Red Aunts are headlining Fem Fest at the MCA Denver on Saturday, May 12. While the punk band, formed in Long Beach, California in 1992, isn’t as well known as some of its contemporaries, it was certainly one of the most original and beloved by those that came under the band’s spell of chaos and playfulness before it split around 2001.
The last time Red Aunts performed in Denver was on July 17, 1998 at the Bluebird Theater. The band had already come through Denver and Boulder in early April of that year playing with King Rat and Necessary Evils at Lion’s Lair and Electric Summer at Club 156. At the Bluebird show, the roots punk King Rat and the garage rock Down N Outs warmed up the crowd with impressive sets of their own. But when Red Aunts took stage, the group had an excitingly unpredictable quality that perfectly suited its its unique sound, a kind of blend of noisy punk and garage rock. Then, at one point in the set, either Kerry Davis or Terri Wahl broke a guitar string and announced, “You’d think that in seven years of being in a band that I would have learned to change my strings but I didn’t. Is there anyone that can come up here to help me with that?” Someone did. Perhaps that moment, that likely happened periodically in the band’s career, struck some as unprofessional, but to others it showed that you didn’t need to have complete expertise or mastery of all areas of one’s art all at the same time in order to do it with credibility or at all. Clearly the members of the Red Aunts weren’t letting what some might perceive as shortcomings get in the way of being a band. “Oh yeah, nor did we care,” says Wahl. “I think that was more the thing. We just didn’t give a fuuuck.”
That creative spirit liberated from the confinements of conventional thinking was part of the band from the beginning. Wahl had moved to Long Beach from Anaheim, after a stint in Fullerton, with her vintage clothing business. But she’d always loved music and as a teenager had seen and been inspired by the likes of X, Social Distortion, The Mau Maus and Christian Death.
“I would sneak out my bedroom window and drive with my friends from Anaheim to Los Angeles to see bands,” recalls Wahl. “That’s what opened my eyes to punk rock. But I didn’t start a band until ten years after that.”
In Long Beach, Wahl came upon the idea of starting her own band with her friend Debi Martini, who was already doing a music ‘zine with her now ex-husband, Edwin Lecher, called Read Life In The Big City. The latter helped put the fledgling band in contact with several other musicians around the world over the years. Before starting Red Aunts, though, Wahl and Martini had already been around musicians but decided not to be bound by the same perceived barriers to entry in starting a band.
“We all had boyfiends that were in bands and we’d end up at these parties and all they could do was talk about their stupid bands,” says Wahl. She decided she would play guitar “because it’s the coolest” and Martini said she would play bass because she thought her boyfriend had one. A friend told Wahl that his friend Kerry was moving to Long Beach from New York and wanted to be in a band as well. With the addition of drummer Lesley Ishino, Red Aunts was born, a band formed by people who hadn’t really played music before. Developing chops and honing of craft in a traditional and creatively stultifying way before getting out and playing shows was not to be part of the history of Red Aunts. “We wrote songs and learned to play our instruments as our band was going,” says Wahl. “It was awesome.”
Red Aunts wasted no time in playing live, “Right off the bat, whether we should have or not,” quips Wahl, and one of its earliest shows was with respected 80s and 90s Illinois punk band The Didjits.
“They were coming through town and the venue that they were going to play at got shut down and we were like, ‘Oh, let’s have the show in Debi’s garage and the Red Aunts will open for you!’” recalls Wahl. “It was on the Fourth of July. The only reason I remember that is that I found a miniskirt made out of an American flag and I was like, ‘Oh! That’s what I’m wearin’ for the Fourth of July! That’s the perfect outfit!’ Because you always have to pick your outfits too. That’s half the fun!”
Red Aunts live 2017, photo courtesy Red Aunts
Early on, though, Red Aunts, like most bands, played a lot of local shows and mostly with all male bands some of whom, especially then, even now, were skeptical of an all female band, especially one like Red Auints who made no bones about their emphasis on creativity and songwriting over technical prowess. Long term having its own sound and aesthetic worked out for Red Aunts but its early peers perhaps didn’t give it the respect it would eventually earn. “In my opinion I don’t think they received us well because we couldn’t play very well,” says Wahl. “And so they were just like, ‘Oh, stupid girl band.’ As soon as we started going and touring we became way more popular than them. That ended a lot of relationships—marriages and others.”
As in much of music, many musicians forget that some of the most interesting music is made by those who are not cognitively or culturally bound by the “rules,” especially the supposedly anarchic roots of punk rock and rock and roll itself. The willingness to play and write songs without having classic skill is often key.
“Punk rock made it okay to not have to play that well,” says Wahl. “We always used that as, like, ‘Well, who cares, man? Close enough for punk rock.’ Then, as we were touring for months out of the year we got really good at playing—we got really good at our songs at least. We also got more confident and it was fun.”
Fortunately, Red Aunts found support in the local community and the larger punk scene. Some of its early releases were put out by Long Gone John on his Sympathy For the Record Industry imprint, which was then based in Long Beach. “[John] gave us that first chance of actually putting something out and he was really supportive and just a really good guy.”
Within a few years Red Aunts had built up enough of an audience and reputation to draw the interest of Epitaph Records and signed with the imprint before the release of its third full-length, 1995’s irreverent #1 Chicken as well as its subsequent records, 1996’s Saltbox and the 1998 swan song Ghetto Blaster.
“[Signing with Epitaph was] when thing really happened because being on that label meant we could go on tour because we got tour support,” says Wahl. “We took full advantage of that and we went out quite often. How you became popular was touring a lot. Before then we didn’t tour nationally. We would go up the coast a little bit but when we got on Epitaph, that’s when were able to really get out there.”
In the second half of the 90s, Red Aunts were inspired by the noisy punk bands that were signed to labels like Amphetamine Reptile, Touch and Go, Thrilljockey, Estrus Records, Empty Records and In the Red Records. At that time, as now, indie labels were the home of music that probably wouldn’t be given the time of day by major labels, especially after the early 90s when the music industry snapped back to a more conservative mode of operations rather than take chances as it had when alternative music forced a sea change in the early 90s. Certainly a band with a gift for noisy punk, wild energy and an irreverently surrealistic sense of humor like Red Aunts wouldn’t have fit in with being groomed for mainstream stardom.
One of the main ingredients in the Red Aunts sound was its willingness to throw together seemingly disparate ideas in music and lyrics, written by various band members, and make them work even when the styles and ideas seem to clash. It’s a method that has more in common with the avant-garde than punk but in itself more punk than a band making music trying to fit into someone else’s formula. For example, from #1 Chicken, the song “Detroit Valentine” sounds completely insane in the best way and its lyrics shift between cartoonish violence and romantic obsession.
“That was about Mick Collins,” says Wahl. “We became really good friends with him. Kerry had a crush on him, on his voice, you know? It was called that because he was from Detroit. Debi’s part of the song ‘I’m bound for Black Mountain me and my razor gun I’m gonna shoot him if he stands still and cut him if he run.’ I don’t know what she was talking about. But the part Debi sings and the part Kerry sings are about different things. The part Debi sings she wrote and the part Kerry sings she wrote and we just kind of jammed them together. That’s how a lot of our songs are, actually. That’s why there’s so many time changes and weird progressions and changes.”
While this method of songwriting came naturally to Red Aunts, the band, Davis and Wahl in particular, were big fans of noise punk legends Pussy Galore. “Their songs were so weird with so many time changes and chord progressions,” says Wahl. “We wanted to be like that.”
When Red Aunts split up near the turn of the century it wasn’t a dramatic blowout. Davis and Martini moved to New York and Wahl decided to focus on her catering company, which prevented any kind of touring. Wahl pretty much stopped playing music but Davis and Martini continued to play music, Davis notably as Two Tears, and Ishino went on to perform in various bands including Alaska! from Los Angeles.
Then in 2016, In the Red Records head Larry Hardy issued a “greatest hits” compilation called COME UP FOR A CLOSER LOOK subsequent to which the band approached Hardy to play the label’s 25th Anniversary Festival on July 15, 2016. Wahl had to re-learn how to play the bands songs from the group’s friend and guitar tech Zack Malner but the show proved to be so much fun that Red Aunts decided to continue and play occasional dates, life demands permitting, including, as mentioned previously, at Fem Fest in Denver on May 12, June 1 at Boot & Saddle in Philadelphia and at Rough Trade in New York City on June 2.
It’s difficult to say if Red Aunts have been directly influential on other bands but one hears that spirit of faith in one’s inherent creativity to guide one’s art as well as a wild noisy punk in the likes of Atlanta, Georgia’s The Coathangers, but certainly the band has been a good example of how originality will always be more interesting than following the beaten path. For her part, Wahl is finding satisfaction in this new chapter of the band’s history.
“I kind of feel like we’re better now,” says Wahl. “It could just be me. We’re not as drunk and I’m just having a lot of fun.”
Who:Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: Venus Cruz & What Young Men Do, Abeasity Jones When: Thursday, 05.10, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Abeasity Jones’ songs sound like maybe he spends part of his day working in some high rise office in downtown Denver and/or in some media tech office nearby where maybe things are comfortable but there’s an element of compromise and alienation. And while working and tending to the demands of his personal and family life he allows his imagination an escape into chill spaces where he can explore and write stories about his struggles, concerns and daydream life. The beats are downtempo and ethereal and the subject matter often delivered with a sense of acceptance like depleted melancholy. Yet, Jones’ sense of humor and thoughtfulness lifts up the music and his live performance has a positive energy giving the songs a dimensionality that some hip-hop seemingly recorded at home lacks.
Also playing this show is one of Denver jazz and hip-hop’s true luminaries: Venus Cruz. But this time out with the band What Young Men Do. Cruz’s versatile talent has found a place singing, producing and performing music in a wide variety of contexts. Her long-running stint with the Jazz Odyssey program on KUVO on Wednesday nights is an outlet for fans of jazz and the sensibility of jazz outside the classic format. What Young Men Do is more of a funk, soul and jazz-inflected hip-hop project so it’ll be something pretty different for the Speakeasy Series and Hooked On Colfax both.
Who:Musical Mayhem: Bonnie Weimer and The Pollution When: Thursday, 05.10, 9 p.m. Where: Skylark Lounge Why: Bonnie Weimer released her first single in probably several years, maybe even her first released music since her time in folk-punk-Americana group Potato Farmers, in April 2018 with “Pajama Top Man,” a winsome, humorous, self-effacing story song about an awkward would-be romantic encounter set to a spare, banjo melody. Fans of outsider music will find a lot to like about the song even though that designation doesn’t necessarily fit Weimer’s entire musical output. In an interesting pairing, not unusual for Claudia Woodman’s Musical Mayhem night at the Skylark, is The Pollution. Jay Fox was in one of the early DC punk bands, United Mutation, but the latter was never part of the Dischord scene and didn’t play out often even if its blend of psychedelic rock and punk was becoming a thing as bands like Butthole Surfers and Alice Donut were making waves in the underground. Decades hence, Fox, now living in Denver for several years, has set about trying to make bands for whom the intensity, energy, anti-authoritarian spirit and creative fire of punk and psychedelic seemed completely compatible qualities that needn’t be separated by stylistic sectarianism.
Who:Gold Trash, Violent Vickie, R A R E B Y R D $, Pearls and Perils and EVP When: Thursday, 05.10, 8 p.m. Where: Independent Records Why: Glasss is bringing some of its artists to Colorado Springs tonight. Gold Trash is sort of a samples/live electronics take on the kind of collage, trash sound/culture guitar rock barrage that was Royal Trux. Pearls and Perils is lush downtempo beats and the sultry vocals of Olivia Perez who most won’t remember from her old, experimental rock band Gloam. But with Pearls and Perils she gets to put more of herself into the music undiluted by anyone else’s vision and the result is an emotionally cleansing body of work. Like most Glasss artists, EVP is impossible to tag with one genre designation. Part industrial, part pop, part punk, EVP sounds like the kind of music made by people living in a dystopian near future where kids have overtaken the crumbling, cheap housing units made during Denver’s current fake economic boom (real economic booms benefit everyone pretty equally) but then abandoned—scrappy, often angry and melancholy stuff. R A R E B Y R D $ is probably the Denver band now that will attain the underground mythical status of acts like Fissure Mystic and Hot White by the sheer excellence of its material and live shows except it’s an experimental hip-hop group. Its enveloping, rich beats stir the heart and the imagination and the emotional resonance of its lyrics and KoKo La’s and Key Lady’s singing and rapping has the irresistible power of a Kimya Dawson.
Who:Esmé Patterson, Emily Ritz and Eleanor Perry When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: Leon Gallery Why: Most of the time to see Esmé Patterson’s evocative storyteller pop you’d have to go to some kind of bigger bar venue or small theater. But this performance will happen at the much more intimate Leon Gallery. Patterson spent many years honing her craft as a member of the baroque pop group Paper Bird, but since she’s broke out on hr own for the last several years her imaginative songwriting has developed into a vehicle for writing with a warmth and wisdom on uncomfortable subjects.
