El Welk – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond March 2026

**mclusky performs at The Marquis Theater on 3/24/26, photo by Damien Sayell**

Monday | 03.02
What: Nuovo Testamento and Dark Chisme
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nuovo Testamento is a Los Angeles-based band that has made a reputation for itself as crafters of fine synthpop songs with some dark Italodisco flavor. Charismatic singer Chelsey Crowley’s rich vocals are reminiscent of peak 1980s Madonna. Dark Chisme from Seattle is musically adjacent but its sound more in the vein of darkwave with a touch of house in the production.

Wednesday | 03.04
What: Final Gasp w/Victim of Fire, Ukko’s Hammer and writheinfear
When: 7
Where: Bar 404
Why: Boston’s Final Gasp released its new album New Day Symptoms on Relapse on February 27, 2026. The record continues the development of the band’s sound fusing death rock and metallic hardcore. Live the group comes across as something from another era when subgenres didn’t matter so much in navigating the appeal of the music and sounds like the missing link between Christian Death and American Nightmare. Opening are some of Denver’s great hardoce bands in Victim of Fire, Ukko’s Hammer and writheinfear.

Friday | 03.06
What: American Culture w/Candy Apple, Spin Move and Blackberry Crush
When: 7/8
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: American Culture kicks off its latest tour with this show of its own current fusion of shoegaze indie pop with punk attitude. The group’s most recent album, and arguably its best, Hey Brother, It’s Been a While, bears the hallmarks of the influence/impact of 90s Britpop psychedelia and its 2020’s echo in the modern underground/indie scene and electronic production. Opening are local shoegaze acts Spin Move and Blackberry Crush and atmospheric hardcore group Candy Apple.

Blackwater Holylight, photo by Magalena Wosinska

Friday and Saturday | 03.06 and 03.07
What: Blackwater Holylight w/Som and Dreadnought (03.06) and Cronos Compulsion (03.07)
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Blackwater Holylight released its new a.lbum Not Here Not Gone in January and its blend of doom and ethereal shoegaze this time out seems to chart the group’s relocation from Portland, Oregon to Los Angeles and embracing uncertainty and establishing new connections, roots and creative and personal evolution. Though heavy in a vein that fans of Slow Crush will appreciate there is a sensitive energy to the music that gives it an intimate feel throughout the album even as many of its songs soar into epic, exhilarating passages. Opening the tour is shoegaze-adjacent post-metal band Som and on the Friday show is Denver psychedelic doom group Dreadnought, on Saturday it’s experimental death metal band Cronos Compulsion.

Polly Urethane in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 03.07
What: The Liberation Series Presents: Polly Urethane, Melodies Never Lie, Entrancer and Luke Leavitt & Eden Figueroa
When: 7/8
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: This is a show series where the proceeds go toward benefiting an organization or person currently being persecuted by corrupt American institutions and imperialism. This night you can see performance artist, songwriter and composer Polly Urethane whose shows are all different from one another but always impressive. Also ambient indie pop shoegaze solo act Melodies Never Lie, techno/ambient artist Entrancer and post-jazz/classical duo Luke Leavitt and Eden Figueroa.

Tuesday | 03.10
What: Peaches w/Cortisa Star
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Peaches has been releasing provocative music that challenges norms of a sexually repressive and misogynistic societies and cultures since the turn of the century. Her production has been an influence on various artists over that time as well and sure overtly her songs trade in immediate terms that challenge the bases of norms of subject matter and creative use of language. She hadn’t released a record since 2015’s Rub until this year’s issuing of No Lube So Rude. Peaches’ production may have been updated to reflect the evolving nature of electronic music and methods of composition but her wonderfully vibrant and colorful use of words to challenge vested authority and power structures is still just as vital as ever.

Friday | 03.13
What: Lala Lala w/Lots of Hands
When: 7/8
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Lala Lala aka Lillie West was one of the leading lights of the Chicago indie rock scene in the late 2010s and with her 2021 album I Want the Door to Open she deconstructed her own sound palette and songwriting style to include more electronic aesthetics. Subsequently the musician/songwriter underwent a kind of personal journey to Taos, New Mexico where she more or less lived off the grid and drew inspiration from the pastoral beauty and unique energy of that town. Then she found her way to Iceland and a residency at LunGa school as well as some time in the capital city of Reykjavik. Out of that leg of her journey West crafted what is essentially an ambient/instrumental album including beautifully arranged field recordings called if i were a real man i would be able to break the neck of a suffering bird (as Lillie West). Lala Lala ultimately landed back in the USA in Los Angeles and on February 27, 2026 she released her new record Heaven 2 via Sub Pop. You can hear traces of West’s creative journey and development informing the record’s evocative soundscapes and existential sentiments. The almost sound design approach to the composition of the songs with West like a figure in her own cinematic creation draws the listener directly into the moments she builds as she catalogs life in the current era of being swarmed with distractions that inspire only overstimulation and yearning for nuggets of the authentic.

Friday | 03.13
What: Witch Cat Records Anniversary: Tassles, babybaby4ever, Watch Yourself Die, The Tammy Shine and Hotel WiFi
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Witch Cat Records is celebrating its five year anniversary with this show including artists both on the label and adjacent to its aesthetic embracing the uniquely creative and finely honed experimental music whether pop or otherwise. Tassles is a band that shows how lo-fi shoegaze can have a maximalist emotional resonance, babybaby4ever is like a rebirth of tonally rich synthpop in an inspired idiosyncratic vein, Watch Yourself Die is a confrontational performance art band, The Tammy Shine is the iconic lead singer of Dressy Bessy doing her own version of spirited punk-edged pop and Hotel WiFi somehow reconciles country, emo and lo-fi indie rock.

Friday | 03.13
What: Moon Pussy, Cleaner and Team Nonexistent
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: Moon Pussy makes the kind of noise rock that makes you wonder why other bands don’t adopt a fully eccentric approach to lyrics and performance because they’re so compelling and unique that it’s difficult to really compare them to anyone else except to clumsily slap a genre term on them. Team Nonexistent started out as more of a Riot Grrrl-esque grunge band but now is more a raw punk thing with stirring hooks and pointed lyrics. Cleaner is a punk band with some threads of fuzzy, psychedelic 2010s garage rock.

Jeff Tweedy and band, photo by Rachel Bartz

Friday | 03.13
What: Jeff Tweedy w/Liam Kazar
When: 6:30
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Jeff Tweedy released a thirty song opus of an album called Twilight Override in September 2025. The record showcases the songwriter’s typically thoughtful and personally insightful lyrics as well as his knack for writing paradoxically spare songs with orchestral arrangements. The gentle energy of the song reflects the guiding principle, as it were, of the release and that is how creativity is the antithesis of the pervasive destruction and darkness that is part of everyday life in America and so much of the world in this moment and if one is honest for years. The record is an attempt to stay above being overcoming by this tidal wave and show at least a little common human solidarity in songs that sound like an attempt to being drowned by personal anxieties and the ambient terribleness around us daily as they intermingle to reinforce each other in sinking every single one of us. Tweedy addresses all of this with warmth and humor and live he’ll likely have more than a handful of stories to enhance the intention of the album.

