Mock Media’s title track to its new album Rat Bastard (out now via Mac’s Record Label) sounds like the band is tapping into a combination of early 80s power pop and a bit of The Clash with the anthemic choruses. The clear melodies and crisp rhythms help the song’s story of low self esteem and issues of class getting in the way of love and genuine connection and how one’s life narratives can blind you to possibilities and chances to get out of a situation you resent and so you act out those frustrations on the people who might be good for you and work against your own potential joy. It’s a complicated dynamic in real life and it’s been the subject of rock and roll songs going back decades but here Mock Media brings clarity to a messy reality that many people know with a simple song that honors the conflicted feelings. Listen to “Rat Bastard” on YouTube and follow Mock Media at the links below.
The Picture Tour, April 10, 2026, photo by Tom Murphy
The Picture Tour is a shoegaze/post-punk trio from Denver that started as a songwriting vehicle for guitarist/singer Billy Armijo around 2018. The project really got off the ground as a live band in 2023 after the debut album Before the Sound, Before the Light was released in February 2022. Armijo was born in New Mexico but spent core years of his youth in Colorado as he developed as a songwriter in the mid-90s as someone who embraced moody post-punk like The Cure and Joy Division at a time when even mainstream alternative rock popular on radio was more or less the opposite of those sounds. What darkness was present in commercial music was presented in a different way than brooding and more emotionally nuanced post-punk. Armijo was in high school bands but nothing that really recorded until after he went to college and he started recording solo material under the moniker The Bedsit Infamy starting around 2003. The outlets for sharing music at that time was limited but Armijo’s songs caught the attention of the now defunct Banazan Records in Orange, California which released lungs, my heart. blood, my stomach in 2008 (at least according to Discogs) on CD. Armijo’s songcraft and homegrown production was a clear standout at a time when what would now be called bedroom pop was enjoying a bit of a renaissance. As a live act The Bedsit Infamy played shows from 2008-2011 with live members included Brad Turner, who Armijo had met in college, and who himself was a gifted home recorder of experimental pop music as Nuts + Berries and Ian Schofield.
The Bedsit Infamy released a final album in 2014 called Ashes reflecting the the arc of music post-live act. Although Armijo wrote superb pop songs with that band it didn’t represent his ongoing interest in post-punk and shoegaze and he had by 2013 joined Emerald Siam, a rock band that combined gritty garage rock sound, atmospheric melodies and emotional catharsis. The group, fronted by Denver music luminary Kurt Ottaway (Twice Wilted, Tarmints, The Overcasters) was a prominent act in the Denver scene for around a decade before it dissolved in late 2022/early 2023. When The Picture Tour debut live in 2023 it was a trio comprised of Armijo, Mike Genova on bass and Drew Dyer on drums. And the songs from the first record (which had percussion contributions from John McIntire of Tortoise) came to vivid life and the melancholic but emotionally rich vocals alongside strong rhythms and optimal guitar tone immediately established The Picture Tour as one of Denver’s best post-punk bands with some shoegaze soundscaping and garage rock edge. That trio recorded a sophomore album Blood. Machine. Gasoline. released in 2025. The album was like a deep dive into the culture and mythology of night time urban life and recreational driving in the darkness like music for a David Lynch or Nicholas Winding Refn movie never made. I captured the romance of a time in the Mile High City that is long in the past but which can be relived in the mind through art when not everything seemed to be figured out or repurposed into a technbro fauxhemian playground and bland “development” of dubious purpose and longevity. In early 2025 it was announced the Dyer was moving out of Colorado and in his place there was John Zucco from Gothic noise rock band Reposer. His first show with the band distinguished him as a great fit.
Listen to our interview with Billy Armijo on Bandcamp and follow The Picture Tour at the links below.
