
Sunday | September 30, 2018
Waxahatchee, photo by Molly Matalon
Who:Courtney Barnett w/Waxahatchee When: Sunday, 09.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: For Waxahatchee and Courtney Barnett see above for 09.29.
Earthless, photo by Atiba Jefferson
Who:Earthless w/Mad Alchemy and Green Druid When: Sunday, 09.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: San Diego’s Earthless is on a surface level a sort of bluesy psychedelic rock band akin to Mountain or Uriah Heep. Except with a modern sensibility like its members have already heard and been imprinted a bit by peers like Dead Meadow and Sleep. But Earthless’ embrace of the imagery of natural mysticism and the aesthetics of kosmische musik gives its music an air of otherworldliness even as it employs rock and roll sounds and rhythms that may be familiar to many of its listeners. Its new album, 2018’s Black Heaven, has the band following the rabbit hole of its musical intuition down paths it might not have taken if the songwriting was consciously crafted with standard song structure.
What:Textures: Chromadrift, Blank Human and Ancient Inc. When: Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: This latest edition of the Textures ambient showcase features dream pop/guitar drone artist Chromadrift, Blank Human’s modular synth compositions (Blank Human’s Dan Coleman is also in experimental electronic/industrial duo Luxury Hearse) and Ancient Inc., a project that uses field recordings, ancient acoustic instruments and production to create its textured sonic atmospheres.
Who: Brighter Death Now w/Theologian, Echo Beds, Page 27 and Gruesome Relics When: Sunday, 9 p.m. Where: TBA Why: As Brighter Death Now, Roger Karmanik has been a prolific and influential maker of forbidding industrial soundscapes and noise. His now defunct record label Cold Meat Industry introduced the world to some of the most innovative and challenging music of its time from 1987 to 2013. This is a rare chance to see the Swedish artist live in Denver with a handful of like-minded local acts.
Monday | October 1, 2018
Presets, photo courtesy the artist
Who:The Presets w/Blood Red Shoes When: Monday, 10.01, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: The Presets from Sydney, Australia is a duo making the kind of electronic pop that on the surface is fun, high energy dance music. But their latest album, 2018’s Hi Viz makes it more obvious the depth of influence and innovation going on underneath what seems obvious. “Beethoven” and other tracks are reminiscent of the dark, cavernous, mysterious club vibe that was an aspect of the music of Underworld in the 90s—a calming tone amid urgent rhythms. Along with fellow Sydney electronic artist Flume, The Presets helped to bring Australia’s dance music world to a global audience. Even though Hi Viz, as the name suggests, was aimed at broadening the duo’s potential fan base with a diversity of musical ideas loaded into the tracks, the experiments also made for one of the more interesting electronic albums of this year thus far.
Who:The Breeders w/Sasami and Boyhollow When: Monday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Alternative rock band The Breeders came through Colorado in the spring touring in support of its 2018 album All Nerve. While one of the band’s stronger efforts of the past twenty years it also includes an interesting pick of a cover song with “Archangel’s Thunderbird” by classic psychedelic prog band Amon Duul II. The band is also bringing along Sasami as in Sasami Ashworth, former member of Cherry Glazerrr, on her solo tour in the wake of the release of a couple of acclaimed singles.
Who:Lucy Spraggan w/The Dollhouse Thieves, Sarah Slaton When: Monday, 10.01.18 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Lucy Spraggan is a singer/songwriter from the UK who was already making a name for herself as an artist of note before auditioning for The X Factor and, in fact, had already signed to Columbia before any episode in which she appeared aired to the public. Spraggan is an LGBTQ activist in the UK and she and her partner foster disadvantaged children and that points to the compassion and and emotional strength of her songwriting. 2017’s I Hope You Don’t Mind Me Writing is brimming with the aforementioned along with an irreverent and sometimes self-deprecating sense of humor. Spraggan’s new album is set for release in 2019 but for this tour you may get to hear some of that material.
Who:IDLES w/Bambara When: Monday, 10.01.18, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: IDLES from Bristol, UK put out an album in 2018 called Joy as an Act of Resistance. A bold title and one the band was able to live up to at a time when too much of punk is fairly traditionalist in most ways. Musically it’s more experimental than a lot of punk and could be considered post-punk but the vibe is there and the critique of cultural distraction as aspirational reward, fake do-gooders, self-destruction and toxic masculinity is refreshing. Also on the tour is Brooklyn, New York’s Bambara. There’s a lot of darkwave-inspired bands and a new post-punk revival that’s been going on for nearly a decade but Bambara manages to stand out with some genuinely deep personal darkness in the vocals and sonics reminiscent of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and The Birthday Party in post-come down mode. It’s own 2018 album, Shadow On Everything, delivers on the promise of that title.
Tuesday | October 2, 2018
at Oriental Theater circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:<PIG>, eHpH, Offerings to Odin, and DJ n810 When: Tuesday, 10.02, 7 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: Raymond Watts of <PIG> has been an influential figure on the sound and aesthetics of industrial music going back to the early-to-mid 80s as a producer, an artist and a sound engineer. While touring with Einsturzende Neubauten he had to tangle with a challenging live sound situation with that band’s use of large art pieces and experiments as noisemakers as well as more conventional instrumentation. He contributed to some of KMFDM’s most interesting work and with <PIG> he was an innovator in both industrial rock and finely sculpted ambient music. For this tour it’s mostly going to industrial rock but Watts’ stage performance draws on the antics of Freddie Mercury and Rob Halford and the aesthetics of a Kenneth Anger’s 1963 film Scorpio Rising. Or if not, that’s what it looked like while he was touring with Ohgr over the summer of 2018.
