Polly Urethane – 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 and Beyond May 2025

**Deerhoof performs at The Bluebird Theater on 5/2/25**

Thursday | 05.01
What: YHWH Nailgun w/Morgan Garrett
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: YHWH Nailgun is an experimental rock band from NYC whose deep experimentations with rhythm and texture lends its 2025 album 45 Pounds an industrial intensity and No Wave menace. Mostly percussion and low end frequencies, electronic production and desperate vocals it’s unlike much of anything else going on unless you’re well versed in 2000s left field and industrial post-punk or Orange Milk artists like opener Morgan Garrett who deconstruct rock music to create something daring, strikingly original and whose music stirs the imagination.

Friday | 05.02
What: Deerhoof w/Decollage and Wheelchair Sports Camp
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Across its 31 years of existence Deerhoof has proven that you can have some consistency and still largely reinvent yourself as a band as you absorb and process and shed aspects of influence along the way while building your own world of musical imagination. Every one of Deerhoof’s now 20 full length albums and assorted other releases are worth diving deep into and getting lost in the wonderfully psychedelic pop and noise prog and indie jazz funk or whatever Deerhoof is manifesting in any particular song in a style that sounds like genre collage yet entirely their own. The new record Noble and Godlike in Ruin is refreshingly unlike any of its previous albums except that it plays with familiar elements in new ways while incorporating aspects of cinematic composition and ambient classical at times while embracing noisiness and “imperfections” yet perfect for embodying a unique creative vision that is not in line with any prevailing musical trends meaning Deerhoof does what it wants with consistently fascinating results across the album. Decollage is a psychedelic pop band from Denver in the vein of a more synth-drive of Montreal. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the legendary, experimental, free-jazz inflected hip-hop group from Denver who manage to employ humor in addressing serious social and personal issues without downplaying the impacts of social injustice.

Friday | 05.02
What: Jill Sobule – canceled
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Jill Sobule was born in Denver and made her mark in popular music with the release of her 1995 self-titled album and the hit single “I Kissed a Girl” with a prominent appearance in the film Clueless along with the song “Supermodel” from the same album. The undeniable pop hooks and lighthearted flair made the songwriter’s music of that time popular in the waning days of alternative rock. Sobule’s 1997 follow-up Happy Town found the songwriter experimenting much more with sounds and songwriting styles as well as more overt and sharp social commentary on conservative culture, homophobia and medicated conformity to a society in which “normal” is defined by an outward facing cheeriness. The failure of the record to sell as many as her previous release got Sobule dropped from her label but looking back the artist seems to be completely vindicated as it was clearly a creative success and the music holds up far better than most alternative music of the same time, resonating with themes and expressed in a way still very relevant today. Fortunately, Sobule has continued to release records informed by a poignant personal insight and thoughtful cultural examination. The singer-songwriter will be releasing F*ck 7th Grade, the cast recording of her autobiographical musical of the same name later this spring but at this show you’ll likely get to witness some of that music as well as Sobule’s signature wit and poetic insight. Tragically Jill Sobule passed away on 5/1/25.

Saturday | 05.03
What: Cabaret Grey: Plague Garden, Ronnie Stone, Hex Cassette and Healing
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: This is the official Arcane Vampire Ball (Sunday, May 4, at The Church) pre-party. This event will feature live music from Denver post-punk/deathrock band Plague Garden that recently released its latest album Under the Sanguine Moon. With synth-infused atmospherics and robust guitar sounds, Plague Garden is refreshingly different from the cookie cutter modern post-punk bands with spindly guitar tones. Ronnie Stone & the Lonely Riders made a splash among the synthwave/darkwave synthpop world in 2015 with the Møtorcycle Yearbook LP by sounding not just like some restro synth band but one capable of tapping into that decade’s fusion of styles among pop bands with post-punk and R&B often being in the same mix. Then Ronnie Stone basically disappeared from making new music until 2024’s Ride Again with some more underground rave music sounds as an influence that fans of Nuovo Testamento will appreciate. Hex Cassette is the intense and often hyperkinetic one-man synthwave Satanic cult performance art whose beats are irresistible and enveloping. Healing is the synth punk/EBM dance act from Cincinnati, Ohio.

Chella & The Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 05.03
What: Chella & The Charm w/The Blue Rider and Honey Blazer
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chella & The Charm is releasing its new EP Happy Hour, a celebration of the social connections we take for granted at our usual hangouts and how that camaraderie can help to sustain us in especially rough times. Like now. Like the months and years to come. The situations from which we need a respite even if those times don’t hit us as life changing in the moment. With resonant songwriting and warmly crafted and insightfully observant lyrics, the new EP transcends the Americana realm of music with which the band is most often associated. The Blue Rider is a psychedelic garage rock band in the mold of something from the 1960s but informed by modern, experimental music sensibilities. Honey Blazer taps into 1970s cosmic country and 2010’s psychedelic rock for a sound with a feel like it is coming from hidden oasis of American culture and social infrastructure where people can work minimal jobs and thrive still able to make art and make time for each other aka a place you’d want to visit.

Monday | 05.05
What: LEYA w/Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: LEYA is a Brooklyn-based duo whose music doesn’t fit in neatly into the realms of modern classical and experimental pop because its tonal choices and moods fit a more archaic form of liturgical music with harps alongside ethereal electronic production and falsetto vocals. Its 2024 album I Forget Everything indulges touches of discordant sounds and unsettling moods. Think something like Philip Glass collaborating with Anohni. Denver’s Polly Urethane is pretty much the only artist in the Mile High City that makes sense for this bill with her own heterodox musical styles weaving together classical and medieval composition, industrial ambient, hypnogogic pop and confrontational performance art paired with strikingly commanding vocals.

Wednesday | 05.07
What: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: If you’ve paid attention to modern music for the past four decades plus the name of Nick Cave looms large because of his groundbreaking work with The Birthday Party, Grinderman and Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds among other projects. He’s an icon and an enigma whose body of work is consistently rewarding and insightful in the ways the human mind can get caught up in collective mythology and individual obsession, in love and the depths of despair and contemplating the multitude of human experiences. And you’d think this far into his career he might be coasting a little but Cave’s past more than decade of studio albums is among the most creatively realized of his entire career including 2024’s Wild God which unlike his previous three records, deep meditations, seemingly, on despair, loss and rediscovering a will to go on and find meaning and vitality. Some of the latter peeks through in expressions of joy on the new album while never indulging in mere feel good insipidity. Cave is also among the greatest front people to ever do it and worth seeing for that alone.

Wednesday | 05.07
What: LOOLOWNINGEN & The Far East Idiots w/Moon Pussy and Cherry Spit
When: 7:30
Where: Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: LOOLOWNINGEN & The Far East Idiots are a prog-post-punk-art rock band from Tokyo whose sound is an unlikely combination of something like Happy End, Fishmans and an arty psychedelic garage prog group. Denver noise rock luminaries Moon Pussy and Cherry Spit are opening the show so there will be no down side beginning to end.

Saturday | 05.10
What: Jandek
When: 7
Where: Aztlan Theater
Why: Jandek aka Sterling Smith might be described as lo-fi outsider blues whose cult following may not be gigantic but is in itself influential. It’s hard to compare his music to that of other artists because it’s so enigmatic yet accessible. Like something out of a similar stew that spawned Les Rallizes Denudes, The Fugs and the solo work of Skip Spence and Syd Barret. Minimal, spare, haunted and intimate stuff completely unadorned by the kind of commercial ambition that ruins a lot of music. Jandek put out some 36 albums before any documented evidence of a live performance before 2004 but since then has occasionally played unannounced or shows promoted largely by word of mouth or minimal press including a 2008 performance at Denver at The Bug Theater with local musicians in the experimental scene backing his spidery sketches of guitar work and vocals. This might be that or whatever it is it’ll be worth going to see to catch one of the few underground legends left that doesn’t smear the world with self-promoting ego assertion.

Sunday | 05.11
What: Stereo MC’s w/The Casual Sound DJs and guest
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Stereo MC’s aren’t from Manchester but coming about in the second half of the 80s and into alternative music prominence in the early 90s its unique brand of hip-hop and DJ/house/techno culture music sounded in that pocket in their own style. The 1992 hit “Connected’ was ubiquitous at the time and yet has aged a lot better than music of the era that got a ton of airplay with its soulful vocals and irresistible beat and it didn’t hurt that the band had a live drummer. Opening/between sets are The Casual Sound DJs including Tyler Jacobson and Jake Ryan who spin Brit-Pop classics, shoegaze, baggy and likely a heaping of Madchester music too.

Sunday | 05.11
What: Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Seun Kuti is the youngest son of Afrobeat’s biggest star and cultural and political figure Fela Kuti. When Fela passed in 1997 Seun came to lead the band Egypt 80. As a saxophonist, vocalist and activist Kuti has continued his father’s legacy in not only writing uplifting and politically-informed songs he has also been vocal in his support for human rights at home and abroad. This tour is in support of his latest album with the band Heavier Yet (Lays The Crownless Head) produced by Lenny Kravitz with a 2025 deluxe edition coming soon. Live Kuti is a commanding figure who masterfully weaves storytelling with dance and a rich tapestry of live music the demonstrates the continued vitality of the Afrobeat sound and how it has absorbed and influenced other styles across decades.

Monday | 05.12
What: Allison Russell w/Kara Jackson
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Allison Russell is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, poet and multiinstrumentalist from Montreal who has made a name for herself for her emotionally vibrant vocals and keen ear for evocative musical detail and soulful live performances in her bands Po’ Girl and Birds of Chicago and most recently as a solo artist. Russell’s songs frequently take on cultural and psychological binaries and the oppression and destructiveness that people perpetrate in the world and on themselves. Her recent single “Superlovers” with vocal contributions from Annie Lennox is a tender song of yearning for a power of love to help the world to overcome the will to hate, war and genocide and to cultivate the strength to face tough issues with compassion and fortitude.

Magdalena Bay, photo by Lisyelle Laricchia

Tuesday | 05.13
What: Magdalena Bay w/Sam Austins
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Magdalena Bay’s 2024 album Imaginal Disk is a leap forward for the synth pop band. Its tones more lush, its science fiction concepts more fully realized as a fusion of a retro technological object with a human being as a vehicle for self actualization but rejected in favor of embracing one’s humanity and inborn consciousness. The live performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last year revealed a band that had begun to develop its theatrical stage show for tour behind Mercurial World and is now in the realm of a pop band version of those early 1970s Genesis live shows with costumes and ambitious art rock but in this case pop. But the music speaks for itself and the duo’s entrancing melodies and finely crafted arrangements ensure the stage performance enhances well-crafted songs rather than overshadows them.

Tuesday | 05.13
What: Mayday Parade w/Microwave, Grayscale, Like Roses
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Mayday Parade emerged from Tallahassee, Florida in 2005 when Kid Named Chicago and Defining Moment merged and became one of the era’s most noteworthy acts in the realm of pop punk and emo. Its debut album 2007’s A Lesson in Romantics is not just a favorite of fans but an acclaimed pop punk record with anthemic songs about coming of age and the dramatic frustrations that most people experience while they’re still figuring out who they are. The group released its latest album Sweet on April 18, 2025. Currently Mayday Parade is on the Three Cheers for 20 Years tour and performing not just selections from the new album but tracks beloved by its fans and some deep cuts across its career for good measure.

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Beach House w/Cass McCombs (solo)
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Beach House is the well-known dream pop and shoegaze band from Baltimore, Maryland that came up in that city’s fertile indie scene of the mid-2000s before releasing its self-titled debut in 2006. Since then the duo has established a cult following for its intimate sound, expansive melodies and immersive live shows. Even early on when the group was playing small clubs it put in the effort to give those who came a sense of something more than just a band on stage playing songs. Victoria Legrand’s expressive and soulful vocals help to center music that invites listeners to drift into a state of reverie and contemplation. Beginning in 2016 James Barone, a drummer, bassist, producer and engineer based in Denver, joined the Beach House fold and added an element of something different to the band including an expanded rhythmic finesse. The group’s most recent album Once Twice Melody was the first written by all three members of the band and its lush, orchestral beauty makes it one of the most fully-realized of the band’s career to date.

Rilo Kiley, photo courtesy Little Record Company

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Rilo Kiley w/Benjamin Gibbbard
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Rilo Kiley were darlings of early modern indie rock although they mostly played small clubs on early tours including a few shows in Denver at the venerable, legendary and defunct 15th St. Tavern. The earnest and genuinely clever lyrics on the early Rilo Kiley records were a change from a lot of what was happening in rock music of the time because it felt raw and truthful like an unvarnished emotional truth presented in the kind of song that could both make the messaging seem easier to take without watering down the impact. The group continued to refine its songwriting to great effect but then split in 2013. Jenny Lewis of course might be much more well known than her old band at this point but Rilo Kiley announced its reunion in 2025 with a tour including this date at Red Rocks, a venue it was never big enough to command in its first iteration but that is just a testament to its legacy as one of the best indie rock bands in the development of that music into a recognizable form. Opening act Benjamin Gibbard people may know as the singer for some group called Death Cab For Cutie whose own solo career is not short on worthwhile material.

Peter Bjorn and John, photo by Johan Bergmark

Wednesday | 05.14
What: Peter, Bjorn and John
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Peter Bjorn and John are currently touring playing their 2006 landmark album Writer’s Block, the record that basically broke the Swedish trio to an international audience. The songs from the album are about the peaks and valleys of being in a relationship but paired with the kind of noise pop and psychedelic rock that became a core sound of indie rock over the next decade. The hit single “Young Folks” is truly one of the great singles of the 2000s that you’ll still hear in public space playlists and on radio stations that play pop music of the past two decades. Of course the band will perform music from across its fine career but something about Writer’s Block still makes it a standout record of enduring appeal and a testament to the group’s continuing talent.

Thursday | 05.15
What: The Gang of Four w/Colfax Speed Queen
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Gang of Four are the legendary post-punk band from Leeds, UK that alchemically blended funk, punk, conceptual art rock and left politics into a potent blend that was ferocious and had some swing to its angular musical constructions. The classic lineup of Jon King, Hugo Burnham, Andy Gill and Dave Allen produced some of the most memorable and incisive post-punk in the history of that music. That lineup split in 1984 but the band has returned to operation now and then over the years with King, Burnham, Gill and Allen touring extensively again in 2005 and showcasing the raw power of the band and its still relevant and enduring music. This tour is purportedly the group’s last. Gill passed away in 2020 just before the pandemic and Allen died in April 2025. But the group has tapped former L7 and Belly bassist Gail Greenwood and Ted Leo on guitar so not the original or even the version with Dave Pajo but likely worth making it out to see.

Thursday | 05.15
What: Sasami w/Mood Killer
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sasami’s 2022 album Squeeze was a surprise entry of experimental industrial metal for an artist more known for atmospheric indie rock and dream pop. Her new album Blood on the Silver Screen has a title like an even more extreme manifestation of her songwriting. Instead it’s a collection of indie pop explorations of the way love operates in our loves and how deal with various aspects of romantic relationships and the aftermath when it doesn’t work out or not the way we though it would in the beginning. The album feels like the songwriter was capturing the specific headspace and writing a song that would articulate the emotions that course through you.

