The video Anthony Ruptak and Cole Naylor made for the song “PHANTASMAGORIA” is a perfect companion to the song and Ruptak’s fantastic 2025 album Tourist. It intersperses vivid scenes from a nightmare with the nightmare of everyday life in the present tense. The song has a distorted quality reflecting its raw and ragged emotions bursting from the confusion and despair of a world that seems to require resisting the status quo in which everything is, as the song’s lyrics state, a mess of our own collective making. We get through wading through a “phantasmagorical haze” while Ruptak hangs on to the old school where maybe things were rough but made more sense and maybe you could eke out a living without seeming every moment of your life taking something from you and costing you more than it ever has. The end of the video has Ruptak being buried with his hand around his mobile phone out of the grave and then bursting out with a last hurrah type of resistance to the endless wave of static and challenges only to witness the mushroom cloud that ends human life as we know it because as a species we’ve definitely let things go down the wrong path. And yet it’s a song with spirit and ultimately uplifting because that’s the tone to strike when things seem the bleakest they’ve been in our lifetimes in the modern era even for people who are already under incredibly challenging and lethal circumstances. The song challenges us to dream and do better. Watch the video for “PHANTASMAGORIA” on YouTube and follow Anthony Ruptak at the links provided.
Sunday | 06.01 What:Peach Pit w/Briston Maroney and BNNY When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Peach Pit started off at an unusual time in pop and rock music. The mid-2010s indie world was dominated by surf rock, psych and some reinterpretation of classic rock sounds. Fortunately, the quartet from Vancouver, British Columbia seemed to have focused more on songwriting craft rather than trying to play a style or fit in with a trend. The result has albums that have interesting arrangements and reveal a real ear for creating a mood and telling stories of romance, breakups and all the heartache and mixed emotions involved. The group recently released the “expansion pack” (kudos on the nerdy gamer lingo) version of its 2024 Magpie and includes alternate versions of eight songs, a cover and new material. Better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of that live. And the openers for this show are worth showing up to catch. Briston Maroney just released his latest and third album Jimmy on May 2, 2025. Even early in his career, Maroney had a knack for imbuing his songwriting and performances with an honesty and vulnerability that transcended any stylistic affectations he picked up from influences. On the new record Maroney delivers some heavy lines but in the context of songs with an upward emotional swing that doesn’t downplay the melancholic moods and the raw places in his heart that inspired the lyrics. BNNY might for those familiar with the music and songwriting is best experienced in a small club because the delicacy and intimacy of the music feels like something a handful of people would connect with more immediately than a large audience. But Jessica Viscius’ songs also have a cinematic quality that will fit perfectly fine on a bill with other artists who don’t hesitate to present music with an emotional openness and an inviting spirit.
E.T., photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 06.01 What: E.T. (Minneapolis synth punk), Redder Moon (KC darkwave) and Church Fire When: 7:30 Where: D3 Arts Why: Egalitarianism Today (E.T.) might be described as an anarcho-darkwave band. From Minneapolis, the duo’s pulsing rhythm and driving beats are represented well on its new album Full Anarchism. Think something musically like Lords of Acid but with lyrics that delve into science fiction concepts, radical left political rhetoric and the dire consequences of destructive worldviews rather than hedonism. Church Fire is thus of course the perfect band to share the bill with its own righteous industrial dance music. Church Fire expertly weaves in humor and fun into its performances while so many of its songs are heartbreaking in their evocation of collective agony. Kansas City’s Redder Moon is more of a post-punk band but one with the synth augmenting its gorgeously melancholic songwriting.
Wednesday | 06.04 What: Lords of Acid w/Little Miss Nasty When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Lords of Acid is the Belgian industrial dance band that has combined campy, sexually explicit lyrics with undeniably well-crafted dance club music. Its 1991 debut album Lust is a classic of both dance music and EBM. The live show is also not short on theater and bombast with long-time band leader Praga Khan hyping the crowd with his own enthusiasm and on stage antics. The band seems on the verge of releasing a new record and this may be the opportunity to catch it live in full effect.
Ava Maybee, photo by Whitney Otte
Wednesday | 06.04 What: Ava Maybee w/Annika Rose and Emi Grace When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Ava Maybee is touring behind her debut EP Orange Drive. Although the daughter of Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame, Ava Maybee’s music isn’t much like what her dad is known for being a part of making. Hers is a vibrant alt-pop informed by vivid everyday observations and colorful splashes of melody. That and her uniquely commanding vocals. There is some light vocal processing on the EP but you can tell there is power and conviction behind what you’re hearing and the variety in the songwriting is evidence that Maybee isn’t stuck in one flavor of music.
Ringo Deathstarr, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 06.04 What:Ringo Deathstarr w/American Culture When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Ringo Deathstarr is a shoegaze band from Austin, Texas who despite a humorous name and recorded material that is reminiscent of classic shoegaze band is as a live act a force to be reckoned with. The enveloping atmospheric elements have a visceral presence in person and the songwriting isn’t finely honed with an ear for using the more psychedelic side of the style in a manner that reveals the band isn’t just using neat effects, they know how to use the often unpredictable sonic shapes to great effect. Opening is Denver’s American Culture whose own shoegaze turn has also been one more in the direction of the earlier, weirder Britpop but steeped in punk and indiepop.
OMD, photo by Ed Miles
Thursday | 06.05 What: OMD When: 7 Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark aka OMD were one of the pioneers of synth pop as we know it though clearly in the realm of post-punk as also influenced deeply by Kraftwerk. Its first five albums are practically a blueprint for synth-infused New Wave and one that has aged exceptionally well because the songwriting wasn’t tied to the aesthetics of a movement and the subject matter of the music was as personal and emotional as it was conceptual. As a live band OMD also came off like a punk band with a lot of power and charisma that gave a dimensionality to the music that sticks with you once you’ve seen the band in person. This quality persisted up to the current time and in 2023 OMD surprised many with the release of Bauhaus Staircase, an album worthy of its early era with richly composed songs and synth work and song ideas that comment on human civilization in this moment with an insight not common enough in popular music.
Pig Destroyer, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 06.05 What: Pig Destroyer w/Cephalic Carnage, Author & Punisher and Sex Prisoner When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Pig Destroyer is the influential grindcore band from Alexandria, Virginia whose 2004 album Terrifyer got the 20 year anniversary treatment last year as a reminder that the band was not just of that moment in grindcore but ahead of its time. Sharing the bill is legendary Denver death metal jazz weirdos Cephalic Carnage, industrial avant-metal project Author & Punisher and Tucson-based deathgrind group Sex Prisoner.
Daikaiju, photo from band’s Facebook
Friday | 06.06 What: Daikaiju vs. TripLip, Smokey Mirror and Black Yeti When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Daikaiju is the long-running, mutant surf punk band originally from Huntsville, Alabama but now based out of Houston. The group wears masks kabuki style and its live shows are joyful and highly energetic and theatrical and usually with an outdoor component involving fire. In general it could be gimmicky and silly but Daikaiju makes it feel like getting to see something special. TripLip is a math-y punk thrash band from Denver. All instrumental with bass and drums but coming off with a full wall of sound and surprisingly visceral and riveting.
Wombo, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.07 What: Wombo w/Mainland Break and Spliff Tank When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Wombo is the psychedelic post-punk/art pop band from Louisville, Kentucky that has been evolving a sound that is part introspective delicacy, playful menace and the kind of angular rhythms one might expect out of a DC post-hardcore band. Think a 2000s indiepop group that got into darker and more challenging music. The band is currently touring ahead of the release of its new album Danger in Fives due out on August 5, 2025 via Fire Talk Records.
Blondshell, photo by Daniel Topete
Sunday | 06.08 What:Blondshell w/Jahnah Camille When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Anyone that caught Blondshell on her 2022 tour prior to the release of her debut album witnessed a songwriter and performer that had uncommon self-possession and a willingness to incorporate movements in the live show that were like acrobatics in slow motion but without missing a beat or a line. Since then Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum aka Blondshell has released two albums of vulnerable and commanding indie rock imbued with great personal insight a musical edge that adds a touch of scrappy spirit to finely crafted melodies. The latest Blondshell album If You Asked For a Picture is brimming with the kind of emotional honesty one would hope for in any pop music worth listening to and Teitelbaum’s absurdist and self-aware sense of humor that has made much of her music as endearing as it is heartfelt. Also on this tour is Birmingham, Alabama-based singer and songwriter Jahnah Camille who is about to release her new EP My sunny oath! Camille’s music is swimming in the granular atmospherics that blur the line between early 90s alternative rock and the more ambitious, shoegaze adjacent modern indie rock. Camille’s vocals ground the emotional resonance of the music with a sense of intimacy. The layered guitars utilize the mix of acoustic and electric to great effect lending Camille’s songs a wide range of sounds. The songwriter’s lyrics are both thoughtfully poetic and filled with a heartache that she has clearly explored to its inner depths and outer edges and articulated the nuances and complexities of truly feeling for another person.
Jahnah Camille, photo by Elizabeth MarshPanchiko, photo by Adam Alonzo
Tuesday | 06.10 What:Panchiko w/Alison’s Halo When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: The myth of Panchiko could be more interesting than its actual music and it’s a story worth delving into of a band whose late 90s and early 2000s music was rediscovered on poorly preserved CDs but garnering a cult following before discovering they could return and be much more successful than its first go round. Since reuniting the dream pop/psychedelic band has released two full length albums including 2025’s Ginkgo. Sharing the bill is Alison’s Halo who also started in the early 90s as part of that first or second wave of dream pop before splitting in 1998 only to reconvene in 2009. Musically it appears to have melded the lingering melodicism of Slowdive and its more gritty early music with the ethereal vocal style and rhythmic dive of Lush but of course transmogrified into its own heady soundscapes.
David J, photo courtesy the artist
Tuesday | 06.10 What:David J spoken word w/The Milk Blossoms and Gogo Germaine + Shon Cobbs When: 7 Where: HQ Why: David J is of course the artist known best for being a member of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. This year he is releasing a new album The Mother Tree alongside a book of poetry titled Rhapsody, Threnody & Prayer. The album is spoken word and spare yet musical accompaniment, evocative and music of introspective moods to match the tenor of David J’s reflective rhetoric in tribute to his mother. Opening the show is Glory Guitars (2022) author Gogo Germaine with music by former Plume Varia guitarist/synth player Shon Cobbs and the emotionally charged poetry of the music of Denver indiepop band The Milk Blossoms.
PINES, photo courtesy the artists
Wednesday | 06.11 What:PINES at Meow Wolf w/Sugar Nova (ft. Luke Miller of Lotus) When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex Why: Australian electronic duo PINES returns to Denver for it’s second visit to the Mile High City in support of its new EP SUN which released on April 15, 2025. The new songs are a further evolution of the project’s uplifting fusion of EDM and glitch pop. Listening one gets the sense that PINES are soundtracking a movie in their own heads taking place in a realm of perpetual summer nights and the psychological and emotional space to truly delve into feelings and embrace the broad range of the human experience without getting stuck in the lowest lows or the highest highs because none of that is sustainable. The music should also resonate with fans of early 2010s chillwave.
Julia Wolf, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 06.12 What:Julia Wolf w/Worry Club and Ellis When: 6 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Julia Wolf appears to have been processing hard lessons of being in the music business lately and the demands and compromises required of you if you’re going to be the kind of artist that can sustain a career. The cover of her new album Pressure (May 23, 2025) shows Wolf leaning backward and held up by hooks or some other device like she’s a suspension artist. The music is still well within the realm of the intimate, raw and often experimental pop that has garnered Wolf a respectable following but this new record is much more noisy and gritty with Wolf’s expressive vocals awash in crafted beats like a an amalgamation of industrial music, trap and glitchcore but with an undeniable pop accessibility.