Who:Charly Bliss w/Skating Polly When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Charly Bliss’s 2017 album Guppy sounds like the band wood shedded its material in a cabin in a remote location far from its Brooklyn homebase with only 90s fuzzy alternative rock/power pop on hand for its listening diet. Obvious touchstones like Liz Phair, Velocity Girl, The Breeders and Veruca Salt. Even the music video for “Ruby” reinforces that impression looking like something that might have been produced for a segment of The Ben Stiller Show. But there’s no mistaking Charly Bliss’s exuberant energy for a pure nostalgia trip. The songs may rock but like many of the bands that likely influenced Charly Bliss, the lyrics have a raw vulnerability that gives it more depth than might otherwise be obvious. The same could be said for Oklahoma City band Skating Polly whose style of music is probably punk by default but so individual it would be problematic to say the trio consciously tried to be punk as a genre. The latter recently released its latest album, The Make It All Show. Skating Polly shows look like they might blow apart from the sheer, wiry energy of the performance and, of course, that’s what makes for great, scrappy punk rock.
Who:Girls Rock Denver: Showcase Series: Gold Trash, RAREBYRD$, EVP and Nighttimeschoolbus When: Friday, 05.11, 7 – 11 p.m. Where: Spectra Art Space Why:Girls Rock Denver will happen in the summer but these events are a showcase to perhaps make being a musician beyond the camp and beyond those likely temporary bands an attainable goal. Which is crucial because a world where most music and art is still being made mostly by males seems bizarre and past its due date at this point in history. This night features some of the best artists in Denver in the realm of electronic, hip-hop, experimental and industrial music. Most of the artists on the bill were written up earlier in this column but all are worth your time.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Echo Beds and Weathered Statues When: Friday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, one of Denver’s longest running bands and one of its most lively and entertaining, is doing a mini-residence at the Hi-Dive this weekend. Although the Auto Club is a kind of punk Americana with literary lyrics and a joyful, emotionally charged, theatrical live show, it’s been booking opening bands well outside the expected circles of Gothic Americana. This night, organo-industrial darkwave band Echo Beds will bring the punishing beats and cathartic drones and Weathered Statues will deliver its brand of moody but urgent post-punk.
Saturday | May 12, 2018
Great American House Fire, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Fem Fest When: Saturday, 05.12, 8 p.m. Where: MCA Denver Why: Fem Fest is an all-ages, all-genders welcome event that includes various workshops, a bazaar, tarot and astrology readings and more but also musical performances in the evening and night. Fem Fest because representation matters in a truly healthy and just society. There are plenty of, in essence, Men Fests because of booking and conception most of the rest of the year so don’t get caught up on the name and miss out on some of Denver’s best bands and the headliner, Red Aunts. Music kicks off at 5 p.m. with a Girls Rock Denver showcase followed by space angel/earth mother energy hip hop group R A R E B Y R D $ at 6. Princess Dewclaw, Denver’s own electro fuzz punks at 7 with “pastel punk” surf rock trio The Corner Girls at 8. The evening tops off at 9 with Red Aunts.
Who:Dirty Junk, Great American House Fire, Married a Dead Man When: Saturday, 05.11, 9 p.m. Where: The Curtis Club Why: Dirty Junk is a duo from Minneapolis on its 2017 album Snot is the kind of messy, noisy, collage-esque punk-inspired music that we haven’t heard much of since Get Hustle was active. Or like a weirder and noiser version of that raw punk Sleater-Kinney was doing on its first two records. Interesting putting the band together with Great American House Fire, a group that combines a melancholic Americana with moody posthardcore and soulful singing. Married a Dead Man is a post-punk band unabashedly influenced by music out of the Goth world.
Who:Sorted #8: Pangaea, Ganesa & Squane, Newnumbertwo When: Saturday, 05.12, 10 p.m. Where: TBA Why: Kevin McAuley calls London home but tonight he’s performing at the eight edition of sorted, the underground electronic music event that Veronica Lamaak and company put together periodically to showcase some of the most interesting house, techno and more experimental dance music in general happening now. Also on the bill are Jelly Bean Farm artists Ganesa & Squane. Ganesa is the label head of Jelly Bean Farm and her DJ sets tend to be eclectic and futuristic-sounding. Squane’s sound tends to be more low end heavy with thick, dubby bass beats but he and Ganesa share a seeming love of bright, mid-to-upper register melodically ethereal melodies. Newnumbertwo is a resident artist with Sorted whose deep house/dubstep sound mixes in elements of a gentle kind of breakcore.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Palehorse/Palerider When: Saturday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The second night of the Auto Club residency at the Hi-Dive this weekend but this time with Palehorse/Palerider, a band who are superficially an alchemical mixture of doom/drone and shoegaze but with an industrial/tribal element they bring in for a song or two in the set. Which doesn’t mean much when your sets have three or four songs but nevertheless gives a set of otherwise densely beautiful and crushing songs an expansive sensibility.
Sunday | May 13, 2018
Modest Mouse, photo by Ben Moon
Who:Modest Mouse w/Mimicking Birds When: Sunday, 05.13, 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: For a band that is one of the definitive incarnations of the too-broad-too-vague-yet-fittingly-umbrella quasi-genre of indie rock, Modest Mouse sure put in a lot of time developing its sound and songwriting style before becoming one of the style’s most iconic groups. Modest Mouse began when its founders were still in high school, it released its first seven inch on K Records, its first two full-lengths on Seattle indie imprint Up Records including its 1997 “breakthrough” album Lonesome Crowded West and every album since through major label Epic Records. Quite an arc for a band whose work remained fairly idiosyncratic, emotionally raw and imaginative even up to its most recent album, 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves. In its first decade or so of its existence, Modest Mouse was a notoriously inconsistent live band. But since then the act has seemingly harnessed the chaos and unpredictability of its youth when maybe there seemed to be less and stake and less to lose if it did all fall apart and channeled that spirit into music more coherent and accessible to a wider audience without having to sacrifice its uniqueness.
Monday | May 14, 2018
Rotstrotter, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Petrification w/Rotstrotter, Alone and Noctambulist When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Petrification is a death metal/grind band from Portland, Oregon on its way to Maryland Death Fest and making a stop in Denver to play with some of the local heavy hitters in that realm of music. The band called its 2017 cassetteSummon Horrendous Destructionwith a rotting zombie face rendered in black and white as the cover. At times the guitar riffs wander into the realm of The New Order-esque period Testament. But that is no bad thing. Rotstrotter have been one the longest-running, and frankly best, D-Beat bands in Denver. Sounding somewhere between SSD and early Discharge, Rotstrotter looks and sounds like they live it and that it’s not a simply a shallow lifestyle choice.
Who:Farrell Lowe Group, Latex Cupcake, Seward / Sexton, Gil Selinger When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This is a rare opportunity to see some of Colorado’s avant-garde improvisation legends at a DIY space. Farrell Lowe Group includes, of course, Farrell Lowe, Mark Raynes, Dave Willey and Mark Harris. The latter two are members of internationally renowned avant-prog band Thinking Plague. Latex Cupcake is Jennifer Bobola, John T. Nething, Bret Kuyper and Mark Emmons, all of whom have been around Denver playing in various capacities but this is the project’s first show and its, one might say, mutant version of experimental jazz/modern classical will be a great fit on this lineup including a solo cello performance with Gil Selinger and Seward / Sexton, which will be accessible and in the vein of lounge jazz but inspired more by Captain Beefheart and The Fugs than a standard jazz group.
Tuesday | May 15, 2018
Cullen Omori, photo by Alexa Lopez
Who:Cullen Omori w/The Gloomies and Rowboat When: Tuesday, 05.15, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Cullen Omori’s 2016 album New Misery at least lets you know what you’re in for. As in imagine you were in one of the most buzzed about indie rock bands of the first half of the 2010s and then your band breaks up and you didn’t regroup with any of the other members. You’re left to pick up the pieces and try to figure out a way to keep doing the only thing that gave your life any real resonance. Perhaps a bit of a stretch but one can only imagine it’s something like the scene in Apocalypse Now where Willard discusses why he stayed in Vietnam and how it beat working in a factory in Ohio. To go from Smith Westerns and, in Denver anyway, playing the Ogden to playing small clubs. Willard dealt with it through self-harm and self-medication. Maybe Omori did some of that too, who’s to say? But what we do know is that despite its flaws and shortcomings, New Misery is the product of Omori’s tangling with the fallout, personal and creative, of going from being in a band on the verge of mainstream success to having to find a place for oneself doing the thing you love but which is also the source of some of your pain. That quality gives the record a bit of an uneven and at times cringeworthily honest quality but you don’t often get to hear that on what is essentially a pop record. For this show, you can see some of that music live but also, with any luck, a good deal of what Omori has been cooking up since then.
Who:Film On the Rocks: The Last Jedi feat. Church Fire When: Tuesday, 05.15, 6 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Church Fire’s music sounds like it’s from some future, way-past-post-apocalypse-to-civilizational-rebirth dance club scene. Like synth pop delivered with a fiery intensity and noisy abandon. Sure, a lot of people are going to see a movie during the rainy season for some reason at a place where the wind will doppler the sound and the storms will make watching a movie borderline miserable. Or not. It is Colorado after all. But seeing Church Fire in that environment will make sense as the sun is setting and the diminishing rainclouds provide the perfect backdrop.
Wednesday | May 16, 2018
TV Girl log, image courtesy TV Girl
Who:TV Girl w/Wished Bone and Hairclub When: Wednesday, 05.16, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The enigmatic pop band TV Girl makes a stop at the Hi-Dive this night. Its sound is like a hyper/surreal, tropicalia-inflected lounge pop. Like a Los Angeles sister band to Sweden’s Death And Vanilla. If someone could make music for a TV show about an America where the 80s never ended and we somehow had Ike back as the president. If Mad Men was a cyberpunk show but took place at a resort with none of the usual dystopian trappings, just life with everyday dramas set in a dreamlike place, an almost too clean place as exists in 60s 70s British science fiction shows. The band’s new album, Death of a Party Girl (read the statement on why the vinyl isn’t yet out because it’s dead on and witty) is an indie pop album that sounds like something that could only really come out of Southern California – hazy atmospheres, downtempo, wistful and soothing – but without any of the creeping insipidity that happens when too much industry input leeches music of any of its inherent character.
Who:Desert Daze Caravan 2018: Ariel Pink w/DIIV When: Thursday, 05.03, 7 p.m. Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall Why: Desert Daze Caravan is the traveling mini-version of the Desert Daze festival in California that features some of the best of the more psychedelic-leaning bands existing today. While the festival happens in October, for this touring edition, Desert Daze brings along a couple of the most interesting artists playing music in its wheelhouse. Los Angeles based lo-fit mutant pop renegade Ariel Rosenberg, aka Ariel Pink, has had a varied and storied musical career that should be the subject of a book someday because it’s not short on drama, controversy and artistic achievement. In 2017 Rosenberg released Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, a collection of songs that bridge dream pop, psychedelic rock, what one might called garage soul and lo-fi funk. As with all of his records, Rosenberg plays with the form of genre with an offbeat use of sound and weaving together aesthetics that most other artists wouldn’t. At times one is reminded of some early 80s German synth pop, others of Get Lost-period Magnetic Fields and of the music of his friend and contemporary, John Maus. Unlike many of his contemporary synth artists Rosenberg isn’t trying to show how big a sound he can get with a synthesizer, he makes it serve the song as much as any other musical element and not as the basis for the composition.
DIIV became a bit of a cult band for Zachary Cole Smith when Oshin came out on Captured Tracks in 2012. Though the record felt a bit indistinct it made krautrock’s repetitive beat structure softer like downtempo with a little more emotional urgency. The follow-up, 2016’s Is the Is Are found Smith embracing the raw and vivid emotionalism of Elliott Smith’s lo-fi pop and the messy, atonal trash rock of Royal Trux. It’s challenging to hear that on the beautifully melodic songs of Is the Is Are but that the songwriting is growing beyond the band’s earliest phase is obvious and at times Is the Is Are sounds like Smith is training himself to deconstruct his own musical instincts to make something more creatively rewarding.
Who:In/Planes Radio Wave tape release w/Down Time and Kyle Emerson When: Thursday, 05.03, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: In/Planes’ music has a very soft touch and is the “Mixtapes” single from its new tape, Radio Waves, is any indication, the duo has a gift for taking fairly common experiences and making them resonate with an immediacy of the deeply personal. Joining the band for the tape release show are like-minded tender pop band Down Time and Kyler Emerson with his jazz-inflected, incisively poetic, desert-y folk pop gems.