Panda Bear, Painting by Hugo Oliveira, photography by Fernanda Pereira

Friday | 05.16
What: Panda Bear and Toro Y Moi w/Kassie Krut
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Panda Bear released his new album Sinister Grift in February 2025. Likely the album was written and finalized long before it went public but the title sure does capture the moment and sinking sense of doom and civilization being on the precipice that anyone with any sense of reality and moral conscience has felt for some time but perhaps most acutely now. There is plenty of grift in the American government at the highest levels with too many parts of society getting in on the action and it can feel completely hopeless. The record though it’s deeply melodic and feels like an attempt at musical self soothing it does little to hide a shared feeling of doomerism and trying to hold it together and weather this worst of recent timelines. Panda Bear is perhaps best known for his membership in influential art pop group Animal Collective but his body of work under his own name and in collaboration with the likes of Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 fame has consistently been a rewarding listen and for this tour he co-headlines with foundational chillwave artist-turned-art funk pop artist Toro Y Moi. Both excel at incorporating the multi-media element into the live show so this will likely be a feast for the ears and eyes.

The Black Angels, photo courtesy Partisan Records

Friday | 05.16
What: The Black Angels w/Gift
When: 8
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Austin’s The Black Angels were early adopters of the style of psychedelic rock that would go on to become more popular in a tamed form in the 2010s. The Black Angels, though, have consistently put out interesting records across its entire career experimenting with form and content and recording methods and themes always with the kind of aesthetic that resonates with its counterculture influences. The band also initiated the Austin Psych Fest which has turned into Levitation championing psychedelic and left field music internationally with remarkable lineups with each iteration of the event. The live shows are a great example of what psychedelic rock can be when the artists lean into the mind-altering possibilities of music rather than aiming for an established genre.

St. Vincent in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

St. Vincent | 05.16
What: St. Vincent w/Black Country, New Road
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: St. Vincent is probably considered by many to be an indie rock artist because her early work was a fine example of what that music could be with some imagination and artistic ambition behind it but even an album like 2009’s Actor was virtually a concept album that explored ideas of identity and the influence of mediated images on culture and the collective psyche. In 2024 St. Vincent released All Born Screaming, a record of uncommon vulnerability in which Annie Clark brought to bear her accumulated songwriting and production skills to craft immersive emotional soundscapes in which she invites listeners to share in a likely resonant experience of living with and honoring heartbreaking loss and finding a way to persevere when one’s world threatens to overwhelm our capacity to do so. Black Country, New Road is the UK band that has found a way to fuse Americana-infused psychedelia with art rock ambition and an ear for production and eclectic sound palettes.

Friday | 05.16
What: INTHEWHALE w/Hellgrammites and Musuji
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This is the final INTHEWHALEshow in Denver. The duo comprised of Nate Valdez and Eric Riley started off in 2010 as a cross between a sludge rock and punk band whose sound anticipated the embrace of 90s grunge and alternative rock in the late 2010s and beyond. The group made a name for itself locally and far afield when they would take short tours every week or every month due to the freedom of their work situations. The raw energy of the band and its knack for writing tuneful rock songs that yes had songs about partying and being young and rocking but also sensitive songs about mental health issues, mortality and the fraught social landscape that is America.

Friday | 05.16
What: Bison Bone EP release w/The Patti Fiasco
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Bison Bone is celebrating the release of its new, 3-song EP Lean with this performance. The new set of songs are about partnerships of various kinds: romantic, friendship and other associations in which commitment enriches the experience for all involved. Courtney Whitehead’s spare yet heartfelt and poetic lyrics are delivered with the essential sentiments emphasized and the style of country rock the band has offered from the beginning is warm, commanding and inviting all at once with performances reflecting and embodying this aesthetic perfectly.

Saturday | 05.17
What: Momma w/Wishy
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: With the release of its fourth album Welcome to My Blue Sky, Momma has, like Wednesday, shown that one can pair raw and resonant tales of everyday life with brashly expansive, deeply atmospheric and transporting melodies. Sparkly and gritty guitar work and introspective but emotionally-charged vocals are at the core of the music but Momma shows a command of processing all of those sounds with creative use of processing and effects with great variety serving perfectly the moment in each song. The video for the title track to the new album was filmed in Yerington, Nevada, a small town that guitarist and vocalist Etta Friedman is from and shows a side of America that many will identify immediately and feel a sense of fond remembrance. Wishy from Indianapolis is a great pairing on the bill with its own shoegaze-adjacent indiepop and touring behind its own new release Planet Popstar.

Saturday | 05.17
What: SPELLLING w/Ramakhandra
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: SPELLLING has been creating orchestral, soulful experimental pop across several albums now including 2025’s Portrait of My Heart. The new album sounds like a glorious, long lost art rock and R&B record of the 1980s but made with modern production sensibilities. Maybe it’s the crunchy power pop style guitar at points and the breezy rhythms reminiscent of something you might hear on a Missing Persons album. But at the center is Tia Cabral’s commanding vocals seemingly unfurling vivid synth washes and beautiful sustained guitar melodies. Opening is art prog psych funk band from Denver Ramakhandra returning after too long a hiatus.

The Effigies, photo courtesy effigies.com

Monday | 05.19
What: The Effigies w/Battle Sights and Shitdrugs
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: The Effigies were one of the earliest of Chicago’s punk bands in a city that was apparently late to adopt that cultural and musical earthquake in the mid-to-late-70s. And from the beginning the band was different. It played with the guitar tones to be more sharp and atmospheric, the rhythms more outside of standard rock ideas and in general despite its aggressive energy was more of a post-punk band in terms of its thoughtful lyrics and sonics. It was more like an American Killing Joke but without the synthesizer. Tragically singer John Kezdy died in a crash while riding his bicycle in 2023 but the group released the final album in 2024 and honoring the legacy with this tour.

Friday | 05.23
What: Florist w/Allegra Krieger
When: 7
Where: The Perplexiplex at Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Brooklyn-based indie folk band Florist released its latest album Jellywish via Double Double Whammy. This time around the songs have a pastoral and at times elegiac quality. The lyrics explore the deep essences of existential meaning and the significance of our lives in themselves separate from the destructive comparisons that we’re encouraged to make by culture. The instrumentation is delicate and spare, mostly acoustic guitar, piano and almost ambient electronic backgrounds with the gentle texture of field recordings. It’s a quiet music that moves profoundly because it trickles into your psyche in the listening.

Friday | 05.23
What: Elephant Rifle, Gaytheist, Almanac Man and Chew Thru
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Elephant Rifle is a noise rock band from Reno, Nevada that combines angular, aggressive energy with mutated atmospheric edges and wonderfully pointed, socially critical lyrics. Gaytheist is the queercore noise rock juggernaut from Portland, Oregon. Almanac Man from Denver is equal parts DC post-hardcore and post-metal sludge with their own brand of harshing on the excesses of late capitalism. Chew Thru from Denver is post-hardcore thrash that definitely sounds like it draws inspiration from late 80s crossover and The Melvins.

Horse Jumper of Love, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 05.25
What: Horse Jumper of Love w/Roseville and Precocious Neophyte
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Boston’s Horse Jumper of Love has created for itself a small cult following for its style of slow-moving-dramatic atmospheric art rock. At times moody and intense but always evolving in the tenor of the song, the music of Horse Jumper of Love has been dubbed slowcore but it’s noisier than most of that realm of music and more given to the jagged break into cathartic transcendence. Its latest album 2024’s Disaster Trick includes contributions from Karly Hartzman of Wednesday fame.

Tuesday | 05.27
What: Napalm Death and Melvins
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Napalm Death is of course the foundational, always evolving grindcore band from the UK. Since its 1981 inception as more of an anarcho punk band into darker, starker post-punk the group by the mid-90s had developed an extreme form of guitar rock with blast beats that has proven influential and open enough to influences that the band never got stuck doing the same sound and style endlessly across its career. The group throughout the 90s incorporated elements of death metal, shoegaze, progressive rock and later into the 2000s, industrial aesthetics and all the way Napalm Death has had an especially incisive run of commentary on the state of the world as an anti-fascist, anti-authoritarian band. Melvins have exerted an immense influence after launching itself in the early 80s in 1983 but in Montesano, Washington and carving out the foundations of sludge metal and doom while infusing it all with punk attitude and an irreverent attitude toward standard rock conventions. It influenced grunge and a whole host of stoner rock and extreme metal throughout the 90s but also embraced its own version of experimental music. How many “sludge” bands would cover Throbbing Gristle? And much as Napalm Death every Melvis album is worth a listen because the band has tried something different with every record, and every tour for that matter, to keep itself from getting bored with the music. Its 2025 album Thunderball is more melodic and psychedelic than the band has been in awhile, maybe more than it ever has been without sacrificing the sonic intensity that is the reason one checks in on the band.

Stephen McBean aka Pink Mountaintops, photo from pinkmountaintops.com

Friday | 05.30
What: Still Loud! A Celebration of Michael McGrath featuring Pink Mountaintops, Rowboat, Peter, Paul & Gary and Porlolo
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Michael McGrath is among the best live music photographers ever based out of Denver and one of the most active shooting a broad spectrum of styles and always seeming to capture the choice action shot or dramatic expressiveness of the artists. He captures the essence. With a career spanning at least three decades, McGrath is a constant presence in the photo pit and at clubs and not just as a documentarian but as a fan of the music which is what sets his work apart from other skilled photogs in the field. He was recently diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and under treatment and this show is a fundraiser to help him cover the costs of his treatment and while needing the time off to take care of everything. For this occasion renowned solo psychedelic rock act Pink Mountaintops will perform as well as Denver artists such as experimental folk/psychedelic rock band Rowboat and indie rock phenoms Porlolo.

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble in 2023 including Mark Mosher

Friday and Saturday | 05.30 and 05.31
What: Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival
When: 6:30
Where: Founders Hall of the Center For Musical Arts
Why: The Lafayette Electronic Arts Festival focuses on artists that combine music, multi-media/multi-disciplinary presentation and innovative theoretical practice. This year’s edition includes performances across two nights. On Friday night there is Ian Hatcher, L’Astra Cosmo and Shapes of Emergence.
Saturday will feature once again Ian Hatcher but with Spices Peculiar, Mark Mosher, Jason & Debora Bernagozzi. Mark Mosher is one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Synth Meet-Up and this year his show is titled “Beautiful Tomorrows: Temporal Odyssey” that blends techno music and this usual dazzling synchornized visuals representing four months of work set in a fictional temporal theme park with journeys inspired by classic science fiction television programs. For more information on the festival and other artists on the bill for both nights, visit the link above.

Saturday | 05.31
What: Ministry (Twitch and With Sympathy) w/My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and Die Krupps
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: For years Al Jourgensen said he would never perform Ministry music previous to The Land of Rape and Honey but in recent times he’s let up on that restriction and this tour will include live versions of music from the first two albums. But you also get to see bands who were pivotal to the growth and development of industrial music as we know it in the campy-yet-charismatic and colorful My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult and German industrial and EBM pioneers Die Krupps.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond September 2024

**Future Islands perform at Mission Ballroom on September 24, photo by Frank Hamilton**

Dust City Opera, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 09.07
What: Dust City Opera’s Haunted Costume Ball w/The Constant Tourists
When: 7
Where: Swallow Hill
Why: Dust City Opera is a rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose sound interweaves orchestral Americana, dark psychedelia and art pop into cinematic and literary songs filled with evocative tales of “sadness, madness and mayhem.” But within the group’s rich body of work there is a surreal sense of humor and humanity that reveals an empathy for the human condition and the characters and situations depicted in which listeners can identify aspects of their own experiences navigating our often physically and emotionally perilous world. Since it’s 2018 foundation, pick any of Dust City Opera’s albums from its 2019 debut album Heaven to 2022’s horror and science fiction themed Alien Summer record to the 2024 EP Cold Hands (released March 8 via Rexius Records) and you’ll hear imaginatively eclectic arrangements and vivid narratives from a band that seems fully realized even as it’s still relatively early in its career. There is a theatrical sensibility to the music that translates to the band’s live performances that fans of the likes of DeVotchKa and Beirut will appreciate. For this rescheduled show in Denver the band is encouraging attendees to come dressed up for their Haunted Costume Ball to help launch spooky season.

Sunday | 09.08
What: Midwife w/DBUK and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Midwife just released a new album called No Depression in Heaven, which is a heavy enough title on its own, but for the new album the mood isn’t quite as downcast as the previous album but the tenderness and vulnerability is still there with the sensitivity tuned more sharply into examining and evoking where memory and dreams intersect and the role that plays in how we live our lives and our psychological orientation of identity and aspiration. The records are all great but Madeleine Johnston is even more powerful live though this will be a bigger stage than usual for the songwriter at least in Denver and you’ll have to go to see how the music translates. Denver Broncos UK is a more post-punk offshoot of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but still plenty of the element of Gothic Americana in its music. Polly Urethane always does a different kind of show and you don’t really know what you’re in for except that it’ll be interesting, it’ll incorporate aspects of performance art and ambitious composition and often breaking the barrier between performer and audience.

Monday | 09.09
What: Keane w/Everything Everything
When: 6:30
Where: Temple Hoyne Buell Theater
Why: Keane technically existed in an earlier form for nearly a decade before its 2004 album Hopes and Fears was released on major label Island Records. But that album reflected years of development and refinement of songwriting craft and even though the band received criticism for being derivative the record went on to multi-Platinum status in sales. The piano-driven songwriting and singer Tim Rice-Oxley’s vocal melodies though polished convey earnest sentiments that have connected with an international audience. With this tour the group celebrates the record that launched its career coinciding with support behind the remastered 20 year anniversary edition of the album.

Wednesday | 09.11
What: Osees w/Timmy’s Organism
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Osees is the ever evolving band led by John Dwyer and really you can check in anywhere in the band’s catalog and under any of its names and find records that are often radically different from the release that preceded it. The new record Sorcs 80 sounds like Butthole Surfers at its most manic mixed with Trans Am but delivered with the mutant stylings we’ve come to expect from the band. Motorik, psychedelic garage rock doesn’t quite cover the raw power and attitude of the album but it gives you an idea. Check out the live video of the performance of the album on YouTube. But best experienced in person as no YouTube video is an adequate surrogate for the vital, real thing unless you can’t be there.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Alphabeat Soup #75: Acidbat, DEBR4H, Melodies Never Lie, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: The Black Box
Why: The long-running showcase of some of Denver’s most daring and forward thinking experimental electronic music composers and performers this month features, among others, IDM/techno wizard Acidbat, Fort Collins-based synthwave/synthpop artist DEBR4H, the latest project from former Mehko and the Ocean Birds member Isaac Javier River as Melodies Never Lie and its fusion of dream pop and ethereal indie folk and ambient hip-hop producer Skyfloor aka Grant Blakeslee who some may know more as MYTHirst or in his collaborations with experimental pop genius Felix Fast4ward.

