Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 13 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E21: John Gross

John Gross at Rhinoceropolis in March 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

John Gross is one of the godfathers of the Denver noise scene since becoming active as a noise artist as a member of Page 27 in 1994 when he was still in high school. That project began as more of a trying a variety of sounds as a kind of live improvisational sound collage with a changing lineup and a wide array of instrumentation but by the end of the decade had evolved into the more electronic configuration for which it became known in the realm of noise. For a comprehensive lesson on what noise encompasses simply plug “Noise music” into a search engine and read the Wikipedia entry. Gross has been involved in making a variety of the forms of that music with analog and electronic devices and methods and as one of the most prominent practitioners of the art in Denver and beyond (primarily in Page 27 with founding member John Rasmussen but also as a member of projects such as Zoologist with Todd Novosad, Robot Mandala and doom band Burn Heavy among others) he has also been an advocate for other artists in noise in setting up shows and helping to organize the long running Denver Noise Fest. While his prolific recorded catalog can be challenging to track down as it’s often been on formats and limited editions that didn’t get transferred to streaming platforms you may be able to give a listen on performances uploaded to YouTube or on Soundcloud. After an extended hiatus with the onset of the pandemic, Gross has resumed performing under his own name and with Zoologist. Long affiliated with the DIY scene in Denver and elsewhere for pragmatic reasons as most venues don’t book noise as a kind of niche musical style that can alienate people with more conventionally-minded tastes, Gross lived in and helped to run Rhinoceropolis from 2010 to early 2020 and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Listen to our interview with Gross about his life and time in noise and getting into the DIY and noise scenes on Bandcamp and for more information on John Gross and his music, please visit the links below. Gross will be performing at D3 on Saturday, September 2, 2023 with Human Fluid Rot (FL), Many Blessings, Castration Pact, Whitephosphorous (TX) and Sounding and on Friday, September 29, 2023 at Seventh Circle Music Collective with Granular Breath (IA), Dead Hawk (Springs) and A Light Among Many. Doors 7pm for both shows. Typically asking $10 at door.

page27.com

Page 27 on Bandcamp

Zoologist on Bandcamp

John Gross on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E20: The Siren Project

The Siren Project, image courtesy the artists

The Siren Project is a downtempo/dream pop/post-punk band that started in Denver in 1998 and quickly became a staple in the local Goth and alternative rock scenes for several years. When the cultural infrastructure around the Goth scene began to dissolve and being a band perceived as making music in that style and the social connections surrounding it didn’t quite line up with the ascendance of mid-2000s indie rock in Denver, The Siren Project most often performed at events and club nights that catered to the subculture. And during the course of life events that sometimes put being more active on hold the band remained the enduring duo of vocalist Malgorzata Wacht and producer/synthesist Alex Seminara throughout the 2010s and now 2020s. In 2016 The Siren Project released its debut album Denouement. The record included songs dating back to the group’s earliest days and featured the contributions of various collaborators and yet at its heart was the sense of yearning and connection, of a romance with life and its meaning. Wacht’s powerful and expressive vocals and the lush and dreamlike melodies conveyed a very European sensibility that one hears in bands that influenced the duo’s early creative efforts like Clan of Xymox, Depeche Mode, Dead Can Dance and The Cure. Yet The Siren Project very much as its own sound that has set itself apart from its peers in the older Goth scene of Denver and of today. These days the style might best fall under the umbrella of darkwave seeing as its songwriting style and aesthetic has had less in common with industrial and EBM and more with modern acts like Boy Harsher, KANGA and Kaelan Mikla.

Listen to our interview with Wacht and Seminara on Bandcamp and follow The Siren Project at the links below. The band has a live show opening for Goth industrial legends Seraphim Shock at The Oriental Theater on Friday, September 1, 2023 with Faces Under the Mirror, hosted by Sid Pink and DJ sets from DJ Slave 1. For more information on the band and its goings on as well as to listen to the music please visit the links below.