Who:Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series season 2: Lepidoptera, MYTHirst, Bow Shock When: Thursday, 05.03, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: MYTHirst’s sound is part bright, modular-synth sounding beats with organic string sounds and textured percussion. The Denver version of Lepidoptera, not the Palm Beach, Florida band, has a dream-like guitar and minimal atmospheric sound reminiscent of mid-90s Flying Saucer Attack but not quite as noisy. Bow Shock is somewhere between improvisational electro jazz funk and whatever it is one might call Prefuse 73 with its own mixture of samples of records and live instruments in a way that expands the parameters of what constitutes electronic dance music.
Friday | May 4, 2018
Television Generation, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Jane Doe, Television Generation and Meet the Giant When: Friday, 05.04, 9 p.m. Where: Skylark Lounge Why: Three of Denver’s best off the beaten path rock bands are playing the Skylark on this bill. Jane Doe is in the realm of post-punk but there are elements of noise rock and avant-garde jazz and performance poetry as delivered by Becca Mhalek. The latter spent some time playing with Nels Cline as well as Denver experimental bands Nightshark, MVP and Aenka. Television Generation takes the harrowing intensity of early grunge and mixes it with melodic and energetic post-punk. Meet the Giant has taken what could be fairly gloomy music and given it a driving rhythm and grit that somehow perfectly captures urban melancholy and desperation as experienced by anyone living in American west: uncertainty, disconnection, disaffection, undercurrents of fatalism and a sense of pondering whether or not its foolish to hope for things to change for the better where or not you give it a good try. All while sounding scrappy and not ready to give up on the rewards of creative expression for one’s own fulfillment. Meet the Giant’s self-titled full-length releases digitally on May 15 with a vinyl release later in Spring or Summer.
Who:Porlolo (album release) w/Land Lines and Spirettes When: Friday, 05.04, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Porlolo released Awards on April 27 but this is the official release show. Erin Roberts, the lead singer and guitarist in Porlolo, has kept the band going for years while not exactly breaking through to a mainstream audience, Roberts’ songwriting has been noteworthy for its humor, wisdom and sensitivity. Maybe some of the roots are in folk and Americana but at this point Porlolo transcends both and has as much in common with Luna, Cat Power, Mojave 3 and Mazzy Star as it does with anything fully in the country spectrum of songwriting. Getting to see Land Lines’ experimental, string driven pop and Spirettes’ incandescent dream pop in person just makes this show three times worth seeing.
Who:SPELLS, Quits, Wild Lives When: Friday, 05.04, 9 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: SPELLS is a poppy punk band that is as much a party as a band. Wild Lives is more in the realm of punk bands from the 80s and 90s who were melodic but not pop punk. Like The Didjits, New Bomb Turks and Blatz. Quits, a little different from the rest of the lineup in being more a noise rock band than punk. Which makes sense in that every member of the band has contributed to some of the most noteworthy post-hardcore and noise rock out of Denver of the last two decades including former Hot White members Tiana Bernard and Darren Kulback as well as Luke Fairchild and Doug Mioducki who were last in a band together in the early 2000s with Sparkles who always seemed to play like they were ready to explode.
Saturday | May 5, 2018
Al Scorch band, photo by Alexis Ellers
Who:Alice Glass – Snowblood tour w/Zola Jesus and Pictureplane When: Saturday, 05.05, 8:30 p.m. Where: Fox Theatre Why: When Alice Glass released her self-titled EP in August 2017 it sounded like a a purging of several years of having told hold back in revealing her own truth and a declaration of her identity as an artist viable beyond any past associations with Crystal Castles. In the latter, Glass was a riveting performer and a singer that channeled perfectly the synthesis of 8-bit music, synth pop, modern dance music and hip-hop that was the essence of Crystal Castles and its being ahead of a curve in modern electronic music that embraced lo-fi and collage production as much as more conventional compositional techniques. For this tour Glass paired with one of the other powerful songwriters in electronic underground music with Zola Jesus whose own 2017 album Okovi represented her own breaking with the methodology and career path of an “indie” artist that might have been open to her. Instead, she trusted her personal and creative instincts and put together an album that was awash in ambient sounds and an hypnotic melodies and sonic structures reminiscent of classical music and black metal. Pictureplane is an old friend of Glass’s from his days as a Denver artist living at Rhinoceropolis. As an artist whose work traverses noise, electronic pop, hip-hop and dance, Pictureplane has a broad palette of sounds and sensibilities employed in his songwriting and performance style.
Who:Al Scorch (full band), Gun Street Ghost, Matt Rouch & The Noise Upstairs When: Saturday, 05.05, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Chicago’s Al Scorch earned a name for himself as an energetic and engaging performer with his blend of punk and Americana. Sure, a ton of punks have turned country and the great Camper Van Beethoven and Green On Red, among others, set a high bar for that sort of thing. A number of punk and country artists have even threaded in some eastern European and non-Western musical ideas into their mix. But Scorch does so with an irresistible energy and charisma. His most recent record, 2016’s Circle Round the Signs, contained more than a small amount of poignant social commentary about class and the consequences of war and conflict.
Sunday | May 6, 2018
HIDE in August 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:HIDE, Curse, Echo Beds and Jump Scare – DJ Brian Castillo When: Sunday, 05.06, 8:30 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Chicago-based post-industrial duo HIDE makes a return visit to Denver in the wake of the release of their 2018 album Castration Anxiety. Using samples, pounding beats and corrosive drones, HIDE’s shows are like confrontational rapidfire snapshots into our culture’s nightmares and insecurities set to a heady soundtrack and as embodied in vocalist Heather Gabel’s ritualistic performance style. Fortunately, the band’s tour intersected with that of Baltimore industrial/darkwave punk band Curse whose own synth-driven heavy music predates some of the current darkwave renaissance and yet sounds like a future form of the music. Curse recently released a split 7” with noteworthy Austin-based industrial act Street Sects. Also on the bill are local industrial noise phenoms Echo Beds and Jump Scare, which includes Anton Kruger, formerly of experimental electronic dance project Bollywood Life. Brian Castillo will DJ the night with some rare cuts from his extensive vinyl library of underground and not-so-underground darkwave music.
Yardsss at Treefort Music Fest 2018, Boise, ID. Photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Flesh Buzzard, Sporehive, Morlox, Nighttimeschoolbus, Mirror Fears, Yardsss, Ghost House, visuals by Clark Nova, DJ sets by JusJo When: Sunday, 05.06, 6 p.m., show 6:30 Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: A night of mostly local noise and electronic acts at Seventh Circle Music Collective. Patrick Urn of Morlox has long bridged the worlds of noise and electronic music production and has released a fairly diverse body of work including hip-hop and ambient music beyond the noise and industrial music for which he’s best known. Whether as a member of defunct industrial legends In Ether, as Herpes Hideaway, as Syphilis Sauna or Morlox, Urn’s imaginative compositions are highly worthy of exploring in recorded form and witnessing live if you can. Nighttimeschoolbus is an underground hip-hop duo comprised of Toby Hendricks of Otem Rellik and vocalist extraordinaire Robin Walker. The name tells you a bit about the aesthetic and sense of play involved in the songwriting but it also articulates perfectly the necessary emotional state in which you’re indulging your whimsy as a refuge from the rest of the time in life when you’re dealing with the heavier side of human existence. Mirror Fears will not be short on bringing the feels with her melancholy yet cathartic, beat driven electronic pop songs. Yardsss from Portland, Oregon in this configuration is the three-piece band so the show is more like a post-punk, industrial ritual performance than the inspired, hermetic electronic performance art piece it was when Krist Kruger performed as Yardsss solo in Denver in 2017.
Monday | May 7, 2018
MGMT, photo by Brad Elterman
Who:MGMT When: Monday, 05.07, 6:30 p.m. Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: MGMT came up a time when many of the big time electronic pop acts of the 2000s were getting going. That LCD Soundsystem, Paramore, Phoenix, Arcade Fire, Matt and Kim and MGMT and the like started experiencing the first stirrings of popularity in roughly the same timeframe before chillwave became a thing should be noteworthy to future popular music historians. MGMT, though, started when Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden were students at Wesleyan and like many dorm/bedroom projects in the 2000s the early musical ideas were noisier and more experimental than their more developed work. But when MGMT got more accessible it also became more interesting and its weirdo psychedelic pop struck a chord with an increasingly wide audience. The 2007, Dave Fridmann-produced Oracular Spectacular took MGMT out of the underground for good and when the band returned to Denver after the release of that album it wasn’t playing the Hi-Dive, it was much larger venues. The band’s subsequent albums, Congratulations and MGMT, didn’t seem to advance the band’s musical ideas much but 2018’s Little Dark Age finds the group not returning to form so much as a re-embrace of the band’s core idiosyncratic vision of electronic pop and dance music that made it interesting in the beginning.
Who:Curse w/Echo Beds and Ghost House When: Monday, 05.07, 8 p.m. Where: Triple Nickel Tavern (Colorado Springs) Why: This is your second chance to see Curse (see above) in Colorado also with Echo Beds. It’s not too common that these kinds modern darkwave and industrial bands perform in the Springs so don’t sleep on the opportunity if you’re into that kind of music.
Who:Smoking Popes (acoustic) w/The Bigger Empty (feat. Mike Felumlee) When: Monday, 05.07, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Smoking Popes were one of the best of the 90s Chicago punk bands. It came out of the same scene that produced Screeching Weasels and Pegboy. But Smoking Popes was a bit more melancholy than than many of their peers even when the pace was high energy and one might even say the Popes were basically an emo band. Combining a punk edge with an emotional vulnerability wasn’t terribly common in the early 90s but the Popes did it in a way that seems more a feature of punk than an anomaly these days. The band flirted with mainstream popularity in the mid-90s but by the end of the decade Josh Caterer found his newfound strong religious convictions didn’t jibe with what the band was about the end group broke up in January 1999. Six years alter, the band played a reunion show in Chicago before which Caterer explained that songs he didn’t think he could perform again weren’t songs the band tended to play live anway. But the reunion would happen without original drummer Mike Felumlee. Over a decade later, Felumlee is back in the fold and playing this current “acoustic” tour as well as playing with opening act The Bigger Empty.
Tuesday | May 8, 2018
Curse, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Curse, Church Fire, Kill Your Darlings When: Tuesday, 05.08, 7 p.m. Where: Downtown Artery (Upstairs) Why: Baltimore darkwave band Curse makes it to Fort Collins for a show with Denver-based electro-industrial-dance band Church Fire and Fort Collins’ industrial band Kill Your Darlings which includes Brett Scheiber of Stella Luce and formerly of dance pop band Pep*Squad and noise project Four Pins Pulled. Sure, darkwave but all of these bands have an emotional intensity on stage that may have an element of the melancholy yet never a downer.
Who:Pseudogod, Hellfire Deathcult, Abysmal Lord, Casket Huffer When: Tuesday, 05.08, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Perm, Russia-based black metal band Pseudogod converges with like-minded bands Hellfire Deathcult from Chicago, New Orleans’ Abysmal Lord and Casket Huffer from Cheyenne for a show that, if fantastical conceits could be true, open a gate into the dimension where the Great Old Ones are partying to music like this. Pseudogod’s cover for The Pharynxes Of Hell, part humorous, part spooky, visually arresting seems to encompass the spirit of what this show will be like to see.
Wednesday | May 9, 2018
Tricky, photo by Sebastian Pielles
Who:Tricky w/Young Magic When: Wednesday, 05.09, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Tricky is one of the artists directly responsible for what came to be called trip-hop in the 90s. As an early collaborator with Massive Attack, and having contributed vocals to that band’s 1991 debut Blue Lines, Tricky demonstrated a versatile talent and when he embarked on a solo career in 1993, he brought with him a gift for borrowing musical ideas and production methods from a variety of musical styles resulting in his debut album, 1995’s Maxinquaye. A hybrid of downtempo, post-punk, dub, hip-hop, Tricky’s music was an antidote to the increasingly conformist and bland alternative rock of that mid-decade. Over twenty years later, Tricky continues to make evocative, deeply atmospheric music. Although, his 2017 album Ununiform, co-engineered by Jay-Z, finds Tricky focusing on spare, uncluttered melodies and strong, minimal beats. It has the feel of Tricky’s least abstract and ethereal record while not sacrificing his ability to set a vibrant mood.