Saturday | 03.14
What: Bison Bone and Chella Negro
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Courtney Whitehead will be moving out of Denver soon and this is a farewell show for his long-running project Bison Bone. Whitehead’s style of Americana is deeply personal with vivid portraits of life that illuminate universal human experiences of working class life and its often undersung and undercelebrated joys that aren’t often the subject of the myths of the wealth-obsessed end of our culture. Joining Bison Bone for the bill is another of Denver’s Americana greats with folk-inflected, alternative country acts Chella Negro whose own lyrics aren’t short on deeply insightful and affectionate depictions of a life we all known and relate to directly but maybe don’t examine with as much clarity as Chella reveals in her lyrics.

Saturday | 03.14
What: Glueman, Rugburn and Fossil Blood
When: 8
Where: Hi=Dive
Why: Glueman is going on tour and taking its potent brand of classic hardcore-infused garage rock to various corners of the blighted American landscape. It’s most recent album III is a bit like an amalgam of 90s and 2000s Memphis garage rock and Black Flag. Rugburn is a psychedelic fuzzy punk band from Denver, not to be confused with with the funk band from elsewhere. Fossil Blood sounds like they grew up on all Black Sabbath all the time and then embraced what Ronnie James Dio did before joining that band including his time in Rainbow and his early solo career with the epic riffs and the fantastical imagery.

Saturday | 03.14
What: Max Styler w/Discip B2B Roddy Lima, Dan Molinari and GS
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Max Styler got a boost up in his career when, at 18 years old, he was signed to Steve Aoki’s Dim Mak Records. Since then he’s had his music out via Mad Decent, Ultra Music and other prestigious imprints in the EDM universe. His blend of tech house, bass music, trap and dubstep often seems to land in a place of almost pop accessibility in the composition. Currently he is touring ahead of his headlining spot at Coachella on April 10, 2026 and this is a chance to catch him at a mid-sized venue with the best sound in Denver especially for this style of music.

Sunday | 03.15
What: Fire in the Mountains Pop-Up: George Cessna, SHADOWROUGHT, PROGMISTRESS and Corpsewhale
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Fire in the Mountains is a festival happening in East Glacier, MT from July 23-26 that includes some of the best bands in the broader heavy music world (an exclusive reunion of the great, cosmic, tribal doom band SubRosa is part of the proceedings) but this edition includes representation of artists out of the spectrum of Gothic Americana including the reunited Sixteen Horsepower, Tarantella, Midwife and El Welk. For this show you can see George Cessna of El Welk perform a solo set as well as PROGMISTRESS of Dreadnought who will perform at the event as well.

Advance Base in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 03.15
What: Advance Base w/Moontype and Pyramyd
When: 7
Where: Glob
Why: Owen Ashworth has for decades given us tender, heartfelt, emotionally unvarnished and honest pop songs in the lo-fi indie vein and his now long-running project Advance Base occasionally tours including this performance in Denver where he played in 2025. The authenticity and openness of Ashworth’s songs gives them an immediacy and relatability that is rare in a world that puts a premium on the flashy and overproduced.

Testament, photo from testamentlegions.com

Wednesday | 03.18
What: Testament w/Overkill and Destruction
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Testament is one of the most influential and enduring of the Bay Area thrash bands from that second wave of the music. From early on the group’s storytelling and often socially aware lyrics set it apart from a lot of heavy metal of the day. While it didn’t become as famous as the likes of Metallica and Megadeth it has reliably put out worthwhile records including 2025’s Para Bellum which is the band’s first in five years. But apparently the members of Testament took it upon themselves to push their own songwriting boundaries as a band as well as that of thrash and metal generally with songs that fuse black metal, death metal, thrash and progressive chops. It’s one of their best records in a career not short on fine material. Also on the bill are thrash legends Overkill from New Jersey and German thrash luminaries Destruction.

Bill Frisell, photo from billfrisell.com

Thursday | 03.19
What: An Evening with Bill Frisell
When: 7
Where: The Federal Theatre
Why: Bill Frisell is an influential guitarist mostly known for his contributions to jazz and new music. A graduate of Denver’s East High School, Frisell made a name for himself in the NYC Downtown Scene and has worked with the likes of John Zorn. Across his career his has contributed to albums by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Earth while living in Seattle. In his long career Frisell has collaborated with artists too numerous to cite here as a band leader, a curator and a creative co-conspirator and his work has been nominated for a Grammy. But his creative approach to technical music is what has set him apart from many of his peers and there is an accessibility to even his headiest music that has garnered him a cult following.

Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, photo by Hailey Jane

Thursday | 03.19
What: Jesus Christ Taxi Driver album release w/The Thing and Honey Blazer
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Jesus Christ Taxi Driver has been establishing itself as a kinetic live act from the Front Range of Colorado since founding in 2022. Plenty of acts have done the blues rock with power pop flair and punk energy but JCTD seems to be on a mission with ambitious songwriting to match its outsized stage presence. This year the group releases its new album, a follow up to 2023’s Like My Soul, titled Taxi the Rich. The record will see a vinyl release for this show a month ahead of its release on streaming platforms. If the previous album was an audacious and raucous affair the new record has a more focused clarity without losing the raw energy that has made the band so appealing like they’re channeling a bit of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Ty Segall simultaneously.

Thursday | 03.19
What: 2charm w/Abrii and Vyblossom
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Australian electronic duo 2charm has been on its debut headlining tour of the USA including stops at SXSW in support of its new album star scum city. The record is like a fusion of club style EDM, hyperpop and more mellow glitchcore. In many ways the mood of the music is reminiscent of a more dance music manifestation of chillwave that fans of Charli XCX and Sextile may appreciate for the tonal richness and playfulness of the music.

Friday | 03.20
What: hlao, SixFM, Sun Swept and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Pablo’s East Colfax
Why: A stacked lineup of local underground ambient and avant-garde electronic music including a more beat-based approach with hlao, progressive folk psychedelia ambient with Sun Swept and performance art/classical art pop/noise collage with Polly Urethane’s often confrontational performances.

The Playground Ensemble in 2019 performing Eight Songs For a Mad King, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 03.21
What: The Playground Ensemble at 20
When: 7am – 3am
Where: Various (see program below)
Why: The Playground Ensemble is celebrating its 20 years of existence with a series of events this day as outlined below. For more information click here to read our recent piece on the event and our interview with founder Conrad Kehn.

Spontaneous Team Composition Workshop (all ages and levels welcome)
Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Kalamath Building
800 Kalamath St, Denver, CO 80204

Join Denver’s The Playground Ensemble as we celebrate our 20th season with a 20-hour MARATHON of new music.

The day opens at 7:00 AM with a yoga session and gong bath, followed by the Sound Bites breakfast meet-and-greet.

