Sunday | 12.01 What:Machete Mouth, Joseph Lamar, S.T3V When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: An evening of the best local, left-field/experimental R&B. Go and witness the soulful downtempo ambient style of Machete Mouth, the IDM psychedelic soul performance art leanings of Joseph Lamar and indie rock/shoegaze/abstract folk sounds of S.T3V.
Anthony Raneri, photo by Acacia Evans
Wednesday | 12.04 What: Anthony Raneri w/Brother Bird When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Anthony Raneri is perhaps better known for being the singer and songwriter in punk/emo band Bayside. But his solo work is more countrified yet atmospheric and his latest record Everyday Royalty is an introspective reckoning with how one’s life suddenly feels like your mistakes or at least the areas you’ve been neglecting more than you realize catch up to you emotionally, psychologically and even physically. Whereas Raneri’s brash and cathartic songwriting has its own psychological cleansing on stage, Brother Bird’s songs are more delicate and in the realm of folk but her production is around the edges gives the songwriter’s music a cinematic yet intimate quality that unfolds across a song like her own kind of confessional and self-examination that too feels relatable on a very human level of navigating life with an imperfect set of tools and capacities to do so.
Lightning Bolt, photo by Nick Sayers
Thursday | 12.05 What: Machine Girl w/Lightning Bolt and Kill Alters When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: For over a decade Machine Girl has been developing its own brand of breakcore/digital hardcore/glitch industrial sound. Famously the duo performed a show at a house in Denver and caved in the floor because of the intensity of the dancing. And the group does go hard but its electronic soundscapes are very in the vein of drum and bass and jungle with the relentless beats and tranquil/chill passages. Lightning Bolt is the legendary noise rock band that got started in Providence, Rhode Island in 1994. Along with other local music weirdos like artist and former member of Mindflayer and Forcefield Matt Brinkman Brian Chippendale and Brian Gibson of Lightning Bolt formed the iconic and influential DIY space Fort Thunder. In its 30 years together Lightning Bolt has been known for preferring to perform at unconventional spaces if appropriate and available and if not, turning a more conventional venue into something of a performance art event with its frenetic and borderline chaotic live shows that often feel like the noise rock equivalent of free jazz or conceptual as much as musical use of noise incorporating the energy of everyone that shows up.
Greet Death, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 12.06 What: Greet Death w/Cherished and Prize Horse When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Greet Death made its reputation as a band that fused heaviness with ethereal shoegaze tonality. But since then its music has drifted in even more melodic and melancholic. More slowcore in its arrangements and thus hazily psychedelic but not bereft of a sonic freakout when the moment calls for it. Opening the show is Denver’s post-punk-turned-shoegaze band Cherished whose lyrics give a glimpse into a side of America all of us probably recognize but with a perspective that’s very real and non-judgmental. Prize Horse from Minneapolis has a sound that sits at the crux of shoegaze, post-rock and the more interesting 90s emo.
A Place For Owls, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 12.06 What:A Place For Owls, Corsicana and INNS When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: A Place For Owls is refreshingly a raw and heart on sleeve emo band of the current wave variety meaning its influences span beyond the influx of math rock and vulnerability and occasional forays into atonality. APFO’s guitar work is elegant and inviting and its whole vibe is one inviting listeners to share in these previously private moments that might help to illuminate one’s own feelings about complicated situations. Corsicana is the dream pop band from Denver.
Friday | 12.06 What:Maria Bamford When: 6:30 Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Maria Bamford is one of the great, living stand-up comedians whose surreal yet sharply observed humor has shed a light on American folly and the darkly absurd side of capitalism and wellness culture. Part of Bamford’s appeal is how open and vulnerable she is regarding her own struggles with mental health and trying to fit in with a warped and demented culture and presents it with her inimitable style.
Saturday | 12.07 What:King Cardinal When: 10 am Where: Swallow Hill Why: It is a free show but it’ll be one of Denver’s better Americana/roots rock bands, King Cardinal. 2024, though, saw the release of he band’s most recent album Land Lines which waxes well into the realm of cosmic country at times but otherwise is full of the band’s well crafted story songs and uplifting presentation.
Weird Al Qaida, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.07 What:Weird Al Qaida w/Pythian Whispers When: 9:30 Where: Mutiny Information Cafe Why: Experimental psychedelic noise band Weird Al Qaida makes a rare appearance in the basement of the new location of Mutiny Information Cafe. Expect multi-media performance elements, pitch shifted vocals and a fusion of psychedelic folk, art rock and outsider pop. Opening is psychedelic ambient and noise project Pythian Whispers which includes Tom Murphy who is writing this.
Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.07 What: Nova Fest: Church Fire, Night Fishing, The Photo Atlas, Post/War and Gifter 8 at Hi-Dive When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Nova Fest returns with a stacked lineup including industrial dance revolutionaries Church Fire, psych doom band Night Fishing, the resurrected dance punk band The Photo Atlas back from Denver’s 2000s indie rock heyday and the shoegaze-y Post/War.
Franz Ferdinand, photo by Fiona Torres
Thursday | 12.12 What: Franz Ferdinand w/almost monday and Losers Club When: 6 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: The new Franz Ferdinand album The Human Fear doesn’t come out until January 10, 2025 but for this show there’s a better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of that material live. The Scottish post-punk band first made major waves with its 2004 self-titled album and breakout single “Take Me Out.” The then post-punk revival was well under way and the group got lumped in with “dance punk” perhaps not unjustifiably and its subsequent albums proved the band had more in their repertoire than a trendy style. Its funky power pop has had underpinnings of influence from literature and dub and has evolved in ways that have refreshingly not been so obvious. For example the 2015 album as FFS when the band merged with glam and art rock legends Sparks for a unique album for which they toured doing sets of their own and together as the supergroup. There’s something vital in what the band has had to offer from the beginning and its live shows have been proof positive.
Xeno & Oaklander in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.12 What:Xeno & Oaklander w/Spiritual Poison and Terravault Network When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Modern cold wave legends Xeno & Oaklander return to Denver for a show at Hi-Dive in support of its latest album Via Negativa (in the doorway light). The duo has innovated in its use of analog and digital synthesis to craft evocative soundscapes as conceptual pop songs since its 2004 inception and the new record is reminiscent of what might happen if Chris & Cosey and Giorgio Moroder collaborated on an album of gorgeously icy synthpop.
Logan Farmer, photo by Jared Meyer
Thursday | 12.12 What: David Eugene Edwards w/Logan Farmer When: 8: 30 Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: David Eugene Edwards established his dark folk and post-punk bonafides as a member of influential Gothic Americana band 16 Horsepower and further with Wovenhand. His 2023 solo album Hyacinth is imbued with the kind of gravitas and grandeur one has come to expect from the songwriter and its lush arrangements don’t feel stripped down even if not expressed with the same level of sturm and drang as his other projects. The emotional intensity and vibrant poetic sensibility and insight is very much running through the songs. Opening the show is Fort Collins-based songwriter Logan Farmer whose luminously atmospheric variety of folk songcraft is transporting and soothing. His most recent album 2022’s A Mold For The Bell includes contributions from avant-garde harpist Mary Lattimore and saxophonist Joseph Shabason. It’s an album of great subtlety, nuance of expression and great depth of mood that rewards patient listening.
Limbwrecker in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.14 What: Limbwrecker (final show) w/Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, Rico Predicate and Corpsewhale When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based grind/powerviolence band Limbwrecker is taking the stage one final time for a set of furiously noisy and cathartic, metallic post-hardcore and confrontational antics. They will be joined by fellow perpetrators of sonic violence with crafters of epic, instrumental, post-metal journeys Sugar Skulls & Marigolds, death grind thrashers Rico Predicate and industrial noise artist Corpsewhale.
Pink Lady Monster, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 12.15 What: Church Car, Pink Lady Monster, The Trappings, Hippies Wearing Muzzles When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room Why: Church Car might be the new manifestation of avant-garage soul artist Big Daddy Mugglestone but don’t bother trying to run the new name through a search engine. There are plenty of other reasons to go to this show like to see the spectacular No Wave free jazz dream psychedelia group Pink Lady Monster and blend of allure and menace. Hippies Wearing Muzzles is the solo analog synth composition project of Lee Evans who some may know from his long tenure as the bassist in indie pop group Kissing Party. The Trappings is a lo-fi experimental pop project of Adam Baumeister, the man behind the lathe cut imprint Meep Records and his own music is worth a deep dive in its own right for the sprawling and exploratory nuggets of imaginative music making therein.
Emma Ruth Rundle, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 12.16 What: Emma Ruth Rundle w/Stonefront Church When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Emma Ruth Rundle has made a name for herself as a writer of richly emotional and introspective, darkly atmospheric songs that blur and break the edges of strict genre. In her more recent albums Rundle’s gift for weaving soundscape-y, even ambient folk expressions of how the inner life finds resonance with the mythical in a synergistic and transformative way. Her most recent album, 2022’s EG2: Dowsing Voice, seemed to draw upon deserty sounds and textures to delve into themes of ancient trauma and self-rediscovery.
Lanx Borealist in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.19 What:Weirdo Music: Rooster Jake, Lanx Borealis, Brotherhood of Machines When: 7 Where: Fort Greene Why: This showcase of local experimental music will feature the left field hip-hop of Rooster Jake, the synth-driven and organic soundscapes of Lanx Borealis and Brotherhood of Machines’ deep house/abstract electronic dance oriented compositions.
Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 12.21 What: New Verbs w/Cactusheads and Vatican Vamps https://globehall.com/event/new-verbs-w-cactusheads-vatican-vamps/globe-hall/denver-colorado/ When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: New Verbs are an indie rock band from Denver/Boulder who if you dissect their sound a bit you’ll hear hints of the influence of The Fall, Deerhunter and 2010’s psych rock. Maybe Cactusheads are literally operating out of a garage in preparing to take the stage, like many bands, its musical roots seem to have at least evolved beyond the ragged amateurishness of well-intentioned miscreants into writing solid melodic hooks to go along with the grit. Vatican Vamps are a post-punk band from Denver that released its self-titled debut full length in March 2024 showcasing its dusky, atmospheric and earnestly weighty post-punk.
Replica City, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.21 What: Broken Record, Curious Things, Replica City and The Gentlys When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Broken Record blurs the line between melodic post-hardcore and shoegaze with delicate emotional colorings. Curious Things is a trio of former members of The Gamits, The Dead Girls and Lawsuit Models whose songs are an appealing blend of power pop and emo. Replica City delivers a noisy, angular post-punk post-hardcore style with vocal performances both vulnerable and confrontational. The Gently’s is the latest band to include Dameon Merkl, the charismatic frontman of dark Americana legends Bad Luck City and Lost Walks.
Lost Relics, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.28 What:Cheap Perfume, Arson Charge, Lost Relics and Brass Tags When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: At the top of the bill is political/feminist punk band Cheap Perfume with its heartfelt and often refreshingly wickedly and pointedly humorous lyrics still incredibly relevant in light of the seeming slide of world society in the past few years steeply in the wrong direction. Arson Charge is a punk band including members of other acts from Denver including SPELLS singer Ben Roy. Brass Tags is a post-hardcore band in the vein of melodic practitioners of noisy punk like Jawbox. Lost Relics split the difference between sludge metal akin to Melvins and heavy noise rock reminiscent of Unsane.
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday and Tuesday | 12.30 and 12.31 What: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Rattlesnake Milk and DJ Ryan Wong When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver pioneers of Gothic Americana Slim Cessna’s Auto Club play their two night run at the Hi-Dive. If you’ve seen the group in the past several years it’s become obvious the Gothic part is perhaps less accurate than comparing the live show and music to a kind of Western Vaudeville with music inspired by literature and theater infused with local cultural flavor and a flair for the dramatic and inventive, lively songwriting that is as life affirming as it draws upon any traditional sounds and style. Rattlesnake Milk from Texas is straight up cowboy western plains style country music.
Saturday | 11.02 What: Blood Cult Weekend Night 1: Carrellee, Fainting Dreams, Baby Baby, Tepid When: 8 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: Blood Cult is a local production company promoting small shows often featuring touring underground bands and some of the best local acts. Carrallee is a darkwave synthpop artist from Madison. Wisconsin. Fainting Dreams is a Denver-based band with a sound like the cathartic manifestation of a folk horror film made into dark shoegaze and emotionally charged black metal. Baby Baby is an arty synth pop project. Tepid is the solo effort of Nick Salmon of industrial shoegaze band Voight.
Supreme Joy, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 11.03 What: Blood Cult Weekend Night 2: Ronnie Stone, Hex Cassette, Supreme Joy and I Luv Nandi When: 8 Where: The Crypt Why: Ronnie Stone is a synth pop artist from NYC whose songwriting and production bears a strong resemblance to a 1980s coming of teen drama that never happened. Hex Cassette is a humorously confrontational industrial darkwave one-man band and performance art cult. Supreme Joy is a noisy post-punk band from Denver with some sonic lineage to Jay Reatard’s early 2000s bands.
Sunday | 11.03 What: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Keyboardist Claudio Simonetti was one of the founders of progressive rock band Goblin. Before the band adopted the moniker it had already begun composing the score to Dario Argento’s 1975 horror film landmark Profondo rosso and its evocatively psychedelic prog creepiness. That quality the band developed even further for its soundtrack to Argento’s 1977 masterpiece Suspiria and on the director’s cut of George Romero’s Zombi aka Dawn of the Dead before the group split in 1978. Though the band’s members worked together in various configurations over the next two decades the band Goblin reconvened in 2000 and toured in a variety of manifestations including that for this tour as Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin which will bring to life some of the iconic music of the band’s respectable catalog.
Washed Out, photo by Landon Spears
Monday | 11.04 What:Washed Out w/After When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Ernest Greene as Washed Out may not have set out to be one of the most enduring and successful artists out of what came to be called chillwave in the late 2000s of which he is one of the pioneers. Before bedroom pop became a common quantity identified with a loose movement, Greene and other artists of early chillwave helped to establish the aesthetic characterized hazy, saturated, melancholic synthpop. But Greene has always infused his production with hip hop style arrangements and beatmaking paired with immersive melodies and a knack for tapping into that part of the brain triggering warm feelings of nostalgia. When combined with his reflective lyrics those sounds make bittersweet memories hit with a gentle catharsis. Greene’s song “Feel It All Around” from his 2009 EP Life of Leisure became the opening music for comedy series Portlandia and forever cemented the songwriter’s status as an architect of the sound of a time and place that is easy to look back on fondly even when those memories have a mixed if unforgettable place in your heart. The latest Washed Out record Notes From a Quiet Life seems to catalog an attempt to reconnect with a period in recent years when some people had the time to think about their lives as having more meaning and significance than the usual expectations and demands as they fit into cogs of capitalism. Greene zeros in on and mines that headspace for the kind of ideas and thinking that can hopefully sustain you into a regular life that grinds you down by creating a psychological space in your mind where there is time for sustained tranquility.
Tuesday | 11.05 What: The March Violets, Die So Fluid, Wingtips and Void + Veil DJs When: 7 Where: HQ Why: The March Violets were one of the early Goth bands of the first half of the 80s. Its 1983 single “Snake Dance” established the group as an influential and popular band in the realm of post-punk. As the decade went on the band shifted into a more pop sound but without losing the moody melodrama and atmospheric sound that initially caught the attention of fans. The group never released an official album during its initial 1981-1987 run, simply EPs and singles. But since reconvening in 2010 The March Violets have released three full length albums including 2024’s Crocodile Promises. Also on this tour are UK Goth hard rock band Die So Fluid and Chicago’s excellent darkwave/shoegaze duo Wingtips.
Space in Time circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 11.08 What:Hi-Dive 21st Birthday Party: Space in Time, Moon Pussy, Church Fire, Quits and Debaser When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: For 21 years Denver’s Hi-Dive has been one of the go-to clubs to see up and coming bands and those that never attain a higher degree of fame and popularity but whose music shines brighter than a lot of what’s offered in the mainstream. For the occasion psychedelic doom band Space in Time performs a rare show. But also on the bill are heavy hitters like noise rock giants Moon Pussy and Quits, percussion punk auteur Debaser and Church Fire and their much needed industrial dance rock to immolate the authoritarian currents of our time.
Pissed Jeans, photo by Ebru Yildiz
Saturday | 11.09 What: Hi-Dive 21st Birthday Party: Pissed Jeans, Muscle Beach, Candy Apple, Cheap Perfume and Cherry Spit When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pissed Jeans has been offering up its noisy, angular post-punk in the vein of DC post-hardcore blended with Killing Joke stripped of its haunted atmospheres. Its latest record Half Divorced is like a high speed journey through the American cultural landscape circa 2024. It’s nearly prophetic in its depiction of truncated hopes and dreams, the seeming inability of any of the powers that be to recognize that a flourishing society includes all and not just the people in America and other wealthy countries Its music’s invective is very choice and pairs well with Chat Pile’s Cool World. Fitting headliner for the second night of Hi-Dive’s birthday celebration and local stars of post-hardcore, political punk and noise rock.
Saturday | 11.09 What:Bear Hands w/Worry Club and Broken Record When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Bear Hands emerged from the indie rock and post-punk milieu of mid-2000s Brookyn and rather than being fully lumped in with other bands of that time Bear Hands took a different kind of path and its dream pop guitar style and left field rhythmic structure garnered it a bit of a cult following over the years. It’s 2024 album The Key To What sounds like a record out of time. In its ebullient melodies and textures one hears echoes of a time when Animal Collective and MGMT would have been heard in public places regularly and its experiments in electronic composition more in the realm of modern indie pop dance flavor. Yet underpinning it all is Bear Hands’ knack for deconstruction rhythmic structure and rebuilding it with an ear for accessibility.
Dehd in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 11.09 What: Dehd w/Gustaf When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Chicago’s Dehd has never fit neatly in a subgenre of rock but its foundation of lo-fi slacker rock and post-punk has resulted in a good deal of exuberant, cathartic, emotionally-charged pop. All of the band’s records focus on a different aspect of its creative leanings and its new record Poetry seems to embrace both the strands of pop punk influence and disaffected singer-songwriter balladry and all imbued with the band’s usual gift for creative rhythms.
Front 242 in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 11.10 What:Front 242 (final Denver show) w/Kontravoid When: 7 Where: Reelworks Why: Front 242 is one of the foundational bands of the EBM and electronic industrial sound hailing from Belgium circa 1981. Throughout the 80s the group developed a rhythm-driven songwriting in both electronic percussion and the layering of electronic melodies and textures that proved highly influential on later bands and were distinctive from peers like Skinny Puppy, DAF, Front Line Assembly, Ministry and Nitzer Ebb. This is purported to be part of the last shows the group will perform live and not only do you get to catch these tones in their rich glory for perhaps the final time but also an opening slot from Kontravoid whose own dense electronic industrial dance music is in a clear lineage from the Belgian legends.
Modest Mouse, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 11.11 What:Modest Mouse w/The Black Heart Procession When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Modest Mouse was already a beloved alternative rock band in more underground circles by the turn of the twenty-first century and its 2000 major label debut The Moon & Antarctica and its arresting mix of harrowing and heartfelt emotions and engrossing soundscapes. The 2004 follow up Good News for People Who Love Bad News seemed to tap into a zeitgeist of the period that seemed challenging and hopeless for a lot of people in the midst of the George W. Bush era and an embrace of tenderness, vulnerability and imagination seemed like an antidote to despair and mere cope. It’s the kind of aesthetic that seems perhaps more relevant now with the album’s evocative pairing of melancholia and joy. This tour the band celebrates the 20 year anniversary of the album with the great baroque pop flavored indie rock band The Black Heart Procession.
Duster, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 11.11 What: Duster w/Dirty Art Club When: 7 Where: Gothic Theater Why: Space rock/slowcore band Duster was only around for a handful of years from the mid-90s to the 2000s to relatively little fanfare but its glittery indie rock sound started to enjoy a sizable cult following after it reunited in 2018. In the 2020s the band’s songs started being featured on TikTok posts when shoegaze generally was enjoying a new level of cachet among younger music fans. Since its reunion Duster has released more albums than during its initial run including its 2024 album In Dreams and its refinement of the textural atmospheric flow and granular, tranquil melodies that has been a hallmark of the group’s sound since the beginning.
Aimee Mann, photo by Photo Gal
Monday | 11.11 What: Aimee Mann w/Jonathan Coulton When: 7 Where: Boulder Theater Why: Aimee Mann is one of the most celebrated of songwriters of the 90s and beyond with prominent placing of her music in cinema and radio airplay, perhaps most prominently in the 1999 film Magnolia. Mann’s sharp wit and nuanced takes of personal struggles in her lyrics and the emotional sweep of her music has resulted in a long career of rewarding listening that has aged remarkably well.
TR/ST, photo by Latex Lucifer
Tuesday | 11.12 What:TR/ST When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: TR/ST pre-dated the current darkwave movement when it began as Trust in 2010 and the project’s 2012 debut album TRST was lumped in with the more synth-driven end of indie rock in the beginning. But the aesthetics were much more in line with electronic post-punk and Robert Alfons’ unique vocals too versatile and at times too deep to be confused with even a the then popular chillwave movement. TR/ST began to be embraced by Goth night DJs around that time. As Alfons’ songwriting developed in the more than decade hence he has honed his creative tone sculpting and soundcapes so that it transcends even the limitations of being associated with darkwave and more like a dark electronic dance music perhaps best experienced in a venue with a robust sound system capable of replicating the rich tones and low end of his compositions in particular as embodied on the 2024 album Performance, the first for experimental/darkwave label Dais.
North By North, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 11.12 What: The Milk Blossoms w/North By North and C!trus When: 7 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: North By North is an indie rock band from Chicago whose blend of indie/power pop and garage rock hearkens back to a time two decades ago before all of that became too codified in the 2010s. Citrus from Denver is a fuzzy psychedelic pop band with a touch of gritty shoegaze edge. The Milk Blossoms are of course the avant-pop indie group form Denver whose heartfelt and poetic lyrics and imaginative arrangements and impassioned performance style makes it a memorable live band.
Kris Baha, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 11.12 What:Kris Baha, Void Palace, Combat Sport and Kill You Club DJs When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Kris Baha is an Australian producer now based in Berlin whose fusion of 90s trance and electronic industrial music has made him a bit of a crossover artist in the realms of darkwave and the rave scene. Along with the expertly crafted, distorted beats and streams and saturated tones, though, Baha injects a sensibility like he’s not a stranger to pop songcraft and even his most out there songs have an undeniable accessibility even for those who aren’t just heads for the aforementioned.
System Exclusive, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 11.l4 What: System Exclusive w/Hex Cassette, Baby Baby and Candy Chic https://hi-dive.com/listing/system-exclusive-hex-cassette-baby-baby-candy-chic/ When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ari Blaisdel of System Exclusive sounds a bit like a fusion of Dale Bozzio of Missing Persons and Karen O. The band’s music though is like a retro-futurist synth pop New Wave band with textural guitar sounds and gorgeously icy synths. Hex Cassette is the one person industrial dance death cult, all in good fun, though, whose cajoling the audience is part of the enjoyment of the performance because let’s face it, audiences too often need to be pumped up for maximum enjoyment for all involved. Baby Baby is an experimental electronic pop act from Denver and Candy Chic a mix of prog pop and indie rock.
Thursday | 11.14 What: King Diamond (guest vocals from Myrkur) w/Overkill and Night Demon When: 6 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: King Diamond is the influential black metal artist who first made his mark outside his home country of Denmark with the legendary band Mercyful Fate where his wide-ranging vocals including his signature falsetto featured prominently. The singer’s theatrical stage presence with face make-up that would prove an enduring visual cue for many bands including the early Slayer and generations of black metal artists from the 1980s onward. There’s a lot of gimmickry with the visual presentation and the live show but the music itself has aged better than a lot of 1980s metal because other than the obvious influence of Judas Priest it was idiosyncratic and the whole Anton LeVey style Satanism wasn’t a pose though these days King Diamond doesn’t follow any religious persuasion. This tour includes vocal contributions from another Danish musician of note, Myrkur whose folk-inflected black metal and enchanting vocals has garnered her an international following in her own right. And of course thrash legends Overkill are included on the bill.
The Crooked Rugs in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 11.14 What:The Crooked Rugs album release w/Honey Blazer and Tarantula Bill When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Fort Collins-based psychedelic prog indie band The Crooked Rugs are releasing their new album Hear & Now. The album’s countrified flavor gives it a different style than yet another cookie cutter psych band as were rampant in the 2010s and The Crooked Rugs as a live band have a spontaneous and contagious energy that elevates the music further than expected if you listen to the recordings alone. Honey Blazer’s own style of indie psych Americana sounds like something from another era when country rock bands were letting their freak flag fly a little after hanging out in Laurel Canyon for a summer.
Friday | 11.15 What: Caribou w/Joy Orbison and Yune Pinku When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: In writing his new album Honey, Dan Snaith aka Caribou the composer, mathematician and multi-instrumentalist wanted to make music accessible to a wide audience. So the record is much more directly dance oriented than most of his previous records which were dance-adjacent anyway but the beats are more explicit and the techno infrastructure of the songwriting impressive. Snaith engages in some sample massaging into the beat and the record feels like a DJ set more so than certainly his previous album, 2020’s melancholic Suddenly. But of course the live show with include live musicians and have a spontaneous energy that isn’t often as possible when one is operating from in the box.
Mumiy Troll, photo by Sergey Sergeyev
Saturday | 01.16 What:Mumiy Troll When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Mumiy Troll has been described as the “U2 of Russia” because in its home country it is as popular as U2 has been internationally and playing to crowds of tens of thousands in Russia and Asia. Singer and songwriter Ilya Lagutenko has been the constant presence in the band from its founding in 1983 and he has appeared in the 2004 horror film Night Watch which garnered a bit of a cult following in the West. The band, though, didn’t make many forays into the Western music market until 2009 with the release of its excellent Comrade Ambassador album for which it toured small clubs and theaters in North America, a far cry from its usual reception back home. The music of the band since the 1990s has born the influence of Britpop from Lagutenko’s having spent time in the UK during that decade but of course it has a unique Russian flavor with arrangements that reflect a fusion of sensibilities. And yet Mumiy Troll is undeniably accessible even if you don’t speak Russian. And hey, the band risked its livelihood in condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulting in the cancellation of its concerts by Russian authorities.
Pink Fuzz, image from Bandcamp
Saturday | 11.16 What: Pink Fuzz, Forty Feet Tall and Headlight Rivals When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pink Fuzz kind of came out of that classic rock sound revival of the 2010s and its embrace of the hard rock of 2000s stoner rock bands. But Pink Fuzz just sounds like it has a lot more life and bite to its music than a lot of that wave of music. Portland, Oregon’s Forty Feet Tall is a fascinating and visceral fusion of psychedelic garage rock and post-punk intensity and menace.
Gila Teen, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 11.17 What: Gila Teen album release w/Horse Girl and Rabbit Fighter When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Gila Teen is releasing its new album at this show and if its Subtle Wizard EP is any indication the emotionally charged and arresting dream pop/post-punk band is leaning into the desperation underlying the times. It’s also incorporating the kinds of keyboards one more often hears on some 2000s DIY home recording indiepop group enhancing its already commanding immediacy. Horse Girl will do some weird performance art thing with music probably made just for the show and you’ll be better off having witnessed the strangeness. Rabbit Fighter might be a twee indie pop band but its earnest energy and vulnerably delivery can’t be dismissed or narrowed to such designations.
Janet Feder of cowhause, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 11.17 What: cowhause album release w/Hamster Theater When: 7-10 Where: The Bug Theatre Why: Two legends of local avant-garde music for this show. The first is a project between noted guitarist and academic Janet Feder whose imaginative and brilliantly virtuosic guitar playing has found its way into multiple records and in collaboration with multiple artists and Colin Bricker who has played with various bands over the years but is perhaps best known for his production company and studio Mighty Fine Audio. Their band cowhause is a brilliant blend of folk songcraft and ambient soundscaping. Hamster Theater is a long-running art rock band from Boulder whose membership has included members of Thinking Plague and Big Foot Torso. Though these days fairly obscure in the Denver and Boulder area the band has an international following for its wild sonic experimentation into realms of avant-garde jazz and 20th century classical deconstruction.
Actors, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 11.20 What: Actors w/Occults and DJ Niq V When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Actors from Vancouver, BC has set itself apart from a lot of the modern darkwave and post-punk bands by having great pop songcraft instincts and rich synth composition alongside a lively stage show. Sure they look like Goths but there is a joyful energy to an Actors show like a New Wave synthpop band of old and a guitar sound that is more full than the spindly, guitar flavor favored by too many bands among the current swath of trendy post-punk.
AJ Suede, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 11.20 What: AJ Suede w/Ceschi & Factor Chandelier and Esh & The Isolations When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: AJ Suede may not identify as an alternative hip-hop artist as that’s a somewhat archaic term these days. But the experimental rhythms and left field sound choices in his beats point to roots in the kind of underground hip-hop that was becoming popular in the late 90s and 2000s and more recent collectives like Odd Future and A$AP Mob. His creative and imaginative lyrics also veer from the sensibilities of mainstream hip-hop. His latest record Voiceless (2024) is all instrumentals and should be available on tour. Ceschi has been a star of underground hip-hop for around 20 years with his brilliant fusion of folk punk, psychedelia and hip-hop. His two most recent albums Bring Us the Head of Francisco False Parts 1 and 2 (2024) are an epic journey through the creative legacy that produced Ceschi and the culture in which he’s been operating as well as commentary on the wider society which its had to navigate. The albums also represent the end of Ceschi’s career as a solo artist.
Ms. Boan in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 11.22 What:Ms. Boan w/Jeff In Leather, Moon 17 and As In Heaven As In Hell When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ms. Boan is Mariana Saldaña of the darkwave band BOAN who were a significant project of that great 2010s group of industrial and synthpop influenced bands that came to prominence in the underground. Ms. Boan has in recent years collaborated with Houses of Heaven and Boy Harsher and live is a commanding figure whose mystique adds to the sensual impact of the music. Jeff In Leather is a hard techno solo project from Omaha whose most recent release JiL includes production and mastering by industrial darkwave legend Street Fever, Moon 17 is an electro-industrial band from Kansas City whose sound appears to be a fusion of Front 242-esque EBM and melodic darkwave, As In Heaven As In Hell is the solo coldwave post-punk project of John Bueno who has been in punk bands in the past and a noteworthy comic artist but discovered a love of being able to produce music with few creative compromises.