Thursday | 09.12
What: Kikuo
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Kikuo is an acclaimed Vocaloid artist from Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan (basically suburban Tokyo but it’s a big urban sprawl in that part of the country). The artist is known for his highly detailed sound-design oriented dance pop songs that explore themes of trauma and suffering and the habits of self soothing that provide catharsis from both. For the uninitiated Kuko’s music sounds like music that reflects the moods and kinetic energy of anime and Japanese popular culture but expressed in a way that does honor to the underlying emotions that inform a lot of the best creative endeavors that have manifested out of Japan. And yet Kikuo’s music most often seems joyous and the live show like a high energy, live DJ set with samples and beats with vocals manipulated and processed into something that could only happen with technology, like the voices of a particularly upbeat, even kawaii, anime or video game characters but delivering heartfelt emotional content that contrasts with a conventional interpretation of that style of art.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Mortiis w/Brighter Death Now, Sombre Arcane, Malfet and Fogweaver
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Probably the biggest dungeon synth show in Denver in maybe ever. Headlined by one of the genre’s pioneers, Mortiis who since 1993 has been crafting fantastical soundscapes that have exerted an influence on other practitioners of the music since. Brighter Death Now isn’t really a dungeon synth band but its industrial ambient noise seems to have been one of the foundations of what would become music in that style and its own industrial/power electronics style music evokes of the mysterious and otherworldly even as it can often be unsettling and confrontational. Colorado’s Fogweaver isn’t short on the fantasy elements of the music but its own synth compositions are well within the realm of ambient.

Saturday | 09.14
What: Deth Rali album release w/Hex Cassette, Church Fire and DJ Reed Fox
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based darkwave synth pop band Deth Rali is releasing its first album in three years with Ruby Castle Island. It’s a transporting and psychedelically inflected set of songs if early singles are any indication. Sharing the bill is one man industrial music death cult Hex Cassette. Okay, the death part is only a joke but part of the project’s aesthetic is going to the limit for one’s art and bringing the audience along for the ride to the darkwave industrial dance party or else. Church Fire has expanded its stage show with an even more robust light show to accompany its revolution darkwave and emotionally charged synth pop dance songs aimed at making resistance to the capitalist patriarchy fun.

Sunday | 09.15
What: Zheani w/The Buttress and ZAND
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Zheani is an electronic pop artist from Australia some of whose fans have dubbed her style of music “Fairy Trap.” What does this mean? Check out any of her music videos or live footage if you can find it and you’ll find music that mixes the ethereal and playful with hyper pop, trap beats and occult imagery and industrial-adjacent sonic intensity. Fans of Alice Glass both with Crystal Castles but especially solo will appreciate Zheani’s fantastical hybrid pop and visual aesthetic.

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Fabio Frizzi “Zombie” movie screening with live soundtrack performance
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Italian composer Fabio Frizzi will perform his iconic score as a live soundtrack to a screening of Lucio Fulci’s classic 1979 film Zombi 2 (aka Zombie), which was to have been a sequel to George A. Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978).

Tuesday | 09.17
What: Johnny Marr & James
When: 6:30
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Johnny Marr, the legendary guitarist of The Smiths and later of Modest Mouse, shares a bill with fellow Mancunians James. The Smiths and James started the same year (1982) and likely crossed paths during the course of their careers. James had hits in college and alternative rock radio throughout the 80s and 90s maintaining a cult following for its exuberant and inventive, idiosyncratic songwriting with hits that include “Laid,” “Born of Frustration” and “Come Home.” Marr’s solo albums of recent years revealed the guitarist as an artist in his own right capable of writing compelling songs and live being able to deliver favorites by The Smiths. So this show will be a celebration of the band’s catalogs and continued ability to deliver it with a sense of joy and catharsis.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Public Memory w/Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Public Memory is the solo project of Robert Toher who has been releasing albums of entrancing darkwave techno for around a decade. With layers of dub rhythm and texture and an otherworldy cast like the most haunted music that came out of 90s IDM, Public Memory pushes boundaries of modern electronic music and often has a quality like even moodier trip hop. Voight is more like a true fusion of techno, noisy shoegaze, post-punk and an emotional intensity that nearly tips the music over and all the better for not playing it safe.

Wednesday | 09.18
What: Ulrika Spacek w/Bluebook and Pale Sun
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ulrika Spacek is a psychedelic post-punk shoegaze band from the UK whose intricate guitar work seems to weave layers of mood rather than come across as an unusual form of math rock. Its 2023 album Compact Trauma had the melodic and rhythmic complexity of something you’d expect from Women or Black Midi but with more melancholic sounds like an English cognate of something more like Deeper and its proclivity for conveying emotional rawness. Bluebook is an art rock and dream pop band from Denver but don’t be fooled by the delicacy of expression on some of the recorded music you can find because there is a dark yet inviting and intense energy to the live show that has made the group a favorite among fans and critics. Pale Sun has some of the most imaginative and deeply evocative guitar work of any band from Colorado or elsewhere. It’s like experiencing a weather anomaly in real time with ethereal melodies and a resonant emotional colorings in its arrangements of voice and instrumentation.

Friday | 09.20
What: Marc Ribot Quartet (Hilliard Green, Chad Taylor, Mary Halvorson)
When: 7
Where: Mercury Cafe
Why: Marc Ribot is one of the true guitar geniuses of the past few decades. His style and skill means he has fit in with some of the most demanding jazz groups and experimental musicians and pop and rock mavericks around including the likes of Tom Waits, John Zorn, Foetus, Marianne Faithfull, Allen Ginsberg, Arto Lindsay, Ikue Mori, Cibo Matto, David Sylvian and Elvis Costello. His style seems to be boundary-less yet distinctive. This quartet is like if a way out free jazz band teamed up with a bunch of weirdos from the 20th century classical avant-garde.

Friday | 09.20
What: Charly Bliss w/Raffaela
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Charly Bliss has been described as a mix of 90s alternative rock and pop of various kinds. But the salient aspect of the group’s music since its 2017 debut album Guppy has been a a pairing of vulnerability and joy. That combination along with the band’s playful exuberance gives an uplifting quality to even its more melancholic songs. On its new record Forever (released August 16, 2024) the quartet embraces even more thoroughly the influence of modern pop music with the electronic production thoroughly threaded into the songwriting. Still very much in place is a likability and a knack for tasty indie pop hooks.

Beabadoobee, photo by Jules Moskovtchenko with creative direction by Patricia Villirillo

Friday | 09.20
What: Beabadoobee w/Hovvdy and Keni Titus
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Beabadoobee has established herself as a singer and songwriter of note over the past seven years with a diverse body of work that incorporates a blend of styles without getting stuck in a definitive genre, a quality that is a testament to the likely durability of her career. But the songs and their delicately heartfelt style speak for themselves. From early bedroom recordings to her currently new album This Is How Tomorrow Moves (2024), Beabadoobee’s expressive vocals are often confessional but always distinctive in their ability to tap into poignant emotional resonances that augment the songwriter’s vivid lyrics. The new record in particular showcases a real gift for borrowing elements of classic and lo-fi modern pop in an eclectic style that seems orchestral and spare at once.
Hovvdy is an Austin-based duo that has offering contemplative and emotionally rich slowcore pop songs since its 2014 self-titled debut EP. Its, self-titled full-length finds Hovvdy delivering some of its most finely crafted soundscapes to date. At times the music seems like experiments in sound design and experimental songwriting. Like Charlie Martin and Will Taylor hopped back to making demos on cassette and trying to capture some of that room ambiance and the analog warmth of it and translating the intimacy of that sound to a more high fidelity environment without losing the essential charm. With the storytelling on the album one imagines a box of Polaroids as a starting point for turning cherished memories into accessible songs. Whatever the methodology or inspiration or techniques it’s a long record that seems to also come out of wanting to write an album that would sound good for a road trip.

Gregory T.S. Walker, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.21
What: Minstrels and Minimoogs performed by Gregory T.S. Walker, Elena Camerin Young and Todd Reid celebrating the reissue of the cosmic medieval masterpiece w/Pete Swanson & Entrancer and Luke Leavitt
When: 8
Where: Glob ($15)
Why: Gregory T.S. Walker released Minstrels & Minimoogs in 1988 as a music for an immersive, multimedia performance that took place at the Fiske Planetarium on the University of Colorado Boulder campus. It was originally released as a one-sided 12” and was really only ever available at performances at Fiske. But the Freedom To Spend label co-owned by Pete Swanson of experimental music legends Yellow Swans is reissuing the record with a special performance this night including collaborative sets with Swanson and modular synth genius Entrancer as well as Luke Leavitt. It’ll be a unique live music experience showcasing idiosyncratic synth composition the likes of which may never happen again.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Why? w/NNAMDI
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Yoni Wolf sounds particularly lost and yearning on the new Why? Record The Well I Fell Into (2024). The song’s have a more acoustic aspect in the instrumentation this time around and that lends it a different kind of sonic intimacy than some of the project’s previous music. It’s pastoral in its stories of growing older and feeling obsolete and unsure of what is left in life when those moments of existential crisis impact broad areas of your life and hit as so heartfelt it can sink your spirit. But Wolf offers no pat answers, just poignant expressions of the part of one’s life when you’re not sure what it all means and what felt like the directions and focus points of your life have disappeared or gone adrift and you’re left trying to sort through that emotional wreckage that can collapse upon you suddenly and make sense of where your life needs to be next. Also on the bill is experimental pop and rock weirdo NNAMDI whose energetic and eclectic, surreal pop songs expand notions of what a pop song can sound like and what it’s rhythms and structures can be.

Saturday | 09.21
What: Willie Watson w/Tanasi and The Sullivan Sisters at Wildflower Fallgrass ‘24: A Pavilion Pickin’ Party Night 2
When: 5:30
Where: Planet Bluegrass (Lyons)
Why: Former Old Crow Medicine Show singer/guitarist/banjo player Willie Watson released his latest, self-titled, solo album on September 13. The early singles promised a set of spare and intimate folk songs featuring Watson’s expressive vibrato delivering earnest portraits of life with a broad range of subjects and moods. Watson’s lyrics seem refreshingly free of tropes and rich with poignant turns of phrase that give his spare songwriting a rare dimensionality that reward a deep listen.

Sunday | 09.22
What: FM Skyline, Auragraph and Modern Devotion
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: FM Skyline is a vaporwave composer and artist from Richmond, Virginia who a month ago released his album Images which sounds like a mix of the music for corporate training videos, The Art of Noise and New Wave New Age seminar soundtracks. Auragraph released his latest album New Standard on Dais Records in 2023 and its sounds brilliantly reconciled the aesthetics of techno, EBM and vaporwave. Opening the show is Denver’s Modern Devotion, the solo, industrial techno side project of Adam Rojo of shoegaze-infused post-punk greats Voight.

Sunday | 09.22
What: Everclear w/Marcy’s Playground and Jimmie’s Chicken Shack
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Everclear is one of the few bands associated with the late era of alternative rock (although its roots date back to the beginning of that wave of music) whose music has aged well in spite of ubiquitous airplay in the 90s and on nostalgia playlists. In no small part that’s due to singer/guitarist Art Alexakis’ thoughtful and vulnerable lyrics and obvious authenticity. Sure he found a way to write songs with wide appeal but never sacrificed putting meaningful words into what he would sing on stage. In 2024 the band’s 2000 album Songs from an American Movie Vol. One: Learning How to Smile was released on vinyl for the first time on September 13 and there’s a better than average change the set will include material from that record as well as the band’s beloved hits.

Monday | 09.23
What: Leprous w/Earthside and Fight the Fight
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Norwegian progressive metal band Leprous released its new album Melodies of Atonement on August 30, 2024 and demonstrated once again that its technical prowess and precision is a vehicle for ambitious songwriting. Passionate vocals and evocative synth-infused soundscapes and orchestrated, sweeping guitar create a layered effect like the band is thinking more cinematically than merely musically. In that way the group’s new record maybe more than its predecessors seems to bear the marks of the influence of the likes of Failure and Marillion. And though the songs are epic in scope each feels like they touch on the personal and the emotional resonance of the melodic vocals are akin to something from the better emo records of the late 90s.

Tuesday | 09.24
What: Future Islands w/Oh, Rose
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Since early in its existence Baltimore’s Future Islands has mastered the pairing of upbeat and gorgeously melodic synth pop with sad, melancholic lyrics delivered with a passionate soulfulness. The combination has made listening to its music feel like you’re sharing moments with people who won’t lie to you about how rough life can be but also encourage you to embrace what’s good and even great about it. Its 2024 record People Who Aren’t There Anymore was written and recorded during the early part of the pandemic and into the endemic era and has as its subject matter the slow breakdown of singer Samuel T. Herring’s long-distance relationship during the period of lockdowns. Sure it’s a deep exploration of loss, existential doubt, self-assessment and learning to let go. All of which can be challenging for anyone but these songs make it feel like it’s something that not only can you do but do so without linger rancor and the kind of emotional trauma that limits your future ability to connect with people. The shows are always cathartic and high energy and yet intimate and tender making Future Islands a special band that made the transition from DIY scene notables to indie rock stars without losing the core of their art.

Spectral Voice, photo from Encyclopedia Metallum

Thursday | 09.26
What: Spectral Voice, Polish, Nightshark and Mournful Ruin
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spectral Voice is the black metal band from Denver three fourths of whom are also in psychedelic death metal group Blood Incantation. It released the album Sparagmos in February 2024 and thus unleashing even more of its spooky, sepulchral heavy compositions. The music sounds like the kind of music that should have been playing at the entrance to hell in Baskin. But this bill isn’t just a bunch of other death/black/doom metal bands and the like. Nightshark and its noisy free jazz freakouts will be on hand as well to offer its impassioned skronk and No Wave bop.

Friday | 09.27
What: NightWraith, Necropanther, Upon a Field’s Whisper and Lacerated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver’-based melodic death metal heroes NightWraith just released their new record Divergence. This time around the synths lends an even more cinematic quality to the epic scale of the songwriting and personal struggles cast as those more eternal and the kinds of things heroes of myth and lore tangle with on the road to defeating the big bad. Also more than ever the band’s progressive rock leanings are present and in moments they sound like they’ve been listening to a lot of both Neurosis and early 80s Yes.

Peter Hook & The Light, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 09.28
What: Peter Hook & The Light w/DJ boyhollow
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Peter Hook is a founding member of two of the most important post-punk bands of the early era as the bass player of both Joy Division and New Order. This tour the band will perform the Substance albums so you’ll get plenty of the early JD and vintage era New Order stuff including songs that never much appeared on anything but singles and those two compilations.

Mass of Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 09.28
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Cam Kahin and Blush
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is the Japanese dream pop band who seem to somehow have blended art rock leanings into the songwriting while sounding like they wouldn’t be out of place in the poppier end of the Austin, TX shoegaze scene. A fusion of the sublime and of the noisy.

Saturday | 09.28
What: Tassel w/Plague Garden and DJ Katastrophy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Tassel is a Phoenix, AZ-based post-punk trio who didn’t seem to feel the need to differentiate between the sound palette one would use for industrial punk, deathrock and darkwave. Currently on tour supporting its new album A SACRIFICE: UNTO IDOLS. Opening is one of the current great post-punk/New Wave bandsw of the moment with Denver’s Plague Garden. Its own electronic side is richly imagined and evocative with the guitar work both beautiful and gritty and expressive basslines that elevate the band’s music beyond the current wave of post-punk.