After breakfast, participants will be divided into small groups and given 90 minutes to collaboratively create a new work to be shared at the end of the session. Each group will be facilitated by Playground Ensemble teaching artists who will guide participants through the music creation process using hand gesture composition, graphic notation, structured improvisation, digital audio workstations, and musical story-telling to name a few.

Bring your own instrument and we will also provide a variety of electronic and found sound instruments to help ‘orchestrate’ and inspire creativity. The teaching artists will demonstrate how these approaches are adaptable to a wide range of educational contexts and are accessible to learners of all ability levels and musical backgrounds. The session will conclude with a performance of each group’s composition.

Afternoon at The Stanley Marketplace
2501 N. Dallas St. Aurora, Colorado 80010

Join Denver’s The Playground Ensemble as we partner with Friends of Chamber Music to celebrate our 20th season with an afternoon of music creation and community at The Stanley Marketplace. Each session highlights a different part of what makes Playground Ensemble the innovative organization that it is.

Family/Community Music-Making 1-2:30 PM: We invite families (grown-ups too!) to create their own instruments and compositions. Create your own compositions using colors and shapes and hear them played on the spot! Record your own beats at our electronic music station. Make tongue depressor kazoos, and play our collection of strange found sound instruments.

At 2 PM, Sing With Us! Meet us in the Stanley commons for a community singing of Pauline Oliveros’ Tuning Meditation. Using any vowel sound, sing a tone that you hear in your imagination. Listen for someone else’s tone and tune to its pitch as exactly as possible. Introduce new tones at will and tune to as many different voices as are present. Sing warmly.

String Quartet Concert 2:30 PM: In keeping with the spirit of Stanley Marketplace, the Playground String Quartet provides an eclectic sample of works by Latino, Indigenous, and women composers. Including works by Gabriela Ortiz, Raven Chacon, and Caroline Shaw, this program contains the breadth of both Playground’s style and their mission.

Playground at 20!
MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater
2644 W 32nd Ave, Denver, CO 80211

Hosted by MCA Denver at the Holiday Theater, this series of concerts is the heart of MARATHON.

The evening starts with Shane Courville (trumpet, electronics, composer) and Nathan Hall (piano, electronics, composer) presenting solo, duo, and improvised works on themes of freedom: freedom of nations and sovereignty, freedom to express our own identities, and the freedom of creative collaboration.

Up next join Leah and Josh for a 30-minute program of (mostly) contemporary art songs that recall childhood and gently remind us never to stop playing, even amidst the gloom and doom of life today. When you look through the kaleidoscope of your childhood, what do you see? Do the bright spots of hope, nature, and laughter stand out, or does darkness prevail?

After these two duo sets we gather for a celebratory toast to all that has been accomplished in the previous two decades while looking forward to the future.

At 8PM is the main event, The Playground @ 20!

This chamber concert features the first work we ever played, a new commission by Carlos Sanchez-Gutierrez for bass flute and ‘ghost’ string quartet, and a new work by Playground Director Conrad Kehn for the entire ensemble.

The evening will also feature the Colorado premiere of Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate’s Ithánali, about a Chickasaw woman astronaut who is designated to be the first human to set foot on Mars, aware of the irony of her own action – colonizing Mars – and how it compares/contrasts to the historic colonization of her own tribe.

We will also highlight one of our favorite works commissioned with I’m Waiting for Your Crip Cadence, a collaborative composition by Nathan Hall and performance artist MG Bernard that creates an auditory and visual experience of what it is like to exist in a chronically sick bodymind exploring ideas of the disabled experience of non-linear time, and the doctor-patient relationship through a visceral display of how she is bound to the medical industrial complex, dependent on uncomfortable relationships of care, and indentured to pain.

Late Night GLOB

Close out MARATHON at Denver’s DIY citadel, GLOB.

This underground atmosphere set will intersperse avant DJ sets by former Playground board member DJ i.lind before our Music of The Shining, a show based on music from the Stanley Kubrick (and Stephen King) classic.

At midnight Playground composer and board member Silen Wellington will lead us in Haunting, a ritual performance. This is followed by Loretta Notareschi performing How All’s to One Thing Wrought! an improvisational work for a custom-designed virtual instrument that uses the electronic transformation of a single cello low C to express the spiritual idea of an interdependent web of all existence. Luke Wachter will perform …and we are a collection of memory for solo vibraphone and still photography which juxtaposes the impermanence of improvisation with the immutability of static images, examining how identity is constructed in the mind by collecting and reinterpreting memories and shared experiences. Ryan Fiegl winds us down with an electronic music set with reactive video as his musical alter ego Severed Shadow.

The evening closes with an open invite community-improvised drone session carrying us into the early morning.

For more information visit http://www.playgroundensemble.org.

This program is supported by Denver Arts & Venues through the DENVER CREATES Fund.

Monday | 03.23
What: Quarters w/Porch Light and Telescreens
When: 6
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Telescreens from New York occupies a musical territory balanced between early 2000s post-punk and power pop live energy and modern electronic production. You can hear roots in the music in 90s alternative rock and maybe a touch of Walkmen and The Strokes but Telescreens aren’t going for the image of either. Its new singles “Nothing” and “Preacher” are pure expressions of breaking out of self-imposed repression and the ambient despair that is the normal reaction to modern life. Headlining the show are fellow New York City alternative rock band Quarters whose own sound on its more recent music incorporates an R&B aesthetic into its rhythm and vocals.

Tuesday | 03.24
What: mclusky w/Cherry Spit
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: mclusky established itself as one of the more unhinged post-hardcore acts out of the UK in the 90s and early 2000s with records that were partly surreal humor and partly oblique social commentary often taking the piss out of more obvious sanctimonious approaches to having something to say. The band has album titles like The Difference Between Me and You is That I’m Not on Fire and Mclusky Do Dallas. The group split originally in 2005 and reunited in 2014 for a benefit show. But then did a 20-year anniversary tour for the underrated Mclusky Do Dallas delayed to 2024. Then the band released an EP in 2023 called Unpopular Parts of a Pig followed by a full length in 2025 titled The World Is Still Here and So Are We with a subsequent 2026 EP called I Sure Am Getting Sick of This Bowling Alley. With the dire absurdity of world events mclusky is a welcome presence in modern music. Opening the show is top tier Denver post-hardcore/noise rock quarter Cherry Spit who are a pure fusion of technical death metal, noise rock, post-hardcore and shoegaze.

Friday | 03.27
What: Gov’t Mule at Mission Ballroom
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Warren Haynes paid his dues as a musician throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s with stints in David Allen Coe’s band, The Nighthawks and on and off with The Allman Brothers Band which he joined in 1989. But in 1994 he formed Gov’t Mule in 1994 with Allman Brothers bandmate Allen Woody which became their focus when their more well-known project went on hiatus. With the then new band Haynes was able to channel his honed guitar work and insight into songwriting into original material with a masterful command of live improvisation so that the band has never been limited to expectations and sure there is the blues and country foundation but also the psychedelic flourishes that informed Haynes’ early influences with Hendrix and Clapton. The most recent Gov’t Mule record Peace…Like a River continues the band’s fusion of styles and influences into a sound that blurs the line between genres and seems orchestrated like a jazz record with contributions from the likes of Billy Gibbons, Ivan Neville, Ruthie Foster and Billy Bob Thornton.

