Best Shows in Denver 2/27/20 – 3/4/20

Thursday | February 27

The Shivas, photo by Adria Ivanitsky

What: The Shivas w/The Savage Blush and Slynger
When: Thursday, 2.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Shivas were pushing the modern garage psych aesthetic forward before it became a played out quantity in the 2010s. But because the band was always weirder and willing to explore the noisier, more extreme ends of the style its music has remained refreshingly different and genre bend-y up to and including its 2019 album Dark Thoughts.

What: SG1, Liptruce and Turner Jackson
When: Thursday, 2.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Friday | February 28

Whitacre, photo by Brandon Johnson

What: Susto w/Whitacre and Molly Parden
When: Friday, 2.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Susto’s 2019 album Ever Since I Lost My Mind finds the indie rock band branching into more urgent and gritty songwriting territory without losing the thoughtfulness. Maybe the tenor of the times has seeped into the drive behind the new material but the band’s gorgeously languid vibes seem ticked more than a bit toward a focused intentionality with the music. Not that it lacked intensity at moments before, it’s just palpable this time out. Also on the bill is Denver-based band Whitacre. Paul Whitacre has made a name for himself since moving to the Mile High City in 2016 for his introspective yet brightly upsweeping songs. The group’s new album Seasons, out on April 17, finds its songs, produced by Joe Richmond (who has worked with Tennis and Churchill), polished and shining with a warmth and sincere optimism.

What: Modern Leisure w/Ashley Koett and Big Dopes
When: Friday, 2.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Modern Leisure’s Casey Banker’s keen ear for dynamic and entrancing pop melodies is matched only by his similar gift for sharply observed turns of phrase. Big Dopes’ 2019 album Crimes Against Gratitude is brimming with vivid portraits of life in a generation whose future has been compromised but trying to maintain a sense of hope for better times ahead without succumbing to nihilistic despair.

What: Chuck Prophet
When: Friday, 2.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Swallow Hill – Daniels Hall
Why: Chuck Prophet was one of the pioneers of alt-country as a member of Green On Red from its genre-defining 1985 album Gas Food Lodging through the early 90s. During his career as a solo artist his knack for crafting poetic imagery and dusty power pop has seemed endless. His most recent record, 2017’s Bobby Fully Died for Your Sins is a meditation on the passing of musical giants and maintaining a vision for hope in dark times.

What: Drune w/Earthdiver and Dead Characters
When: Friday, 2.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets Denver

What: Youthanizer debut and Tuck Knee Tour Kick Off w/Gack, XdeadbeatX and Wolfblitzer
When: Friday, 2.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

What: Luna Luna w/Retrofette and Nightlove
When: Friday, 2.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: MxPx w/Teenage Bottle Rocket
When: Friday, 2.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre

Saturday | February 29

Rachael Sage, photo courtesy the artist

What: Howard Jones acoustic Trio performance w/Rachael Sage
When: Friday, 2.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Synth pop pioneer Howard Jones will perform as part of an acoustic trio for this show interpreting his iconic hits of the 80s in a format that will likely surprise. Anyone that has witnessed Jones in the more electronic incarnation of the music knows that his songwriting is at the heart of the appeal of his songs. Opening the show is Rachael Sage. The New York City-based artist has been releasing music on her own MPress Records for two decades including fourteen of her own albums distinguished by an eclectic range of sounds and styles that have informed her imaginative pop songs. He latest album Character, out March 6, came out of her time recovering from endometrial cancer throughout 2018. The record is informed by a sense of humility, realistic yet poetic assessments of life’s possibilities and horizons when facing your own mortality. Sage discards the bravado we hear too much in American music in the face of adversity, it acknowledges the frailty and fragility of the situations we may find ourselves when you can’t just magically snap back and be okay. It wisely takes a sensitive and deeply compassionate yet honest approach to every subject and reveals itself to be a deep record about life’s challenges in general whatever your situation.

SPELLS, photo by Tom Murphy

What: SPELLS (record release) w/Drakülas and People Corrupting People
When: Saturday, 2.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Streets Denver
Why: Denver’s SPELLS is releasing its new record Stimulants & Sedatives on Chuck Coffey’s Snappy Little Numbers imprint. In the past one might have described SPELLS as essentially a pop punk band. But on this album there’s more dissonance and grit to the music to go along with the rambunctious tunefulness that has been the hallmark of the band’s sound from the beginning. The lyrics are a sharp mix of self-awareness and self-deprecation with stories of realistic expectations rather than bullish bravado, a very adult approach that contrasts well with the raw energy of the performances.