Who:Vase Vide w/Patrick Hale Coyle and Housekeys When: Tuesday, 10.02, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: Vase Vide is yet more proof that Colorado Springs is “hiding” some of Colorado’s most interesting bands. Sure, synth pop, but too weird and inherently experimental for just that. Daniel Oglesby’s and Kellie Palmblad’s vocal layers and treatments are certainly accessible but challenge conventional notions of what forms pop music can take. Along with the music and visual presentation of the band, Vase Vide may not be so well-known in Denver but the quality of the imagination going into its music and concept should garner the group national and international attention.
Wednesday | October 3, 2018
Dr. Hamburger, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Weird Wednesday: Enji, Dr. Hamburger and Gothsta When: Wednesday, 10.03, 9 p.m. doors/9:15 show Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: October’s Weird Wednesday will be extra weird with video game electronics/guitar looping from Enji who will probably perform in an unusual mask. Gothsta is Weird Wednesday host Claudia Woodman’s keytar band and so a bit of glam presentation and the odd but on point cover. Dr. Hamburger is Cameron Farrash from Rochester, New York whose layers of textured beats, drone, harsh noise and ambient tones creates a surreal, even otherworldly ambiance.
Who:Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: Venus Cruz & What Young Men Do, Abeasity Jones When: Thursday, 05.10, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Abeasity Jones’ songs sound like maybe he spends part of his day working in some high rise office in downtown Denver and/or in some media tech office nearby where maybe things are comfortable but there’s an element of compromise and alienation. And while working and tending to the demands of his personal and family life he allows his imagination an escape into chill spaces where he can explore and write stories about his struggles, concerns and daydream life. The beats are downtempo and ethereal and the subject matter often delivered with a sense of acceptance like depleted melancholy. Yet, Jones’ sense of humor and thoughtfulness lifts up the music and his live performance has a positive energy giving the songs a dimensionality that some hip-hop seemingly recorded at home lacks.
Also playing this show is one of Denver jazz and hip-hop’s true luminaries: Venus Cruz. But this time out with the band What Young Men Do. Cruz’s versatile talent has found a place singing, producing and performing music in a wide variety of contexts. Her long-running stint with the Jazz Odyssey program on KUVO on Wednesday nights is an outlet for fans of jazz and the sensibility of jazz outside the classic format. What Young Men Do is more of a funk, soul and jazz-inflected hip-hop project so it’ll be something pretty different for the Speakeasy Series and Hooked On Colfax both.
Who:Musical Mayhem: Bonnie Weimer and The Pollution When: Thursday, 05.10, 9 p.m. Where: Skylark Lounge Why: Bonnie Weimer released her first single in probably several years, maybe even her first released music since her time in folk-punk-Americana group Potato Farmers, in April 2018 with “Pajama Top Man,” a winsome, humorous, self-effacing story song about an awkward would-be romantic encounter set to a spare, banjo melody. Fans of outsider music will find a lot to like about the song even though that designation doesn’t necessarily fit Weimer’s entire musical output. In an interesting pairing, not unusual for Claudia Woodman’s Musical Mayhem night at the Skylark, is The Pollution. Jay Fox was in one of the early DC punk bands, United Mutation, but the latter was never part of the Dischord scene and didn’t play out often even if its blend of psychedelic rock and punk was becoming a thing as bands like Butthole Surfers and Alice Donut were making waves in the underground. Decades hence, Fox, now living in Denver for several years, has set about trying to make bands for whom the intensity, energy, anti-authoritarian spirit and creative fire of punk and psychedelic seemed completely compatible qualities that needn’t be separated by stylistic sectarianism.
Who:Gold Trash, Violent Vickie, R A R E B Y R D $, Pearls and Perils and EVP When: Thursday, 05.10, 8 p.m. Where: Independent Records Why: Glasss is bringing some of its artists to Colorado Springs tonight. Gold Trash is sort of a samples/live electronics take on the kind of collage, trash sound/culture guitar rock barrage that was Royal Trux. Pearls and Perils is lush downtempo beats and the sultry vocals of Olivia Perez who most won’t remember from her old, experimental rock band Gloam. But with Pearls and Perils she gets to put more of herself into the music undiluted by anyone else’s vision and the result is an emotionally cleansing body of work. Like most Glasss artists, EVP is impossible to tag with one genre designation. Part industrial, part pop, part punk, EVP sounds like the kind of music made by people living in a dystopian near future where kids have overtaken the crumbling, cheap housing units made during Denver’s current fake economic boom (real economic booms benefit everyone pretty equally) but then abandoned—scrappy, often angry and melancholy stuff. R A R E B Y R D $ is probably the Denver band now that will attain the underground mythical status of acts like Fissure Mystic and Hot White by the sheer excellence of its material and live shows except it’s an experimental hip-hop group. Its enveloping, rich beats stir the heart and the imagination and the emotional resonance of its lyrics and KoKo La’s and Key Lady’s singing and rapping has the irresistible power of a Kimya Dawson.
Who:Esmé Patterson, Emily Ritz and Eleanor Perry When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: Leon Gallery Why: Most of the time to see Esmé Patterson’s evocative storyteller pop you’d have to go to some kind of bigger bar venue or small theater. But this performance will happen at the much more intimate Leon Gallery. Patterson spent many years honing her craft as a member of the baroque pop group Paper Bird, but since she’s broke out on hr own for the last several years her imaginative songwriting has developed into a vehicle for writing with a warmth and wisdom on uncomfortable subjects.
