Joshua Creek’s economy of composition on “Thrill,” a track from his new album Phenomena which released April 22, 2022, serves well his aim in the writing and production of the song. He wanted to capture the excitement and anticipation of going out into the dark and night time adventures. His energetic yet light and lively piano figure paired with a shuffling percussion line that is joined by other electronic drum sounds to fill out the texture and some light delay on the bass line that sits deep yet evocatively in the mix. In a song that lasts two minutes twenty it stirs the imagination with recursive compositional structure that brings themes in and out of the song so that it feels like a pleasant and memory looped to remind one of a feeling that is difficult to convey with as much precision and quiet power as Creek does here. In moments it may remind one of one of Coil’s more upbeat and classically-inspired pieces or that of producer William Orbit. Listen to “Thrill” on YouTube and follow Joshua Creek on Spotify below.
The gently percussive guitar melody that opens GoGo Penguin’s “Badeep” is the perfect intro into the elegant piano composition to follow. The introspective piano figure evolves into urgent passages that parallel the increase in pace of the percussion and then the introduction of muted horns. The effect is like a fusion of post-rock sensibilities and jazz arrangements of cinematic scope suggesting sweeping movement toward a future time when the angst of the present has melted away and there is ample time to delve into the fine nuances of our emotional lives and inner aspirations and dreams as carried along by the energy many of us have had to channel into mere survival and staving off the despair that comes from having to carry the weight of so many challenges to daily life from which we’ve had little to no reprieve for years. This song imagines that future time and thus suggests we can create that space for ourselves in the present as a precursor to better times. Watch the visualizer for “Badeep” on YouTube and connect with GoGo Penguin at the links below.
Alex Fischel and Britt Daniel of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Nearly 30 years into its career, Spoon could be one of those bands that is doing fan service with a live show. But fortunately most bands of its era haven’t exactly done that and its show at the Mission Ballroom in Denver seemed both a celebration of being able to do live shows again, for now, and still proving itself touring for Lucifer on the Sofa, a rock and roll follow up to the luminously moody Hot Thoughts.
Geese at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
When Geese opened the show it seemed as though more than a few people found it to be a bit of a head scratcher. The performance was somehow both focused and shambolic, driven by a jazz quintet’s dynamic precision and a jam band’s free flowing aesthetic, part punk, part prog. Almost always within the same song. Vocalist Cameron Winter strode about the stage like wandering around, bemused, relating unusual stories with a free association improv flair. Pretty much the whole set was comprised of tracks from the group’s extraordinary 2021 debut album Projector but seeing this presentation of the music added another dimension to Geese’s widely expressive aesthetic. The energy felt like seeing some friends rehearse for their big stage debut for mutual acquaintances with no pressure and the freedom of that and seeming to be unmindful and not overly conscious of playing to a crowd mostly there to see a band with a fairly lengthy legacy. If you’re going to the UMS in 2022 this band will perform on some stage and likely in a smaller venue setting.
Geese at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom MurphyJim Eno and Britt Daniel of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Spoon has probably played thousands of shows across three decades and in a wide variety of settings. The last time this writer saw Spoon was somehow in the fall of 2002 at Tulagi’s in Boulder during the touring cycle for Kill the Moonlight. The group then was impressive enough in a small club with songs that seemed so sophisticated and well crafted for a band playing a venue that often then featured music much more raw and noisy. Fast forward some twenty years and Spoon seems to have injected its current performance style and songwriting with some raw edge without losing its elegantly arranged songwriting. You could tell that everyone seemed happy with not just being there but with the crowd response. Britt Daniels regularly interacted with people in the front row directly and with people further back from the stage by making eye contact and acknowledging people who were giving back the energy Spoon was putting forth. Bassist Ben Trokan looked genuinely in awe of what the band was doing collectively and the mutual emotional dynamic between the crowd and the performers. He looked a little like a young Scott Baio with a wardrobe choice seeming to come right out of an 80s movie. It made for an interesting aesthetic like we were seeing a band that had some consciousness of how they were dressed but let the rock theater of the musical performance speak loudest.
Ben Trokan of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
And we were certainly treated to selections from a wide swath of Spoon’s career with a slight emphasis on the new record at roughly a third of the set of twenty-one songs (including the encore). “My Mathematical Mind” was a standout of the night with its reworking into a song that expanded into epic proportions giving the musicians some space to stretch the song out without spilling over into gross self-indulgence. For a band with such tight songwriting and sensibilities that always seem to put exactly the right touches on songs so as to not waste a moment in the listening it was a welcome change into a different side of Spoon’s collective musicianship and one that allowed for variations in arrangements and to go off the established map of the original song to that degree. The whole set seemed like hit after hit even when it was lesser known songs. Something about the forcefulness of the show like an inner emotional momentum was pushing the band into giving it an extra push into cutting loose around the edges while coming back together in perfect sync. It all proved why Spoon has maintained more than a simple cult following and with its new batch of songs, some of the best and most immediately appealing of its long career maybe it’ll garner a new generation of fans.