Brazilian Girls, photo courtesy Six Degrees Records
Who:Brazilian Girls w/Tiger Party (Allen Aucoin of The Disco Biscuits and Josh Fairman of Sunsquabi and Analog Son) When: Wednesday, 05.09, 8 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: New York City has been a melting pot of popular musical styles for decades. But in the 2000s a particular brand of mixing Latin, African and non-Western musical ideas in general with dance music, post-punk, pop and noise emerged in various forms including the tropical pop of early High Places and the no-wave funk of bands like These Are Powers. Or, if you prefer, more above-ground acts like Dirty Projectors and Vampire Weekend who re-popularized polyrhythms and less conventional vocal styles. Brazilian Girls came in on the dance music end of that wave with its always eclectic and lively live show and songs that wove together ghostly, downtempo melodies, pulsing low end, dub-esque percussion, sex positive messaging and singer Sabina Sciubba’s otherworldly jazz vocals and enigmatic, theatrical stage presence – something akin to Björk fronting a lounge band. In April 2018 the band released Let’s Make Love, it’s first in a decade. Not as cool and sonically smooth as its previous efforts, Let’s Make Love, nevertheless, finds Brazilian Girls more thoughtful but musically more urgent, highlighting the band’s talent for reconciling contrasts.
The latest edition of LEAF (or Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival) happens this weekend on Friday, April 27 and Saturday, April 28 in Lafayette, CO. LEAF is a showcase for the synthesis of technology and art and each iteration of the festival has featured some of the most innovative creative people in the field. The Spring 2018 event will include performances from ART391A2, John Gunther/John Drumheller, Trace Reddell, Jason and Debora Bernagozzi and Phillip Sterns with demonstration from Branger_Briz. On Friday night, after the performances, DJ Crix Madine will generate repetitive beats and abstract patterns in conjunction with live video from one of Denver experimental music’s go-to video artists, orchidz3ro. What makes the festival so worthwhile is that it humanizes the art and the technology and makes it accessible in an intimate setting.
Things kick off on Friday at 7 p.m. with the music/performative shows at the Colorado Music Festival Center For Musical Arts building at 200 East Baseline.. On Saturday the festivities continue 9:30 Saturday morning at The Collective Gallery at 201 North Public Road with the “Data Safari” demonstration showcasing the pervasiveness of data flowing through the air and the manner in which it does so from our devices and public and private broadcasting devices. Saturday evening beginning at 5 p.m. there will be a short film festival at Grimes Hall room of the 200 East Baseline location mentioned prior. For more information, please visit the LEAF website.
Crix Madine, photo courtesy LEAF
We recently ran some questions by festival curator David Fodel about the current edition of LEAF.
Queen City Sounds And Art:Why did the theme/concept of Pattern Language suggest itself to you for this edition of LEAF?
David Fodel: There is a well-known book called A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander that describes and catalogs various successful patterns in architecture, urban planning, and generally community building, which has also been quite influential in the software development world too. I find this idea of hybridity and cross-pollination, of “synthesis” rather than specialization to be an important quality in art, music, design and engineering and wanted to give the festival a theme that was far-reaching, while at the same time could simply relate to repetitive beats or sequencer music, which I also love.
You have a number of artists who combine their art with computer programming and heavy technical skills. That’s not unique to this iteration of LEAF but why do you think your attention was drawn to artists who combine those skill sets at this time?
Well really all artists have specialized technical skills, and the most interesting art for me is when people explore emerging technologies, and get playful with it, seeing what happens when they combine things in ways that should not be done, not necessarily on purpose even, but because they may just not know any better. Discoveries happen sometimes, and sometimes it’s terrible, but it’s that iterative process, what’s called ‘design thinking’ that can lead to interesting new forms and refinements. A lot of the work in this year’s LEAF has deep roots in historical artistic and musical experiments and explorations, but have been refined to push those forms forward. Some of the artists have been doing this type of work for decades, and some of them are super fresh to the whole notion of making art with technology.
Phillip Stearns, photo courtesy LEAF
The Data Safari part of the festival seems especially relevant and interesting for people’s everyday lives in a way they may not be aware of. Can you tell us about how you came to be aware of Branger_Briz and that sort of, for lack of a better word, performance or demonstration? Why do you think that sort of thing is important for people to know about and what kind of awareness and change do you think having that knowledge might engender?
I have known Nick Briz for a number of years now, and have presented his work in the past here in Denver at a show called “The Emperor’s New Aesthetic.” It straddles art, activism and design and as you mentioned, it is especially relevant now due to the data breaches at Facebook. Branger_Briz is a design collective based in Chicago and Nick has deep roots in that whole kinda Midwest Glitch scene along with Jon Satrom and John Cates. They all teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago which has a long history of embracing new media art forms well in advance of other institutions. I got to know those guys when I was at a Live Cinema Summit in Chicago back in 2008 or 2009. They embrace the notion of technology as a potential disruptive force for change, and potential source of authoritarian control, depending on how we guide it and the social structures that enable its dissemination.
The Data Safari is yet again one of those playful ways of using technology to draw attention to bigger issues like privacy and who controls our data. The underlying artwork, called “ProbeKit” is on display at The Collective, a new gallery in Lafayette as part of the first LEAF visual art exhibition called “Machine Language.” Branger_Briz is joined by a handful of other artists that each explore the notion of the “machine” in art and I would really encourage you to check that out. The show runs through May 5th.
It’s often been said that art leads culture and society. Do you feel that to be the case?
I think it’s more accurate to say that art is part of a complex of entangled forces and expressions that manifest emergent forms, systems and behaviors.
It seems as though all the artists you have for every edition of LEAF has brought a creative use of technology to make creative work that synthesizes science and art. Why do you think showcasing that kind of art is important beyond it just being interesting to you personally?
Science is a powerful methodology and technology is a powerful tool. It’s important that we don’t leave those things in the hands of people with no sense of humor or love of nature and humanity.
Trace Reddell, photo courtesy LEAF
Trace Reddell is a science fiction author/creator. The idea behind much of science fiction is that it’s commentary on today even when it’s projecting into the future. What do you think Trace’s contribution as a commenter on current culture and civilization is especially interesting?
Well Trace has a very unique angle on science fiction and sci-fi cinema. His work really explores how sound and language form this hybrid kind of matrix that can structurally change our brains. His work for LEAF is a performance lecture format where he will be mixing and mashing up cinema, spoken word, psychedelic music and literature to not only communicate a message, but to induce consciousness changes directly.
Who:tUnE-yArDs w/My Brightest Diamond When: Thursday, 04.26, 7:30 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater Why: When tUnE-yArDs toured in the wake of the release of the 2009 album Bird-Brains, Merrill Garbus’ soulful singing amid what seemed like a raw combination of loops, percussion and Nate Brenner’s liquid bass lines seemed like something right out of that period’s vibrant bedroom recorder world and so idiosyncratic yet accessible that the duo connected with people that wanted to see something different that didn’t fit in immediately with something we’ve all seen hundreds of times already. The band’s unconventional pop songs seemingly drawing from several musical traditions ended up garnering a wide audience after the release of the 2011 album Whokill. In 2018 the band issued I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life, an album on which Garbus, according to an interview with Vox, challenges her own white privilege and other privileges as an artist that has been directly inspired by music made people who didn’t enjoy a similarly privileged existence. Whatever one thinks of such gestures and self-examination and confession, as usual, the tUnE-yArDs record is still refreshingly out of step with a whole swath of popular music except rather than the lo-fi aesthetic of old, the new album has a larger, fuller sound. And Garbus’ words aren’t eyeroll-worthy examples of self-hate and self-flagellation—they’re pointed and self-critical but not cruel.
Who:Glasss Presents: Eraserhead Fuckers w/prettyinpink w/roaddawg, VC Hearts and Shamwow When: Thursday, 04.26, 10 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: If you’ve been wondering where the weirdo hip-hop has been hiding (it hasn’t been hiding), this would be a great show to check out some of the weirdest. Eraserhead Fuckers is a noise-hip-hop project that somehow lives up to the name with his confrontational performance style and brutal beats. Prettyinpink and roaddawg are doing a collaborative set and their vibe is something in the vein of Earl Sweatshirt or Vince Staples—moody, synth heavy and a little on the gritty side with the words.
Who:Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: Princess Dewclaw, Church Fire, Surf Mom When: Thursday, 04.26, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: The Speakeasy Series edition for this week includes Princess Dewclaw, a band that combines melodic synth compositions with punk rock stridency and a clever dismantling of patriarchal tropes. Church Fire is a duo steeped in noise, electronic dance music, fiery performances and lyrics that feel like a direct line to a celebratory outage and melancholic anthems of healing through honoring the hurting. Surf Mom should probably change its name because it’s beyond surf at this point. Except for the fact that it’s a great band name. The two-piece uses a thorny pop format to comment on social issues and personal struggles in a way that comes off as punk but isn’t stuck with the musical baggage of the same.
Friday | April 27, 2018
Who:Vulfpeck, Kamasi Washington and Knower When: Friday, 04.27, 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: Despite the fact that Vulfpeck is essentially trying to channel a 1970s and 1980s live concert television broadcast program format in presenting its music, and drawing upon that era for musical inspiration as well, even its session-musician-worthy chops don’t diminish its ear for lively and emotionally engaging funk. A bit like Average White Band but no horns, better low end and more unconventional chord progressions. Sharing the bill is one of modern jazz’s bright stars, Kamasi Washington. Perhaps known to many people as a musician and arranger on albums by Pulitzer Prize winning hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar (including To Pimp a Butterfly and DAMN.), Flying Lotus, Thundercat and Run the Jewels, Washington’s own output is impressive in its own right. His 2015 album The Epic had a classic sensibility without sounding like a throwback. Rather, Washington’s emotionally expressive and musically adept compositions articulate a yearning quality, a sense of resignation to reality and the blue feeling that accompanies all such realizations, a harboring of hope and dreams of a better future glimpsed winking in the distance. It was simply a musically ambitious and expansive jazz album but one that had the accessibility of a should-have-been collaboration between Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz and Lalo Schifrin. In 2018, Washington will release his new album, Heaven and Earth.
What:LEAF (Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival) When: Friday, 04.27 and Saturday 4.28 Where: Center for Musical Arts Why: This multi-media festival is all ages and free and runs through the weekend with performances, art demonstrations and film. For more information, you can read our interview with festival curator Dave Fodel here.
Who:Ghost Tapes, The Milk Blossoms, Kdubbs When: Friday, 04.27, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Ghost Tapes has been honing its dusky downtempo jazz/hip-hop/soul sound for a few years around town at house shows, DIY spaces, dive bars and smaller clubs. But even early on the band had a surprising level of sophistication in its musicianship and performance. Its 2017 self-titled album demonstrated hints of Baduizm period Erykah Badu in the poetic wordplay imbued with a thoughtfulness and wisdom that music like that doesn’t get nearly enough credit with possessing. Fitting that Ghost Tapes is sharing the stage with The Milk Blossoms, a band that incorporates elements of hip-hop, indie pop, folk and R&B into its overall sound while also seeming so idiosyncratic to the point of almost being outsider music if not for the band’s command of classic songcraft. The Milk Blossoms’ tender yet emotionally rich and affecting songs make the band pretty much impossible to forget.
Who:Neil Haverstick When: Friday, 04.27, 7 p.m. Where: The Tuft Theater at Swallow Hill Why: Colorado’s dean of microtonal guitar, Neil Haverstick, is playing a rare show at Swallow Hill. Haverstick is adept at so many musical styles it’s difficult to say what his focus will be this time out but no matter if it’s avant-garde, classical, blues, jazz or whatever seems to interest Haverstick the most at the moment, it’ll be a worthwhile show to attend.
Who:Commander Cody w/Howlin’ Goatz When: Friday, 04.27, 7:30 p.m. Where: The Caribou Room, Nederland Why: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Michigan and in its early incarnations operating at a time when Ann Arbor and Detroit were experiencing a kind of golden age of music. Between Motown, Alice Cooper, MC5, Stooges and other notables of the time, that part of the country was the place of origin and home to some of the most important music of the era. It would be an exaggeration to say that Commander Cody and his country rock band was as long term impactful as the aforementioned. But it did yield a couple of novelty hits in its career that are well-remembered by anyone that heard them. “Hot Rod Lincoln” from the band’s 1971 debut album Lost in the Ozone was in the US Top 10 and its 1981 hit “2 Triple Cheese (Side Order of Fries)” from the 1980 album Lose It Tonight had a music video that reached anyone that saw Turkey Television on the Nickelodeon network in the early 80s. There’s a good chance Commander Cody will play both even without His Lost Planet Airmen among a choice selection of his extensive and prolific back catalog.
Saturday | April 28, 2018
Animal / object circa December 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:FoCoMX pick: Animal / object (Kurt Bauer and Karen Sheridan) When: Saturday, 04.28, 6:30 p.m. Where: The Dome Why: FoCoMX is an annual music festival held in Fort Collins that mostly showcases Colorado-based acts along the front range from a broad spectrum of musical styles. Perhaps not booked at enough local music festivals is Animal / object. The latter is Denver’s premiere spontaneous composition band. Lead by Kurt Bauer formerly of 1980s post-punk band Susan and God, the group has included sculptor/painter Steven Gordon (who will not be performing this particular show), winds player Paul Mimlitsch, novelist Gordon Pryor, experimental electronic musician/graphic designer David Britton, prolific outsider musician Chris Culhane of Lords of Howling and Violent Femmes frontman/guitarist Gordon Gano. For this show, Bauer will perform with Karen Sheridan, formerly of Denver death rock/punk band Your Funeral and atmospheric noise/industrial project Corpses As Bedmates. Always a different show, always interesting and rewarding.