Who:Charly Bliss w/Skating Polly When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Charly Bliss’s 2017 album Guppy sounds like the band wood shedded its material in a cabin in a remote location far from its Brooklyn homebase with only 90s fuzzy alternative rock/power pop on hand for its listening diet. Obvious touchstones like Liz Phair, Velocity Girl, The Breeders and Veruca Salt. Even the music video for “Ruby” reinforces that impression looking like something that might have been produced for a segment of The Ben Stiller Show. But there’s no mistaking Charly Bliss’s exuberant energy for a pure nostalgia trip. The songs may rock but like many of the bands that likely influenced Charly Bliss, the lyrics have a raw vulnerability that gives it more depth than might otherwise be obvious. The same could be said for Oklahoma City band Skating Polly whose style of music is probably punk by default but so individual it would be problematic to say the trio consciously tried to be punk as a genre. The latter recently released its latest album, The Make It All Show. Skating Polly shows look like they might blow apart from the sheer, wiry energy of the performance and, of course, that’s what makes for great, scrappy punk rock.
Who:Girls Rock Denver: Showcase Series: Gold Trash, RAREBYRD$, EVP and Nighttimeschoolbus When: Friday, 05.11, 7 – 11 p.m. Where: Spectra Art Space Why:Girls Rock Denver will happen in the summer but these events are a showcase to perhaps make being a musician beyond the camp and beyond those likely temporary bands an attainable goal. Which is crucial because a world where most music and art is still being made mostly by males seems bizarre and past its due date at this point in history. This night features some of the best artists in Denver in the realm of electronic, hip-hop, experimental and industrial music. Most of the artists on the bill were written up earlier in this column but all are worth your time.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Echo Beds and Weathered Statues When: Friday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, one of Denver’s longest running bands and one of its most lively and entertaining, is doing a mini-residence at the Hi-Dive this weekend. Although the Auto Club is a kind of punk Americana with literary lyrics and a joyful, emotionally charged, theatrical live show, it’s been booking opening bands well outside the expected circles of Gothic Americana. This night, organo-industrial darkwave band Echo Beds will bring the punishing beats and cathartic drones and Weathered Statues will deliver its brand of moody but urgent post-punk.
Saturday | May 12, 2018
Great American House Fire, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Fem Fest When: Saturday, 05.12, 8 p.m. Where: MCA Denver Why: Fem Fest is an all-ages, all-genders welcome event that includes various workshops, a bazaar, tarot and astrology readings and more but also musical performances in the evening and night. Fem Fest because representation matters in a truly healthy and just society. There are plenty of, in essence, Men Fests because of booking and conception most of the rest of the year so don’t get caught up on the name and miss out on some of Denver’s best bands and the headliner, Red Aunts. Music kicks off at 5 p.m. with a Girls Rock Denver showcase followed by space angel/earth mother energy hip hop group R A R E B Y R D $ at 6. Princess Dewclaw, Denver’s own electro fuzz punks at 7 with “pastel punk” surf rock trio The Corner Girls at 8. The evening tops off at 9 with Red Aunts.
Who:Dirty Junk, Great American House Fire, Married a Dead Man When: Saturday, 05.11, 9 p.m. Where: The Curtis Club Why: Dirty Junk is a duo from Minneapolis on its 2017 album Snot is the kind of messy, noisy, collage-esque punk-inspired music that we haven’t heard much of since Get Hustle was active. Or like a weirder and noiser version of that raw punk Sleater-Kinney was doing on its first two records. Interesting putting the band together with Great American House Fire, a group that combines a melancholic Americana with moody posthardcore and soulful singing. Married a Dead Man is a post-punk band unabashedly influenced by music out of the Goth world.
Who:Sorted #8: Pangaea, Ganesa & Squane, Newnumbertwo When: Saturday, 05.12, 10 p.m. Where: TBA Why: Kevin McAuley calls London home but tonight he’s performing at the eight edition of sorted, the underground electronic music event that Veronica Lamaak and company put together periodically to showcase some of the most interesting house, techno and more experimental dance music in general happening now. Also on the bill are Jelly Bean Farm artists Ganesa & Squane. Ganesa is the label head of Jelly Bean Farm and her DJ sets tend to be eclectic and futuristic-sounding. Squane’s sound tends to be more low end heavy with thick, dubby bass beats but he and Ganesa share a seeming love of bright, mid-to-upper register melodically ethereal melodies. Newnumbertwo is a resident artist with Sorted whose deep house/dubstep sound mixes in elements of a gentle kind of breakcore.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Palehorse/Palerider When: Saturday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The second night of the Auto Club residency at the Hi-Dive this weekend but this time with Palehorse/Palerider, a band who are superficially an alchemical mixture of doom/drone and shoegaze but with an industrial/tribal element they bring in for a song or two in the set. Which doesn’t mean much when your sets have three or four songs but nevertheless gives a set of otherwise densely beautiful and crushing songs an expansive sensibility.