Saturday | 09.28
What: The National w/The War on Drugs and Lucious
When: 6:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The National is already one of the most popular and critically acclaimed of indie rock bands of the past two decades. And yet the band continues to surprise with offering finely crafted albums that actually offer more than the usual tropes of adolescent struggles projected into adult life. 2023’s Laugh Track may not have garnered the critical acclaim of some of the band’s earlier records but its melancholic and pastoral songs sound like they’re about getting through a period of your life that feels like offers nothing new to spark your brain into action and like you don’t have much left to say to anyone that feels authentic and vital. It’s again the kind of record that shows a path to doing something creative and different even well into middle age without having to look back to that mythical time of youth when everything felt new. It’s an album about discovering something new or at least reinventing oneself and discovering the kinds of things that can inspire you all over again and find a reason to not feel like you’re treading water until the end. Middle age can feel like that for a lot of people and this album is aimed at show how that’s not an inevitability and that experience and perspective matter and can illuminate your existence for the rest of your life.

Jonathan RIchman, photo by Driely S from Bandcamp

Sunday | 09.29
What: Jonathan Richman w/Tommy Larkins on drums
When: 6
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Jonathan Richman isn’t filling stadiums and never has but his charmingly idiosyncratic and oddly wise and no oddly creative songs have been influential on generations of musicians and non-musicians alike. The keyboard player for his old band Modern Lovers went on to be in Talking Heads and plenty of punkers and other musicians have covered “Roadrunner” because it is absolutely one of the spiritual ancestors of punk in its glorious simplicity and unforgettable energy. These days Richman with Tommy Larkin are a fantastic duo who deliver some of the finest American songs ever written with humor and charisma.

Sunday | 09.29
What: Chrissy Costanza w/Voilá
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chrissy Costanza is currently on her first solo tour separate from doing shows with the band for whom she is perhaps most well known, Against the Current. The powerhouse singer is set to release her debut solo EP VII on October 9 so this is a chance to catch the artist perform those songs live prior to the album being available worldwide. The solo stuff is a bit of a break from the pop punk and alternative rock fusion of ATC and allows Costanza to stretch out into realms of vocal expression that might otherwise be out of place with the band.

Sunday | 09.29
What: NIKI w/Allison Ponthier
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Nicole Zefanya was born in and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia and started playing and writing music from a young age. Good thing because at 15 she won a contest to be the opening act for Taylor Swift for Jakarta stop of The Red Tour. At eighteen she moved to Nashville to study music and began releasing music as Niki and was on the roster of the 88rising record label which specializes in putting out music by Asian American artists. Niki’s latest album is Buzz, a collection of jazz-inflected, bedroom-pop style songs with Zefanya’s tender and introspective vocals center stage. But in that tenderness you’ll hear some raw truth and attitude that can be as startling as it is welcome in separating Niki from other artists operating in a similar lane of modern indie pop.

The Spirit of the Beehive, photo from Bandcamp

Monday | 09.30
What: Spirit of the Beehive w/Winter
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: As usual, Philly’s The Spirit of the Beehive offer us a psychedelic pop and IDM album that sounds like they used a cut up method of songwriting with all members writing a different style of music and collaging it all together in ways that make their own strange kind of sense with 2024’s You’ll Have to Lose Something. And they’ll pull it off live and seem like a band that is changing radio stations throughout one song yet make it seem coherent and compelling in the way a psychotronic film can be. Like a kinder, gentler Butthole Surfers.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond March 2024

**The Dandy Warhols perform at The Gothic Theatre on March 18, 2024**

Saturday | 03.02
What: Thor w/Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Chamber Mage, DJ Eagle Wing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: THOR is the legendary, early heavy metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded and fronted by Jon Mikl Thor, a body building champion who among other titles won the designations of being Mr. USA and Mr. World Canada. When forming the band in 1973 Thor brought together his status as a body builder with music with his physical appearance and presence lending itself well to incorporating an early Viking warrior and gladiator image. In the mid-70s the band toured throughout the Eastern USA and Canada before gaining the attention of Merv Griffin who had the group perform on the Merv Griffin Show when it was broadcasting from Caesars Palace. That appearance garnered the group a record deal with RCA. With a new band lineup in 1977 and regular touring along with some releases under its belt, THOR made it over to England following a distribution deal where it signed with Motörhead manager Douglas Smith and relocated to London in 1984. Two records and three years later, the band called it quits in 1987 with Jon Mikl trying his hand at further his acting career. But that wasn’t the end of the road for THOR and a cult following lead to enough renewed interest that the group re-formed in 1997. The band has since become more active and musically prolific than it ever was in its first run and THOR continues to tour and evolve its performance concept, these days with THOR as a cowboy more in that heroic Roy Rogers and maybe even The Lone Ranger vein. In 2024 THOR will release its latest album Ride of the Iron Horse on March 15, 2024 and this may be an opportunity to catch those songs live. Give a listen to our interview with Jon Mikl Thor here.

Sunday | 03.03
What: Voivod and Prong w/Cobranoid
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Voivod is the visionary early thrash band from Canada whose sound embraced elements beyond heavy metal and as the years have progressed Voivod could sometimes sound like a strange post-punk or industrial band and its own progressive metal/thrash roots have always been more imaginative than many of its peers. Its latest album Morgöth Tales (2023) is vintage Voivod with the spiraling twists and turns in its guitar leads and both gritty and haunted vocals with science fiction themed lyrics that clearly comment with great clarity and poignancy about the state of the world and with some nice Easter Eggs in the music and lyrics referencing earlier Voivod albums like Dimension Hatröss (1988). Live be prepared for a band that performs more like a hardcore band than one might expect from its art rock leanings. Prong also early on from its 1986 inception more than flirted with electronic sounds, industrial beats and what might be described as thrash psychedelia in its songwriting. And now the veteran band is touring in support of its 2023 album State of Emergency. An ideal double bill in classic heavy music.

Monday | 03.04
What: Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: In 2023 Cat Power released the ambitious live cover album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (she knows it was at Manchester Free Free Trade Hall, but the legend differs). It’s a faithful recreation of the concert wherein Dylan switches halfway through from acoustic to electric instrumentation and someone in the audience yelled “Judas!” because how dare one of the darlings of folk music betray the tradition so callously and publicly. Quainter times but Cat Power’s performance, now recreated live on stage, is powerful and brilliantly rendered in exquisite detail in a way that is both ironic and sincere as an act of cultural and creative time travel and trying on a classic outfit for size in a musical sense in the way only Chan Marshall can. Why did she do this? Marshall has long made other people’s music her own as a tribute to their influence and impact and this was just the next level and taking on an absolute classic performance traded as bootlegs for years, a move that perhaps Dylan would have approved and who knows, maybe did behind the scenes. Whatever the origins of this effort Cat Power is a commanding live performer with undeniable mystique and emotional range and this will probably be the only time she tours this show.

Otoboke Beaver, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 03.05
What: Otoboke Beaver w/Drinking Boys and Girls Choir
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Otoboke Beaver is the hyperkinetic hardcore/post-punk/garage rock band from Kyoto that seemed to leap from very underground status in America before 2022 to a bit of a cult phenomenon following the release of that year’s ferocious, culturally and politically incisive and sharply humorous album Super Champon. The group toured extensively behind the record including a stop at Globe Hall in Denver where it sold out the show and with relentless energy and raw charisma more than earned its growing popularity followed by a return show at The Bluebird and now The Gothic. The group deftly uses media and cultural references in deconstructing consumerism and misogyny in almost a parody of Japanese television and its phantasmagorical reality TV shows and advertising. There is a nuanced awareness in what the band is doing while also making it all fun and exciting and to any extent that it’s kitschy it is a knowing employment of tropes that also embraces the uniqueness of Japanese popular culture and its widely varied manifestations.

Wednesday | 03.06
What: Real Estate w/Florry
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Real Estate is a veteran band of 2000s and 2010s indie rock that survived changing tastes and the whole period when blogs and online music journalism made and sometimes unmade bands. And the pandemic which has been rough on the world of music generally. Its early sound may have been more shaped by jangle pop and surf rock with a drift toward dream pop in the 2010s. But with the release of its 2024 album Daniel it seems that Real Estate is firmly comfortable in embracing the entirety of its musical development with a soft melodicism that lends itself well to observational songs of adult introspection and assessment of what makes living meaningful and resonant after the rush of youth has long burned out but one’s desire to do more than just go along with being a cog in society’s machine. The record speaks to how none of us really wants to just plug in and go along with being a passive consumer when there’s so much of life left to live yet and so much of it is more than just going to work, doing some menial thing for 8-10 hours and commuting home and watching TV and maybe on the weekend do some shopping or engage in some light local tourism or super premeditated and marketed “adulting” amusement. The songs on Daniel are more reflective and speak to more going on than what we’ve been lead to believe means what it looks like to “grow up.”

Wednesday | 03.06
What: Cherry Glazerr w/Wombo
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Clementine Creevy has been doing Cherry Glazerr since she was a teenager in 2013 and the project has evolved in always sonically interesting and ambitious directions. Early on the music might have been described as dream pop and shoegaze and that has been a consistent sound that runs through the band’s music through to today. But the 2023 album I Don’t Want You Anymore seems more gritty and raw and with more distorted, jagged edges and orchestrated moments of poignant dramatic flourishes alongside the masterful fusion of electronic composition and moody guitar rock. It sounds like the kind of album that serves as a way to write out coming to terms with the downbeats of one’s own life with daring honesty and arguably the trio’s finest record. Opening the show is the arty post-punk band Wombo from Louisville, Kentucky who for many is one of the great underground bands of the last several years. Its records are all inventive exercises in threading together psychedelic rock and whatever it was Pere Ubu was doing in its early days yet making it oddly immediately accessible with a startlingly commanding live performance.

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, photo by Olivia Oyama

Thursday | 03.07
What: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum w/Dreadnought, Surplus 1980
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum established itself as one of the great cult bands out of the 90s and 2000s with its utterly unique melange of theater, heavy art rock and psychedelia. Safe to say it would be challenging to compare the band’s music to that of any of its contemporaries except maybe something Mike Patton might be doing around the same time and in fact Matthias Bossi and Patton worked together for a live score for the 1924 film Waxworks. Its records are all fascinating pieces that at times seem industrial, others the kind of industrial noise rock one might expect from Cop Shoot Cop with the cathartic flourishes heard more often in the music of Swans—Frank Zappa gone fully jazz punk. When SGM split in 2011 probably no one was expecting a reunion but that’s what happened in 2023 and now the legendary experimental band is touring behind the release of its new album of the Last Human Being and yes it’s as wonderfully weird and as challenging and rewarding as one might hope to hear. Opening are Denver psychedelic doom band Dreadnought and Surplus 1980, a group headed by SGM’s Moe Staiano and in a what might be described as an avant-garde post-punk dub vein.

Thursday | 03.07
What: Ryan Beatty
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Ryan Beatty got started in his musical career by posting videos on his YouTube channel beginning in 2011 and while still a teen embarked touring but with his image and thus to some extent his music and personal expression limited by adhering to a supposedly palatable media image for mainstream consumption. So he fired his management team leading to his not being able to actually put out his own music until he was around 20 years old. But Beatty’s warmly expressive vocals and ear for evocative arrangements meant he has been able to find success on his own terms. His 2023 album Calico with its wide open yet intimate sounds and production that lets the songs sound like they might be recorded at home minus the rich vocal sounds and orchestral touches that contrast well with sound design that capture background sounds to give the more pristine elements a human context.

Thursday | 03.07
What: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash w/Body and Ryan Wong Band
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash is sort of a psychedelic country band from Denver that includes of course Clayton Dexter and at least for the 2023 self-titled album Paul Dehaven (Paper Bird, Eye & the Arrow, Heavy Diamond Ring). But of course the music stylistically ranges far from that sometimes limiting format and at times the band sounds like some sort of glam rock-flavored synth pop band with guitar twang. Body is a synth pop band that includes former members of Ned Garthe Explosion and Hindershot that though a trio seems to produce a massive and immersive panoply of sound. Ryan Wong Band is refreshingly a fairly straight forward country band from Denver that seems to draw its roots from a time when country didn’t need to stay on some narrow brand for a sound palette and dips into the realm of cosmic country as well.

Replica City in June 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 03.08
What: Replica City w/Quits and Supreme Joy
When: 6:30
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Replica City is a post-punk band from Denver that is more informed by the likes of Dinosaur Jr than Joy Division and it will release its new EP Gift of Knives on March 5, 2024 for which this show is a celebration. Quits is the great Denver noise rock institution whose own album Feeling It released in September 2023 with a support tour in 2024. Supreme Joy is an angular post-punk band from Denver that has more than a leg in jangly psychedelic rock but think more in the vein of something like JOHN, Women or Swell Maps.

Black Flag, photo courtesy Artists World Wide

Saturday | 03.09
What: Black Flag – 40th Anniversary of My War
When: 7:30
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Black Flag’s 1984, second album My War introduced fans of the group’s ferocious and technically proficient hardcore to sludgier, heavy sounds and grinding tempos in a way that proved influential on the genre and crossover bands. Apparently, Black Flag had already done the accelerated punk thing for years and simply had to do something different. And for this show you’ll probably get to see the album in its entirety as well as other Black Flag classics. Greg Ginn is the only original member but getting to see Ginn unleash those crazy Black Flag riffs is still something impressive to behold.

Saturday | 03.09
What: Laetitia Sadier w/Susan James
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Laetitia Sadier is the charismatic and soulful singer and songwriter who is perhaps best known for being a lead singer in experimental rock band Stereolab. But Sadier has long had projects outside the latter including a reliably fascinating solo career consisting of five albums since 2010 including Rooting for Love which dropped on February 23, 2024. In the album’s songs one years the lush, downtempo, jazz and Bossa Nova inflected art pop that has been Sadier’s signature musical flavor for decades. But there is a spaciousness in Sadier’s solo work that is inviting and soothing without being soporific. Her warm and expressive vocals sit solidly in the mix of drifting atmospheres as well as grounding the more energetic passages. The album sounds like a conversation about weighty subjects in French and English but in a manner that invites imagination and compassion to combine to look toward a world that is moving beyond the petty and incredibly destructive civilizational patterns, a death spiral really, in which our species now seems stuck. Sadier looks toward a time past that psychological gridlock honoring the complexities of human existence and habits that got us there. Susan James is a renowned singer-songwriter whose experimental, psychedelic folk also seems to draw bit from 60s French pop as well and whose 2015 album Sea Glass marked a shift in the artist’s songwriting to more incorporation of her influences among minimalist composers. It was also produced by Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas fame, an artist who in his own music fused psychedelic pop and the avant-garde.

Sunday | 03.10
What: Kendra Morris w/Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kendra Morris is a singer-songwriter from NYC whose sound is clearly rooted in soul, R&B and the neo-soul end of hip-hop. And there’s a touch of psychedelia at the edges of her lush arrangements and a general sense that Morris is writing her music driven by imagining unusual short stories that themselves inspire creativity and giving her songs their own personality so that her records while having some consistency of quality and imbued with a style that is uniquely Morris’ own are refreshingly varied and mysterious because there are no hackneyed premises and if there are playful uses of common subject fodder for pop music it’s all surround by unusual, often moody and deeply evocative music and Morris’ commanding vocals. Opening the show are two Denver bands in the rock and soul theater of Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille and The Milk Blossoms. The latter is more in line with Morris in the eclectic and emotionally rich songwriting and soundscapes and some roots in hip-hop, R&B, left field psychedelia and indiepop.