Snakes in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 11.23 What: Snakes final show w/Jenny Don’t and The Spurs and DBUK When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Snakes is playing its final show. The band fronted by George Cessna is like an unlikely fusion of psychedelic surf honky tonk band. Like the sort of group you’d hope to serendipitously run into on a road trip to an isolated town with a secret underbelly of Bohemian weirdos creating music for their own enjoyment and that of others with tastes in music that run astray of mainstream radio fare. Cessna can still be seen playing with Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and likely as a solo act with a catalog of his own that is worth exploring on its own. But Snakes’ gritty self-awareness is a rarity in the realm of Americana with an aesthetic that sounds like it came out of a place where the band hung out with The Velvet Underground and The Creation both and vibed off each before opening for Graham Parsons period The Byrds. Oh yes, Cessna’s dad Slim will be performing in the weirdo, folk infused post-punk opening band DBUK that includes members of the Auto Club. Jenny Don’t and the Spurs will be making a stop in from their base in Portland, Oregon with a glittery and melancholic take on modern outlaw country that fans of Green on Red and Dolly Parton will appreciate.
Saturday | November 30 What: Lyra Muse, Deth Rali and BLDDDLTTR When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Lyra Muse is a pianist/violinist/vocalist from Santa Fe, New Mexico whose dream pop has an elemental quality reminiscent of The Knife and Jenny Hval. The orchestral sounds and ethereal expansiveness of the music conjures images of dream exploration of deeper personal issues and trauma. BLDDDLTTR is also from Santa Fe but its sound is like a great blend of darkwave post-punk and shoegaze with emotionally charged vocals. Deth Rali is hard to quantify but its recent album release show revealed the band to have fused the ideas and aesthetics of 70s glam rock, hypnogogic pop and prog art rock in both sound and visual presentation of the music.
Wednesday | 10.02 What: Fontaines D.C. w/Been Stellar When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. has always been a bit different from the current crop of shout-y punk bands yet sharing a sharply observed critique of contemporary society and politics with a literary sensibility. For its 2024 album Romance the group took a bit of a different turn in its sounds drawing inspiration from manga, horror and existential cinema, ambient post-rock, a post-ironic absorption of nu metal and trip-hop. It sounds almost entirely unlike their previous offerings while preserving the core of its irreverent spirit and poetic leanings and transforming the expression of both. Openers Been Stellar from NYC is almost an American cognate of the musical impulses and instincts one finds in Fontaines D.C.. Its own melodic yet brooding rock is also brimming with an energy that suggests a sober assessment of the world as it is and deciding to reject the temptation to dissociation and despair. The quintet’s new album Scream from New York, NY is noisy and atmospheric with shades of Washington, DC post-punk and NYC arty noise rock.
Mint Field, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 10.02 What:Mint Field w/Wave Decay When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Mint Field is a shoegaze/krautrock band from Mexico City that has garnered a bit of a cult following the past several years. Its songs have the kind of entrancing melodies one would hope to hear out of a dream pop outfit but its arrangements wax into the realm of the avant-garde with the use of noise and recursive production and sound processing so that its music ripples in hypnotic if not always incredibly predictable directions. Its latest full length is 2023’s Aprender a Ser and its autumnal moods and atmospheric resolves are reminiscent of Blonde Redhead in a more gloomy mood. In 2024 the group released the songs that were cut from the previous year’s albums as a mini-LP called Aprender a Ser: Extended. Wave Decay is of course the Denver band whose music most directly sonically aligns with Mint Field’s unorthodox rhythms and otherworldly leanings.
High On Fire in 2010, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 10.02 What:High on Fire w/Weedeater and Cobranoid When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: High on Fire is the band that Matt Pike started following the 1998 dissolution of foundational stoner rock band Sleep. High on Fire has been more hard edged even if the sludgy guitar sound is there. Depending on what record by the band you check out you’ll get a different flavor of heavy music. 2024’s Cometh the Storm is the first to feature Big Business and former Melvins drummer Coady Willis following the departure of Des Kensel. It’s vintage High on Fire but there is even more of a punk attitude in the energy behind the music’s rhythm.
Deicide, photo courtesy the artists
Thurdsday | 10.03 What:Deicide w/Krisiun, Inferi and Cloak When: 6 Where: Marquis Theater Why: Death metal band Deicide hails from what many may consider the home of the genre in Tampa, Florida where legendary studio Morrisound Recording is located as well. The group has courted controversy from early on even before it changed its name from Carnage to Deicide in 1989 with wild theatrics and lyrics that were and have been gloriously, and colorfully anti-organized religion. But all of that wouldn’t amount to much if Deicide’s music was simply brutal guitar riffs and relentless rhythms with lead vocalist/bassist Glen Benton growling out scenes of horror and struggle. There is more creativity in what the group has done and while consistent in those regards its new album Banished by Sin reveals a good deal of evolution of style and experimenting with arrangements.
Luna Li, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 10.03 What: Luna Li w/John Roseboro When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Luna Li came out of Hannah Kim’s garage rock band Veins. But people apparently showed up thinking they were going to be some kind of metal band or the like and the group switched its name to Luna Li in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic gave Kim the opportunity to create videos of performances from her home with her playing various instruments that went viral and established the project as a noteworthy act out of the then nascent bedroom pop movement. With the release of 2024’s When a Thought Grows Wings, Luna Li has proven that its lo-fi aesthetic translates well to a more high end production with lush atmospheres paired well with Kim’s knack for the intimate quality of her songwriting. Think cosmic dream pop made for the late night roller skating rink.
Wardruna, photo by Morten M. Unthe
Thursday | 10.03 What: Wardruna w/Chelsea Wolfe https://www.redrocksonline.com/events/wardruna-539577/ When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Why: Wardruna won’t release its new album Birna until January 24, 2025 but you’ll probably get to hear a good deal of its orchestral, epic, ambient, Nordic folk majesty in one of the perfect settings for that music at Red Rocks. This is the band’s only North American show ahead of that album release but the group has demonstrated a desire for playing iconic, historical settings in the past and a fall show at the natural amphitheater will only add to the experience of the music in a one-of-a-kind way. Also on the bill is the dark, atmospheric, Gothic metal and experimental music artist Chelsea Wolfe who brings to her own shows a mystical quality that will bring to the show another expression of blurring the mythical with the aesthetics of the present. Wolfe and Wardruna composer Einar Selvik recently did an interview with Frank Godla or Metal Injection discussing the upcoming show and you can watch that below.
Air, photo from artists’ Facebook
Friday | 10.04 What:Air play Moon Safari When: 7 Where: Bellco Theatre Why: Air’s 1998 album Moon Safari released in January of that year became something of an instant classic. It borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of library music, downtempo, abstract funk and psychedelic lounge music. But it was also an amalgamation of some of the musical impulses of the time in its retrofuturist compositions. Other bands in other styles of music were tapping heavily into 70s and 60s music that at that time might have been considered schlockily self-indulgent but recontextualized and recombined with innovative production techniques and modern sensibilities it was like an aural vacation to a more chill space than some of the conflict of the late 90s often forgotten in the current sweep of history in which horror seems to be piling on top of horror and every week and sometimes every day there’s something new that seems to take up the oxygen of existence. So maybe you’ll get to experience a temporary exit from all of that at this show marking a celebration of that singular record whose magic Air didn’t quite capture again even as it innovated further.
Blonde Redhead, photo by Charles Billot
Friday | 10.04 What:Blonde Redhead w/Allison Lorenzen When: 6 Where: Levitt Pavilion Why: Blonde Redhead doesn’t often make an appearance in Denver more than once every two or three years but this is a chance to see the legendary dream pop/art rock band outdoors before the colder days of Fall descend. Opening is ambient indie folk luminary Allison Lorenzen whose delicate and emotionally rich soundscapes will fit in well with the music to follow.
Faye Webster, photo by Michael Tyrone Delaney
Friday | 10.04 What:Faye Webster w/Miya Folick When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Faye Webster has established herself as skilled practitioner of delicately orchestrated melodies and deeply personal storytelling across her five albums. Her imaginative songwriting is delivered with a soulful accessibility so that Webster can indulge moments of musical whimsy and inventiveness that make for albums that have a paradoxical diversity and consistency that lend them a timeless quality. Live, the singer-songwriter also bucks expectation in not just embodying the vulnerability and sensitivity required to make the music she does with authenticity but taking chances with stage sets and costumes that can make you wonder if you’ve stepped into an alternate reality serving the worlds and stories Webster has on offer. The summer leg of the tour for her 2021 album I Know I’m Funny Haha included the stage being flanked by giant, mythical, mysterious beings like something out of a supernatural manga. So expect something theatrical and entrancing for the presentation of the 2024 record Undressed at the Symphony.
Blood Incantation, photo by Julian Weigand
Friday | 10.04 What: Blood Incantation – Absolute Everywhere album release w/Steve Roach When: 8 Where: Boulder Theater Why: This will be completely different kind of show with the headliners being Denver-based, psychedelic death metal band Blood Incantation celebrating the release of its new album Absolute Everywhere. But this year also marks the release of a documentary about the band’s time in Berlin called All Gates Open: In Search of Absolute Everywhere. The group’s 2022 all synth album Timewave Zero revealed explicitly the fact that the members of the band had an interest in sculpting atmospheres beyond what it had done on previous albums and the new set of songs fuses the two worlds in a seamless way and expanding in some ways what death metal can be. So who is opening this show but legendary ambient composer Steve Roach who would be worth making out to see all on his own.
The Milk Blossoms, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 10.05 What: The Milk Blossoms album release, Wheelchair Sports Camp and George Cessna When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Milk Blossoms are releasing their latest album Open Portal on vinyl this night. The record is a resonantly introspective dive into memory and how little details can spark and linger in your brain, shedding light on significant moments and details of experience that the conscious mind can pass over and miss their holistic connectedness when limited by linear thought. These songs break down that process and turn it into poetry and music that feels like a direct experience rather than mere snippets filtered by one’s own psychological conditioning. Because of this the band’s songs can feel like dreams rendered into melancholic yet emotionally vibrant bits of pop goodness. Wheelchair Sports Camp is an amalgamation of dirty rap, masterful production, jazz wizardry and sharply observed social commentary in a brilliant and playful performance style. George Cessna’s songwriting like that of the late Kris Kristofferson recognizes no boundary between pop, rock and Americana with lyrics that are poignantly observant of personal struggle and common human moments navigating the often emotionally perilous world.
Kate Bollinger, photo by Gilles O’Kane
Saturday | 10.05 What:Kate Bollinger When: 7 Where: eTown Hall Why: Kate Bollinger recently released her debut full-length album Songs from a Thousand Frames of Mind (2024) on the Ghostly International imprint, a label more known for experimental and otherwise left field music. Bollinger’s own indie folk songs is the kind of thing you’d hear on the local indie rock station but if you listen deeper and watch any of her music videos it becomes obvious the Bollinger is an artist that experiments in tone and tonality and unconventional arrangements that somehow come together sounding like something from another era, but a mythical version of that era and her mastery of atmospheric songwriting is reminiscent of the warmly spookier end of The Velvet Underground’s folkier, drifty songs. Maybe on another tour the songwriter would be playing a regular club but this time around you can catch her at eTown Hall in Boulder and its finely curated programming.
Ginger Root, photo by David Gutel
Saturday | 10.05 What:Ginger Root w/Pearl & The Oysters When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: With a name like Ginger Root and knowing nothing about the artist you might be expecting a jam band but no, the project led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Lew straddles the realms of soul, funk, jazz and pop in a seemingly self-aware style. Lew’s records unabashedly center the cheesier aspects of East Asian culture as a starting off point in writing with insight about the usual personal concerns while also commenting on society in a playful manner that at times can come across as surreal. His new album SHINBANGUMI is like a stroll through the kind of daytime television world that anyone that has spent time watching regular programming in Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong will find familiar. That bizarre realm of crass commercialism, forced enthusiasm and manufactured positivity that serves as the backdrop of programming that isn’t necessarily advertising with often fantastic sound design is part of the aesthetic. But Lew turns the vibe on its ear while borrowing the chillout lounge energy to inform his own charming, psychedelic pop.
Saturday | 10.05 What:UPSAHL w/Conor Burns and Zoe Ko When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: UPSAHL came up as a trained multi-instrumentalist and singer but fortunately she channeled that knowledge into a skillset that has made her indie pop bangers have and uncommon musical depth and sophistication. Her early singles showcased her musicianship a little more but her newer work demonstrates that UPSAHL has a great command of production in crafting hooks for hedonistic dance club fare with interesting pop culture references like that to Jennifer’s Body in “Summer so hot.”
Descartes a Kant, photo courtesy the artists
Sunday | 10.06 What: Descartes a Kant When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Descartes a Kant from Mexico City sounds like its members came up listening to a combination of art rock and 90s alternative pop. Its 2023 album After Destruction is like the soundtrack to a pirate takeover of a television station including commercials and instructions on the use of technologies. All with a healthy, surreal and subversive sense of humor. The music is often a fusion of synth pop and punk for a sound somewhere between a Garfunkel and Oates song with a frenetic noise rock version of pop punk. Fans of Otoboke Beaver and Deerhoof may like this band’s strange sounds and undeniable flair for theater.
J.R.C.G., photo by Anthony Beauchemin
Sunday | 10.06 What: J.R.C.G. w/American Culture and Candy Apple When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Justin R. Cruz Gallegos’ second album Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) is a cathartic burst of hybrid musical ideas that bring together raw noise experiments, structured beats and a sound that has punk spirit but irreverent IDM sensibilities. It’s like a modern manifestation of the sort of thing Meat Beat Manifesto got up to in the early 90s and Trans Am’s more rock moments. But really it’s something different and more original than a lot of music with solid hooks and accessibility that came out in the past five years. Think something like if Fugazi and Sleaford Mods did a mashup project with a resurrected Macha producing. American Culture underwent a bit of a reboot of sound more in the direction of rediscovering and repurposing the melodic soundbending of Britpop groups and The Cure in a power pop mode without losing a raw human mode of expression in the past few years and is all the better for having pushed its boundaries past where it has been before. Candy Apple is what happens when hardcore kids realize the full noise potential of that music and stretch it into creative shapes outside the standard format.
Illuminati Hotties POWER album cover
Sunday | 10.06 What: Illuminati Hotties w/Daffo When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Sarah Tudzin is known at least as much for her masterful work as a producer, mixer and audio engineer as she is for her music with her band Illuminati Hotties. The latter put out its latest album POWER in August 2024 with Tudzin as producer alongside another luminary in audio production John Congleton. Though the songs are spare in their arrangements they are imbued with an energy and a fuzzy edge reminiscent of 90s alternative pop with often surprisingly introspective melodic vocal hooks that pair well with those Tudzin crafted for guitar. The wryly observational lyrics and personal insight makes the record something with more depth than is obvious because the songs are so catchy. Opening the show is Portland-based indie folk artist Daffo. Growing up in Philadelphia, Daffo was involved in the DIY scenes of Philly and New Jersey where they developed some of their uncommonly sensitive songwriting and fluidly dynamic musicianship. Their song “Poor Madeline” is an affecting work that captures the wistfulness of looking back on a time of displacement and emotional turmoil in one’s life and specifically about the loss of the feeling of having a place one associates with home. It’s immediately relatable and Daffo’s arrangements reflect well the welling of emotions and the granular flow of them in your mind as you’re feeling them. This characteristic the songwriter brings to their other released material so far as collected on the album Pest/Crisis Kit released September 20, 2024.
Daffo, photo by Sam PennBoris, photo by Miki Matsushima
Sunday | 10.06 What: Boris “Amplifier Worship Service” w/Starcrawler When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Few albums have been as singular in exemplifying an aesthetic as succinctly summed up by the title of an album as Boris’s epochal 1998 album Amplifier Worship. Boris didn’t invent doom metal or necessarily do it better than everyone else but that record is like a user’s manual for how to make heavy music that’s dense with atmosphere, not too polished to be interesting and thoroughly informed by a willingness to let the wildness and bleeding edges of the analog technology employed drift where it may while guiding it all to great heights of artistry and intensity. And for one night in Denver you can witness the Japanese heavy music greats deliver that album in its entirety.
Pixel Grip, photo by Alexus McLane
Tuesday | 10.08 What:Pixel Grip w/Madeline Goldstein When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pixel Grip is a Chicago-based band whose industrial dance club sound is steeped in EBM and techno. Its rhythms and tones have an angular quality but the band’s vocals are ethereally melodic. Live the band looks like they come straight from a Goth club that never existed in a cyberpunk manga but the music goes hard and has the kind of visceral impact one wants from a darkwave act with pretensions to dance music. Pixel Grip doesn’t pretend. Madeline Goldstein has been making a mark for herself as a producer of moody synth pop in the wonderfully gloomy post-punk vein. Her 2023 album Other World couches Goldstein’s melodiously, yes, otherworldly vocals reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux in layers of entrancing tones and driving rhythms.
Shannon & The Clams, photo by Jim Herrington
Tuesday | 10.08 What: Shannon & The Clams w/The Deslondes When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Shannon & The Clams have been building a cult following for years since their 2007 inception. Lead vocalist Shannon Shaw was a startling presence with a powerhouse voice that made the band stand out when it was playing dive bars and the like a decade and more ago and the songwriting a mix of garage punk and the emotional delicacy and grit of 1960s girl groups has proven to be versatile and fruitful in exploring themes of love and heartache with creativity and passionate tunefulness. The outfit’s latest album The Moon is in the Wrong Place bears all the hallmarks of Shannon & The Clams’ blend of vital soulfulness and vulnerable introspection and waxes further into its psychedelic pop leanings.
Crumb, photo by Melissa Lunar @mmmlunar
Wednesday | 10.09 What: Crumb w/Vagabon When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Crumb’s foundation of jazz-inflected, psychedelic dream pop started garnering a bit of a following with its first two EPs Crumb (2016) and Locket (2017). It wasn’t the standard issue indie psych that had been flourishing often blandly in the middle of the 2010s. Crumb’s creative vision was more experimental and imaginative and its songwriting seemed to be informed by a deep listening of electronic music of the 90s and 2000s with rhythms that though often driven by live instruments flowed like something stemming from a production base. With its new album Amama, Crumb pushes its sounds further into colorful soundscaping with an aesthetic resonance comparable to the unique worlds of a Dash Shaw film and the wondrous imagery and sense of mysterious emotional familiarity.
Thou, photo by Nathan Tucker
Thursday | 10.10 What:Thou w/Slowhole, BleakHeart and The Flight of Sleipnir When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Thou may still be a cult band but its one that has garnered critical acclaim for its unique take on sludge and doom metal. Anyone that has seen the band live knows they don’t look like they’re about to get up and play the heaviest music of the night with a wild energy that stretches the music into interesting sonic and emotional shapes. They often look like you’re about to see some weird Americana. And in some ways that’s exactly what you get—a sonic portrait of aspects of the tortured American psyche. The group’s new album Umbilical is its most expansive and accessible yet without sacrificing the band’s rouch edges and idiosyncratic textures and tonal layers that make its songs such gloriously nightmarish passages of cathartic sound.
Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, photo by Brent Cole
Thursday | 10.10 What: Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage w/The Grasping Straws and Gila Teen When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club Why: Jeffrey Lewis is a songwriter from New York City who is currently on tour with his band The Voltage. His rich and prolific body of work is a broadly diverse presentation of ideas and biographical/autobiograpical sketches that have a refreshingly and fascinating honesty and earnestness that fans of Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Camper Van Beethoven and Billy Bragg will find rewarding. It’s part punk, part folk, part Americana and all what might be described as captured, on recordings anyway, in brash burst of lo-fi vulnerability. Look for a new record from Lewis due out in March 2025 but for now take a visit to his Bandcamp page and really start anywhere. https://jeffreylewis.bandcamp.com/
Charli XCX, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 10.11 What: Charli XCX w/Troye Sivan When: 6:30 Where: Ball Arena Why:Brat Summer just got extended into the Fall with Charli XCX’s latest tour in support of her 2024 album. The singer-songwriter-producer has long found ways of crafting enthralling modern pop music either largely on her own but often with various collaborators. Brat combines the brashness of Charli’s performance style and a radical vulnerability that has been an element of her lyrics for years. With Brat Charli and company tap into aspects of synth pop and transforms them into undeniable bangers with genuine emotional resonance. “360” became an obvious hit over the summer but “Apple” finds Charlotte Aitchison aka Charli XCX branching into new creative territory making the album one of the more innovative in mainstream popular music.
Little Fyodor and Babushka Band circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 10.11 What: Franksgiving – in Memory of Frank Bell: Little Fyodor, Mr. Pacman and Sense From Nonsense When: 9 Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Franksgiving was a yearly fundraiser for colitis and Crohn’s Disease charities led by the late Frank Bell, DJ and purveyor of fine musical weirdness for years. The banner of that cause has been taken up by Little Fyodor who has shared Bell’s appreciation for the musically odd and a maker of plenty of that one his own whether with tape collage legends or his long running, bizarro punk band that is more punk than most bands calling themselves such. But then you also get costumed video game superhero glitchcore/synth pop legends Mr. Pacman and the ambient/soundtrack project of former Echo Beds drummer/programmer/vocalist Tom Nelsen.
Meet the Giant, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 10.12 What:Meet the Giant 15 Year Anniversary w/Church Fire and Jaguar Stevens When: 8 Where: 1010 Workshop Why: Meet the Giant is a post-punk band with a keen ear for electronic soundscapes resulting in a music that is visceral, emotionally rich and possessed of great sonic nuance. The band has two albums under its belt after a decade of incubating before playing its first shows and on the verge of releasing a third and you may get a chance to hear some of the new material at this show. Industrial dance synth pop firebrands Church Fire are releasing the vinyl version of their great 2022 album puppy god through Witch Cat Records at this show as well.
GEL, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 10.13 What: GEL w/MS Paint, Destiny Bond and The Mall When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: GEL recently released its most recent collection of punchy and caustic hardcore in the album Persona. Hailing from New Jersey, the quartet started life as a powerviolence outfit called Sick Shit. But starting in 2018 the fledgling group leaned further into more pure hardcore but with more expansive rhythms and a layer of moodiness under the aggressive bluster. And this show features some of the most noteworthy acts out of the recent wave of American hardcore with Destiny Bond and its amped anthems of navigating ideas of identity, personal politics and a bursting of narrow definitions of how we have to be and a resistance to bland yet destructive conformity. MS Paint came out of the hardcore scene but its synth and drums-driven post-punk is like something new with resonances with the likes of The Screamers and The VSS. It’s also one of the most powerful live bands you’re likely to see this year.
Monday | 10.14 What:Unwound w/Quits When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Unwound was considered one of the premier noise rock bands of the 90s and early 2000s even though it mostly earned a cult following playing dive bars, DIY spaces, basements and in the end small theaters. Its raw and both controlled and unhinged post-hardcore style had an intense energy and dreamlike passages of a transcendent emotional headiness that implanted so many of the band’s songs in the psyches of fans. At one point a critic or two compared their style and influence to that of Sonic Youth, a band that likely had more than a passing influence on Unwound. Following the 2001 tour in support of its then and most recent studio album, the highly experimental and even avant-garde Leaves Turn Inside You, Unwound split in 2002 only to resurface in 2022 after the passing of bassist Vern Rumsey. For the recent spate of live shows Jared Warren of Big Business and formerly of KARP has taken up role as bassist as one of the only people who could really do it justice as he like Unwound was based out of Olympia, Washington in the 90s as well not to mention Rumsey worked on KARP records. Opening are Denver noise rock legends Quits whose emotionally charged songs may sound like jagged emotions and caustic pronouncements about humanity but are really sensitively rendered observations and fantasies about life in a world that can feel hostile to human frailty.
Monday | 10.14 What:Clairo w/Alice Phoebe Lou When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Bedroom pop artist Clairo in her relatively short career has created a body of work and musical style that has had reverberations for other songwriters in the past several years and garnered a cult following as well. Her melancholic and delicate vocals and inventive use of organic and electronic instruments have a timeless quality because Clairo has mastered mixing and blending the aesthetics of multiple eras into her own style so that even if there’s a nostalgic aspect to the song it has a paradoxical immediacy. Her new record Charm has some of Clario’s most accomplished production and songwriting so that so many of the compositions feel like indie instrumentation over beatmaking paired with the usual melodious and chill vocals and every so slightly psychedelic sensibilities.
Iguana Death Cult, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 10.15 What: Iguana Death Cult w/Los Toms and Supreme Joy When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Iguana Death Cult from Rotterdam, Holland formed in 2015 when singer/guitarist Jeroen Reek brought together a group of friends who didn’t know each other but had his friendship in common. As they began to develop their music their sound absorbed the garage and surf rock influences of the 2010s and manifested those ideas in music that moved beyond trendy aesthetics and by the time of its 2023 album Echo Palace you might be excused for thinking they were influenced more by the likes of Parquet Courts, Gang of Four and The English Beat. Still fiery but angular, arty and more daring in its guitar work than most garage rock acts. Also on the bill is the ferocious, Denver post-punk band Supreme Joy whose own roots in garage rock adjacent-modes isn’t so obvious.
Mr. Gnome, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 10.15 What:Mr. Gnome w/Spyderland and Glass Human When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Since its 2005 inception Mr. Gnome has cultivated an eclectic and evolving style of art rock that on its albums dives deep into concepts and aesthetics like they’re making a unique work with world building but not lacking in personal storytelling. Songs stand on their own yet fit into the mosaic of the work at hand. Its a level of creative songwriting that not many bands achieve without coming across as a little corny. Its latest offering is 2024’s synth-infused A Sliver of Space a seeming record about clinging to meaning as the world falls apart and resisting being washed away in the flood of world and life events.
Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille, photo by Tom Murphy
Testament, photo by Stephanie Cabral and Mia Demonz
Tuesday | 10.22 What: Testament, Kreator and Possessed When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Testament is one the most important of the second wave of thrash metal bands out of the Bay Area in the second half of the 80s that helped to define the genre with its unique approach to the musicianship. It had the wild exuberance of thrash in its first few years but backed by a technical precision and creativity in its execution that set the band apart from some of its contemporaries. Like its contemporaries, Testament was able to weather the implosion of the popularity of metal in the early 90s because its music seemed rooted in something more durable than hedonistic rock and roll tropes with more to say and its songwriting more imaginative than what was on offer from glam metal. By the 21st century the style Testament cultivated was vindicated with a new wave of popularity and the reunion of its classic lineup with brilliant lead guitarist Alex Skolnick returning to the fold. But this show includes other giants of 80s metal with influential German thrash group Kreator and pioneering death metal act Possessed.
Minami Deutsch, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 10.23 What: Minami Deutsch w/Nightfishing When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Minami Deutsch is the minimal techno-inspired psychedelic prog band from Tokyo whose motorik beats and hypnotic minimalism is both consistent and ever evolving in its soundscapes. Its 2022 album Fortune Goodies is like a gentle version of Kosmische that some may find resonances with the more abstract end of Deerhunter.
Wednesday | 10.23 What: Marc Rebillet w/Flying Lotus and Reggie Watts When: 5 Where: Red Rocks Why: Marc Rebillet is an eclectic music and multi-media creator whose live performances and YouTube streams, Facebook/Instagram live feeds etc. blur the line between electronic music, funk, R&B, comedy, performance art and whatever else seems to strike his fancy in the moment as an artist who has found a way to use the format as the medium of his artistic expression. For this tour he is bringing along like-minded creatives like filmmaker, experimental hip-hop and avant-garde jazz composer Flying Lotus and comedian and multi-faceted post-punk R&B storyteller Reggie Watts.
David Liebe Hart, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 10.24 What: David Liebe Hart w/Magic Cyclops and DJ Wayzout When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: David Liebe Hart came to the attention of a wide audience for his appearances in the Adult Swim program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! His surreal songs and puppet theater many probably assumed to be purely a character but there is an earnestness to Hart’s creative work that comes from a genuine place and his status an outsider artist is no pose. The music with his various collaborators has evolved to a truly unique kind of synth pop with themes of aliens, trains and the litany of tragedies of his love life. Magic Cyclops is not quite the Colorado (or is it Iowa, IYKYK) equivalent of Hart but his own take on surreal synth pop is driven by a concept of an egotistical people star whose personal is fueled by bombast and at times technical incompetence. His own songs, nevertheless, have their own charm and odd humor.
Photay, photo courtesy the artist
Friday |10.25 What: Photay w/M.Sage When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: For roughly the past decade Evan Shorntein has released experimental-leaning, electronic pop music as Photay. His latest offering is 2024’s Windswept which mixes minimal techno rhythms and structure with subtle textures and ethereal, sparkling melodies building to a playful mood. Opening the show is noted Colorado-based ambient artist, composer and curator M. Sage.
Trees Inside Out, photo courtesy Myshel Prasad
Friday | 10.25 What:Trees Inside Out (first show) w/Pleasure Prince and Extreme Sports Club When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Trees Inside Out released its debut album IOVI on September 12, 2024. It’s a drifty bit of dream pop and space rock reminiscent of Low and Eleventh Dream Day. Its principle songwriters though are known figures in Denver’s shoegaze scene of the 90s and early 2000s with Roger Green (Idle Mind, The Czars) and Myshel Prasad (Space Team Electra) so really that alchemy of sounds extends from their own deeply creative songwriting and soundscaping and left field poetic sensibilities. Also on the record are Todd Ayers who was part of an early part of STE called Dive but later in Volplane and Sonnenblume; Sean Eden (Luna); Bill Kunkel (STE); Kit Peltzel (STE); John Rasmussen (among others, Pale Sun); and Lee Wall (Luna). That alone should be a reason to go to the show. Then Pleasure Prince is also on hand with their beautifully orchestrated, emotionally vibrant, experimental, electronic pop.
Saturday and Sunday | 10.26 and 10.27 What: The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs 25th Anniversary Tour When: 7 both nights Where: Boulder Theater Why: Indie rock band The Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs in 1999 to great critical acclaim. Written as a concept for a music review by main songwriter Stephen Merritt that could have been 100 songs long but thought the shorter length more attainable and the math worked better for three sections of 23 songs apiece. The album is stylistically diverse and delivered with an almost nonchalant energy in the vocals and Merritt’s songs range in subject matter widely and depict relationships in a spectrum of sexual orientations. But mostly it’s an ambitious and sprawling collection of finely crafted pop songs that go well beyond the cliches and tropes of a subject that has been written about entirely too often without a fraction of the creativity.