What: Church Fire, Grief Ritual and Limbwrecker
When: Saturday, 2.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Bannock St. Garage

What: The Corner Girls w/Vic N’ The Narwhals and Beau Beverage
When: Saturday, 2.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: Authority Zero w/Over Time and Muscle Beach
When: Saturday, 2.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater

Tuesday | March 3

Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Ceschi and David Ramos w/Gregory Pepper, Midwife, Damn Selene and CFX Project
When: Tuesday, 3.3, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Ceschi Ramos is the co-founder of Fake Four, a label putting out some of the most forward thinking hip-hop of the past decade and a half. The confessional intensity of his rapidfire vocal delivery wrapped in atmospheric beats is reminiscent of Sole, with whom he has worked, and his vivid, personal storytelling issues forth in almost pointillistic couplets like a mosaic establishing an informal, organic narrative. On the bill also is experimental hip-hop artist Damn Selene and ambient folk phenom Midwife who is set to tour the US in March and April as well an appearance at the Roadburn Festival in the Netherlands.

Wednesday | March 4

R A R E B Y R D $ performs at Mercury Café on March 23. Photo by Tom Murphy

What: Weird Wednesday: DA’AN, Corey Daggers and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Wednesday, 3.4, 9 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: This typically eclectic line-up for Weird Wednesday includes a mix of electronic dance music, punk Americana and soulful hip-hop. DA’ANS is a new project that brings together the luminous vocals of Glynnis Braan of Lady of Sorrows and the electronic production and beat-making genius of Lawrence Snell, drummer of Meet the Giant, with songs and a theatrical performance that is a true synthesis of rave and darkwave. Corey Daggers often performs by himself with a guitar and on occasion with a full band. But either incarnation is a vital flavor of what might be described as dark carnival emo Americana. R A R E B Y R D $ bring a swagger, sensuality and emotional warmth to ambient beats and lyrics that are at turns playful, earthy and deeply, transformatively vulnerable.

What: Shigeto w/Mux Mool and Venus Cruz
When: Wednesday, 3.4, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: Rakim
When: Wednesday, 3.4, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater

Best Shows in Denver 05/10/19 – 05/15/19

Tim Hecker performs Sunday May 12 at The Bluebird Theater

Friday | May 10

FEELS, photo by Shervin Lainez

What: FEELS w/Midwife, Sweetness Itself and The Lifers
When: Friday, 05.10 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: FEELS recently put out its sophomore effort Post Earth. Like its 2016 self-titled debut, the new album makes it obvious the group was the next step in musical evolution out of the garage, psych, fuzz rock era of a few years back that had grown stagnant and utterly predictable. FEELS has always been too weird for that seeming to be rooted in a style of songwriting that was more introspective and bedroom confessional punk poetry than trying to fit into some scene. Unless that scene was one where your eccentric, authentic self was cultivated and nourished. So yeah, while Post Earth may have some familiar elements it just comes off like a band trying to figure out what it wants to be by trying a lot of different things and thing coming back to embracing what makes its individual members shine in sync with each other to make the kind of punk that has more in common with the first wave where almost anything goes and no one is insisting on aesthetic orthodoxy than the niche subgenres that have come in between then and now. That uniqueness translates to a uniquely energetic live show as well.

What: Call of the Void w/Green Druid, Casket Huffer and BleakHeart
When: Friday, 05.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Call of the Void celebrates the release of its new album Buried in Light with this show with some of Denver’s heaviest. Call of the Void has been, no pun intended, grinding it out since 2011 when it was called Ironhorse. But the quartet has always been more than grindcore and more than death metal. Its song dynamics, its lyrics and vocals are closer to bands like Neurosis and Isis than some of its more obvious peers and influences. Buried in Light feels like more of a science fiction album about life post impending human colony collapse.

Saturday | May 11

Lady of Sorrows, photo by Tom Murphy

What: GYES 6: Gort Vs. Goom, How to Think, Lady of Sorrows and Full Bleed
When: Saturday, 05.11, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: There are no “cool” bars nearby, the neighborhood is still sketchy sandwiched between CU Medical Centroplex, rapid development sprawl stumbling in from the west, the dystopian built-on-flight-fuel-soaked-ground of the Stapleton Development to the north and to the south the part of Aurora that is largely forgotten. Northwest Aurora, one of the few parts of central-ish Denver metro that has stubbornly resisted the influence of Nü Denver because it’s not along easily accessed by main arterial streets beyond Colfax. And yet, due to not predatory development The People’s Building exists and has events that you might want to go to including Get Your Eyes Swoll. Because of the booking involved it’s usually something very underground and definitely outside the mainstream. There’s probably literally no branch of Denver Metro underground music happening in public spaces in Aurora in general much less the Northwestern portion of the city tucked into Denver’s armpit like an infected splinter some fool has been trying to ignore for years until it became in demand once the vultures swooped in to buy out all the lower middle class homeowners with their dubious offers about buying ugly houses and the like. So for now, head east and maybe, just maybe, see prog punk weirdo duo Gort Vs. Goom and Lady of Sorrows who will bring her operatic, darkwave soundscaping to Denver’s dankest suburb.

