Antibroth is the kind of band that defies easy categorization even though its angular rhythms is in line with post-punk but its energy is more what you’d expect out of a hardcore band but the sonics are more experimental and the sense of humor more surreal than fits neatly into a genre. The trio formed when Jeremy Mock and Dan Switalski met in the music production program at Denver University where they also met original drummer Wesley Wolfe. But early in the band’s existence Wolfe moved on to other concerns and Hayden Bosch stepped into the role after Mock saw him play in his former emo band at a school event and was struck by Bosch’s hard hitting style. Antibroth formed with its current line up right before the 2020 pandemic but when shows started happening again in later 2021 the group was able to demonstrate how it had been able to develop and woodshed material and became a fixture in the Denver underground who as relative newcomers encountered all the odd situations new bands face in terms of shows and venues available to them but quickly encountered hardcore shows at Seventh Circle Music Collective, Mutiny Information Café and other venues where hardcore and increasingly other likeminded bands were performing. Anyone that got to see Antibroth got to see a group with a lot of energy that harnessed a math-rock-esque precision worthy of Hella and Don Caballero and channeled it into music that could sound sometimes thrillingly unhinged but always captivating for not sounding like much else you were likely to encounter in Denver music with strong hooks and memorable melodies. And now Antibroth is closing the chapter of its existence with a final EP Satan and the Dying Baby (out June 16, 2023) and a tour with Endless, Nameless from Denver out to the East Coast and back. The three members of the band are going their separate ways on good terms and in the history of music many of the best bands have two and a half albums and some singles and done. Antibroth has definitely left its mark on anyone fortunate enough to catch one of the band’s spirited shows.
Listen to our interview with Antibroth on Bandcamp and give a listen to Satan and the Dying Baby and its other releases at the link below. Also below is the tour route for Antibroth’s last hurrah of live performances.
Antibroth Spring/Summer 2023 Tour with Endless, Nameless June 9 – Denver, CO @d3artswestwood w/ @rosevariety @wrathofthelamb
June 11 – Lincoln, NE Rancho Rodeo w/ Säbo
6/12 – Ames, IA @theaholeames w/Moscow Puzzles and Perfect Strangers
6/13 Chicago, IL @subtchicago w/ @tenmonthsummerband
6/14 Dayton, OH @blindrageshop SUPPORT TBA
6/16 Queens, NY @barfreda801 w/ @fallofthealbatross @voicemail.bandcamp @_mineshaft
6/17 New Brunswick, NJ Mum’s House w/ @pyre_screamo @hysteria_the_band
6/18 Philadelphia, PA @breadboxphilly w/ @mtworry @queasy.does.it
6/19 Pittsburgh, PA @mr_roboto_project w/ @fficus_pgh
Ivan Julian is a guitarist, singer and songwriter who many may know as a founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids. He has also contributed to music by as well as performed with the likes of Isley Brothers, The Clash (for instance he played on “The Call Up” from 1980’s Sandinista!), Matthew Sweet (with whom he toured for a number of years in the 90s), The Bongos, Shriekback and others. The child of a Navy officer, Julian spent a great deal of time living in other parts of the world including Haiti and Cuba but ended up in Washington D.C. as happens with families who have jobs with the federal government. Julian began playing guitar in his early teen years and was a touring musician at age 17 as a member of The Foundations. In his 20s Julian was part of that influential CBGB’s scene and crossed paths with a broad swath of the punk world and No Wave scenes and formed a group called Lovelies in 1988 with his then life Cynthia Sley of Bush Tetras. In February 2023 Julian released his new album under his name called Swing Your Lanterns, an album about the nature of character in a time of troubles and how that overlaps with the human condition, it’s an album about timeless themes of love and loss, dreams and contemplating the deeper meaning of it all. Musically it brings together the sounds of Julian’s long career with elements of punk attitude, blues, R&B, pop and art rock. It finds Julian in an imaginative mode with poignant commentary on our current era.
Listen to our interview with Julian on Bandcamp and give a listen to Swing Your Lanterns on Bandcamp where you can also purchase the album on digital, CD and pre-order the limited edition 160 gram vinyl.