La Luz, photo by Wyndham Garrett
Monday | 10.28 What: La Luz w/Tele Novella When: 7 Where: Marquis Theater Why: La Luz has evolved rapidly and in always interesting directions from its more surf rock-oriented sound when it began in 2012. But even then Shana Cleveland’s songwriting has set the band apart from presumed stylistic leanings. The band’s 2024 album News of the Universe is a futuristic, softly psychedelic set of songs that sound like the group has moved well into the richly atmospheric side of Krautrock and fused that perfectly with Cleveland’s expert pop songcraft and gift for intermingling classic songwriting and styles and sounds across decades and cultures into a coherent and entrancing whole.
What:The The When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The The was both a critically acclaimed and commercially successful band throughout the 80s and 90s. Having come up from experimental music and post-punk roots, The The has always had a bit of an arty, left field edge even as many of its songs have enjoyed a bit of mainstream popularity like “Uncertain Smile” from its 1983 debut album Soul Mining, “Uncertain Smile” featuring Sinead O’Connor from the 1989 album Mind Bomb and “Dogs of Lust” from 1993’s Dusk. From 2003 through 2017 the project went on hold while main songwriter Matt Johnson focused on crafting music for soundtracks. In 2024 a new The The album emerged with Ensoulment a record of brooding, Americana flavored art rock noir songs about love, existential pondering and the band’s usual poignant social commentary.
Monday and Tuesday | 10.28 and 10.29 What: SHEROES Live with Carmel Holt Where/When: The Colorado Sound 105.5 FM at 3PM on 10.28 and Indie 102.3 time TBA (10.29) Why: The Road to Joni is a podcast that launched on September 6, 2024 hosted by SHEROES’ Camel Holt. The podcast honors the great folk rock/experimental pop legend Joni Mitchell. Guests have and will include the likes of St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, Hozier, Arooj Aftab and Bonnie Raitt. The first episode featured Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Lucius and Kathleen Edwards. Carmel taped episodes on her way across America from Kingston, NY to the “Joni Jam” at The Hollywood Bowl which occurred on October 19/20. She has also been making stops in various cities for on air visits and tapings at local NPR stations including The Colorado Sound in Fort Collins on October 28 and Indie 102.3 in Denver. Listen to the archived episodes here.
Tokyo Police Club, photo by Ross Macdonald
Wednesday | 10.30 What: Tokyo Police Club final tour When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: The members of Tokyo Police Club grew up and went to school together in their hometown of Newmarket, Ontario forming the band in 2004 when most of the group were still in high school. Unlike most bands formed in that way, TPC has stuck it out and its particular style of left field, guitar-driven post-punk went on to garner a sizable following and commercial success with songs imbued with great energy and immediacy alongside a spontaneous quality and willingness to go off standard melodic structures. The band has thus been able to consistently craft music that comes across authentic because a little rough around the edges. In January 2024 the quartet announced it was splitting up with a final tour concluding in Toronto on November 29.
Vince Staples in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 10.30 What:Vince Staples w/Baby Rose When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Vince Staples released his sixth album Dark Times in May 2024 and offered a more vulnerable set of songs than his already impressive catalog of songs of emotionally open and introspective storytelling. This time out the moods are more downcast in a way that feels cinematic like Staples has written an album like an anthology of vignettes best embodied as a series of short films that illuminate themes of acceptance and the kind of resistance that comes not from some hokey everything’s gonna be alright insipidity but a deep assessment of how things are and working to not be overwhelmed by the challenges of finding meaning in a society that makes a genuine effort at doing so challenging.
T-Pain, photo by Bexx Francois
Wednesday and Thursday | 10.30 and 10.31 What: T-Pain w/Akon (10.30) and Lil Jon (10.31) When: 5:30 (10.30) and 6:30 (10.31) Where: Mission Ballroom Why: T-Pain is most often associated with the popularization of Auto-Tune in popular music of the past twenty years and more. But for the artist it’s more than just a gimmick and he’s used it creative to give his vocals another dimension of expression beyond their normal range. And beyond the vocal treatment, T-Pain is a songwriter who has consistently tried to push the boundaries of hip-hop with his songwriting and production. In 2023 he released a record of eclectic covers called On Top of the Covers that includes “War Pigs” for which Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler have expressed great appreciation. Other than the selections the album showcased the singer’s prowess as a vocalist without Auto-Tune. So for this show you’ll probably get to witness T-Pain at the peak of his abilities thus far. The first night of this two night run includes a performance from Akon who early in T-Pain’s career helped to give that artist a leg up into the music industry through his record label Konvict Muzik. But Akon’s own pop-inflected hip-hop and world music infused R&B has garnered himself no small following as well. The second night you will get to see Lil Jon who was pivotal in developing crunk and that EDM (particularly bass music) and Southern hip-hop crossover as embodied prominently by his hit 2013 single “Turn Down For What” which he performed at the 2024 DNC.
Saturday | 09.07 What:Dust City Opera’s Haunted Costume Ball w/The Constant Tourists When: 7 Where: Swallow Hill Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate. For this rescheduled show in Denver the band is encouraging attendees to come dressed up for their Haunted Costume Ball to help launch spooky season.
Midwife, photo by Alana Wool
Sunday | 09.08 What: Midwife w/DBUK and Polly Urethane When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Midwife just released a new album called No Depression in Heaven, which is a heavy enough title on its own, but for the new album the mood isn’t quite as downcast as the previous album but the tenderness and vulnerability is still there with the sensitivity tuned more sharply into examining and evoking where memory and dreams intersect and the role that plays in how we live our lives and our psychological orientation of identity and aspiration. The records are all great but Madeleine Johnston is even more powerful live though this will be a bigger stage than usual for the songwriter at least in Denver and you’ll have to go to see how the music translates. Denver Broncos UK is a more post-punk offshoot of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but still plenty of the element of Gothic Americana in its music. Polly Urethane always does a different kind of show and you don’t really know what you’re in for except that it’ll be interesting, it’ll incorporate aspects of performance art and ambitious composition and often breaking the barrier between performer and audience.
Keane, photo by Alex Lake
Monday | 09.09 What: Keane w/Everything Everything When: 6:30 Where: Temple Hoyne Buell Theater Why: Keane technically existed in an earlier form for nearly a decade before its 2004 album Hopes and Fears was released on major label Island Records. But that album reflected years of development and refinement of songwriting craft and even though the band received criticism for being derivative the record went on to multi-Platinum status in sales. The piano-driven songwriting and singer Tim Rice-Oxley’s vocal melodies though polished convey earnest sentiments that have connected with an international audience. With this tour the group celebrates the record that launched its career coinciding with support behind the remastered 20 year anniversary edition of the album.
Osees, image courtesy amdophoto
Wednesday | 09.11 What:Osees w/Timmy’s Organism When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Osees is the ever evolving band led by John Dwyer and really you can check in anywhere in the band’s catalog and under any of its names and find records that are often radically different from the release that preceded it. The new record Sorcs 80 sounds like Butthole Surfers at its most manic mixed with Trans Am but delivered with the mutant stylings we’ve come to expect from the band. Motorik, psychedelic garage rock doesn’t quite cover the raw power and attitude of the album but it gives you an idea. Check out the live video of the performance of the album on YouTube. But best experienced in person as no YouTube video is an adequate surrogate for the vital, real thing unless you can’t be there.
Skyfloor, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 09.12 What:Alphabeat Soup #75: Acidbat, DEBR4H, Melodies Never Lie, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor When: 9 Where: The Black Box Why: The long-running showcase of some of Denver’s most daring and forward thinking experimental electronic music composers and performers this month features, among others, IDM/techno wizard Acidbat, Fort Collins-based synthwave/synthpop artist DEBR4H, the latest project from former Mehko and the Ocean Birds member Isaac Javier River as Melodies Never Lie and its fusion of dream pop and ethereal indie folk and ambient hip-hop producer Skyfloor aka Grant Blakeslee who some may know more as MYTHirst or in his collaborations with experimental pop genius Felix Fast4ward.
Kikuo, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 09.12 What: Kikuo When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Kikuo is an acclaimed Vocaloid artist from Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan (basically suburban Tokyo but it’s a big urban sprawl in that part of the country). The artist is known for his highly detailed sound-design oriented dance pop songs that explore themes of trauma and suffering and the habits of self soothing that provide catharsis from both. For the uninitiated Kuko’s music sounds like music that reflects the moods and kinetic energy of anime and Japanese popular culture but expressed in a way that does honor to the underlying emotions that inform a lot of the best creative endeavors that have manifested out of Japan. And yet Kikuo’s music most often seems joyous and the live show like a high energy, live DJ set with samples and beats with vocals manipulated and processed into something that could only happen with technology, like the voices of a particularly upbeat, even kawaii, anime or video game characters but delivering heartfelt emotional content that contrasts with a conventional interpretation of that style of art.
Mortiis, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 09.14 What:Mortiis w/Brighter Death Now, Sombre Arcane, Malfet and Fogweaver When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Probably the biggest dungeon synth show in Denver in maybe ever. Headlined by one of the genre’s pioneers, Mortiis who since 1993 has been crafting fantastical soundscapes that have exerted an influence on other practitioners of the music since. Brighter Death Now isn’t really a dungeon synth band but its industrial ambient noise seems to have been one of the foundations of what would become music in that style and its own industrial/power electronics style music evokes of the mysterious and otherworldly even as it can often be unsettling and confrontational. Colorado’s Fogweaver isn’t short on the fantasy elements of the music but its own synth compositions are well within the realm of ambient.
Deth Rali, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 09.14 What: Deth Rali album release w/Hex Cassette, Church Fire and DJ Reed Fox When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver-based darkwave synth pop band Deth Rali is releasing its first album in three years with Ruby Castle Island. It’s a transporting and psychedelically inflected set of songs if early singles are any indication. Sharing the bill is one man industrial music death cult Hex Cassette. Okay, the death part is only a joke but part of the project’s aesthetic is going to the limit for one’s art and bringing the audience along for the ride to the darkwave industrial dance party or else. Church Fire has expanded its stage show with an even more robust light show to accompany its revolution darkwave and emotionally charged synth pop dance songs aimed at making resistance to the capitalist patriarchy fun.
Zheani, photo by Mik Shida
Sunday | 09.15 What:Zheani w/The Buttress and ZAND When: 7 Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: Zheani is an electronic pop artist from Australia some of whose fans have dubbed her style of music “Fairy Trap.” What does this mean? Check out any of her music videos or live footage if you can find it and you’ll find music that mixes the ethereal and playful with hyper pop, trap beats and occult imagery and industrial-adjacent sonic intensity. Fans of Alice Glass both with Crystal Castles but especially solo will appreciate Zheani’s fantastical hybrid pop and visual aesthetic.
Fabio Frizzi, photo by Floriana Ausili
Tuesday | 09.17 What:Fabio Frizzi “Zombie” movie screening with live soundtrack performance When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform his iconic score as a live soundtrack to a screening of Lucio Fulci’s classic 1979 film Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), which was to have been a sequel to George A. Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).
James in 2008, photo by Tom Murphy
Tuesday | 09.17 What:Johnny Marr & James When: 6:30 Where: Paramount Theatre Why: Johnny Marr, the legendary guitarist of The Smiths and later of Modest Mouse, shares a bill with fellow Mancunians James. The Smiths and James started the same year (1982) and likely crossed paths during the course of their careers. James had hits in college and alternative rock radio throughout the 80s and 90s maintaining a cult following for its exuberant and inventive, idiosyncratic songwriting with hits that include “Laid,” “Born of Frustration” and “Come Home.” Marr’s solo albums of recent years revealed the guitarist as an artist in his own right capable of writing compelling songs and live being able to deliver favorites by The Smiths. So this show will be a celebration of the band’s catalogs and continued ability to deliver it with a sense of joy and catharsis.
Public Memory, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 09.18 What:Public Memory w/Voight and DJ Niq V When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Public Memory is the solo project of Robert Toher who has been releasing albums of entrancing darkwave techno for around a decade. With layers of dub rhythm and texture and an otherworldy cast like the most haunted music that came out of 90s IDM, Public Memory pushes boundaries of modern electronic music and often has a quality like even moodier trip hop. Voight is more like a true fusion of techno, noisy shoegaze, post-punk and an emotional intensity that nearly tips the music over and all the better for not playing it safe.
Ulrika Spacek, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 09.18 What:Ulrika Spacek w/Bluebook and Pale Sun When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ulrika Spacek is a psychedelic post-punk shoegaze band from the UK whose intricate guitar work seems to weave layers of mood rather than come across as an unusual form of math rock. Its 2023 album Compact Trauma had the melodic and rhythmic complexity of something you’d expect from Women or Black Midi but with more melancholic sounds like an English cognate of something more like Deeper and its proclivity for conveying emotional rawness. Bluebook is an art rock and dream pop band from Denver but don’t be fooled by the delicacy of expression on some of the recorded music you can find because there is a dark yet inviting and intense energy to the live show that has made the group a favorite among fans and critics. Pale Sun has some of the most imaginative and deeply evocative guitar work of any band from Colorado or elsewhere. It’s like experiencing a weather anomaly in real time with ethereal melodies and a resonant emotional colorings in its arrangements of voice and instrumentation.
Marc Ribot, photo by Ebru Yildiz
Friday | 09.20 What: Marc Ribot Quartet (Hilliard Green, Chad Taylor, Mary Halvorson) When: 7 Where: Mercury Cafe Why: Marc Ribot is one of the true guitar geniuses of the past few decades. His style and skill means he has fit in with some of the most demanding jazz groups and experimental musicians and pop and rock mavericks around including the likes of Tom Waits, John Zorn, Foetus, Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg, Arto Lindsay, Ikue Mori, Cibo Matto, David Sylvian and Elvis Costello. His style seems to be boundary-less yet distinctive. This quartet is like if a way out free jazz band teamed up with a bunch of weirdos from the 20th century classical avant-garde.
Charly Bliss, photo by Milan Dileo
Friday | 09.20 What:Charly Bliss w/Raffaela When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Charly Bliss has been described as a mix of 90s alternative rock and pop of various kinds. But the salient aspect of the group’s music since its 2017 debut album Guppy has been a a pairing of vulnerability and joy. That combination along with the band’s playful exuberance gives an uplifting quality to even its more melancholic songs. On its new record Forever (released August 16, 2024) the quartet embraces even more thoroughly the influence of modern pop music with the electronic production thoroughly threaded into the songwriting. Still very much in place is a likability and a knack for tasty indie pop hooks.
Beabadoobee, photo by Jules Moskovtchenko with creative direction by Patricia Villirillo
Friday | 09.20 What:Beabadoobee w/Hovvdy and Keni Titus When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Beabadoobee has established herself as a singer and songwriter of note over the past seven years with a diverse body of work that incorporates a blend of styles without getting stuck in a definitive genre, a quality that is a testament to the likely durability of her career. But the songs and their delicately heartfelt style speak for themselves. From early bedroom recordings to her currently new album This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024), Beabadoobee’s expressive vocals are often confessional but always distinctive in their ability to tap into poignant emotional resonances that augment the songwriter’s vivid lyrics. The new record in particular showcases a real gift for borrowing elements of classic and lo-fi modern pop in an eclectic style that seems orchestral and spare at once. Hovvdy is an Austin-based duo that has offering contemplative and emotionally rich slowcore pop songs since its 2014 self-titled debut EP. Its, self-titled full-length finds Hovvdy delivering some of its most finely crafted soundscapes to date. At times the music seems like experiments in sound design and experimental songwriting. Like Charlie Martin and Will Taylor hopped back to making demos on cassette and trying to capture some of that room ambiance and the analog warmth of it and translating the intimacy of that sound to a more high fidelity environment without losing the essential charm. With the storytelling on the album one imagines a box of Polaroids as a starting point for turning cherished memories into accessible songs. Whatever the methodology or inspiration or techniques it’s a long record that seems to also come out of wanting to write an album that would sound good for a road trip.
Gregory T.S. Walker, photo courtesy the artist
Saturday | 09.21 What:Minstrels and Minimoogs performed by Gregory T.S. Walker, Elena Camerin Young and Todd Reid celebrating the reissue of the cosmic medieval masterpiece w/Pete Swanson & Entrancer and Luke Leavitt When: 8 Where: Glob ($15) Why: Gregory T.S. Walker released Minstrels & Minimoogs in 1988 as a music for an immersive, multimedia performance that took place at the Fiske Planetarium on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. It was originally released as a one-sided 12” and was really only ever available at performances at Fiske. But the Freedom To Spend label co-owned by Pete Swanson of experimental music legends Yellow Swans is reissuing the record with a special performance this night including collaborative sets with Swanson and modular synth genius Entrancer as well as Luke Leavitt. It’ll be a unique live music experience showcasing idiosyncratic synth composition the likes of which may never happen again.
Why?, photo by Graham Tolbert
Saturday | 09.21 What: Why? w/NNAMDI When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Yoni Wolf sounds particularly lost and yearning on the new Why? Record The Well I Fell Into (2024). The song’s have a more acoustic aspect in the instrumentation this time around and that lends it a different kind of sonic intimacy than some of the project’s previous music. It’s pastoral in its stories of growing older and feeling obsolete and unsure of what is left in life when those moments of existential crisis impact broad areas of your life and hit as so heartfelt it can sink your spirit. But Wolf offers no pat answers, just poignant expressions of the part of one’s life when you’re not sure what it all means and what felt like the directions and focus points of your life have disappeared or gone adrift and you’re left trying to sort through that emotional wreckage that can collapse upon you suddenly and make sense of where your life needs to be next. Also on the bill is experimental pop and rock weirdo NNAMDI whose energetic and eclectic, surreal pop songs expand notions of what a pop song can sound like and what it’s rhythms and structures can be.
Willy Watson, photo by Hayden Shiebler
Saturday | 09.21 What: Willie Watson w/Tanasi and The Sullivan Sisters at Wildflower Fallgrass ‘24: A Pavilion Pickin’ Party Night 2 When: 5:30 Where: Planet Bluegrass (Lyons) Why: Former Old Crow Medicine Show singer/guitarist/banjo player Willie Watson released his latest, self-titled, solo album on September 13. The early singles promised a set of spare and intimate folk songs featuring Watson’s expressive vibrato delivering earnest portraits of life with a broad range of subjects and moods. Watson’s lyrics seem refreshingly free of tropes and rich with poignant turns of phrase that give his spare songwriting a rare dimensionality that reward a deep listen.
Auragraph, photo courtesy the artist
Sunday | 09.22 What: FM Skyline, Auragraph and Modern Devotion When: 8 Where: Glob Why: FM Skyline is a vaporwave composer and artist from Richmond, Virginia who a month ago released his album Images which sounds like a mix of the music for corporate training videos, The Art of Noise and New Wave New Age seminar soundtracks. Auragraph released his latest album New Standard on Dais Records in 2023 and its sounds brilliantly reconciled the aesthetics of techno, EBM and vaporwave. Opening the show is Denver’s Modern Devotion, the solo, industrial techno side project of Adam Rojo of shoegaze-infused post-punk greats Voight.
Everclear, photo by Brian Cox
Sunday | 09.22 What:Everclear w/Marcy’s Playground and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack When: 6 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Everclear is one of the few bands associated with the late era of alternative rock (although its roots date back to the beginning of that wave of music) whose music has aged well in spite of ubiquitous airplay in the 90s and on nostalgia playlists. In no small part that’s due to singer/guitarist Art Alexakis’ thoughtful and vulnerable lyrics and obvious authenticity. Sure he found a way to write songs with wide appeal but never sacrificed putting meaningful words into what he would sing on stage. In 2024 the band’s 2000 album Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile was released on vinyl for the first time on September 13 and there’s a better than average change the set will include material from that record as well as the band’s beloved hits.
Leprous, photo by Grzegorz Golebiowski
Monday | 09.23 What: Leprous w/Earthside and Fight the Fight When: 6 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Norwegian progressive metal band Leprous released its new album Melodies of Atonement on August 30, 2024 and demonstrated once again that its technical prowess and precision is a vehicle for ambitious songwriting. Passionate vocals and evocative synth-infused soundscapes and orchestrated, sweeping guitar create a layered effect like the band is thinking more cinematically than merely musically. In that way the group’s new record maybe more than its predecessors seems to bear the marks of the influence of the likes of Failure and Marillion. And though the songs are epic in scope each feels like they touch on the personal and the emotional resonance of the melodic vocals are akin to something from the better emo records of the late 90s.
Future Islands, photo by Frank Hamilton
Tuesday | 09.24 What:Future Islands w/Oh, Rose When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Since early in its existence Baltimore’s Future Islands has mastered the pairing of upbeat and gorgeously melodic synth pop with sad, melancholic lyrics delivered with a passionate soulfulness. The combination has made listening to its music feel like you’re sharing moments with people who won’t lie to you about how rough life can be but also encourage you to embrace what’s good and even great about it. Its 2024 record People Who Aren’t There Anymore was written and recorded during the early part of the pandemic and into the endemic era and has as its subject matter the slow breakdown of singer Samuel T. Herring’s long-distance relationship during the period of lockdowns. Sure it’s a deep exploration of loss, existential doubt, self-assessment and learning to let go. All of which can be challenging for anyone but these songs make it feel like it’s something that not only can you do but do so without linger rancor and the kind of emotional trauma that limits your future ability to connect with people. The shows are always cathartic and high energy and yet intimate and tender making Future Islands a special band that made the transition from DIY scene notables to indie rock stars without losing the core of their art.
Thursday | 09.26 What:Spectral Voice, Polish, Nightshark and Mournful Ruin When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Spectral Voice is the black metal band from Denver three fourths of whom are also in psychedelic death metal group Blood Incantation. It released the album Sparagmos in February 2024 and thus unleashing even more of its spooky, sepulchral heavy compositions. The music sounds like the kind of music that should have been playing at the entrance to hell in Baskin. But this bill isn’t just a bunch of other death/black/doom metal bands and the like. Nightshark and its noisy free jazz freakouts will be on hand as well to offer its impassioned skronk and No Wave bop.
NightWraith, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 09.27 What: NightWraith, Necropanther, Upon a Field’s Whisper and Lacerated When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver’-based melodic death metal heroes NightWraith just released their new record Divergence. This time around the synths lends an even more cinematic quality to the epic scale of the songwriting and personal struggles cast as those more eternal and the kinds of things heroes of myth and lore tangle with on the road to defeating the big bad. Also more than ever the band’s progressive rock leanings are present and in moments they sound like they’ve been listening to a lot of both Neurosis and early 80s Yes.
Peter Hook & The Light, photo courtesy the artist
Saturday | 09.28 What:Peter Hook & The Light w/DJ boyhollow When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Peter Hook is a founding member of two of the most important post-punk bands of the early era as the bass player of both Joy Division and New Order. This tour the band will perform the Substance albums so you’ll get plenty of the early JD and vintage era New Order stuff including songs that never much appeared on anything but singles and those two compilations.
Mass of Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 09.28 What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Cam Kahin and Blush When: 6:30 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is the Japanese dream pop band who seem to somehow have blended art rock leanings into the songwriting while sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place in the poppier end of the Austin, TX shoegaze scene. A fusion of the sublime and of the noisy.
Tassel, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 09.28 What: Tassel w/Plague Garden and DJ Katastrophy When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Tassel is a Phoenix, AZ-based post-punk trio who didn’t seem to feel the need to differentiate between the sound palette one would use for industrial punk, deathrock and darkwave. Currently on tour supporting its new album A SACRIFICE: UNTO IDOLS. Opening is one of the current great post-punk/New Wave bandsw of the moment with Denver’s Plague Garden. Its own electronic side is richly imagined and evocative with the guitar work both beautiful and gritty and expressive basslines that elevate the band’s music beyond the current wave of post-punk.
The National, photo by Graham MacIndoe
Saturday | 09.28 What: The National w/The War on Drugs and Lucious When: 6:30 Where: Fiddler’s Green Why: The National is already one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of indie rock bands of the past two decades. And yet the band continues to surprise with offering finely crafted albums that actually offer more than the usual tropes of adolescent struggles projected into adult life. 2023’s Laugh Track may not have garnered the critical acclaim of some of the band’s earlier records but its melancholic and pastoral songs sound like they’re about getting through a period of your life that feels like offers nothing new to spark your brain into action and like you don’t have much left to say to anyone that feels authentic and vital. It’s again the kind of record that shows a path to doing something creative and different even well into middle age without having to look back to that mythical time of youth when everything felt new. It’s an album about discovering something new or at least reinventing oneself and discovering the kinds of things that can inspire you all over again and find a reason to not feel like you’re treading water until the end. Middle age can feel like that for a lot of people and this album is aimed at show how that’s not an inevitability and that experience and perspective matter and can illuminate your existence for the rest of your life.
Jonathan RIchman, photo by Driely S from Bandcamp
Sunday | 09.29 What: Jonathan Richman w/Tommy Larkins on drums When: 6 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Jonathan Richman isn’t filling stadiums and never has but his charmingly idiosyncratic and oddly wise and no oddly creative songs have been influential on generations of musicians and non-musicians alike. The keyboard player for his old band Modern Lovers went on to be in Talking Heads and plenty of punkers and other musicians have covered “Roadrunner” because it is absolutely one of the spiritual ancestors of punk in its glorious simplicity and unforgettable energy. These days Richman with Tommy Larkin are a fantastic duo who deliver some of the finest American songs ever written with humor and charisma.
Chrissy Costanza, photo by Izzy Lux
Sunday | 09.29 What: Chrissy Costanza w/Voilá When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Chrissy Costanza is currently on her first solo tour separate from doing shows with the band for whom she is perhaps most well known, Against the Current. The powerhouse singer is set to release her debut solo EP VII on October 9 so this is a chance to catch the artist perform those songs live prior to the album being available worldwide. The solo stuff is a bit of a break from the pop punk and alternative rock fusion of ATC and allows Costanza to stretch out into realms of vocal expression that might otherwise be out of place with the band.
NIKI, photo by Annie Lai
Sunday | 09.29 What:NIKI w/Allison Ponthier When: 6 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Nicole Zefanya was born in and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia and started playing and writing music from a young age. Good thing because at 15 she won a contest to be the opening act for Taylor Swift for Jakarta stop of The Red Tour. At eighteen she moved to Nashville to study music and began releasing music as Niki and was on the roster of the 88rising record label which specializes in putting out music by Asian American artists. Niki’s latest album is Buzz, a collection of jazz-inflected, bedroom-pop style songs with Zefanya’s tender and introspective vocals center stage. But in that tenderness you’ll hear some raw truth and attitude that can be as startling as it is welcome in separating Niki from other artists operating in a similar lane of modern indie pop.
The Spirit of the Beehive, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 09.30 What: Spirit of the Beehive w/Winter When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: As usual, Philly’s The Spirit of the Beehive offer us a psychedelic pop and IDM album that sounds like they used a cut up method of songwriting with all members writing a different style of music and collaging it all together in ways that make their own strange kind of sense with 2024’s You’ll Have to Lose Something. And they’ll pull it off live and seem like a band that is changing radio stations throughout one song yet make it seem coherent and compelling in the way a psychotronic film can be. Like a kinder, gentler Butthole Surfers.
Friday | 08.02 What: Brotherhood of Machines (album release), Seance, Snowswept and Aloe Static When: 8/8:30 Where: Glob Why: Brotherhood of Machines is the project of Tyler Knapp who has been crafting haunted experimental electronic music for years in Denver alone. You wouldn’t call his music ambient though adjacent, not beat driven dance music though those influences are present and not noise though aspects of his compositions incorporate what often sound like field or otherwise repurposed recordings. In July 2024 he released two albums Loops From Temple Familiarity and Unknown Set and is releasing one or both at this show. Also on the bill are the ethereal melodies and ambient soundscapes of Snowswept and Aloe Staic’s more glitch and texture post-IDM environmental moods.
SUMAC, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 08.02 What:SUMAC w/Portrayal of Guilt and Trigger Object When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: In June SUMAC released its latest set of moody, evocative and crawling, post-metal improv The Healer. The trio channels intense passages of rhythm and sound into expressive bursts that sound like a death metal band discovered doom and utilized those musical modes to make a heavy post-hardcore designed to embody the deconstruction of the world and shedding of old ways and habits in favor of those more nurturing and open. Even more psychedelic than previous records, The Healer finds SUMAC charting new territories of of how heavy music can seem more immersive than merely monolithic. Portrayal of Guilt is the kind of hardcore band that enjoys drenching its aggressive sounds in caustic moods like it explored to the roots of he music that built where it had been and found the connections with the likes of St. Vitus, Celtic Frost and Possessed.
James Mastro, photo by Dennis DiBrizzi
Saturday | 08.03 What: Alejandro Escovedo w/James Mastro When: doors/dinner 6, show 9 Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox Why: Although Alejandro Escovedo is now rightly known as one of the great artists in modern roots rock and alt-country, he cut his teeth as a member of pioneering punk band The Nuns who were one of the two bands (including The Avengers) that opened for the Sex Pistols at the final live performance at Winterland in San Francisco in January 1978. In subsequent decades and in various bands and under his own name Escovedo has maintained more than a bit of that spirited, early punk and counterculture attitude including on his 2024 record Echo Dancing. Opener James Mastro also his his own unique place in punk and Americana as a member of The Richard Lloyd Group in his teens and later with a variety of music activities including in bands like The Health & Happiness Show. Mastro has been a staple of the rich NYC and Hoboken, NJ scenes and for this show he will be playing double bass in Escovedo’s band but prior to that he will perform liberally from his own 2024 record Dawn of a New Error with graced by the singer/songwriter’s warmly husky voice, expansive spirit and bright and vivid production courtesy engineer and mixer James Frazee and mastering by Greg Calbi.
Glissline in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 08.03 What: Listening Lawn IV: Cholla, Blood Out w/Silt, Glissline, Combat Sport & DJ Ursa, Yonbre Netz and Sunswept When: 5-8 pm Where: Carpio Sanquinette Park Why: These events happen in a semi-hidden pocket in Denver at a public park with a setting like ruins of an older Denver long neglected. The perfect setting to witness innovative electronic music in the realms of techno, ambient, IDM and free jazz.