What: Velveteers vinyl release w/The Kinky Fingers and Television Generation
When: Saturday, 05.11, 9 p.m.
Where: Silo Sound
Why: Velveteers thankfully came along a few years back to save rock and roll from its tired tropes and cartoonish, patriarchal clap trap with a buzzsaw, thunderous vengeance and fiery live show. And you get to see The Kinky Fingers who make a great case that even when most bands are boring us with trendy post-psych burnout bullshit, one can take a style and inject it with elegance and imagination and make it worth our while to continue to go and see. Television Generation is the greatest power pop, grunge-not-throw-back-but-throw-forward wiseacre cultural commenting smart snark band in Denver. And that’s saying something.

What: iZCALLi album release w/Don Chicharron and The Hollow
When: Saturday, 05.11, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: You could do worse with your Saturday night than go see iZCALLi celebrate the release of its latest album. The band is fairly straight ahead rock and roll but with personality and some warped tones and dangerous flourishes in its party time jams. Good thing because otherwise Don Chicharron would wipe the floor with them with their own celebratory psychedelic room-wreck-ed-ness. Both have plenty of Latin music influence built in to keep going wack-full-gringo with Stevie Ray Vaughan worship or some shit. The Hollow doesn’t suck either. They’ll bring some of the metal and scrape the earth with it but Spencer Townshend Hughes and company know how to sculpt a tune with more grace and artfulness than a bunch of the clumsy metaphors in this write-up.

What: Disposal Notice, Eraserhead Fuckers, Wolfblitzer, hxcmidi
When: Saturday, 05.11, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinceropolis
Why: hxcmidi may look like she’s about to get up and throw down some yikes-level bedroom hip-hop but Aisha has a lot more in common with Realicide and thus the name—psyche sundering, harsh electronic beat and samples backed hardcore that shatters gentrified consciousness. Eraserhead Fuckers, now that guy looks like he’s going to show us all how to make a sweet Power Point and use FTP to load it to our pathetic starter websites and then laugh about it all later while getting “crunk” with his friends (a term about which they will all laugh like meme-lord gamers). But his lyrics shit through with incisive sounds and ideas are the shank the MAGA-hat wearing lunkheads and their cross-generational brethren need in this time of crisis.

What: DJ & Live PA sets by: Trisicloplox, $addy, Kid Mask, TimeLord SFX, Blank Human
When: Saturday, 05.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: Okay, so you don’t want to have your mind blown by any of the above in their specific ways yet you want to get out to the chillzone without being put soundly to sleep. Technically this is a noise show but one with a stacked line-up of people who know how to transform the whole genre into mind-altering realms of sound and beat-driven injections of inspired strangeness. None of the acts are alike but share the same spirit of being furiously against boredom and musical mundanity.

Sunday | May 12

EVP, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Tim Hecker & Konoyo Ensemble
When: Sunday, 05.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: For this first show in Colorado (probably) since March 2012 when Hecker performed in the Odd Fellows Hall in Boulder at an event sponsored by Communikey (now mostly defunct, boundary pushing electronic music group and festival), there will probably be more illumination than at an Autechre show or even the aforementioned performance where the light came from Hecker’s gear and the fire “Exit” sign. If footage of recent shows are any indication, it’ll be a fog-enshrouded affair with beams of light but none of it distracting from Hecker’s deep soundscapes and imagination-stirring, environmental drones. His recent Konoyo and Anoyo albums are less relatively pop-oriented than their immediate predecessor and not granulated like a sonic fog-sandstorm of the 2011’s Ravedeath, 1972. More like Hecker is giving us modern music with a similar mindset that informed the KPM 1000 catalog and Harold Budd and Eno collaborating again to go full abstract journey into sonic analogs of conscious awareness beyond the Bardo Thodol.