Glass Human, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 06.13 What: Glass Human w/The Milk Blossoms and Fainting Dreams When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Glass Human is issuing its latest release on vinyl, The Hive. The record showcases the band’s atmospheric, jazz-tinged art rock and gift for layering rhythms and moods for an effect like a prog album cast in an almost downtempo mode. But the 4-song EP dives deep into utilizing noise and the kind of soundscaping that doesn’t fit into a narrow genre yet expresses perfectly the sense of a world and a psyche swimming through the nascent disorder of the current era and embracing the vital strands of meaning that remain. The Milk Blossoms too have an undercurrent of experimental structures and unconventional, often intuitive modes of expression held together by Harmony Rose’s gift for impressionistic and emotional, poetic storytelling. Fainting Dreams is at this point a wonderfully stark yet atmospheric fusion of stark post-hardcore and emotionally-charged black metal.
Sunflower Bean, photo by Lulu Syracuse
Saturday | 06.14 What: Sunflower Bean w/Gift and Dry Ice When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sunflower Bean released its latest album Mortal Primetime in April 2025. Perhaps more than its previous releases the new album makes obvious the trio’s talent for songwriting and crafting melodic hooks. The band had already proven itself capable of experimenting to great effect in genre and song structure and in writing solid pop songs. There is just a creative clarity in the new set of songs that serves the elegance and emotional nuance of the words and the delicacy of much of the music that pairs well with when the band gets into much more gritty sonics. Overall the record has an analog quality like some long lost-70s rock record without having immediately obvious touchstones. And live the group has always had a visceral presence that makes even its most tender songs resonate with an uncommon intensity.
Yelawolf and J. Michael Phillips, photo by Edward Crowe
Saturday | 06.14 What: Yelawolf and Three 6 Mafia When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Yelawolf is a rapper originally from Alabama who has spent the last 20 years exploring his musical curiosities mainly in the realm of hip-hop but in recent years also in Sometimes Y, his rock band with Shooter Jennings. There was some speculation he would stop making hip hop but in 2024 he released his latest album War Story. True to form the record is stylistically diverse with live instrumentation and atmospheric and moody beat-making to frame his stories of American life in a fashion opposite of the portrait of luxury and the good life common in the songs of more mainstream hip-hop artists. Yelawolf also recently collaborated with J. Michael Phillips on a new album Whiskey & Roses that drops July 11, 2025. It’s mix of soulful and atmospheric country with hip-hop style beats and production in a way that draws on the strength of both styles of music. Co-headlining this show are southern hip-hop legends Three 6 Mafia, pioneers of horrorcore and an influence on Yelawolf. Their own inventive beats and energetic and creative vocal delivery has yielded a career of music that feels like it’s ahead of its time while awash in contemporary cultural resonance.
Broncho, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 06.17 What:Broncho When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Broncho originally came out of Norman, Oklahoma when former Starlight Mints member Ryan Lindsey launched the group shortly after his old band dissolved. Since then Broncho has been fairly prolific and seeming to pursue a unique musical vision with each album. The earlier records were in the lane of garage rock psychedelia but not in the cookie cutter fashion that plagued the 2010s. Always weirder and more interesting and genuinely transporting. The band’s new record Natural Pleasure (2025) is steeped as well in a vintage, analog sound and mood like something that picked up where girl groups left off in the 60s but not where The Ramones took that inspiration, more resonant with what Cindy Lee did on 2024’s sprawling epic Diamond Jubilee. So more haunted and imbued with what some might call intentional imperfections but really lending the melodies character and a quality that doesn’t feel like an obvious imitation of something else.
Meltt, photo by Zachary Vague
Wednesday | 06.18 What: The Blue Stones w/Meltt When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: The Blue Stones are a blues rock duo from Windsor, Ontario, Canada currently touring in support of its 2025 album Metro. A fuzz-drenched affair with at least some rhythms that set the band apart from the standard issue blues rock bands that operate in every city of size in North America. Opening the show is Meltt from the western end of Canada in Vancouver. Its own sound has some similar roots as The Blue Stones but Meltt clearly combines an electronic music aesthetic into its psychedelic sound. There is a tranquility at the heart of Meltt’s songwriting that puts a focus on reflective moods in crafting uplifting and soothing melodies that transport the listening supported by rhythms that draw upon downtempo dance music. The effect is a lush fusion of dream pop and chillwave.
Mr. Pacman in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.20 What: Magic Cyclops, Jocko Homo, Mr. Pacman and Little Fyodor When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Magic Cyclops aka Scott Fuller is celebrating 25 years as a performance project that is part comedy, part synth music of various stripes and all absurd. Along for the proceedings are Devo tribute band Jocko Homo, the surreal and inspired synth punk band Mr. Pacman and avant-garde punk pop artist Little Fyodor and maybe he’ll have his full band with him for this show as well. Maximum weirdness for the month in Denver.
Salin, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 06.20 What:Salin w/Tyler Adams Organ Trio When: 7 Where: Cervantes’ Other Side Why: Salin is a drummer, producer and composer who was born in Thailand but based in Montréal. The Juno-nominated artist has built a body of work that sounds like a fusion of psychedelic Afrobeat, summery downtempo, funk and cosmic jazz with sounds and ideas from indigenous Thai musical traditions. Her live performances reveal a musician who brings undeniably positive energy to the shows and great nuance of polyrhythms while making musically sophisticated songwriting accessible. There’s something uplifting and soothing to Salin’s work solo and with her ensembles. Fans of Kamasi Washington will find some resonance here in terms of the richness of tones and sheer ability to communicate complex emotions through the music alone.
Perfume Genius, photo by Cody Critcheloe
Saturday | 06.21 What:Perfume Genius w/Ulrika’s Bedroom When: 8 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Over the past decade and a half Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius has well established himself as a writer of sophisticated and emotionally vibrant pop songs imbued with an orchestral sensibility. Hadreas combines in his songwriting a vulnerability and confidence that is immediately captivating. On stage the artist has a theatrical flair worthy of 1970s glam rock legends. The new Perfume Genius album Glory is fascinatingly raw, intimate and tender and expansively atmospheric in just the right measure throughout. Like an indie folk album but resonating with cinematic production and rich emotional coloring. Will guest vocalist Aldous Harding tour just to perform “No Front Teeth” and bring with her that special, experimental pop weirdness? Likely not, but either way this is a chance to see Perfume Genius touring in support of what is arguably his best record to date.
EMF, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.21 What:EMF and Spacehog w/Ecce Shnak When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: EMF will forever be linked to their 1990 breakout single “Unbelievable” which was ubiquitous on college and then pop radio in the US in 1991 after emerging on UK charts the year of its release. The song got a further boost when the band put out ots debut album Schubert Dip in 1991 as well. But the band was never able to fully capture the excitement that the debut single seemed to instill on first hearing it and by the late 90s EMF had split. With some reunion gigs in the 2000s EMF returned to being active in time to release its first album in 27 years with Go Go Sapiens and returned to atmospheric rock informed by dance music roots but with a clear ear for modern production and with songwriting instincts that have evolved and whose early aesthetics have aged well. Spacehog co-headlins this bill. The band consists of four men from England who were living in New York City when the group formed in 1994 and as wouldn’t be so strange for those heady times had a major label deal yielding its 1995 debut album Resident Alien. Its hit single “In the Meantime” sounded like an anticipation of the full incorporation of electronic production in the context of a rock song albeit one that sounded like it was inspired by 70s glam rock akin to Bowie and like a bridge between Brit Pop and later era grunge without coming off as trying hard to fit into a trendy style. While the cultural and musical milieu that had early nurtured Spacehog was done by the late 90s at least the band didn’t sound like the watered down version of alternative rock that plagued the middle of the 90s and to a certain extent to today.
Spacehog, photo courtesy the artistsMoon Pussy in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 06.21 What: Bull Market, Moon Pussy, Blood Oath and The New Creep When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bull Market from Billings, Montana sounds a lot like it listened to a lot of Failure but even more Harry Pussy and Melvins. Its edgy, blunt noise rock indulges in fuzzy drones and Coachwhips-esque splintery minimalism and experimental flourish. Moon Pussy is the kind of angular noise rock band whose gnarly punk discharge will tear your face-off but whose stage banter in its sincere awkwardness will make you laugh and somewhere in that mix of ideas the group has genuinely compelling and innovative music of its own. The New Creep is an industrial noise rock post-punk band from Denver.
eHpH in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.27 What: eHpH album release w/Cruel Morning, Unnatural Element and Modern Devotion When: 8 Where: Bar404 Why: Denver EBM/industrial band eHpH returns with a surprise new record called CORRUPTION AND FEAR with front to back wonderfully scathing songs against the oligarchy, fascism and the anti-woke agenda. The duo has always had superb production but for this album it has taken everything to new heights with impassioned performances and heady beats. Opening the show is the dark techno project of Voight guitarist Adam Rojo.
Rubedo at We Labs with Ikey Owens (3rd from left), November 15, 2013. Photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.27 What: Rubedo, RAREBYRD$ and Redamancy When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Rubedo is a psychedelic prog and pop band from Denver. The trio is comprised of childhood friends Kyle Kramer, Alex Trujillo and Gregg Ziemba whose roots in the influence of alternative rock and art rock bands like The Mars Volta has meant Rubedo would never be trend hoppers and with an interest in concepts of alchemy and how that can inform how music can be made and functions, Rubedo has had a different kind of journey through, around and out of the Denver music scene. In the early 2010s they met R. Isaiah “Ikey” Owens, keyboard player for The Mars Volta and Jack White’s band and became friends and collaborators as he produced the albums Massa Confusa (2012) and Love Is The Answer (2013). Owens became a mentor to the band influencing their ethos, their already strong work ethic as artists and their drive to continue to put out worthwhile releases. Even with the tragic passing of Owens in 2014, Rubedo has continued their friend’s commitment to community and cultivating artistic vision. For a handful of years they were involved in running the influential DIY space Unit E which has since morphed into a record label that focuses on quality local releases including their 2025 album Citrinitas which started brewing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and was written and recorded across sessions at R.A.R.E. Records in Winchester, TN (co-owned by Michael McDonald) with Michael Lee, Tayler Martin, Jeremy Mason and Charlie Powell. Additional engineering at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado with Andrew Berlin, mixed by Matt Embree (Rx Bandits) at ICS in Long Beach, CA and mastering by Tyler Lindgren (The Milk Blossoms). It’s a record that reflects the band’s community and connections local and beyond and the album is co-release with Mash Down Babylon, Embree’s label. The album is typically both a touching and personal set of songs and those that are an incisive and poetic commentary on the times in which we find ourselves ravaged by the psychopathy of oligarchs, fascists and the ways in which we’re encouraged to isolate ourselves when the opposite is what is needed.
Anthony Ruptak, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 06.28 What:Anthony Ruptak w/Porlolo and The Trujillo Company When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Anthony Ruptak is a veteran singer-songwriter from Denver who has run the gamut of hosting shows, playing numerous others, recording and releasing albums of great poetry and personal insight. His latest, released tonight for this show, is Tourist. The title perhaps refers to Ruptak’s having felt like a tourist in many situations socially but from listening to the songs also psychologically and how one can often suffer from impostor syndrome when you’re an artist or any sort of sensitive person who has to try to navigate situations and fractured egos that aren’t your own. It balances dissonance and melody in a way that both enhance the effect of the other. Pololo is the project lead by Erin Roberts that has been going on for around 20 years but you don’t get to see Porlolo all that often and every time it’s striking how Roberts’ lyrics seem to sum up a state of mind or the state of the world in a compelling way.
Church Fire in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 06.29 What: Denver Pride After-Party: Church Fire, YAN YEZ, Mr. Knobs and May Be Fern When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver pride happens the weekend of 6.28-6.29 and this event is a choice way to wind down the festivities, not that the likes of indie funk group May Be Fern is exactly tranquil stuff. Nor that Church Fire’s highly charged, industrial dance anthems tearing down the theoretical and spiritual framework of the patriarchy is tranquil either but it will be a catharsis we all need in time when it seemed like we should be rebuilding a better world instead of once again having to take on patriarchy’s most extreme manifestations in fascism and late capitalism because no one is coming to save us.