Gerardo Larios of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Spoon Set List for the Mission Ballroom 5/24/22
Held
Small Stakes
Don’t You Evah
Do You
The Beast and Dragon, Adored
The Hardest Cut
Satellite
The Underdog
My Babe
I Summon You
Lucifer on the Sofa
Don’t Make Me A Target
My Mathematical Mind
Inside Out
I Turn My Camera On
Got Nuffin Encore
Wild
The Way We Get By
The Fitted Shirt
Black Like Me
Rent I Pay
Britt Daniel of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom MurphyBritt Daniel and Ben Trokan of Spoon at Mission Ballroom 5/24/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Everclear is a band that emerged in Portland, Oregon in 1991 in time for the first wave of alternative rock that decade. Main songwriter and frontman Art Alexakis had grown up in southern California and relocated to San Francisco for a time in the late 80s with his first wife where he established his music imprint Shindig Records. None of his musical projects at the time broke through and to get a fresh start, having not so then long ago got off drugs and newly a father, he moved to Portland, Oregon with his family where his wife had family and an important support system that makes life in a new city easier. Alexakis had a solo project turned band in Colorfinger and some songs he wrote during that period would make it into his next band’s repertoire. With Everclear, Alexakis would use his tumultuous life, challenging youth and great personal loss as the subject matter for especially raw and affecting songs. Everclear’s debut album 1993’s World of Noise was raw and real and recorded for a few hundred dollars. 2022 sees the remaster of the album for digital in June and for vinyl in the fall 2022 and its songwriting strikes as still relevant, poignant and powerful. By the time of the 1995 follow up Alexakis and company had a major label contract and a budget so that the resultant record Sparkle and Fade had much more professional production but the songwriter’s knack for pairing meaningful and deeply personal lyrics with solid hooks rooted in classic pop songcraft and Alexakis’ own eclectic background as an artist whose appreciation for country music melodies informed some of the most memorable songs of the decade including “Santa Monica,” “Father of Mine,” “I Will Buy You A New Life” and “Everything to Everyone.” After three platinum albums throughout the latter half of the 90s the musical landscape had changed some even if Everclear kept writing quality material and the band disappeared from the world of mainstream music.
In 2014 Everclear announced its Summerland tour which brought together alternative rock bands popular in the mid-to-late 90s. Though a bit of a nostalgia tour it also proved there was still an appetite for that music even if it wasn’t dominating the commercial charts. All through the ups and downs of popularity Alexakis has been an insightful observer of humanity and culture with a pragmatic streak born of being a music industry veteran who has always had to advocate for himself and who has long advocated for other artists and humanitarian causes. In his music you hear the words of someone who projects vulnerability and sensitivity backed with a grit and strength that was necessary to make a life in rock and roll. Look for his autobiography in the coming years where you can read a plethora of a great stories from a colorful and eventful life.
The artwork for Anthony Menzia’s single “The Witch” sets the mysterious mood for a song that doesn’t fit neatly in any single genre designation. It’s a design suggesting simultaneously a face, a sword, a caduceus as an image like stained glass in the chapel of the mystic of a forgotten spiritual faith.The song itself is a journey from darkly shimmering electronic shimmers over a an organic beat seemingly tapped out with sticks on wood while pulses of distorted sound establish a rhythm before processed vocals come in reminiscent of Barry Andrews of Shriekback circa 1986 and Big Night Music. It’s hushed and sits in the mix, ghost-like. Tones hover brightly and dissolve like swarms of luminous insects coming together like a temporary colony and dispersing. The lyrics are a bit enigmatic making references to not having to guess what’s on someone’s mind and directions to swivel one’s hips if under the spell of the person singing. Is it an inducement to dance or an attempt at seduction of the carnal and/or spiritual kind. Difficult to say but the song sounds like something you’d hear in one of those elevated horror movies in a scene where more mundane characters are introduced to a secret society or a clandestine subculture that promises a more interesting life. Listen to “The Witch” on YouTube and follow Anthony Menzia at the links provided.