Rue Bainbridge at Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, April 21, 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Rue Bainbridge is the duo of Gryphon Rue and Benton C. Bainbridge who fuse an expanded practice of cinematic and sonic art. Using a hacked game console and other electronic devices to generate imagery and synth and musical saw to shape unique tones and frequencies in a way that generates what the project calls “electric calligraphy.” In the live setting the duo use a mesh screen upon which to project the minimalist yet intricate visuals improvising together with the sounds/music in a dynamic interplay unlike much of anything else in the realm of experimental music and visual art. The visuals and the sounds invite those present to engage in a mutual act of imagination and interpretation and in the live setting Rue and Bainbridge play off the reactions and responses of the audience in a way that makes each performance unique as each takes place in a different environment geographically and emotionally/psychologically.
Though initially getting off the ground in New York City and crafting performances in unconventional spaces and those more so, Rue Bainbridge have presented their shows on five continents in art museums, outdoor venues, for broadcast and a wide range of spaces inspiring the creative expansion of the project. In 2022 and 2023 Rue Bainbridge performed at the Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival and for the 2022 event they employed a large wall as part of an impromptu canvas for the visuals and in 2023 it was indoors at the Center For Musical Arts. The wide ranging visual expression with stylized geometric shapes and luminous sketches in sync with composed and improvised drones, field recordings and other samples and textural and harmonic tones felt like being witness to and immersed in a nonverbal yet deeply emotionally communicative act of a shared experience alive for those moments like a collective performance art piece. It had an effect that struck one as intimate and cosmic at once and one that you knew was ephemeral and more poignant because of it.
Rue Bainbridge at Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival, April 21, 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
After the show I got to speak with the duo in one of the other performance spaces in the venue and we discussed a bit of their background and approach to their craft and performance and the heady ideas that have informed what they try to do with their art.
Now known more for his political activism and writings on subjects as diverse worker cooperatives, animals liberation, environmentalism, prison abolition, police brutality, anarchism and general alternative economic models to capitalism including mutual aid and disaster relief, scott crow was also a member of political industrial dance acts Lesson Seven and Audio Assault. One might compare Lesson Seven’s music to EBM and electronic industrial groups like Skinny Puppy, with whom the project toured on the latter’s 1988 VIVI Sect VI tour sharing a similar political ethos. At the time most of those industrial and adjacent bands, a good number with whom Lesson Seven shared the stage with over the years, had an outlook critical of a political and social order that had become entrenched in the USA and more or less globally starting in the mid-1970s and dramatically throughout the 1980s with the Reagan and Thatcher regimes in America and the UK respectively: a crypto-authoritarian and austerity policy agenda that has worked to dismantle environmental, labor and civil rights laws and regulations hard won by over a century of grassroots struggle and a brief window of relative political openness to change. The music crow and his bandmates and likeminded artists made commented on this state of affairs with insight and gave it an accessibility that dance-oriented music can, perhaps echoing the famous words of Emma Goldman from her 1931/1934 autobiography Living My Life: “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.” Meaning the austere and joyless, inhuman and uncompassionate, revolutionary culture she observed regularly throughout her lifetime that missed the point of human and non-human liberation broadly.
As an author crow reflected on his life and work in his first book Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy and the Common Ground Collective (2015) and published selections of his work in Emergency, Hearts, Molotov Dreams (2016). The record label Emergency Hearts crow started to release new music with a similar ethos to that of his own early time in music that resonates through to today and to reissue some of the older albums that have been neglected for decades. Releasing work and collaborations between artists such as Dead Voices on Air, Laibach, Lee “Scratch” Perry, the recently passed Mark Stewart (The Pop Group), Del The Funky Homosapien, Angelo Moore, Mark Pistel, Time (the Denver-based rapper and political writer), Stephen Mallinder (Cabaret Voltaire), MDC, Sole and a host of others has brought crow and not only his sense of the fusion of music, culture and politics but his ear for music that is and can be impactful to a modern era of music at a time when it can spread more rapidly and not merely serve as background entertainment due to its vital content.
Listen to our interview with crow on Bandcamp and for more information on the artist, writer, filmmaker, father and organizer, please visit scottcrow.org and for Emergency Hearts releases, take a look at the label’s Bandcamp.
Alt-pop artist Julia Wolf dropped her debut full length album Good Thing We Stayed in January 2023 via BMG. Wolf grew up in the North Shore part of New Jersey as a shy and quiet young woman who was evidently observing the world around her with keen social and psychological insight because her body of work as a songwriter has a striking depth that brings to every song on at least the new album an unexpected resonance regardless of your background that invites repeated listens. Wolf headlined her own tour in the wake of the release of the album and is now supporting Quinn XCII on his national tour with a concert at Red Rocks on June 6, but with her own solo headlining show at Meow Wolf Convergence Station on June 5 with YaSi. We had a chance to ask Wolf some questions via email.