Thursday | 12.01 What: Wild Pink w/Trace Mountains and Knuckle Pups When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Wild Pink’s John Ross wrote one of the great story albums of recent years with 2021’s A Billion Little Lights and its themes of coming to terms with adulthood while staying connected with one’s creative life and navigating the temptations to ditch music as the occupation of adolescence. And how through creative work one can explore an evolving sense of meaning that hits you throughout your thirties and the rest of your life. 2022’s ILYSM (an acronym for “I Love You So Much”) takes that perspective to examine the details of life that deepen one”s bond with the people in your life. Knuckle Pups in from Denver released a deeply self-reflective album with 2022’s TV Ready in which the ambitious pop band fuses radical vulnerability with a compassionate honesty that is not nearly common enough in the realm of indie rock or any form of music today. Sometimes earnestness can seem like a pose but with Knuckle Pups it seems inspirational in its lack of pretension.
Cold Cave in 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 12.02 What:Cold Cave w/Voight and Hex Cassette When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Wesley Eisold of Cold Cave has been mostly been releasing singles and EPs since the most recent full length album Cherish the Light Years came out in 2011. His most recent Fate in Seven Lessons (2021) is well within the realm of modern darkwave post-punk with his usual gift for teasing grit and darkness out of the songwriting although plenty of the music has a beautifully melodic melancholia reminiscent of New Order. Eisold has also been involved in a bit of writing including his work with the late, great Mark Lanegon on the book of poetry Plague Poems (2020). Opening the show are two Denver acts. Hex Cassette’s confrontational industrial dance music challenges notions of the role of artist and audience and breaking that barrier for a collective experience. Voight seems to be making good on its threat of completely injecting techno into its own searing shoegaze-infused post-punk and emotionally intense music.
Cannibal Corpse, photo by Alex Morgan
Friday | 12.02 What:Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 1: Cannibal Corpse, Dark Funeral, Immolation, Black Anvil, Onyx and In The Company of Serpents When: 5 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: This unique event includes some pretty extensive beer tasting for those so inclined but the real reason is to get to see some of the great extreme metal acts of today. That includes death metal legends Cannibal Corpse whose over the top gory lyrics have been banned in various countries despite how obviously absurd they are in the vein of the most demented horror movies of the 80s but really just more creative than a lot of those films. And the music itself stands up well in upholding the brutality of the lyrics with a technical proficiency worthy of the name of the band. Get there early to catch the bluesy, cinematic doom band from Denver In the Company of Serpents who don’t play Denver as much as they once did these days.
Wayfarer, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 12.03 What:Decibel Magazine Metal & Beer Fest Denver 2022 Day 2: Pig Destroyer, Skinless, Wayfarer, Of Feather and Bone and Wake When: 4 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Day two of this event includes more noteworthy acts out of the broad world of extreme metal including performances from Denver’s masters of cinematic doom, Wayfarer, the caustic death grind onslaught of Of Feather and Bone, the blackened grind of Calgary’s Wake and grindcore legends Pig Destroyer whose contorted and savagely brutal music is a fitting companion to JR Hayes’ darkly incisive lyrics about human experiences on the edge.
Soccer Mommy, photo by Sophie Hur
Saturday | 12.03 What: Soccer Mommy w/TOPS When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: Sophia Allison has been writing music and performing as Soccer Mommy since she was in college before dropping out and moving back to Nashville to pursue her career as a musician full time. It helped that she had a record deal with Fat Possum which released her debut album Clean in 2018 before she turned twenty-one. The album’s emotional openness and unabashed embrace of unconventional melody and song structure while crafting undeniable hooks garnered the record widespread critical acclaim. The most recent Soccer Mommy album Somtimes, Forever (2022) was produced with Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never and the team-up brought to Allison’s particularly confessional lyrics and always imaginative guitar work an experimental edge and sound design element for the songwriter’s most musically adventurous recording of her career thus far. Additionally, the lyrics probably startled listeners that expect artists to be vague in their sentiments in a pop song setting but hasn’t Allison been poetically pointed and vivid in her words all along? Opening the show is Montreal’s indie pop band TOPS whose gentle yet passionate compositions seem like they’d be pretty light and airy live as well but at the show the band seems to exude an unexpected vitality.
HaemoGoblin, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 12.03 What: HaemoGoblin and Fast N Loose at L. Lazer art opening When: 9 Where: The Crypt ($10 cash) Why: HaemoGoblin is an electronic duo that will be performing what it calls a ritualistic invocation. Calling the performance “Inauguration” what you will see is a “mini stage play set to music, designed to disorient, disturb and ‘shake awake’ the audience for a half hour or longer.” What will this look like? Well, veteran carnie frontwoman Ortenzia von Deadworry and S.S.G. her “summoned demon” synth player will definitely bring some theater to an often very predictable local music scene. Also on the bill for this art opening featuring the work of L. Lazer is Fast N Loose is a Motorhead tribute band.
The Soft Moon in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 12.04 What:The Soft Moon w/Nuovo Testamento and Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Luis Vasquez was a little ahead of the curve when he launched The Soft Moon in 2009. Originally a solo project, The Soft Moon evolved to become more of a live band that brought Vasquez’s songs of nervy energy and anxiety-purging urgency to life. His most recent album is 2022’s Exister which in the wake of one of the most challenging periods in recent world history on a wide scale is a catharsis of overcoming the enervating influences that come your way and considering the mere continuation of existence a triumph in itself. The songs seem to have leaned more into the industrial side of Vasquez’s songwriting with some real visceral power driving the moody atmospherics. Los Angeles-based darkwave/synth pop band Nuovo Testamento opens the show.
Hembree, photo by Jonny Marlow
Sunday | 12.04 What:Hembree w/Little Hurt, False Report and Mae Mae When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Hembree from Kansas City, Missouri that formed in 2015 and its big break to a national audience was the placement of its single “Holy Water” in an Apple ad during Super Bowl LII. The group’s tight rhythms serve as a foundation for the rest of the songwriting to stretch out whether into focused, unadorned rock songs or expansive, moody pieces and the techno-underpinned indie funk that is at the core of its sound. The group’s new album It’s a Dream! is a record tinged with nostalgic examinations of the roots of current anxieties and insecurities expressed in hazy melodies and resonating tones driven by a hypnotic beat. On the surface it may sound like another current indie rock offering with more than its fair share of more imaginative songwriting but Hembree really charts an internal journey in which one is prepared to exit the gauntlet of lucid dreams trapped in feeling everything until it makes sense and after one is able to move through tangled emotional memories.
The Lemonheads, photo by Barry Brescheisen
Monday | 12.05 What: The Lemonheads w/Bass Drum Of Death and On Being an Angel https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/443688 When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: The Lemonheads are one of few still extant bands to have come to prominence during the alternative rock era that didn’t quite fit in with the more trendy subgenres that made that era one of the most vibrant in the history of popular music. Its own brand of power pop was a vehicle for the songwriting of only constant member, singer and guitarist Evan Dando. The latter seems to have an ability to look into situations and people and extrapolate poetic insights with a compassionate perspective. The title track of the group’s 1992 breakthrough album It’s A Shame About Ray isn’t just about a troubled person who doesn’t fit in with any school and its politics, it’s about feeling like a perpetual outsider and the rest of the songs on the record are vivid stories about people we all know and might even be in a way that didn’t comport with the tales of desperation one heard in a lot of grunge and too “dark” for more faux posi faire of that era to now. Ever since The Lemonheads went on hiatus in 1997 and returned to operations in 2005, the group hasn’t been prolific with original material but Dando’s interpretations of artists that have influenced him on Varshons (2009) Varshons 2 (2019) have been a peek into what Dando’s brain has latched onto for inspiration and perhaps for this performance we’ll get to hear what the veteran songwriter has been up to in recent years. One thing is for certain his own songs have aged far better than those of many of his contemporaries owing in part to the gentle but raw honesty of the songwriting. Also on this bill is Bass Drum of Death originally from Oxford, Mississippi whose blues tinged noisy garage rock has a refreshing level of grit and menace befitting the name of the project.
Monday | 12.05 What:W.A.S.P. w/Armored Saint When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: W.A.S.P. is the kind of band out of the glam metal era in Los Angeles of the 1980s that more than any other group out of that world that courted controversy. Its music was and is a spirited, melodic hard rock with a strong sense of theater even in the songwriting. Sure its cover art for its debut single “Animal (Fuck Like a Beast)” with the circular saw codpiece offended people that took it more literally than could even remotely be intended. Certainly former guitarist Chris Holmes looked the buffoon drunk in a pool with his mother sitting by in the 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years seemed to affirm the extreme and self-destructive hedonism associated with the band. But at its best W.A.S.P. were avatars of a music scene that could be cartoonish, bombastic and puerile while offering an alternative to a conformist puritanical culture with its lurid and triumphant storytelling. Perhaps co-headlining though less notorious is Armored Saint who also started in 1982 in Los Angeles and also pre-dated glam metal though often associated with that world of music due to the big hair and knack for solid melodic hooks. But like W.A.S.P. there was something with more edge than most of its glam rock contemporaries. While never quite having any mainstream breakthrough hits, Armored Saint was a staple of 1980s metal that has held up better than much of the music out of the 1980s Los Angeles heavy metal scene has.
Water From Your Eyes, photo by Ana Fangayen
Tuesday | 12.06 What: Palm w/Water From Your Eyes When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: As Water From Your Eyes, Nate Amos and Rachel Brown have made a career of using an eclectic and ever evolving palette of sounds to explore ideas and concepts through what could be considered dance pop. That is if your frame of reference might be the experimental electronic and punk out of New York and Los Angeles of the last fifteen years. Its 2020 album 33:44 is something you’d expect more out of a band on the Northern Spy label with its beautifully dire, ambient and modern classical soundscapes that are almost an homage to Penderecki’s “Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima” crossed with Howard Shore’s work for the films of David Cronenberg. But the duo’s most recent album Structure at times sounds like what might have happened if Aphex Twin in writing Selected Ambient Works Volume II had decided to turn those into pop songs. Except that Water From Your Eyes inserts enigmatic spoken word elements that serve as a a meta narrative that re-configures traditional album structure and gives the whole album a non-linear quality made cohesive by reimagining the nature of how creative work is structured. Fitting that this arty yet incredibly accessible group is sharing the stage with Philadelphia’s art rock weirdos Palm touring in support of Nicks and Grazes, an album that sounds like the band challenged its members to go on separate retreats to clear their minds of contemporary influences and to immerse themselves in non-musical art forms and come back to make the kind of psychedelic rock record that comes across like a collage of playful daydreams and arranged in a way that brushes aside conventional structure itself.
OFF! photo by Jeff Forney
Thursday and Friday | 12.08 and 12.09 What: OFF! w/Zulu When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: OFF! is of course the newer hardcore project fronted by legendary vocalist Keith Morris formerly of Black Flag and of Circle Jerks. The current lineup includes founding member Dmitri Coats of Burning Brides on guitar and as of 2021 Autry Fulbright II on bass and Justin Brown on drums. After an eight year hiatus on releases, OFF! released Free LSD in 2022. It’s still the searing hardcore sound you’d expect from the group but there are some clear differences with what sounds like synth and other ambient sounds giving the songs a psychedelic feel that wasn’t so much a part of its earlier sound. A refreshing update for a band that still maintains the intensity and edge without being stuck in a stylistic rut. Opening both dates at the Hi-Dive is anti-racist powerviolence band Zulu which injects its music with R&B samples and eschews the tough guy stance of hardcore.