Sunday | May 13, 2018
Modest Mouse, photo by Ben Moon
Who:Modest Mouse w/Mimicking Birds When: Sunday, 05.13, 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: For a band that is one of the definitive incarnations of the too-broad-too-vague-yet-fittingly-umbrella quasi-genre of indie rock, Modest Mouse sure put in a lot of time developing its sound and songwriting style before becoming one of the style’s most iconic groups. Modest Mouse began when its founders were still in high school, it released its first seven inch on K Records, its first two full-lengths on Seattle indie imprint Up Records including its 1997 “breakthrough” album Lonesome Crowded West and every album since through major label Epic Records. Quite an arc for a band whose work remained fairly idiosyncratic, emotionally raw and imaginative even up to its most recent album, 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves. In its first decade or so of its existence, Modest Mouse was a notoriously inconsistent live band. But since then the act has seemingly harnessed the chaos and unpredictability of its youth when maybe there seemed to be less and stake and less to lose if it did all fall apart and channeled that spirit into music more coherent and accessible to a wider audience without having to sacrifice its uniqueness.
Monday | May 14, 2018
Rotstrotter, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Petrification w/Rotstrotter, Alone and Noctambulist When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Petrification is a death metal/grind band from Portland, Oregon on its way to Maryland Death Fest and making a stop in Denver to play with some of the local heavy hitters in that realm of music. The band called its 2017 cassetteSummon Horrendous Destructionwith a rotting zombie face rendered in black and white as the cover. At times the guitar riffs wander into the realm of The New Order-esque period Testament. But that is no bad thing. Rotstrotter have been one the longest-running, and frankly best, D-Beat bands in Denver. Sounding somewhere between SSD and early Discharge, Rotstrotter looks and sounds like they live it and that it’s not a simply a shallow lifestyle choice.
Who:Farrell Lowe Group, Latex Cupcake, Seward / Sexton, Gil Selinger When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This is a rare opportunity to see some of Colorado’s avant-garde improvisation legends at a DIY space. Farrell Lowe Group includes, of course, Farrell Lowe, Mark Raynes, Dave Willey and Mark Harris. The latter two are members of internationally renowned avant-prog band Thinking Plague. Latex Cupcake is Jennifer Bobola, John T. Nething, Bret Kuyper and Mark Emmons, all of whom have been around Denver playing in various capacities but this is the project’s first show and its, one might say, mutant version of experimental jazz/modern classical will be a great fit on this lineup including a solo cello performance with Gil Selinger and Seward / Sexton, which will be accessible and in the vein of lounge jazz but inspired more by Captain Beefheart and The Fugs than a standard jazz group.
Tuesday | May 15, 2018
Cullen Omori, photo by Alexa Lopez
Who:Cullen Omori w/The Gloomies and Rowboat When: Tuesday, 05.15, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Cullen Omori’s 2016 album New Misery at least lets you know what you’re in for. As in imagine you were in one of the most buzzed about indie rock bands of the first half of the 2010s and then your band breaks up and you didn’t regroup with any of the other members. You’re left to pick up the pieces and try to figure out a way to keep doing the only thing that gave your life any real resonance. Perhaps a bit of a stretch but one can only imagine it’s something like the scene in Apocalypse Now where Willard discusses why he stayed in Vietnam and how it beat working in a factory in Ohio. To go from Smith Westerns and, in Denver anyway, playing the Ogden to playing small clubs. Willard dealt with it through self-harm and self-medication. Maybe Omori did some of that too, who’s to say? But what we do know is that despite its flaws and shortcomings, New Misery is the product of Omori’s tangling with the fallout, personal and creative, of going from being in a band on the verge of mainstream success to having to find a place for oneself doing the thing you love but which is also the source of some of your pain. That quality gives the record a bit of an uneven and at times cringeworthily honest quality but you don’t often get to hear that on what is essentially a pop record. For this show, you can see some of that music live but also, with any luck, a good deal of what Omori has been cooking up since then.
Who:Film On the Rocks: The Last Jedi feat. Church Fire When: Tuesday, 05.15, 6 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Church Fire’s music sounds like it’s from some future, way-past-post-apocalypse-to-civilizational-rebirth dance club scene. Like synth pop delivered with a fiery intensity and noisy abandon. Sure, a lot of people are going to see a movie during the rainy season for some reason at a place where the wind will doppler the sound and the storms will make watching a movie borderline miserable. Or not. It is Colorado after all. But seeing Church Fire in that environment will make sense as the sun is setting and the diminishing rainclouds provide the perfect backdrop.
Wednesday | May 16, 2018
TV Girl log, image courtesy TV Girl
Who:TV Girl w/Wished Bone and Hairclub When: Wednesday, 05.16, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The enigmatic pop band TV Girl makes a stop at the Hi-Dive this night. Its sound is like a hyper/surreal, tropicalia-inflected lounge pop. Like a Los Angeles sister band to Sweden’s Death And Vanilla. If someone could make music for a TV show about an America where the 80s never ended and we somehow had Ike back as the president. If Mad Men was a cyberpunk show but took place at a resort with none of the usual dystopian trappings, just life with everyday dramas set in a dreamlike place, an almost too clean place as exists in 60s 70s British science fiction shows. The band’s new album, Death of a Party Girl (read the statement on why the vinyl isn’t yet out because it’s dead on and witty) is an indie pop album that sounds like something that could only really come out of Southern California – hazy atmospheres, downtempo, wistful and soothing – but without any of the creeping insipidity that happens when too much industry input leeches music of any of its inherent character.