Who:Of Feather and Bone w/Suffering Hour, Wayfarer and Many Blessings When: Saturday, 04.28, 8:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Of Feather and Bone’s new album Beastial Hymns of Perversion should solidify the band’s reputation as one of the most interesting and innovative grindcore bands going today. Yes, the sonic brutality is there, the relentless pace and the animalistic vocals. But there is a hauntedness, a spookiness to much of the group’s music. Like the darkness is coming from a personal place. Yes, the disgust with human civilization is abstracted a bit through fantastical song titles and the flood of sounds but its visceral and real. Of Feather and Bone celebrates the release of the album with fellow purveyors of extreme, heavy sounds Suffering Hour and Wayfarer. Many Blessings isn’t a grind band per se even though Ethan McCarthy is in one of the heaviest bands in the world in Primitive Man. Many Blessings is an atmospheric noise project with its sound generation based in tools similar to those McCarthy employs with his more well-known projects. But it’s just as heavy as anything else on the bill.
Who:Of Montreal w/Locate S, 1 When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Of Montreal is an older band but it’s basically like the psychedelic pop equivalent of Ty Segall in some ways in terms of its prolific and diverse output. And that that prolific stream of work is actually worth exploring. For the 2018 album White is Relic/Irrealis Mood, band leader Kevin Barnes dispensed with the old band format approach to recording and composing so that the record sounds like something that might have been crafted in a virtual environment with Barnes having access to some futuristic, immersive form the the internet in which he can take in/experience knowledge in a way that is more and deeper than mere 3D. Musically it sounds like an indie pop Howard Jones album with touches of glam rock. Most Of Montreal shows are wonderfully colorful and weird and a real experience and with the material for the new album, Barnes and company probably have something spectacular and unexpected for the live show.
Who:Blockhead w/MIDIcinal, Big J. Beats, Lost Glory When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Other Side Why: Tony Simon aka Blockhead is a DJ and record producer whose name is often associated with production he’s done for Aesop Rock. His music separate from production work he does for other artists tends toward an imaginative downtempo approach like a radio station for an ultra hip radio station in a hidden part of a city in a weird multiple user video game. Any of his albums will do, whether it’s 2007’s Uncle Tony’s Coloring Book or 2017’s Funeral Balloons, for a trip into a brighter, more chill, yet not soporific, universe.
Who:Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever w/Turvy Organ and Serpentfoot When: Saturday, 04.28, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever from Melbourne, Australia was a band that you could either like or find meh based on your feeling toward modern indie rock. Its post-surf post-punk jangle rock, at least through the 2017 album The French Press, was reminiscent of The War On Drugs in that you could hear the influence of 80s power pop and maybe even Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. And there seemed to be so much more emotional depth to the songwriting than some you’d get out of some kind of half-baked party rock band. In that way Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever has much more in common with Beach Slang than so many of the neo-pop-punk bands. And hey, sometimes the most interesting period in a band’s life is when it’s still trying to figure out its own voice. On its forthcoming Hope Downs the group strikes a New Romantics tone on the Talking Straight single and in moments has a vibe akin to that of Soft Boys or even solo Robyn Hitchcock.
Sunday | April 29, 2018
Keldari Station circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Textures: Hymen, Keldari Station and Shawn Mlekush When: Sunday, 04.29, 7 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Shawn Mlekush will perform a set of ambient improv for this show. But he’s known around certain Denver circles as a non-conventional composer of electronic music and his not very active band Jackson Induced Mutant Laboratory fit in with the noise scene even if it was more in the realm of avant-garde electronic music. Keldari Station is an unlikely yet vital combination of dub, glam rock, synth pop and post-punk.
Who:Parquet Courts w/The Teeth of the Hydra When: Sunday, 04.29, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: It would be facile to say Parquet Courts is like a new version of Pavement. Because the bands aren’t much alike except for a fearless and creatively musical use of atonality in guitar and vocals, a nearly reckless employment of imprecision in crafting interlocking guitar melodies and a nearly unpredictable high energy and tripping, hanging moments. Like machines on the brink of collapse trying desperately to cross a bridge on the verge of the same. In both cases the result has been some of the most interesting and eclectic rock music of their time. On May 18, 2018 Parquet Courts will release Wide Awake! So chances are you’ll get to see some of the new album live before it’s out.
Monday | April 30, 2018
Who:IAMX When: Monday, 04.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: When Chris Corner went solo following the dissolution of his well-known trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps in 2004, he was able to not only push his music in a more experimental direction but he was able to fully incorporate the sonic and visual aesthetic of his art into a unified multi-media and theatrical presentation not limited by any preconception of musical genre in which he’d need to fit his music. The resulting musical output has been eclectic but consistent with Corner’s desire to create a theatrical and immersive musical experience. The latest IAMX album is 2018’s Alive In New Light, coming on the heels of the September 2017 album Unfall.
Who:God Save the Queens: Queer Punk Night at Hi-Dive hosted by Noveli and DJ Junkyard When: Monday, 04.30, 9 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The title of the event says it all. So you’ll probably hear a little Bikini Kill, Pansy Division, Green Day, Crass, Los Crudos, Big Boys and a whole lot more great queer punk on a sound system that is more robust than the one you have at home.
Who:Morbid Angel w/Dreaming Dead and Hate Storm Annihilation When: Monday, 04.30, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Morbid Angel was one of the foundational bands of death metal. Based in Tampa, Florida and putting to tape most of its iconic recordings, including its influential 1989 debut full-length Altars of Madness, at Morrisound Recording? Founded the same year, 1983, as Death from Orlando, Possessed from San Francisco and Necrophagia from Wellsville, Ohio? Seems like some dark cosmic energy that Death metal’s early big hitters emerged so close together. Trey Azagthoth’s brutal yet psychedelic guitar sound has been the constant of the band from the beginning but this time around later-era singer Steve Tucker has returned and provided vocals on the 2017 album Kingdoms Disdained. Live there actually is a spooky quality to the music and both Tucker and former singer David Vincent provided a sepulchral vocal style that could be silly but never Cookie Monster enough to not find somewhat discomforting and perfectly suited to the music.
Tuesday | May 1, 2018
Oko Tygra circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Gus Dapperton w/Oko Tygra When: Tuesday, 05.01, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Gus Dapperton isn’t breaking and new ground with his pop songs. Post-surf rock jangle guitar? Jazz-lite rhythms? Bright, melodic synth flourishes? De rigueur with modern indie rock. But something about how he pulls it all together with his band has a simple charm that sets it apart as does Gus Dapperton’s off the cuff yet confident stage banter. Opening the show is Denver dream pop/post-punk band Oko Tygra. Joshua Novak’s command of mood and the warmth of his vocal delivery gives music that can sometimes be beautifully icy a human core that elevates the mood. Also, in the last two or three years the band has pared back and simplified its sonic signature making for more spacious and emotionally stirring songs.
Wednesday | May 2, 2018
Who:Dessa w/Monakr When: Wednesday, 05.02, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Though not a founder of influential hip-hop collective Doomtree Dessa has been an integral part of that crew for years. She is after all CEO of Doomtree these days. But as a solo artist she is able to demonstrate her gift for producing beats and a deft and creative use of words shifting between singing, rapping and spoken word. There is a confidence and fluidity to her delivery that bring to her evocative storytelling a vivid quality as though she’s conceived of her albums as a films she’s directing and in which she’s acting. Her new album, 2018’s Chime, her first in five years, has spare titles but inside each track her words are incisive and impactful and the beats cinematic.
Who:Open to the Hound, The Lacuna Brotherhood and Room 204 When: Wednesday, 04.30, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Open to the Hound sounds like the band all got together and went off to a cabin in the mountains to write their songs and had plenty of time to be away from the haze of civilization and touched by starlight and moss. Sometimes the results are trippy, fuzzy grunge rock, other times, introspective and minimal freak folk/indie pop campfire compositions. They even have some ambient-rock-downtempo songs that some musically unsophisticated people might call “shoegaze.” The trio lists The Microphones as an influence and the part-rock-song-part-sound-collage aesthetic of some of the band’s music bears this out in a way that is refreshingly not so obvious.
Khruangbin performs Monday, April 23, 2018, at The Bluebird Theater , photo by Mary Kang
Thursday | April 19, 2018
Atari, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Glasss Presents Speakeasy Series Season 2: Atari and Pythian Whispers When: Thursday, 04.19, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: This latest edition of the Speakeasy Series Season 2 will be an early and short show from Denver ambient artists Atari and Pythian Whispers. Being in the latter, no comment. Atari, though, is David Bridges, a DJ who manufactures records to create truly unique beats in an analog format. He uses some electronic components in his beatmaking but its that he has been known to cut records apart and put them together in different arrangements for a show or recording. The result sounds like tape collage, ambient industrial but the craft involved is a step beyond what most musicians making similar music would be willing to undertake.
Who:Glasss Presents: Gold Trash, Church Fire, EVP and Mirror Fears When: Thursday, 04.19, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Sort of an all-star experimental electronic pop lineup. Mirror Fears set a high bar for emotional intensity and a complete synthesis of dream pop, industrial and noise with her 2018 album Eaten. Church Fire similarly doesn’t skimp on the emotional singing in its live show and on its albums but its style is more embodied in the band name because Shannon Webber has a fiery performance style that is impossible to ignore. EVP channels a lifetime of anger into its music even though some of it sounds like it could be a companion piece to what Grimes has been up to lately. Gold Trash sounds a bit more raw and chaotic than the other acts on the bill, it’s sound seeming to have been informed by the sonic brutality and, yes, trash culture embrace vibe of both Atari Teenage Riot and Royal Trux.
Friday | April 20, 2018
Front 242, photo courtesy Front 242
Who:Front 242 w/Blackcell, EVP and DJ Slave 1 When: Friday, 04.20, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Front 242 was the first band from Belgium most people outside of Belgium had ever heard about. Which is interesting because Front 242 remains a bit of a cult band. But the group pioneered the style of electronic industrial music called Electronic Body Music, or EBM. Developing alongside peers like Skinny Puppy, Ministry, Nitzer Ebb, D.A.F. and Front Line Assembly, who were making likeminded music from the early to mid-80s going forward, Front 242 enjoyed a brief period of commercial success by the early 90s. Its single “Rhythm of Time” appeared in the 1992 thriller Single White Female boosting the band’s profile at a time when alternative rock had opened the doors into the mainstream for all sorts of leftfield music that could fit under that umbrella including Front 242.
After 1991’s Tyranny For You, Front 242’s musical style evolved rapidly and dramatically as embodied on a twin 1993 release of both 06:21:03:11 Up Evil and 05:22:09: 12 Off. The big beats that were the driving engine of the band’s earlier music seemed gone but not the robotic, distorted vocals. The tracks seemed less stark and revealed the influence of more sample based composition. Through the rest of the decade and into the 2000s, when Front 242 released music it was obvious the group was learning from the new electronic groups or the era including the IDM, “Big Beat” and house/techno/rave artists that dominated the electronic music world of the 90s and 2000s. Front 242 hasn’t released a new full album worth of material since 2003’s excellent Pulse, its then first album in a decade. But that means that if you’re going to the show you’ll probably get a nice slice of its classic material.
Who:Afroman w/David Frederick, SwizZy B and guests When: Friday, 04.20, 4:15 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Since April twentieth in Denver is basically a punchline for a fake holiday there are too many events “celebrating” legal recreational cannabis. Afroman, more than many artists of the past two decades, made more of his 2001, what might be considered a novelty, hit “Because I Got High” than anyone had in years. Since then Afroman has been kind of a mascot for legalization of cannabis so even if this show is basically about that it should be entertaining anyway.
Who:Alphabet Soup #32: MYTHirst feat. Nancy A. Finney, Suffers Beats, DaShwoo, R A R E B Y R D S $, Brother Saturn, Babah Fly, Bentstickremedy When: Friday, 04.20, 8 p.m. Where: Deer Pile Why: The Alphabet Soup series has been a sure fire way to see some of the most forward thinking hip-hop / beat driven electronic music makers in Denver. This edition is no different but included are ambient/dream pop artist Brother Saturn. Otherwise any show with R A R E B Y R D S $ and Babah Fly indicate that someone somewhere in putting together the lineup knows Denver underground hip-hop history while being aware of the most interesting new crews operating.