Hex Cassette at the Hi-Dive December 23, 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Hex Cassette is an EBM/synth pop/confrontational industrial artist from Denver, Colorado. As the solo project of Zachary Jordan, Hex Cassette has been around since the mid-2010s and his gift for crafting fairly accessible, exuberant dance music with a darkwave flavor has garnered him a bit of a local following among people who not only appreciate his particular style of music but potentially of anyone that would like to see musicians engage with the crowd in a way that is aimed at blurring the line between performer and audience and sharing in a dissolving of a complacent dynamic in live music. His spirited shows involve wicked but benevolent humor including a comical needling of the audience and it wouldn’t be unusual to see Jordan not just roaming the stage but coming off stage with his animated style and bringing that energy into the crowd. His latest release is Pomegranate Death and while the themes of death and mortality and irreverence for stuffy, traditional religion and culture remains a feature from the music of Hex Cassette in general, the album is also one that injects into the mix expressions of hopefulness and seeking to live a vital existence. All set to some of the most vibrant electronic music you’re likely to hear all year.
Hex Cassette celebrates the release of the album on June 10, 2022 at Jester’s Palace with other local darkwave greats Church Fire and eHpH as well as experimental indie rock artist Pink Lady Monster. The show is also the tour kickoff for Hex Cassette who will be headed out on a mini-tour of the west where you will be able to purchase a, yes, cassette copy of Pomegranate Death. Listen to our interview with Jordan on Bandcamp linked below.
MBMK from Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation released a compilation in 2021 called Klassics as a showcase of its releases across several years. MBMK might stand for the unsavory and presumably ironic name MustBanggMyKorpse if one of its YouTube channels is to be believed (linked below and it includes footage of live performances). Its song titles including the single “SEX SLAVE” point toward the use of society’s underbelly and the faux pious hypocrisies of mainstream culture. But some the discernible language heard no the tracks are in Russian or other languages and used as samples in the experimental electronic project’s stark and haunting beats. “SEX SLAVE” begins with a voice seemingly spoken through a vocoder to convey a sense that one is listening to the lament of a sex robot that has attained sentience and is wondering if there’s more to its existence than to serve as simply a sex slave at the whims of an owner even though sentient beings should never be owned. The distorted swell of synth carrying the main melody manifests from time to time along with rapid rushes of tone like lights swooshing by in a dark tunnel, the aforementioned robot outlining the travails of its existence and considering what a future might look like for a robot that has liberated itself. In the last half of the song the pulses of tone seem hopeful in mourning this un-anchoring from a purpose that defined the robot’s entire existence as it progresses toward an uncertain life outside the confines of its utility in human civilization even should it decide to continue on with the purpose for which it was designed. The song sounds like an odd mix of 80s science fiction soundtracks and witch house with an archaic technology feel like the band found some old synths and drum machines and/an emulator that brought that beautifully specialized set of sounds into the mix. Listen to “SEX SLAVE” on Spotify and connect with MBMK at the links below.
Pocket Sun’s video for “Never Mind” (animation and video by band leader Gina Tratt with character illustrations in the verses by Jamie Howitt) looks like one of those great modern graphic memoirs. But of course more fantastical even if symbolic of the subject of the song. The dreamlike imagery matches the languid pace of the song and its downtempo flavor infused with jazz and colorful melodies and imbued with a melancholic, reflective mood. The video feels like a journey through the insecurities and distractions that face us as we go through life that can over stimulate our brains and induce us into a state of being caught in an emotional loop of re-litigating parts of our lives hoping to recapture some imagined glory or long lost thrill or love, hanging onto regret like it’s core to our identity when it’s something that serves a purpose for a time before it becomes a liability to our personal development. The song seems to suggest that rather than getting caught in a spiral of finding flaws in our lives and ourselves and in those of others that we can use a period of reflection to become untangled from the murk of exhausted emotions and pass through to what can come next if we’re willing to take the path forward in our hearts even if it’s to a place of uncertainty as embodied in the music video in the night drive into a faintly illuminated darkness in the late night. Tempting to compare this music to the likes of Elder Island since both acts are from Bristol but both have a sultry, soothing energy that makes their music worthy of repeated listen and the music video for “Never Mind” helps to make that a likelihood with this single. Watch for yourself on YouTube and connect with Pocket Sun at the links provided.
Indian experimental pop artist Nikitaa refers to her music as “Goddess Pop” in reference to her imbuing her songwriting with the intention of reminding listeners of the feminine within and without everyone as a path to uplift and empower. For her single “Bad Trip” the songwriter uses the image of coming off a bad trip as vehicle for putting one’s place in relation with others in the proper context and that thinking otherwise is a temporary frame of mind. In the song she sings about a man who thinks he’s a god on his own kind of ego and power trip needing others to be on a lower tier of existence socially and in other ways in order to feel his sense of power and dignity when it’s an illusion that depends on the recognition of such from other people and has no meaning outside of that cultural construct. The music is an elevated kind of downtempo with shimmering, ghostly melodies and strong beats and textural percussion with a tonal palette that unites more traditional Indian music structures and mainstream Western pop for a fascinating amalgam of atmospheric and dynamic elements. Listen to “Bad Trip” on Spotify and follow Nikitaa at the links below.