Banshee Tree, photo by Christian O’Rourke

Friday | 03.27
What: Banshee Tree album release for Bad Luck w/Riley J Band
When: 7:30/8
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Boulder-based Banshee Tree will release its sophomore album Bad Luck on April 17, 2026 but playing a hometown show ahead of the release likely featuring live versions of the songs from the forthcoming record. Banshee Tree’s eclectic mix of jazz inflected chamber pop and psychedelic folk pop is an apt vehicle for the eight songs on the record that have a gentle and contemplative quality like songs crafted late nights and honed in sessions around a campfire meant to be shared with friends. Despite this intimate aspect of the music each of the songs has an almost orchestral and expansive arrangement that flow into one another as though thematically Bad Luck is a concept album capturing a mood and state of mind wherein one examines wht to let go and what to hold onto going into a new chapter of life.

Saturday | 03.28
What: Pearly Drops
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Finish dream pop band Pearly Drops released its latest album The Voices Are Coming Back to great acclaim in 2025. The record showcases the group’s gift for freely blending elements of hyperpop, glitch and what might be described as electronic dance shoegaze. Its gauzy and luminous atmospheres and entrancing, processed vocals sound like music from an as yet unrealized, existential indie science fiction film. It is an album that is its own world and one worth getting lost within and one you’ll get to experience a bit of live.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver January 2026

**Cherished celebrates the release of its self-titled debut LP at Hi-Dive on 1/22/26**

Friday | 01.02
What: Angel Band w/Ryan Wong, Fishlegs, Elaine and Nimona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Angel Band is an indie pop band that seems to have taken inspiration from jangle pop groups of the late 80s and early 90s. Like C86-affiliated groups and acts on the Sarah Records and early Slumberland imprints. There is an enthusiasm with which the music is performed but without losing a sense of delicacy and gentleness. Fishlegs is like-minded in its embrace of the kind of charming twee pop that made 90s underground music worth seeking out. Ryan Wong is of course the songwriter and producer behind his band Supreme Joy but his solo performances can wax into his equally worthy country songwriting.

Thursday | 01.08
What: Victim of Fire, Cronos Compulsion, Aleister Cowboy, Pedestal for Leviathan
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Victim of Fire is a Denver-based hardcore/black metal band that has been at the forefront of that music out of the Mile High City. Its 2025 album The Old Lie is a sharp and ferocious dissection of economic elitist lies told to working class people to get them to give up their best interests in pursuit of enriching the wealthy at the expense of everyone. Cronos Compulsion is a death-sludge metal band also from Denver whose 2025 album Lawgiver is a bracing listen and a solid example of the caustic and brutal sonic power of the art form. Fort Collins’ Aleister Cowboy released an EP of what might be described as cosmic death metal called Neolithic Blood Rites in 2025. Pedestal for Leviathan’s flavor of black metal is the more symphonic variety but don’t worry, it’s plenty brutal as well once the songs get into gear.

Friday | 01.09
What: An Evening With Black Flag
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Ever since replacing the most recent lineups of Black Flag with young musicians, Greg Ginn seems to want to bring some new blood into his venerable and influential punk band Black Flag. Did it work? You’ll have to go to find out but Ginn’s guitar work remains impressive and unique in the canon of punk and hardcore.

Precocious Neophyte, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.09
What: Warper, Precocious Neophyte and Blackberry Crush
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Warper released its new album Something, Sometime in October 2025 showcasing its further development from moody, atmospheric emo band into a heavier shoegaze band. The new record also showcased the band’s development as songwriters since its 2021 Lateness EP. Sure, you can hear a touch of possible influences like Hum and Sunny Day Real Estate but also newer groups like Cloakroom. Warper doesn’t shy away from demonstrating musical chops in the songs as well with evocative solos. Precocious Neophyte seems to come from similar roots but its musical instincts seem to have some noise rock and metal influences along with obvious touchstones like My Bloody Valentine with a knack for fragile melodies alongside searing guitar work and crushing heaviness. Blackberry Crush has evolved into more of a shoegaze band in the past couple of years but without sacrificing a knack for writing compelling pop hooks with some clear inspiration from 90s grunge.

Saturday | 01.10
What: The Pretty Shabbies, The Futons and Watch Yourself Die
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: The Pretty Shabbies sound like its music is comprised of bits of 1970s jazz and funk. There’s a chance the members listened to a lot of Zappa, a bit of Jethro Tull, modern jam bands and someone in the mix probably has every Traffic record. And yet the organic free flow of the music is not without a certain appeal because it’s not like many other local bands. The Futons are sort of a psychedelic garage punk band. But Watch Yourself Die is seemingly different every time with a strong and confrontational, transgressive performance art component which is going to make it completely divergent from everything else on this bill in the best way.

Saturday | 01.10
What: Night Fishing, Nativity in Black, Tainted Blade, Halo of Lightning
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Night Fishing is a collision of fusion, psychedelic prog, surf rock and post-rock but heavy and it includes members of other much heavier and more brutal bands. This is not gentler so much as not aggressive in its sound. Nativity in Black is a Black Sabbath cover band fronted by Chella Negro. Don’t expect the poetic Americana of her other band Chella and the Charm. It’ll be legit Black Sabbath evocation. Tainted Blade is a blackened death doom band from Denver. Halo of Lightning is a “stoner-doom metal” band from Colorado.

Thursday | 01.15
What: Summer Bedhead, Circling Girl and Majona
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Summer Bedhead’s eclectic indie rock reflects the changing musical landscape of the past decade. In the band’s story songs you hear strands of the throwback to 90s rock, garage rock, dream pop and more. But it’s all channeled into the group’s own style of confessional pop songs with some bite and more than a little vulnerability. Circling Girl is a Denver-based dream pop band whose sound has some bright shimmer in the guitar melodies with vocal harmonies that are reminiscent of The Sundays, Lush in its more pop mode and a touch of Cocteau Twins. Its 2025 album Only My Veins Know is one of the better releases in the broad spectrum of shoegaze and dream pop of the past five years with its intricate and entrancing songwriting. Majona is the style of atmospheric pop that is adjacent to shoegaze but more in the realm of Mazzy Star-esque slowcore.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.16
What: Green Typewriters, Salads and Sunbeams and Teacup Gorilla
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: The Green Typewriters are the kind of psychedelic pop band that makes use of conceptual framing and aesthetics to deliver a unique style of music that blurs the line between Elephant6 indiepop including the experimental streak of that music, art rock and mystical psychedelia. Salads and Sunbeams engages in modern pop storytelling through the sonic lens of 60s and 70s psychedelic rock with poetic observations on modern life and the ways our current civilization works to erode our humanity and offering ways to reclaim it through imagination and honest feeling. Teacup Gorilla is a high concept art pop band that challenges conventional views of gender and identity in its songs and in its presentation of the music.