Tom Murphy: Good Thing We Stayed is your debut full length but it comes after some strong early releases including the Girls in Purgatory EP. Were there themes and subjects you felt more free to include in the songwriting for these new songs?
Julia Wolf: Yeah, I definitely felt more freedom to story tell the journey of where I started to where I am now through an entire album versus trying to squeeze it into a single here or there. It really runs through the highs and lows of working towards your dreams which is a way more discouraging road than people realize. This album highlights the good, the frustrating, the anxiety whilst all being written through the lense of someone on the shyer side.
TM: I read that horror films are a bit of an obsession of yours and might have been an influence (directly or indirectly) on the new album. How so? What is it about them that resonates with you creatively? What are some of your favorites older and newer?
JW: Since I was little I’ve always gravitated towards horror (we can thank my mama for that one)! And so it’s always been the genre to really capture my eye and allow for a full escape from reality verses a fiction or romance piece. Back in the day I was a real loner, didn’t have friends really, ate lunch alone that kind of thing. And horror was the only thing that helped distract me fully. When it comes to my visuals I do try and implement it as much as possible especially for songs like “Dracula” or “Hot Killer” where I bring references straight into the lyrics. Some of my favorites are Insidious, Skinamarink, The Rental, Barbarian, and of course any of the Scream movies (literally have a Ghostface tattoo)!!
TM: The album seems to follow something of a loose story arc. Was that something you planned or perhaps sequenced after writing the songs?
JW: I never went into the studio with the intention of creating an album. But after more and more sessions we would put certain songs to the side like “Rookie of the Year” that felt they were a part of a bigger story. Once I felt the story was complete the album was done!
TM: The lyrics on every song seem really open and vulnerable, sensitive, even in moments of expressing confidence. That seems to suit the often melancholic mood of the music. What about that way of writing do you think is compelling for you rather than the swagger of a lot of pop music?
JW: Thank you so much!! I guess I’ve come to understand many people write over music/beats that have already been made but I find it to be too restrictive. When there’s no music to go off of I have the freedom to write without structure or boundary and can also free form a melody that doesn’t have to fit what’s already been created ahead of time.
TM: One of the most striking things about your songs is how they’re so grounded in vivid experiences and personal and cultural references. Like the mentions of the North Shore and Blockbuster countdowns. But someone that makes an appearance here and there is your sister and it seems like she’s someone you look up to and don’t want to disappoint. Whether that’s a literal reference or not what makes her an important part of your songwriting?
JW: Cami has been my entire world since I was about 5 years old. We were always inseparable but it wasn’t until my older years even in high school when I was really struggling constantly alone at school, so uncomfortable in my own skin, that I would know without a shadow of a doubt, she could put a smile on my face everyday no matter what. She has helped me become the person I am today. I go to her for everything and vice versa. I love her and therefore she is in everything I do; I’m always thinking about her.
TM: The line in “Gothic Babe Tendencies” “I always choose the dark but what if I surrender to the sun?” is so poignant. What role do you feel like exploring ambivalence and mixed feelings plays in your music?
JW: It’s been a huge one because unfortunately most people are disappointing. I’ve had to realize time and time again that just because I would do something and put the extra effort in, doesn’t mean somebody else would. But through that I find myself learning to be independent, to not hold on when someone is showing true colors, and not fear being on my own. With that I can put it into the music and hope to show someone they don’t need to settle either.
TM: We’re in a precarious time politically and socially in the USA and really the world. Why did you think it was important to publicly associate yourself with an organization like WRRAP and its mission?
JW: Even though my platform is a tiny one, I think every voice, every comment, every share still counts and opens up someone’s eyes to what’s going on. I will always try to publicly associate myself with what I feel is right and fair and in turn make people understand where I stand and know that our community is a safe space for everyone.
TM: “Get Off My” truly transforms a specific and literal expression into the more accurate if metaphorical meaning with humor. Though there are heavy subjects and sad songs and heartbreaking moments on the album, what do you think humor helps to highlight or express more realistically in a song?
JM: I think it’s just instantly relatable. A phrase like that is one everybody says all the time as it applies to so many situations in one’s life. So when you hear it you don’t have to think twice to know that on some level here you can scream those lyrics out and feel a bit better about whatever’s bugging you!!
TM: All pop music is a stylistic hybrid these days and your songs have guitar, synth/keyboard and trap beats as well as maybe some more acoustic percussion here and there. Was that approach more a product of your bedroom production? What music helped you to realize you could do that on your own with confidence even as someone who grew up shy?