NESYA’s “PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG” dissolves any lines between pop R&B, darkwave, post-punk and electronic dance music. The video shows the artist looking like a subversive figure broadcasting with equipment that intentionally distorts and partly vertically pixellates her image. It’s the perfect aesthetic for a song that turns attempts at oppression and narrow othering on their head while point out truths about how attempting to erase the inconvenient doesn’t eliminate them or really push them into the background except as a presence that erodes the illusion of power. Musically at times it’s reminiscent of Boy Harsher, Alice Glass and the newer era of Sextile. But NESYA’s vocals are uniquely her own, soulful and even a little spooky in a way that boosts the emotional resonance of the music. It’s a song that should appear on the playlist of every Goth night this summer and beyond. Watch the video for “PUT THE FRIES IN THE BAG” on YouTube and follow NESYA at the links below.
Fan Girl released the 8HRS EP (out April 24, 2026) marking its more extended offering since reconvening several years back in the wake of the tragic 2018 death of founding member Jack Wood. The lead single “Worth It?” begins somber with quiet but emotional vocals, a simple piano figure and harmonic drones in the background like distant city lights to accompany the existential sentiments expressed in the song. The song sounds like someone going over a moment of disconnect with a loved one where it feels like it might be through or is in serious danger and our narrator is not ready to just let go and looking for some kind of confirmation. Musically the song begins in a melancholic, slowcore mode but ramps up to a noisier piece in the final quarter to reflect some of the anguish that lead up to the soul weary part in the beginning but perhaps most interesting the last ten seconds or so of the song we hear a sound like static sputtering out from a radio station that is going off broadcasting status for good. It speaks volumes in a way that makes the rest of the song sound hopeful, a quiet bit of devastation that not many bands would attempt. Listen to “Worth It?” on Spotify and follow the Australian band Fan Girl at the links below.
Jeki’s lush and sultry single “Hold On” taps into the sonic realms of neo-soul with a touch of downtempo. Her vocals are vibrant and establish a leisurely pace as she sings with affectionate compassion for a loved one who is struggling with how treacherous life can seem when everything feels frustrating and there is no clear path to doing what you want with your life and not enough experiences confirming which path is best. But Jeki’s lyrics gently point out that sometimes it just takes time and we can’t always know what is for us and where we fit in with the world right away and sometimes it just takes patience and not trying to force what we think we know. The bass line is understated in a jazz style and the keyboard melodies swirl and drift off and echo ever so slightly while Jeki’s voice anchors the song in a direct human experience with a warm confidence that really does hit like everything is going to be okay if we don’t succumb to the accelerated pace of living forced on us by our society and often our culture. Jeki seems to suggest that living is more important than striving. Listen to “Hold On” on Spotify and follow Jeki at the links provided.
White Satan is set to release his debut album with Farm Toad, wolf, on May 30, 2026 with the performance at The Black Monarch in Victor Colorado with master Theremin player Victoria Lundy as a guest. Whether or not White Satan is a lampoon of a sinister Gothic Americana figure and/or pure performance art with great craft and execution behind it, he is nevertheless a “Denver Country Doom Rebel” and for the new album he and collaborators Gregory Hill, Maureen Hearty (both of Farm Toad) and Kim 9 chose to re-imagine country and pop classics of yesteryear into subversive and often unsettling forms. The darkly pastoral renditions include vocals that are not merely spoken word but a kind of performance art that uses the voice as a means of projecting a different mood and perhaps emotional intention with the source material. With covers of “Some Velvet Morning” (Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra), “She Thinks I Still Care” (George Jones), “Wichita Lineman” (Glen Campbell), “Hello I’m a Jukebox” (George Kent) “Hello It’s Me” (Todd Rundgren) it’s also a bit of an homage to a tradition in pop music of an interpretation and putting one’s unique stamp on the song and making it one’s own. White Satan has in the works a heavier album on he way but for now you can witness the brilliant weirdness for yourself live and perhaps pick up a CD of the album.
Listen to our interview with White Satan on Bandcamp and follow his exploits at the links below.
George Usher is an acclaimed and veteran singer/songwriter based in New York who finally realized an ambitious creative vision with his latest record Stevensonville. Some 30 years in development the record is a 12 part song cycle with a special illustration for each song (created by Laurie Webber). The 12” LP is limited to 200 copies via Strothard Bulldog Productions and released March 20, 2026 and it includes a 28-page booklet with the lyrics and the illustrations in a gorgeous presentation of a high concept record. The album tells stories of inhabitants of the titular town after the fashion of Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. The song is in a power pop mode but with a sophistication of songcraft that brings with it great nuance of mood and atmosphere even when it comes off as more straight ahead pop and rock. The album is an ambitious work from the music to the presentation the likes of which we rarely see now or ever and the finished product is a work of art in itself that invites delving deep into the album as a complete work.