thesirenprojectmusic.com

The Siren Project on Facebook

The Siren Project on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E19: hackedepicciotto

hackedepicciotto, photo by Errefotografia

Alexander Hacke and Danielle De Picciotto have been composing music together as hackedepicciotto for over twenty years. Based out of Berlin the two met in the 1980s in the same musical and art circles that included the influential industrial band Einstürzende Neubauten with which Hacke has been a member since 1981. De Picciotto was one of the founders of Love Parade in 1989, a traveling electronic music festival in Berlin dedicated to peace and international understanding and both musicians have been members of foundational post-punk band Crime and the City Solution since 2012. De Picciotto is an internationally recognized author and visual artist and creator of two graphic memoirs We Are Gypsies Now (2013) and Die Heitere Kunst der Rebellion (2020). Separately and together the artists have been involved in film making, cinematic scoring, multi-media presentations as well as finely crafted albums under the current collective moniker since 2016 (previous releases as Alexander Hacke & Danielle De Picciotto). The latest is Keepsakes released July 28, 2023 the duo’s second record on Mute. The album was recorded at the studio Auditorium Novecento in Napoli, Italy where Enrico Caruso and Ennio Morricone both recorded. De Picciotto and Hacke took advantage of the use of tubular bells and a grand piano in the studio and an array of other on hand instrumentation to craft songs in celebration of friendship and the lives of various friends with music that is as orchestral as it is intimate, imbued with subtle and surprising textures within its expressive melodies and experiments in sound and songwriting. It is arguably the duo’s finest record to date in an already remarkable career catalog.

Listen to our interview with hackedepicciotto on Bandcamp and follow the project at the links below and perhaps catch them at their always compelling live shows. Keepsakes is currently available on digital, CD and vinyl through one of the link portals below.

hackedepicciotto.de

danielledepicciotto.com

hacke.org

To purchase Keepsakes through Mute Records

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E18: Shamarr Allen

Shamarr Allen has been a professional musician in his hometown of New Orleans since he was a teenage member of Rebirth Brass Band. Allen grew up playing trumpet in a musical family and steeped in the rich and diverse musical traditions and legacies of the city as reflected across his varied and active career. Allen has cited Willie Nelson as his favorite songwriter and Prince, Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones as influences. Allen calls his style “bridge music” because it brings together a variety of sounds and musical leanings. He has collaborated with Harry Connick, Patti LaBelle, Lenny Kravitz, Willie Nelson, Big Freedia and Galactic. In 2009 he released his debut solo album and performed the National Anthem for President Barack Obama in New Orleans which lead to an invitation to play at the Governor’s Ball at the White House and serving as a musical/cultural ambassador for the United States to Brazil, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Congo. In 2020 Allen established Trumpet Is My Weapon, a gun exchange program following the death of a nine-year-old and the wonding of two other children in a shooting in New Orleans. In 2023 Allen released his latest album True Orleans 2 (due August 18, 2023), a sonically inventive set of songs that is at times reminiscent of a great southern hip-hop album but one informed by pop songcraft, R&B, soul and jazz and long on wit and sharp social observation.

Listen to our interview with Allen on Bandcamp and follow the master musician at the links below. Shamarr Allen is currently on wide-ranging national tour with a stop to perform at Dazzle in Denver, Colorado on Wednesday, August 16, 2023.

shamarrallen.com

Shamarr Allen on Instagram

Shamarr Allen on Facebook

Shamarr Allen on Twitter

Shamarr Allen on YouTube

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E17: Everything Is Terrible!

Everything Is Terrible!, photo by Jim Newberry

Since 2007 Everything Is Terrible! has mined the detritus of media cultural artifacts from thrift stores, garage sales and the like in the form of VHS tapes and in more recent years some streaming video for content to recontextualize clips of the most absurd and awful videos into informative and hilariously disturbing new forms. EIT helped to propel trash media culture into the mainstream of meme-making with its now nine found footage documentaries that shine a light on what our culture has produced and often decided to forget the way it does the rest of disposable media that reveals often uncomfortable truths about the submerged aspirations and dreams of our collective, modern civilization. Since 2009 the artist collective has toured with screenings of its films and have incorporated a puppet variety show and music to add just that special little layer of the surreal and weird to enhance the viewing experience of the people that show up. Perhaps the collective’s most infamous project is its goal of collecting thousands of VHS copies of the 1996 film Jerry Maguire with the goal of building a pyramid from the tapes in the desert. As of May 2023, the collection has reached 40,000+ copies and counting. In 2022 EIT released perhaps its greatest and most coherent creation to date, Kidz Klub! The film draws on the sheer dreck of the most misguided and misconceived television and home video programming made for children designed to educate and in many cases indoctrinate the nation’s youth. Even a casual viewing of the movie reveals recurring themes that edited together seem to be a continuous narrative with a touch of hypnotic reputation. For this iteration of the collective’s creative output the soundtrack pulled both from the original source material and original composition establishes the perfect air of the hyper real and otherworldly at once. In the live setting the movie is split up into roughly 5-10 minute sections interspersed with the puppet show and dance and song routines giving it the air of a psychedelic variety show in real time. It’s the kind of thing no one was asking for but which we all needed as a dose of sanity in a world in which we are increasingly bombarded with random content disconnected from the endless stream that is life itself.