JW: I think my sound is a product of what influences me today and what I listened to growing up. When I was younger it was all the alternative bands or pop punk concerts you could imagine. It was emotional and made me feel tougher than I actually was, which is probably why I loved it as a shy person so much. As I got older I started really getting into rap and loving that genre sonically so much. So yes, those days in my bedroom were just me trying to bring those worlds together. But it wasn’t until I met my producer Jackson that it finally started coming to life. Now I find myself slowly drifting more and more back into that alternative world so I’m excited to share what’s coming up next!
Water From Your Eyes at Larimer Lounge, December 6, 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
As Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have made a career of using an eclectic and ever evolving palette of sounds to explore ideas and concepts through what could be considered dance pop. That is if your frame of reference might be the experimental electronic and punk out of New York and Los Angeles of the last fifteen years. Its 2020 album 33:44 is something you’d expect more out of a band on the Northern Spy label with its beautifully dire, ambient and modern classical soundscapes that are almost an homage to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” crossed with Howard Shore’s work for the films of David Cronenberg. But the duo’s most recent album Structure at times sounds like what might have happened if Aphex Twin in writing Selected Ambient Works Volume II had decided to turn those into pop songs. Except that Water From Your Eyes inserts enigmatic spoken word elements that serve as a a meta narrative that re-configures traditional album sequencing and gives the whole album a non-linear quality made cohesive by reimagining the nature of how creative work is structured. In these ways Water From Your Eyes fuses the avant-garde and pop songcraft into a highly accessible form that in the live setting creates an inviting mystique. The group signed to Matador Records in 2023 which released its new album Everyone’s Crushed on May 26 of that year.
Listen to our interview on Bandcamp with Amos and Brown conducted in the back area of Larimer Lounge prior to its show opening for Palm on December 6, 2022 and delve into the new album and the band’s back catalog at the link below. For more information on Water From Your Eyes please visit waterfromyoureyes.com.
Matt Bischoff at The Music Hall of Williamsburg playing with The Fluid, January 17, 2009, photo by Tom Murphy
Matt Bischoff is currently the guitarist and backing vocalist for garage punk band Cyclo Sonic. But Bischoff’s musical lineage reaches back to the early days of punk in Colorado. As a teen he witnessed late 70s and early 80s punk in the Denver are including Boulder and formed his own bands as a bassist including an early incarnation of the legendary punk act Frantix whose 1983 single “My Dad’s A Fuckin’ Alcholic” recorded by prominent Denver engineer and producer Bob Ferbrache has become a classic not just in Denver but far afield with a 2003 compilation of the band’s songs issued by Australian label Afterburn Records followed by a reissue of that compilation with extra material by Alternative Tentacles in 2014. In 2023 the single and some as yet unreleased recordings was pressed onto 7” by FM Records on yellow and pink vinyl.
Frantix split in 1983 and Bischoff was a member of White Trash and Madhouse which morphed into The Fluid. The latter became one of the most influential punk and garage rock bands in Denver and one whose impact reverberated well beyond the Mile High City especially in the Pacific Northwest where it found likeminded musicians in Seattle. In fact, The Fluid was the first band based outside the PNW to be signed to Sub Pop. Its 1991 split 7” “Candy (live” b/w “Molly’s Lips (live)” by a then not yet famous band called Nirvana. Though not technically a grunge band, The Fluid’s raw power as a live band and its infectious melodies and anthemic songs were irresistible and resonated strongly with the grunge scene of The Emerald City. But not being fully in that grunge lane and being from Denver put a lot of pressure on the band which never wanted to conform to that kind of genre straightjacket (nor did the bands dubbed “grunge” for that matter) and after a major label release with 1993’s Purplemetalflakemusic The Fluid called it quits. Former Frantix and The Fluid bandmate Rick Kulwicki dropped out of music to raise his sons and the other members of the band drifted into other pursuits except for Garrett Shavlick who formed Spell and Bischoff who was a member of ’57 Lesbian for some years with a brief stint in Denver garage rock band Boss 302. But by the early 2000s the former members of The Fluid were somewhat or completely inactive in music.