Pond, photo by Matsu
Friday | 12.09 What:Pond w/Cryogeyser — rescheduled to April 16, 2023 When: 8 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Pond has shared membership with Tame Impala over the years with lead singer Nick Albrook being involved with both bands for a few years and Kevin Parker serving as drummer in earlier years and as a producer until 2020. The polished psychedelic pop of its first eight albums was helped in no small part due to Parker’s influence in the production department but with the 2021 album 9, Pond has given us its most interesting record to date with more grit in its overall sound, some edge to its funk elements and a willingness to embrace some rawness in its sound as well as take its atmospherics into a realm flirting with space rock. Los Angeles-based jangle fuzz trio Cryogeyser opens the show with its melancholic, lo-fi dream pop.
Obituary, photo by Tim Hubbard
Friday | 12.09 What:Obituary w/Amon Amarth, Carcass and Cattle Decapitation When: 5:30 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Obituary is touring ahead of the 2023 release of its new album Dying of Everything. After nearly 40 years as a band exploring the outer edges of the death metal format and pioneering some of that aesthetic it can be challenging to have something new to say with your music and a return to form can be tedious. But Obituary this time decided to stick to writing a strong set of material worthy of its pre-1997 split output. The dire messaging delivered with still convincingly brutal vocals but without cartoonish lyrics. Rounding out the bill are Seattle grindcore outfit Cattle Decapitation who are somehow both keenly aware of the absurdity and cruelty of modern human civilization and the need to ridicule the hubris of our species without making light of the situation in which we and other animals find ourselves due to a tolerance for savage forms of economic and social organization. And yes, grindcore/death metal legends/pioneers Carcass and Swedish, melodic death metal group Amon Amarth and its proclivity for lyrics about the Viking Age and a time before the Christian domination of Nordic culture.
The Smile, from the band’s Facebook page
Saturday and Sunday | 12.10 and 12.11 What: The Smile w/Robert Stillman When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Smile is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame with drummer Tom Skinner of Sons of Kemet. The trio made its debut at Glastonbury Festival in 2021 and its music produced during the limitations of association and collaboration during the COVID-19 lockdown emerged as an intimate and spacious, lonely set of melodies and fragile emotional expressions. In 2022 the group released its debut album A Light for Attracting Attention. The record is contemplative as one might expect with the musicians involved but also vulnerable and open in sentiments embracing a massive level of uncertainty and peril that continues to flow seemingly unchecked in a world beyond the ongoing pandemic and perpetuating a sustained anxiety that will have untold impacts for decades to come and written about in history books or their equivalent in some future time should such indulgences be permitted in a post-authoritarian era. The Smile seems to have written a record from the perspective of people keenly attuned to these concerns and not knowing if they’ll live long enough to see better days but not being attached to a sinking spirit of despair.
Bartees Strange, photo by Luke Piotrowski
Wednesday | 12.14 What:Bartees Strange w/Pom Pom Squad and They Hate Change When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Bartees Leon Cox Jr. has worn various hats in his career both musical and otherwise. But he is perhaps best known for his music under the moniker Bartees Strange following his stint in in the post-hardcore band Stay Inside. With the release of his 2020 debut Live Forever, Cox has proven himself a master of writing emotionally nuanced and vulnerable pop songs that incorporate elements of indie folk and, synth pop and hip-hop but with a production element that seems to make the music and its complex arrangements hit with a stirring immediacy. Fans of Twin Shadow will hear some similar sonic touchstones and the sophomore album Farm to Table (2022) revealed more of Cox’s gift for genre bending to great effect in delivering songs that are at once deeply personal and politically charged.
Twin Tribes, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 12.15 What: Twin Tribes w/Dancing Plague and Plague Garden When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Twin Tribes from Brownsville, TX have garnered no small amount of buzz for its blend of minimal synth and post-punk and a kind of vitality amid melancholic tones. Its most recent studio album Ceremony (2019) sounds like songs written during a flurry of peak emotions and capturing the urgency and desperation of a recent breakup. In most cities of size, Twin Tribes is performing in medium sized clubs but in Denver we’re fortunate to be able to catch the popular band in a small club like HQ. Dancing Plague is a darkwave solo act from Portland, OR whose dusky synth pop is like a darker OMD with some touches of influence from John Maus. In the interest of full transparency, the author of this blurb is in Plague Garden, a noteworthy post-punk/New Wave band from Denver.
ABANDONS, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.15 What:ABANDONS w/Old Soul Dies Young, Almanac Man and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: This show is a nice split of experimental noise rock and shoegaze. ABANDONS might at another time be considered a post-rock band but in its mix one hears bits of post-metal, noise rock and ambient and it live shows have a visceral quality with music that one might more expect to be performed in a more meditative spirit. Old Soul Dies Young is the kind of band that happens when guys who were way into post-hardcore and doom drop that sound palette for something more melodic and atmospheric but with the same level of sonic bombast. Almanac Man is like a collision of doom and borderline aggressive, Chicago style noise rock. Fainting Dreams is the kind of dream pop band that comes about when its members maybe came up through hardcore and death metal and are shedding the aggression and mathematical precision and heaviness for radical vulnerability and dreamlike tones.
Organ, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 12.16 What: Sounds for Charity: Avarice, Organ, No More Cheering, Gabriel Albelo When: 7 Where: Glob Why: Proceeds from this show go to Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Warm weather gear and hand warmers also accepted. For your donation you can catch the glitch industrial dance stylings of Organ, Gabriel Albelo’s solo performance of his heavy psychedelic rock, Avarice’s dark, menacing industrial techno and the prepared noise environment soundscapes of No More Cheering.
Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.17 What:Love Stallion w/Shanghai Metro Temple and Meet the Giant When: 8 Where: Lost Lake Why: Love Stallion is basically an 80s style glam metal band and if that’s your thing they’re definitely on the better end of the modern version of that with of course stage antics and style and the level of musicianship you’d expect. Shanghai Metro Temple is a fairly straight ahead indie rock band that sounds like it is heavily influenced by late 90s alternative and hard rock. Meet the Giant fuse downtempo electronic pop with post-punk, heavy shoegaze and imaginative soundscapes on the production end.
Wave Decay in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.17 What:Bluebook w/Wave Decay and Mon Cher When: 8 Where: Globe Hall Why: Bluebook these days isn’t the experimental indie folk jazz band of its early days. Instead there is a darkness and not so buttoned downed, controlled intensity to the performances. Seems like Julie Davis is letting her flaws, anxieties and dreams hang more loosely with this version of the band and that has just meant its music has blossomed more and its sound palette greatly expanded with the inclusion of formery Monofog and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake singer Hayley Helmericks on drums and backing vocals, Jess Parsons on keys and other instrumentation and maybe even Anna Morsett on guitar. Wave Decay is the kind of band that sounds like it took the door through psych garage into more shoegaze sounds and all the better for it. Mon Cher’s music is a particularly transporting and lies somewhere between dream pop and downtempo jazz.
Milk Blossoms in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 12.17 What:Milk Blossoms w/Meek and Knuckle Pups When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Knuckle Pups write radically vulnerable and thoughtful indie pop in the classic mold and its 2022 album TV Ready is both heartbreaking and uplifting. Milk Blossoms play a rare show with Michelle Rocquet now that she spends much of her time in New York City for professional and academic pursuits. So with this configuration of the band you’ll get the full dual vocal effect of powerfully rendered, tender pop songs that are irresistibly twee and cathartic.
Master Ferocious in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 12.18 What:Never Kenezzard w/Zingaro, Sea of Flame and Master Ferocious When: 3 Where: Globe Hall Why: Never Kenezzard don’t really fit in with the metal scene so much though its blend of progressive rock sensibilities, doom and psychedelia finds it in a particularly more interesting corner of that realm of music. Sea of Flame are a sludge rock/doom band whose epic arrangements are not the rote edition of what doom has become. Master Ferocious somehow mix classic power metal with glam rock without seeming corny because the musicianship is so strong and the performance bordering on theatrical.
Alaska Thunderfuck, photo by Albert Sanchez
Sunday | 12.18 What:Alaska Thunderfuck Presents: The Red 4 Filth Tour When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Alaska Thunderfuck is perhaps best known for her competing in RuPaul’s Drag Race but over the last several years she has cultivated a pop music career. Steeped in modern electronic pop and a showcase for her outsize stage persona. Her latest album Red 4 Filth leaves behind some of the camp and humor of previous releases with a more obviously sincere set of pop songs that bring together sounds from hip-hop and classic modern pop including a cover of “All That She Wants” by Ace of Base.
Faceman in 2013, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.22 What:FaceMan Western Jupiter vinyl release, Tivoli Club Brass Band and Anthony Ruptak When: 7 Where: The Skylark Lounge/Bobcat Club Why: Faceman celebrates the release of its latest album on vinyl as well as making available on vinyl for the first time its 2016 album Wild and Hunting. The band fronted by Steve Faceman has long offered finely crafted pop Americana with an experimental edge though its new album Western Jupiter shows an embrace of a more straightforward approach to songcraft. But every release is fulled with songs that have heartfelt and sharply observed lyrics in stories about life that feel like they’re part of your life because Steve has honed in on an aspect of culture and social reality that seems to be in the air in that moment. In years past Faceman has put on theatrical performances with set pieces and costumes that help to illustrate the music in dramatic fashion in collaboration with local visual artists who have helped to make these outfits and elaborate sets and pieces of artwork like the stage Megalodon of several years ago or the huge tornado of paper made for the epic Faceman’s 100 Year Storm event of 2016 at The Oriental Theater in which Faceman invited 100 bands to perform. So there’s a bit of community involvement and creative vision behind what drives the band even if it’s not necessarily abundantly obvious from listening to its excellent songs on their own.
SORROWS, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 12.23 What:Baby Baby, Gila Teen, SORROWS and Ray Diess When: 7 Where: Enigma Bazaar Why: Baby Baby is the indie dream pop project of Lily Conrad. Reminiscent of bedroom pop artists of the late 90s and 2000s and has the aesthetics of lo-fi but with better sound production than much of that stuff often had. Gila Teen is the genre defying emo-shoegaze-post-punk band whose eccentric songs nevertheless always seem to be a direct line into the anxieties and affections coursing through the cosmos at the given moment of the performance. SORROWS is an emotionally charged downtempo band comprised of vibrant vocals, elegantly crafted rhythms and electronic production. Ray Diess is one of the Denver scene’s most compelling darkwave pop artists operating today.
Julian Street Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 12.23 What: Fast Eddy, Julian Street Nightmare and Morning Oil When: 8 Where: Globe Hall (free) Why: When garage punk and the more mundane end of psychedelic rock collapsed under the weight of its own hubris and fake excitement some of the people who were on one end of that broader scene with any talent or imagination had to do something different and Fast Eddy came out of that milieu as a solid power pop band. Julian Street Nightmare create music from a thrilling nexus of post-punk, surf rock and art rock. Morning Oil sounds like it took some bit of inspiration from the better part of 80s glam metal and The Dead Boys.
Tuesday | 12.27 What:The Roots and BIG K.R.I.T. When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: The Roots are the influential, jazz rooted hip-hop band from Philadelphia that many may also know for serving as the house band on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Its use of live musical instrumentation has always set The Roots apart from most hip-hop groups whose use of samples is most often used to craft the beat and thus its live performances have a powerful physical presence that is impossible to duplicate otherwise. Big K.R.I.T. is the acclaimed rapper and producer from Mississippi whose eclectic production and socially conscious lyrics seem to hit at a very grassroots level of appeal with an accessible sound and a way of presenting heady ideas in a way that is both creative and personally relatable.
Voight, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 12.29 What: Watch Yourself Die, Voight, Sell Farm https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sell-farm-voight-wyd-at-the-mercury-cafe-tickets-481076160747?aff=ebdshpsearchautocomplete When: 8 Where: Mercury Café Why: Watch Yourself Die is kind of a post-punk supergroup comprised of members of Hex Cassette, Ray Diess and Julian Street Nightmare. Voight has long blurred the line between shoegaze, post-punk, darkwave and techno and infused it with emotionally intense live performances. Sell Farm might be an indiepop band but one that doesn’t see a reason why heavy dub and industrial music can’t be a part of the overall wheelhouse of sounds going into the project’s eclectic but always interesting songwriting.