Friday | 03.15
What: RAREBYRD$, Sell Farm, Baby Baby and Doll
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Witch Cat Records is a record label based in Colorado that has been a home to some of the more experimental and forward thinking electronic and psychedelic music out now. While its roster is small its releases include offerings from Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots fame, LPD reissues, Thanatoloop, Church Fire, Mourning Cloaks, Acidbat and Orbit Service. This is a showcase for acts whose own aesthetics align with the Witch Cat aesthetic and a now infrequent appearance by hip-hop greats RAREBYRD$, industrial/EBM auteur Sell Farm, left field pop artist Baby Baby and Doll.

Friday | 03.15
What: Eyedress
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Eyedress has been a notable figure in modern pop/indie rock/psychedelia and hybrid forms of each with some hip-hop production and glitchcore thrown into the mix. Originally from the Philippines Eyedress now calls Los Angeles home and his most recent releases read like a modern hip-hop joints with multiple collaborators that Eyedress has brought in to expand his own sound palette and range as an artist.

The Brook & The Bluff, photo by Noah Tidmore

Friday | 03.15
What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Teenage Dads
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: The Brook & The Bluff formed in Birmingham, Alabama among two brothers and childhood friends around 2015 but has since relocated to Nashville. The group’s sound is in the realm of 1970s soft rock with a touch of psychedelia and Americana and its 2023 album Bluebeard highlighted the way the band can turn simple arrangements into intricate and lush soundscapes in which its stories take on an intimate quality that soothe as much as they take on subjects of everyday life and its usual struggles with a tender poignancy.

Sunday | 03.17
What: Deap Valley farewell tour w/Death Valley Girls
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based blues-garage duo Deap Valley is taking one last run as a live band this spring through June before dissolving hopefully into other projects. Fans of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills will definitely appreciate the energy Deap Valley has been giving since its inception. Also on the bill is the great psychedelic shoegaze band Death Valley Girls. Also from Los Angeles. One hopes when the tour was being put together the two bands recognized the humor value of Deap Valley and Death Valley Girls touring together even though there’s nothing gimmicky about the music of each.

The Dandy Warhols, photo courtesy the artists

Monday | 03.18
What: The Dandy Warhols w/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Dandy Warhols have been together since 1994 and from the beginning of their career the members of the group have pulled together an eclectic set of influences to synthesize into various styles of music yet not without a coherent sound. Early on its music seemed rooted in psychedelic garage rock, nascent Britpop and shoegaze soundscaping. As the group has evolved it has incorporated elements of electronic music and production to sculpt its songwriting into something compelling and unique even through times when perhaps some of its fans haven’t been as on board with the innovations and evolution of the Dandys’ songwriting experiments. But all along the quartet’s spirited and charismatic live show has remained worth witnessing. In 2024 the Dandys released the new album Rockmaker. In typical fashion the group has seemingly reinvented itself and indulged a kind of free association approach to its sonic elements so that the record is equally an electro rock and chill big beat affair and fuzzy, groovy psychedelia with a deep sense of play, an irreverent sense of humor and deft cultural and musical allusions. Hopefully the band plays liberally from the new album but it has always been good about giving fans a generous dose of its remarkable back catalog live.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Decibel Tour: Hulder, Devil Master, Worm and Necrofier
When: 6:30
Where: HQ
Why: Decibel Magazine is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with this tour featuring some of the more interesting bands in the broad realm of heavy music. Hulder is the transcendental black metal band from the Pacific Northwest, Devil Master is a Philadelphia-based, blackened crust/death rock group, Worm is the funeral doom project from Florida and Necrofier is the dark, death thrash outfit from Houston.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Schizophonics w/The Omens and Cleaner
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Schizophonics is a garage rock band from San Diego who have more than a touch of psychedelia in their sound and its nervy energy and widely expansive sound is reminiscent of MC5 and a more feral 13th Floor Elevators. So yes Denver’s The Omens are coming out of semi-retirement with their own brand of unhinged garage rock power alongside heavy psych rock band Cleaner from Denver fronted by Kim Phat (Dirty Few, Keef Duster) with musicianship from members of other noteworthy Denver bands like Arj Narayan (Black Acid Devil etc.) and Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach, Colfax Speed Queen, Night Fishing etc.).

Monday | 03.18
What: Slow Hollows w/P.H.F.
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slow Hollows split in 2020 but songwriter Austin Feinstein kept making music and relaunched the project himself in 2023. A year later the new Slow Hollows album Bullhead dropped on March 8, 2024 showcasing Feinstein’s gently intricate arrangements, evocatively thoughtful lyrics and eclectic style somewhere between indiepop and post-punk. Feinstein this time out sounds more confident and emotionally forward yet vulnerable and introspective. The drifts and bends in his melodies lend the song a disarming quality that makes you wonder if he’d been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine and Microphones for a few years but managed not to rip off their songwriting style while adopting some of their methods of crafting tone.

Monday | 03.18
What: The Kooks, The Vaccines and Daisy the Great
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Crazy to think The Kooks have been around for twenty years at this point but the group based out of Brighton, England has evolved beyond its early sound rooted in 60s mod and turn of the century post-punk and its most recent album, 2022’s 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark, is almost like a Britpop revival sound but one that might have happened had The Verve embraced electro-funk and some hip-hop production and chillwave soundscaping. The Vaccines came along in the wake of The Kooks out of West London with its own brash stage show and fusion of surf rock and melodic punk. It’s 2024 album Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations sounds like one of those triumphant New Wave power pop records of the 80s but without the cheese and just the soaring melodies and touch of nostalgia for one’s younger days as fuel for your present existence. Opening this leg of the tour is Daisy the Great. The indie pop duo of Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker started when the two were acting students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who were writing a musical about a fictional band and then made that band into a real life thing. The group’s 2017 debut composition “The Record Player Song” was hit with to date over a quarter billion streams. Two albums and three EPs later including 2023’s Tough Kid Daisy the Great has garnered a bit of a following for its folk and R&B-inflected pop songs informed by a wry self-awareness and sense of humor. It’s charmingly spare live performances will definitely be an interesting counterpoint to the headliners for the night in some ways but Daisy The Great is also known to put in a lively set of its own.

Tuesday | 03.19
What: Madi Diaz w/Daniel Nunnelee
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Madi Diaz is an acclaimed songwriter who got her start playing shows in NYC in 2007, the same year of the release of her debut album Skin And Bones. Her observant and emotionally refined lyrics and gift for building textures into her melodies and rhythms has helped set her songwriting apart from many of her peers. Her 2024 album Weird Faith centers Diaz’s vocals in music that is at once orchestral and minimalist with rich yet unobtrusive production that showcases the songwriter’s immediately relatable lyrics about relationships with self, others and the universe we all try to navigate as best we can.

Tuesday and Wednesday | 0 3 .19 and 03.20
What: K.Flay w/Cam Kahin
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Kristine Flaherty aka K.Flay is a songwriter very much of the current vintage whose music isn’t bond by strict genres and whose music is eclectic yet coherently stylized. She began writing music in her late teens as a reaction against some of the popular music of the time writing a parody song only to realize she enjoyed the process of doing so and over twenty years later Flaherty has released multiple albums and collaborated with the likes FIDLAR, Tom Morello, Danny Brown, Matt and Kim, MC Lars and countless others, a testament to her gift for genre-bending. These two nights at The Marquis are part of of K.Flay’s MONO: Live in Stereo tour which are a series of intimate shows in just seven major cities in the USA.

Wednesday | 03.20
What: Torres w/Liza Anne
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Torres pushed her songwriting envelope much further than her already unorthodox pop songwriting with the 2024 release of her new album What an Enormous Room. The album cover makes one wonder if the absurdity of the image as a concept made Torres both laugh and take as a challenge to reach beyond where she’d been before as an artist. The songwriter has of course been no stranger to crafting arty synth pop but the new record will probably alienate some people expecting her to give us more of what they’ve been expecting. Torres is embracing the strange and the experimental with this set of songs without sacrificing songcraft and thoughtful lyrics of an emotionally refined vintage. Could Torres take this impulse creative further? Of course but the new album is a welcome expansion of sounds and creative ideas one might compare to when Cat Power released her 2012 electronic pop/glam rock record Sun.

Wednesday and Thursday | 03.20 and 03.21
What: Night Cap w/Savanna Leigh
When: 7pm doors both nights
Where: The Coast (03.20) and Lost Lake (03.21)
Why: Night Cap is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas whose eclectic sound merges acoustic songwriting, rock and synth pop. Opener Savanna Leigh is a Nashville-based songwriter whose style synthesizes acoustic indie pop and electronic production. Her string of singles over the past year have revealed an artist whose vulnerability and sensitivity informs songs that are insightful examinations of the inner life and how when we take the time to listen to our often unspoken emotional turmoil and trauma we can attempt to unravel the control of past experience has over our present. Her evocative vocals and lush production combine a cinematic songwriting style with an intimate delivery of the music.

My Blue Heart, photo by AlyssaPerkins of Captivating Visions Photography

Th – S | 03.21-03.23
What: My Blue Heart Tour (3.21 with VALDEZ, 03.22 w/The Patient Zeros, SweetStreak and Rocky Burning and 3.23 w/Get the Axe and Gatehouse
When: 7 (3.21 and 03.23) and 8 (03.22)
Where: Magic Rat (03.21), Goosetown Tavern (03.22) and Vulture’s (03.23)
Why: Art pop My Blue Heart from Denver is celebrating the March 15, 2024 release of its new album Masquerade with a mini-tour along the front range. The album genre bends and seems to discard standard song structures and rhythm schemes. It’s musical roots seem to borrow heavily from blues and funk but mutated by the influence of art rock bands like Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and channeled into people songs that aren’t much like what anyone else in Denver is putting out at the moment unless you’re into weirdo music territory like TripLip and Bolonium.

Thursday | 03.21
What: Autoheart w/Pigeon Pit and RAEGAN
When: 6
Where: Meow Wolf
Why: Autoheart is a sophisti-pop band from the UK that has been perfecting its emotionally vibrant synth pop songs that don’t sit neatly in a stylistic box as the group draws on inspiration from disparate sources. In its sound you can hear a touch of R&B, soul and chillwave. The group recently dropped its Punch Demos compilation which includes eighteen demos including remasters of songs from the 2023 10th anniversary edition of the debut Autoheart album Punch. Fans of Erasure and Perfume Genius will definitely find a lot to like about Autoheart. Pigeon Pit is the well known folk punk band from Olympia, Washington. RAEGAN is a pop artist from NYC whose songs are sonically creative, insightful commentaries on popular culture, social dynamics and identity. She combines glitchcore beats, trap production, dub, strings and unconventional textures in rhythms that give her music a distinctive sound that cuts through the familiar trappings of modern alt-pop. Her forthcoming debut EP FUCK RAEGAN promises an expansion on the artist’s sound and the video for the lead single “Waltz” is a sort of queer re-telling of Romeo & Juliet with a music video with visuals like something out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists

Friday | 03.22
What: Vatican Vamps album release w/Knuckle Pups and Wildcat
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Vatican Vamps is celebrating the release of its self-titled album for this show. The record is filled with urgent and gritty songs brimming with brooding atmospheres and a sense of menace. A lot of post-punk and darkwave bands seem to be following sonic trends lately but Vatican Vamps seems to have carved its own path with seeming influences from the post-punk revival of the turn of the century, Britpop and 1980s deathrock. The vinyl edition of the album can be pre-ordered on the Vatican Vamps’ Bandcamp and should be out in April. Also on the bill is one of the great, modern indiepop bands Knuckle Pups.

Cellista, photo by Yellow Bubbles Photography

Saturday | 03.23
What: Cellista and prologue by The Drood and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore
When: 7:30-9:30
Where: Dairy Center for the Arts
Why: Cellista is a Los Angeles-based performance artist with roots in the Bay Area and Colorado and over the past several years she has created what she calls stage poems which are narrative multimedia works after those of artist, filmmaker and writer Jean Coctea drawing together seemingly disparate thematic elements and modes of expression. In 2021 she performed at Lincoln Center and she has worked with Tanya Donelly, John Vanderslice, Troyboy, Don McLean, Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter, Van Dyke Parks, Toni! Toni! Toné and Pam the Funkstress. Her work has been heard and scene on film and television and she has appeared as an extra on the TV shows Better Things and Will & Grace playing cello. In fall 2021 her stage poem Pariah explored themes of othering and exile within communities and it featured a companion book by philosopher Frank Seeburger. In 2024 Cellista is unveiling her latest stage poem Élégie. Directed and performed by the artist, Élégie is a one-woman show for cello, static trapeze and cinema. Choreographed by Cellista, Kennedy Kabasares and Joel Baker with film editing by Jennifer Gigantino and cinematography by Bryan Gibel, the one hour piece stars Cellista as the titular figure, a blackbird who shape shifts into human form and back. According to the press release for the stage poem, “Élégie awakens one day in her magical tree outside the walled off city of Cloture to find its entire population has disappeared. In their departure, the citizens have left behind a city of altars, decorated with unlit candles; each containing the memories and mementos of the banished citizens. Élégie shape shifts into human form to find out what happened to Cloture’s disappeared. In her journey she finds serenity.” As with Cellista’s previous stage poem the performance will be a uniquely evocative experience that brings those in attendance deeply into the story with visuals, music, spoken word, the choreography and the event’s baked in literary dimensions that blur the lines between all mediums involved. This Colorado date includes opening performances by ambient-industrial, psychedelic post-punk group The Drood which released its latest album The Book of Drood on March 1, 2024 and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore. Listen to our interview with Cellista here.

Monday | 03.25
What: Chew w/Moon Pussy and Church Fire
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Chew is a band from Atlanta, Georgia whose music defies simple categorization. Until late 2023 Chew had been a trio is now a duo comprised of Brett Reagan who plays sampler, synth bass and guitar while running strobe lights and Sarah Wilson who plays drums and bass lines with a drum sample pad. The project has toured the US and Canada extensively with three European tours under its belt. Because the outfit’s music is so unorthodox it’s music spans and often in the same song the realms of psychedelic and noise rock, ambient, noise, industrial and electronic dance music. Fans of the likes of fellow travelers of eclectic weirdness like Guerilla Toss, Black Moth Super Rainbow and The Spirit of the Beehive will find an immediate connection with the music Chew has been crafting since its inception. Its 2022 album Horses resonates with recent releases by Jockstrap and Sextile without the inspiration of either to feed into its stream of inspiration and influences. In addition to the music Chew’s surreal album covers and inspired song titles suggest more than a passing familiarity with esoteric knowledge and other obscure and niche realms of knowledge as well as a knack for clever wordplay. It all adds up to an uncommon depth of creative development that rewards anyone taking in the music and its presentation beyond the surface level. Also on the bill are local noise rock phenoms Moon Pussy and legendary industrial dance trio Church Fire.

Monday | 03.25
What: Midwife w/Vyva Melinkolya and Body Negative
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Midwife brings her style of ambient folk soundscapes and vulnerable lyrics that she calls “heaven metal” back to Denver for a tour with artists operating in their own realms of music resonant with the vulnerable energies of Midwife’s textural soundscapes. Vyva Malinkolya and Midwife collaborated on an album recently with the 2023 release of Orbweaving and its fusion of gauzy shoegaze and emotional deep diving as a path to processing trauma and grief. Body Negative is an artist with whom Madeline Johnston aka Midwife has worked as a producer on the the newly released album everett that blurs the line between melancholic ambient and dream pop.