“Horsegirl” in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 08.03 What: A Rally For Worker’s Rights: Vegan Gore, F1sh1fty, “Horsegirl,” and Clayton Kenney When: 6-10 pm Where: Cheeseman Park Pavilion Why: This is an event to draw attention to collective efforts at promoting the interests of workers in one of the more expensive cities in America with the sprawl of that income inequality spreading everywhere. The musical portion of the gathering includes performances by techno/glitch/IDM artist Vegan Gore and weirdo performance art dream pop band “Horsegirl.”
Nox Novacula, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 08.07 What:Nox Novacula w/Church Fire and Weathered Statues When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Seattle deathrock band Nox Novacular is touring in support of its newly released latest album Feed the Fire. Its brooding atmospheres and impassioned performances have made the quartet a band of choice for discerning fans of post-punk like a commanding mix of Xmal Deutchland and the spookier end of The Cramps. Weathered Status from Denver is cut from a similar cloth with clear roots in punk with standout basslines and haunted synths. Church Fire while not a post-punk band plays its electronic darkwave with an electrifying conviction.
Orville Peck, photo by Ben Prince
Thursday | 08.08 What:Orville Peck w/Jaime Wyatt and Gold Star When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Orville Peck performs his 70s cowboy country style music masked like a nod to The Lone Ranger. His songs about love and heartbreak are well within the storytelling tradition of classic country but with Peck infusing the songwriting with a queer perspective his songs have another dimension of potential resonance with fans. His latest album Stampede finds Peck collaborating with the likes of Willie Nelson, Beck and Nathaniel Rateliff among others.
Urban Heat, photo by Cathlin McCullough
Thursday | 08.08 What:Urban Heat w/Gvllow and Delores Galore When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Austin’s Urban Heat makes an appearance in Denver just over a week before the release of its latest album The Tower. The darkwave trio has mastered a reinvention of 80s moody synthpop into expansive darkwave with commanding and soulful vocals. The group’s 2023 cover of Q. Lazzarus’ classic single “Goodbye Horses” brought to the song a tonal richness and expressed the fiery intensity underneath the surface of the original. Urban Heat’s earlier releases showcased the band’s gift for EBM beatmaking akin to what TR/ST and Kontravoid have been doing by fusing techno sensibilities with emotionally-charged pop songcraft. The singles from The Tower thus far have revealed the band has been evolving its use of space to great evocative effect.
Claudzilla in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.09 What: Keytar Fest: The Jinjas and Claudzilla When: 8pm doors/9pm show Where: 715 Club Why: Claudzilla returns for the most recent edition of Keytar Fest, an event that showcases artists that make use of that most visually iconic of 1980s synthesizer technology. Claudzilla is a little like a lo-fi weirdo outsider avant-pop performance artist that is part personae part a manifestation of inner space. Like if Klaus Nomi made indie pop. The Jinjas are a synth and drums-driven rock band that use bass synth and keytar to build a sound like a retro synth pop band with a songwriting style that’s more modern and akin to something like The Blow and Trans Am gone more pop.
Magic Sword, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 08.09 What: Magic Sword w/ESSENGER and Church Fire https://tickets.meowwolf.com/events/denver/magic-sword/ When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Magic Sword is the costumed space night synthwave band from Boise, Idaho who sure do have a gimmick but its music speaks for itself with its saturated tones and science fiction epic themes like if Giorgio Moroder had been convinced to score the music for The Terminator, Children of Men or the latest Dune movies. Fresh off opening for Nox Novacula, Church Fire will be in good company here too with their own epic, emotionally vibrant, electronic dance ragers.
Plack Blague in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.09 What:Plack Blague w/God Save the Queens and Hex Cassette When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Plack Blague is the by now legendary industrial techno and performance artist whose on stage personal is like a leather daddy delivering queer themed bangers in a darkwave mode. Reliably entertaining and charismatic. So it’s only appropriate that God Dave the Queens is part of this show as a drag show with Noveli, Heavenly Powers, Neurotika Killz and Belle Fegore. Opening is the one man, occult EBM freakout and heavy darkwave dance music Hex Cassette who excels at provoking the audience with good-natured ribbing.
Sluice, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 08.11 What:Sluice w/Fust and The Milk Blossoms When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sluice aka Justin Edward Morris is an indie folk artist from Winston-Salem, North Carolina whose songs have a textured moodiness and freshness to them that gives the songwriter’s more pastoral musical impulses a tangible presence. His 2023 album Radial Gate is a deeply reflective set of seemingly autobiographical vignettes like a kinder, gentler Bill Callahan. Also on the bill is Durham, NC’s Fust whose music is similarly-minded in the mining personal history for creative illumination of everyday human experiences but in a more country rock mode. Opening the show are The Milk Blossoms whose tenderly rendered indie pop songs have some roots in folk but whose songs and performances have both a raw vulnerability and emotional intensity that powerfully manifest the group’s creatively poetic lyrics.
Brijean, photo by Swanson Studio
Monday | 08.12 What:Brijean w/Colloboh When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Brijean Murphy is known for her time serving as a percussionist for Mitski, Poolside and Toro Y Moi but this project with multi-instrumentalist producer Doug Stuart has resulted in entrancing, dance-music adjacent art pop. The saturated synths, ethereal vocals and layers of textured polyrhythms sound like something from a retrofuturist disco if the music being played dipped liberally into 70s disco and 2010s deep house. The duo’s new album Macro introduces even more organic percussion and bass to great effect marking the record as one of the most fascinating electronic pop releases of the year alongside that of Mount Kimbie’s The Sunset Violent.
Mac Sabbath, photo courtesy the artists
Thursday | 08.15 What:Mac Sabbath w/Tejon Street Corner Thieves When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Mac Sabbath is celebrating 10 years of its absurd concept of doing parody covers of Black Sabbath songs with fast food-themed lyrics and fully committed stage costumes of characters not unlike some of the most well-known of McDonald’s characters. It’s a gimmick that the band has been able to sustain for a decade without admitting to being people other than the stage personae which is an accomplishment in itself in the modern era.
Atmosphere, photo by Samantha Martucci
Friday | 08.16 What:Atmosphere w/Method Man & Redman, Deltron 3030, NOFUN! and Skratch Basitd When: 5:30 Where: Red Rocks Why: Atmosphere is of course the hip-hop duo from Minneapolis that were foundational figures in early alternative hip-hop and advocates for other underground artists in that style. Its eclectic and atmospheric beats and introspective lyrics are a consistently effective counterpoint to the group’s energetic and extroverted stage performances and Slug’s crowd interaction. The subject matter of the lyrics from Atmosphere have evolved in content and nuance over the years but always informed by a reflective and empathic sensibility paired with a sense of personal exploration of psychological and social issues. All along Slug and Ant have created a body of work with music that speaks to the artists’ innate curiosity and willingness to expand beyond where they’ve already been.
The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.16 What:The Green Typewriters, A Strange Happening and Van Death When: 8 Where: Goosetown Tavern Why: The Green Typewriters have become a bit of a psychedelic glam rock/indiepop mutant with their music but all for the better. The songwriting is as accessible and its sounds comforting yet mysterious and its live show colorful and friendly. A Strange Happening has always been a high concept indie rock band but its music has more of a raw and ragged Neil Young flavor recently.
Saturday | 08.17 What:Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary 30 year anniversary w/Kevin Devine When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Sunny Day Real Estate’s 1994 debut album Diary is one of the blueprints of the Midwest emo sound with its post-hardcore grit, raw emotional vocal style, quiet-loud dynamics and gritty melodies. Though from Seattle the band’s sound then and now was out of step with the grunge bands its label Sub Pop was known for championing. But the live band and its earnest and intense performances resonated with that realm of music and has had a lasting impact on pretty much all emo since as well as modern sheogaze and a whole swath of punk adjacent music in a way that is obvious from the moment you play a song from that first record and this show will celebrate what SDRE accomplished on Diary.
King Dunn, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 08.17 What:King Dunn (King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn) w/JD Pinkus When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: For this show King Dunn will perform the solo work of Buzz Osborne, the renowned guitarist and singer of Melvins with Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle fame on hand to provide bass duties as he did when Melvins toured as Melvins Lite a handful of years back. It’s the kind of left field move that Osborne seems to favor with Melvins always trying to do their tours a little differently and pushing into new territory in performance and songwriting. Osborne didn’t get to tour behind his 2020 solo album Gift of Sacrifice and there’s a good chance a lot of people haven’t seen the music from 2014’s This Machine Kills Artists live and the more acoustic guitar-driven songwriting from an artist perhaps most well known for some of the heaviest guitar rock in the modern era.
Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist
Tuesday | 08.20 What: The Struts w/Barns Courtney When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Struts are a band from the UK that rode that wave of retro glam rock revival that began in the early 2010s and garnered hit singles along the way. Luke Spiller early on having done his level best to tap into that Freddy Mercury sound. More recently the band has pivoted in a more pop-oriented style of songwriting channeled through the lens of 80s glam metal. Barns Courtney started his career in bands SleeperCell and more professionally with Dive Bella Dive until that band was hamstrung by label contracts. But those didn’t limit Courtney as a solo artist whose early singles caught the attention of audiences and garnered a recording contract. Fast forward to 2024, Courtney released his third full length Supernatural on July 19 for a record that showcases the songwriter’s commanding vocals and knack for crafting sonically rich rock songs of broad stylistic touchstones fusing acoustic and electric sounds. There is the sort of blues rock foundation there but Courtney injects the classic sounds with modern pop song sensibilities.
Sheppard, photo by Giulia McGauran
Tuesday | 08.20 What: Sheppard w/Seth Beamer When: 7 Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall Why: Sheppard is an indie pop trio from Brisbane, Australia that formed as a duo of siblings George and Amy Sheppard in 2009 but expanded to a six-piece by 2012 including their sister Emma on bass. In 2014 the group released its debut full-length Bombs Away and the record’s second single “Geronimo” became something of an international hit for its undeniably uplifting melodies and the kinds of song elements that invite participation among listeners including choruses pretty much anyone can sing and clap along rhythms, a hallmark of Sheppard’s songwriting in general. In 2023 the group relocated to Nashville and a year later issued its latest record Zora named for the now trio’s grandmother. It’s sounds are more atmospheric but the album is the kind of life-affirming/celebrating work that could be cloying but the songwriting finds Sheppard growing beyond where it has been before and its melodies undeniably infectious.
Roselit Bone, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 08.21 What: Roselit Bone w/George Cessna and Fly Janet When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Portland, Oregon’s Roselit Bone writes darkly dramatic songs like a noir version of country music with deep mood and a touch of psychedelia. So it’s a good pairing to have George Cessna on the bill with his own thought-provoking, dusky country in its own existential and cosmic mode. Denver’s Fly Janet will bring the spooky surf-spaghetti Western Americana.
Car Microwave, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 08.22 What: Car Microwave, The Milk Blossoms and mLady When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Kansas City-based indie folk band Car Microwave released its latest record Photo Album in 2023. Its delicately rendered musicianship and vulnerable vocals have an underlying emotional strength that gives the music a charmingly earnest quality reminiscent somehow of both 10,000 Maniacs and one of Mary Timony’s bands or even in moments of Throwing Muses. One might be tempted to call The Milk Blossoms and indie folk band but with it too there is a poetry to the lyrics that more than hint at a more experimental creativity and there is a passionate delivery of the music that imbues even its most beautifully fragile moments with a vibrant emotionality.
Acidbat in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.23 What: Acidbat album release w/Lanx Borealis and Church Fire at Glob When: 8 Where: Glob Why: Acidbat aka Seth Ogden celebrates the release of his latest album Empty Vial (out on Witchcat records) at this show feature other Denver luminaries of electronic and dance music. The new record is a further evolution of Ogden’s sonically rich and playful, psychedelic techno and ambient compositions using almost if not entirely analog synth sources. Lanx Borealis creates what might be described as ambient pop at least as far as her 2024 EP Released It seems to reveal. But think something darker with more grit but imbued with a sense of the fanciful. Church Fire is the now legendary industrial dance band with strong political content that while polemical doesn’t lack for creativity and a healthy sense of fun and humor. It is cathartic music that doesn’t skimp on the intellectual and socially critical element either.
Lung, photo by Rachelle Caplan
Friday | 08.23 What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 1: Noun, Lung, BleakHeart, Ex Everything and Cherry Spit When: 6 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Every night of Ghost Canyon Fest features some of the best weird and experimental rock and not-rock bands/artists operating today. This night kicks off with post-hardcore, thorny shoegaze locals Cherry Spit. Ex Everything will provide scathing and thrilling critiques of the prevailing order of things with its angular noise rock. BleakHeart’s dark, epic dream pop will provide the paradoxical chill and vibrant emotional expressions for the night. Lung’s fusion of punk, blues and classical sensibilities delivered with its raw energy will be a good pairing to come on the stage before Noun closes the night as the vehicle for former Screaming Females frontwoman Marissa Paternoster’s solo songwriting. The project dates to before Screaming Females formed in 2005 and over the years the songwriter has released Noun albums including the gritty and entrancing dream pop of the 2021 album Peace Meter.
Lake Mary in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 08.24 What: Ghost Canyon Fest Matinee Show: Flaming Tongues Above, Lake Mary and Matt Talbot When: 1 Where: Mutiny Information Cafe Why: Flaming Tongues Above is the solo project of Amos Helvey who has been in various local bands over the years including American Culture, Destiny Bond and Angel Band. This is more a kind of cosmic bluegrass thing with exquisitely intricate musicianship. Lake Mary is the long-running project of Chaz Prymek whose compositions solo or with various collaborators is an embodiment of the spirit of improvisation and the pastoral sides of the American landscape and consciousness. Matt Talbot’s introspective, ambient slowcore minimalism is elegantly composed slices of tranquility in practice. Some may know him better as the lead singer and guitarist of Hum.
Wolf Eyes in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 08.24 What: Ghost Canon Fest: Replica City, Stress Palace, Nightosphere, Ghostlike, Aseethe, Jaye Jayle, Wolf Eyes When: 6 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Replica City is an angular post-punk band from Denver whose atmospheric shimmer contains as much urgency and menace. Stress Palace is a noise rock band from Kansas City, the kind with caustic and desperate vocals and seething, suspended guitar when it’s not gouging the air alongside pummeling percussion. Nightosphere also from KC is a darkly slowcore project that some may be tempted to call dream pop but it’s a little too gloomy and noisy for that and more for fans of the likes of Flooding and Unwound’s more atmospheric moments. Ghostlike hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and its dense drifts of tone are in the region of shoegaze but more slow-moving like a post-metal band with unconventional melodies. Aseethe’s brooding, crushing doom metal sounds like colossal weather patterns struggling with each other until the vocals come in and then it’s like a possessed person for an effect akin to Neurosis gone more grindcore. Its 2024 album The Cost is brimming with the purge of negative emotions transformed into transcendent heaviness. Jaye Jayle is the solo project of Young Widows’ Evan Patterson who brings to this project a sensibility of mystical, experimental, tribal folk. Wolf Eyes is of course the legendary noise improv band from Detroit who have been prolifically exploring the possibilities of the use of sound since 1996. Now a duo of Nate Young and John Olson Wolf Eyes has always bucked the perception of noise being just harsh noise and mere chaos for the sake of putting off normies. There is an odd accessibility to the work of Wolf Eyes that is more like an unpretentious art that live has always been compelling and unlike anything much else even of previous performances and thus more in the vein of early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.
Alvvays, photo by Eleanor Petty
Saturday | 08.24 What: Alvvays w/The Beths When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Something about Canadian pop band Alvvays has always set it apart from being just an indie pop band or shoegaze or psychedelic. Its melodies drift and warp in sometimes unpredictable directions off so that Alvvays consistently has a quality of unpredictability and inspired imperfection though its tone is coherent and entrancing. Out the gates with its self-titled debut the band started garnering a bit of a cult following for its emotionally rich vocals and layered, atmospheric guitar and poetic and sharply observed lyrics. The most recent Alvvays album Blue Rev proved that the quartet is as capable of captivating twee sounds as robust guitar rock and live something about the band seems to exude a kind of mystique most bands can’t muster.
Oruã in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 08.24 What: Dad Bod w/Oruã and Totem Pocket When: 5 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Dad Bod is a psychedelic pop band from Salt Lake City that seems steeped on folk rock of the 70s. Oruã is like if a great modern jazz band decided to start doing a garage rock version of krautrock and came off a little like a bedroom version of a psychedelic rock band from Texas but just a little weirder. Totem Pocket rides the line well between 2010’s psych rock and shoegaze.
Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist
Sunday | 08.25 What:Ghost Canyon Fest: Animal Bite, Fainting Dreams, Bear Claw, Missouri Executive Order 44, Nina Nastasia and Young Widows When: 6 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The final night of Ghost Canyon Fest begins with a set from Casper, Wyoming’s mutant, heavy, psychedelic noise rock quartet Animal Bite. Fainting Dreams is now like the opposite image of its more dream pop beginnings, more thorny, more sonically pointed yet also moody and an intense release of tangled emotions. Bear Claw is a two bass and one drum set outfit from Chicago whose jagged and clipped dynamics range widely and akin to the likes of Mclusky and yet one gets the impression that at least one person in the band is into Failure. Missouri Executive Order 44 may or may not be based out of the Missouri side of Kansas City. But its post-hardcore, math-y riffs and mischievously surreal song titles suggest metalcore roots before the members discovered the Butthole Surfers.
Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.
Young Widows from Louisville, Kentucky formed following the dissolution of influential post-hardcore band Breather Resist. Young Widows’ own music was in a post-hardcore vein with roaring guitar sounds and crushing rhythms. But its musical ideas stretch out the sounds into unpredictable shapes a little more and its lyrics often depict the world as we know it, not inaccurately, as a place of great perils and challenges.
Khruangbin, photo by David Black
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.26, 08.27 and 08.28 What: Khruangbin When: 7 (each night) Where: Mission Ballroom (08.26) and Red Rocks (08.27 and 08.28) Why: Houston’s Khruangbin is a trio that may have absorbed the surf and garage psych influences that were shaping a good swath of rock music in the 2010s but all along the group also employed non-standard rhythms and elements of dub, funk and non-western musical forms into its sound. Its latest album A La Sala (2024) is more mellow than one might have expected and yet it’s perfectly in line with the energy Khruangbin has tapping into for years with the mood of a chill disco lounge in a retrofuturist cosmopolitan city near the beach.
HIDE, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 08.26 What: HIDE w/Mirrored Fatality, Bent and aeonexit When: 7 Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: HIDE is the industrial noise punk duo from Chicago that has been releasing some of the most pointed and cathartic music of the past several years critical of the worst aspects of our culture and civilization. Its live performances are confrontational and not for the faint of heart or the easily spooked. And just from the raw intensity of the the band especially vocalist Heather Gabel’s seeming embodiment of the collective outrage of the oppressed and of the abused world challenging the foundations of power. Bent is an industrial noise project from Colorado Springs with a similar aesthetic and ethos. Mirrored Fatality is a brilliant, darkwave industrial hyperpop duo that produces scathing yet danceable critiques of late capitalism and its corrosive effects on us all. And aeonexit has long been producing experimental electronic music in forms that are as cohesive as they are eclectic, as structured and as coherent as they are intuitive and amorphous. Its in the realm of noisy ambient but even at its most darkly menacing has a gentleness that renders the music inviting rather than forbidding.
Bikini Kill circa 1995-1996, photo by Lisa Darms
Tuesday | 08.27 What:Bikini Kill w/Sweeping Promises When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Bikini Kill is the legendary feminist punk band originally from Olympia, Washington that in part inspired the riot grrrl movement and a branch of third wave feminism. The group was part of a community of like-minded artists of various types and not just musical and often lost in the projected hype is how Bikini Kill’s music while a vehicle for an important perspective was also thrilling and exciting with performances that helped show other women how you could be a member of a powerful band or something else cool and important and reclaim and own your power regardless of your role in life without having it be contingent upon what a man would have to say or the conventional social mores of mainstream society with its baked in misogyny. That was an important message and example to set even when the band split in 1998 but oddly just as relevant when the band reconvened in 2019 at a time when the then president’s influence on society seemed to expose deep currents of American racism, misogyny and xenophobia. Bikini Kill had to cancel its 2020 tour for obvious reasons but making up for it at a time that feels like yet another too soon cultural crossroads for the USA.
Lamb of God, photo by Travis Shinn
Thursday | 08.29 What: Lamb of God & Mastodon w/Kerry King and Malevolence When: 7 Where: Red Rocks Why: Lamb of God formed in 1994 and Mastodon in 2000 in Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia respectively. That was a time when metal other than Metallica and “nü metal” was largely relegated to the underground. But both groups evolved and built up a strong following that has all but broken into the mainstream. Lamb of God has generally written music in a groove metal vein but its 2022 album Omens leans into the harder-edged and at times sounds like its members have been influenced by crossover thrash with lyrics reflecting the state of the world seemingly on the edge of environmental collapse and the rise of global authoritarianism. The band has teased the release of a new album and you may hear some of the new material at this show. Mastodon tends to be more psychedelic and melodic in its sound with progressive rock structures and diversity in rhythms. Its own most recent album Hushed and Grim is like a anthology of haunted and spooky stories utilized to discuss personal struggle in a way accessible and more creative than something more straightforward. Kerry King is one of the former guitarists of Slayer who released his debut solo album From Hell I Rise in 2024.
Tsunami Bomb, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 08.30 What:Alternative TentaclesFEST hosted by Jello Biafra: Tsunami Bomb, Kultur Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Dead Pioneers When: 6 Where: Levitt Pavilion Why: Legendary record label Alternative Tentacles headed by former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra is having a festival in Colorado featuring various acts on the label. Tsunami Bomb from Petaluma, California is a pop punk band with keyboards so it’s sound is decidedly different from other bands in that vein. Seattle’s Kultur Shock is a self-styled gypsy punk band that sounds more like Grazhdanskaya Oborona and its eclectic and experimental leanings than Gogol Bordello. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the great hip-hop group from Denver with the charismatic Kalyn Heffernan as the MC and contributors who are most often musicians with serious jazz chops. Dead Pioneers is a heavily political punk band from Denver but with a wry sense of humor that keeps the music from feeling didactic.
Friday | 08.30 What: Daniel Rachel Appearance Promoting Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story When: 6 (start time) Where: Tattered Cover (Colfax) Why: Acclaimed and prolific writer and journalist Daniel Rachel saw the 2024 US publication of his 2023 book Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story, a non-fiction history of the influential but relatively short lived record label that helped launch modern ska into international consciousness and the careers of the likes of founders The Specials as well as The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and others. It is part oral history and part narrative and a compelling read particularly since Rachel was able to interview or find quotes from almost all of the major figures in the history of that music and movement. This event will be hosted by Queen City Sounds and Art writer and editor Tom Murphy whose own work has appeared in publications such as Westword, The Onion A.V. Club, Dagger Zine, Birdy, Denverse and Tidal HIFI.
Daniel Rachel, photo courtesy the authorX in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.30 What:X When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Influential Los Angeles punk band X is doing one final tour in conjunction with the release of one final album so if you’ve ever wanted to see the pioneering poetry, punk and Americana band definitely make it to this show. They may swing back through before retiring the band but maybe not.
Isadora Eden, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 08.30 What:Isadora Eden, Pill Joy and May Be Fern When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Dark dream pop band Isadora Eden has a rare headlining show at the Hi-Dive ahead of taking some time off to work on its next record. Also on the bill are all non-male funk band May Be Fern and the excellent slacker pop shoegaze group Pill Joy.
Pleasure Prince, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 8.31 What:Pleasure Prince w/Sunstoney, DeEt ta Jain When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Pleasure Prince is releasing its new album General Pallor at this show. The project is the duo of Lilly Scott and William Duncan whose eclectic background and musical chops prior to this project has yielded a strong body of creative work that blurs the line between avant-garde electronic music and ambient, techno, hip-hop, jazz, downtempo and dream pop. The new record further reveals the band’s knack for innovative songwriting with hazy atmospheres layered with those more vivid. As vocalists both Scott and Duncan complement each other well in delivering thoughtful lyrics and a deep sense of tranquility. The songs from the new album is like a fusion of neo soul and krautrock-flavored chillwave and a welcome respite from living in interesting times.
Blushing, photo by Eddie ChavezBlushing in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 07.01 What:Blushing w/Wave Decay and Cherished When: 7 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Austin-based shoegaze band Blushing recently released its latest album Sugarcoat with its blast of melodiously gritty and ethereal pop. Its flares of tone and anchored rhythms lend the group a dynamic that has an undeniable power on its recordings but even more so in the live setting where the band seems to have a an expansively friendly energy. Opening the show are krautrock/shoegaze band Wave Decay from Denver and the emotionally charged dream pop of Cherished also from the Mile High City.
The Church, photo by Hugh Stewart
Tuesday | 07.02 What: The Church and The Afghan Whigs w/Ed Harcourt When: 6 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Both The Church and The Afghan Whigs could headline a tour of their own. The Church made its initial splash in the 80s with records that infused post-punk with psychedelic guitar rock color and thoughtful lyrics anticipating in its songcraft dream pop and shoegaze. Fortunately The Church continued to evolve as artists with records going into its later era that are among its most creatively fascinating including the twin albums The Hypnogogue (2023) and Eros Zeta and the Perfumed Guitars (2024), concept albums about a future not so far in which the struggle to find meaning persists in human society and the psyche despite developments in technology and the evolution of human culture in an age of techno-globalism. The Afghan Whigs seamlessly melded R&B and post-punk for a hybrid sound that predated and helped to define alternative rock in the 90s but with a sound and songwriting style that has aged better than a lot of music of the era. Greg Dulli has seemed able to write songs about love and relationships and his own inner turmoil with passion and poetic insight since the band’s early days. Live both bands seem very capable of bringing you into a heightened emotional space shakes off the regular world for the duration. Listen to our interview with The Church’s Ian Haug here.
Winnetka Bowling League, photo by Paige Sara
Tuesday | 07.02 What:Winnetka Bowling League w/Emi Grace When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Winnetka Bowling League recently released its debut full-length Sha La La. Nevermind that for some listeners will be reminded immediately of The War on Drugs’ sweeping Americana psychedelia and the warm low end and ethereal melodies of first wave chillwave it’s a set of songs that has some poignant commentary on life in America with vivid set pieces in the lyrics that will be familiar to anyone that has lived through America since the 2010s and paid attention either because you were growing up in that time or observant and aware of the psychological climate of the time. It’s sonically rich indiepop for the time we’re in and its nostalgia-tinged lyrics honor both a flickering yet irrepressible sense of hope for the future and the wry acknowledgment that we could all be doomed given the political, ecological and cultural climate of the world.
King Rat, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 07.04 What:King Rat 30 Year Anniversary w/Black Dots, These Kids Today, Anti-Formula and Terror Attack When: 5 Where: EastFax Tap Why: King Rat has had a bit of a storied existence across its three decades as a band and its melodic punk and dabbling with roots rock has remained consistently worthwhile with well crafted lyrics and a compelling live show. They play at 10 so all the “adults” in attendance can make it to the show after family obligations and home early enough in case they have to work one of those jobs that don’t give adults the day after a national holiday falling on a Thursday, Friday off.
Cherry Spit, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 07.04 What:TV Star, Angel Band, Cherry Spit and DJ Ryan Wong When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: TV Star is a jangle psych pop band from Seattle that sounds like it is tapping into 70s power pop and late 80s college rock like the later period of Paisley Underground acts like Game Theory, Let’s Active and Opal. Angel Band is coming from a similar sonic cauldron and indie pop. Cherry Spit, though, is a gouge the lightning from the skies noise rock outfit that includes former members of Quits and Endless, Nameless.
Glass Spells, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 07.05 What:Glass Spells w/Hex Cassette When: 8 Where: HQ Why: Glass Spells is a darkwave synthpop band from San Diego that has been making music with a clear leg in 80s New Wave and post-punk but more the modern approach bringing together influences, direct or indirect, from electroclash and Nu Disco/Italo disco as well as touches of Latin music rhythms. Opening is the synthwave deathcult performance art act Hex Cassette whose high energy shows make you part of the proceedings with some friendly but intense cajoling. And it all wouldn’t matter too much if his songs weren’t also worthwhile on their own separate from the stagecraft.
The Picture Tour, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 07.06 What: The Picture Tour, CELICA, Up Yours People When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: The Denver Goth scene hasn’t embraced The Picture Tour yet but it should because Billy Armijo and his bandmates have crafted the perfect fusion of shoegaze and moody post-punk. It has too much grit to be the kind of sadcore dad rock you might expect from Denver music scene veterans including Armijo who is the former lead guitarist of Emerald Siam. The guitar tones are searing and soaring yet imbued with enough melancholic melody and atmosphere to sound like a soundtrack to autumn. Up Yours People includes former members of Boss 302 and it is a mutant version of garage punk but noisier and more grimy and aggressive than one might expect even from past projects of the members of the band.
Sarah Shook & The Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinson
Wednesday | 07.10 What: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers w/Alana Mars and DJ Jake Luna When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers have been one of the more acclaimed bands in the broad realm of Americana of the past several years. On March 29, 2024 the group released its latest album Revelations on Thirty Tigers. The record isn’t short on the charm and warmth that has made the band’s previous releases so accessible and inviting and this time there seems to be a defiant spirit to the lyrics rejecting being defined by others and engaging in active self-discovery while finding some meaning in establishing healthy boundaries.
Diles Que No Me Maten, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 07.12 What: Diles Que No Me Maten w/Wave Decay and Pink Lady Monster When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Presumably named after Juan Rulfo’s 1951 story of the same name Diles Que No Me Maten (which means “Tell Them Not to Kill Me”), this Mexico City-based band on the surface is a psychedelic folk group but he further one delves into its body of work you hear elements of dub and art rock with an ear for ambient soundscapes. More akin to the like of The Legendary Pink Dots than a modern psych rock band. Its most recent album Obrigaggi (2023) is a hushed and entrancing listening journey. Wave Decay is the Denver-based shoegaze/psychedelic rock band with far better than average tonal richness. Pink Lady Monster might be described as a No Wave-esque art rock and performance art band and a can’t miss act from Denver for the discerning music fan.
Pallbearer, photo by Al Dalmasy
Saturday | 07.13 What:Pallbearer w/Inter Arma and The Keening When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Pallbearer’s 2024 album Mind Burns Alive has been a long time coming and its first since 2020’s Forgotten Days. The doom metal band from Little Rock, Arkansas has always been a cut above and more interesting than many of its peers because its music has had complex melodic arrangements and particularly on the new record a widely dynamic vocal harmonies. The new album apparently represented the group being together in the same city after a prolonged time apart. The heaviness of the album taps into concept that the themes and emotional content are what makes for the heaviest of moods and its sometimes psychedelic guitar excursions resonate with what peers like Amenra have been up to of late. Opening the show is former SubRosa guitarist/vocalist Rebecca Vernon and her The Keening project and her own flavor of transcendent, ambient doom.
