The Picture Tour is a shoegaze/post-punk trio from Denver that started as a songwriting vehicle for guitarist/singer Billy Armijo around 2018. The project really got off the ground as a live band in 2023 after the debut album Before the Sound, Before the Light was released in February 2022. Armijo was born in New Mexico but spent core years of his youth in Colorado as he developed as a songwriter in the mid-90s as someone who embraced moody post-punk like The Cure and Joy Division at a time when even mainstream alternative rock popular on radio was more or less the opposite of those sounds. What darkness was present in commercial music was presented in a different way than brooding and more emotionally nuanced post-punk. Armijo was in high school bands but nothing that really recorded until after he went to college and he started recording solo material under the moniker The Bedsit Infamy starting around 2003. The outlets for sharing music at that time was limited but Armijo’s songs caught the attention of the now defunct Banazan Records in Orange, California which released lungs, my heart. blood, my stomach in 2008 (at least according to Discogs) on CD. Armijo’s songcraft and homegrown production was a clear standout at a time when what would now be called bedroom pop was enjoying a bit of a renaissance. As a live act The Bedsit Infamy played shows from 2008-2011 with live members included Brad Turner, who Armijo had met in college, and who himself was a gifted home recorder of experimental pop music as Nuts + Berries and Ian Schofield.
The Bedsit Infamy released a final album in 2014 called Ashes reflecting the the arc of music post-live act. Although Armijo wrote superb pop songs with that band it didn’t represent his ongoing interest in post-punk and shoegaze and he had by 2013 joined Emerald Siam, a rock band that combined gritty garage rock sound, atmospheric melodies and emotional catharsis. The group, fronted by Denver music luminary Kurt Ottaway (Twice Wilted, Tarmints, The Overcasters) was a prominent act in the Denver scene for around a decade before it dissolved in late 2022/early 2023. When The Picture Tour debut live in 2023 it was a trio comprised of Armijo, Mike Genova on bass and Drew Dyer on drums. And the songs from the first record (which had percussion contributions from John McIntire of Tortoise) came to vivid life and the melancholic but emotionally rich vocals alongside strong rhythms and optimal guitar tone immediately established The Picture Tour as one of Denver’s best post-punk bands with some shoegaze soundscaping and garage rock edge. That trio recorded a sophomore album Blood. Machine. Gasoline. released in 2025. The album was like a deep dive into the culture and mythology of night time urban life and recreational driving in the darkness like music for a David Lynch or Nicholas Winding Refn movie never made. I captured the romance of a time in the Mile High City that is long in the past but which can be relived in the mind through art when not everything seemed to be figured out or repurposed into a technbro fauxhemian playground and bland “development” of dubious purpose and longevity. In early 2025 it was announced the Dyer was moving out of Colorado and in his place there was John Zucco from Gothic noise rock band Reposer. His first show with the band distinguished him as a great fit.
Listen to our interview with Billy Armijo on Bandcamp and follow The Picture Tour at the links below.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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