Sunday | 01.18
What: Kayo Dot and Abandons
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: New York-based avant-garde metal and Kayo Dot makes a rare appearance in Denver following the release of one of its most challenging and visionary records to date in 2025’s Every Rock, Every Half-Truth under Reason. The album was written against the idea of the creative act and creativity as a result of predictive modeling and its dystopian offspring, AI music and art. The songs are not in the vein of traditional metal or really something easily or at all identifiable as metal. It’s often like an organic, mutant and sprawling set of songs that at most has something in common with something like Mamaleek. But even more abstract. Abandons is not as avant in its songwriting but it is in the way the band writes music in a more improvisational mode and without seeming to try to fit in with a neat genre. Sure if you want to call them post-rock or post-metal they fit that but also noise rock and art rock and in moments with songs written with more abstract electronic ideas in mind.

Thursday | 01.22
What: Cherished album release w/Tassles, Flesh Tape and Headslug
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ever since switching names to Cherished in 2022 and a shift in sound more toward the shoegaze end of post-punk this Denver quintet has developed a body of work that defies easy categorization. There is some noisy, punk edge underlying the sonics and performance style but the atmospheric melodies and introspective and thought-provoking lyrics set the band apart from any obvious niche aesthetics. Its 2025 self-titled album was recorded and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets who is perhaps best known for working on records by Model/Actriz, Lingua Ignota, Battles, Big|Brave and Lightning Bolt. It emphasizes the more gritty side of the band’s sound without sacrificing the deep moods Cherished manifests live. Opening the show is bedroom dream pop band Tassles, noise-rock post-punk group Flesh Tape and Headslug whose sound sits somewhere between grunge pop and shoegaze.

Friday | 01.23
What: Cthonic Deity, Street Tombs and Death Possession
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cthonic Deity is the doom/death metal/punk band from Denver that includes Paul Riedl of Blood Incantation fame. It’s much more stripped down and brutal in its guitar attack and includes members of Scolex and Ascended Dead as well. Street Tombs from Santa Fe, New Mexico are a collision of d-beat punk and thrash-infused death metal. Death Possession play the kind of death metal that sounds like it was inspired by many sessions of taking in early Slayer, early Possessed and Xasthur in a secret club house.

Friday | 01.23
What: Gion Davis, Dollpile, Your Friend Nirantha
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Room
Why: Gion Davis is a poet with the indie rock band Clementine Was Right who is releasing a new book Designated Stranger that “spans years, states, genders, and climates as it confronts the concurrent apocalypses of being trans and poor in America.” Seems appropriate for the world today. Also performing is Dollpile fka Isadora Eden, a band whose dream pop is more theatrical and atmospherically dense than the genre is often known for producing. Also Your Friend Nirantha and its endearingly earnest bedroom dream/noise pop.

Turning Jewels Into Water, photo by Ed Marshall

Saturday | 01.24
What: Turning Jewels Into Water
When: 6PM doors for Artist Discussion and Q&A, concert 7:30PM
Where: Bug Theater
Why: Turning Jewels Into Water is a project with composer/percussionist/turntablist Val Jeanty and percussionist/composer/electronic musician Ravish Momin. Formed around 2017 when the two met at a jam session at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, New York. Recognizing a shared affinity for crafting unique rhythms and soundscapes and compatible methods of working the two artists have since worked together to explore the ways in which new technologies can be used to blend electronic and acoustic instruments in creating music that reflects the diverse cultural heritages and musical interests in common. The name of the project is a commentary on access to natural resources and howthat has been politicized in human struggles for power especially in the capitalist era increasingly so with the rise in climate change impacts. A casual listen to any of the duo’s three albums reveals a mastery of rhythmic arrangements and patterned tones for a sound that is ambient adjacent but more akin to the kind of early industrial beat-making and culture jamming sounds heard in a band like Cabaret Voltaire but steeped in modern sensibilities and production methods. For our interview with Ravish Momin please follow this link.

Saturday | 01.24
What: Vulgarian, 908, Old Skin and Cop Killer
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based, anti-capitalist, doom/sludge/crust group Vulgarian are releasing their third album Cost of a Bullet at this show. Expect caustic and brutal riffs and plenty of pointed and incisive lyrics about what a demented and corrupt civilization we’re living through right now. 908 is a grindcore/powerviolence band from Colorado Springs that includes current and former members of Aberrant, Catheter, Throcult, Upon a Field’s Whisper, Havok and Tree of Woe. Old Skin sounds like a band that came up playing stoner metal and doom but leaned into the Unsane and Cherubs end of that sound and now is almost more of a noise rock band with some sludgy grooves while still sounding incredibly menacing. Cop Killer is the hardcore band from Denver that thankfully has lyrics that are appropriate to the name of the band and a confrontational performance style worthy of the name as well.

Thursday | 01.29
What: William Elliot Whitmore and Jim Ward (Sparta)
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: William Elliot Whitmore is a singer/songwriter from Iowa who earned a reputation as one of the more skilled practitioners of folk Americana since the late 90s. With releases on Southern Records, ANTI- and Bloodshot Records Whitmore’s respectable body of work has garnered him a bit of a following and he has toured with Chris Cornell, Murder By Death, Converge and Esmé Patterson, with whom he has worked, to give a sense of his broad appeal beyond the obvious for his charismatic performances and fine songcraft. Also on this bill is Jim Ward, the frontman and guitarist of Sparta and former member of At the Drive-In performing his solo material that spans genres but all graced with his vulnerable yet passionate vocals.

Call Sign Cobra circa 2006, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 01.30
What: Call Sign Cobra w/Friends of Cesar Romero, El Welk, Total Cult
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Back in the mid-2000s Call Sign Cobra was a bit of a local supergroup that included members of now, minus the punk cognoscenti of the day, forgotten punk bands like Scott Baio Army, The Facet, Mail Order Children and Out on Bail. It’s sound was a kind of loose around the edges garage rock and what later “neo-classic rock” bands aimed for but could never quite nail in trying to sound pro. Imagine a Memphis garage rock band of the 90s, The Dirt Bombs, Teengenerate and a glam rock band mixed together and add a horns section and you have some idea of what you’re in for. It’s raucous, ridiculous and here’s a rare chance to see the band nearly twenty years after it dissolved. Also on hand will be modern garage punk luminaries Friends of Cesar Romero and Total Cult as well as noisy post-Americana group El Welk.