Kontravoid in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 07.13 What: Kontravoid w/French Kettle Station, Modern Devotion and Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: For over a decade Cameron Findlay has been writing and release music as Kontravoid. With heavy, pulsating, industrial beats and dense and murky synths the project with Findlay performing in a white mask in theater style Kontravoid has offered a kind of dance music that draws upon the likes of classic EBM, the creative production style of Meat Beat Manifesto and techno. The latest album Detachment includes vocal contributions from Nuovo Testamento singer Chelsey Crowley. Opening the show are Denver acts French Kettle Station and his own fusion of glitch, electronic dance pop and performance art and Modern Devotion’s minimal techno.
Quasi, photo by John Clark
Thursday | 07.18 What:Quasi w/Jeffrey Lewis When: 7 Where: Marquis Theater Why: Quasi is the rock duo comprised of Sam Coomes and Janet Weiss. The former some may know from his time in Heatmiser with Elliott Smith. The latter was the long time drummer of Sleater-Kinney and Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks and one of the truly great live drummers of the current era. After years of being inactive Quasi released Breaking the Balls of History in 2023 on Sub Pop and a set of songs that showcase the band’s gift for fusing punk and bombastic art rock. Jeffrey Lewis is the eccentric punk musician and visual artist whose songs are punk in spirit but not in the predictable way musically—just a disregard for convention of genre and expectation of subject matter like a one man They Might Be Giants.
mxmtoon, photo by Joelle Grace Taylor
Th and S | 07.18 and 07.20 What: AJR w/mxmtoon and Dean Lewis When: 6 Where: Ball Arena Why: AJR is the trio from NYC comprised of Adam Met, Jack Met and Ryan Met (thus the name, the last name truncated from Metzger) who are all vocalists and multi-instrumentalists and all are involved in the songwriting that’s a hybrid of hip-hop, indie pop and some elements of hyper pop and Americana. Opening the show is multi-media artist and folk bedroom pop artist mxmtoon who propelled herself into the public eye with her use of social media from a young age sharing her visual art and early songwriting with ukulele on a YouTube channel she started at age 13. Her soulful vocals help to set her music apart from what some may assume to be her natural peers and her songwriting demonstrates a poetically thoughtful perspective that takes on the usual subjects of the struggles of youth and looming adulthood with creativity. Add her imaginative production and free association of musical styles into a coherent one of her own and mxmtoon is easily one of the most interesting pop artists now more than flirting with mainstream success.
A Strange Happening in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 07.19 What: A Strange Happening, Plague Pitted Moon, Penny Auction When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Plague Pitted Moon is a psychedelic doom band from Rapid City that recently released its 2024 self-titled EP. Its dark, distorted drones are like a grittier, more metal-inspired shoegaze band. Penny Auction from Casper, Wyoming is similarly minded but generally more noisy and menacing like if someone that listened to a lot of Sonic Youth, Big Black and My Dad Is Dead decided to start a band that was more lo-fi than even all of that. A Strange Happening is basically an indie rock band if its members were all nerds for old radio serial programming and psychedelic garage rock but skipped on the 2010s version of that sort of thing and essentially a weird band that writes accessible music.
Digable Planets, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 07.20 What: The Roots w/Digable Planets When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Roots are a band that early on adopted using live jazz instrumentation into its brand of hip-hop setting it apart from most of its peers especially when it launched in 1987. Stylistically Digable Planets shared eclectic and jazz and R&B rooted sensibilities when it too formed in 1987. Both projects have roots in Philadelphia though Digable Planets first came to prominence when it was based in Brooklyn. Both outfits released their respective debut albums in 1993 on major record labels with a follow up in 1995. Digable Planets split for a decade after the release of that album, the deep mood jazz psychedelia-infused Blowout Comb, while The Roots continued to build its cult following into relative mainstream success even before it became the official house band for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon in 2009. Big ups for the 2011 Michele Bachman incident. Although it hasn’t released a new album in nearly 30 years Digable Planets began its latest run as a live band in 2015 and The Roots for its own part hasn’t offered a new record since 2014 but both have proven themselves as vital live bands whose sounds and ideas have helped to shape the aesthetics of much of the modern hip-hop that dares to break the mold of standard and well worn ideas with imagination and a willingness to think of their own music beyond tradition and established style.
Daikaiju, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday and Sunday | 07.20 and 07.21 What: Daikaiju and TripLip w/Pink Lady Monster (07.20) and Big Canned Ham (07.21) When: 7pm both nights Where: The Matchbox (07.20) and The Squire Lounge (07.21) Why: Daikaiju is the legendary psychedelic surf rock band with truly exciting live shows with fire and breaking the audience and performer wall by making an entire venue a potential stage. TripLip could be described as a progressive surf rock punk band but really art rock in the more playful 90s vein and truly not easily put into any genre box though a perfect band to play with Daikaiju. Pink Lady Monster is the charismatic and enigmatic No Wave post-punk/art rock band from Denver. Big Canned Ham is sort of a psychedelic art rock funk band that apparently didn’t see some reason not to fuse Pink Floyd, Primus and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
The Decemberists, photo by Holly Andres
Tuesday | 07.23 What: The Decemberists w/Ratboys When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Decemberists have long been one of the quintessential indie rock bands of the 2000s and beyond with its penchant for eclectic instrumentation, folkloric, literary lyrics and a sound that dips into Americana and chamber pop. Plenty of shade has been thrown the band’s way for being pretentious in its theatrical presentation, its often somewhat nerdy subject matter and the baroque aesthetic of its cover art yet it’s refreshing to see a band put that much effort into the small details of its music from its performances to the way its music greets the world separate from the live context. Not to mention the creative ambition to pull it all off and to establish a body of work with layers of meaning and nuance. The band’s latest album As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again (2024) sounds like a descendant of jangle rock and 80s indiepop as embodied by groups out of the Paisley Underground and the southeastern part of the USA like The Windbreakers, Let’s Active and The db’s.
Facet, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 07.23 What: Facet, Moon Pussy, Abandons and Wingwalker When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Facet is the Oakland-based, noisy post-hardcore band whose self-titled 2023 album is half Amphetamine-Reptile-artist-esque atonal madness and DC post-punk. Fitting Denver’s own noise rock weirdo geniuses Moon Pussy are sharing the bill along with instrumental art doom trio Abandons and heavy, angular post-punk trio Wingwalker.
Ben Howard, photo courtesy the artist
Tuesday | 07.23 What: Ben Howard w/John Francis Flynn When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: You don’t need any kind of background on the artist or the making of the album to get something out of Ben Howard’s 2023 album Is It? The singer-songwriter whose career stretches back to the late 2000s suffered two mini-strokes in 2022 which initiated some lifestyle changes and the subsequent album which in some ways charts his creative coming to terms with and working through his life changes isn’t just introspective in expected ways the music is richly detailed and flows with a seemingly organic flow of electronic and not so electronic elements that is instantly engaging and is resonant with recent offerings from Mount Kimbie. The songs are illuminating and tender, emotionally vivid and Howard’s vocals, processed or otherwise, shine with a gentle warmth. The record is the artists magnum opus.
Easy Honey, photo by Amanda Laferriere
Wednesday | 07.24 What:Easy Honey w/Sex Wacks and Welcome Back When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Charleston, South Carolina-based Easy Honey originally started in Sewanee, Tennessee and have cultivated a sound one more often associates with the mood and energy of a psychedelic pop band from the opposite side of the country. But in its songwriting one hears threads of influence beyond obvious touchstones. There is a power pop sensibility crossed with the storytelling mode of The Kinks and the way the latter ties its captivating choruses with big, melodic hooks. There is an easygoing aspect of the music even though its wit and exuberance inform the songwriting and the performances. On July 19, 2024 the band released its new album Cupidity Unlimited and is currently on a wide touring leg in Colorado alone that began on July 7 in Buena Vista and continues through July 27 in Colorado Springs.
Mark Farina, photo courtesy OM Records
Friday and Saturday | 07.26 and 07.27 What: Mark Farina When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Mark Farina is the legendary DJ who fused house, jazz and downtempo with elements of other styles in an almost free association of beats and sounds to produce his trademark sound “mushroom jazz.” The latter hit like acid jazz mutated by left field hip-hop beats. Farina explored the inner and outer edges of that aesthetic across several releases in the Mushroom Jazz series. Farina’s eclectic, mellow but vivid production has influenced at least one generation of house and electronic dance music creatives Farina performs sets Friday and Saturday at Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station where the room’s spacious and spare accommodations seem like the right place to experience music provided by one of modern house music’s most significant artists/mixologists.
Street Fever, photo by Tom Murphy
Tuesday | 07.30 What: Street Fever w/MDX View, Palace Guard, Dream Compartment When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Street Fever is the performance artist and industrial techno/EBM darkwave artist from Boise, Idaho who has a bit of an underground cult following dating back around a decade when he was a completely mysterious figure whose sets were in the realm of gritty darkwave before that became more of a thing within a few years. But more recent Street Fever shows have been more intense, seemingly more focused and heavier, harder beats perhaps heard in the most realized form on the 2024 album Absolution. The record whose themes seem to explore working through religious trauma and life under late capitalism is refreshingly not stylistically monolithic and start and has moments of sublime, melodic beauty and emotionally vibrant vocals. Live, Street Fever often brings the stage into the audience and involves those who show up in his personal catharsis.
Miki Berenyi Trio perform at The Bluebird Theater on June 6, 2024, photo by V. ArbeletThe Damned in 2018, photo by Steve Gullick
Tuesday | 06.04 What:The Damned with The Mañanas When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: The Damned were one of the foundational UK punk bands in the mid-1970s releasing that scene’s earliest single with the iconic “New Rose.” In subsequent decades the group managed to evolve and still remain a powerful and entertaining live band with a sense of theater. Though part of the first wave of punk The Damned’s raucous live show proved an enduring influence on hardcore. After numerous lineup changes the current band includes founding members Dave Vanian and Rat Scabies and Captain Sensible.
Wand, photo by Asal Shahindoust
Wednesday | 06.05 What:Wand w/Supreme Joy When: 7 PM Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Wand guitarist Cory Hanson is widely considered one of the great talents of 2010’s psychedelic rock whose solo recordings are as fascinating as anything he’s done in anyone else’s band (Ty Segall, Mikal Cronin, Meatbodies etc). But Wand is the musical vehicle that has perhaps rightfully garnered Hanson and his bandmates much deserved attention for actually making modern psychedelic rock that is more than simply adding trippy sounds and pedals to fairly standard indie rock songwriting. Its forthcoming record Vertigo (due out July 26, 2024 via Drag City) and its lead single “Smile” has all the gorgeously warm melodies and winding momentum you’d expect from Wand as well as the mind-warping soundscapes but its music video is a surreal journey from intense highs to transcendent tranquility akin to the best of Flaming Lips tracks. Though the record doesn’t come out for over a month this show will surely feature plenty of that new material as well as mind-melting classics on Wand records past. Opening the show is psychedelic post-punk Denver band Supreme Joy who opened for Cory Hanson’s solo trek through Colorado this past year.
Dylan Owen, photo courtesy the artist
Wednesday | 06.05 What: Abstract & Dylan Owen w/Jake Luke, FLWRS and Merch When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Rappers Abstract (Nashville) and Dylan Owens (New York) bring their tour to Lost Lake. Both artists deal in heartfelt, confessional lyrics seemingly inspired in part by 2000s alternative rap but with more modern production style. Owens’ lyrics in particular seem clearly informed by a deep exploration of music and ideas beyond what one might expect. In his song “LA FREESTYLE” he references Philip Glass and that doesn’t happen much in hip-hop.
Miki Berenyi Trio, photo courtesy V. Arbelet
Thursday | 06.06 What: Miki Berenyi Trio w/Lol Tolhurst X Budgie When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Miki Berenyi is one of the founding members of influential early shoegaze band Lush. Her unique and melodious vocals and unorthodox guitar style helped to shape the sound of the genre. With this current band Berenyi tapped an old comrade in guitarist Kevin McKillop formerly of shoegaze legends Moose to be in the lineup as well as Oliver Cherer (Gilroy Mere, Aircooled). Its early recorded music and live performances promise plenty of immersive soundscapes and otherworldly melodies. Opening the show are Lol Tolhurst who, you know, was in The Cure for years as a drummer/synth player during that band’s key years of development and Budgie, the drummer of Siouxsie & the Banshees and The Creatures and the duo has been collaborating with various musicians on a string of singles and performances so who can say what to expect this night.
Meet the Giant, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06/07 What:Takipnik, Meet the Giant, Falcon Haptics and Saint Somebody When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Takipnik is a synthrock band that sounds like it draws a bit of influence from modern prog/art rock bands like Tool. Falcon Haptics are a black metal band from Fort Collins with some stoner rock leanings. Saint Somebody is an Americana band from Denver with some chamber pop flavor. Meet the Giant is a trio that completely blurs the line between downtempo, shoegaze and fiery alternative rock with imaginative soundscapes and top shelf electronic production fully integrated into its live sound.
Ghostly Kisses, photo by Fred Gervais
Friday | 06/07 What: Ghostly Kisses w/Kroy and Mon Cher When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Margaux Sauvé is a singer-songwriter from Québec, Canada who releases music and performs under the moniker Ghostly Kisses. Her songs combine a sublime synthpop sound and orchestral indie rock. Her newly released full-length Darkroom (May 17, 2024 via Akira Records) features her beautifully breathy vocals and ethereal yet warmly executed soundscapes tied together with techno production-rooted beats and an almost classical music sensibility that at times waxes into similar realms of organic-electronic pop populated in the 90s by the likes of Everything But the Girl and other luminaries of sophistipop. Also on hand for this tour is Montreal-based, experimental pop/downtempo artist KROY and Denver’s Mon Cher which is the synth-driven musical project of producer and multi-instrumentalist Meghan Holton.
Cris Jacobs, photo by Joshua Black Wilkins
Friday and Saturday | 06.07 and 06.08 What: The Bluegrass Generals featuring Chris Pandolfi & Andy Hall, Jarrod Walker, Cris Jacobs, Emma Rose w/Twisted Pine When: 7 both nights Where: Cervantes’ Mastrerpiece Ballroom Why: The Bluegrass Generals aka Chris Pandolfii & Andy Hall are putting on this even of some of the more gifted practitioners of the modern version of that style of music suggested by their shared moniker. For this edition of the event Baltimore-based roots rocker Cris Jacobs who is touring in support of his new album One Of These Days (Soundly Music). The songwriter’s expressive vocals and vivid storytelling and gift for expanding upon his stylistic foundations with imaginative arrangements has made him a favorite in his hometown and well beyond as evidenced by the invite to be part of this event with some of his more talented peers.
Quits, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 06.08 What:Dry Wedding,. Snakes, Quits and Moon Pussy When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Dry Wedding is a dark, Americana flavored post-punk band from Portland, Oregon. Its gloomy and brooding moods are shot through with bursts of nervy energy like purgings of anxiety and desperation. Ready comparisons to The Birthday Party and other Nick Cave projects are valid because it has a touch of that surreal, dark and harrowing carnival murder punk vibe. But fans of Love Life and Bambara will appreciate the band too. Snakes is a band whose music is Americana adjacent but its sound is almost as much spooky surf garage with expansive energy. Quits’ portraits of a conflicted and desperation-wracked American life are as inherently Americana as anything dubbed so even if its distorted, discordant sonic gyrations and burns are noise rock gold. Moon Pussy should be mandatory listening for anyone wanting a quick and thrilling escape from Mile High City Yuppie Normie bullshit.
American Culture in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 06.08 What: American Culture album release w/Wave Decay, Cherry Spit, Dirt Filled and Flaming Tongues Above When: 7 Where: D3 Arts Why: American Culture’s latest, and greatest, album Hey Brother, It’s Been Awhile is a self-redemption arc fable not just on a personal level but for a society that has lost its way more than most individuals ever will. The music is a step away from the inspired and earnest indiepop of some of the group’s earlier efforts and has all the hallmarks of 90s Britpop, modern dream-pop-adjacent shoegaze and production driven dub. It’s a unique record in a time of many imitators and vibe hoppers. Wave Decay is a shoegaze act with foundations in krautrock and noise rock. Cherry Spit splits the difference between post-hardcore, noise rock and aggressive shoegaze and shapes it into electrifying live performances. Flaming Tongues Above is the solo, singer-songwriter project of former American Culture and current Destiny Bond guitarist Amos Helvey.
Death to All, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.08 What:Death to All (Scream Bloody Gore in its entirety) w/Cryptopsy When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Death is one of the most influential bands in all of heavy metal and one of the earliest death metal bands. The group split for the final time in 2001 with the untimely passing of guitar wizard and frontman Chuck Schuldiner. Death to All is a tribute to the legacy of the group and includes former members of the like drummer Gene Hoglan (who has been one of the most important musicians in modern metal), bassist Steve DiGiorgio and guitarist Bobby Koelble joined by Max Phelps who some may know from his time in Obscura and Cynic. So the line-up is solid and filled with gifted musicians in the artform. For this tour the group will perform two nights. This first night it will play the entire 1987 debut album Scream Bloody Gore with some choice classics from Leprosy and Spiritual Healing.
Pale Waves, photo by Pip
Saturday | 06.08 What: PVRIS w/Pale Waves and Sizzy Rocket When: 6 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: PVRIS is the electro-pop band from Lowell, Massachusetts that has come a long way since its early metalcore days as Operation Guillotine. And for the better. Its uplifting and triumphant songs about life and love delivered with no small degree of emotionally charged vocals and ethereal melodies has struck an enduring chord with fans. Sizzy Rocket seems to produce pop songs with undeniable hooks but about being very accepting of what other people might perceive as your flaws especially if you’re really just not a polite society conformist. Pale Waves is a pop rock band from Manchester, UK that’s a little challenging to pin down to some simple subgenre. Its bright melodies and rich arrangements somehow tie in a bit of post-punk grit and style with modern indie pop. Its visual presence and attitude bears all the marks of a darkwave band but one that isn’t ashamed of embracing a love for mainstream pop without giving up lyrics that aim for emotional authenticity.
Death to All, photo courtesy the artists
Sunday | 06.09 What:Death to All (The Sound of Perseverance in its entirety) w/Cryptopsy When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: This second night of Death to All will be a performance of the final Death album 1998’s progressive death metal masterpiece The Sound of Perseverance along with favorites from Human, Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic.
Quintron and Miss Pussycat in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Tuesday | 06/11 What:Quintron & Miss Pussycat w/Mr. Pacman When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Going to a Quintron and Miss Pussycat show is a bit like going to an adult version of a weekday kids’ show with the surreal sounds and imagery and often an elaborate live puppet show as part of the act. The music bridges the gap of psychedelic garage rock and the avant-garde/noise. Mr. Pacman similarly preserves a mystique of the weird with its members in costume like a band from a long lost video game show of the 90s but with music that is synth punk with actual edge and intensity.
The Chameleons, photo by Mick Peek
Wednesday | 06.12 What: The Chameleons perform Strange Times w/Missing and FashionNation DJ Eli When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: The legendary, Manchester post-punk band The Chameleons will perform its 1986 classic Strange Times in its entirety. The band’s perfect fusion of electronic and rock aesthetics with emotionally charged and existential lyrics as well as its masterful guitar work anticipating the sound of shoegaze in the 90s has proven influential across decades and this incarnation of the band includes original singer Mark Burgess and guitarist Reg Smithies so expect more than a little of the magic of the group’s classic material.
LABRYS, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 06.14 What: LABRYS w/Tiny Tomboy and Isadora Eden When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: LABRYS is the songwriting vehicle for Oklahoma City-based Penny Pitchlynn and the sounds heard on the project’s 2024 album 10:10 has a brooding grit like PJ Harvey gone psychedelic blues garage. Tiny Tomboy is a Denver based indie band whose delicate songwriting is reminiscent of Soccer Mommy’s brash vulnerability and ear for finely sculpted guitar melodies. Isadora Eden’s introspective and soulful dream pop has a gentle feel even as the lyrics often give voice to intrusive thoughts and dark musings captured in imaginative songwriting.
bellhoss, photo taken at JCPenney
Saturday | 06.15 What: SarahFest When: 5 doors, 6 show Where: The Mercury Cafe Why: This inaugural edition of SarahFest showcases some of the most noteworthy female or female fronted acts from Colorado’s Front Range including bellhoss, The Milk Blossoms, Luna Nuñez, Dream of Time, Gartener, Nina de Freitas, Summer Bedhead, Tammy Shine and DJ Demigod (Demi Harvey). Listen to our interview with organizer Becky Otárola of bellhoss here.
Morgan Garrett, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 06.15 What: Morgan Garrett, Purity LP tour w/Many Blessings, Fossil Fuel and Head Slug When: 8 Where: Glob Why: Morgan Garrett recently released the new album Purity through Orange Milk Records and further cemented the artist’s reputation for genre bursting weirdness that happen to form into coherent songs with a unique and haunting emotional resonance whether it’s the abstract industrial noise metal or organically flowing anti-folk acoustic ambient. Also on hand are Denver noiseniks including Many Blessings, the harsh noise side project of Ethan McCarthy who many may know from his being in legendary doom death grind trio Primitive Man.
DIIV, photo by Louie Kovatch
Sunday | 06.16 What: DIIV w/Sasami and Glixen When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: DIIV is the New York City band that helped to re-popularize shoegaze in the early 2010s with the release of its 2012 album Oshin. It wasn’t merely imitative but its own take and sound in an established genre which is something not nearly enough bands accomplish. And so DIIV has never seemed simply derivative. Its new album Frog In Boiling Water is a deep commentary on what if feels like to live in the end stages of capitalism and how sometimes the despair at what we could have done as a civilization but seem to continue to fail to do to alleviate the inevitable destruction and suffering ahead of us in terms of the environment, economic collapse and political collapse can be deeply dispiriting. But the gentle energy of the record and its richly atmospheric songwriting makes the album a standout from the group and something to witness live. Also on the bill is Sasami whose inspired genre bending songwriting has manifested as garage-y dreampop and alternative metal.
Shwarma, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 06.21 What: Shwarma w/Cloud Catcher and Kaepora When: 7 Where: Cervantes’ Other Side Why: Denver’s Shwarma might be best described as a psychedelic space rock band whose players all got into Frank Zappa and Melvins along the way as well as perhaps Hawkwind. The group is celebrating the release of its new album Best Cerv’d Shwarm with this show and sharing the stage with doom metal group Cloud Catcher and prog jazz fusion bluegrass band Kaepora.
d4vd, photo by Nick Walker
Friday | 06.21 What:d4vd – My House is Not a Home Tour w/Scott James When: 6 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: David Anthony Burke aka d4vd has been building an audience since his earliest singles came out when he was a mere 16 years of age. But from early on the singer-songwriter’s songs demonstrated an ear for soulful melodies and freely associating a wide array of influences, not all musical, into sonically rich songs that don’t fit neatly into even broad categories of R&B, hip-hop, pop and rock. 2022’s “Romantic Homicide” and its J-horror-themed music video was a beautifully haunting song about heartbreak. His live shows proved the artist had real command of the stage and audience interaction. 2024 saw d4vd release his the single “Feel It” as part of the soundtrack season two of the animated adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s (Walking Dead), dystopian super hero comic series Invincible.
Fainting Dreams, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 06.21 What: Nighdrator w/Evan Kallas, Water on the Thirsty Ground, RMO and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: Nighdrator is a psychedelic shoegaze doom band from Hattiesburg, Mississippi that shares membership with the great post-punk band MSPAINT. Its epic and nuanced soundscapes are cinematic in scope yet intimate in its expressions of personal challenges. Fans of SubRosa and the more shoegazey of Chelsea Wolfe’s songwriting will find much to like in Nighdrator’s arresting compositions. And so it’s only fitting that doomy shoegaze post-dream pop band Fainting Dreams is also on the bill with its thrillingly gritty soundscapes and raw catharsis.
Friday | 06.21 What: Colorado Goth Fest Pre-Party When: 9pm-2am Where: 715 Club Why: This event inaugurates Colorado Goth Fest with some of the DJs who have been very much part of the local Goth scene in Denver in its more post-punk, death rock and darkwave manifestations with Precious Blood, Lord Charon, DJ BatBoy and DJ Mal Toxisk.
Plague Garden, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.22 What:Colorado Goth Fest Featuring Calabrese and Scary Black w/WitchHands, Plague Garden, Opaque Shades, Funeral Process, Thee Coroners, Redwing Blackbird and Devoratus When: 3 doors, 4 show Where: HQ Why: Colorado Goth Fest returns after a long hiatus but finally in Denver. This edition puts the focus on post-punk, death rock and horror punk. The out of town headliners include Arizona-based horror punk act Calabrese and Louisville, Kentucky’s Scary Black, a one man Goth rock act like a post-punk Alabama 3. And the local line-up includes notable veterans of local darkwave and post-punk like WitchHands, Plague Garden and Redwing Blackbird and newer acts like Devoratus and its Spanish-language darkwave pop.
Ex Lover, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 06.22 What: Ex Lover w/Twin Ion Engine, Pill Joy, Sell Farm and Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Omaha-based Ex Lover stops in Denver for a night for a performance of her hyperpop infused darkwave dance songs. Her 2023 album Devotion mixes English and Spanish lyrics but all threaded through with soaring guitar melody and upbeat vocals. Fans of Nuovo Testamento should check out Ex Lover.
Hawthorne Heights, photo by Courtney Kiara
Monday| 06.24 What: 20 Years of Tears: Hawthorne Heights, I See Stars, Anberlin, Armor for Sleep, Emery, This Wild Life When: 5 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: This package tour features some of the stars of 2000s and 2010s post-hardcore and emo. The latter is a genre that earned plenty of ridicule with the scene kids and their signature style of dress and hair cuts nevermind the controversies with various bands in later years. Hawthorne Heights took on that moniker in 2004 before which it operated as A Day in the Life. Even if you weren’t into emo at least Hawthorne Heights had interesting guitar work, expressive vocals (and not mostly shouting and easily parodied screaming) and a dramatic flair in its arrangements. Is it easy to trace the band’s influences? Certainly. But its music has aged better than that of many of its peers.
The Alarm, photo by Andy Labrow
Tuesday | 06.25 What:The Alarm w/Jay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel and Belouis Some When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: The Alarm is a post-punk/New Wave band from Wales lead since its formation by Mike Peters. The group’s lyrics and musical style bore the influence of Welsh literature and cultural tradition that it translated into songs that caught on with a much wider public than simple local cult band status. Early on the group played shows with The Fall and U2 going on to support the latter for its US War Tour in 1983. The Alarm became popular on college radio throughout the 80s while also enjoying a degree of commercial popularity as well that landed them a support slot with Bob Dylan by the end of the decade. The band’s buoyant melodies and poetic lyrics sustained a following while it was broken up between 1991 and 1999 and since the group has reconvened it has been more prolific than its first chapter in existence. Also on this bill other than Jay Aston’s Gene Loves Jezebel and its own blend of psychedelia and post-punk is New Wave artist Belouis Some aka Neville Keighley. The latter garnered some popularity for hits “Some People,” “Imagination” and cinematic fame with “Round, Round” featured on the soundtrack to the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink. Though mostly known for his 80s heyday Keighley has remained active in music on and off since that time and this is a rare chance to see him live in Denver.
Adrianne Lenker, photo by Germaine Dunes
Wednesday | 06.26 What:Adrianne Lenker w/Twain When: 6 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Adrianne Lenker has firmly established herself as both a member of one of the more acclaimed bands of recent years and as an equally respected solo artist. Lenker had already garnered critical accolades before Big Thief got going in 2015. Her second album Hours Were the Birds was released on Saddle Creek in 2014 already revealing Lenker’s gift for articulating personal insight with spareness of composition and vulnerable minimalism. A decade later Lenker offers her latest record Bright Future which while offering more orchestral arrangements still comes across as Lenker finding the poetic essence of solitary revelations that flash into your mind fully formed. The cover art to the record give you a clue into the vibe a bit of late evening drives on the road with enough time to sort out the important thoughts from the distractions. Lenker’s voice intoning with a tender slight warble like the songs were worked out around a campfire with friends.
French Cassettes, photo by Marisa Bazan
Wednesday | 06.26 What:French Cassettes w/Body and Barbara When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: French Cassettes is touring in support of its latest album Benzene. The latter is frontman Lorenzo Scott Herta’s family nickname given without the usual connotations. It’s a gentle set of songs with rich melodies like an indie rock psychedelic band with an ear for lushly orchestral arrangements reminiscent of art pop bands like The Magnetic Fields and Belle & Sebastian. It’s a record about miscommunication and reconnecting on a better basis while owning up to shortcomings and coming together to sort out the barriers to mutual comprehension and coming to terms with how we’ve been, how we are and how we will be.
Yellow Card, photo by Acacia Evans
Wednesday | 06.26 What: Third Eye Blind w/Yellowcard and Arizona When: 5 Where: Red Rocks Why: Third Eye Blind wrote one of the iconic songs of late 90s, late alternative rock with “Semi-Charmed Life.” The band’s upbeat music and wry humor has since garnered a cult following enough to be able to headline Red Rocks Yellowcard might have been forgotten as yet another pop punk band at a time when the world seemed awash in multiple generic versions of that sound. But its fourth album, 2003’s Ocean Avenue, somehow fused sunny pop punk with lyrics about struggling with what you want to do with your life, complicated relationships with the people in your life and the nature of relationships beyond those teen and high school romances that are the subject matter of a lot of rock, pop and certainly pop punk and emo. And hey Sean Mackin, the only original member left in the band, doesn’t just do lead vocals he plays violin and it actually adds an atmospheric element that doesn’t just sound like a gimmick in a punk band.