Thursday | 12.29 What:Discomfort Creature w/Curious Things, Nightfishing When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Discomfort Creature is a punk band from Denver whose lineup includes current and former members of Gamits and Uphollow and this show signals the vinyl release of its 2021 self-titled debut on Snappy Little Numbers now that Chris Fogal is back in town for the occasion from his current residence in Switzerland. The record is an energetic fusion of pop punk and the more angular, Dischord-esque variety of punk.
Brotherhood of Machines at Deep Club event in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 12.30 What:FOANS, Brotherhood of Machines (album release) and Luxury Hearse When: 9 Where: Broadway Roxy Why: FOANS is the brainchild of producer Andrew Dahabrah whose melancholic house and techno music has been at the center of Denver’s underground dance music world for several years. Luxury Hearse is the project of Dan Coleman (Blank Human) and Rin Howell (Psychic Secretary) that breaks the barrier between techno, ambient and musique concrète. Brotherhood of Machines is apparently returning with its first new release and album in over six years. The project live has been a mysterious and sonically rich example of where ambient, abstract industrial, techno and noise converge to produce a sound that establishes a deep sense of mood and place.
What:Reverend Dead Eye w/Vic N’ The Narwhals and DJ Rett Rogers When: Thursday, 06.06, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Reverend Dead Eye now lives in Switzerland and mostly tours Europe but on occasion he graces his old stomping grounds (literally and figuratively) of Denver and treats us to a set of wild-eyed gospel blues post-punk. He will be joined this evening by rock and roll band Vic N’ The Narwhals with a DJ set from Blue Rider and Bad Licks guitarist Rett Rogers.
What:Honduh Daze, Moon Pussy and Demoncassettecult & Junior Deer duo When: Thursday, 06.06, 8:30 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Vachco Before Horses is celebrating his birthday doing a duo set as Demoncassettecult and Junior Deer so it’ll be a bit of weirdo hip-hop and ambient soul. Moon Pussy is like Denver’s industrial-esque equivalent of a noise rock band like Shellac but with some on board guitar processing to help sculpt those sounds into the bands already eruptive, angular and cathartic groove.
What:Talib Kweli w/Voz 11, 1-natVson-1 and Time When: Thursday, 06.06, 8:30 p.m. Where: Fox Theatre Why: Talib Kweli is one of the reigning poet laureates of hip-hop, politically charged as his is and otherwise. Check in anywhere in his catalog and you’ll find something vital and thought-provoking and outright compelling whether that’s records under his own name or projects like Black Star. As usual the opening acts for one of his shows is quality including Time whose fusion of underground/experimental hip-hop, humorous and organically intellectual wordplay and socio-political insight is never less than mind-expanding and fun. Voz 11 is kind of an industrial rap artist who will be joined for this show by Wesley Davis of Symbolic Insight Records and ambient solo project Bios+a+ic.
Friday | June 7
Spearhead, photo by Jay Blakesberg
What: Michael Franti and Spearhead w/Snarky Puppy and Victoria Canal When: Friday, 06.07, 6:30 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: Whether you prefer his time in industrial rap groups The Beatnigs and The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy or his current work in conscious reggae fusion folk band Spearhead, Michael Franti has been aiming his creative compass toward critiquing the dominant paradigm with the goal of creating a better, more nurturing and healthier world. As per usual, prior to the concert proper there will be a yoga session at Red Rocks starting at 4:30 p.m.. May seem quaint to some but at least Franti isn’t giving mere lip service to self-improvement. The band is currently touring in support of Stay Human, Vol. II which came out in January. Also on the bill are jazz fusion prog stars Snarky Puppy.
What:Instant Empire w/Anthony Ruptak and Post Paradise When: Friday, 06.07, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: It’s been a minute since we’ve heard from Instant Empire. The indie rock band has been through some changes but has endured to give us Cathedral, a set of the usual thoughtful songwriting and evocative music from the band. Read our interview with Scotty Saunders from the band soon.
What:Amygdala, Caffeine, Euth, Sore Eyes and Herse When: Friday, 06.07, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: A show that proves that current hardcore is not all the same or trying to mimic the sound or style from something 35+ years ago while not skimping on the energy and sense of danger that made that music exciting in the first place.
What:Pete Tong When: Friday, 06.07, 9 p.m. Where: Bar Standard Why: Pete Tong is an influential figure in modern electronic music and EDM. Early in life he was something of a soul music DJ on radio in the UK and then as the 80s moved on, a pioneering DJ of Acid House and the Balearic beat that his friend Paul Oakenfold helped to popularize. Oakenfold, joking, coined the expression “It’s all gone Pete Tong” in 1987 to indicate things have gone a bit wrong. Through his ongoing electronic music shows at the BBC (Essential Selection and It’s All Gone Pete Tong) and his efforts at curating and making accessible electronic dance music in the USA. Tong has done big shows in Ibiza and all around the world but this night he’s doing his thing at a small club like Bar Standard.
What:My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult w/Curse Mackey and Church Fire When: Friday, 06.07, 7 p.m. Where: Marquis Theater Why: My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult is not just the horror carny pioneering industrial dance band but also, on most nights, one of the greatest, most fun live bands of all time. Denver’s Church Fire is not nearly as camp but there is an element of playful theatricality to its performances of its own brand of industrial music that is really more a kind of politically-informed synth pop. No down side.
What:Altas w/Plume Varia and Voight When: Saturday, 06.08, 7 p.m. Where: Rhinoceropolis Why: With its new album All I Ever Wanted Was, Denver-based instrumental rock band incorporated the electronic/synth side of the band more completely with keyboard player Meghan Lillis contributing full in the songwriting and arranging process with the core and founding trio of Enrique Jimenez, Israel Jimenez and Juan Carlos Flores. The group’s 2014 album Epoca De Bestias lived up to its name and the cinematic scope the band has always conjured with its songwriting. But there is an even greater cohesion and focus this time out with some tongue in cheek titles from a band whose membership has always been on point with the humor. “Cosas Nunca Dichas” is Spanish for “Things Never Said.” The dual meaning including the fact that there are no lyrics in an Altas song is pretty good. “Glasgow Smile”? Surely a significance beyond suggesting it’s a nod to Mogwai exists but that’s also pretty choice as Mogwai use plenty of inside jokes and humor for songs that need no spelling out of meaning. “Valentin Trujillo (An Unsung Hero)” is presumably a reference to the famous Mexican actor who was a major star in the 1980s and whose films often dared to make thoughtful commentary on the politics and culture of his home country and beyond. The final song on the album “Rattenkönig,” or “Rat King” in German. There’s got to be a story there and we hope to bring that to you at some point. The more you delve into the new record and its gorgeously expanded dynamic and sonic palette the more there is to discover as with all great albums. And hey, you get to see the great dream pop band Plume Varia and industrial post-punk soundscapers Voight while you’re at it.
What:Get Your Ears Swoll 7: Sliver, Married a Dead Man and Hate Minor When: Saturday, 06.08, 8:30 p.m. Where: The People’s Building Why: Hate Minor is an artsy prog duo with former Nightshark and Aenka saxophonist Becca Mhalek on drums. Married a Dead Man is a death rock/post-pun/darkwave four-piece that came out of hardcore. Sliver, how a band that mapped out and deconstructed and reconstructed “Break Stuff” as inspiration for all their songs is on a bill like this it’s difficult to say. Good thing singer/guitarist Chris Mercer’s bandmates are patient, understanding, indulgent people and when he, as promised, he gets around to writing the next album around “Sick of Life” because it “nearly got [him] to join the Navy, dude,” some people can join in on the intervention.
What: Gun Street Ghost album release w/Jeff Cramer and New Mexican hi-dive.com/event/1855201-gun-street-ghost-album-release-denver When: Saturday, 06.08, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: In calling the new Gun Street Ghost album Battles it seems as though the band is preparing us for a record brimming with great stories of the struggles we’d rather avoid or skip but which we fight every day without knowing it. Thinking person’s pop written in the language of honky tonk Americana.
What:Johnnascus, Karhlyle, Causer, Kid Mask, HXCMIDI and Henny Graves When: Saturday, 06.08, 8 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: Austin’s Johnnascus is an industrial rap artist whose videos are not only interesting but borderline scary in the way Creepy Pasta videos can be. It’ll be a good pairing with Detroit’s Karhlyle and his downtempo techno/hip-hop, Kid Mask’s own genre bending noise/industrial hip-hop beatmaking and the electronic/breakcore hardcore of HXCMIDI.
What: Bobcat Goldthwait and Dana Gould gothictheatre.com/events/detail/372302 When: Sunday, 06.09, 7 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: A lot of people probably remember Bobcat Goldthwait as that crazy guy with the piercing whine from the Police Academy movies. But he never would have got there if not for his brilliant work as an alternative comedian in the 1980s when he would pierce hypocritical pieties with confessional and surrealistic observations and bits that helped to push comedy in a more interesting direction at arguably the early peak of the popularity of stand-up. He has gone on to be a noteworthy filmmaker whose movies (e.g. Shakes the Clown, God Bless America and World’s Greatest Dad) not just darkly humorous but which shine a light on aspects of our culture that are often ignored and if we stopped doing so we might have a healthier society. Dana Gould has been performing his own brand of borderline surreal comedy since the early 80s as well and coming to be known by a more mainstream audience though a comedian of choice for those with a taste for left field humor for decades.
What:Fuck Your Birthday w/Those Darn Gnomes, Narcissa and Galleries When: Sunday, 06.09, 7 p.m. Where: Thought//Forms Gallery Why: Fuck Your Birthday is an American and Chinese, noisy math/garage rock band. That means it has elements of early 90s emo and harder-edged garage rock but doesn’t really fit in with either to well. More like Rainer Maria or Japandroids than some post-hardcore or screamo band. Those Darn Gnomes are somewhere betwixt a free jazz performance art band, grindcore and art folk. Narcissa is a like-minded band from Denver and Galleries is sort of a psychedelic hard rock band.
Possume, photo courtesy the artist
What:Slugger w/Possum, After the Carnival and more When: Sunday, 06.09, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Toronto’s Possum is a fuzz-toned, heavy psych band. And while that sound is basically old hat at this point except to later comers to modern psychedelia, Possum’s version of that is not the kind that comes off like neo-Laurel Canyon vibe worshipping indie rockers discovering the use of a Memoryman and a Big Muff with a tiny bit of wah. It’s mind-melting epics take a deep dive into drawn out melodic grooves that take some chops and commitment to sonic exploration to craft. Also the band has a song called “Wizard Beard” so it’s not all without a sense of humor. Sharing the bill is a band with a tentacle or two in 70s hard rock and psychedelia with Slugger. But as with Possum, Slugger’s strength is in the songwriting and being of that world rather than wearing it like a trendy outfit.
Tuesday | June 11
Emma Ruth Rundle, photo courtesy the artist
What:MONO w/Emma Ruth Rundle When: Tuesday, 06.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theaterthos Why: Tokyo’s MONO makes post-rock with a classical music sensibility that makes a lot of other bands working in that realm of music seem safe and quaint. Emma Ruth Rundle’s heavy, dark, doom folk is somehow both intimate and majestic. Her latest album On Dark Horses is a trip to, as the title suggests, the shadowy places of the psyche in search of an inner truth that can be elusive unless you’re willing to go all in and face the buried pain and your dark side with compassion and acceptance. It’s her heaviest record to date and her most daring to date.
What:Old Time Relijun w/Shooda Shook It and Moon Pussy When: Thursday, 05.16, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Colliding Captain Beefheart-esque outsider atonality with non-western elements of rhythm, Old Time Relijun’s shamanistic, Sun City Girls-esque jazz was unlike much of anything else going on when it launched in the late 90s. Now back together after nearly a decade hiatus, OTR is touring widely in the wake of the release of its 2019 album See Now and Know. Also on the bill for the night is Tucson-based No Wave funk-esque quartet Shooda Shook It and Denver’s confrontational, deconstructionist noise rock stars Moon Pussy.