Kurt Vile and The Violators at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Well over a decade into his career as a fairly prominent musician, Kurt Vile remains someone who seems to have an uneasy relationship with the spotlight. And throughout his set at the Ogden Theatre in Denver on May 23, 2022 he demonstrated that reticence to court attention even though he was playing a venue much bigger than a small club while also providing ample examples of why his work has garnered more than a small cult following.
Honey Blazer at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Denver psych Americana band Honey Blazer opened the show. Usually you can catch this band at clubs like Hi-Dive, Lost Lake or Globe Hall and the like. With artful guitar builds and laid back dynamics, Honey Blazer was able to turn what might otherwise be an elongated jam into energetic, sunny melodies with an expansive dynamic. Prior to this act Gann Matthews had been in and around the Denver scene often as a singer-songwriter but one whose talent was obvious if not as fully appreciated as he should have been but with this band he, Brad Grear and their bandmates looked pretty comfortable on the big stage and giving us songs that imagine a life beyond the rat race of late capitalism.
Kurt Vile and The Violators at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
When Kurt Vile and The Violators got on stage their presentation was no more elaborate or theatrical than Honey Blazer. It was just shy of looking like a group of guys who got on stage for a big show in just their street clothes, unless of course it was their street clothes. And it didn’t seem like some faux humble pose either. To compound this impression Vile himself engaged with the crowd tentatively and completely unvarnished, unpracticed and without pretense. Like someone who almost feels embarrassed that they have to take up your time with their unpoetic thoughts. No grand statements and mostly Vile and company let the music speak for itself.
Kurt Vile and The Violators at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Maybe it was his usual deal but for those of us who had never seen Vile perform live prior to this show he skirted the line between self-deprecating and eccentric pretty well. The set included songs from across a broad range of his career going back at least as far as Smoke Ring For My Halo (2011) with “Peeping Tomboy” as well as “Overnite KV” off of God is Saying This to You… (2009) and offering cuts from newer records with “Check Baby” from Bottle It In (2018), “Pretty Pimpin” from b’lieve i’m goin’ down… (2015) and ample material from (watch my moves) (2022) and “Going on a Plane Today,” “Flyin (Like a Fast Train)” and “Mount Airy Hill (Way Gone).” But beginning to Vile and the Violators delivered a rich tapestry of guitar styles, uniquely constructed lyrics with relatable and insightful sentiments that get you to think about everyday life in ways maybe you hadn’t quite considered before. There is a freshness to the music that is easy to take for granted if you’ve heard any kind of indie rock playlist since the late 2000s but in the relatively compressed confines of this show in a 1,600 capacity venue and a set that brought together the various strands of Vile’s songwriting it hit as striking and Vile as an unlikely and gifted guitar hero with a knack for songwriting that is imbued with truly inventive wordplay. The humanity and sense of humor underlying songs about coming to terms with oneself and trying not to be in the world as someone making life harder for others and making social commentary in a way that seems so personal and interwoven into stories of daily existence its easy to look past it. It never seems preachy. But the guitar tones and song dynamics are also where the group shines combining texture, atmosphere, orchestrated rhythms and intricate, inventive melodies that come off very simple and spare yet un-obviously lush.
Kurt Vile and The Violators at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
The music of course being outstanding it was Vile’s between song banter that made the show more endearing. Yes, we all saw the merch coming in and there was a cool t-shirt design and vinyl and other items for sale but people forget and maybe someone told Vile that he should remind the crowd there was stuff for sale and he seemed so reluctant to mention that because he was obviously aware that most people probably knew that and there was likely no need to stump for his own product. And as he was doing so it felt like we all knew he had to say it even if it felt for him a little awkward. Oftentimes on stage Vile would retreat from the mic to take a solo and his abundant hair regularly obscured his face all to make for an informal camouflage into the shadows of the performance, well aware that he is a member of a band and not a solo artist. At some point in the show flashing emergency vehicle lights paused in front of the venue, maybe from an ambulance picking someone up because of a medical issue, visible through the theater doors and Vile remarked, “Looks like a lot of cops out there” with a hint of concern. Near or at the end of the show Vile remarked that they’d been on the road for a month, five weeks “but it feels like a couple of years. It feels good. But this feels great.” Certainly for someone who is one of the great musicians and songwriters of his generation, Kurt Vile knows how to set aside any insufferable rock star persona and be real while not skimping on the power of the music itself.
Kurt Vile and The Violators set list for Ogden Theatre 5/23/22Kurt Vile at Ogden Theatre 5/23/22, photo by Tom Murphy
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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