Steven Lee Lawson, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 06.27 What: Steven Lee Lawson + The Archers EP release w/Blacktop Musical When: 7 Where: Roxy on Broadway in the Speakeasy Downstairs Why: Steven Lee Lawson is a singer-songwriter from Denver whose musical exploits date back to the late 90s and early 2000s when as a fledgling musician he was involved in a variety of styles of music including the experimental/krautrock of Zubabi before finding his lane at the edges of Denver’s indie rock scene in the mid-2000s with the more classic pop and Americana-inflected projects like Oblio Duo and its multiple incarnations with then songwriting partner Will Duncan (now of Pleasure Prince). Lawson’s poetic lyrics shed a light on his attempts to come to terms with life challenges and struggles with a society and culture seemingly stuck on boosting dull and crass commercialism and anti-human systems of politics and economy. Lawson also spent some time as a sideman in bands like Ross Etherton and the Chariots of Judah before dropping out of actively being involved in music for a handful of years and then getting back into the joy of creating music again in recent years. Obvious touchstones like Harry Nilsson, Townes Van Zandt, Sparklehorse and Neil Young can be heard in Lawson’s musical DNA but his songs have always seemed deeply personal and idiosyncratic including his new EP Help Is On the Way due out June 27, 2024. Listen to our interview with Lawson here.
Fake Fruit, photo by Daniel Topete
Saturday | 06.29 What:Omni w/Fake Fruit and Tender Object When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Atlanta’s Omni has been one of the more interesting post-punk bands out of the past decade and more with intricate and angular rhythms and structures like a missing link between jangly college rock sounds and Wire’s art punk minimalism and ferocity. Its latest record Souvenir was borne out of creating during a time of immense change in the world during the course of the 2020 pandemic and how that has played out and necessitated some reflection and reassessment of one’s life and priorities but this time Omni does so with no small amount of wry humor and and vulnerability. Oakland’s Fake Fruit seems to share some similar musical DNA but with more jagged edges and noisy outbursts that bear the potential influence of arty guitar bands like Women and Lithics. With its forthcoming album Mucho Mistrust Fake Fruit has a wonderfully discordant fervor like The Pretenders gone unhinged and with the cathartic vitriol aimed at the anxieties of living under late capitalism and its trickle down inhumanity and has and continues to warp hearts and minds.
Quits, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 06.29 What:Red Fang w/Spoon Benders and Quits When: 8 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Portland-based sludge rock band Red Fang makes a stop in Denver on its current tour. Frontman and bassist Aaron Beam grew up in Fort Collins and still has family in the Mile High City so it’s sort of a hometown show for the musician. Also on the tour is psychedelic doom prog band Spoon Benders and opening is one of Denver’s greatest noise rock bands Quits and its own mind-altering sonic assault and emotionally harrowing lyrics.
Wednesday | 05.01 What:Slowdive w/Drab Majesty When: 6 Where: Levitt Pavilion Why: Slowdive was one of the original shoegaze bands of the late 80s and early 90s and it was more on the more sonically delicate and ambient end of the real of music. So much so that it’s then 1995 final album Pygmalion was not rock so much as avant-garde experiments in melodic atmospheres and abstract pop. It reflected its members immersion in electronic music and left field sounds in the world of dance music. Then the band split for nearly a decade while a few members went on to the more desert rock and Americana-esque Mojave 3. Another continued with Monster Movie and yet another played in Lowgold for a stretch. But 2014 brought the classic lineup of Slowdive back together and that reunion tour revealed a band that was surprisingly forceful in its gossamer webs of tone and melody and emotionally charged in its expansive atmospherics. But was the reunion a fluke? The 2017 self-titled album proved otherwise and was easily on par with its earlier catalog yet a clear demonstration of creative growth. The group’s complete embrace of electronic sounds and vulnerable guitar composition has meant its older music has aged well and its newer material clearly informed with an ear for the present and future. Opener Drab Majesty was one of the newer artists whose own fusion of electronics and melancholic guitar atmospherics seemed to look back at predecessors like Slowdive, Love and Rockets, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Cocteau Twins while establishing a sound very much its own imbued with dark moods and futuristic glam imagery.
Brainstory, photo by Carlos Garcia
Wednesday | 05.02 What: Brainstory When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Brainstory just released its latest album Sounds Good. Its fusion of jazz, psychedelia and R&B has a sound resonant with some of what Todd Rundgren was doing in the 70s but rougher edged like these guys spent some time playing in garage rock bands that played covers to earn their keep and took that discipline to make music with tangibly lush moods, a touch of that deceptively soft Steely Dan thing including the strong musicianship and while sounding like musicians from another era are clearly informed by the modern lens of that reinterpretation because the production style has a modern sensibility of intentional high contrast sounds and a real depth of sonic field.
Jesus Piece, photo by RAS
Thursday | 05.02 What: Sanguisugabogg and Jesus Piece w/Gag and Peeling Flesh https://www.gothictheatre.com/events/detail/?event_id=526035 When: 6 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: This is the kind of heavy music show that will offer a lot of aggressive sounds but sensitive sensibilities cloaked in brutal sounds and subject matter. Sanguisugabogg is a death metal band from Columbus, Ohio with extreme song titles like “Face Ripped Off” but whose music video is like an inversion of being tough and hard edged. Gag is a hardcore band from Olympia, Washington whose contorted sounds reveal eclectic roots and a surreal, absurd and sometimes dark sense of humor. Jesus Piece is the renowned metalcore act from Philadelphia that set out to be a death metal band but evolved into something its own. Yes, the aggressive vocals and rapidly bludgeoning riffs but with a rhythmic structure that has meant Jesus Piece doesn’t hit as just another death metal or hardcore band as its music has passages where it breathes rather than pummels, and the defiant energy of the music challenges the audience to join in its raw vitality.
Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 05.03 What: Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors w/Donovan Woods When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: For a little over two decades Drew Holcomb has been developing his songwriting in the public eye first as a solo act and since 2005 as Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. His contemplative and observant lyrics have an intimate quality suggest roots in folk while the pastoral atmospheric features of his sound hearken to more than a passing familiarity with the cosmic end of country. The band’s most recent album is 2023’s Strangers No More the title of which seems to be a calling card for the songwriter whose music connects on a direct human level as an attempt to build an informal community or at least encourage those impulses in particular the song “Find Your People.” Opening the evening is Donovan Woods who is touring ahead of the July 12 release of his new record Things Were Never Good If They’re Not Good Now. The Canadian singer-songwriter’s material is poetically vivid its imagery and lush yet minimal in the way the songs are arranged like cinematic, miniature orchestral pieces the frame Donovan’s delicate yet passionate vocals.
Donovan Woods, photo by Brittany FarhatCherubs, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 05.03 What:Cherubs w/Moon Pussy, Quits and Cherry Spit When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Austin’s Cherubs have been unleashing an unhinged noise rock that sounded like they were falling apart and clashing into each other constantly and there is a certain cathartic appeal to that sound. And from 1991-1994 the group would have been peers of other rock and roll weirdos like The Jesus Lizard and Butthole Surfers whose King Coffeey signed the band to his own Trance Syndicate imprint. Then the band went inactive only to suddenly reappear in 2014 seemingly undiminished in its ability to deliver relentlessly rhythm-driven sonic bursts of ruptured and noisy psychedelia. 2023 saw the remastered reissue of the band’s colossal 1992 debut Icing. Maybe Moon Pussy and Quits aren’t ripping off Cherubs but they are both surely direct descendants of the kind of sound Cherbus helped to pioneer. Moon Pussy this night is also releasing its beautifully disjointed and inspired new album Death is Coming.
Laraaji in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 05.03 What:LEAF: Laraaji visuals by L’Astra Cosmo w/Lisa Bella Donna and visuals by Christopher Robin Short at The Arts HUB sold out When: 6:30 Where: The Arts HUB Why: LEAF concludes the live music performance segment of the festival with a performance by ambient and new age legend Laraaji on his birthday no less. The multi-instrumentalist began working on music in the 70s when he bought a zither and then converted it into an electronic instrument and later in the decade began busking in New York. This is where Brian Eno encountered him and the two collaborated on Laraaji’s brilliant 1980 album Ambient 3: Day of Radiance on which the composer used various acoustic instruments and a hammered dulcimer to craft unique soundscapes the likes of which haven’t been heard or seen much since. Since that time Laraaji has delved into various forms of music and performance as well as presenting his Laughter Meditation Workshops. 2023 saw the 4LP reissue of Segue To Infinity, a collection of Laraaji’s early works from his 1978 debut album Celestial Vibration and six longer pieces recorded around that same time.
Mannquin Pussy, photo by Millicent Hailes
Saturday | 05.04 What:Mannequin Pussy w/Soul Glo When: 8 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Mannequin Pussy has come a long way since beginning in Philadelphia in 201 when Marisa Dabice and Athanasios Paul formed the group as a duo inspired in part by experimental garage punk band Lust-Cats of the Gutters from Denver. One thing that has remained intact is Dabice’s ferocious and confrontational vocal delivery and incisive lyrics. Its most recent album I Got Heaven (2024) finds the group exploring themes of yearning but written in explorative fashion across styles and often threading punk boldness with emotional delicacy for a mixture that is undeniably compelling and refreshingly vital in its creativity and sonic nuance. For this tour Mannequin Pussy brings along Philly hardcore band Soul Glo whose sound of course in true tradition of music from its hometown strays widely from any formula. Its feral vocals often wax snotty but the music has so much momentum and the lyrics imbued with so much fire that you forget what it is you think you’re supposed to be hearing and get swept up in the moment. A perfect pairing.
Alana Mars, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 05.04 What: Alana Mars EP release w/Tireshoe, The Salesmen and Sk8rade When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Denver-based pop/rock artist Alana Mars celebrates the release of her latest EP The Prologue at this show. The six songs comprising the EP showcase the singer-songwriter’s gift for introspective and vulnerable lyrics and lushly atmospheric compositions. Live Mars isn’t short on personality, presence and humor. Also on the bill is the supercharged post-punk band The Salesmen and their unabashedly polemical yet creatively fun deconstruction and dismantling of social ills and injustices.
Jade Bird, photo by Aries Moross
Saturday | 05.04 What:Jade Bird w/Emelise and Kayla Katz When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Something must be said in favor of Jade Bird’s moxie in releasing the 2024 EP Burn the Hard Drive. It’s about her split from her fiancée and former guitarist Luke Prosser who has writing credits on 2/3 of the songs. The EP also demonstrates Bird’s growth as an artist and while there are aspects of her more Americana and indie folk sound the most interesting songs including the title track are more electronic and informed by funk and neo soul sounds and psychedelia. They also feel the most cathartic even as the more guitar-driven songs are imbued with the emotional vulnerability that has been the artist’s hallmark from the beginning. It’s a pivotal release for Bird, though, and this might be a good time to catch her as she breaks more out of expectations built around her past work.
Young Rising Sons, photo courtesy the artists
Sunday | 05.05 What:Young Rising Sons w/Diva Bleach When: 6:30 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Young Rising Sons are an alternative pop band that formed in Brooklyn in 2010. Bassist Julian Dimagiba and drummer Steve Patrick grew up in Red Bank, New Jersey playing music and caught singer Andy Tongren performing an acoustic set at a New York Cit bar and struck by his skills talked with him later about joining their fledgling band. The new group spent a few years with different names while writing songs and settling on the name Young Rising Sons. In 2013 the group signed with Dirty Canvas Music and their 2014 debut single “High” became a bit of a global viral hit leading to the band signing with Interscope that same year. For the following two years the quartet toured opening for the likes of Halsey, Weezer, The 1975 and The Neighbourhood. Although Young Rising Sons delivered three EPs with Interscope as with many other worthy artists that didn’t translate to the commercial performance expected by a major label. In 2017 the band parted ways with Interscope and a year later announced a hiatus that lasted a couple of years. Since reconvening the outfit has been regularly releasing singles and in 2022 it dropped its debut full length Still Point In a Turning World. Tongren’s soulful and passionate vocals and the tight pop songcraft of the band has remained intact. Its body of work including its new single “(Un)Happy Hour” reveals a sensitivity to the complexity and fragility of human life and the importance of accepting the high points and the low to experience to make it through an oftentimes challenging existence with dignity and a sense of fulfillment. Listen to our interview with Andy Tongren here.
Swans, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 05.07 What:Swans w/Kristoff Hahn When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Swans are the influential, experimental rock band formed in New York City in 1982 as one of the standout acts of the no wave scene. Fronted by singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Michael Gira, the group’s ever-evolving lineup and sound has helped pioneer and in many ways define aspects of noise rock, industrial music, post-punk and in later eras of the band post-rock. Its earliest records were brutal affairs of a stark beauty and unsettling intensity. By the last half of the 80s singer and keyboardist Jarboe had joined the band and its music began to increasingly incorporate a musical intricacy, melodic ambiance and emotionally nuanced delicacy that became a regular feature of the songwriting. And for years the constant members of the band were Gira, Jarboe, and longtime guitarist Norman Westberg. Swans might have come to an end on a high note following the tour for the sprawling epic of the masterful 1996 album Soundtracks For the Blind. But in 2010 Swans reconvened and began another great arc of songwriting with songs that had an even more orchestral aesthetic than in the past and a series of albums that have delved into themes of existential terror, mortality, death and the search for meaning later in life in a world seemingly on the brink of unraveling. The latest Swans record, 2023’s The Beggar, finds Gira and his collaborators manifesting some of the songwriter’s most personal statements in songs that experiment even more deeply into modes of expression that disregard conventional notions of song structure and length in favor of experiential truth. Read our interview with Gira here.
Friko, photo by Pooneh Ghana
Friday | 05.10 What:Water From Your Eyes w/Friko and Red Scare When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Water From Your Eyes is the innovative and deeply imaginative art pop band from Brooklyn, New York. Its music is steeped in hip-hop style production with some free association sampling and live instrumentation mixed together for music that often seems reminiscent of an update of 90s IDM which itself had a leg in similar pools of inspiration. Live the duo is somehow both like an alternative hip-hop project and infused with punk spirit. Chicago’s Friko released its debut full-length Where we’ve been, Where we go from here on February 16, 2024 delivering on the promise of its early singles. Niko Kapetan’s captivating vocals have a rawness and vulnerability that is reminiscent of early Bright Eyes and the music is a thrilling fusion of post-punk angularity, orchestral arrangements and classic power pop with moments of noise rock fury.
Belle and Sebastian in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 05.10 What:Belle and Sebastian w/The Weather Station When: 7 Where: Fillmore Auditorium Why: Belle & Sebastian is the highly influential indie pop band from Glagow, Scotland. Its emotionally rich delicately crafted songs not short on literary quality are some of the foundations of modern indie rock and yet the band has continued to offer fine records including its 2023 record Late Developers for which the band is conducting a rare live tour. As a live band the group has a sprightly charm with shows that can feel a bit like you’ve been invited to someone’s living room to be in on something that is otherwise intimate and private but friendly.
Friday | 05.10 What: Panchiko w/Wisp and Weatherday When: 7 Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: Panchiko is a bit of a cult indie rock band that was originally around in the late 90s through 2001 when it split leaving behind few recordings but D>E>A>T>H>M>E>T>A>L its 2000 EP got a bit of a new life in the mid-2010s when a CD was found in an Oxfam charity shop and was very much an enigma. Fast forward to 2020 and the EP gets a deluxe reissue and in 2023 the group released its beautifully bizarre shoegaze/IDM/glitch pop record Failed at Math(s).
Guided by Voices, photo by Trevor Naud
Friday | 05.10 What:Guided By Voices w/Undersale When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Guided By Voices has been putting out a steady stream of unique garage rock albums of varying levels of inventiveness and quality since and yet it seems like band leader Bob Pollard has a seemingly endless supply of great riffs and something insightful to say about the human condition. Currently the group is touring in support of its 2024 album Strut of Kings.
Members of Teacup Gorilla from Grapefuit Lab’s Whiskey from Strangers
F-S | 05.10-06.01 What:Grapefruit Lab Presents Whiskey From Strangers When: See Schedule Below Where: Buntport Theater Why: Queer theater group Grapefruit Lab launches its new show Whiskey from Strangers. The production weaves personal narrative and Denver mythology into a live concept album that runs weekends from Friday, May 10 through Saturday June 1. In collaboration with local indie rock band Teacup Gorilla the show will be part theater and part live musical performance. The show is imbued with a nostalgia for “Old Denver” in its mythic dimensions and adding new lore to the story. It is part album release as the live band draws stories from songwriter and musician Miriam Suzanne’s novel Riding SideSaddle for nine songs that explore themes of friendship, loss, identity and memory with the Mile High City as almost another character the way New York City and Los Angeles often are in movies set in those cities. The previous Grapefruit Lab shows have all been brilliant and poignant commentaries on American culture and how we all find ourselves navigating life with that legacy but through a queer lens that resonates beyond the specificity of identity. The final night of the run will include a performance by psychedelic indiepop phenoms The Green Typewriters. For tickets click on the link above and for the schedule of the run of the show see the dates and times below.
Friday, May 10th, 7:30PM Saturday, May 11th, 7:30PM Friday, May 17th, 7:30PM Saturday, May 18th, 7:30PM Sunday, May 19th, 2:00PM Friday, May 24th, 7:30PM Saturday, May 25th, 7:30PM Sunday, May 26th, 2:00PM Friday, May 31st, 7:30PM Saturday, June 1st, 7:30PM
Members of Teacup Gorilla from Grapefuit Lab’s Whiskey from StrangersCSS, photo be Gleeson Paulino
Saturday | 05.11 What: CSS When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: CSS is the renowned dance punk band from São Paulo, Brazil. The group made a name for itself in the US with the release of its 2006 album Cansei de Ser Sexy (“[Got] tired of being sexy”) and its first single “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above.” It’s playful and smooth sound was at times reminiscent of Tom Tom Club and a funkier version of its electroclash contemporaries like Ladytron with whom it toured the same year as the release of the album. In 2013 the group split but reunited in 2019 for what was planned to be a one-off show in their hometown but now currently touring in celebration of the 20 year anniversary of their coming together.
brother bird, photo by Chris Bauer
Saturday | 05.11 What: Dustin Kensrue w/The Brevet and brother bird When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Dustin Kensrue is perhaps better known for being the lead singer and guitarist with influential post-hardcore band Thrice. His solo songwriting is decidedly different in style and mood and really more a solid Americana and country flavor. The Brevet is a rock band in the more gritty end of pop Americana with anthemic choruses and earnest and uplifting melodies. Now brother bird, the project of one Caroline Glaser, may have similar roots as the other two bands on the bill in country, folk and Americana. But her 2024 album another year has an delicacy of feeling and emotional strength at the core of the songwriting that is immediately accessible. The songs hit like songs from direct, actual experiences channeled through a creative interpretive lens without losing the essential truths of the real life stories. Glaser’s arrangements are simultaneously intimate and orchestral and in moments may be reminiscent for some of the early Rilo Kiley records.
Pond, photo by Michael Tartaglia
Saturday | 05.11 What:Pond w/26FIX When: 8 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Pond from Perth, Australia has been developing its sound since forming in 2008 and though it shares membership with Tame Impala, Pond’s music has charted a musically divergent course. Its latest album Stung! (due out June 21, 2024) makes more obvious the influence of R&B and neo soul on its songwriting. Which is a contrasting departure from the more krautrock and electro-soul sounds of the 2021 album 9. But whatever flavor Pond is swimming in at the moment its live shows have a lushly transporting quality like the modern equivalent of a 1970s psychedelic space rock band circa late 70s Hawkwind with the mystical space vagabond trappings discarded in favor of glam rock.
X Ambassadors, photo by Jay Hanson
Tuesday | 05.14 What:X Ambassarors w/New West and Rowan Drake When: 6:30 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: X Ambassadors released its latest album Townies in April 2024 and the record feels like particularly vivid portraits of life in the kind of town that exists all across America where there’s a nearby college and an industrial town that partly caters to the needs of the school while having a social world not dependent on the academic institution while its native residents are often looked down upon by students as yokels. The songs are a warm depiction of life in these towns and the inherent dignity of people whose dreams and aspirations are, frankly, no less worthwhile or hopeful than those of their more well-heeled peers and whose stories have a unique poetic resonance. The songs for the band this time out are a little moodier, more atmospheric and introspective and with lyrics that shine a light on everyday life in all its vibrant and recognizable detail whether the details of which are harrowing, heartwarming or heartbreaking.
Slow Crush, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 05.15 What:Amenra w/Primitive Man and Slow Crush When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Amenra is a Belgian post-metal band whose deeply atmospheric heavy compositions wed a cinematic aesthetic with a seemingly orchestral approach to its performances and arrangements. The names of its albums are reminiscent of classical suites but the music though steeped in exquisitely performed feats of technical prowess are cathartic and emotionally charged. Primitive Man is the by now legendary doom trio form Denver whose songs are an exorcism of the destructive nihilism of modern human civilization and its negative effects on all our lives as not prosperity but repression and internalized violence trickles down from the power elite. Slow Crush is one of the heaviest shoegaze bands on earth but whose music nevertheless has an ethereal grace that elevates its crushing songs into otherworldly realms of transcendent melodicism.
CNTS, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 05.17 What: Moon Pussy, Church Fire, The Kronk Men and CNTS When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: CNTS are a band from L.A. whose sound seems to draw from hardcore and noise rock in equal measure with a caustic irreverence and hostility toward faux feel-good sentiments and empty gesture sloganeering. Clear roots in The Jesus Lizard and maybe Unsane. The Kronk Men from Bend, Oregon are somehow a post-hardcore surf rock band with a touch of dark psychedelia. Church Fire is of course the industrial dance trio from Denver who turn a maelstrom of pain, sadness, outrage and righteous anger into incredibly heartfelt music. Moon Pussy obliterates the line between great noise rock band, inspired awkward comedy and electrifying live performance art.
Medium Build, photo by Tyler Krippaehne
Friday and Saturday | 05.17 and 05.18 What: Medium Build w/Rosie Rush When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Nicholas Carpenter played music for a handful of years in Little Moses while an intern at Disney Publishing. But moved to Alaska after that internship was over and started his current project Medium Build. Maybe getting away from his upbringing and roots and the American South was what Carpenter needed to spark his current prolific arc of songwriting but his lyrics are informed by working class sensibilities and cultural references that tell vivid tales of life’s all too at hand and intense struggles and joys. His new album, Country, released April 5, 2024 and its raw and vulnerable compositions are poignantly introspective like Carpenter took a deep dive into the fractured places in his own psyche in search of a personal reconciliation and finding that healing the bruised and broken places in your mind require more patience and grace than many of us are afforded. He’ll be haring his emotional discoveries across two nights a The Bluebird and throughout the tour.
IDLES< photo by Daniel Topete
Saturday | 05.18 What:IDLES w/Ganser When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: IDLES took a decidedly different musical turn with the release of its fifth album Tangk in February 2024. Singer and frontman Joe Talbot has said in interviews and press releases that the songs are about love and an attempt to get people hearing the music to dance and not overthink but to feel genuinely. It probably shocked and maybe even disappointed people who got into the band for its early, angular and ferocious post-punk. But the spirited energy is still there, it’s just swimming in moody atmospheric layers at times and others the aggression that has made earlier music from the band so engaging and exciting is delivered with more sonic creativity. The first half of the album almost sounds like a different band with experimental soundscapes and tonal textures worthy of early Liars. And in the lyrics the vulnerable sentiments are preserved and curiously and refreshingly exposed. How this will translate to the live show will have to be witnessed and certainly IDLES won’t disappoint. Also on the bill is the great darkwave post-punk art rock band Ganser from Chicago.
Red Rum Club, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 05.18 What: Red Rum Club w/High Street Joggers Club and Card Catalog When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Liverpool’s Red Rum Club released its latest album Western Approaches in February 2024. The album is just under 32 minutes at eleven songs and is a fine example song by song of economical songwriting without sound like the band is skimping on rich melodies and storytelling. The group’s eclectic style straddles power pop and blue eyed soul with a standout brass section and infuses it with an infectious energy.
BleakHeart in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 05.19 What: BleakHeart w/Palehorse/Palerider and George Cessna When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Denver-based, dark shoegaze band BleakHeart celebrates the release of its second album Silver Pulse with a performance this night sharing the stage with friends the likeminded post-rock/tribal shoegaze act Palehorse/Palerider and singer-songwriter George Cessna whose work traverses realms of moody and existential Americana. The new BleakHeart album leans into the group’s more orchestral impulses with vocalists Kiki GaNun and Kelly Schilling interweaving their vocal talents further to create moving choruses, perfectly accenting each other’s voices.
Judah & The Lion, photo courtesy the artists
Sunday | 05.19 What: NEEDTOBREATHE w/Judah & The Lion When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Why: NEEDTOBREATHE is the Southern rock/Americana band from Seneca, South Carolina that has been building its audience since its 2001 inception. In 2023 it released its latest album Caves. On the track “Dreams” the group brought in Nashville-based electro folk and pop duo Judah & The Lion to bring in its own delicate and intricate touches to the song. Judah & The Lion released its new album The Process on May 10, 2024 establishing the band as masters of pastoral soundscapes and fusing the aesthetics of electronic pop and more traditional songwriting and musicianship. The album’s songs are simultaneously otherworldly and warm with an emotional immediacy.
Sculpture Club, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 05.21 What: Sculpture Club w/Lesser Care, Baby Baby and Kill You Club DJs When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sculpture Club is a synthpop-inflected post-punk band from Dallas that is touring ahead of the release of its self-titled album due out June 14 and sharing the stage tonight with the great shoegaze/post-punk trio Lesser Care from El Paso which released its latest record HEEL TURN in March 2024. Also on the bill is avant-pop group Baby Baby from Denver.
Mount Kimbie, photo by T. Bone Fletcher
Tuesday | 05.21 What: Mount Kimbie w/Chanel Beads When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Mount Kimbie has been charting a left field musical path since its 2008 inception. It began by innovating in the UK dubstep scene and has generally traveled in the circles of innovative and avant-garde electronic music and rightfully so. Utilizing field recordings, live instrumentation, programming and samples Mount Kimbie has blurred the boundaries between musique concrète, abstract hip-hop, IDM, ambient, dubstep and indie rock. Its latest record The Sunset Violent in particular pushes those boundaries with songs that are as accessible as they are challenging with a tranquil yet expansive mood that runs throughout the album’s runtime. Opening act Chanel Beads is a producer and expert soundscaper in his own right from New York. His debut album Your Day Will Come dropped on April 19, 2024 and its heavily-percussion and bass driven music is imbued with reflective, melancholic moods reminiscent of Safe in the Hands of Love-period Yves Tumor but more informed by hypnogogic pop and chillwave.
Chanel Beads, photo by Lauren DavisGuitar Wolf, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 05.22 What:Guitar Wolf w/Hans Condor When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Tokyo’s Guitar Wolf is the kind of mutant garage punk/noise rock that is easy to understand and difficult to explain. It’s raw exuberance as a live band is incredibly infectious and makes the madness and malestrom of its sound and live performance something to get swept up within. Listen to any of its records and it can be a blunt, fractured, hyperkinetic rock and roll that sounds like it’s deconstructing and imploding while you’re listening to it yet there is a primal charm to what this bands does on recordings and at its shows. It must simply be experienced at least once by anyone even pretending to be into rock music.
Optic Sink, Shawn Brackbill
Thursday | 05.23 What:Optic Sink w/Voight and Pill Joy When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Optic Sink is a project of Natalie Hoffman of art punk outfit NOTS from Memphis, Tennessee. She spent some time as the bassist of Ex Cult as well. This band is synth driven, minimalist post-punk seemingly inspired in part by early synth bands like The Normal and Fad Gadget. But on the band’s 2023 album Glass Blocks it also covered Liliput’s “A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock, Somewhere” for an effect not unlike Young Marble Giants with synths or extra stripped down Suburban Lawns or Roxy Music. Opening is shoegaze-post-punk duo Voight from Denver whose music is informed by and includes synth composition and aesthetics. But all undergirded by an emotional intensity that warps its purely musical aspects into interesting sonic shapes.
Waxahatchee, photo by Molly Matalon
Thursday | 05.23 What: Waxahatchee w/Good Morning When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Waxahatchee is touring in support of its new record Tigers Blood. The previous record Saint Cloud felt like a shift in a new direction in singer Katie Crutchfield’s songwriting and this new record feels even more like Crutchfield has stripped the elements to the essentials. Part of that sound suits well the desire the songwriter has expressed in rediscovering the appealing essence of an already existing relationship, relationships and life situations. A re-orienting, a grounding and coming back from a vital place with which to imbue the performances and sentiments with fresh conviction. It’s not a radically different sound from the commanding indie folk and Americana flavor that has established Waxahatchee as a band to watch but after four years and the prolonged period of the early pandemic it sounds like Crutchfield reconnected with something in heart mind and heart that might have fallen out of sync as it did with everyone the past handful of years.
Trauma Ray in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 05.24 What:Trauma Ray w/Downward, World’s Worst and Cherished When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Trauma Ray is the shoegaze doom band from Fort Worth, Texas whose sound and energy comes off like the people in the band came out of the that city’s local punk scene. Presumably Downward is the emo-inflected post-rock band from Tulsa, Oklahoma. World’s Worst from Salt Lake City blurs that emo and shoegaze line perfectly with delicate melodies and raw emotions as manifested most accessibly on its 2023 self-titled album. Cherish is of course the dream pop turned shoegaze band from Denver whose roots come from various places including the local hardcore scene. When the band started out it was called Lowfaith and had more of a death rock sound but over time its music evolved into emotionally charged shoegaze with a real ear for vulnerable moods and intricate yet evocative melodies.
Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 05.25 What: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal w/Midwife When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Wicca Phase Springs Eternal released its self-titled album in 2023 and showcased how one can tap into darkwave moodiness and hip-hop production methods to create something uniquely compelling that doesn’t seem too beholden to the aforementioned styles of music. Opening is Midwife whose heartbreaking, ambient indie folk which she self-styles as “heaven metal” and whose songwriting engages deeply with its radical vulnerability with all pretense of performative toughness that is very much baked into the American psyche dispensed with. The result is instantly relatable music that shows how it’s possible to experience personal loss and feel that so deeply and still find a way to survive without the baggage of needing to “getting over” it.
Allison Lorenzen, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 05.25 What: Allison Lorenzen w/Oldest Sea and Calamity When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: All solo sets from cosmic indie folk artists from Colorado and elsewhere. Allison Lorenzen fuses ambient compositional elements with experimental folk forms for warmly ethereal songs. Lorenzen is undertaking a short tour through the American southwest with Oldest Sea, an artist from New Jersey whose music some might call “funeral doom” because it is heavy, it has grittiness and exudes a densely atmospheric sound that fans of Lingua Ignota and SubRosa might fully appreciate. Calamity for this show will be a solo set from Kate Hannington so the core of her economic songwriting will shine on its own separate from the context of the full band and its more full-fledged shoegaze-adjacent style.