What:An Evening With Johnny Marr When: Thursday, 05.16, 7/8:30 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Johnny Marr is the iconic guitarist from post-punk legends The Smiths. His solo career is also full of worthwhile material in which he gets to show off his gift for complex yet seemingly simple melodies. Live, Marr performs material from across his career and anyone that has seen him might even say the unlikely and point out that his vocals for classic Smiths material are at least as good as Morrissey’s. As the title of the show suggests, an entire evening of Marr’s music and selections from catalog of The Smiths and some choice covers.
What:Glissline When: Thursday, 05.16, 6:30 p.m. Where: Ross-Broadway library Why: Tommy Metz has been making beautiful and affecting ambient/IDM music for over a decade. With Glissline he pushes the production methods further than ever while making very experimental music so accessible it always takes you by surprise.
What:John Catdog and Sobremarcha Musicgroup When: Thursday, 05.16, 6:30 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: John Catdog’s boundary pushing mix of what might be described as abstract industrial dance music and noise informed by radical politics. At other times more downtempo and chill but always interesting. Sobremarcha Musicgroup is a project of Amber Gomez, a formerly Chicago-based DJ and producer whose bright, gently urgent tracks will definitely fill out the room and beyond this night.
What:Jenny Lewis On the Line Tour 2019 w/Karl Blau When: Thursday, 05.16, 7 p.m. Where: Ogden Theatre Why:On The Line is Jenny Lewis’ latest record and it is the exquisitely composed, lush pop that Lewis has made so well for years with her usual literary flair. But in promoting the record, Lewis might have struck some people as very unvarnished and disarmingly off-the-cuff. But we kind of need that from more artists these days especially those whose art gives one the impression of their embracing classic forms of art and established ways. Jenny Lewis has always been a bit subversive and a little different in the humor department, one might say a secret weirdo who operates in the open, which is why her creative output remains worthwhile because all the weirdness, the eccentricity is there amid the expertise in presenting a conventional front.
Friday | May 17
Calpurnia, photo by Pooneh Ghana
What:Nitzer Ebb w/Liebknecht and DJ n810 When: Friday, 05.17, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: With the stridently urgent rhythms and confrontational feel of its 1987 album That Total Age, Nitzer Ebb, like Front 242 and D.A.F., established a template for much later EBM with any bite and vitality.
What:No Gossip in Braille release show w/Emerald Siam and Weathered Statues When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: No Gossip in Braille is releasing its debut effort Bend Toward Perfect Light on Cercle Social Records at this show. The post-punk duo of Keith Curts of Echo Beds and formerly of Ghost Orchids and Subpoena The Past and Bryan S. Becker formerly of experimental guitar band Annik has crafted a brooding post-punk album of refined emotional expression and lush atmospheres driven by gently urgent electronic percussion. Vocally it’s a bit of a different direction for Curts than most people who have seen his bands in the past two decades are used to as rather than the screaming and highly processed sounds in Echo Beds or Glass Hits, Curts hits some truly melancholic and introspective depths to match the elegant and ethereal guitar work.
What:Duncan Barlow and Natalie Rogers reading When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Duncan Barlow is known to many for his time in hardcore and post-hardcore bands (Endpoint, Guilt, By the Grace of God) from Louisville, Kentucky as well as punk and Americana bands from Denver (D. Biddle, Lion Sized). But lately he’s been a professor living in Vermillion, South Dakota teaching at the University of South Dakota and continuing to write literary fiction including his 2019 novel A Dog Between Us. Natalie Rogers is a writer whose diverse work background (911 dispatcher, adult caretaker, teacher etc.) informs her own works of fiction. Both will read selections from their body of work.
What:Calpurnia w/Slow Caves When: Friday, 05.17, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Calpurnia’s fuzzy indie rock sounds a bit like a throwback to 70s power/bubblegum pop like The Sweet or The Raspberries though likely filtered through the lens of latter day practitioners of related sounds like Twin Peaks and The Strokes. The band is really young with singer and guitarist Finn Wolfhard turning 17 in December so the band will grow beyond its most obvious current influences. Tracks like “Greyhound,” though, more than hint at promising uses of sound ahead.
What:Fem Fest 2019: 2 Kayla Marque, 3 RAREBYRD$, 4 The Milk Blossoms, 5 YaSi When: Saturday, 05.18, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Where: Museum of Contemporary Art Denver Why: The 2019 edition of Fem Fest is a celebration of female identified artists and musicians with workshops, a bazaar, DJs, a photo book and live music throughout the course of the event. Of course attendance is open to people of all ages and genders. The numbers listed above before the band/artist is the time slot in the afternoon/evening you can expect to catch their set. Experimental hip-hop and whatever kind of pop one might like to use to describe The Milk Blossoms. But no matter who you choose to check out there are only some of Denver’s greatest on the festival.
What:KGNU Quarterly Showcase: Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, Florea (solo), Ghost Tapes and The Guest List When: Saturday, 05.18, 8:30 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: All the local bands on this bill would be worth going to see alone. But the surprise announcement of a performance from Tav Falco’s Panther Burns put the show at the top of our list for this week. The group started in Memphis and its membership included the likes of founding member Alex Chilton of Big Star who performed and toured with the band until 1984 including the well-known 1979 television appearance on Marge Thasher’s Strait Talk program. The host attempts to skewer the band’s performance but Falco deftly turns her criticisms into a chance to make a case for music that truly is rock and roll and not an attempt at following established formula. Falco’s eccentric and brilliant, arty, psychedelic blues punk has exerted a strong infuence on the likes of Jon Spencer, The Oblivians, Spacemen 3, Primal Scream and The Gories. Currently the band is touring in support of its 2018 album of inspired covers (and some originals) ranging 80 years of American music: Cabaret of Daggers. Don’t sleep on this one because a band as legendary and as unique as Tav Falco’s Panther Burns rarely makes an appearance in Denver much less at a small club like Lion’s Lair.
What:Xiu Xiu w/Elyria Sequence When: Monday, 05.20, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Since 2012’s Always, Xiu Xiu’s albums have become darker and like collections of harrowing stories commenting on the horrors of society. None more so than 2019’s Girl with Basket of Fruit. It could have had its own season of the now canceled SyFy series Channel Zero. There is the experimental folk side of Xiu Xiu that was compelling and thrillingly emotionally raw, a quality that Jamie Stewart developed further in the context of the synth-driven exorcisms of his most recent records. Reminiscent of Suicide in both evocation of stark psychological spaces and richness of tone and mood, Xiu Xiu now embodies what many darkwave bands would like to be but are not yet there.
Christine and The Queens, photo by Suffo Moncloa
What:Florence + The Machine: The High as Hope Tour 2019 w/Christine and the Queens When: Monday, 05.20, 6:30 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: Was it an accident that Florence + The Machine are playing Red Rocks the night after the airing of the final episode of Game of Thrones on Sunday, May 19? Probably. But it’s more interesting to speculate that is no coincidence for a band that wrote the chilling ballad “Jenny of Oldstones” based on the quasi-mythical wife of Duncan Targaryen, ancient ancestor of Daenerys, of course. Either way, Florence + The Machine’s music has a deserved reputation for its uplifting and diverse mix of pop styles and expansive moods buoyed by Florence Welch’s refined yet soulful vocals. Opening the show is Christine and the Queens, or, simply, Chris, the performance moniker of Héloïse Adelaide Letissier who has used the project and even the name of the project to experiment with adopting a persona and to discuss in song and performance the nature of identity itself. A heady proposition, perhaps, but it has been very much a part of Letissier’s push to writing pop music that challenges assumptions while somehow remaining incredibly accessible. Fans of David Byrne and Laurie Anderson will appreciate Letissier’s almost free association yet coherent compositional style, especially as manifested on her 2018 album Chris, and the sheer playfulness of her songs and stage persona.
What:The Twilight Sad w/Kathryn Joseph When: Tuesday, 05.21, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Being a cult band can be rough going knowing that you’re doing something special and different, pushing music in a similar vein forward by taking chances and not following trends. Well, to some extent anyway, that has paid off for Scotland’s The Twilight Sad. Post-punk and shoegaze has been a crowded field for the past two decades especially lately when it seems everyone that suddenly realized they liked The Cure and dark post-punk started a band. But The Twilight Sad’s willingness to utilize raw noise and sing with urgency instead of with an affectless, almost disengaged style has always seemed vital and reminiscent of bands like The Comsat Angels and The Sound more than some other bands who might claim similar influences. The group nearly called it quits half a decade ago but it started garnering unexpected attention for its then new album, 2014’s Nobody Wants to Be Here and Nobody Wants to Leave, as well as an opening slot on tour with The Cure where the band distinguished itself well. In 2019 the group released its latest album It Won/t Be Like This All the Time and reaffirming itself as a band that doesn’t try to sugarcoat or downplay life’s down sides in its songwriting while providing an excellent soundtrack to work through those times. That part of what informed the writing of the record was tapping into some old Brian Eno songs using Eno’s Oblique Strategy cards as an impetus to writing songs that would be fun to play live sets the new record apart from much of modern rock music by trusting in processes outside of conscious thought to inject creativity into your art.
What:Radkey w/One Flew West and And the Black Feathers When: Wednesday, 05.22, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Radkey gets lumped in with punk and, oddly, proto-punk probably because its sound is crunchy, dynamic rock music with great, melodic vocal harmonies. But it is a rock and roll band comprised of three brothers whose songwriting owes no stylistic debt to any particular movement or artist. Maybe you could say its reminiscent of Thin Lizzy combined with a good, modern pop punk band. Wherever Radkey is coming from with its music, its high energy live shows are always entertaining. In 2019 the group released its latest album, No Strange Cats…P.A.W where it switches the pace of the songs up more than ever expanding its already respectable dynamic range.
The Faint, photo by Bill Sitzmann
What:The Faint w/Choir Boy, Closeness and boyhollow When: Wednesday, 05.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Before it became fairly trendy in the late 2000s and 2010s, The Faint was drawing upon 80s synth pop and mixing it with emotionally-charged post-punk. The band’s second proper album Blank-Wave Arcade from 1998 was a bit of an anomaly somehow reminiscent of Falco, Duran Duran, The VSS and the more interesting 90s emo. By the time of 2001’s Danse Macabre the group had refined to perfection a fusion of electronic and post-punk without sounding like much of anyone else. Eighteen years later The Faint is pushing itself in interesting directions as evidenced by the release of its new album Egowerk. The songwriting straddles the world of electronic dance music and post-punk and with lush production and Todd Fink’s always expressive and melodious vocals swimming in atmospheric grandeur. It is the band’s least traditionally rock sounding record and chances are most suited to the group’s visually dynamic light show.
Demoncassettecult (Junior Deer on left), photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Speakeasy Series opener: Demoncassettecult When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Glasss Records is kicking off the 2019 edition of its experimental music showcase the Speakeasy Series at Hooked on Colfax tonight. The artist ringing in the season is Demoncassettecult, Glasss’ Vahco Before Horses solo loops, noise, sample and and synth based soul project.
Who:A Light Among Many w/Ghostsong Elegy and Endless, Nameless, Causer When: Thursday, 04.04, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: Abstract doom juggernauts A Light Among Many returns from its latest tour with this show with experimental guitar/prog band Endless, Nameless, South Dakota post-rock band Ghostsong Elegy and the debut of Causer.