Who:Zigtebra, Gort Vs. Goom and f-ether When: Friday, 04.20, 9 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Chicago’s Zigtebra has blended the aesthetics of 8-bit video game music composition, EBM and indie pop. It’s the sophisticated lo-fi musical equivalent of inspired collage art. Gort Vs. Goom is a bass and drums prog punk band. Probably sounds counterintuitive but this duo makes it work and comes off more like Minutemen than Primus. F-ether’s musical output is fairly diverse. But one might describe the overarching sound as one of minimal synth environments reminiscent of a less abstract Pole or of early IDM artists. Except there’s more modern glitchcore to some of his denser songs. But all within the realm of modern underground dance music.
Who:Coastlands w/Altas and The Leshen When: Friday, 04.20, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: Coastlands is a Portland, Oregon-based post-rock band. It’s sound is more melancholy and downtempo than its more rock-oriented kin. More Hammock than Explosions in the Sky. Also playing this show is Denver’s Altas. The instrumental rock band is like its own traveling sonic cinema rooted in guitar and synthesizer music. The group’s 2014 album Epoca De Bestias was full of songs that suggested short, epic science fiction films in miniature themselves. As in not inspired by film but inspiring them. We’ve heard lots of post-metal/heavy post-rock and The Leshen fits under that umbrella fine. But intentionally or otherwise the duo has brought in elements of industrial and sludgy blues rock without compromising an interesting sound.
Who:Cigarettes After Sex When: Friday, 04.20, 8 p.m. Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Despite a completely underwhelming showing opening for Garbage in the summer of 2016 and a fairly sparse eight years of output prior merely hinting at what was ahead, Cigarettes After Sex released a respectable self-titled full-length in 2017. It can sound of a piece and yet the dusky tone and Greg Gonzalez’s androgynous vocals are engaging and interesting enough to warrant repeated listens. Even if the live show hasn’t improved, but chances are it has, being enveloped in the ghostly embrace of this music should reward the effort to show up.
Who:4/20 Funk Fest: Rowdy Shadehouse w/Log and DJ Lucky Luck When: Friday, 04.20, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: At least if you come to this show, overtly state them aside, it’ll be enough of a celebration of the bombastic and absurd to be fun. Jon Thursday’s melodramatic, hypersexualized stage persona may split the crowd but at least it won’t be boring or forgettable. His band Rowdy Shadehouse has been through some lineup changes but Thursday is able to bring together some real talents to execute his version of funk.
Who:Esmé Patterson w/Slow Caves and Silver & Gold When: Friday, 04.20, 8 p.m. Where: Downtown Artery | Fort Collins Why: Esmé Patterson will bring her literary and penetratingly insightful pop songs to the Downtown Artery for a show with hometown heroes, the surf-y garage rock band Slow Caves and Greeley’s Silver & Gold, a band that sounds like it worked through its emo, alt-country and neo-classic rock roots to make a the kind of alt/indie rock band with an earnest energy and big hooks.
Saturday | April 21, 2018
MC Chris, photo by Mara Robinson
Who:MC Chris w/Bitforce and An Hobbs When: Saturday, 04.21, 8 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Why: MC Chris and his music has been a part of a certain segment of modern American counterculture through his association with Adult Swim through the Aqua Teen HungerForce, Sealab 2011 and The Brak Show. Among other projects. Though MC Chris is with some people synonymous with nerdcore, his music goes beyond nerd culture and the nerdly events at which he has performed. Yes, there are 8-bit sounds all over his music and references to video games and RPGs but his production and songwriting is much broader and sophisticated than a narrow subgenre straightjacket could fully encompass. In that way his songs have more in common with other hip-hop than nerdcore. MC Chris’s music may be steeped in and a product of nerd culture but not limited by it. His most recent album, 2017’s Marshmellow Campground, is an irreverent collection of songs about the perils and challenges of childhood and its rituals and experiences that many of us share.
Who:Sugar Skulls & Marigolds album release w/Muscle Beach and Cult of the Lost Cause When: Saturday, 04.21, 8:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sugar Skulls & Marigolds is celebrating the release of its new record, ‘Til Death Do Us Part on Sailor Records. The hard rock duo would probably be considered metal by most people that see them but for the past few years, and probably from the beginning, the band has created some songs that transcend limiting genre labels by taking the harder edged sounds into more atmospheric vistas. When Sugar Skulls & Marigolds opened for Xasthur in 2017, it was supposed to be an “acoustic” show but it just sounded like a great shoegaze or dream pop band with more grit than usual and revealed these guys had more to offer than being just a talented extreme metal band. The new record is finds both creative impulses informing each other for one of the most interesting heavy albums of the last few years. Also, two of the best heavier bands in Denver or anywhere share the bill with the more punk oriented Muscle Beach and the more instrumental metal/posthardcore Cult of the Lost Cause.
Who:The Book of Love w/Eloquent and The Siren Project When: Saturday, 04.21, 7 p.m. Where: Herman’s Hideaway Why: The Book of Love is a band from the 80s and early 90s synth pop world that like groups from that era like Let’s Active and Game Theory who were maybe big on college radio with flirtations with mainstream success, including two tours with Depeche Mode in the mid-80s, but never quite broke through to the audience one might think would be obvious. It wasn’t for lack of quality material and its music was not even as dark as that of Depeche Mode. So The Book of Love became a bit of a cult band in the Goth world of the 90s even after its initial 1994 breakup. Since 2013, The Book of Love has been touring on the strength of its back catalog. Joining The Book of Love for this show is Denver-based Euro-dream-pop-post-punk band The Siren Project, a band that has also yet to garner the attention it richly deserves for its body of work that conjures imagery of hanging out in a fog-enshrouded café in some romantic city on the Continent contemplating the meaning of life and dreams of the future.
Who:Diners, Dingbat Superminx, Petite Garçon, Wrinkle and The Tickles When: Saturday, 04.21, 8 p.m. Where: Dateline Gallery Why: The term indie pop may have lost some of its meaning or significance since the early 2000s when some of the most inspired and idiosyncratic pop music made was coming out in the underground. Well, these bands all embody that spirit of not looking to the mainstream to define what makes pop music and Wrinkle, even though clearly a punk band, is not short on hooks. Denver’s Petite Garçon is mostly difficult to categorize except that its songcraft is a not so self-conscious to be a deconstruction of pop but a use of that structure employing sounds in a way most bands in the classic mold would not. It’s also a chance to see a show at the excellent Dateline Gallery so it is for sure all ages.
Who:Oddfellas, Drink Drank PUNK, Sliver, The Pollution and Church Van When: Saturday, 04.21, 9 p.m. Where: Bar Bar Why: Is this a punk show? Pretty much except that Sliver draws a great deal from DC posthardcore and late 80s and early 90s grunge and northwest punk in general: Nirvana (from whose song the band got its name, natch), Tad and Wipers. And The Pollution includes DC punk band United Mutation’s bass player Jay Fox and thus an unusual and interesting mix of punk, psych and krautrock.
Sunday | April 22, 2018
Ho99o9, photo by Hadas Di
Who:3Teeth w/Ho99o9 and Street Sects When: Sunday, 04.22, 6:30 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: 3Teeth wears some of its influences on its sleeve pretty heavily: Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM, Stabbing Westward and Marilyn Manson. But it lacks the utter camp of Manson and KMFDM. Just abrasive, crunchy industrial rock guitar and a bit of a throwback to the 90s in that regard yet still not really coming off like a band tapping into nostalgia. Street Sects is almost a performance art band in how confrontational it sounds and the nature of its fog-enshrouded live shows. Like a breakcore band with more identifiable and visceral low end. Ho99o9 is what might be called an industrial hip-hop act. Obvious comparisons have likely been made with Death Grips and Dälek, none of the three groups sound at all like each other except in their use of sounds in a hip-hop context most other hip-hop artists wouldn’t use like industrial beats and darker undertones in the synth lines. Maybe Sole, The GZA, Eyedea & Abilities, Earl Sweatshirt, Tyler the Creator, Vince Staples and the like. Wherever Ho99o9 fits in, its menacing and socially critical music has been the perfect soundtrack to the last few years. It’s latest release is 2017’s United States Of Horror, a title that just about sums up the national and international mood of late.
Who:Joe Jack Talcum w/Coolzey, Mister Zach and Daywish When: Sunday, 04.22, 7 p.m. Where: Herman’s Hideaway Why: Joe Genaro aka Joe Jack Talcum is perhaps most widely known as the guitarist and one of the vocalists in punk rock band Dead Milkmen. But since 1984 he’s written songs and albums and performed live as a solo artist. Not folk, not conventionally singer-songwriter, but more akin to Robyn Hitchcock or Billy Bragg in that he can be political but also write about love and life in a way that goes beyond tropes. And hey, he may do a Dead Milkmen song or two.
Monday | April 23, 2018
Carpenter Brut, photo courtesy Carpenter Brut
Who:Carpenter Brut w/Jean Jean When: Monday, 04.23, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Franck Hueso, aka Carpenter Brut, is a French synth artist who has been on the forefront of making the kind of music that one might have heard in 80s horror and science fiction movies, and thus perhaps an explanation of part of the project’s name by invoking director John Carpenter whose own synth-based soundtracks for his own films are a clear inspiration to Carpenter Brut and his musical peers in Perturbator, Magic Sword and Kavinsky. On the 2015 release Trilogy, the titles suggestive of horror storylines and the strong, bright compositions nail the combination of camp and compelling songwriting. Hueso has done some soundtrack work but the vast body of his songs are separate from that context and those songs suggest narratives and aesthetic that recent films like Drive, The Guest and others have manifested. 2018’s Leather Teeth pushes the absurdity factor further in terms of subject matter (“Inferno Galore” and “Hairspray Hurricane” being clear indicators) but Hueso’s mastery of the musical form has progressed even further and the live show looks like an immersive experience.
Who: Khruangbin w/The Mattson 2 bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/348081 When: Monday, 04.23, 7 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Khruangbin’s website airkhruang.com offers visitor a playlist for a trip from any place in the world to another which one can also save to Spotify. Asked for various aspects of the trip, the curated selections are uncannily apt. It also more than hints at the band’s cross-cultural appeal. The trio got started when bassist Laura Lee and guitarist Mark Speer were on tour with Yppah in 2010 during that artist’s run with Bonobo and recognized similar musical interests. After recruiting drummer Donald “DJ” Johnson the group started writing its earliest songs and garnered some attention for its early singles. With what looks and sounds to English-speaking eyes and ears as an exotic name the expectation for the project might have been some resurrection of non-Western versions of Western pop. Instead, Khruangbin’s sound is that of downtempo jazz, surf-rock-esque-yet-smooth-and-moody guitar and smoky funk. Currently touring in the wake of the release of its 2018 album Con Todo El Mundo, Khruangbin has brought along like minded, San Diego-based duo, Mattson 2, a band comprised of identical twin brothers Jared and Jonathan Mattson. The brothers released a collaborative album with Chaz Bundick of Toro Y Moi fame in 2017 and in March 2018, an album of covers of Japanese jazz originals called Vaults of Eternity: Japan.
Who:Impiety, Gravehill and Divine Eye When: Monday, 04.23, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Impiety started in 1990 as a kind of black metal band. But in Singapore being in such a band was probably a dicey proposition and remains so in a country that banned “Puff the Magic Dragon” in 1963 and the 2001 Janet Jackson album All for You due to its racy album cover and lyrics. Nevertheless, Impiety and other extreme metal bands have operated out of Singapore for years. Since its earliest releases, Impiety has evolved a bit from its early black metal roots to its current deathgrind style. But its musical vision of audio-violence and lyrics that combine an irreverent attitude toward organized religion with cartoonishly occult imagery will ensure Impiety will alienate casual metal fans. Gravehill from Anaheim, California and its 2018 album The Unchaste, The Profane & The Wicked is a bit of a throwback to a time when thrash and death metal weren’t so far apart in sound and the brutal imagery of the lyrics.
Tuesday | April 24, 2018
Das Mortal, photo by Christine McAvoy
Who:Das Mörtal w/Church Fire When: Tuesday, 04.24, 9 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: Das Mörtal often gets lumped in with the modern synthwave movement and not without reason. His sensibilities as a songwriter are, according to a July 2017 interview with Get Some Magazine, inspired in part by 80s movie soundtracks as well as 8-bit and 16-bit video game music. But this project sounds less like other synthwave stars like Carpenter Brut, Com Truise, Kavinsky and Perturbator and more like a pop-oriented rock band like Cut Copy whose New Order and OMD influences showed pretty strongly on its 2004 album Bright Like Neon Love. And like Cut Copy, Das Mörtal has evolved into his own sound as evidenced by his 2017 album Always Loved. With nods to mid-90s IDM and mid-80s EBM, Always Loved is packed with songs that pick up where nostalgia isn’t enough of an appeal with an updated take on electronic dance music grounded in songwriting rather than merely well-crafted beats.