Listen to our interview with Commodore Gilgamesh on Bandcamp and for more information on Everything Is Terrible!, to purchase merch and copies of the videos, and for information on live performances, please visit everythingisterrible.com. EIT is currently on tour now with a stop at Meow Wolf Convergence Station in Denver on August 15, 2023 and for tickets click this link.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E16: BIG|BRAVE

BIG|BRAVE is an experimental music trio based in Montreal, Québec, Canada. Formed in 2012 the group has taken the approach of utilizing instruments on hand to craft sounds and explore musical expressions that suited a style of musical storytelling that is widely dynamic with a tranquil center. Its early forays into minimalist folk and ambient music transformed as the group of necessity adopted new equipment in the making of its sounds resulting in a blend of high and low volume that served its core of vulnerable minimalism. During the course of the band’s existence it has been embraced by a wider heavy music community and its songwriting often considered within the realm of doom when its performances and compositions don’t fit neatly into a specific genre even the large umbrella of post-rock though fans of both of those styles will find much to appreciate about BIG|BRAVE’s output. In 2021 the group released a collaborative album with The Body, a duo often associated as well with doom and extreme metal generally but whose own musical roots are broader as well, called Leaving None But Small Birds, an eclectic work of experimental folk music that probably no one outside of the bands would have expected coming out of a collective work. In 2023 BIG|BRAVE released nature morte, a collection of six songs that seem to have the quality of folkloric tales about the perilous and precarious state of the world around us, “the consequences of trauma” and interconnected themes of “the subjugation of femininity in all its pluralities.” It is a challenging record but not one without an element of catharsis and the beauty of stark truths manifested in creative expression.

Listen to our interview with Robin Wattie and Matthieu Ball of BIG|BRAVE on Bandcamp and go see the trio at Ghost Canyon Fest in Denver at the Hi-Dive on Sunday, August 13, 2023. Ball also performs a solo set the afternoon prior on August 12 at Mutiny Information Café for the matinee section of the festival. For more information on BIG|BRAVE please visit bigbrave.ca.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E15: Many Blessings

Many Blessings in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Many Blessings is the long-running, solo noise project of Ethan McCarthy. The latter is perhaps best known to the world outside of Denver as the vocalist and guitarist of extreme metal band Primitive Man. But McCarthy has long been one of the pivotal figures in Denver underground going back a couple of decades. He first came to prominence as a member of grindcore outfit Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire and he ran the DIY space that was the downtown location of Monkey Mania that transitioned into Kingdom of Doom under his stewardship. McCarthy has always exerted a benevolent influence in the Denver scene as someone who hosts shows, books events and as an ambassador within and beyond the Mile High City who not only ran Kingdom of Doom but spaces like Funhouse and Aqualung’s Community Music Space in addition to booking shows at Blast-O-Mat before it turned into Seventh Circle Music Collective. His musical output has bridged the worlds of metal, noise and experimental music of various kinds including one-off noise projects, death doom bands Vermin Womb, Death of Self and Keep. Many Blessings represents an evolution of McCarthy’s exploration of a more harsh noise end of that musical leaning with processed vocals and electronic components that allow him an outlet of self-expression not dependent on anyone else’s input or timeline or availability. It is also his most prolific musical endeavor to date with dozens of releases. In contrast to his more ambient solo noise concern Spiritual Poison, Many Blessings has gritty texture and a darkly cathartic reflection of the brutal and ugly aspects of our civilization. McCarthy has also made a bit of a name for himself as a visual artist and these days releasing that work through his Hell Simulation moniker with his evocative creations gracing flyers, album art, tour posters and more.