Monday | 03.25
What: HEALTH w/Pixelgrip and King Yosef
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: With the December release of RAT WARS, industrial noise/electronic punk band HEALTH has shown itself capable of reinvention on a deep level with a gritty, melancholic yet cathartic album that combines well with its glitchy and more experimental electronic impulses. And so bringing along the great industrial pop group Pixelgrip along for this tour will only make for a great evening of music with talented producer and recording engineer King Yosef opening the show with his industrial hardcore.

Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker

Tuesday | 03.26
What: Sleater-Kinney w/Palehound
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Sleater-Kinney released its eleventh and latest album Little Rope in Jaunary 2024. The record with its grit and bombast matched with an experimentation with the band’s core sound is a welcome reinvention that finds Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker infusing what might be described as a more cinematic form of songwriting with raw and earnest emotion and the sharply and poignantly observed personal reflection and thoughtful social commentary one would hope for with a set of songs from this band. In moments it feels more like a glam rock album fortified by punk spirit. No one needs a band whose members are over 25 years of age to sing from a place informed by lingering teen angst and tapping into that mindset with a lack of irony. Fortunately Sleater-Kinney has never been stunted that way and this new album is filled with songs written by people plugging into their own sources of personal vitality and offering perspectives that seem to have zeroed in on clear and present concerns and the feelings we all share in navigating the conflicted world in which we find ourselves living right now. And if all tours since the group reconvened in 2014 are any indication, Sleater-Kinney is still one of the great live rock bands everyone should get to see at least once.

Thursday | 03.28
What: Jenny Haniver, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A Jenny Haniver is the carcass of a ray or skate that has been modified and dried into a mummy made to resemble a fictional creature of folklore like a sort of a demon, angel or dragon and in various cultures is said to possess magical powers or otherwise used for ritualistic purposes. The Jenny Haniver in this case is an industrial noise post-hardcore duo from Portland, Oregon whose detailed soundscapes are imbued with a melancholic mood. Ethan Lee McCarthy under his own name will likely perform one of his noise sets but one more steeped in atmospheric compositions and gritty gloom. Fainting Dreams has migrated its sound from its early dream pop songwriting to something more like darkly tribal noise rock.

Friday | 03.29
What: Gothsta, Witch Baby, SORROWS, Ak’chamel, Hypnotic Turtle Radio
When: 8
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Gothsta is making a rare live appearance with their style of witchy, experimental, glitchy electronic weirdo pop. Think something more akin to the likes of The Space Lady and Renaldo and the Loaf and you’ll be on the right track. Don’t bother looking online for too much of Gothsta’s music because most of it you’ll have to acquire at the show or at Wax Trax. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic dance duo that combines moody melancholic melodies with a robust low end, orchestrated rhythms with a spontaneous energy and emotionally vibrant and operatic vocals. Witch Baby is a spontaneous composition, avant-garde improvisational group with drums, saxophone, synth, drums, guitar and bass. Ak’chamel, or with the full name of Ak’chamel, The Crazed and Sunchalked Bones of the Vanished Herds, is one of the choice musical entities for appreciators of genre bursting/synthesizing artists who employ their aesthetic as a deconstruction of cultures and a commentary on the impact of industrialized societies on those not as technocratically embedded. Its subversive and surreal song titles are an inspired example of the latter. Fans of African psychedelic artists like Mdou Moctar and esotericist psych post-punkers Savage Republic will appreciate the music and fans of theatrical, ritualistic performances should definitely seek out this psychedelic surf rock pan-continental avant-folk duo.

The Egyptian Lover, photo from Stones Throw Bandcamp

Friday | 03.29
What: The Egyptian Lover
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This is an exceedingly rare chance to catch the influential hip-hop composer, producer and remixer live. His use of analog electronic gear in sculpting his sound made a major impact on hip-hop in the 80s in particular his 1984 single “Egypt, Egypt” from his On the Nile album. It bore the influence of Kraftwerk but stamped with his own masterful production and gift for layering rhythm, vocals and synth melodies that get stuck in your consciousness.

Pictureplane in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Pictureplane w/Street Fever, Polly Urethane, Dreams of Blights, Kill You Club DJs
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pictureplane returns to Denver, the city where he more fully developed the style of music and production for which he is now most well known. He helped to coin the genre term witch house to describe what he was doing in the late 2000s with a blend of noise, hip-hop production and synth pop that tapped into an emotional space that resonated with feelings of nostalgia and yearning for a better time and place that felt within reach. That sound with other artists manifested into chillswave but Pictureplane always had more of a leg in the experimental realm of the music and harder beats. His 2021 album Dopamine found him reconciling his previous creative impulses into music that hit like a return to form but also a step forward. Also on the bill is Boise, Idaho industrial dance legend Street Fever whose music is rooted in a dark kind of techno and house that has proven to influential on a certain stripe of underground electronic dance music world of a more avant vintage with a live show that is both entrancing, enveloping and enigmatic. Perhaps this includes fellow Boise crafters of pounding and pulsing, industrial noise freakouts Dreams of Blights. Another prime reason to go to this show is to witness a now not so common set from Polly Urethane whose often ritualistic performance art isn’t limited to a genre. It could be one of her sublime fusions of operatic classical and pop performances or combined with a confrontational, industrial noise pieces, a noise soundscape with a turntable, an alchemical mix of post-nü metal noise rock or pure performance art never to be repeated with a collage of classical music and her own tracks and unusual yet poetic visuals. You just never really know except that it will be worth your time and that’s part of the appeal.

Best New Shows in Denver and Beyond November 2023

**Chat Pile performs at The Bluebird Theater on November 2, 2023, photo by Bayley Hanes**

Thursday | 11.02
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Like its self-professed biggest influence Big Black, Chat Pile didn’t really fit in with the underground music scene of its home town of Oklahoma City as a noise rock band that even critics often describe as sludge metal. But its sound even early on captured the ambient anxiety of anyone that’s been paying attention to what’s been happening in America and the world in terms of politics and its failure to adequately address the challenges of the current era like the climate change effects we were told were decades off and the market would come up with something to make the proper adjustments along the way. Except that fascism is on the rise which is the opposite political ideology to take on global challenges and one that seems to think bellicose international policy is the answer in a time of great tensions and unfurling conflicts. Chat Pile’s fracturing guitar rock and soundscaping embodies that milieu with lyrics that make very personal experiences that can seem abstract unless you’re not too distracted to notice. The group’s monumental 2022 debut full length album God’s Country expressed all the aforementioned and even had moments of heartbreaking storytelling that ring as true as the bleakest documentaries as cast in stories about real life with gritty details of being in the working class with no hope for the future and eking out what existence you can with the small shred of dubious joy to be garnered. And yet live Chat Pile’s shows are a joyous catharsis of civilizational anxiety in a way those of few other bands ever are. You also get to see Los Angeles-based, ecstatic black metal band Agriculture which released its own, self-titled, debut full-length. Agriculture is definitely not the typical black metal band and on the record avant-garde musician Patrick Shiroishi contributes saxophone and there is an experimental and improvisational aspect to the songwriting that feels more wide open than a lot of black metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Genesis Owusu w/The Deep Faith
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: If Ghanaian-Australian singer Genesis Owusu is a hip-hop artist he’s equally steeped in post-punk and synth pop. His albums from his 2021 debut album Smiling with No Teeth to his new release Struggler from 2023 are a fusion of the aforementioned and futuristic funk with a masterful command of lyrical flow. Owusu’s eclectic style is both accessible and avant-garde and crafted with a clearly playfully spirit that keeps his songs fresh and inviting. In the live setting Owusu’s commanding presence and theatrical presentation of the music like he’s a late night lounge MC who kicks things up a notch when the song calls for it but never lacking for the smooth dance moves. Cobranoid sounds like it has a leg in both thrash and power metal.

Friday | 11.03
What: Lost Relics w/Messiahvore, Cobranoid, Voideater and Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: This show features some of the best sludge metal-oriented bands from Denver but all also have elements of noise rock rendering them a little different than any standard metal act. Lost Relics released its new album Die + Cry + Loathe in June 2023 and a quick listen reveals what should have been obvious all along but there’s a touch of Melvins from the Big Business period in there but with a drive and menace reminiscent of Unsane. Messiahvore has a little more groove and doom psychedelia in its sound but possessed of a seething heaviness as well. Voideater is like if a metalcore band stripped away everything but a stark and colossal sound that feels like it could collapse at any moment under its own heaviness. Burning Sister is a “downer rock trio” that sounds like it used to be a garage rock band that got bored with that and got into trippy music and absorbed the entire Sleep and Captain Beyond catalog and then got a little weird with those influences.

Saturday | 11.04
What: Margaret Glaspy w/Cat Clyde
When: 6 doors, 9 show
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soap Box
Why: Throughout her prolific career Margaret Glaspy has garnered critical accolades for the immediacy of her poetic songwriting. Her new album 2023’s Echo the Diamond is a consistently refreshing and earnest offering of songs that hits with strong emotional resonance with fairly minimal elements. Singles like “Get Back” and “Act Natural” sound like they could have come out of the early 90s alternative rock era with some wonderfully roughened edges in the guitar work and eschewing excess in favor of essentials and putting the focus on Glaspy’s gift for expressing personal insight with resonant life details that always seem to transcend specific context without glossing over the human experience.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 11.05
What: Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Barns Courtney is challenging to describe using simple genre designations. His style seems informed by the blues rock the triumphant sound of a single like his recently released “Young in America” is triumphant and expansive, rich in stirring atmospheric melodies like an Arctic Monkeys song. In 2022 and 2023 Barns has been dropping a single here and there to hint at what he might have in store for a future album since he hasn’t had released a new record since the pandemic so for this show you may get to a see a showcase of what you might expect to see more of in 2024 delivered in his usual spirited and engaging fashion.

Monday | 11.06
What: Subhumans w/Cheap Perfume and Poison Tribe
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Subhumans are the influential and foundational anarcho-punk band from the UK. Forming in 1980 the group’s creative presentation of humanist anarchism and a left critique of politics and culture in an era when the right was on the ascent globally including in the UK and the USA proved to have an enduring appeal. Partly because the music while very steeped in punk and hardcore aesthetics made that rebellion seem fun and attainable, even a collective endeavor not led by the band so much as the band provided some incisive observations and a sense of play that embodied Emma Goldman’s words about how she didn’t want to be a part of someone’s revolution if there was no dancing. Though the group originally split in 1985 it reunited briefly a couple of times in the 90s but has been back to being active and touring since 2004.

Periphery, photo by Ekaterina Gorbacheva

Monday and Tuesday | 11.06 and 11.07
What: Periphery w/Mike Dawes
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Periphery is a progressive metal band that formed in Washington D.C. with roots in guitarist Misha Mansoor’s home audio experiments. But over the years the group has evolved with various lineups until its current quintet. In 2023 the group released its first album in four years with Periphery V: Djent Is Not a Genre. The title is a clear and wryly humorous nod to a style of guitar sound that became the defining feature for a whole swath of modern metal with the sharp, clipped riffing. But that’s just one sound in Periphery’s broad range of expression and the new record is more imaginative than that with even elements of electronic composition and creative pinch harmonics making Periphery V not just arguably the band’s most fully-realized record but a high water mark in the progressive metal genre. Witness for yourself at one or both of these shows at a small theater like The Bluebird.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Dale Hollow w/Sarah Adams and Peter Stone
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Dale Hollow got his start in music in his hometown Nashville, Tennessee but is now based out of New York City. Hollow refers to himself as THE Country Music Superstar (“Trademark Pending”) and his stage persona larger than life, his mystique as a fully-formed artist when his earliest released dropped in terms of songwriting and musicianship and the quality of his output supports a case for that designation regardless of that dubious claim on purely verifiable commercial grounds by the likes of Luke Bryan, Loretta Lynn, Jessica Simpson, Darius Rucker or Kenny Chesney. There is a thrilling earnestness to Hollow’s performance on recording and on stage that is commanding even when there’s an element of humor and playfulness to many aspects of Hollow’s craft. His new record Hack of the Year beats critics to the punch with the title and yet it speaks to the spirit of the underdog and the performative humility rampant in much of country music. Hollow takes on the tropes of the genre and and both embraces their virtues and upends the pretensions. Hollow’s use of humor doesn’t mean his songwriting is a joke or satire rather it plays the same role humor does in approaching life and putting everything into the proper perspective and injecting a little joy into some of the most downbeat moments we might experience. The songs of Hack of the Year are very much unalloyed country performed with a grace, elegance and passion one might hope for out of any record or any genre. Listen to our interview with Dale Hollow here.

Tuesday | 11.07
What: Tallies w/Cherished and Pill Joy
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Tallies are the shoegaze band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada whose guitar jangle and shimmer are reminiscent of an era of music in the early 90s when a band like Sky Cries Mary wouldn’t be considered shoegaze but more psychedelic rock even though its musical ideas were resonant with a broad range of atmospheric guitar rock. Tallies’ excellent 2019 self-titled album is a bit like if The Sundays and a Sarah records band fused with a more modern shoegaze band that has benefited from developments in the sound of guitar music in the past decade and the shedding of genre adherence. Cherished is the Denver dream pop and shoegaze band whose lush and entrancing guitar work fronted by an emotionally charged frontperson in Chloe Madonna who is also the vocalist for hardcore band Destiny Bond.

Mass of the Fermenting Dregs, photo from Bandcamp

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs w/Replica City and The Sickly Hecks
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mass of the Fermenting Dregs is a Japanese trio whose musical style traverses post-hardcore, shoegaze and progressive rock. Formed in Kobe in 2002. After a break in 2012 the group reunited in 2015 and currently touring in support of its 2022 album Awakening: Sleeping. What Boris is for metal and psychedelic rock and noise, this group is sort of for post-hardcore/shoegaze and psychedelia in that its songs seem to have a creative coherence but its presentation can be unpredictable in ways that transcend expectation.

Slaughter Beach, Dog, photo by Dan Winters

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Slaughter Beach, Dog w/Bonnie Doon
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Slaughter Beach, Dog started as a solo side project of Jake Ewald of emo/indie rock legends Modern Baseball. But since that band’s 2017 indefinite hiatus Ewald has made Slaughter Beach, Dog his main songwriting outlet. The group’s 2023 record Crying, Laughing, Waving, Smiling has a gentle sound with guitar and percussion flowing like a gentle creek. The introspection is one of looking far afield and assessing both the past and looking to the future while trying to remain emotionally present and striking a Zen-like balance. Musically it’s like a pastoral Luna or a more countrified Low. There is an elegance to the sound and Ewald’s vocal phrasing akin to Steve Kilbey in more tranquil moments. Which seems like a flavor of the season when the world seems on the brink of deep existential turmoil.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Bell Witch w/Spirit Possession and Paul Riedl
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Seattle’s funeral doom duo Bell Witch released one of its typically hypnotic, crushing, epic, concept albums in 2023 with Future’s Shadow Part 1: The Clandestine Gate. Anyone that has seen Bell Witch knows the bone rattling reputation of its low end is much deserved. But the new record begins with the sound of spectral organs evoking the mood of some kind of cosmic transition that Dylan Desmond and Jesse Shreibman are going to guide us through for the duration of the album and if you go to the show the range of frequencies generated will render that experience if not literal definitely not fully abstract.