Saturday | 01.31
What: The Crooked Rugs, Rugburn and Chroma Lips
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Crooked Rugs from Fort Collins live come off like a countrified psychedelic rock/shoegaze band with a deep appreciation for T. Rex. But one with a knack for memorable and transporting melodic hooks. Rugburn’s own flavor of psychedelia is more steeped in grunge and more distorted sounds in general with a bit of an edge. Denver’s Chroma Lips has more synth in the music and its motorik beats point to some inspiration from Krautrock, possibly a touch of Silver Apples and possible hints of having soaked up bits of the better end of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Black Mountain and the most inspired bits of Tame Impala but with more interesting guitar work.

Queen City Sounds Brief Guide to Ghost Canyon Fest

Ghost Canyon Fest, Denver’s DIY music fest showcasing left field music of various stripes, runs August 21-24, 2025 at venues in Colorado Springs in Denver and here is our modest rundown of what’s in store each day. For more information and to purchase tickets please visit ghostcanyonfest.com.

Th 08/21/25 What’s Left Records doors 7 PM

Scorplings
Noise rock jazz post-punk collage post-pop. If you’re into both Yo La Tengo and Shellac you’ve come to the right band.

Silver West
Tender cosmic folk avant-country psychedelia.

Viewfinder
Indie emogaze tapped into healing the bruised psyche of those crushed under wheels of the failed American dream.

Church Fire
“Equal parts industrial synth pop, hyperkinetic dance punk and dreamlike ambient 8-bit EDM doom.” Also with the new lighting rig like a revolutionary dance party every show.

F 08/22/25 Wax Trax 3 PM (free show)
The Destructor’s Club
New York dub post-punk aimed at rattling Babylon to dust.

Denver Vintage Reggae Society
Veteran DJ crew bringing the legit reggae sides to liven up a late summer sidewalk.

F 08/22/25 Skylark Lounge doors 7 PM
Safekeeper
Maximalist lo-fi slacker rock from Fort Collins for fans of early Built to Spill and Jonathan Donohue-era Flaming Lips.

Honduh Daze
Where harsh noise, post-punk and Situationist-esque anti-commercial culture humor intersect.

The Milk Blossoms
Dream folk indie pop poetic portraits of collages of dreams, heartfelt memories and aspirational futures yet manifest.

Neptune
A mini-chamber orchestra of industrial post-punk assembled from found objects and repurposed instruments, the stylistic offspring of Neubauten, Lightning Bolt and Caroliner Rainbow.

Pink Lady Monster
Retro-futurist No Wave funk disco post-punk performance art like a soundtrack to a Pat Cadigan cyberpunk novel filled with a playful joy and sly culture jamming.

Fuubutsushi (includes Patrick Shiroishi and Chaz Prymek), photo courtesy the artists

S 08/23/25 Mutiny Information Cafe doors 1 PM
Flesh Tape
Swirling emogaze as noisy exorcisms of isolation and heartache.

Progmistress
The solo stylings of Dreadnought and BleakHeart vocalist and keyboard wizard Kelly Schilling.

Nguyen, Prymek, Shiroishi
Free jazz Zen mystics with a gift for creating transcendent spaces of expansive textures.

Flowting Clowds
A cause of celebration because Jeff Mueller and Sean Meadows of June of 44 fame performing the new they’ve been working on for over a decade.

S 8/23/25 Hi-Dive doors 6 PM
El Welk
Psychedelic garage Americana punk from former members of country post-punk band Snakes.

Cougars
Atonal mutant sleaze rock like the musical equivalent of early 80s National Lampoon and Mad Magazine.

Suicide Cages
Seething post-hardcore exorcisms of our internalized collective social nightmares.

Latter
Deeply personal, raging songs scorching civilizational neglect and the abuses it spawns.

MJ Guider
Abstract shoegaze drone emanating from the primeval places in the dreamtime.

Still House Plants
Iterative, cinematic guitar and soulful-vocal-driven avant-post-punk and R&B fusion.

Black Eyes
The equally weird and wonderfully disorienting, Can-esque DC cousin to The Rapture.

Su 8/24/25 Wax Trax 1 PM free show
Moon Pussy
Electo-convulsive noise rock and absurdist-conscious poetry set to broken jackhammer beats.

DUG
Smash punk irreverence and doom’s complete lack of regard for melody, remove the aggression and you have this band’s ability to channel the crushing bleakness of the world into inspiration.

Big’N
Jagged shocks of despair survived and carved into seething stabbing sounds pushed through a groove.

Su 8/24/25 Hi-Dive doors 4 PM
American Motors
Navigating gritty distortion and dreamlike shimmery melodies this band catalogs the haunted corridors of America’s decaying empire and fractured dreams.

Precocious Neophyte
Bittersweet bedroom shoegaze awash in fading neon lights and lingering nostalgic warmth.

Museum of Light
The new incarnation of the band indulges its gift for crushing heaviness alongside exquisitely transcendent atmospheric ambient explorations into inner space.

Evicshen
A prime experimenter in combining the aesthetics of sound, visual representation and tactile elements in crafting unique artistic experiences.

Buildings
Industrial math noise thrash with deep passages of introspective tension before the unhinged uncoiling of the pent up angst.

Glassing
Euphorically relentless post-black metal screamo.

Cloakroom
Fuzzy, shimmery, majestic space pop stoner rock stories of everyday life in the fragile and perilous present.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2025

**Planning For Burial performs at the Hi-DIve on 07.03.25, photo by Matt Hannon**

Planning For Burial, photo from Bandcamp

Thursday | 07.03
What: Planning For Burial w/Volunteer Coroner, Verhoffst and Patience, Ophelia
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, the latest transmission of deep, troubling thoughts as slow and unsettling, yet beautifully rendered, musical exorcism from Planning For Burial is the kind of record any of us with life experience need in this moment. The grinding light of its most headlong moments of gritty black metal-shoegaze alchemy burns off a touch of the middle age angst and despair at discovering you are well into and halfway through adulthood and a lot of what you were told mattered, or worse the things you told yourself mattered, don’t amount to much. And living with friends passing away in seemingly rapid succession and the lives of those around you crumbling in this sick excuse of a fake advanced industrialized country hollowed out by the savage neglect of late capitalism with no end in sight. But the album is also about finding the flickering of meaning and significance and emotional resonance among those ruins and scraps and holding on to what and who moves you the most with a tightness that you might not have understood without having gone through all the things that don’t affirm your dreams and fantasies but instead attempt to chisel them into nothing yet failing just a little. It’s also just a gorgeously heavy, atmospheric work of borderline lo-fi, scuzzy shoegaze with heartfelt lyrics and an irresistible uplift. Opening are harsh noise soundscape sculptor Volunteer Coroner, power electronics ambient composer Verhoffst and ambient bedroom pop band Patience, Ophelia which includes Samuel Rupsa and Madeline Johnston (Midwife).

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 07.03
What: The Frickashinas w/The Born Readies and Meet the Giant
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Frickishinas are a melodic skate punk type of band from Denver in that sort of melodic hardcore borderline emo vein. The Born Readies are a kind of hybrid of hard glam and garage rock band also from the Mile High City. Meet the Giant, though they rock hard enough, are more of an alternative rock band steeped in electronic music aesthetics and deep mood atmospheric music so they might be considered a shoegaze outfit by some or leaning post-punk and even downtempo by others, there is an intensity and emotional depth to the music that reaches further than most more straight forward rock and roll.