What: Cowgirl Clue, Venus305 and EVP
When: Sunday, 05.12, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Forget the pictures of Ashley Rose Calhoun holding a BC Rich guitar. You could make something better at home with the proper routing tools, some basic electronic skills, soldering and some YouTube tutorials. And let’s hope she did and she’s using it as some kind of controller at some point. Kudos to her for putting on the cover of her album something colorful and strange. At any rate, her free-associating samples/synth track dance pop is playfully and unabashedly eccentric and like an update on electroclash. The local openers, Venus305 and EVP are like-minded weirdoes with confrontational performance styles that bring some edge to industrial dance and hip-hop-inflected pop.

Monday | May 13

Julia Jacklin, photo by Nick McKk

What: Julia Jacklin w/Black Belt Eagle Scout
When: Monday, 05.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Julia Jacklin’s vocal style is reminiscent of late 70s/early 80s Marianne Faithful with the sort of controlled, breathy yet tight and directed couplets. On her 2019 sophomore album Crushing, Jacklin evokes a smoky atmosphere enshrouding an introspective meditation on existential independence and rankling at the social expectations that undermine one’s sense of self. As facile as it is to say considering both songwriters are from Australia but fans of Aldous Harding will find much to appreciate with Julia Jacklin’s delicate and nuanced hand at songwriting and creatively poetic sensibilities. That and Jacklin just lays out how people need to step off and stop trying to make her fit into some mold that makes them feel comfortable with their own shortcomings and vices and let her figure out who she wants to be and where she wants to go on her own terms. Crushing is a heartfelt declaration of independence in one’s own heart and mind.

Tuesday | May 14

Evan Dando of The Lemonheads, photo by Michel van Collenburg

What: The Lemonheads with Tommy Stinson
When: Tuesday, 05.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Like other bands of the era, The Lemonheads predated the alternative music eruption of the early 90s and were part of it on its own terms. Even though the band had signed to Atlantic for the release of its 1990 album Lovey it didn’t strike it big like it might have had the record come out a year or two later. The mixture of Americana, hard rock and punk coupled with Evan Dando’s gift for writing hooks and melodic songs with some bite and personal insight was very much what would be in great demand from 1991 onward but somehow The Lemonheads were never fully able to capitalize on what was becoming a trend but was also the group’s signature sound and sensibility. And yet, Lemonheads garnered some modest mainstream popularity before going on hiatus with Dando embarking on a solo career in 1998. The band has reunited as of 2005 and the songwriting has become tighter with essentially an edgier power pop sound but with Dando’s typically thoughtful, self-effacing words about heartache and loss. Tommy Stimson you should know from being the bass player of The Replacements but he also did his time in Guns ‘n Roses as well. As a solo artist, he’s a songwriter of no small gifts himself.

What: The Dandy Warhols w/Cosmonauts
When: Tuesday, 05.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Dandys always put on a lively and emotionally and sonically engulfing live show. Read our interview with Courtney Taylor Taylor here.

What: Garbage w/Pleasure Venom
When: Tuesday, 05.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: One of the great bands of the late alternative rock era that managed to remain great through to now. Shirley Manson is truly one of the most commanding singers fronting any band now and often disarmingly so because is able to belt out the tunes but with a nuance and delicacy of feeling that makes her performances so powerful.

Wednesday | May 15

Hatebreed, photo courtesy the artist

What: Hatebreed w/Obituary, Madball, Prong, Skeletal Remains
When: Wednesday, 05.15, 5:30 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Hatebreed is well known for being one of the torchbearers of 90s metalcore with its aggressive tones and spiky grooves. But one thing that seems obvious taking a sampling of its music throughout its career is that there’s a bit of the influence of Mike Scaccia-period Ministry. The willingness to let sounds hang atmospherically over the top of a driving, splintery, industrial riff. It’s an interesting contrast to the sort of tough guy image projected into the songwriting and presentation. In some ways Hatebreed is an interesting bridge in sound between Obituary’s driving death metal and Prong’s clipped dynamics and industrial dance/death disco sensibilities.

 

What: Walk Off the Earth w/Matt and Kim, Gabriela Bee of the Eh Bee Family
When: Wednesday, 05.15, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Walk Off the Earth isn’t for everyone—that kind of folksy pop/indie rock/self-aware humor, posi-tip, quirky songwriting with elevated moods and a penchant for doing covers of songs that one would assume done out of a sense of irony but not so with Walk Off the Earth. At the end of 2018, though, the group lost its longtime member Mike “Beard Guy” Taylor due to natural causes and there was some speculation that the band was going on hiatus. But the quartet is now devoting the tour in honor of the memory of Taylor. Knowing the group, it’ll be as joyous as it has ever with a similarly exuberant set from indie rock party band openers Matt and Kim.