Who:Kyle Emerson w/Anthony Ruptak and Modern Leisure When: Friday, 04.05 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Three of Denver’s great songwriters on one bill. Kyle Emerson’s pastoral psychedelia has enough interesting musical flourishes in each song to elevate his work beyond most of his peers. Anthony Ruptak’s conceptual songwriting steeped in his sensitivity to the world around him and deeply informed by his compassion for his follow living creatures, human beings most certainly not excluded, gives his compositions a warmth and richness of emotional expression. Casey Banker of Modern Leisure has been writing insightful and well-crafted pop songs with an undercurrent of intensity and self-awareness that has made his songs going back to his time in The Don’ts and Be Carefuls incredibly compelling.
Saturday | April 6
Doo Crowder circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Doo Crowder w/Rachael Pollard When: Saturday, 04.06, 9:30 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Doo Crowder, former member of indie pop orchestra Pee Pee and indie rock/punk band The Dinnermints, is finally releasing his album One For the Losers (& Other Pilgrims). His earlier releases have all been insightful explorations of the human experience in its myriad manifestations. The new album sounds like he took the Harry Nilsson route and added great production flourishes and imaginative treatments to solid yet minimal foundations of song. He does not spare himself self criticism (listen to “Doo Crowder Song”) but as with every Crowder record there’s much more than meets the eye while not hiding the essential meaning. It’s made to be able to be taken on and comprehended at one’s leisure and in the ways that suit you. The first truly great indie pop record of 2019 and one of the best of the past decade by virtue of sounding effortless while clearly being the product of much work, much soul-searching, much refinement and in the end something that feels like it manifested like a perfect backed good that is delicious and nutritious and makes the labor that went into it part of one’s appreciation of it.
Who:FAVX w/Ned Garthe Explosion and Total Trash (tape release) When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: FAVX from Madrid aren’t easily musically defined outside of rock. But it’s sometimes noisy, sometimes driving, sometimes poppy, sometimes heavy, sometimes whimsical but always emotionally nuanced music is performed with great enthusiasm. Good thing because Ned Garthe Explosion, for a bunch of guys who have been playing for “10 trillion years,” you know, since the Big Bang or whatever has happened several times, they’re able to muster some verve in humorously delivering their surreal punker than punk and psycher than psych songs. They’ve been road dawgz since before there were roads and after people didn’t need roads where they were going and back to no roads and then roads again. The never ending cycle. Seems legit. Total Trash is comprised of current and former members of Lil’ Slugger, Eye Beams, Fissure Mystic, Fingers of the Sun and Quantum Creep. Which means nothing if you’ve not been steeped in Denver underground music for the past decade and a half but it does mean that the band’s music and songwriting has the level of sophistication and sonic inventiveness that is immediately striking and, well, it doesn’t sound much like any of the aforementioned. It is more melancholy but the sonic details and evolving dynamics across each song of its debut album Field Guide (released this night) give the music a sonic depth, diversity and emotional complexity that seems rarer than it should be these days.
Who:Dirty Few “Losing Our Minds Farewell Show” w/Gymshorts, Bud Bronson & The Good Timers, Lloyd and Saviour When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m. Where: Marquis Theater Why: Sure, sure, “party rock” and the Stone twins raise hell, cans of beer tossed on stage and off, rowdy, nearly unhinged performances, some of them sloppy and chaotic. But always performed with heart with songs that are fun, surprisingly well-written and which encapsulate an era of Denver music that all but began and ended with Dirty Few. So the group will probably pull out the stops for this final rager with some of its friends and peers including the great power pop band Bud Bronson & The Good Timers from Denver and Lloyd and Saviour from Boise.
Kero Kero Bonito, photo by Tracey Ng
Who:Kero Kero Bonito w/Jaakko Eino Kalevi When: Saturday, 04.06, 7 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Kero Kero Bonito sounds like its music is made in the early morning as the sun is rising and also as the sun is setting. That sometimes hazy quality of light that can blur the landscape some as the sun comes to dominate the sky or retire for the night over the horizon, burning away fog and casting colorfully through the dusk pollution. Even from its earlier more straightforward electropop phase its lush production and fluid dynamics has given the band’s songs an air of self-awareness that feels futuristic while tapping into the cooler end of classic commercial pop sensibilities. The band’s producers, Gus Lobban and Jamie Bulled, were influenced by Japanese hip-hop and pop and found Sarah Bonito, herself half-Japanese, who could give voice to a synthesis of cultures particularly since Bonito sings and raps in both English and Japanese. The group’s 2018 releases, the TOTEP EP and the album Time n’ Place, displayed the influence of rock bands, at least according to interviews with Fader and i-D, like Mount Eerie and My Bloody Valentine who are no strangers to creating and sculpting atmosphere in ways that feel entirely organic. Formerly pretty much all electronic instrumentation and vocals, for its current tour Kero Kero Bonito is bringing on board a guitarist and a drummer. Difficult to pigeonhole, one might even clumsily call it indie dream jazz, Kero Kero Bonito’s international flavor of the amalgam of hip-hop, dance music, J-pop, downtempo lounge and melancholic guitar rock is undeniably interesting.
Opening the show is Finnish multi-instrumentalist and producer Jaakko Eino Kalevi whose 2018 album Out of Touch could be a cousin to the aforementioned Kero Kero Bonito’s album Time ‘n Place. Its tone has a liminal quality that allows for the melodies to operate at an almost subconscious level, dream-like. A decade ago maybe someone would have called it “chillwave” and it resonates with the better end of what made 80s synth pop bands and their own production methods so compelling and ultimately influential.
Who:Bad Sounds and Broods When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Bad Sounds are opening for the great electro pop band Broods. But its blend of R&B and hip-hop beats, like a modern take on the rich musical hybrids that were part of the 70s Stax roster, will probably win over more than a few fans. The duo’s 2018 album Get Better goes beyond mere throwback imitation and with expert production and attention to sonic detail it attains the soulfulness of some of its influences.
Who:An Evening With Spiritualized When: Saturday, 04.06, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Even at his most soul-and-R&B-inspired moments, and there are many on Spiritualized’s 2018 album And Nothing Hurt, J. Spaceman brings to bear a broad range of subtle emotional expression and its counterpart as a controlled tidal wave of feeling. The shows also tend toward a well-selected set list that gives the performance a dynamic quality that somehow feels just right. Folk, soul, R&B, ambient space rock from across Spaceman’s career in Spiritualized. Maybe you’ll even get to see the band cover Laurie Anderson’s “Born Never Asked” as its been known to do well beyond the 1995 touring cycle for Pure Phase.
Sunday | April 7
SUSTO, photo courtesy the artist
Who:SUSTO w/Whitacre and Frances Cone When: Sunday, 04.07, 8 p.m. Where: Fox Theatre Why: SUSTO’s new album Ever Since I Lost My Mind has all the sophistication and beautiful subtlety of instrumentation of its previous records. But this time it sounds like the band has added a layer of atmosphere that gives the typically affecting and introspective lyrics a more focused immediacy that can be a bit slow slipping into your mind but when it hits it strikes deep. SUSTO excels at giving the songs room to breathe and manifest and bringing listeners in with a warmth of tone and a sense of understanding.
Monday | April 8
Mdou Moctar, photo by Nikkl Cells
Who:Acid Mothers Temple w/Yamantaka//Sonic Titan When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Japan’s Acid Mothers Temple may “only” have been around for nearly a quarter a century but its rotating and core membership, including band leader guitarist Makoto Kawabata, has roots going back to Japanese folk, psychedelic, noise, punk and prog bands of the 70s and 80s. With AMT the musicians create a mind-bending sonic experience that blurs the lines between the aforementioned genres of music to make the kind of space rock that should inspire a generation of manga artists writing stories in a future where interdimensional and intergalactic communities are interacting, thriving and exploring worlds and cultures as yet unimagined by our current creative collective unconscious.
Who:Mdou Moctar w/Galleries and Kwantsu Dudes When: Monday, 04.08, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: It’s incredibly rare to get to see a musician from Africa in Denver much less a Tuareg phenom from Agadez, Niger like Mdou Moctar. The guitarist is an early adaptor of traditional Tuareg guitar pop into the electric context. As with the likes of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Baaba Maal and, of course, Fela Kuti before him, Moctar’s lively and fine crafted songs (steeped in folk music of Africa and the Islamic world) garnered fans outside of Africa. Because of that touring has been a viable prospect including his current run through the USA. His latest album is 2019’s Ilana.
Tuesday | April 9
Claudzilla, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:WaZeil & UaZit w/Claudzilla, f-ether and Kandin When: Tuesday, 04.09, 9 p.m. Where: 3 Kings Tavern Why: UaZit’s music is like if alternative hip-hop got even weirder and more experimental. Working with WaZeil the production and sound design is even more unusual like what Harmony Korine might make if he went into creating music after Mister Lonely. F-ether isn’t quite as much of a weirdo but his original and playful take on electronic music craft is decidedly outside the conventions of that broad genre. Claudzilla, though, full-on weirdo since its “keytar rock” with surreal lyrics and let’s just call it eccentric picks of covers but surprisingly solid renditions of the originals through her peculiar lens of interpretation.
Who:Erik B & Rakim w/Stay Tuned When: Tuesday, 04.09, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Erik B & Rakim are clearly one of the most influential duos in hip-hop. Rakim’s rhyming had great versatility and range because he broke with the simple rhyme schemes of early hip-hop and had more in common with free jazz and free verse poetry. So while not sounding too avant-garde the duo’s music could be as out and fluid in its rhythms as its presumed jazz influences. Eric B’s heavy use of sampling and creatively crafting and sculpting the sounds could also be heard echoed in most hip-hop since the 1987 release of the Eric B & Rakim album Paid in Full. Splitting in 1993, Eric B & Rakim reunited in 2016 to perform live in 2017. Will there be a new record? We can only hope but for now catch one of the legends of hip-hop on this tour.
Wednesday | April 10
Morlox, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:HXXS w/Church Fire, Morlox and Feigning When: Wednesday, 04.10, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: HXXS from Portland, Oregon make a kind of dance-dub darkwave with glitchy edges. When minimal synth was all the rage in various corners of the American underground, HXXS seems to have taken that foundation and the sort of 8-bit crushed beat-making to make a surprisingly playful, surreal form of synth pop. Good match with Denver’s Church Fire whose tribal industrial dance music came out of similar impulses toward melding hip-hop beat production with dark, noisy pop informed by insightful, sociopolitical commentary. That the group worked with gifted producer Morlox whose career has been steeped in the noise, glitchcore and underground hip-hop scene in Denver and beyond makes this booking perfect. Haunted, dark drone project Feigning is just a bonus.
Who:DeVotchKa When: Wednesday, 04.10, 6 p.m. Where: Twist & Shout Why: It would help if you bought a copy of the 2018 DeVotchKa album This Night Falls Forever in order to get first entry into this intimate show at Twist & Shout. Otherwise, the Denver-based gypsy-punk chamber pop group usually doesn’t play places smaller than The Gothic. The following night the band will perform at e-Town in Boulder.
Who:Boy Harsher w/Special Interest and Poptones DJs When: Wednesday, 04.10, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: The Boy Harsher show is sold out but if you can get in you can see the fog-shrouded, enigmatic, New-Order-gone-full-dub-minimal-synth duo Boy Harsher at a small club before its crowd expands to larger venues.
Who:Red Fang w/Telekinetic Yeti and Quits When: Thursday, 12.6, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Red Fang is a “stoner rock” band from Portland, Oregon that started out when that form of music was a big trend in underground metal. But Red Fang’s knack for writing a solid melody and its self-awareness and sense of humor set it apart from early on. After all, who gets über metal nerd comedian Brian Posehn to cameo in your music video (“Wires) unless you’re somewhat legit but don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s been a couple of years since the band’s most recent album but in 2018 it released an interesting choice for a single in Tubeway Army’s “Listen to the Sirens.” Opening the show are two fairly different kinds of bands. Dubuque, Iowa’s Telekinet Yeti makes a sort of groove-oriented doom-sludge, like a more psychedelic Fu Manchu. Quits from Denver is a noise rock juggernaut whose membership includes Luke Fairchild of Git Some fame, Doug Mioducki (formerly of indie pop band Felt Pilotes and noise rock groups Sparkles, Witchdoctor and CP-208) and Darren Kulback (ex-Hot White and Poison Rites). When the band started former Hot White vocalist/bassist Tiana Bernard brought her emotional intensity and charisma to the band but since she moved out of state, Neil Keener has stepped in with his considerable abilities honed in projects like Planes Mistaken For Stars, Git Some and Woven Hand.