Wednesday | April 25, 2018
King Krule
Who:King Krule w/Standing On the Corner When: Wednesday, 04.25, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: In a time when genre bending and multi-genre artists are becoming more common, King Krule is a standout. Like Deerhunter more than a decade ago, King Krule’s music invites you into a universe of its own as it is not simply rock or a subgenre of electronic pop music or hip-hop. It has elements of all of that and more but is not limited by a need to fit in with something other than Archy Marshall’s expansive imagination. 2013’s 6 Feet Beneath the Moon probably got interpreted as being part of the psych-and-punk-garage revival of the time. But Marshall sounded like he was channeling Old Dirty Bastard singing for a weirdo jazz band making its own version of indie rock. Four years later, The Ooz finds the band weaving in more musical DNA to mutate its sound further. Bossa nova and dub underpin the “Dum Surfer” single and the beatmaking compositional element is stronger across the whole album, giving it a soft and hypnotic quality even in its moments of peak emotional intensity.
Who:Whores, Bummer, Bland Canyon When: Wednesday, 04.25, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Whores is a sludgy noise rock trio from Atlanta. Reminiscent of Big Business, KARP (naturally) and a less sonically surreal Jesus Lizard, Whores perform with the edgy energy of a posthardcore band rather than with the quickened tar pace of many bands projecting a similar aesthetic. Not as overtly so, Whores shares KARP’s proclivity for humor and irony. After all, on its latest album, 2016’s Gold. there are song titles like “I See You Are Also Wearing A Black T-Shirt” and “Mental Illness As Mating Ritual.” Bummer is a sludge rock band from Kansas City that sounds like what would have happened had Ministry followed a trajectory suggested by the Filth Pig album. Bland Canyon from Denver comes right out of the local post-hardcore scene with former Mustangs and Madras members Nick Krier and Tom Chagolla as well as Matty Clark from Trees. Danny Aranow from Sugar Skulls & Marigolds and Justin Hackl who has played in several local bands including in Native Daughters with Chagolla. It’ll be heavy but also oddly catchy.
Who: Dreamdecay, Product Lust, Weaken, Old Sport When: Wednesday, 04.25, 8 p.m. Where: Bar Bar Why: Dreamdecay is a noise post-punk band from Seattle. Its urgent, thorny songs don’t fit in with the hardcore scene one might expect the band to come from though it probably plays a number of those kinds of shows. Its grittily atmospheres and meditation on the quandaries of existence in a pre-apocalyptic society should appeal to fans of Silver Daggers, Live Skull and Arab on Radar. Its 2017 album YÚ isn’t all the same tempo, tone or texture throughout making it rewarding repeat listening experience. All the bands on this bill have their roots in punk but did us the favor of exploring sounds, rhythms and styles beyond the outworn fashion of punk circa any “classic” year of the past.
Who:Big K.R.I.T. W/Cyhi the Prynce, Childish Major When: Wednesday, 04.25, 7 p.m. Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom Why: Justin Scott a.k.a. Big K.R.I.T. has always used interesting beats to go along with his words and he has aimed at making poignant observations about life that transcend the specific context and situations he references. And he’s mostly made good on that ambition. For his 2017 album, 4eva Is A Mighty Long Time, Scott delivered twenty songs divided into two sides of the record, the Big K.R.I.T. side and the Justin Scott side, with each embodying a side of Scott’s songwriting identity. The title is a clear nod to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Though that song is a celebratory party song it is also a fascinatingly thoughtful and insightful exploration of what one must do to propel yourself out of life’s lowest moments. It is that spirit that flows through Scott’s record as well with an eclectic array of music to set the mood for both the party and contemplation of the meaning of it all.
This is the debut of our record reviews column. It has that name because each review here will generally be a brief set of impressions on each album. Because that might be more useful to most readers than an extended analysis. It may include releases that came out earlier in the year and each column will be updated as we add reviews. The featured album will usually get more attention and for April 2018 it is the new Black Moth Super Rainbow record Panic Blooms, out May 4 through the band’s own Rad Cult imprint.
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Panic Blooms cover
Black Moth Super Rainbow – Panic Blooms – Rad Cult
Why is the new BMSR album the featured album? Because Tobacco and company are making some of the most idiosyncratic pop music today and the world needs more art that isn’t so easily nicked and dumbed down for people who can’t meet the art on its own terms, enjoy it thusly and perhaps be changed by it in some way.
It’s tempting to call Black Moth Super Rainbow the American Boards of Canada for its masterful recycling and repurposing old electronic music sounds into interesting new shapes that are as retrofuturistically alien as they are comforting. Panic Blooms makes more obvious BMSR’s use of hip-hop production styles in the mixing and beatmaking. But rather than some as-yet-to-exist abstract trap IDM record, this album comes off like the band is trying to reconnect with the musical spirit that first inspired it to make music. Like a search for a reason to keep doing this stuff. There’s always been an element of self-effacing humor in the band’s song titles and lyrics so “Bad Fuckin Times” makes sense. But “Rip On Through,” “One More Ear,” “We Might Be Back,” “New Breeze” and “Bottomless Face” hint at an artistic existential crisis. And yet, this set of songs has a coherence that wasn’t quite there on the 2016 Seefu Lilac EP. Panic Blooms, the title, suggests coming to the realization that maybe one is out of ideas and that very fear that shakes you to the core of your being, cutting you to the psychic quick, can either sink you or blast out yet another vital wave of creativity. The latter seems to be the case here and track to track, it’s a Black Moth Super Rainbow classic on par with 2007’s masterpiece, Dandelion Gum.
Breakdancing Ronald Reagan – Harsh Noise cover
Breakdancing Ronald Reagan – Harsh Noise – Self Sabotage Records
Johnathan Cash, aka Breakdancing Ronald Reagan, is too much of an irreverent performance artist to take his sound mashups and collages at face value. Processed and pitch shifted vocals and cut-up short stories amid blasts of echoing white noise make “Playing Windchimes With My Feet” a bit humorous as it is disturbing. Rather than take himself too seriously, Cash has a song called “You Can Tell A Noise Act Sucks If All Their Tracks Have Really Long and Stupid Titles,” which he performs live, in which he describes what makes so many noise acts boring while embodying the same. Meta. The whole Breakdancing Ronald Reagan thing is meta. Equally ironically, Cash’s pieces on this album embrace the shittiness he mocks and pushes the concepts to their ridiculous logical conclusions while having made something worth listening to. Unironically, or so deeply ironic it isn’t, is that there actually is a lot of harsh noise on this tape including negative real or faked audience reactions.
Drinks – Hippo Lite cover
Drinks – Hippo Lite – Drag City
Cate Le Bon and Tim Presley cut out most of the civilized world’s multifold distractions to write the follow up to 2015’s excellent DRINKS album Hermits on Holiday. Not getting poisoned by the incessant inundation of mediocre ideas resulted in one of the most fascinatingly eccentric pop albums in recent years. “Real Outside” has the kind of borderline atonal, unconventional percussion driven, non-standard rhythm that made Young Marble Giants, Liliput and, well, certain songs by Crass so listenable. Many musicians would sequester themselves and come up with the same old stuff they always do, Le Bon and Presley came up with a freak folk pop world or labyrinthine textures and warping tones and melodies to get lost in.
MIEN – MIEN cover
MIEN – MIEN – Rocket Shop
Opening track “Earth Moon” hints that you’re in for a record that was obviously informed by Screamadelica-period Primal Scream, the more gently psychedelic Brian Jonestown Massacre songs and pre-A Northern Soul era Verve. But the kosmische vibe of “Black Habit” breaks that impression. The driving/droning bass and tom heavy drumming and synth swells take the songs right out of what you’d immediately expect of musicians who are also in The Black Angels, The Horrors, Earlies and Elephant Stone. And from there album dives right into different realms of sound in terms of music and production. If “psych” is to continue to have any real meaning it’s going to be more like this in which the musicians clearly want to place themselves into alternate states of consciousness through the music they make rather than imitating someone else’s style completely. Sure there are familiar, comfortable elements if you’re familiar with the band members’ other work but they can’t help but be who they are and that also includes being seekers of experiences that expand the mind and stretch one’s creative capabilities. The album isn’t aimed for a mainstream audience, it’s aimed at the heads that crave something as different as maybe the first time they heard The Black Angels at a time when psychedelic rock just wasn’t in the general zeitgeist. But here there are more overt electronics in the mix and an electronic aesthetic to give a new dimension to what we already expect from the people in this band.
Mondo Obscura – Focus On Black cover
Mondo Obscura – Focus On Black – Symbolic Insight
Mondo Obscura doesn’t sound dated but its mixture of dub, IDM, ambient, dub and techno might have fit in more with the world of music that existed in the early-to-mid-90s when bands like Meat Beat Manifesto, Underworld, The Orb, Faithless, Rabbit in the Moon and Future Sound of London were blurring the lines between experimental electronic music and the more dance-oriented faire you might have heard at rave or a club catering to that kind of music. Particularly so with Focus On Black. Samples flow in a stream of tones buoyed by progressive beats driven by dubby bass lines. It has the structure of cinema with short chapters, fluid, fast cuts, some long takes like a Danny Boyle film or early Matthew Vaughn. Think progressive trance without the wack, safening elements blended in. Perfect after hours music for the chillout zone.
Night Grinder – Animus cover
Night Grinder – Animus – Fourfold Records
An angry, prog-inflected industrial concept album is probably the last thing anyone would expect to be worth listening to in 2018. And yet, this sophomore Night Grinder album is such fascinating take on bringing all those ideas and more to bear on the miasma of social ills plaguing us all at once lately. By channeling that overwhelming feeling and refusing to be blasé about events we would have collectively reacted to with horror and utter outrage rather than resignation, Brad Schumacher (aka Night Grinder) has delivered a non-didactic statement across fourteen tracks regarding, yes, the dual meaning of the title, Animus, which means both “hostility” and “motivation to do something.” Schumacher makes no overt suggestions, but honors the fact that the paralysis of Americans in particular and the world generally in the face of the need to do something practical and productive about the seemingly endless internecine conflict across political and cultural divides is only ensuring more of the same evolves into worse. An updated on the Edmund Burke quote about how “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” Evil, as it were, may not be triumphing per se, but the shittiest people sure seem to be prevailing, Schumacher just sees an end, not so difficult if complicated, to that trend and articulates that idea throughout Animus without hitting you over the head with an annoying level of messaging.
Solypsis – Solypsis-Devisor cover
Solypsis – Solypsis-Devisor – Component Recordings
Out of James Miller’s prolific and diverse body of work, this one seems closest to synthesizing a bit of his Foetus-esque industrial noise beats with his knack for generating unpredictable melodies. Or maybe it’s just that he ties the melodic structure to borderline chaotic beats. There’s plenty of noisy breakcore composition across the album, as in “Death Threat,” and melancholy industrial dub the likes of which is represented well in “Life In A Hole,” but this Solypsis album shines best when Miller seems to go off his own deep end. “Straight From My Heart” is the sound of a songwriter who has hit bottom and still managed to laugh at the absurdity of heartfelt despair. “We Make Our Own Monsters” is uncommonly insightful as a title but is it a bit of a pun when the track is itself a fuzzy, lumbering, monstrous beat that Miller wrote himself in a life of musical output that isn’t exactly short on menacing work? In ending the album with “Wrong Tube,” Miller lets us know that even in his worst personal moments his humor is never completely gone nor is his ability to use the manipulation of minimalist elements to get under the skin of anyone that takes the time to delve into this album.
Atmosphere at The Ogden Theater, 12/10/17. Photo by Tom Murphy
December 10, 2017. It wasn’t a particularly cold, late fall night when the line to get into the Atmosphere show at the Ogden ran two blocks. The previous time the hip-hop duo played in Colorado it was probably headlining at Red Rocks or a similarly large venue. At the end of the line an unpre-possessing guy who came up to say hello to people. He was dressed like everyone else but he had an artist’s badge on and at first a number of people in line didn’t really knew who he was because he sure didn’t say, “Hey, it’s me, Sean Daley, Slug, you’re coming to see me tonight.” He just talked to people and said thank you for coming to the show and took as many pictures and shook as many hands as he could until he had to leave to go get ready for the performance. Not many artists do this sort of thing but maybe more should.
Atmosphere at The Ogden Theater, 12/10/17. Photo by Tom Murphy
Later, throughout the powerful and playful performance, song by song, Slug and Ant laid out a sensibiliy in the music that goes beyond the whole “we’re just like you” presentation. More than a poetic stream-of-consciousness diary entry set to beats aesthetic. More than the “we’re only here because of you” gratitude platitude. It was we’re here with our people who identify with our expressed flaws, potentially problematic feelings at different times of our lives because that level of reality and coming to terms with our entire selves is more important and relatable than a manufactured, finely curated image. There is some of that because it’s a show, after all, and not some hyper real documentary that wouldn’t really be interesting to see on stage. But from demonstrating a very human care for fans as people earlier before the show to the beautiful, short-Colorado-tour-specific merch (see below for the t-shirt), Atmosphere let us know they mean it.