Mint Field performs at Lost Lake on March 21. Photo by Maria Fernanda Molins
Who:Protomartyr w/Ned Garthe Explosion When: Thursday, 03.15, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Protomartyr apparently didn’t get the memo on what post-punk bands in the current era are supposed to sound like. The vocal delivery hits at weird angles to the fluid rhythms and jagged yet expressive and atmospheric guitar work like Nick Cave singing for a hybrid of The Fall and Sleaford Mods. Its latest record is 2017’s Relatives in Descent. It’s a bit moodier than the group’s earlier albums yet has a headlong quality as though the band is embracing the chaos and disorientation of the world now to see where the broken machine ultimately lands. Ned Garthe Explosion is more of a psychedelic rock band but one of the most gloriously ragged around the edges and one for which you never quite know where the show will go in a way we need to see more often.
Who:Alonerly, R A R E B Y R D $, Claudzilla When: Thursday, 03.15, 10 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Alonerly is the solo project of Antonia Montoya from Albuquerque. Using upright bass, soulful vocals and beats, Montoya creates the kind of spacious yet intimate music that probably gets lumped, and not unjustifiably so, with jazz and hip-hop but is in the end its own thing, a rarity in a time when many musical artists are trying to tap a little too much into an established musical genre. She won’t be alone in bringing something not quite like anything else with keytar weirdo Claudzilla and hypnotic and highly evocative hip-hop/noise crew R A R E B Y R D $.
Friday | March 16, 2018
Bad Licks, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Bad Licks 7 inch release w/Vic ‘n’ the Narwhals, The Corner Girls and Soulfax DJs
When: Friday, 03.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bad Licks includes former members of The Blue Rider so there’s plenty of the subtle weirdness to the undertones of its psychedelic garage rock. The group is celebrating the release of its latest seven inch of its excellent Lies EP. Because people in the band are very much into genuinely experimental music, the record is worth listening to beyond obvious genre trappings. Joined this night by pastel/surf punks The Corner Girls and surf/blues punk band Vic ‘n’ the Narwhals. All around a post-garage rock genre-bending extravaganza because all of these bands put on an energetic performance.
Who:Clan of Xymox w/Voicecoil and Radio Scarlet w/DJ Svipal When: Friday, 03.16, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Clan of Xymox formed in Amsterdam near the height of the first wave of post-punk in 1981. The band’s sound including more extensive use of synths was more in line with groups like Comsat Angels, The Sound, Killing Joke and The Chameleons. Clan of Xymox’s first three albums are considered foundational for what has come to be known as “darkwave” – the blending of early synth pop aesthetics with post-punk. Xymox and contemporaries like Anne Clark, Fad Gadget and Depeche Mode made what might have been considered weird and avant-garde accessible to a broad audience. By the early 90s, however, the band splintered and Ronnie Moorings continued in a direction inspired by the acid house music popular in dance clubs in the late 80s and early 90s. But apparently the project’s fanbase wasn’t into that sound and it didn’t translate well to the rave crowd. And yet Xymox hadn’t completely lost its darkwave cachet and throughout the 90s Moorings experimented with a return to that sort of sound while absorbing the industrial music of bands he had in part influenced. Over the past decade darkwave, industrial and gothic rock has been enjoying the most extensive genuine revival since the first time around and Xymox has enjoyed a little of its own renaissance being invited to festivals catering to the aforementioned genres and with its last eight albums, including 2017’s Days of Black, released or re-issued on Metropolis. Why did the music matter? As someone once said about Joy Division, despite and because of its sometimes gloomy, brooding, emotionally urgent and intense sounds, Xymox and its contemporaries had to come along to articulate complex and sometimes conflicting emotions with a clarity, power and poignancy that wasn’t happening with a lot of rock and roll.
Monday | March 19, 2018
Yardsss, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Screwtape, Wander, Young Lovers, Ridgeway, Yardsss, Brother Saturn When: Monday, 03.19, 6:30 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: One of the great things about shows at Seventh Circle is that even if it’s all supposed to be all one thing it never really is. Tonight proves that as local hardcore heroes Screwtape are performing alongside mostly post-rock/shoegaze bands. Brother Saturn’s collage of guitar sounds tracing the outsides of daydreams made up of soothingly hypnotic layers of atmosphere is a good fit with California based post-rock bands Wander, Young Lovers and Ridgeway to send them back home from SXSW in a welcoming show halfway through that journey. Yardsss from Portland, Oregon has a diverse sonic palette but broadly speaking, the band’s core sounds are rooted in droning atmospheres, noise and improvisational electronic composition. Fans of more experimental industrial music will find much to like in Yardsss’ darkly evocative aesthetic.
Who:Mimicking Birds, The Raven and the Writing Desk and Haley Heynderickx When: Monday, 03.19, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Indie rock band Mimicking Birds are making a stop in Denver on their way to Treefort Music Fest (we’ll be featuring some advance coverage in the next few days as well as post-fest coverage in the following weeks). The group recently released its new album, the gorgeously lush and pastoral Layers of Us. If you’re not making it out to Treefort for the 7:40 p.m. set at El Korah Shrine, catch the Portland, Oregon-based band tonight with the like-minded The Raven and the Writing Desk. The latter is one of Denver’s best kept secrets in music as a band that has really pushed itself to explore new vistas in its own sound and breaking with its own musical past in order to make something interesting and fresh. A rarity.