Friko, photo by Pooneh Ghana
Sunday | 05.26 What:Mind’s Eye w/Friko When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Mind’s Eye is a psychedelic, indie garage rock band from Los Angeles whose 2023 album Long Nights and Wasted Affairs that sounds like a blend of early 2010’s post-punk and current shoegaze-y indie rock. Opening the show is Friko from Chicago’s who have been on tour with Water From Your Eyes and whose debut full-length Where we’ve been, Where we go from here dropped in February. The songwriting has the emotional rawness and vulnerability that fans of Bright Eyes and Microphones will appreciate for its orchestral arrangements and noisy power pop sensibilities.
Facet, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 05.27 What:Facet, Church Fire and Probes When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Facet is an angular noise-rock/post-hardcore band from Oakland whose 2023 self-titled album is filled with urgent, caustic, cathartic sounds and sentiments. Think the modern equivalent of a Gravity Records band and if you enjoy that flavor of thrillingly abrasive music and/or Unwound Facet is for you. Church Fire will match the intensity and energy but with beginning to end industrial dance pop. On its Bandcamp page Probes from Denver says it’s “Bleak as fuck.” And it’s doomy sludge rock is heavy and stark like if guys who maybe got started in stoner rock bands discovered Shellac and Unsane.
Melt Banana, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 05.27 What:Melt Banana w/babybaby_explores and Tomato Flower When: 6:30 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Melt Banana is the legendary noise rock/grindcore/electro pop duo from Tokyo whose 32 year career has revealed a knack for making sounds that get under your skin and electrify in the live setting. Witnessing a Melt Banana show is like being grabbed in the embrace of hyperkinetic energy and riding out a barrage of sounds that shift constantly with rapidly evolving rhythms in a train of jump cuts. Absolutely one of a kind and kind of an odd show to have happen at Meow Wolf rather than one of the dive bars the group usually plays in Denver. Melt Banana will soon release its new album 3 + 5.
The Japanese House, photo by Jay Seba
Monday and Tuesday | 05.27 and 05.28 What: Maggie Rogers w/The Japanese House When: 6:30 (both nights) Where: Red Rocks Why: Maggie Rogers apparently transcribed hundreds of hours of interviews for Lizzy Goodman that the latter put into her 2017 epochal book about 2000s New York rock music Meet Me in the Bathroom when she started at NYU thinking about a career in music journalism. But she she caught the songwriting bug and worked her way through an early band and experiments in style when in 2016 she wrote her breakout single “Alaska” Since then the singer-songwriter-producer has established herself as one of the more well known pop artists in the indie realm who is now touring in support of her 2024 album Don’t Forget Me. Opening the show is an artist who has been on the rise as well the past handful of years. Amber Mary Bain is a year younger than Maggie Rogers but has garnered a bit of critical acclaim and built an increasingly wider audience beyond her home country of the UK. Her own brand of indie pop weaves together electronic aesthetics and production so that even her more folk-inflected material has an otherworldly yet warm aspect that lends her songs a unique sense of intimacy.
Draag, photo by Devonte Johnson
Tuesday | 05.28 What: Wednesday w/Draag When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Wednesday is a a band from Asheville, North Carolina whose sound seems to effortlessly shift from noisy shoegaze to alt-country with a curiously coherent ease across an album and sometimes within the same song. Its 2023 album Rat Saw God made that range clear and touring in support of the album the group performed that music with a joyful exuberance that turned the heartbreaking songs into catharsis. Opening the show is Los Angeles-based experimental shoegaze group Draag. Its sound brings together beat-making expertise with ambient soundscaping and abstract dream pop melodies. Its hazy layers of hypnotic sound make a listen to its 2024 album Actually, the quiet is nice like walking into a luminous fog that stimulates your mind and senses in unexpected ways. In moments its reminiscent of Loveless in its tonal drift and creative use of iterative repetition and live it promises an engulfing and transporting effect.
Ladytron, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 05.30 What:Ladytron w/boyhollow When: 7 Where: Reelworks Why: Ladytron is an electronic pop band from Liverpool, England that started in 1999 in a more minimalistic mode that got the group lumped in with the then nascent electroclash movement but its own sound wasn’t too in line with the aesthetics of other artists associated with that style. And almost immediately Ladytron moved on to other production styles, methods and sounds so that by the time of the mid-2000s some people were calling them a shoegaze band but there is nothing guitar-driven in the band’s music though its rich tones and saturated melodies seemed to have a resonance with the way many shoegaze bands reflected the influence of electronic sounds on their own musical expression. In much of the Ladytron sound one hears the influence of the likes of Giorgio Moroder and ABBA. After what seemed like a lengthy hiatus in studio output Ladytron in the last handful of years has released new albums including 2023’s Time’s Arrow. Boyhollow is Michael Trundle the legendary DJ who currently helms the long-running now monthly DJ night Lipgloss at Ophelia’s.
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 05.31 What:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club album release w/Little Fyodor & Babushka Band, Mr. Pacman and MC’d by John Rumley When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is a Denver institution of the Mile High City’s branch of Gothic Americana. But in recent years the group’s albums have showcased the exuberant joy of its live performances as well as the literary underpinnings of the band’s songwriting which has been an often underrated aspect of its music from the beginning. This show occasion’s the release of its latest album Kinnery of Lupercalia; Buell Legion which has some of the most attentive production to the placement of sound in the mix of its albums to date. Opening the show are art punk legends Little Fyodor & Babushka Band and weirdo new wave synth punk giants Mr. Pacman. John Rumley has also been a fixture in Denver music including stints in bands like Urban Leash and The Buckingham Squares. An entire show of bands that have helped make Denver a place where unique music has been emerging for decades.
Suicide Cages, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 05.31 What: Whores w/Native Daughters and Suicide Cages When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Fresh off its performance at the Caterwaul festival in Minneapolis, Atlanta-based noise rock juggernauts are making a stop in Denver. The group recently released its caustic and driving new album WAR. and its tales of inner turmoil and struggles with self-loathing and transcendence from personal darkness. Local support comes from doomy instrumental post-rock band Native Daughters and brutally noisy post-hardcore quartet Suicide Cages.
Emmy Meli, photo by Ashley Osborn
Friday | 05.31 What: Alexander Stewart w/Emmy Meli When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Alexander Stewart is a pop artist originally from Toronto but now based out of Los Angeles who has enjoyed a bit of viral success with over a billion streams of his music to date. His emotive vocal style suits well his heart-on-sleeve lyrics and fusion of auto-tune inflected hip-hop, reggaeton and indie pop. Opening artist Emmy Meli recently released her Hello Stranger EP but made waves with early single “I Am Woman” which she initially posted to TikTok in 2021 where it became a sensation for her soulful and commanding vocals and the song became the theme song to Megan Markle’s podcast Archetypes. Meli is clearly steeped in the tradition of soul and R&B in a fashion that has garnered her some comparisons to Amy Winehouse. Her EP demonstrates that such accolades are very much deserved.
Sheer Mag performs at Hi-Dive on Monday, April 22, 2024, photo by Cecil Shang WhaleyMinistry in 2012, photo by Tom Murphy
Tuesday | 04.02 What:Ministry w/Gary Numan and Front Line Assembly When: 6 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Ministry has been enjoying a new chapter of its existence as a band and supposedly as a live act it has revamped, rediscovered and re-embraced a wide arc of its musical output. As pioneers of EBM and industrial metal Ministry has influenced generations of other artists with its imaginative soundscapes and joyfully scathing social critique. Perhaps influential to Ministry is synth people and rock artist Gary Numan who has had top 40 hits in the early 80s with the landmark synthpop hit “Cars” but whose creative vision of human relationships with each other and with technology while incorporating new methods of making music during the long course of his career has exerted an influence on a wide variety of artists. All synth pop bands today are part of his legacy as well as darkwave and synthwave. And live he’s still a compelling artist with an undeniable mystique. Opening are foundational EBM band Front Line Assembly whose Bill Leeb was an early member of Skinny Puppy with a long and impactful legacy in music all his own.
Tuff Bluff in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 04.05 What:Glue Man w/Total Cult and Tuff Bluff When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Glue Man is a punk band that is part of the “new wave of shitty heavy metal.” It must be assumed the latter is a bit of a joke the people in the band put on their Bandcamp page. Really they sound like guys who listened to a lot of JFA and Crucifucks and that’s no bad thing. Tuff Bluff is a power punk trio fronted by Sara Fischer who has been in more cool local punk bands than most people and whose songwriting is a vital fusion of garage rock and classic punk. Total Cult is the latest band from former Nicotine Fits members guitarist Nick Santa Maria and bassist Bryan Webb who have contributed to various noteworthy projects out of Colorado Springs over the years and when Nick was living in Denver for a bit he was also a member of Poison Rites. So Total Cult is not a cookie cutter punk band even if its songwriting components draw from familiar sounds and moods.
Five Iron Frenzy, photo courtesy Leanor Ortega-Till
Friday and Saturday | 04.05 and 04.06 What: Five Iron Frenzy with MXPX and The Ataris (04.05) and with The Swashbuckling Doctors, The Freeze Ups (Op Ivy cover band), DJ Tara 2 Tone and DJ Monkey Man (04.06) When: 6:30 (04.05) and 6 (04.06) Where: The Ogden Theatre (04.05) and Washington’s (04.06) Why: Five Iron Frenzy is the rock and ska band that started in the mid-90s in Denver. The band has probably been dismissed as a “Christian ska” band by people who never actually listened to the music because there is a thoughtfulness, joy and personal insight into the songwriting that transcends genre and presumed belief systems. Five Iron Frenzy is a band that can poke fun at itself and address serious issues with humor without making a joke out of any of it. Rather it’s shows and music are a celebration of shared humanity and the preciousness and all too often precarious nature of life. On Friday night the band shares the stage with ska punk greats MXPX and pop punk stars The Ataris. On Saturday night in Fort Collins the group will perform extensively from its first three albums, a rarity in its live repertoire.
Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 04.06 THIS SHOW HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED TO SEPT 7, 2024 What: Dust City Opera w/Avourneen When: 7 Where: Swallow Hill Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate.
The Crystal Method from the band’s Facebook
Friday | 04.12 What:The Crystal Method and Rabbit in the Moon When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Two giants of early American 90s electronic on one bill. The Crystal Method made waves with its 1997 debut album Vegas and its futuristic big beat sound that seemed like the soundtrack for a modern version of cyberpunk. Following the 2017 retirement from music of founding member Ken Jordan, The Crystal Method has become the solo project of Scott Kirkland. The 2022 album The Trip Out feels like a sequel to Vegas with similar sensibilities but even more of a hip-hop element in its sound. Rabbit in the Moon predates The Crystal Method by a year when it was founded in 1992 and quickly became part of the burgeoning American rave scene. Free associating house, trance, breakbeats and other musical styles into an entrancing whole, RITM has been an enduring fixture of American underground electronic music.
Jux County, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 04.12 What: Jux County play the Pretenders When: 7 Where: Club 404 Why: Legendary “cowpunk” band Jux County will perform a rare show not of its own music but that of proto-alternative band The Pretenders and in addition to the obvious hits like “Brass in Pocket” and “My City Was Gone,” Jux will probably pull out some deep cuts for the show.
SPELLS, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 04.13 What: SPELLS, Church Fire, Dead Pioneers and Chap When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Garage punk band SPELLS is celebrating the release of its new album Past Our Prime. The title of the album is a bit on the nose because the members of the band are for the most part in their 40s but that’s how the band, risking a too self-aware outmoded expression, rolls. It’s a reliably insightful set of songs about life and aging and staying engaged with the act of living rather than simply existing even if culture and society suggest maybe you should spend your spare time in the evening watching re-runs of the modern equivalent of Matlock and maybe going on vacation to the same spots once or twice a year. Dead Pioneers puts some fiery lyrics into its own punk and Chap is a bit more on the twee emo end of punk in a way you might actually want to hear because that band too seems to have some cogent commentary on human existence. The band that will not be like the others beyond sheer feisty spirit is industrial dance trio Church Fire whose ferocious and heartfelt songs are corrosive to an ossified culture.
Andrés Cepeda, photo by David Rugeles
Sunday | 04.14 What: Andrés Cepeda When: 6:30 Where: Paramount Theatre Why: Andrés Cepeda is one of the most well known musical artists out of his home country of Columbia. A musician since an early age, Cepeda studied music in college and became the lead singer in Latin pop-rock group Poligamia throughout the 90s before pursuing a solo career by the end of that decade. Cepeda’s musical range and depth has garnered him both critical accolades and commercial success in Colombia with his 2001 album El Carpintero going quadruple platinum. He is a four-time winner of the Latin Grammys and his 2023 album Décimo Cuarto attained Gold certification. His emotionally rich and nuanced vocals and musicianship has made the artist a popular figure at home in a similar status as Shakira and Carlos Vives and he has been a judge on La Voz, the Colombian edition of The Voice for twelve seasons. In April 2024, Cepeda will embark on a North American tour of 19 dates including Carnegie Hall in NYC. Calling the string of dates the Tengo Ganas tour, Cepeda and his band will focus more on the pop, rock and electronic side of his songwriting than the more traditional and Balada style with which his name is often immediately associated.
Dancing Plague, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 04.14 What:Dancing Plague, Plague Garden and Alucienma When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Portland, Oregon-based coldwave project Dancing Plague released its latest album Elogium on March 22, 2024. The record is a further refinement of its synth-driven post-punk reminiscent of both Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and D.A.F.. Also on the bill is Denver’s Plague Garden whose style of post-punk fuses melodic death rock, New Wave synth melodies and emotionally refined and bold vocals.
Plague Garden, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 04.15 What: Julien-K w/Priest and Plague Garden When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Julien-K is a more EBM-inflected side project of industrial rock band Orgy. Priest is an enigmatic industrial band from Sweden given to stage theatrics like a group out of a cyberpunk novel of the 90s with a sound that seems to be a melodramatic brand of EBM. Plague Garden concludes its three date mini-tour of Denver this night and on measure promises to be the high point of the evening for more discerning ears.
Meatbodies, photo by Amanda Adam
Wednesday | 04.17 What: Meatbodies w/The Crooked Rugs When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Chad Ubovich has been a bit of a figure in the southern Californian garage and psychedelic rock scene having been a bass player for Mikal Cronin’s band and a touring member of Ty Segall’s live group. He’s also been a contributing member of Fuzz. But since 2014 he has forged his own musical identity with his project Meatbodies. The latter expanded beyond Ubovich’s musical foundations to make a kind of noisy and dreamlike music most fully realized on the 2024 album Flora Ocean Tiger Bloom where the band’s eclectic songwriting pulls you in withentrancing melodies and hypnotic motorik beats and fuzzy-hazy soundscapes that somehow taps into the cosmic psych prog realm of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Suicide, perhaps Wooden Shijps in a more playful mood.
The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 04.19 What:LEAF: Julia Edith Rigby, The Carbon Diablo Ensemble, Mickey Lenny & Nihil Coil and Diggers When: 6:30 Where: Center For Musical Arts Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival proper kicks off this night with an evening of audio-visual artists. Julia Edith Rigby incorporates viola, voice, video, field recordings and sculpture into her performances. The Carbon Diablo Ensemble is an improvisational experimental music collective comprised of Carbon Dioxide Orchestra and Diablo Montalban that will do a live remix of music for the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon directed by Georges Méliès including interactive visual elements, synths, Theremin and dry ice on a copper heart sculpture for a uniquely visceral and sonically engulfing performance. Mickey Lenny and Nihil Coil will combine avant-garde live composition with processed wind instruments and synths and combine that in interactive fashion with retrofuturist imagery. Diggers as manifested for this show will be Eric Barry Drasin and Sean Withers who will recontextualize media imagery and sounds to blur the line between interior and exterior awareness as an exploration of the mediated relationships in which we often find ourselves as a path to comprehend and deconstruct that dynamic.
Traindodge, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 04.19 What:Traindodge w/Self Evident and Almanac Man When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Traindodge is a noise rock/post-hardcore band from Oklahoma City that has been offering up a unique style of its own more akin to the likes of Season To Risk and Shiner. In 2023 the group released its latest album The Alley Parade which synthesizes a power pop knack for melodic hooks and pummeling and caustic riffs. Denver-based Almanac Man is also on the bill and is on the verge of releasing its new record of contorted and propulsive, math-y noise rock in Terrain (due out May 14, 2024 on The Ghost is Clear). Think a DC post-hardcore band that came up in the midwest on a steady diet of Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go bands.
The Non-Renewed, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 04.19 What: The Non-Renewed album release party w/mlady and May Be Fern When: 7 Where: Town Hall Collaborative Why: Denver-based, queer indie rock duo The Non-Renewed is celebrating the release of its self-titled debut album at this show. Meghan Mallon and Mellik Gorton were singers and songwriters in their own right before coming together as creative partners during the early days of the pandemic. The album was recorded by Judybelle Camangyan over two weeks when the producer/engineer also known as JB flew in from Los Angeles to help their college friend Mallon realize the 8 song record. The music is like a look back on a period that many Americans seem to have moved on from even if the early pandemic left an indelible mark on the lives and psyches of people worldwide with reverberations still felt deep inside us and after effects that seem mysterious until they’re traced back to the lingering impacts of the ways the early pandemic affected how we relate to one another, how we have lived and how we have had to learn to live differently. The album’s gentle rhythms and warm melodies make its themes of grief, heartbreak, loss of all kinds and resilience in the face of multiple stressors hitting all at once seem like experiences we can parse and handle with grace and dignity.
The Playground Ensemble in 2019, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 04.20 What: LEAF Day 2: jesterN, Playground Ensemble, Kevin Sweet, Paulus van Horne & FMSHAGGI at Center for Musical Arts When: 6:30 Where: Center for Musical Arts Why: jesterN repurposes found or “decontextualized” analog devices to explore the “connections between light and sound through installations and performances. So expect unique projection type visuals with equally unorthodox sound sources in synergistic fashion. The Playground Ensemble is one of Denver’s premier avant-garde so expect something unpredictable, creative and not short on elements of performance art. Kevin Sweet’s performance will incorporate generative sound and audio-reactive visuals. Paulus van Horne and FMSHAGGI will offer a performance exploring the concept called by visual and sound artist Brandon LaBelle calls “the lexicon of the mouth” utilizing drone, granular synthesis and computer voices and in this case coupled with the visual art sensibilities of the paired artists.
LOG., photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 04.20 What: LOG. album release show w/Bolonium When: 7 Where: The Mercury Cafe Why: It might be misleading to say LOG. has been a musical institution for over two decades but the enigmatic band’s eclectic and experimental sounds and theatrical live shows have been part of the local scene since at least the 90s. Fans of the likes of Primus, Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum will appreciate the weirdness and raw energy of LOG. Additionally the group has released its latest album Dumptruck Sayonara and is celebrating the release with this show sharing the bill with like-minded weirdos Bolonium. The record is brimming with undeniable pop hooks and angular post-punk rhythms that somehow hit as fluid and funky. Live you just don’t know what you’re in for because the band isn’t above injecting elements of industrial percussion and free jazz. And there’s not much like the band around which is recommendation enough.
Munly & The Lupercalians in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 04.21 What:Munly & The Lupercalians w/Josephine Foster When: 6 Where: Hi-DIve Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is the experimental, Gothic Americana band of Jay Munly who is more often known these days as a member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. For this project the music is a little darker if drawing upon similar sound sources and its presentation is more like a pagan mystery cult. The songwriting builds upon where Munly has come from out of an underground folk scene and the Vaudeville Americana of Munly & Lee Lewis Harlots. Josephine Foster draws upon rustic music making methods and her albums sound spare and minimal with guitar and vocals but Foster’s songwriting weaves into her sounds aspects of environmental noises and textures one might expect from a live performance spent collecting field recordings.
Sheer Mag, photo by Natalie Piserchio
Monday | 04.22 What:Sheer Mag w/Cleaner, Flora De La Luna and DJs Glimmer of Nope When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: When Sheer Mag emerged around 2014 it soon made a name for itself as a scrappy and commanding live act whose music completely knocked down barriers between punk spirit and raw power, power pop and classic hard rock. Singer Tina Halladay struck a uniquely commanding figure whose powerhouse voice and husky tunefulness brings to the music an immediate and accessible appeal. The group’s latest record Playing Favorites (2024) is a glorious fusion of garage punk and a youth having been subjected to classic rock like Thin Lizzy, Boston and Molly Hatchet and resenting it before finding in that music a valid foundation for songcraft and musicianship. And like many a Philly band, Sheer Mag has taken whatever its roots might be and made something utterly its own with one of the best live rock shows going.
Bruce Hornsby, photo by Kat Fisher
Tuesday | 04.23 What:Bruce Hornsby and yMusic present BrhyM When: 7 Where: Paramount Theatre Why: yMusic is a chamber sextet from New York City that has released a handful of albums of original material but it has also toured with other artists and worked on collaborative music projects with the likes of Ben Folds. Bruce Hornsby is a respected, Grammy winning artist with decades of hits and musical accomplishment in his eclectic career including his 1980s run with Bruce Hornsby and The Range. But Hornsby has been a touring member of Grateful Dead, he’s written bluegrass music and jazz and now a collaborative art pop album with yMusic collectively known as BrhyM with the March 1, 2024 release of the album Deep Sea Vents. It’s a unique and ambitious set of songs that draw upon an architecture of classical music and musical ideas from a broad range of American music to craft strange and creative songs that seem like a story cycle you’d more expect to manifest as a cinematic work. Think something along the lines of Carla Bley working with They Might Be Giants and you have something of the vibe. This is a rare chance to see this set of musicians perform the music live on its current and who can say possibly only tour.
ULTRA SUNN, photo courtesy the artists
Thursday | 04.25 What:She Past Away w/Ultra Sunn and Hex Cassette When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: She Past Away is the great Turkish post-punk/darkwave band whose haunting vocals, electronic beats, icy synths and ethereal guitars are immediately reminiscent of The Cure and peers in modern post-punk, Molchat Doma. With lyrics in Turkish the duo has nevertheless garnered a cult following well outside of Turkey with music that resonates with a certain anxiety and weariness with a world that seems so precarious these days. Opening the show is Denver’s great, dark industrial dance phenomenon Hex Cassette whose theatrical menace is matched only by the raw exuberance and liberated spirit with which he performs and invites the audience to share in the joy of release. Also touring with She Past Away is the Belgian darkwave duo ULTRA SUNN who just released a new record called US. The group’s knack for percussive, electronic bass lines and haunted synth melodies are a perfect companion for its lyrics about personal struggles, disillusionment, integrity, resilience and love all manifest in dramatic and vivid form throughout the record’s nine songs. Fans of Nitzer Ebb and Covenant will definitely find a lot to appreciate with what ULTRA SUNN has to offer.
Friday | 04.26 What:LEAF: Mary Elias Letera, Moss Pig, Mr. Knobs When: 9 Where: The End Why: This second weekend of the live performances as part of the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival includes sets from Mary Elias Letera, an intermedia artist, performer and software developer who utilizes light, sound and dance as part of her integrated creative works such as her 2023 piece “Eclipse.” Moss Pig is an all-hardware electronic live act comprised of SoLRkaT aka Coldfuture and Neptune Luau. Think of the music as a progression of the minimalist techno of the 2000s into more experimental territory evolving with each composition. Mr Knobs is an electro-acoustic trio that seems to produce a fusion of progressive pop, world music and New Age sensibilities.
Saturday | 04.27 What:Weep Wave, The Crooked Rugs, In Plain Air When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Seattle’s Weep Wave recently released its latest album Speck. The band’s music might be described as a complete synthesis of angular post-punk and psychedelic Krautrock style that fans of JOHN and Meatbodies will appreciate. Fort Collins psych band The Crooked Rugs opened for the latter recently and proved themselves prime purveyors of an arty, poetic and hypnotic atmospheric rock of its own.
Cindy Lee, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 04.28 What:Cindy Lee w/Freak Heat Waves and Pink Lady Monster When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Cindy Lee is the long-running project of Patrick Flegel, former singer and guitarist in cult experimental guitar band Women. Cindy Lee’s output has been decidedly more conceptual in approach to songwriting, sound palette and performance. Its latest album, the sprawling Diamond Jubilee, is purportedly the swan song for the band or at least this run of shows is billed as a farewell tour. The triple LP is a parallel universe psychedelic folk garage lo fi journey through life in the modern era and all its struggles, romance, idealism, disappointment, resilient dreaming and yearning for a fulfilling life not dominated by marketing to others and to ourselves as per the standard mode of existence under late capitalism. The album is available for download for free or for donation through a geocities link in the bio of the YouTube video for the entire album (see below). Freak Heat Waves is a band that has completely integrated post-punk melancholy and disregard for convention with downtempo techno for a sound that feels like pop music from a future that already arrived but we never got to experience except through art. Pink Lady Monster is Denver’s premiere No Wave jazz dream pop noise rock quintet.
A.M. Pleasure Assassins at FoCoMx 2023, photo courtesy the artists
Sunday | 04.28 What: A.M. Pleasure Assassins album release show w/Weep Wave When: 7 Where: Surfside 7 Why: For over a decade A.M. Pleasure Assassins have helped keep Fort Collins weird with its ever evolving sound that has explored a variety of sounds and folded it into its eclectic aesthetic. Clearly the impact of 90s indie pop, lo-fi tape collage pop, post-punk, dub and psychedelia. For this show the group is releasing its latest offering, Cloudy, Black, Red and All Over which while offering a highly accessible sound still overflows with the group’s experimental sensibilities. And if you go and couldn’t make it to the Denver show to see Seattle psychedelic post-punk band Weep Wave, it’s on this bill as well.
Sunday | 04.28 What: The Pharcyde w/Souls of Mischief, Stay Tuned and Mike Wird When: 7 Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Why: The Pharcyde were an acclaimed hip-hop crew throughout the 90s with an ear for the more left field sounds and jazz sensibilities in their beats and production. Their 1995 album Labcabincalifornia may not have been a hit with critics but the group’s main collaborator for the record was J Dilla so the album definitely had a feel, mood and texture that is unconventional and looking forward to more innovative hip-hop of later years and resonant with peers like A Tribe Called Quest and Digable Planets. The single “Runnin’” became an enduring hit for the band. Though The Pharcyde hasn’t released new music in some 20 years there has been a touch of newer material hinting at a new full length the latter has yet to be released though you may hear some of that at this show which includes another legendary act of underground hip-hop in Souls of Mischief as well as Denver luminaries Stay Tuned.
Nightshark in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 04.29 What: The Electric Nature (Athens, GA) w/Nightshark and Debaser When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: The Electric Nature is an experimental improv band from Athens, Georgia whose soundscapes combine elements of psychedelic drone, industrial noise, power electronics, field recordings and dark ambient. So it’s only fitting that Denver’s Nightshark will bring its own progressive, improv No Wave jazz and noise wildness for the evening alongside one-man percussion, guitar and electronics free form performance project Debaser comprised of Josh Taylor who some may know for his stints in Friends Forever and Foot Village as well as being one of the main people behind legendary DIY space Monkey Mania and his tenure with Los Angeles DIY venue staple The Smell.
Saturday | 03.02 What:Thor w/Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Chamber Mage, DJ Eagle Wing When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: THOR is the legendary, early heavy metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded and fronted by Jon Mikl Thor, a body building champion who among other titles won the designations of being Mr. USA and Mr. World Canada. When forming the band in 1973 Thor brought together his status as a body builder with music with his physical appearance and presence lending itself well to incorporating an early Viking warrior and gladiator image. In the mid-70s the band toured throughout the Eastern USA and Canada before gaining the attention of Merv Griffin who had the group perform on the Merv Griffin Show when it was broadcasting from Caesars Palace. That appearance garnered the group a record deal with RCA. With a new band lineup in 1977 and regular touring along with some releases under its belt, THOR made it over to England following a distribution deal where it signed with Motörhead manager Douglas Smith and relocated to London in 1984. Two records and three years later, the band called it quits in 1987 with Jon Mikl trying his hand at further his acting career. But that wasn’t the end of the road for THOR and a cult following lead to enough renewed interest that the group re-formed in 1997. The band has since become more active and musically prolific than it ever was in its first run and THOR continues to tour and evolve its performance concept, these days with THOR as a cowboy more in that heroic Roy Rogers and maybe even The Lone Ranger vein. In 2024 THOR will release its latest album Ride of the Iron Horse on March 15, 2024 and this may be an opportunity to catch those songs live. Give a listen to our interview with Jon Mikl Thor here.
Voivod circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 03.03 What:Voivod and Prong w/Cobranoid When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Voivod is the visionary early thrash band from Canada whose sound embraced elements beyond heavy metal and as the years have progressed Voivod could sometimes sound like a strange post-punk or industrial band and its own progressive metal/thrash roots have always been more imaginative than many of its peers. Its latest album Morgöth Tales (2023) is vintage Voivod with the spiraling twists and turns in its guitar leads and both gritty and haunted vocals with science fiction themed lyrics that clearly comment with great clarity and poignancy about the state of the world and with some nice Easter Eggs in the music and lyrics referencing earlier Voivod albums like Dimension Hatröss (1988). Live be prepared for a band that performs more like a hardcore band than one might expect from its art rock leanings. Prong also early on from its 1986 inception more than flirted with electronic sounds, industrial beats and what might be described as thrash psychedelia in its songwriting. And now the veteran band is touring in support of its 2023 album State of Emergency. An ideal double bill in classic heavy music.
Cat Power, photo courtesy matador.com
Monday | 03.04 What: Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert When: 7 Where: Paramount Theatre Why: In 2023 Cat Power released the ambitious live cover album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (she knows it was at Manchester Free Free Trade Hall, but the legend differs). It’s a faithful recreation of the concert wherein Dylan switches halfway through from acoustic to electric instrumentation and someone in the audience yelled “Judas!” because how dare one of the darlings of folk music betray the tradition so callously and publicly. Quainter times but Cat Power’s performance, now recreated live on stage, is powerful and brilliantly rendered in exquisite detail in a way that is both ironic and sincere as an act of cultural and creative time travel and trying on a classic outfit for size in a musical sense in the way only Chan Marshall can. Why did she do this? Marshall has long made other people’s music her own as a tribute to their influence and impact and this was just the next level and taking on an absolute classic performance traded as bootlegs for years, a move that perhaps Dylan would have approved and who knows, maybe did behind the scenes. Whatever the origins of this effort Cat Power is a commanding live performer with undeniable mystique and emotional range and this will probably be the only time she tours this show.