Listen to our interview with Ethan McCarthy of Many Blessings on Bandcamp and catch him live at Ghost Canyon Fest this weekend at the matinee show at Mutiny Information Café on Saturday, August 12, 2023. Many Blessings also tours internationally so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to catch a performance sometime down the line if you’re not able to make it to Denver for the fest. For more information on McCarthy and his visual art and other projects the best portal of contact is likely via hellsimulation.com.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E14: Heet Deth

Heet Deth is a noise punk duo of drummer/vocalist Julia Bard and guitarist/vocalist Laila Eskin from Chicago that formed in 2018. Its musical style, as manifest on its 2021 album Heet Deth HOORAY! might be described as an unhinged and noisy, mutant garage rock infused with a deep sense of play and informed by sharp social commentary. Expect a raw, unvarnished, righteous clamor but not without its own sophistication of self-cultivated style that taps into camp science fiction for the content of its lyrics and its live performances. Fans of the reckless and scuzzy, lo-fi glory of Royal Trux, Lost Sounds and The Cramps may truly appreciate what Heet Deth is doing.

Listen to our interview with Heet Deth on Bandcamp and follow the group at the links below. Catch Heet Death live at Ghost Canyon Fest on Friday, August 11, 2023 at The Skylark Lounge for the first night of the festival. For more information on the band and to keep appraised of its doings, please visit heetdeth.com.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E13: Savoy Brown

Kim Simmonds of Savoy Brown, photo by Arnie Goodman

Savoy Brown was one of the pioneering bands of the “British blues” scene of the 1960s going forward. It’s sound though it could be described as blues rock had a faithfulness to the roots of that musical form that took that style and form to craft a prolific body of work that demonstrates the great versatility of style and emotional range of blues. Obviously the lineup of the band changed greatly over the years and for a brief period included Bill Bruford before he found long-lasting fame as a drummer in Yes and King Crimson. But the main force behind Savoy Brown has been from the beginning in 1965 to the end in 2022, guitarist and vocalist Kim Simmonds. Under his leadership with critical input by other band mates including early on Chris Youlden. It wasn’t until late in the group’s career that it found its most enduring and longest-lasting membership when bassist Pat DeSalvo and drummer Garnet Grimm came on board full time in 2009 having worked known Simmonds for more than a decade. It was this crew of musicians as a trio that worked on and finished the recording of the final Savoy Brown album Blues All Around which came out on February 17, 2023 on Quarto Valley Records. Simmonds, however, had passed on December 13, 2022 from cancer just over a week after his seventy-fifth birthday. A creative triumph the record reflected Simmonds physical limitations later in his career as cancer took its toll on his body but those limitations pushed him and the band to experiment with their methods and in doing so took the songwriting in a bit of a new direction. We had a chance to speak with Grimm and DeSalvo about the making of the record, their origins as musicians and their late, great bandmate.

Listen to our interview with Garnet Grimm and Pat DeSalvo on Bandcamp and for more information on Savoy Brown and to purchase the new record as well as other merchandise and prints of Kim Simmonds’ artwork, please visit savoybrown.com.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E12: Stella Rose

Stella Rose released her debut full length album Eyes of Glass LP on May 19 via Yves Rothman’s KRO Records. The daughter of a famous pop star, Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode fame, Stella Rose might have been given a pass for following in his footsteps as a songwriter and musician herself and resting on those laurels but even a superficial listen to the album and its early singles made obvious that Rose has forged her own creative identity beyond any advantages she may have had growing up. There is a thorny grit to the songs and a dark moodiness and intensity that has to come from self-cultivation. Visually this aesthetic has been given dramatic form in the three music videos for the singles from the album thus far in the treatments for “Angel,” “Muddled Man” and “Jane.” Rose has been performing live shows over the past couple of years and the footage has revealed an artist who has quickly established an individual musical vision that has continued to evolve even beyond the recording of the album. It is perhaps facile to compare to her to the likes of PJ Harvey but a bit of that raw energy and poetic sensibility (she got her start songwriting through her poetry and other writing) is part of Rose’s appeal as is her facility with combining the aesthetics of rock instrumentation and the electronic and though not obvious her instinct toward exploring more experimental newer artists Jenny Hval (as we discuss in the interview) is reflected in the creative directions each song takes.

Listen to our interview with Rose on Bandcamp and follow the songwriter at the links below.

Stella Rose on Instagram

Stella Rose on Twitter

Stella Rose and the Dead Language LinkTree

Stella Rose on TikTok