Tuesday | 07.08
What: Jackson & The Janks w/El Welk and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jackson & The Janks is one of those retro old timey rock and roll and R&B bands with some garage rock spirit and gospel sensibility in its sound from New York City. El Welk is the new band from George Cessna who many may know from being a member of his father’s band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club or his former Americana outfit Snakes. But his solo albums have long been worthwhile for having existential lyrics and a spare and economic style. The Milk Blossoms is one of the best indiepop bands in the land at the moment with ear worm melodies and lyrics of uncanny poetic insight and imagination.

TopHouse, photo by Electric Peak Creative

Tuesday | 07.08
What: Fruition and TopHouse
When: 6:30
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens
Why: TopHouse is a Montana-based band whose roots in indie Americana and its bluegrass influences have been fully integrated into its heartfelt songwriting. In 2025 the band released two EPs: Theory in May and the newly released Practice. Obviously there is conceptual wit behind naming the two sets of songs but with the earlier EP was more upbeat and summery, the latest delves into struggle and self-re-discovery. The band’s masterful musicianship combines a sense of orchestral arrangements with emotional intimacy.

Thursday | 07.10
What: Howling Giant, Abrams, Voidlung
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Stoner rock went out of style more or less around the turn of the 2010s but was replaced by its modern equivalent, psychedelic doom metal. But Howling Giant skipped the trend morphing and offered the kind of heavy music that is melodic yet hard hitting and and imbued with a sinuous rhythm style that gives the music a bit of sway. Denver’s Abrams clearly has similar musical inspirations as the headliner but with more than a touch of post-hardcore and post-rock.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 07.12
What: Salads and Sunbeams w/Air Moons (first show)
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Salads and Sunbeams is a psychedelic indiepop band whose gorgeously lush songs and literate lyrics sound like something from another era when creative songwriting was at a premium. Yet it’s sound isn’t stuck in the past even if you hear the songs and they have the strong production and ear for impeccable melodies that you’d expect on a Harry Nilsson or Apples in Stereo record. It’s new album Into the Starless Night is front to back a masterpiece of modern pop songcraft imbued with psychological insight and delivered with fantastic vocals both lead and in harmony.

Saturday | 07.12
What: Lost Relics w/Moon Pussy and No Comma
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Lost Relics’ juggernaut fusion of Unsane-esque noise rock and post-metal circa Neurosis will headline this show which includes the mutant noise rock tricksters Moon Pussy who absolutely blur the line between Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Shellac in style, methodology and substance. All the bands are from Denver and No Comma doesn’t play often but it will bring a blunt and clipped hardcore and noise punk aesthetic to the proceedings.

Sunday | 07.13
What: Lyle Lovett w/The Five Blind Boys of Alabama
When: 7
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Lyle Lovett is one of the most popular artists in modern country whose career spans over four decades. He first burst into popular consciousness with his 1986 self-titled debut and his hit song “Cowboy Man.” In an era when pop country lacked a certain authenticity of expression Lovett distinguished himself with a style that’s eclectic and drew on swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues but with his lyrics somehow tied it all together to be more authentically country than a lot of what else was going on as true to form for a genre that itself was made up of a rich tapestry of influences. This time out Lovett is touring with his Large Band so you’ll get to see those classic songs and newer favorites writ large.

Saturday | 07.19
What: J. Carmone, Paranoid Image and Cosmic Smoke Wagon
When: 5/5:30
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The recent J. Carmone stuff sounds like a one-man psychedelic garage rock blues thing. Fuzzy melodies and simple chord and rhythm structure that’s broadly expressive even within that narrow range of elements. But in the songwriter’s bag of tricks are power pop hooks and a touch of indie jangle. Paranoid Image is an alternative rock band rooted in acoustic sounds and almost world music melodic structures. Cosmic Smoke Wagon as perhaps the name suggests is sort of a heavier blues rock quartet.

Saturday | 07.19
What: Rain City Drive, Arrows in Action, Charlotte Sands, Taylor Acorn, Beauty School Dropout, If Not For Me
When: 4
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Summer School Tour lands at the Fillmore showcasing some prominent bands in the realm of modern alternative rock informed by pop punk and melodic post-hardcore. Rain City Drive fronted by The Voice runner-up Matt McAndrew though from Palm Coast, Florida derived its name from the city where they all met for the first time, Manchester UK. Arrows in Action from Nashville is touring ahead of the release of its new album I Think I’ve Been Here Before out soon on Nettwerk Music Group. The new, third, record is brimming with summery energy and songs informed by youthful exuberance and a spirit of rediscovering one’s joy of life. It’s a complete fusion of electronic pop and the kind of eclectic alternative rock from the late 90s that embraced production elements in the songwriting. Charlotte Sands blends glitchy alt-pop and emo for a sound that fans of Charli XCX may enjoy. Taylor Acorn seemingly takes the structure and sound of pop country and infuses it with the kind of alternative pop exemplified by Echosmith. Beauty School Dropouts do look like if Ratt reincarnated as later era scene kids. And its music is rooted in that kind of emo but one that also recognizes that processing vocals and other instrumentation can make more straight ahead songwriting sound more interesting.

Lyra Muse, photo by Adam Debary @mr.debary

Sunday | 07.20
What: Lyra Muse w/BabyBaby and Dandelioness
When: 7:30/8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Lyra Muse is a dream pop artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico whose command of production, layered atmospheres and vocal processing is thoroughly entrancing. Like a downtempo act that learned a bit from maybe listening to a bit of early 80s Brian Eno, Nicolas Jaar and The Knife. The music’s organic flow and intimate tones are a little like New Age darkwave. On tour with Lyra Muse is Danelioness from Taos whose music is superficially the opposite from Lyra Muse with sounds you might expect more out of an indie folk act including clear and evocative singing but the production on the recorded music suggests something that was influenced by experimental 1980s pop like Kate Bush or Marianne Faithful’s synth-infused period. And from Denver BabyBaby will thrill your ears with exquisitely crafted synth pop and enhanced by charming and idiosyncratic stage antics.

This Will Destroy You on the original Young Mountain tour in 2006, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 07.20
What: This Will Destroy You w/Jesse Beaman
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: This Will Destroy You will be performing its 2006 debut album Young Mountain and likely highlights from its album since then. This Will Destroy You from early on set itself apart from the glut of post-rock by making truly cinematic and expressive guitar compositions with emotional heft and dynamism that didn’t sound just like guys jamming out on a theme. The album has gone on to be a classic of the genre and nearly 20 years later its essential appeal as a set of music that stirs the imagination is intact.