Tuesday | March 20, 2018
GGOOLLDD, photo by Kelly Bolter
Who:OMD w/GGOOLLDD When: Tuesday, 03.20, 7 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, often referred to as OMD, were, like fellow UK artists Gary Numan and Human League as well as Berlin in the USA, instrumental in establishing what became synth pop. After seeing an mid-70s Kraftwerk concert, bassist and vocalist Andy McCluskey started OMD with some friends and from early on the band separated itself from many other bands of the era in having no guitars and but a visceral live show. OMD enjoyed its share of commercial popularity in the UK and the US at various points in its career but artistically it’s arguably greatest achievement was the 1983 album Dazzle Ships. But the mainstream audience didn’t seem to be much into the truly boundary pushing pop compositions. Today the album is considered by many fans to be its best alongside its 1981 predecessor, Architecture & Morality. Now recognized as innovators as well talented masters of pop songcraft, OMD will be headlining a show at The Ogden Theatre with the Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based GGOOLLDD. The latter, fronted by the dynamic and talented Margaret Butler, recently released the TEETH EP in December 2017. Part synth pop, part theatrical glam band, GGOOLLDD has always put on a large theater show in small, even intimate venues, so catch a great, newer band opening for a group in a similar lineage of imaginative yet sincere music.
What:Faster Than Light Fest: Obtuse (1st), Blue Lane Frontier, Old Sport, Granddad (AK/MN), Closer is a Band (Brooklyn), Alien Boy (Portland), Runaway Brother (Cleveland) When: Tuesday, 03.20, 5 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This is a festival put together for bands on their way from SXSW or going through and happening to converge in Denver for one date. It’s also a good cross section of the modern punk/emo/math rock underground in America and naturally it’s at Seventh Circle where a lot of touring if that stripe often plays in Denver these days. Locals Obtuse, Old Sport and Blue Lane Frontier represent a rebirth for the kind of punk that both embraces pop punk, screamo, indie rock and math rock but also advances where that music could have gone had it converged and evolved. Portland’s Alien Boy gets points for naming itself after a Wipers song but also for embodying the kind of moody punk with thoughtful, sometimes wryly humorous, lyrics and the kind of darkness and intensity, not to say anger, that a lot of punk frankly lacks.
Wednesday | March 21, 2018
Kelly Lee Owens, photo by Kim Hiorthøy
Who:Kelly Lee Owens When: Wednesday, 03.21, 9 p.m. Where: Bar Standard Why: With her 2017 self-titled full-length, Kelly Lee Owens displayed a keen ear for electronic composition and a knack for translating that into accessible dance tracks. Her mastery of mixing hypnotic and deep low end with melodic drones interweaving with her ethereal vocals across the record was stunning. Fans of IDM, dub techno and deep house, do yourself a favor and at a minimum pick up the album. Also, fans of dream pop/shoegaze acts unafraid of jumping straight into abstract atmospheres such as Slowdive, Seefeel and Sound of Ceres will find much to like with Owens’ output as well. Owens performs tonight at Bar Standard before setting off for Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho where she performs Thursday night 3.22 at 12:30 a.m. at Neurolux
Who:Mint Field w/Neighbor Lady and American Grandma When: Wednesday, 03.21, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Mint Field’s 2018 debut album Pasar De Las Luces is being touted as a great modern shoegaze album. And it is, but it is one that isn’t particularly beholden to an older sound. The minimalist aesthetic of the music bears a stronger resemblance to ambient and downtempo dance music than to rock. At its most “rock” the band comes off as more post-punk and Krautrock like Neu! or Faust than worshippers of Lush or My Bloody Valentine. Although the band is from Tijuana its gauzy layers and swirling melodies are a far cry from that city’s reputation as one of the party capitals of the world. Mint Field also performs at Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho on Saturday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at Boise All Ages Movement.
Who:U.S. Girls w/Rubedo and Michael Rault When: Wednesday, 03.21, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Meghan Remy’s U.S. Girls has thankfully been pretty much impossible to chalk up to a single genre of music since the project’s inception. It’s always pop songs whether those have a leg in noise, punk, garage rock or whatever. Her latest album, 2018’s In a Poem Unlimited, sounds, interestingly enough, like a reinvention of 90s hip-hop as a funk and soul record. It has that lush production with grit and a melancholic undertone. “Pearly Gates” in particular is reminiscent of Warren G’s 1994 hit “Regulate.” Which, considering the themes of the album, is an interesting allusion. But whatever ideas and sounds informed the record, it is a literate and insightful exploration the various manifestations of toxic masculinity, its effects throughout culture and society and what life might be like without it’s wearying, destructive influence.
Who:Ed Schrader’s Music Beat w/Naked Giants and Hairclub When: Wednesday, 03.21, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: If you listened to Ed Schrader’s Music Beat’s albums and other recorded releases prior to 2018 and didn’t see live, the appeal can be a bit of a head scratcher. A floor tom, scream-ish vocals and bass? Live it all made sense and the records relatable. But the band put out its most accessible album to date with Riddles. Having worked with Dan Deacon didn’t hurt and as the band’s producer, Deacon helped to shape a sound that took the duo’s avant-garde urban tribal contradictions and into the level of recorded coherence the project has always warranted. Ed Schrader’s Music Beat also performs at Treefort Music Fest in Boise, Idaho at 10:30 p.m. at Boise All-ages Movement Project.
Clarke Howell and Brett Netson at Daytrotter, September 10, 2017, photo courtesy Clarke Howell
Clarke Howell is one of the most respected songwriters and performers in the American underground. She generally tours as a solo artist but if you see a bill that says Clark & The Himselfs and Friends it’s more a full band lineup. But whatever the configuration, Howell is a magnetic performer whose fuzzy, often ebullient, pop songs capture a defiance and melancholy that seems ideal for the times we’re living in right now. Howell has been writing her music for the project since 2004 and the music is reminiscent of early Flaming Lips and The Reatards. Released in March 2017, In Your Hear You Know She’s Clark and the Himselfs includes contributions from Built To Spill’s Doug Martsch.