Wednesday | 11.08
What: Kim Petras: Feed the Beast World Tour w/Alex Chapman
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: After some time struggling with the release of her two most recent albums Feed the Beast (released in June 2023) and Problématique (released September 2023), pop singer Kim Petras is finally able to share that music on a headlining tour with a stop in Denver. The latter album got delayed despite completion and was headed for being scrapped with a mass leak of the songs in 2022. But now the EDM-infused hyperpop can be experienced with Petras’ orchestrated, richly multimedia, theatrical production. Petras has been releasing singles and mixtapes and has worked with the likes of Sam Smith, Nicki Minaj, Charli XCX and Banks and is in many ways a veteran and yet this tour is a bit of an introduction of her energetic, sex positive songs of love, hedonism and heartbreak to a wider public.

Thursday | 11.09
What: Devil Master, Fuming Mouth, Final Gasp and Victim of Fire
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Devil Master is a black metal band from Philadelphia whose 2022 album Ecstasies of Never Ending Night is a blend of the aforementioned and Goth-y hardcore. Fuming Mouth is a death metal band from Massachusetts that just released its new album Last Day of Sun with its contorted vocals and expansively grindy guitar work. Victim of Fire is one of the best Denver-based hardcore bands in that more metallic vein and at times will unexpectedly cover an older and more obscure Iron Maiden song and the like. Final Gasp dropped its debut full length Mourning Moon via Relapse on September 22, 2023. It’s the perfect amalgam of hardcore, thrash and deathrock. Anyone that caught the band at Seventh Circle Music Collective over the summer of 2023 knows that these guys have a furiously intense live show and yet their music has great mood flowing through the fiery performances. The new record is reminiscent of if Testament, Fields of the Nephilim and Rozz Williams-era Christian Death collaborated on an album and made something that seemed completely out of step with its time but would seem prophetic decades later.

Pussy Riot circa 2018, photo by Sacha Lecca

Friday | 11.09
What: Pussy Riot w/Sloppy Jane
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Pussy Riot is the legendary punk and performance art group from Russia that courted controversy and experienced imprisonment for their unapologetic critiques of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vladimir Putin regime. Those antics might not translate so well to a touring band that continues to challenge the authoritarianism of its home country and others but if you’ve managed to catch a Pussy Riot show in the past half decade and more you know that the band actually delivers an exuberant and visually compelling live performance.

Friday | 11.10
What: Cindy Lee, Freak Heat Waves, Bobby Amulet and Tepid
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Cindy Lee is the solo project of former Women singer Patrick Flegel. The music Flegel has released under this moniker has been well far afield of the experimental guitar rock of women and according to the Cindy Lee Wiki page, it’s a “drag queen ‘confrontation pop’ project.” Flegel was inspired by Karen Carpenter in her appearance and style and how her life was a kind of cautionary tale about the way stardom and the music industry can and will chew you up and dispose of you when you’re no longer getting the spotlight or if your human frailty becomes anything resembling a liability that isn’t readily marketable. The project’s fifth album What’s Tonight to Eternity is like a pure fusion of classic pop and experimental electronic music that fans of modern darkwave will appreciate with a theatrical live presentation to go along with it. Also on the bill is the solo electronic project of Nick Salmon of local shoegaze/post-punk luminaries Voight.

Friday | 11.10
What: Fever Ray w/CHRISTEENE
When: 7
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Fever Ray really created a rich body of content in terms of composition and paired presentation for their 2023 album Radical Romantics. From science fiction noir style music videos, a broad spectrum of promotional photography depicting the singer and songwriter as an androgynous every person like a modern day David Bowie free associating and blurring the lines of gender while commenting incisively about state of the world and culture. It’s clearly one of the most ambitious creative endeavors by a musical artist who has always had a vision for the visual presentation of the music and how it will be experienced by those who show up. To call it arty synth pop is inadequate but a starting point like calling Bowie’s output glam or art rock or pop and the live show is likely to be a dazzling affair that invites participation. CHRISTEENE is the legendary synth punk and art pop artist originally from Brooklyn, NY but these days based out of Austin, TX and really an ideal opening act for Fever Ray.

Friday and Saturday | 11.10 and 11.11
What: Huerco S, Pontiac Streator, Dull Tusk, Polly Urethane, Sleepdial, Goo Age live show on 11.10, Huerco S. (DJ), Pontiac Streator, Loudmen and Aalala.One on 11.11.
When: 8:30 (11.10) and 11 (11.11)
Where: Glob
Why: Huerco S. is making an extremely rare live appearance at Glob with a live music set on 11.10 and a more DJ-oriented set on 11.11 for the late night rave crowd. Brian Leeds aka Huerco S. has had a diverse and prolific career of experimenting with the form and compositional elements of minimal electronic and musique concrète, perhaps even utilizing aspects of plunderphonics in crafting imaginative ambient and minimal house songs while genre bending at will. Pontiac Streator is a likeminded producer from Philadelphia whose own work operates in similar musical realms but with some more seeming roots in deep house and left field pop. Dull Tusk blends glitchcore production style with ambient for something markedly different from both. With Polly Urethane you don’t know what you’re going to get except that it will be something creatively different than what she’s done before as a live artist whether or not it includes bits of her work in noise, art pop, industrial punk beatmaking, classical or the unclassifiable stuff that really is part of her oeuvre. But it won’t be boring and on her own worth the price of admission. Sleepdial is the ambient project of Luke Thinnes who rarely performs this side of his music live and is perhaps more well known for his visionary futuristic retro pop and New Wave glam project French Kettle Station. Goo Age is post-glitchcore and New Age ambient soundscaping in abstract threading together of tone, texture and rhythm.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baroness w/Wayfarer
When: 6
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sludge rock legends Baroness reinvented themselves with the 2019 album Gold & Grey with contributions of new lead guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Gina Gleason. It not only expanded the horizons of what the group had already done and bringing a new creative edge to the band’s songwriting but set a new high water mark for progressive metal. With the band’s new album Stone (2023) Baroness has reached another level with its incorporating the driving and heavy guitar attack that established it as one of the more significant artists in modern heavy music with a more keen ear for atmosphere and nuanced emotional resonance. Yes, the people in the band are all ace practitioners of their craft who can show off aplenty and do on the album but it’s the kind of record that people who aren’t as dazzled by chops alone can appreciate much more fully as a set of songs that engage with an appeal beyond simple rocking out.

Saturday | 11.11
What: The Bright Light Social Hour w/Demob Happy
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bright Light Social Hour is the popular Austin-based psychedelic rock band that recently released its new album Emergency Leisure, which is a great title for a record at a time when we’re all encouraged to grind and strive beyond reasonable human capacity. This time there’s perhaps an extra element of lounge vibe to its finely crafted psych pop. But get there early to catch Demob Happy who are touring in support of their own new album Divine Machines. The group based out of Newcastle upon Tyne, England some how play fuzzy, bombastic rock and roll but in the mix one imagines one hears the atmospheric alien dystopian stylings of Gary Numan and the mutant pop sensibilities of Sparks. Especially on the new record. If Demob Happy could ever be considered “stoner rock” at any point in its career at this point it has evolved into maybe a hard rock, psychedelic art glam band whose creative vision broke out of any instincts for reinventing classic rock.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Baby Baby album release w/RDFM and Deth Rali
When: 8 doors/9 show $10
Where: 715 Club
Why: Lily Conrad is known for her contributions to the likes of indie rock band Rose Variety but her solo project Baby Baby has always had this earnest, indie/bedroom pop charm and she’s releasing her new album for this show with some assist from electronic pop soundscaper RDFM and dream pop band Deth Rali.

Saturday | 11.11
What: Cherry Spit w/Moon Pussy, Watch Yourself Die and Caged Grave
When: 7pm, $10-15
Where: D3 Arts
Why: This is the debut Cherry Spit show. The band might include former Antibroth bassist Dan Witalski. But these rumors cannot be confirmed and you’ll have to see for yourself. But you also get to see hardcore/extreme metal heroes Caged Grave, Denver death rock super group Watch Yourself Die and one of the best noise rock bands of all time and fortunately based out of the Mile High City with Moon Pussy and maybe, if you’re lucky, Crissy Cuellar will have a bevy of her signature between song stage banter dad jokes.

The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, photo from Bandcamp

Sunday | 11.12
What: The Holy Ghost Tabernacle Choir, Edith Pike and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Holy Ghost Tabernale Choir from Savannah, Georgia is rooted in various branches of post-hardcore but its 2022 album Slow Murder expanded on what one might expect from the band if your only exposure to it was previous releases. It includes samples and its songs sound like a thrilling blend of hardcore and the noisy heavy rock of the likes of Melvins or even the more punk end of Boredoms. Opening the show is post-hardcore/dream pop hybrid band from Denver Fainting Dreams whose emotional range is broad and expressed with an intense poignancy and vulnerability. Edith Pike traverses a similarly diverse territory while exuding the raw emotional expressions in its noisy yet atmospheric songs. Like the more punk side of Unwound had that band come up during the era of power violence with sharp angles and hanging chords that drift into sharply amplified feeling.

Sunday | 11.12
What: Chat Pile w/Agriculture
When: 7
Where: Vultures
Why: This is your next chance to see Chat Pile and Agriculture on this tour. See above on November 2 for more information.

Monday | 11.13
What: SDH (Semiotics Department of Heteronyms) w/MVTANT, Church Fire and Sell Farm
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: SDH is an italo-disco/darkwave band from Barcelona, Spain. Like a gloomier version of early Ladytron and cast more in dance music style. Its 2023 album Fake is Real sounds like the soundtrack to an ultra hip retro-futurist espionage thriller. San Antonio’s MVTANT is also on the bill with his own brand of hazy, gloomy dance music that live comes off more as a hard hitting industrial band with irresistible momentum. Church Fire always brings a joyful, emotionally charged energy to its own presentation of industrial dance music that brings a sense of fun to taking down the patriarchy and authoritarianism. Sell Farm is a one-man force of early EBM and industrial soundsculpting.

Tuesday | 11.14
What: We Are Scientists w/Sean McVerry
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: We Are Scientists formed in 1999 after guitarist/vocalist Keith Murray and bassist Chris Cain met two years prior while attending Pomona College. From early on the group adopted something like a fusion of David Bowie-esque glam rock and post-punk. Its earliest releases reflected a more punk spirit in its songwriting. But over the intervening years the group of course honed and developed and reinvented its sound and its 2023 album Lobes is brimming with melodic atmospheres, funkier rhythms and sophisticated pop songcraft akin to where Phoenix has been going in recent years with more nuanced lyrical content and a series of fantastic promotional music videos featuring a car driving through a city nightscape.

Wednesday | 11.15
What: Harm’s Way w/Fleshwater and Ingrown Jivebomb
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Harm’s Way is a hardcore band from Chicago whose particular style of sonic aggression has evolved over the years from its early powerviolence roots to what we got to hear on its 2023 record Common Suffering. Featuring a guest appearance by King Woman on “Undertow,” the album seethes with the struggle with mental health issues, turmoil in society and within one’s own relationships and the corrosive effects of political corruption and the impact of creeping authoritarianism. To meet the challenge of expressing the sorts of anxieties and frustrations most of us have felt for the past several years Harm’s Way injected its core sounds with industrial beats and caustic atmospheric elements that give the music a little more bite than previous releases which is no mean feat.

Wednesday and Thursday | 11.15 and 11.16
What: Allison Russell
When: 7 (both nights)
Where: Boulder Theater (11.15) and Bluebird Theater (11.16)
Why: Allison Russell some may know for her masterful turns in the great folk Americana duo Birds of Chicago. When that project when on hiatus in 2021 Russell released her debut solo album Outside Child and told some of the most raw and intense personal stories put to record that year. It also featured a more soul-infused sound to which her versatile and emotionally vibrant voice seemed well suited. In 2023 Russell released her new album The Returner. Rather than the seemingly autobiographical exploration of her first solo outing the new record seems uplifting and explicitly points to a spirit of transcending the demons that haunted her and perhaps held her back emotionally and as an artist. Whether this album reflects recent personal discoveries or a lifetime of overcoming childhood and not so childhood trauma matters less than its lush and entrancing sound that is informed by the soul and gospel sounds of her earlier work but also comes across as ambitious art pop akin to the likes of Kate Bush and Caroline Polacek.

Thursday | 11.16
What: Speedy Ortiz w/Space Moth and Mr. Atomic
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Speedy Ortiz started as a solo project for guitarist/singer Sadie Dupuis but expanded to a full band in 2011 that has gone on to release three EPs and four full-length albums including 2023’s Rabbit Rabbit. From the beginning Dupuis, also a visual artist, has done a most of the artwork for the band including its album covers and thus one gets a unique and personal aesthetic and perspective from the band’s music that has thankfully made its music challenging to pigeonhole outside of the umbrella term of indie rock. But there is also something immediately accessible about the pop songcraft and poetically and often cleverly observed lyrics that has set the project apart from artists more content with following an established style popular at any given moment. In October 2023 Rolling Stone magazine released a list of “The 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” where Dupuis charted at 176. And a quick listen to any of the band’s records reveals that Dupuis while an imaginative artist in her songwriting is also technically gifted musician who channels that talent into songs that come from the heart. Rabbit Rabbit is an album that explores various themes including survival mechanisms, those behaviors many of us undertake to get us through challenging times in our lives some of which we may not be consciously aware of adopting and which can affect us for much of the rest of our lives. And becoming aware of these patterns gives us some ability to guide our lives in ways we really want so that we can live instead of settling for mere survival. Its a complex and emotionally rich album that is also not short on humor and cultural Easter eggs for the perceptive listener that enrich the full meaning of the songs. Listen to our interview with Sadie Dupuis on Bandcamp.

Friday | 11.17
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Light Asylum, Human Leather, Ortrotasce, CXCXCX and Teller
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This anniversary show celebrating the Denver-based darkwave label Eventually It Will Kill You lead by Brian Castillo features a headlining set with legendary darkwave band Light Asylum. The latter is at this point more or less the solo project of Shannon Funchess and we haven’t heard much new music released on an album or EP since 2012 but in 2022 Funchess performed a couple of new songd at the Cold Waves festival in Chicago that year. Light Asylum’s music is a bit like a post-punk synth pop band with Funchess’ commanding vocals and dance prowess to lend the performance some visceral intensity. This marks the first time Light Asylum is performing in Denver. Also on the bill are Salt Lake City synth pop group Human Leather, modular synth noise project CXCXCX, Floridian industrial darkwave project Ortotasce and Denver synth pop solo act Teller.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Cory Hanson w/Slowhand and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Some may know Cory Hanson better for having been in Wand. But his solo works are psychedelic in a slightly different way as exemplified by his 2023 album Western Cum and its equal facility with waxing freak folk and cosmic country as bombastic psych akin to early Meat Puppets. Also on the bill is Supreme Joy which blurs the line between countrified psych and angular post-punk to fascinating effect.

Saturday | 11.18
What: Yard Art, Moonlight Bloom, Totem Pocket, Fly Amanita
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Thankfully the Denver psyche scene of the 2010s is basically over and you get something in that realm but more in the vein of shoegaze and post-punk with indie pop in the mix with this entire bill of some of the better bands of that vintage.