Friday | December 7, 2018
Godflesh, photo courtesy the artist
Who: Godflesh w/In The Company of Serpents
When: Friday, 12.7, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Godflesh was oft-cited as an early grindcore band by the national music press in the late 80s when the group’s landmark industrial metal album Streetcleaner was released in 1989. That same year other significant records in the realm of what came to be called alternative music emerged with Nine Inch Nail’s Pretty Hate Machine, Soundgarden’s Louder Than Love and Pixies’ Doolittle. The combination of scorching, grinding, forbidding guitar and bass work backed by beats generated through drum machines was not in line with metal orthodoxy and too abrasive even for most fairly adventurous radio stations. Though in being explicitly against the tough guy stance in its lyrics, Godflesh was certainly articulating an ethos that was in opposition to the hypermasculine rock and roll image and rhetoric of the time.
Fast forward decades and the duo has experimented with atmosphere and dynamics, expanding the palette of Godflesh overall while not dispensing with a style of music that reflects the harshness of the world as a sort of sonic totem against it. Guitarist Justin Broadrick has also explored various musical interests including forays into the realms of electronic music not always present in his work with Godflesh including the projects Techno Animal, Jesu, Pale Sketcher, Final and Scorn, among others. Bassist G.C. Green, who founded Godflesh with Broaderick in the mid-80s when the latter was a teenager whose pioneering guitar work on the first half of the 1987 Napalm Death album Scum was one of the blueprints for extreme metal generally and grindcore in particular, has also contributed more than his fair share to experimental music with his contributions to Final and Main. All the biographical details aside, Godflesh as a live duo is even more beautifully brutal than the records might suggest and as powerfully menacing.
Opening the show is the excellent Denver doom/extreme metal band In the Company of Serpents. The group has evolved quite a bit over the years from an early sort of high contrast death-grind doom sound and now Grant Netzorg’s songwriting has folded in his inspirations from dark Americana, Swans and Earth. It’s still towering riffs and gritty vocals but with a more song-oriented approach rather than what could at times seem conceptual.
Who:The Number 12 Looks Like You, Rolo Tomassi, Arsonists Get All the Girls When: Friday, 12.7, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: The Number 12 Looks Like You melded together an instinct for amped emotional expression and math rock and by not sounding like every other screamo and post-hardcore band, established a bit of a cult status for its inventive sound that fans of Hella and Blood Brothers might find incredibly appealing. After breaking up in 2010, the group returned to active status in 2016 with this its first appearance in Denver since reconvening.
Who:Weaponizer w/Rotstrotter and Flight of Sleipnir When: Friday, 12.7, 6:30 p.m. Where: Bannock Street Garage Why: Weaponizer’s blackened thrash has surprisingly keen songwriting as though the guys in the band grew up listening to metal but not getting lost in just the making sounds their parents might hate and actually writing songs that will probably endure past the time it’s no longer active. This show celebrates guitarist Justin Kelly’s fortieth birthday and the band will be joined by deathgrind band Rotstrotter and Flight of Sleipnir who seem to draw some major inspiration from Scandinavian, transcendental metal bands and perhaps people in the band have read Egil’s Saga or Heimskringla or any of the old Viking epics.
Saturday | December 8, 2018
Calm. circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:CupcakKe When: Saturday, 12.8, 7 p.m. Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: Maybe CupcakKe is considered a “dirty rap” artist because of the sexual content of her raps. But she’s no more so than many artists who haven’t been similarly dubbed. Her creatively layered beats alone would make her an artist of note but even among the unapologetic, sometimes boastful, stream of words, CupcakKe actually makes some interesting, insightful and poignant truthful commentary about life. Her fourth album, 2018’s Eden, may be a bit moodier on a few tracks than some of her previous releases but it just demonstrates her range as an artist and nowhere on the album is the IDGAF about foolishness attitude in short supply.
Who:Calm. album release w/Extra Kool, Joe Alan and Cosmicam the Cosmos When: Saturday, 12.8, 7 p.m. Where: The Summit Music Hall Why: Two of Denver’s underground hip-hop greats, Calm. and Extra Kool, perform tonight to raise awareness of the issues facing the homeless by inviting those who show up to donate coats and other warm gear to Denver Homeless Outloud which also dedicates its efforts to stop the city’s misguided and destructive camping ban. Calm. also releases its incendiary new album Things I Learned While Dying in Denver on this night as well.
Anthony Ruptak, photo by Nick Velharticky
Who:Anthony Ruptak release of A Place That Never Changes w/Los Mocochetes and Kramies When: Saturday, 12.8, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Anthony Ruptak’s new album A Place That Never Changes nearly didn’t happen when all his music gear, songbooks and money for recording was stolen from his home. But years of good karma playing in the Mile High City and running one of the best open mic nights in town meant the community came to his aid and helped him to complete the debut LP. The record is never just one flavor. There are bits of freak folk, indie pop, chamber rock and pastoral country but it all comes together as a statement, in the form of vignettes, on a how life and your surroundings change even if you feel as though it never really, in essence, does. Ruptak brilliantly explores the frustrations, the worries, the aspirations, the fantasies and yearnings of a generation and a society that seems to be stalled out and assaulted by forces seemingly beyond our control. All while suggesting we can work around the situation if we open ourselves up to our own imagination and share the angst and struggles with others even if just a little. Fans of Mercury Rev, My Morning Jacket and Iron & Wine will find much to love about A Place That Never Changes.
Monday | December 10, 2018
Protomartyr, photo by Daniel Topete
Who:Protomartyr and Preoccupations w/Teeth of the Hydra When: Monday, 12.10, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: On a short list of the great post-punk/art punk bands of today would have to include Detroit-based noise rock weirdos Protomartyr and Preoccupations from Alberta, Canada and its brooding yet expansive atmospheric guitar rock. So it’s only fitting that the two bands are touring together and releasing a split single on which each band covered the other. Preoccupations’ interpretation of Protomartyr’s “Pontiac 87” from that band’s 2015 album The Agent Intellect is brimming with a moving, haunted sense of resignation. Whereas Protomartyr’s cover of “Forbidden” from Preoccupations’ 2016 self-titled album honors the somber grit that gives way to elevated emotional states that made the original so compelling. Both bands have a gift for using atmosphere with an emotional push and intensity coupled with layered musical textures and dynamics that even when each hits a hypnotic peak of repetition it remains heady until the end. Each band would be worth seeing alone but a bill together makes it potentially one of the great shows in Denver of 2018.
Middle Kids, photo by Maclay Heriot
Who:Middle Kids w/The Shacks When: Monday, 12.10, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Australian rock band Middle Kids released its debut full-length, Lost Kids, in 2018 and did us all a favor by showing how one can be pretty much unabashedly influenced by music that one’s peers made trendy and do something more interesting with it. The songs seem to be rooted in a sort of folk rock songwriting mode, twinges of 70s Laurel Canyon haunting its edges, while incorporating elements of fuzzy 90s rock. But with uncommonly thoughtful and wise lyrics that are nostalgic yet self-conscious of the tendency to romanticize when the bare truth can often be more poetic than a sanitized personal revision of one’s life.
Tuesday | December 11, 2018
The Helio Sequence (Benjamin Weikel), photo by Ana Pupulin
Who:The Helio Sequence w/Wild Pink When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: The Helio Sequence were exploring spacious melodies and daydream tones when it wasn’t too widely present in modern music outside of IDM acts like Boards of Canada and Clark. As a duo, the band had to be creative and efficient in their execution of sounds so there is a fairly different sound from other bands that are often placed under the banner of indie rock. Before the latter was a clumsily vague banner term The Helio Sequence was often described as being within the realm of psychedelic rock and shoegaze, which is true enough, but its musical roots also stretch to Pacific Northwest underground rock, drummer Benjamin Weikel even having drummed on the 2004 Modest Mouse record Good News for People Who Love Bad News. In 2008 The Helio Sequence released its second, and breakthrough, album Keep Your Eyes Ahead. It represented a more overtly well-composed pop direction that band would expound upon thereafter—soaring melodies, introspective lyrics and always inventive soundscaping. For this tour the project is celebrating the ten year anniversary of the album that propelled it into a circle of success wider than underground cult status.
Who:Demoncassettecult w/Machu Linea and Mirror Fears When: Tuesday, 12.11, 8 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Beat driven, noise influenced experimental electronic music is the theme for this show. Demoncassettecult combines industrial soul samples (close enough) with R&B vocals for something that shouldn’t exist but completely makes sense live and on the projects recordings. Machu Linea is the latest project from Armando Garibay who was a member of The Circus House, a sort of avant-garde psychedelic pop band that included former Ancient Elk vocalist Anna Smith. Machu Linea is like downtempo deep house reminiscent of Sunday 8PM-period Faithless but updated. Same dusky, beautifully moody, hip-hop-inflected dance music. Machu Linea’s 2018 album GIRL would be in the upper echelons of a best of dance music list for the year if the wider world was aware of it. Mirror Fears, of course, has been pushing the envelope of electronic music in Denver without being an electronic dance artist per se. Not that dance beats and programming aren’t part of her sound because they are but she also comes to the music from the perspective of someone who spent time in a dream pop band as well as being steeped in the local noise and experimental music scenes. Lately her songwriting has delved further into beat-driven electronic composition.
Who:John Grant w/Two Medicine When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: John Grant’s Denver music history is pretty respectable as the keyboard player of an early incarnation of gloom rock legends Twice Wilted and then as the lead singer/pianist of dream pop band The Czars. But upon leaving Denver to pursue his artistic fortunes elsewhere, Grant embarked upon a critically acclaimed career under his own name beginning with 2010’s excellent Queen of Denmark. His command of electronic music composition in the context of artier pop songwriting has made all of his solo albums worth listening to on their own. That his lyrics are thoughtful, even insightful, and relevant to the vagaries of modern life has kept his songs fresh and striking. Currently Grant is touring in support of his 2018 album Love is Magic.
Who:S A D Nois, Lipglo$$, Equine and more When: Tuesday, 12.11, 7:30 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: S A D Nois and its sound sits somewhere at the intersection of modern classical, noise and textured environment sound composition. Lipglo$$ is sort of like a weird, ambient, noise take on trap and profane and hypnotic. Maybe influenced by video game music and Tim & Eric. Equine is Kevin Richards’ use of his mastery of weird jazz chords and phrases, minimalism and processing both in fascinating directions.
Wednesday | December 12, 2018
Allout Helter circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:La Armada w/Allout Helter, Targets, No Sign of Remose and others When: Wednesday, 12.12, 7 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: La Armada from Santo Domingo in the Domincan Republic is one of the most popular hardcore bands in the country and it has made an impact throughout the North American underground with its crossover sound and political lyrics. The quintet is in good company for this bill with Denver’s Allout Helter and Targets. The former shares some of the thrash sound of the latter and a bit of the grindcore edge of the latter.
Who:Kid Astronaut w/Kayla Marque, Dylan Streight, Shalom Dubas When: Wednesday, 12.12, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall Why: Jon Shockness is moving to London soon to explore what the wider world of music outside of Denver and outside the United States has to offer his eclectic and considerable talent. He was once a member of the late great hip-hop group Air Dubai and a graduate of Denver School of the Arts where he recently told Colorado Public Radio he was able to be taken seriously even as a young artist, providing a solid foundation for his efforts sine. In 2018, as Kid Astronaut, Shockness released the project’s debut full-length, the sultry, powerful and imaginative Full Moon.
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