Clarke & The Himselfs current tour is a pairing, a showcase if you will, with fellow Scavenger Cult label collaborator Brett Netson. The latter is perhaps best known as a member of Boise, Idaho-based alternative rock band Built to Spill but also for his tenure as a crafter of brilliantly strange guitar sounds for experimental psychedelic band Caustic Resin. Netson will soon release a collaborative album he did with Snakes and like-minded Canadian band Crosss due out on cassette and vinyl on November 8, 2017 on Scavenger Cult.
We caught up with both musicians via email during their current tour. They will be playing tonight, October 6, at Lion’s Lair with the mighty Denver psych-garage band Ned Garthe Explosion and Nelson Crane. The tour will also visit Fort Collins and Boulder respectively over the next couple of days. Ask a punk, or whatever expression people are using now. What follows is a back to back Q&A with both artists beginning with Howell.
Clarke & The Himselfs, March, 16, 2017, photo by Ellen Rumel
Clarke & The Himselfs
Queen City Sounds and Art:You’ve been in a band or bands before Clarke and the Himselfs, what about the more kind of solo format was appealing to you initially?
Clarke Howell: What’s most appealing is the ability to keep playing music without having the handicap of having to have other people. But it’s still best to play music with others, that’s how I learned how to play in the first place. But there wasn’t really any kind of intention, mostly default.
The project has been around since 2004. What made 2011 the point where there was a re-amalgamation and what prompted that?
When I was 15 I learned how to multi-track record and made the first album that I called Clarke and the Himselfs and made about a dozen albums after that. But I couldn’t play live shows that actually sounded like the recordings. In 2011 I figured out I could play guitar while holding a drum stick in my hand and started playing a set with my friend Demmi on double drums, which was originally going to be a different band, but after I started touring and moved to New Orleans it just kind of ended up turning into a new version of C&TH with a different sound and set-up.
Much of America or the world has no clue that Boise, Idaho has any music much less anything of note like Built to Spill, Caustic Resin and more recently what you’ve done, Finn Riggins, Sun Blood Stories, Wolvserpent, Street Fever and Magic Sword. Or that there’s an actual, viable music scene there. At least now. What kind of music world was there for you when you were starting out playing music, particularly with your current project as I know many cities go through various cycles where a scene is good and thriving and then seemingly dead for a while. What kinds of places did you play early on and what bands do you think impacted you or maybe took you under their wing?
I was born and grew up in Boise during the largest birthing boom in the history of civilization. All these people moved to Boise to raise families. I was lucky because I was surrounded by a large amount of extremely talented and creative peers that were largely disenfranchised in a town where there wasn’t much to do. Around 2008/2009 there was an extremely great house show scene thriving in Boise – that’s the scene I came out of. There’s a documentary I made about it called Bands of 208. I think it’s your friends that impact you the most of all – you kind of grow as they do and it helps if you’re interested in the same things. In those days, if I could say anyone, it was really getting to know David Strackany, who plays under [the moniker] Paleo. [He] made me realize, most of all, that it was possible tour by yourself. Beyond that though, his music is so amazing and relevant. David is a true genius and everything he touches continues to blow me away. Also getting to know Rob Morton and The Taxpayers solidified[my] sense of adventure and how much fun and how free it is to travel and play music for people.
In Your Heart You Know She’s And The Himselfs is such an interesting title for an album. What’s the significance of it especially considering the use of two gendered pronouns to refer to a single person?
I came out publicly as transgender in January, I’ve been transitioning and taking hormones since October of last year. I had struggled with gender dysphoria since I was little kid and for the most part basically knew that I was transgender or something [like] that probably since I was 12 or 13. It was something I constantly struggled with that constantly made me depressed and suicidal. I didn’t even realize the full extent of [how constant that state of mind and being was] until recently. I didn’t tell anyone until 2015 [because] I was too afraid to. I didn’t really tell anybody else until last year [when it] kind of came to [a head and] I didn’t have any choice but to deal with it. I had kept it this secret and it was totally fucking me up inside—for years I could kind of manage waves of dysphoria and crippling depression but it was apparent it couldn’t go on any longer.
You can only swim against a current for so long, if you don’t start swimming with it, you’ll drown. So I needed to do this, for the sake of my life, to save myself. I can’t begin to explain the kind of mental anguish you have as a closeted trans person thinking about coming out and transitioning. On top of that, it’s like, fuck, I play in this band called Clarke and the Himselfs and I’m this trans-woman but nobody knows, but they’re gonna fucking know, all these people are gonna have to deal with that [just] as you’re trying to learn how to deal with it yourself, which is really the point. I knew I was trans when I named that first album, it’s in there somehow, it’s in the “s.” But I can’t stop playing music, I don’t really have a choice, [and] I knew there had to be some kind of happy marriage I could [navigate]. That’s the point of the title, there’re some other points, but that’s the main on: it’s a literal title. It surprises me sometimes, or at least for awhile it seemed like people weren’t taking it as real, like I’m some kind of fantasy artist who doesn’t mean what she says. It’s like you have remind everyone that what you are reading right now and listening to and watching on a TV or the internet is a real person in the same world that you live on – this one is a woman that plays in a band called Clarke and the Himselfs.
You have contributions from Doug Martsch on the album. How did you come to know Doug and come to work with him?