But as 2008 loomed as the 20 year anniversary of Sub Pop the group was approached for a reunion and The Fluid agreed, performing at the anniversary event in Seattle with shows in Denver that same year and a handful of shows in early 2009 including gigs at the legendary now defunct small club Maxwell’s in Hoboken, New Jersey and The Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. With members living in various parts of the country The Fluid weren’t going to be a fully active band again but Kulwicki and Bischoff formed the garage and psychedelic rock cover band The Buckingham Squares with other Denver music luminaries like former Rock Tots drummer John Henry, John Rumley, former Choosey Mothers bassist Arnie Beckman and Sam Schiel formerly of Francis Theory. Rick Kulwicki tragically passed away on February 15, 2011 but the Squares continued for a couple of years further. After two or three years off of playing live music Bischoff got together with Beckman and his brother AJ on drums and former Rok Tots vocalist Jif Jipers to form Cyclo Sonic whose own songs are in line with the spirited punk that its members have all done so well for decades. The debut full length by Cyclo Sonic Everything Went Stupid dropped in 2022 on clear green vinyl through Big Neck Records.
This interview is a deep dive into Bischoff’s life in music and as an artist though we could easily have talked about music and his own vast well of stories as an active participant in a local and national music scene going back to the 1970s. And Bischoff’s music and his elegantly powerful guitar work and creative bass playing speaks for itself. Every release by every one of his bands is worth a listen and his story an important part of the cultural legacy of Denver. Rumor has it there is a solid remaster and reissue of the 1989 The Fluid album Roadmouth in the works. RIP former Frantix drummer Davey Stewart who passed away in Spring 2023.
Listen to my interview with Bischoff on Bandcamp and look out for upcoming Cyclo Sonic dates on the group’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. The Fluid’s Facebook page often has fantastic posts related to that band as well. Below are some photos I (Tom Murphy) shot over the years of Bischoff’s bands.
Frantix reunion, September 20, 2008, photo by Tom MurphyFrantix reunion, September 20, 2008, photo by Tom MurphyThe Fluid at Maxwell’s, January 16, 2009, photo by Tom MurphyThe Fluid at The Music Hall of Williamsburg, January 17, 2009, photo by Tom MurphyThe Fluid at Neumo’s, February 13, 2009, photo by Tom MurphyThe Buckingham Squares at Mercury Café, March 13, 2010, photo by Tom MurphyThe Buckingham Squares at The Bluebird Theater, March 26, 2011, photo by Tom MurphyCyclo Sonic at Lost Lake, August 5, 2022, photo by Tom MurphyCyclo Sonic at Lost Lake, August 5, 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.
Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.
Listen to our interview with Chris Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp and catch Kiltro live at its album release show at the Mercury Café on June 1, 2023 with Nina De Freitas,on tour throughout the USA in June, July, August and September with a stop in Denver on August 25 for the VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf. For more information on Kiltro including live dates and to pre-order Underbelly please visit kiltromusic.com.
Helloween is the influential power metal band from Hamburg, Germany. Since 1984 released a string of albums that have often featured concepts and storytelling commenting on the human condition in both personal, emotive narratives and paralleling historical references with current events and commenting on recurring themes of human civilization and the impact of culture and those in power on the lives of people within and without a particular country. The iconography of the pumpkin has been part of the group’s artwork since early on and infuses the often weighty subject matter of the songwriting with a touch of humor and humanity. In 2016 older Helloween lead vocalists Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen rejoined along with long time singer Andi Deris for the kind of sound not many groups in metal have ever had in one band. In May 2023 the group was slated for induction into the Metal Hall of Fame.
Arts Fishing Club is an indie rock band from Nashville that formed in 2016. Singer/guitarist Christopher Kessenich grew up seeing live music with his father and older brothers witnessing a mix of alternative music, classic rock and jam bands all of which fed into his own eclectic songwriting. The band’s debut album Rothko Sky (due out June 16, 2023) is arranged as a kind of personal journey of a person who in the first half of the record sets out in life idealistic and open to everything only to find out that all of us have limitations both human and of our own unique psychology. On the album’s second half there is a reflection on the nature and impact of love, sex and pain and how that can shape who we are once the shine and novelty of new experiences evolves into appreciating the breadth and depth of life. The songs have a bluesy grit and an often impassioned delivery informed by the flow of its narrative element for a record that sounds like it had to be made by a band a few releases into its career once it has figured out who it is and what it wants to say with intention but with the exuberance of a new band intact.
The group is now on its first larger national tour with a stop in Denver at Globe Hall on May 23, 2023 and we had a chance to speak with Kessenich about hits roots as an artist and the rich tapestry of creative elements that went into the make-up of Rothko Sky. Listen to our interview on Bandcamp and follow Arts Fishing Club at artsfishingclub.com.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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