Listen to our interview with George Usher on Bandcamp and follow him at the links below.
The Dead Century on “Hey Chicago” sound like a classic power pop band in the 80s vein. Fortunately that also means crisp guitar sound, great clarity of tone, sonically and emotionally. The song uses the conceit of referring to someone by the city they’re from rather than have to denigrate a specific name or even assign gender. It’s a different take on the breakup song in which our narrator seems to have come to the conclusion that it’s over but doesn’t want to make an assumption that things are finished even if in it’s not officially so. The seemingly endless moments when everything threatened to collapse but didn’t as embodied so well by the lines “And for a minute we can both pretend/We’ve been counting down the seconds to a second chance/To sift through the requisite waiting/For something more stable.” Sometimes something so combustible can seem exciting but in the end can be so exhausting. But our narrator seems to want the decision to draw the relationship to a conclusion to be a mutual thing. The song has great momentum and an sweeping melody until the last minute six when things go quiet for tranquil moments of contemplation before ramping back up and back down to a quick outro of ghostly feedback. The songcraft is impressive and the sentiments don’t demonize anyone which can be rare in this subgenre of pop music. Listen to “Hey Chicago” on Spotify and follow Minneapolis, Minnesota’s The Dead Century at the links provided.
Howard Wuelfing, photo courtesy the Howard Wuelfing
Howard Wuelfing is a writer, musician, zinester and publicist involved in the USA and even international music underground based primarily on the East Coast. He has been involved in bands like The Nurses, The Slickee Boy and Underhaven and recently released a seven inch with legendary recording engineer and musician Don Zientara. During his long career Wuelfing has written for Washington Post, Creem, Spin, Your Flesh, Forced Exposure, Boston Rock, The ob and The Village Voice. As a publicist he was involved with Columbia Records and JEM Records as well as his own Howlin’ Wuelf Media. His work also appeared in the first volume of Where the Wild Gigs Were. Wuelfing has helped to promote numerous bands across decades and his reach is wider than would ever be obvious. In 2025 DiWulf Publishing run by Wuelfing’s wife Amy Yates Wuelfing and Steven DiLodovico (who put out the great No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens published in 2014) released Descenes and Discords: An Anthology. The large format book collects the entire run of Howard Wuelfing’s late 1970s and early 1980s zines Descenes and Discords. Descenes shined a light on D.C.’s punk and post-punk community and Discords took up a more national range of coverage. The book is filled with full facsimilies preserving its old school layout and Xeroxed aesthetic. The volume includes new commentary from Wuelfing as well as a conversation between the author and Ian MacKaye whom we all know from his work in Minor Threat, Fugazi and other projects as well as a forward by D.C.-based cultural critic Mark Jenkins to establish the historical context for readers. It is an important document for a time, a milieu and a subculture that has helped shape American culture to this day.
The remix of Shaela Miller’s “After the Masquerade (Refashioned)” (the title track of her 2024 album) re-imagines the more synth pop song in a darker, almost industrial mode. The beats hit heavier, the vocals echo into more open spaces. Swirls of drone spiral out in slow motion giving a touch of menace to the song but preserved is how Miller’s melodic vocals shine through the cinematic layers of sound. The music video is like a dark cabaret in a cyberpunk future with warm and cool colored layered to dramatic effect book-ended with a clear image of Miller cleaning up the aftermath of a celebration like the messes and only half regrets of one’s life while still being able to look back with a certain romantic fondness for a time despite its mix of memories. If the original was a step toward dark wave from the Americana of her earlier work, this remix even more so. Watch the video for “After the Masquerade” on YouTube and follow Shaela Miller at the links provided. The song is from Refashioned Selex, a five-song remix EP out May 14, 2026 with tracks originally released on the 2024 album After the Masquerade.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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