Atmosphere at The Ogden Theater, 12/10/17. Photo by Tom Murphy
Even though Atmosphere is kind of big time hip-hop act these days, it spent many years incubating in the underground either as Atmosphere or in previous projects where grassroots connection with fans is all you have. Good thing to know Ant and Slug remembered what it felt like to have that connection even if you can’t talk to literally everyone after a show and some of the boring merch some bands peddle with just their name and maybe a merely okay design. It’s the details and touches that aren’t so obvious that distinguishes Atmosphere from some of their peers. With an extensive set list that spanned much of the group’s career, Atmosphere didn’t skimp on on the fans in that regard either.
Atmosphere set list for The Ogden Theater, 12/10/17. Photo by Tom Murphy
Atmosphere Colorado tour shirt 2018 [front]Atmosphere Colorado tour shirt 2018 [back]
Sharone & The Wind, photo by Nic Smith Photography
Friday | April 13, 2018
Fever Dreams, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Fever Dreams, Galleries, Baby Baby, Hair Club When: Friday, 04.13, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: The psych rock and neo-classic rock wave that energized and later burned out in an underground music world in America and beyond perhaps inadvertently spawned a post-wave of rock bands who took those roots and did something more interesting and original. That’s what this show represents. Fever Dreams is a noisy psychedelic band in a gentle mode. Not dream pop because it’s more gritty than that, but fans of that music will find much to like with Fever Dreams. Galleries came out of some guys who listened to a whole lot of Led Zeppelin and fuzzy 90s rock but through the process chamber of imagination and practice Galleries manages to not really sound like their forebears.
Who:Diva 93 (Minneapolis), 269 Bone (Minneapolis), Merma & Roberta (ABQ), Polyurethane When: Friday, 04.13, 8 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Cafe Why: Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Diva 93 sounds like a combination voice sampling, tape collage infused minimal synth band. What public access stations were to cable conglomerates in the 80s and 90s, Diva 93 is big, synth pop bands—making a virtue of lo-fi, low budget sounds with sheer creativity.
Who:Big City Drugs, DJ Erin Stereo, Mara Wiles, Louis Johnson and Adam Cayton-Holland, benefit for Corey Rhoads who needs a new kidney When: Friday, 04.13, 10 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Cafe Why: Some heavy hitters in the local comedy and music world are coming together for this event to benefit Corey Rhoads who needs a kidney transplant. In a sane world, events like this wouldn’t be necessary but we haven’t lived in one for a long while now. So if you show up you get to see Denver-based comedy stars Adam Cayton-Holland, Mara Wiles and Louis Johnson as well as DJ sets from Erin Stereo and a musical performance from Big City Drugs, a band that is comprised of comedians but whose take on punk rock is cathartic and not trying to fit into some subgenre of punk with riveting results.
Saturday | April 14, 2018
Jonny Fritz, photo courtesy jonnyfritz.com
Who:Meet the Giant, Plastic Daggers, Dead Orchids When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Meet the Giant is releasing its “Drive” single this night. The Denver-based post-punk band makes some pretty lush and moody music for a three piece. “Drive” in particular is reminiscent of the criminally overlooked L.A. 80s post-punk world and bands like 3D Picnic and Opal. Except that Meet the Giant doesn’t sound dated or retro. Also on the bill are Plastic Daggers, a punk band with a drop of rockabilly in its sound without sounding like they’re trying to cop some neo-classic rock vibe, and Dead Orchids. The latter has a kind of chamber pop quality except the music sounds more like the members of the band are more than passingly familiar with Crime and the City Solution and its raw emotional quality is enhanced, not tempered, by melancholy melodies and introspective atmospherics.
Who:The Residents When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m. Where: Bluebird Theater Why: The Residents have been outweirding most other bands since 1969. This is the legendary avant-garde pop/performance art troupe’s first time in Denver and you can read more in our interview with The Residents’ art director Homer Flynn here.
Who:The Still Tide (EP release) w/Panther Martin and Bluebook When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: The Still Tide have long been one of the most interesting pop bands in Denver. So it comes as no particular surprise that the band has developed a bit of a following outside the Mile High City as well. Anna Morsett’s voice, seemingly well suited to Americana as well as rock, with her widely expressive intonations is immediately striking but inside the context of well-crafted melodies that balance a sense of yearning and acceptance. The group’s new EP, Each, After is more introspective and sparse than 2017’s Run Out but not short on that EPs energetic quality. Since art-folk band Bluebook is also on the bill, perhaps Julie Davis will join The Still Tide on a number or two.
Who:Amigo the Devil w/Jonny Fritz, Hang Rounders and DJ Brian Buck When: Saturday, 04.14, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Amigo the Devil took the Gothic Americana thing and focused on the murder ballad tradition of the blues that influenced that music to produce a pleasant-sounding but disturbing body of work about the musings of serial killers and the like. Denver’s Hang Rounders aren’t exactly mining similar thematic territory, it’s just a legit country band from people who aren’t short on a healthy sense of humor and irony. But there’s really no irony here. 2017’s Outta Beer, Outta Here may have an amusing title and maybe the musicians don’t take themselves too seriously but it’s a refreshingly not pop-country or overly retro country offering. Jonny Fritz is to modern country what Ray Stevens was to an earlier era of country. That is to say he takes anecdotes and stories from life most other songwriters among his peers wouldn’t use for fodder for songs. Also, an impeccable sense of melody and the ability to engage the audience with a truly idiosyncratic performance in an established musical style. Turns out Ray Stevens is not just the novelty songsmith for which many may remember him, he’s a talented songwriter with an interesting body of work and the same could be said of Jonny Fritz.
Who:Trevor Green When: Saturday, 04.14, 12-4 p.m. Where: Mile High Spirits Why: Trevor Green is a multi-instrumentalist solo songwriter who performs with a brace of guitars, some didgeridoos and various other instruments that he brings into the mix as he performs. He looks like a guy who wandered into town from looking for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine but got mixed up with Native American mystics in the desert and decided to seek his fortune in making music that reflected the sounds and ideas he learned there rather than delusions of some modern day quest for Cibola. All fanciful references aside, Green’s 2016 album Voice of the Wind is a rewarding hybrid of New Age world music and Americana-inflected rock. That Green can pull this music off live with some creative stage set-up is impressive in itself.
Sunday | April 15, 2018
Trevor Green, photo by Will Thoren
Who:Trevor Green When: Sunday, 04.15, 10 p.m. Where: Mountain Sun Why: See above for 4.14.
Who:The Jinjas, JINMO (Tokyo) and Gothsta When: Sunday, 04.15, 8:30 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: JINMO is a prolific avant-garde guitar and synth composer from Tokyo who is currently touring throughout the US with musical performances and demonstrations of the methods and technology he uses to make his often ambient and soundtrack-y songs. Denver’s The Jinjas is a synth/dance rock duo. Who even knows what exactly to call Gothsta except anti-climate and environmental destruction and how she more or less describes herself as “Depression melodica, polka Euroamericana.” Which tells you you’re in for something different than any one of those singly could completely encompass.
Monday | April 16, 2018
Cradle of Filth, photo by Artūrs Bērziņš
Who:Cradle of Filth w/Jinjer and Uncured When: Monday, 04.16, 6:30 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Cradle of Filth has been placed in various heavy metal subgenre buckets. But it doesn’t really fit the black metal mode because Dani Filth has never taken the Satanic imagery itself too seriously—it’s part of the theater and it’s amusing to somehow still rankle stuffy, conservative religious folk without really trying. Maybe Cradle of Filth was in the beginning and certainly now more akin to the kind of Gothenburg death metal sound. Except Cradle of Filth is from England and not tapping into that whole “viking metal” thing either. Is it Goth metal? What does that even really mean? Cradle of Filth is also part punk and the political subtext of much of the band’s music along with its embrace of the feminine in spirituality from its 1994 debut album The Principle of Evil Made Flesh to its most recent record, Cryptoriana – The Seductiveness of Decay from 2017. But whatever one might think of the music, Cradle of Filth brings theater to all its shows in a way that some of its more commercially successful peers don’t.
Wednesday | April 18, 2018
The Breeders, photo by Marisa Gesualdi
Who:The Breeders w/Flasher When: Wednesday, 04.18, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Kim Deal of Pixies started The Breeders in the wake of the release of Surfer Rosa as an outlet for releasing music she wrote. Early on she recruited Tanya Donelly of Throwing Muses and various other musicians to record the first album, 1990’s Pod, and the follow up EP, 1992’s Safari. While the records found an audience on college radio it wasn’t until the 1993 post-Pixies album that The Breeders found a wide audience with the release of Last Splash and its hit single “Cannonball.” While, in terms of publically-released music, The Breeders haven’t been the most prolific band all of its albums have been imbued with a swagger, honesty and sense of humor along with finely crafted, fuzzy rock songs that have a warmth and relatability that many rock bands lack. All Nerve, the group’s 2018 release, its first in a decade, is surprisingly vital and a showcase for Kim Deal’s ear for expressive nuance in tone and creative song dynamics. It’s a mature record without sounding like Deal is toning things down.
Sharone & The Wind, photo by Nic Smith Photography
On Friday, April 13, Denver based hard rock band Sharone & The Wind releases its sophomore album, Enchiridion of Nightmares. That the record is coming out on Friday the Thirteenth is fitting given the horror themes as metaphors for life’s horrors contained within. The album is all but formally structured as a kind of horror anthology, literary or cinematic. The project fronted by Sharone has come a long way from a rock band borne out of Sharone’s 2016 solo EP to the current lineup which has turned a promising early version of the band to a confident outfit with theatrical live shows that might remind some of a much smaller scale sort of thing Alice Cooper does with his own concerts.
The band’s 2017 debut album, Storm, sounded like a songwriter speaking her truth for the first time in a way that got her out of the solo, sort of singer-songwriter presentation of the music. Though, to be fair, Sharone’s 2016 solo EP and performances of those songs struck a chord with people that got to see those shows at Seventh Circle Music Collective and other places Sharone found to perform. And the incarnations of the band that existed during the writing, recording and performing of the songs from that album helped establish Sharone as a performer who not only sang but played keyboards and guitar until she was able to recruit musicians to play those instruments toward the end of that phase of the band’s life.
By early 2017, Sharone & The Wind, as it had been, was no more and the suddeness of that loss and the way in which bands often dissolve left Sharone feeling angry, sad and fearful of the future of her ability to keep doing music. But the split ended up forcing Sharone to move forward as an artist and finding a new lineup of people who believed in her vision. The result was a darker, more confident sound with Sharone’s vocal range expanding in pitch and dynamism, which manifested strikingly on the new record. It also meant live shows that more closely reflected what Sharone had been imagining for her band from early on.
“As soon as the lineup change happened I felt more creatively free and open to express myself artistically,” says Sharone. “I’ve always had these ridiculous ideas like bringing a lifesize coffin on stage and have demons dance on stage with us like we did at the Halloween show [in 2017]. I was never in a situation before to bring those ideas to life, I always felt judged. I just feel very comfortable with the current lineup and any crazy idea that comes to mind they’re all about it.”
While the band was coming together, Sharone kept writing music and the emotions haunting her paralled her interest in old horror movies and horror fiction. “Basically all the emotions people get from reading horror books or watch a horror movie or go to a haunted house,” says Sharone. “Because I was going through those feelings in my life and because I was interested in horror at the time it fit very well together [because] I was as afraid of what was going to happen in the future as I was afraid of what was going to happen to the little kid in the house in a story.
The writing and recording of the record with a new band was “like one, long therapy session” that Sharone desperately needed. It also lead to a cooperative transformation of the band to have a genuine image to present to fans to stir the imagination and for Sharone it freed her from her early inhibitions as a songwriter of promise to one comfortable in her own body and abilities.
“[Writing and recording Enchiridion of Nightmares] let me step from this very timid, vulnerable place with Storm and come to the other end of the spectrum with all these angry feelings and horror themes,” says Sharone. “Personally having done these two extremes I’m figuring out where I stand with what The Wind is and the direction I want to go from here. The last few weeks I’ve been writing new stuff that’s very open, raw and wearing no disguise of any theme, just honest.”
In March the band released a video, produced by photography, Nic Smith, for the song “Demons” in which each personal demon portrayed as taunting the various band members, “represent mental illness and how people express them.”
“I think it’s a song a lot of people can relate to in a lot of different ways because we all have internal demons with which we struggle,” says Sharone.
For the show at The Marquis the band will debut live the songs “Cursed,” “Exorcist” and “Death of a Clown” and you are invited in to share the catharsis the music brings to Sharone & The Wind.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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