Boise is a pretty small place, and Doug was always kind of around. When I was in class at junior high, I would see him play basketball on the courts outside. He was just this dude in town. I grew up with Brett’s kids and I guess I mostly knew of Built to Spill through them. There were a couple years when W.I.B.G. would come play Boise they would ask Doug and I to play guitar with them, I got to know Doug a little more through that, and of course later when I went on tour with Built to Spill.
Snakes (Brett Netson on right), photo by Chris Schanz
Brett Netson
Queen City Sounds And Art: You have an upcoming vinyl and cassette release with the Canadian psych/experimental guitar band Crosss. How did that collaboration come about? What about that band did you find interesting enough that the idea of working with them appealed to you?
Brett Netson: Crosss got put on a few shows of a Built to Spill tour a few years ago and they blew me away. We had them do a whole tour later and we stayed in touch.. They were passing through Boise last year and had a few days off so I just asked them to do a session and they said yes. It’s such a great mix of the darker Syd Barrett songs (“Scream Thy Last Scream,” “Lucifer Sam”) and classic heavy riffs. Why hadn’t anyone done that before? Really unique and excellent guitar playing. Heavy, weird. I’m generally a big fan of that.
When was the last time you toured places like you will be with Clarke Howell? What do you miss about it, what do you hope you don’t have to deal with now that maybe happened often when you were touring as many bands do across America playing small clubs, bars and DIY spaces?
The last Caustic Resin tour in 2003. I love the shit ass small venue/hose show touring. It’s hard, but a lot more engaging and rewarding than a larger venue tour. Being deep in the environment that you move through, is infinitely more rewarding in the end. You meet some really priceless solid people on the way. But it truly is an assbeating though.
I happened to make it to Treefort in 2014 but can’t remember if Caustic Resin played or not. Had I known about it I probably would have gone. Have you reunited that project for any shows in recent years?
We did play a couple shows last fall for the release of Medicine is All Gone on vinyl. It was a great wild time for sure.
For this current tour what kind of lineup will you have? Is there a certain pool of your music you’ll draw from for this tour?
Mostly new stuff written with these Taurus bass synth pedals. I’m really into it. Stereo tape delay, electric guitar, vocals and bass synth. Doing a Caustic Resin song here and there. The goal is drug effects [as therapy].
Totally random, but you reference snakes in one of your bands and the music having come from the Snake River Plain. As a kid, by any chance, did you family see Evel Knievel try to jump Snake River Canyon?
Didn’t get to see it in person but I remember it well. Apparently it was a gigantic fiasco around that area. The ramp was there next to the canyon for many years.
You were in a punk band before Caustic Resin. What inspired wanting to make more the kind of music you have since then?
I’ve always been more into arty and hard guitar rock but took the invite into a punk rock band, The Pugs, just cause they asked. It was pretty ridiculous sounding with my rock riffs and echo. It didn’t last very long.
I’m a bit of a fan of various bands from Boise but know only obvious bands and maybe some more modern underground groups. When you were coming up, was there a local music scene that you could be a part of and tap into? What were some local bands you felt impacted you as a young musician if any? What kinds of places did your punk band and the early Caustic Resin play?
What made the biggest impact on me was seeing an “industrial” band. Underground Cinema was the most notable one. Banging on metal and screaming with random synthesizers and tape loops. Subversive politics and transgressive theatrics. I loved it. But you see, I was also obsessed with playing Stevie Ray Vaughn riffs for hours on end. I was about 16 at that time. Played my first show ever at a place called the Crazy Horse in an offshoot of that band called Nietzsche’s Birthday.
Maybe it’s being near/in the Pacific Northwest but how did you get connected with Mark Lanegan and Dylan Carlson? Mark you toured with over a decade ago, of course, but you recently recorded with Earth. Did they discuss with you what they appreciate what you bring to their music?
There was a somewhat connected network over the years. In this case it was Chris Takino the guy who started UP! records. An incredible person who was a conduit to a lot of people. He had worked at SST and then Sub Pop before starting UP. Those guys didn’t say much about why they asked me to play, just told me to do what I do. It’s pretty cool to have friends like that who write truly great music and are in a position to hire various weirdos to play with them. I am truly grateful for those situations. I am very lucky.
Why did you start Scavenger Cult?
Clarke has also worked to make Scavenger Cult a reality. It could kind of be considered more of a collective than a label. My music has never fit real well in any particular scene or genre. Scavenger Cult is that. A place for orphan type music. Also, I am obsessed with recording on tape machines only. There aren’t many labels that want to get into that kind of hassle. More people than ever can sell a modest amount of vinyl records these days and I’m into that. Otherwise, the internet and digital music is a worse than useless shit show of disposable novelty garbage. Scavenger Cult records will sound good and mean something to you years from now. We’ve made deals with esoteric elements, good, evil and beyond to make sure of that.
What about Clarke and the Himselfs made you want to release something by that project?
Clarke is a hard working and genuine artist. It’s just real deal stuff. Clarke and everyone else from that scene (see “Bands of the 208“) are true and unique people. Incidentally my daughter was part of that scene. I’m proud of them and honored to be able to work with Clarke. It may be kind of a Boise thing but it’s also obvious that Clarke writes world class songs and is a solid performer. We’ve worked and sacrificed to make, hopefully, timeless records that exist outside of styles and genres. That’s a common goal for a lot of people I know, but I think we’ve done it to some extent. You learn so much every record you do.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.