Thursday | 07.24
What: Supreme Joy and Flutter dual album release show w/Team Nonexistent and Sun Swept
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: There’s probably a numerological significance to the title of Supreme Joy’s new album 410,757,864,530 Dead Carps or it’s just a surreal semiotic exercise in the absurdity of naming an album brimming with themes of “everchanging American identity, class warfare and Debord’s spectacle.” It’s an overwhelming number which may by part of the point but the psychedelic garage rock post-punk is a sprawling and shimmering collection of sharp observations and an attempt to make sense of so much nonsense in the context of one’s own living of life which can be perilous at best but that doesn’t mean there can’t be plenty of play to be had while figuring it all out and that’s what the record sounds like in all its sonically kaleidoscopic glory. Also releasing an album this night is the great Denver power pop band Flutter and its refreshingly earnest and romantic When You Love Somebody and its full arc exploration of the course of love—the insecurities, the infatuation, the travails of being in love with a human rather than one’s image of one and coming to terms with the highs and lows. It has the exuberance of a record informed by adolescent spirit but the nuance of someone with a bit more emotional maturity making it more relevant for someone that wants to love someone for real and being willing to deal with everything that comes with it.

Wheelchair Sports Camp, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 07.25
What: Wheelchair Sports Camp, Jello Biafra and Alice Wong
When: 6-10
Where: Denver Art Museum
Why: Wheelchair Sports camp takes over the Denver Art Museum for an evening of performances and an interactive element in celebration of Disability Pride Month and the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s a way to flip the usual narrative in which disabled folks serve as entertainment for society and instead own the spectacle rather than merely be it for the amusement of others. It’s activism as art and engagement as an act of transforming the usual dialogues and contexts. As part of the proceedings you’ll see Jello Biafra who will have some choice words and long-time disability rights activist Alice Wong, founder and Project Coordinator of Disability Visibility Project which collects oral histories of people with disabilities in the USA.

Saturday | 07.26
What: of Montreal – The Sunlandic Twins 20th anniversary tour
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Long-running indie pop group of Montreal is celebrating the 20 year anniversary of its 2005 album The Sunlandic Twins. The album is a bit of a fusion of the group’s signature, psychedelic pop and early Brian Eno solo album strangeness for an effect that is like listening to something just out of the frame of usual reality which is what you want from an of Montreal album. And per usual there will probably be a unique stage presentation of the music including sets and costumes to enhance the sense of being witness to something fantastical.

Saturday | 07.26
What: Caamp w/Whitney
When: 7
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Caamp had modest beginnings when Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall met at, yes, summer camp in middle school and then formed the band after high school while students at Ohio University. It’s upbeat indie folk apparently struck a chord with its simple but appealing melodies and intimate presentation. Its latest album is the summery Copper Changes Color. Opening is Chicago’s Whitney which came out of the now defunct psych rock band Smith Westerns when Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich formed the project when their old band split in 2014. What they’ve done as the band has evolved and taken on new members is write orchestral pop songs in the vein of Laurel Canyon circa 1972 psychedelic folk rock but with a modern sense of exuberance and tapping into that time’s exquisite use of tonal arrangements. The band released a new single “Darling” so maybe it’s safe to say to expect a new album in the none-too-distant future.

Tuesday | 07.29
What: Sculpture Club, Flesh Tape and French Kettle Station
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sculpture Club is a post-punk band from Dallas that sounds like it took more inspiration from the more pop inflected end of that music like some of the upbeat Smiths-esque guitar melodies were a direct influence. Its 2024 self-titled album is reminiscent of The Prids with that neo-New Wave flavor and breezy dynamics and upbeat yet moody music. Flesh Tape is a vital hybrid of noise rock grit, emo vulnerability and shoegaze soundscape songwriting style. French Kettle Station could be any incarnation of his music of the moment from New Age glitch ambient or emotionally vibrant experimental pop. You’ll just have to go and see.

Fitz and the Tantrums, photo by Matty Vogel

Tuesday | 07.29
What: Fitz and the Tantrums
When: 6:30
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens
Why: Fitz and the Tantrums from Los Angeles have had a successful career with its brand of fusing indie pop and neo soul and ably tapping into uplifting melodic hooks and bringing to them great mood and emotional range. Sure its songs tend to be the kind built for parties and summertime fun but there is something that seems to bridge the style and sound of decades for something that sounds like something for today in the songwriting. The group is currently touring in support of its new album Man On The Moon and its outer space imagery as a vehicle for injecting the music with some hope and romance.

Wednesday | 07.30
What: Tripp Nasty, Debaser, Sense From Nonsense and Pythian Whispers
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Full disclosure, the writer of this piece is in Pythian Whispers. But really this show includes some old school Denver DIY scene artists from the 2000s through the 2020s era. Tripp Nasty these days has brought to bear his skills as a composer and technician of electronic music to produce vibrant and imaginative analog synth music that is both avant-garde and accessible. Debaser is the drums and bass guitar solo project of Monkey Mania founder Josh Taylor. It’s like the joyous noise rock with pop exuberance that is an analog to what he brought to the original Friends Forever. Sense From Nonsense is the solo project of former Echo Beds drummer/vocalist/synth composer Tom Nelsen. Sense From Nonsense has gone through various iterations but the current version has been a vehicle for doing live versions of the music from his short films and performance art like an outsider live juke box that irreverently deconstructs unexpected hits. Pythian Whispers for over a decade has included former Tornado Alley and 900 Ancestors guitarist Tom Murphy, former Odam Fei Mud percussionist and current Animal / object multi-instrumentalist David Britton and former Great Atomic Motor and Sense From Nonsense bassist Harmony Fredere. As this band it’s left field ambient and abstract progressive rock with elements of the band members’ various influences blended and layered into dense and dynamic soundscapes.

Thursday | 07.31
What: Midwife w/Jenny Haniver and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife is of course Madeline Johnston whose ethereal guitar work and live production transforms a core of deeply emotional and melancholic songwriting into something that feels like experiencing a dream in real time. Her records are a catalog of giving honor to the pain and loss one must bear across a lifetime as well as the more understated joys that sustain us in unexpected moments when we need them most. Jenny Haniver is a post-hardcore industrial post-punk band from Portland. Fainting Dreams might be described as a transcendent black metal band that channels the trauma and emotional catharsis of surviving the degradations and limitations imposed on us by late capitalism.

Thursday | 07.31
What: Ozomatli w/Las Cafeteras
When: 7:30
Where: Arvada Center Amphitheater
Why: Ozomatli kind of got dubbed a party band in the 1990s because its music was popular at celebrations of all kinds. But the members of the band met when trying to form a workers union in Los Angeles. The band’s seamless integration of elements of hip-hop, funk, Chicano rock and various cultural music from around the world has mean its sound has been evolving from the beginning and with an appeal that transcends genre boundaries. All along the band has lived its social convictions and supported farm-workers’ rights and immigration issues and decidedly anti-war in the 2000s when it seemed like Americans were encouraged to be rah rah for expanding the empire. To the band’s credit its politics have become even more relevant as has its ability to bring joy and celebratory energy to its famously exuberant live shows.

To Be Continued…