Otoboke Beaver, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 03.05 What:Otoboke Beaver w/Drinking Boys and Girls Choir When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Otoboke Beaver is the hyperkinetic hardcore/post-punk/garage rock band from Kyoto that seemed to leap from very underground status in America before 2022 to a bit of a cult phenomenon following the release of that year’s ferocious, culturally and politically incisive and sharply humorous album Super Champon. The group toured extensively behind the record including a stop at Globe Hall in Denver where it sold out the show and with relentless energy and raw charisma more than earned its growing popularity followed by a return show at The Bluebird and now The Gothic. The group deftly uses media and cultural references in deconstructing consumerism and misogyny in almost a parody of Japanese television and its phantasmagorical reality TV shows and advertising. There is a nuanced awareness in what the band is doing while also making it all fun and exciting and to any extent that it’s kitschy it is a knowing employment of tropes that also embraces the uniqueness of Japanese popular culture and its widely varied manifestations.
Real Estate, photo by Sinna Nasseri
Wednesday | 03.06 What: Real Estate w/Florry When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Real Estate is a veteran band of 2000s and 2010s indie rock that survived changing tastes and the whole period when blogs and online music journalism made and sometimes unmade bands. And the pandemic which has been rough on the world of music generally. Its early sound may have been more shaped by jangle pop and surf rock with a drift toward dream pop in the 2010s. But with the release of its 2024 album Daniel it seems that Real Estate is firmly comfortable in embracing the entirety of its musical development with a soft melodicism that lends itself well to observational songs of adult introspection and assessment of what makes living meaningful and resonant after the rush of youth has long burned out but one’s desire to do more than just go along with being a cog in society’s machine. The record speaks to how none of us really wants to just plug in and go along with being a passive consumer when there’s so much of life left to live yet and so much of it is more than just going to work, doing some menial thing for 8-10 hours and commuting home and watching TV and maybe on the weekend do some shopping or engage in some light local tourism or super premeditated and marketed “adulting” amusement. The songs on Daniel are more reflective and speak to more going on than what we’ve been lead to believe means what it looks like to “grow up.”
Cherry Glazerr, photo by Maddy Rotman
Wednesday | 03.06 What: Cherry Glazerr w/Wombo When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Clementine Creevy has been doing Cherry Glazerr since she was a teenager in 2013 and the project has evolved in always sonically interesting and ambitious directions. Early on the music might have been described as dream pop and shoegaze and that has been a consistent sound that runs through the band’s music through to today. But the 2023 album I Don’t Want You Anymore seems more gritty and raw and with more distorted, jagged edges and orchestrated moments of poignant dramatic flourishes alongside the masterful fusion of electronic composition and moody guitar rock. It sounds like the kind of album that serves as a way to write out coming to terms with the downbeats of one’s own life with daring honesty and arguably the trio’s finest record. Opening the show is the arty post-punk band Wombo from Louisville, Kentucky who for many is one of the great underground bands of the last several years. Its records are all inventive exercises in threading together psychedelic rock and whatever it was Pere Ubu was doing in its early days yet making it oddly immediately accessible with a startlingly commanding live performance.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, photo by Olivia Oyama
Thursday | 03.07 What: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum w/Dreadnought, Surplus 1980 When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum established itself as one of the great cult bands out of the 90s and 2000s with its utterly unique melange of theater, heavy art rock and psychedelia. Safe to say it would be challenging to compare the band’s music to that of any of its contemporaries except maybe something Mike Patton might be doing around the same time and in fact Matthias Bossi and Patton worked together for a live score for the 1924 film Waxworks. Its records are all fascinating pieces that at times seem industrial, others the kind of industrial noise rock one might expect from Cop Shoot Cop with the cathartic flourishes heard more often in the music of Swans—Frank Zappa gone fully jazz punk. When SGM split in 2011 probably no one was expecting a reunion but that’s what happened in 2023 and now the legendary experimental band is touring behind the release of its new album of the Last Human Being and yes it’s as wonderfully weird and as challenging and rewarding as one might hope to hear. Opening are Denver psychedelic doom band Dreadnought and Surplus 1980, a group headed by SGM’s Moe Staiano and in a what might be described as an avant-garde post-punk dub vein.
Ryan Beatty, photo by Lucas Creighton
Thursday | 03.07 What: Ryan Beatty When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Ryan Beatty got started in his musical career by posting videos on his YouTube channel beginning in 2011 and while still a teen embarked touring but with his image and thus to some extent his music and personal expression limited by adhering to a supposedly palatable media image for mainstream consumption. So he fired his management team leading to his not being able to actually put out his own music until he was around 20 years old. But Beatty’s warmly expressive vocals and ear for evocative arrangements meant he has been able to find success on his own terms. His 2023 album Calico with its wide open yet intimate sounds and production that lets the songs sound like they might be recorded at home minus the rich vocal sounds and orchestral touches that contrast well with sound design that capture background sounds to give the more pristine elements a human context.
Body, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.07 What: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash w/Body and Ryan Wong Band When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash is sort of a psychedelic country band from Denver that includes of course Clayton Dexter and at least for the 2023 self-titled album Paul Dehaven (Paper Bird, Eye & the Arrow, Heavy Diamond Ring). But of course the music stylistically ranges far from that sometimes limiting format and at times the band sounds like some sort of glam rock-flavored synth pop band with guitar twang. Body is a synth pop band that includes former members of Ned Garthe Explosion and Hindershot that though a trio seems to produce a massive and immersive panoply of sound. Ryan Wong Band is refreshingly a fairly straight forward country band from Denver that seems to draw its roots from a time when country didn’t need to stay on some narrow brand for a sound palette and dips into the realm of cosmic country as well.
Replica City in June 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.08 What: Replica City w/Quits and Supreme Joy When: 6:30 Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Replica City is a post-punk band from Denver that is more informed by the likes of Dinosaur Jr than Joy Division and it will release its new EP Gift of Knives on March 5, 2024 for which this show is a celebration. Quits is the great Denver noise rock institution whose own album Feeling It released in September 2023 with a support tour in 2024. Supreme Joy is an angular post-punk band from Denver that has more than a leg in jangly psychedelic rock but think more in the vein of something like JOHN, Women or Swell Maps.
Black Flag, photo courtesy Artists World Wide
Saturday | 03.09 What:Black Flag – 40th Anniversary of My War When: 7:30 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Black Flag’s 1984, second album My War introduced fans of the group’s ferocious and technically proficient hardcore to sludgier, heavy sounds and grinding tempos in a way that proved influential on the genre and crossover bands. Apparently, Black Flag had already done the accelerated punk thing for years and simply had to do something different. And for this show you’ll probably get to see the album in its entirety as well as other Black Flag classics. Greg Ginn is the only original member but getting to see Ginn unleash those crazy Black Flag riffs is still something impressive to behold.
Laetitia Sadier, photo by Marie Merlet
Saturday | 03.09 What: Laetitia Sadier w/Susan James When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Laetitia Sadier is the charismatic and soulful singer and songwriter who is perhaps best known for being a lead singer in experimental rock band Stereolab. But Sadier has long had projects outside the latter including a reliably fascinating solo career consisting of five albums since 2010 including Rooting for Love which dropped on February 23, 2024. In the album’s songs one years the lush, downtempo, jazz and Bossa Nova inflected art pop that has been Sadier’s signature musical flavor for decades. But there is a spaciousness in Sadier’s solo work that is inviting and soothing without being soporific. Her warm and expressive vocals sit solidly in the mix of drifting atmospheres as well as grounding the more energetic passages. The album sounds like a conversation about weighty subjects in French and English but in a manner that invites imagination and compassion to combine to look toward a world that is moving beyond the petty and incredibly destructive civilizational patterns, a death spiral really, in which our species now seems stuck. Sadier looks toward a time past that psychological gridlock honoring the complexities of human existence and habits that got us there. Susan James is a renowned singer-songwriter whose experimental, psychedelic folk also seems to draw bit from 60s French pop as well and whose 2015 album Sea Glass marked a shift in the artist’s songwriting to more incorporation of her influences among minimalist composers. It was also produced by Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas fame, an artist who in his own music fused psychedelic pop and the avant-garde.
Kendra Morris, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 03.10 What:Kendra Morris w/Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille and The Milk Blossoms When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Kendra Morris is a singer-songwriter from NYC whose sound is clearly rooted in soul, R&B and the neo-soul end of hip-hop. And there’s a touch of psychedelia at the edges of her lush arrangements and a general sense that Morris is writing her music driven by imagining unusual short stories that themselves inspire creativity and giving her songs their own personality so that her records while having some consistency of quality and imbued with a style that is uniquely Morris’ own are refreshingly varied and mysterious because there are no hackneyed premises and if there are playful uses of common subject fodder for pop music it’s all surround by unusual, often moody and deeply evocative music and Morris’ commanding vocals. Opening the show are two Denver bands in the rock and soul theater of Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille and The Milk Blossoms. The latter is more in line with Morris in the eclectic and emotionally rich songwriting and soundscapes and some roots in hip-hop, R&B, left field psychedelia and indiepop.
RAREBYRD$, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.15 What:RAREBYRD$, Sell Farm, Baby Baby and Doll When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Witch Cat Records is a record label based in Colorado that has been a home to some of the more experimental and forward thinking electronic and psychedelic music out now. While its roster is small its releases include offerings from Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots fame, LPD reissues, Thanatoloop, Church Fire, Mourning Cloaks, Acidbat and Orbit Service. This is a showcase for acts whose own aesthetics align with the Witch Cat aesthetic and a now infrequent appearance by hip-hop greats RAREBYRD$, industrial/EBM auteur Sell Farm, left field pop artist Baby Baby and Doll.
Eyedress, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 03.15 What: Eyedress When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Eyedress has been a notable figure in modern pop/indie rock/psychedelia and hybrid forms of each with some hip-hop production and glitchcore thrown into the mix. Originally from the Philippines Eyedress now calls Los Angeles home and his most recent releases read like a modern hip-hop joints with multiple collaborators that Eyedress has brought in to expand his own sound palette and range as an artist.
The Brook & The Bluff, photo by Noah Tidmore
Friday | 03.15 What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Teenage Dads When: 7 Where: Boulder Theater Why: The Brook & The Bluff formed in Birmingham, Alabama among two brothers and childhood friends around 2015 but has since relocated to Nashville. The group’s sound is in the realm of 1970s soft rock with a touch of psychedelia and Americana and its 2023 album Bluebeard highlighted the way the band can turn simple arrangements into intricate and lush soundscapes in which its stories take on an intimate quality that soothe as much as they take on subjects of everyday life and its usual struggles with a tender poignancy.
Deap Valley, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 03.17 What: Deap Valley farewell tour w/Death Valley Girls When: 7 Where: Marquis Theater Why: Los Angeles-based blues-garage duo Deap Valley is taking one last run as a live band this spring through June before dissolving hopefully into other projects. Fans of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills will definitely appreciate the energy Deap Valley has been giving since its inception. Also on the bill is the great psychedelic shoegaze band Death Valley Girls. Also from Los Angeles. One hopes when the tour was being put together the two bands recognized the humor value of Deap Valley and Death Valley Girls touring together even though there’s nothing gimmicky about the music of each.
The Dandy Warhols, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 03.18 What:The Dandy Warhols w/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: The Dandy Warhols have been together since 1994 and from the beginning of their career the members of the group have pulled together an eclectic set of influences to synthesize into various styles of music yet not without a coherent sound. Early on its music seemed rooted in psychedelic garage rock, nascent Britpop and shoegaze soundscaping. As the group has evolved it has incorporated elements of electronic music and production to sculpt its songwriting into something compelling and unique even through times when perhaps some of its fans haven’t been as on board with the innovations and evolution of the Dandys’ songwriting experiments. But all along the quartet’s spirited and charismatic live show has remained worth witnessing. In 2024 the Dandys released the new album Rockmaker. In typical fashion the group has seemingly reinvented itself and indulged a kind of free association approach to its sonic elements so that the record is equally an electro rock and chill big beat affair and fuzzy, groovy psychedelia with a deep sense of play, an irreverent sense of humor and deft cultural and musical allusions. Hopefully the band plays liberally from the new album but it has always been good about giving fans a generous dose of its remarkable back catalog live.
Hulder, photo by Liana Rakijian
Monday | 03.18 What: The Decibel Tour: Hulder, Devil Master, Worm and Necrofier When: 6:30 Where: HQ Why: Decibel Magazine is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with this tour featuring some of the more interesting bands in the broad realm of heavy music. Hulder is the transcendental black metal band from the Pacific Northwest, Devil Master is a Philadelphia-based, blackened crust/death rock group, Worm is the funeral doom project from Florida and Necrofier is the dark, death thrash outfit from Houston.
The Schizophonics, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 03.18 What:The Schizophonics w/The Omens and Cleaner When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Schizophonics is a garage rock band from San Diego who have more than a touch of psychedelia in their sound and its nervy energy and widely expansive sound is reminiscent of MC5 and a more feral 13th Floor Elevators. So yes Denver’s The Omens are coming out of semi-retirement with their own brand of unhinged garage rock power alongside heavy psych rock band Cleaner from Denver fronted by Kim Phat (Dirty Few, Keef Duster) with musicianship from members of other noteworthy Denver bands like Arj Narayan (Black Acid Devil etc.) and Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach, Colfax Speed Queen, Night Fishing etc.).
Slow Hollows, photo by Elizabeth Klein
Monday | 03.18 What:Slow Hollows w/P.H.F. When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Slow Hollows split in 2020 but songwriter Austin Feinstein kept making music and relaunched the project himself in 2023. A year later the new Slow Hollows album Bullhead dropped on March 8, 2024 showcasing Feinstein’s gently intricate arrangements, evocatively thoughtful lyrics and eclectic style somewhere between indiepop and post-punk. Feinstein this time out sounds more confident and emotionally forward yet vulnerable and introspective. The drifts and bends in his melodies lend the song a disarming quality that makes you wonder if he’d been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine and Microphones for a few years but managed not to rip off their songwriting style while adopting some of their methods of crafting tone.
Monday | 03.18 What: The Kooks, The Vaccines and Daisy the Great When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Crazy to think The Kooks have been around for twenty years at this point but the group based out of Brighton, England has evolved beyond its early sound rooted in 60s mod and turn of the century post-punk and its most recent album, 2022’s 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark, is almost like a Britpop revival sound but one that might have happened had The Verve embraced electro-funk and some hip-hop production and chillwave soundscaping. The Vaccines came along in the wake of The Kooks out of West London with its own brash stage show and fusion of surf rock and melodic punk. It’s 2024 album Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations sounds like one of those triumphant New Wave power pop records of the 80s but without the cheese and just the soaring melodies and touch of nostalgia for one’s younger days as fuel for your present existence. Opening this leg of the tour is Daisy the Great. The indie pop duo of Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker started when the two were acting students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who were writing a musical about a fictional band and then made that band into a real life thing. The group’s 2017 debut composition “The Record Player Song” was hit with to date over a quarter billion streams. Two albums and three EPs later including 2023’s Tough Kid Daisy the Great has garnered a bit of a following for its folk and R&B-inflected pop songs informed by a wry self-awareness and sense of humor. It’s charmingly spare live performances will definitely be an interesting counterpoint to the headliners for the night in some ways but Daisy The Great is also known to put in a lively set of its own.
Madi Diaz, photo by Muriel Margaret
Tuesday | 03.19 What: Madi Diaz w/Daniel Nunnelee When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Madi Diaz is an acclaimed songwriter who got her start playing shows in NYC in 2007, the same year of the release of her debut album Skin And Bones. Her observant and emotionally refined lyrics and gift for building textures into her melodies and rhythms has helped set her songwriting apart from many of her peers. Her 2024 album Weird Faith centers Diaz’s vocals in music that is at once orchestral and minimalist with rich yet unobtrusive production that showcases the songwriter’s immediately relatable lyrics about relationships with self, others and the universe we all try to navigate as best we can.
K.Flay, photo by Danielle Ernst
Tuesday and Wednesday | 03.19 and 03.20 What: K.Flay w/Cam Kahin When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Kristine Flaherty aka K.Flay is a songwriter very much of the current vintage whose music isn’t bond by strict genres and whose music is eclectic yet coherently stylized. She began writing music in her late teens as a reaction against some of the popular music of the time writing a parody song only to realize she enjoyed the process of doing so and over twenty years later Flaherty has released multiple albums and collaborated with the likes FIDLAR, Tom Morello, Danny Brown, Matt and Kim, MC Lars and countless others, a testament to her gift for genre-bending. These two nights at The Marquis are part of of K.Flay’s MONO: Live in Stereo tour which are a series of intimate shows in just seven major cities in the USA.
Torres, photo by Ebru Yildiz
Wednesday | 03.20 What: Torres w/Liza Anne When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Torres pushed her songwriting envelope much further than her already unorthodox pop songwriting with the 2024 release of her new album What an Enormous Room. The album cover makes one wonder if the absurdity of the image as a concept made Torres both laugh and take as a challenge to reach beyond where she’d been before as an artist. The songwriter has of course been no stranger to crafting arty synth pop but the new record will probably alienate some people expecting her to give us more of what they’ve been expecting. Torres is embracing the strange and the experimental with this set of songs without sacrificing songcraft and thoughtful lyrics of an emotionally refined vintage. Could Torres take this impulse creative further? Of course but the new album is a welcome expansion of sounds and creative ideas one might compare to when Cat Power released her 2012 electronic pop/glam rock record Sun.
Savana Leigh, photo by Acacia Evans
Wednesday and Thursday | 03.20 and 03.21 What: Night Cap w/Savanna Leigh When: 7pm doors both nights Where:The Coast (03.20) and Lost Lake (03.21) Why: Night Cap is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas whose eclectic sound merges acoustic songwriting, rock and synth pop. Opener Savanna Leigh is a Nashville-based songwriter whose style synthesizes acoustic indie pop and electronic production. Her string of singles over the past year have revealed an artist whose vulnerability and sensitivity informs songs that are insightful examinations of the inner life and how when we take the time to listen to our often unspoken emotional turmoil and trauma we can attempt to unravel the control of past experience has over our present. Her evocative vocals and lush production combine a cinematic songwriting style with an intimate delivery of the music.
My Blue Heart, photo by AlyssaPerkins of Captivating Visions Photography
Th – S | 03.21-03.23 What: My Blue Heart Tour (3.21 with VALDEZ, 03.22 w/The Patient Zeros, SweetStreak and Rocky Burning and 3.23 w/Get the Axe and Gatehouse When: 7 (3.21 and 03.23) and 8 (03.22) Where:Magic Rat (03.21), Goosetown Tavern (03.22) and Vulture’s (03.23) Why: Art pop My Blue Heart from Denver is celebrating the March 15, 2024 release of its new album Masquerade with a mini-tour along the front range. The album genre bends and seems to discard standard song structures and rhythm schemes. It’s musical roots seem to borrow heavily from blues and funk but mutated by the influence of art rock bands like Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and channeled into people songs that aren’t much like what anyone else in Denver is putting out at the moment unless you’re into weirdo music territory like TripLip and Bolonium.
Autoheart, photo by Lesli & Rose
Thursday | 03.21 What:Autoheart w/Pigeon Pit and RAEGAN When: 6 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Autoheart is a sophisti-pop band from the UK that has been perfecting its emotionally vibrant synth pop songs that don’t sit neatly in a stylistic box as the group draws on inspiration from disparate sources. In its sound you can hear a touch of R&B, soul and chillwave. The group recently dropped its Punch Demos compilation which includes eighteen demos including remasters of songs from the 2023 10th anniversary edition of the debut Autoheart album Punch. Fans of Erasure and Perfume Genius will definitely find a lot to like about Autoheart. Pigeon Pit is the well known folk punk band from Olympia, Washington. RAEGAN is a pop artist from NYC whose songs are sonically creative, insightful commentaries on popular culture, social dynamics and identity. She combines glitchcore beats, trap production, dub, strings and unconventional textures in rhythms that give her music a distinctive sound that cuts through the familiar trappings of modern alt-pop. Her forthcoming debut EP FUCK RAEGAN promises an expansion on the artist’s sound and the video for the lead single “Waltz” is a sort of queer re-telling of Romeo & Juliet with a music video with visuals like something out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 03.22 What: Vatican Vamps album release w/Knuckle Pups and Wildcat When: 7 Where: The Black Buzzard Why: Vatican Vamps is celebrating the release of its self-titled album for this show. The record is filled with urgent and gritty songs brimming with brooding atmospheres and a sense of menace. A lot of post-punk and darkwave bands seem to be following sonic trends lately but Vatican Vamps seems to have carved its own path with seeming influences from the post-punk revival of the turn of the century, Britpop and 1980s deathrock. The vinyl edition of the album can be pre-ordered on the Vatican Vamps’ Bandcamp and should be out in April. Also on the bill is one of the great, modern indiepop bands Knuckle Pups.
Cellista, photo by Yellow Bubbles Photography
Saturday | 03.23 What:Cellista and prologue by The Drood and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore When: 7:30-9:30 Where: Dairy Center for the Arts Why: Cellista is a Los Angeles-based performance artist with roots in the Bay Area and Colorado and over the past several years she has created what she calls stage poems which are narrative multimedia works after those of artist, filmmaker and writer Jean Coctea drawing together seemingly disparate thematic elements and modes of expression. In 2021 she performed at Lincoln Center and she has worked with Tanya Donelly, John Vanderslice, Troyboy, Don McLean, Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter, Van Dyke Parks, Toni! Toni! Toné and Pam the Funkstress. Her work has been heard and scene on film and television and she has appeared as an extra on the TV shows Better Things and Will & Grace playing cello. In fall 2021 her stage poem Pariah explored themes of othering and exile within communities and it featured a companion book by philosopher Frank Seeburger. In 2024 Cellista is unveiling her latest stage poem Élégie. Directed and performed by the artist, Élégie is a one-woman show for cello, static trapeze and cinema. Choreographed by Cellista, Kennedy Kabasares and Joel Baker with film editing by Jennifer Gigantino and cinematography by Bryan Gibel, the one hour piece stars Cellista as the titular figure, a blackbird who shape shifts into human form and back. According to the press release for the stage poem, “Élégie awakens one day in her magical tree outside the walled off city of Cloture to find its entire population has disappeared. In their departure, the citizens have left behind a city of altars, decorated with unlit candles; each containing the memories and mementos of the banished citizens. Élégie shape shifts into human form to find out what happened to Cloture’s disappeared. In her journey she finds serenity.” As with Cellista’s previous stage poem the performance will be a uniquely evocative experience that brings those in attendance deeply into the story with visuals, music, spoken word, the choreography and the event’s baked in literary dimensions that blur the lines between all mediums involved. This Colorado date includes opening performances by ambient-industrial, psychedelic post-punk group The Drood which released its latest album The Book of Drood on March 1, 2024 and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore. Listen to our interview with Cellista here.
Chew, photo by Asha Lakra
Monday | 03.25 What:Chew w/Moon Pussy and Church Fire When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Chew is a band from Atlanta, Georgia whose music defies simple categorization. Until late 2023 Chew had been a trio is now a duo comprised of Brett Reagan who plays sampler, synth bass and guitar while running strobe lights and Sarah Wilson who plays drums and bass lines with a drum sample pad. The project has toured the US and Canada extensively with three European tours under its belt. Because the outfit’s music is so unorthodox it’s music spans and often in the same song the realms of psychedelic and noise rock, ambient, noise, industrial and electronic dance music. Fans of the likes of fellow travelers of eclectic weirdness like Guerilla Toss, Black Moth Super Rainbow and The Spirit of the Beehive will find an immediate connection with the music Chew has been crafting since its inception. Its 2022 album Horses resonates with recent releases by Jockstrap and Sextile without the inspiration of either to feed into its stream of inspiration and influences. In addition to the music Chew’s surreal album covers and inspired song titles suggest more than a passing familiarity with esoteric knowledge and other obscure and niche realms of knowledge as well as a knack for clever wordplay. It all adds up to an uncommon depth of creative development that rewards anyone taking in the music and its presentation beyond the surface level. Also on the bill are local noise rock phenoms Moon Pussy and legendary industrial dance trio Church Fire.
Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 03.25 What: Midwife w/Vyva Melinkolya and Body Negative When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: Midwife brings her style of ambient folk soundscapes and vulnerable lyrics that she calls “heaven metal” back to Denver for a tour with artists operating in their own realms of music resonant with the vulnerable energies of Midwife’s textural soundscapes. Vyva Malinkolya and Midwife collaborated on an album recently with the 2023 release of Orbweaving and its fusion of gauzy shoegaze and emotional deep diving as a path to processing trauma and grief. Body Negative is an artist with whom Madeline Johnston aka Midwife has worked as a producer on the the newly released album everett that blurs the line between melancholic ambient and dream pop.
HEALTH, photo by Faith Crawford
Monday | 03.25 What: HEALTH w/Pixelgrip and King Yosef When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: With the December release of RAT WARS, industrial noise/electronic punk band HEALTH has shown itself capable of reinvention on a deep level with a gritty, melancholic yet cathartic album that combines well with its glitchy and more experimental electronic impulses. And so bringing along the great industrial pop group Pixelgrip along for this tour will only make for a great evening of music with talented producer and recording engineer King Yosef opening the show with his industrial hardcore.
Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker
Tuesday | 03.26 What:Sleater-Kinney w/Palehound When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Sleater-Kinney released its eleventh and latest album Little Rope in Jaunary 2024. The record with its grit and bombast matched with an experimentation with the band’s core sound is a welcome reinvention that finds Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker infusing what might be described as a more cinematic form of songwriting with raw and earnest emotion and the sharply and poignantly observed personal reflection and thoughtful social commentary one would hope for with a set of songs from this band. In moments it feels more like a glam rock album fortified by punk spirit. No one needs a band whose members are over 25 years of age to sing from a place informed by lingering teen angst and tapping into that mindset with a lack of irony. Fortunately Sleater-Kinney has never been stunted that way and this new album is filled with songs written by people plugging into their own sources of personal vitality and offering perspectives that seem to have zeroed in on clear and present concerns and the feelings we all share in navigating the conflicted world in which we find ourselves living right now. And if all tours since the group reconvened in 2014 are any indication, Sleater-Kinney is still one of the great live rock bands everyone should get to see at least once.
Jenny Haniver, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.28 What:Jenny Haniver, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: A Jenny Haniver is the carcass of a ray or skate that has been modified and dried into a mummy made to resemble a fictional creature of folklore like a sort of a demon, angel or dragon and in various cultures is said to possess magical powers or otherwise used for ritualistic purposes. The Jenny Haniver in this case is an industrial noise post-hardcore duo from Portland, Oregon whose detailed soundscapes are imbued with a melancholic mood. Ethan Lee McCarthy under his own name will likely perform one of his noise sets but one more steeped in atmospheric compositions and gritty gloom. Fainting Dreams has migrated its sound from its early dream pop songwriting to something more like darkly tribal noise rock.
Ak’chamel, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 03.29 What: Gothsta, Witch Baby, SORROWS, Ak’chamel, Hypnotic Turtle Radio When: 8 Where: Goosetown Tavern Why: Gothsta is making a rare live appearance with their style of witchy, experimental, glitchy electronic weirdo pop. Think something more akin to the likes of The Space Lady and Renaldo and the Loaf and you’ll be on the right track. Don’t bother looking online for too much of Gothsta’s music because most of it you’ll have to acquire at the show or at Wax Trax. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic dance duo that combines moody melancholic melodies with a robust low end, orchestrated rhythms with a spontaneous energy and emotionally vibrant and operatic vocals. Witch Baby is a spontaneous composition, avant-garde improvisational group with drums, saxophone, synth, drums, guitar and bass. Ak’chamel, or with the full name of Ak’chamel, The Crazed and Sunchalked Bones of the Vanished Herds, is one of the choice musical entities for appreciators of genre bursting/synthesizing artists who employ their aesthetic as a deconstruction of cultures and a commentary on the impact of industrialized societies on those not as technocratically embedded. Its subversive and surreal song titles are an inspired example of the latter. Fans of African psychedelic artists like Mdou Moctar and esotericist psych post-punkers Savage Republic will appreciate the music and fans of theatrical, ritualistic performances should definitely seek out this psychedelic surf rock pan-continental avant-folk duo.
The Egyptian Lover, photo from Stones Throw Bandcamp
Friday | 03.29 What: The Egyptian Lover When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: This is an exceedingly rare chance to catch the influential hip-hop composer, producer and remixer live. His use of analog electronic gear in sculpting his sound made a major impact on hip-hop in the 80s in particular his 1984 single “Egypt, Egypt” from his On the Nile album. It bore the influence of Kraftwerk but stamped with his own masterful production and gift for layering rhythm, vocals and synth melodies that get stuck in your consciousness.
Pictureplane in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Pictureplane w/Street Fever, Polly Urethane, Dreams of Blights, Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pictureplane returns to Denver, the city where he more fully developed the style of music and production for which he is now most well known. He helped to coin the genre term witch house to describe what he was doing in the late 2000s with a blend of noise, hip-hop production and synth pop that tapped into an emotional space that resonated with feelings of nostalgia and yearning for a better time and place that felt within reach. That sound with other artists manifested into chillswave but Pictureplane always had more of a leg in the experimental realm of the music and harder beats. His 2021 album Dopamine found him reconciling his previous creative impulses into music that hit like a return to form but also a step forward. Also on the bill is Boise, Idaho industrial dance legend Street Fever whose music is rooted in a dark kind of techno and house that has proven to influential on a certain stripe of underground electronic dance music world of a more avant vintage with a live show that is both entrancing, enveloping and enigmatic. Perhaps this includes fellow Boise crafters of pounding and pulsing, industrial noise freakouts Dreams of Blights. Another prime reason to go to this show is to witness a now not so common set from Polly Urethane whose often ritualistic performance art isn’t limited to a genre. It could be one of her sublime fusions of operatic classical and pop performances or combined with a confrontational, industrial noise pieces, a noise soundscape with a turntable, an alchemical mix of post-nü metal noise rock or pure performance art never to be repeated with a collage of classical music and her own tracks and unusual yet poetic visuals. You just never really know except that it will be worth your time and that’s part of the appeal.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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