Saturday | 11.18
What: FRENSHIP w/Torine and Bizzy
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Los Angeles-based electropop duo FRENSHIP new singles “Love or an Enemy” and “Copenhagen” from their October 13, 2023 EP Base Camp. Weaving together a smooth R&B aesthetic with its signature synthpop sound, songwriters James Sunderland and Brett Hite seem to be using the new set of songs to express a vulnerability that both felt in their travels outside the US and now living apart with one living in Los Angeles and the other in Washington State and able to see their home country from different perspectives and the fragmented nature of the culture and its politics. Rather than rendering judgment the duo speak to the unease and feelings of uncertainty that seem to be a shared experience not just among Americans but internationally for what seem like similar reasons or at least for causes that are interconnected. In typical fashion FRENSHIP approaches the subject matter with nuance and sensitivity.

Sunday | 11.19
What: Eventually It Will Kill You 6 Year Anniversary: Buzz Kull, Normal Bias, Many Blessings, Terravault and Verhoffst
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For this second night of the Eventually It Will Kill You 6-year anniversary celebration, Australian coldwave artist Buzz Kull will perform bringing his melodic and dark fusion of EBM and post-punk to the stage. And a good deal of the rest of the show will feature prominent local noise artists like Many Blessings and Verhoffst as well as the industrial synth duo Terravault as well as NYC-based synthwave/industrial funk project Normal Bias.

Friday | 11.24
What: Quicksand w/Hotline TNT and Abrams
When: 7
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Quicksand is the influential post-hardcore band from New York City that included then and now members of renowned hardcore groups Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Beyond, Bold and Burn. Quicksand’s sound was sludgier, slower, heavier and thus fit in well with the nascent alternative rock milieu of the early 1990s. It’s angular, foreboding sound was a new kind of heavy that wasn’t metal so much and not grunge and you could hear in its songs’ clear roots in punk. After a couple of breaks in the 90s Quicksand reconvened in 2012 to critical acclaim with live shows a reminder that its heavy sound was also a soundtrack to getting through life’s struggles and triumph over everyday adversities. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the release of its debut full-length Slip which was reissued early in 2023 with an extensive companion booklet. Along for this tour is Hotline TNT also from New York led by Will Anderson formerly of the Canadian band Weed. This project released its new album Cartwheel on November 3, 2023 and for this show the group will provide a good deal of the joyous, atmospheric sonics with its expansively melodic songs. Often lumped in with shoegaze and indie rock the band’s music resists easy categories because its guitar swirl is definitely within the realm of more pop-oriented shoegaze bands but it has enough of and edge to delivery densely glittery moody soundscapes that fit in well with a show with heavier acts. If its music videos are any gauge, Hotline TNT has a healthy and irreverently self-deprecating sense of humor that gives its uplifting melancholia some grounding. Abrams is came out of the more doomy and stoner rock world of Denver metal but its own songs might be described as heavy psych and its own shoegazing instincts have always set the band apart from a more predictable musical path.

Shadows Tranquil in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 11.24
What: Shadows Tranquil album release w/Polly Urethane and Julian St. Nightmare
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Shadows Tranquil is finally officially releasing its album Downward Flowers and celebrating with this release show. The quartet has some diverse roots in shoegaze, post-punk, emo, psychedelia and noise rock with finely tuned tonal details in the songwriting that emerge with repeated listens to its songs and a bit of a live mystique that isn’t something that’s easily imitated. So the band invited a couple of Denver’s most interesting artists in the world of local experimental and post-punk music. Julian St. Nighmare is secretly one of the best bands from Denver with its alchemical blend of post-punk, surf rock and psychedelia and a charismatic and passionate live show. Polly Urethan is simply someone whose shows you can’t fully predict because she changes up the type of set she does with every performance whether that’s noise, ambient pop, modern classical, noise rock psych or performance art or whatever. But never boring and rote which is not something many artists can claim with validity.

Teenage Halloween, photo by Okie Dokie Studio

Sunday | 11.26
What: Teenage Halloween w/Elway (solo), Broken Record and Plasma Canvas
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Asbury Park, New Jersey’s Teenage Halloween has given us an outstanding and heartfelt emo and power pop album with its new album Till You Return. Its a record that dives deep into exploring issues of identity, the heavy legacy of trying to survive and find a place in the world we’re all trying to navigate now but the whole record feels like a big journey of a concept album that doesn’t offer pat answers or solutions but plenty of solidarity and a catharsis of collective trauma. Broken Record from Denver offers its own fusion of melancholic yet vital power pop and modern emo and live comes across as though it absorbed plenty of the influence of Dinosaur Jr and Hüsker Dü. It too released a solid 2023 album with Nothing Moves Me. Assuming its still on for the gig this may or may not be one of your last times getting to see the legendary emocore band Plasma Canvas from Fort Collins. Its sound and chops are steeped in a more radio rock and classic rock vein but delivered with a spirited punk attitude with lyrics that mince no words about struggling with issues of class, gender and sexuality and how that all intersects with a culture and people that are hostile to one’s own unique overlapping identities.

Tuesday | 11.28
What: The Japanese House w/quinnie
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Japanese House is the musical project of Amber Bain who has been developing her sound and songwriting for several years with a leg up from being signed to The 1975’s label Dirty Hit early on and being thusly championed. Bain’s style in some ways anticipated the strain of yacht rock and soft pop that has become a feature of certain branches of indie rock. A great deal of Bain’s output has been on singles and EPs and so In the End It Always Does releasing in 2023 as her second album can give the impression of the musical sophistication and lush and imaginative arrangements as having come out of nowhere. And for Bain it does seem like a lateral leap into experimenting with textures, tones and unorthodox arrangements in crafting her typically well composed pop songs. Adele Julia of Gigwise in a June 28, 2023 review spoke to the album’s candid “discussions surrounding queerness and sexuality.” The album’s rich array of melodies and moods provide a comfortable place within which to have those discussions and the vital yet gentle quality of the album invites the listener along for those discussions regardless of one’s own specific sexual or gender identification.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2023

**Blonde Redhead performs at The Gothic Theatre on October 24, 23**

The Brook & The Bluffs, photo by Noah Tidmore

Sunday | 10.01
What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Bendigo Fletcher
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The members of The Brook & The Bluff grew up in the same neighborhood in Birmingham, Alabama and after forming in 2016 built their songwriting on a foundation of folk rock’s observational lyrics and delicate melodies. But the band relocated to Nashville in 2018 and self-released its self-titled debut album that same year. Since then the group has garnered a wide national audience and in 2023 the band independently released its latest album, Bluebeard. If 2021’s Yard Sale was inspired by capturing the feel of 1970s Laurel Canyon folk rock the new record even more closely embraces modern production and sounds with touches of R&B and hip-hop in the mix including vocal processing akin to an unexpected influence on the group in Frank Ocean. So if you’re expecting a show of the indie folk sound that launched the band you will get to experience plenty of that but also an evolution of that aesthetic.

Nothing But Thieves, photo by Beatriz Oliveira

Sunday | 10.01
What: Nothing But Thieves w/Kid Kapichi
When: 6:30 doors/7:15 show
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: English alternative rock band Nothing But Thieves released its fourth album Dead Club City in June 2023. Like its 2020 predecessor Moral Panic the album is step away from its hard rock sound of the early period of the band’s career. But this has only meant a broader emotional palette and songwriting range. Still intact is the group’s knack for anthemic epics and the thoughtful lyrics that have been there from the beginning and more than a bit of that early grit in the live shows.

Monday | 10.02
What: Igorrr w/Melt Banana and Otto Von Schirach
When: 6
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Igorrr is the stage name of Gautier Serre who combines classical music, black metal, breakcore structure and production and trip hop into strange yet compelling combination of all of those in a way that might appeal to fans of Mr. Bungle and Secret Chiefs 3 who genre splice plenty on their own. Since 2017 Igorrr has been a full band and its most recent album Spirituality and Distortion (2020) ruthlessly and rapidly jump cuts styles and rhythms so that at times it is reminiscent of Aphex Twin and at others like Naked City mashed up with 8-bit music. So opening this tour in addition to breakcore/industrial weirdo Otto Von Schirach you get to witness the genre smashing, Japanese experimental band Melt Banana who themselves fuse grindcore, industrial, breakcore, noise rock, pop and dance music into a furious and coherent whole that evolves over the course of a song. Sometimes the band has so much sonic momentum it can be genuinely and thrillingly overwhelming. Consistently one of the greatest live bands you’ll see all year.

Tuesday | 10.03
What: Avskum w/Resistant Culture and Poison Tribe
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Avskum formed in Sweden in 1982 and has been one of the foundational bands of international D-beat and hardcore. Currently touring in support of its latest album En Annan Värld Är Möjlig. Opening are two of Denver’s own fine practitioners of the raw hardcore arts Resistant Culture and Poison Tribe.

Tuesday | 10.03
What: Tool w/Emily Wolfe https://www.treventscomplex.com/events/detail/tool
When: 6:30 doors/8 show
Where: Budweiser Events Center
Why: Tool occupies a unique place in rock music history as having emerged in Los Angeles at a time when glam metal was king and art rock bands like Tool were an anomaly that would come to benefit from the cultural tsunami that was alternative music. But Tool didn’t quite fit into that milieu either other than being different and having lyrics that were about subjects and from perspectives that were at an angle decided out of step with the mainstream. But its elaborate and ambitious songwriting and creative vision weathered the backlash against alternative music in the mid-90s precisely because it offered something unusual and forward thinking and wasn’t directly connected with a musical trend that was washing out and being replaced, for the most part, with a less vital version. The band has always operated on its own time and on its own terms supported by a cult following and it has used its status to help shine a light on other interesting artists of its time including bands that were a direct influence like King Crimson. In 2019 Tool released its first album in 13 years, Fear Inoculum. The sprawling release was vintage Tool with its intricate yet hypnotic song structures and themes of aging and reflecting on one’s experiences and whether or not one’s accumulated knowledge constitutes wisdom. Opening this tour is talented, hard blues rock guitarist/songwriter Emily Wolfe whose new album the political and gloriously brash The Blowback releases on October 20, 2023.

Wednesday | 10.04
What: Chris Farren
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Chris Farren, gotta give it to him, to call his 2023 album Doom Singer (Polyvinyl Records) because look at the world. And partly because his often surreal and irreverent humor and sense of irony informs not just his lyrics but music videos like that for “Cosmic Leash” and his presentation of the music generally. But in that humor Farren isn’t hiding the heartfelt emotions and his songs are often emotionally vibrant epics that have a vulnerability built into the bluster which sets him very much apart from many artists. One might call it emo and it has that sing along vibe but tempered with a self-awareness one might expect of a musician who came out of the DIY underground.

Roselit Bone, photo from roselitbone.com

Thursday | 10.05
What: Roselit Bone w/Snakes and King Ropes
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Roselit Bone released its new album Ofrenda in August 2023. The title refers to an offering placed in a home alter during the Mexican Dia de Los Muertos. The album itself is a blend of Americana, folk and rock and roll in the spirited and vulnerable style that has made the band one of the most interesting and creative groups in the larger realm of Americana of the past decade. Sure you can hear some of those rockabilly roots but more in the vein of how X and Gun Club did it than less colorful trad genre practitioners. Bozeman, Montana’s King Ropes offer a different flavor of Americana and one more steeped in glam rock and Lou Reed with some nods to more experimental soundscaping. Snakes from Denver is sort of a super group of Mile High City luminaries of folk, Americana and indie rock meaning its own music is decided not cookie cutter and the songwriting more informed by an actual vibe and individual aesthetic and thoughtful lyricism.

Thursday | 10.05
What: Jesse Jo Stark w/Rachel Bobbitt and Rachel Lynn
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Canadian singer-songwriter Rachel Bobbitt released her latest EP in August, The Half We Still Have, produced and mixed by Jorge Elbrecht who spends a good deal of time in Denver these days and who has worked with the likes of Sky Ferreira and Japanese Breakfast. Bobbitt’s tender and bright vocals and orchestral songwriting lends an uplift even to songs that are all too real in their melancholic content. “Two Bit”is a song about how overwhelming feelings, positive or what we think of as positive or not so much, in our youth can get us to bypass our instincts and the guilt and shame that can come over you in looking back at that time of life. And the rest of the EP offers similarly insightful, nuanced and layered songs of both emotional and sonic depth. Headlining the show is pop singer and fashion designer Jesse Jo Stark who is touring in support of her 2022 album DOOMED.

Friday | 10.06
What: Autumn Light: Victoria Lundy, Mark Mosher, Monoscenes
When: 8-10pm
Where: Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery (800 East 73rd Avenue Unit #11, Denver, CO 80229)
Why: Three of the great local electronic artists immersed in the world of synthesizing visuals and music are gathering at Lumonics Light & Sound Gallery for a special event in a space that is an immersive light and sculpture gallery currently showcasing the work of Dorothy and Mel Tanner. Lundy and Mosher can also be seen performing in Carbon Dioxide Ensemble with Thomas Lundy crafting inspired pieces of musique concrète.

Friday | 10.06
What: Slowdive w/Drab Majesty
When: 7
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Influential shoegaze band Slowdive is touring in support of its latest record Everything Is Alive. The group has long term proven itself to be one of the more experimental of the first wave of shoegaze artists by incorporating deep elements of ambient and electronic dance music into its sound beginning with its 1993 and second album Souvlaki and much more dramatically with its 1995 masterpiece Pygmalion. When the band reconvened in 2014 it demonstrated its live power as a group with performances that were as immersive and as lush as they were sonically commanding on par with any of its peers. When its 2017 self-titled album was released there might have been doubts that the band would repeat past glory but instead the record represented a new and worthy creative chapter for the band. Opening is modern darkwave phenom Drab Majesty which started as a solo project but has been a duo for several years now. Its music has been like a modern take on a blend of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and Cocteau Twins but really with its own flavor that embraced electronic music early on with superb guitar work and evocative vocals. It too has a 2023 release An Object In Motion to which Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell contributed vocals.

Friday | 10.06
What: Calamity album release w/Allison Lorenzen and Soy Celesté
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: CALAMITY began as the solo project of Kate Hannington whose journey to her current musical endeavors has been unorthodox, circuitous and in the end seemingly inevitable as a culmination of a life in creative work in various ends of that world. Hannington grew up in the Cleveland are and was involved in performing classical music as an oboe player who initially went to college to be in the sciences but found that deeply unsatisfying despite having a gift for engineering and she went on to New York City and ultimately earned a degree in music and got involved in the avant-garde music community in the city. But Hannington found herself at a life crossroads again and landed a job in Denver working on repairing musical instruments and then working in an engineering capacity for a major defense contractor near the Mile High City and discovered the local underground music world. Falling in with a circle of friends including Chris Adolf, Joe Sampson and Adam Baumeister Hannington found a group of people with whom to casually perform and exchange ideas in weekly get-togethers. Out of that milieu she started writing the songs that would form the core of the music for the early CALAMITY which she performed at the open mic at Syntax Physic Opera just in time for the COVID-19 pandemic to hit. It was around that time that Hannington had been working on her latest live film score in collaboration with a friend. The extended time off from even having performing live as an option allowed Hannington the time to refocus on her decision to make music a priority as it was the only thing over the course of a successful regular work life that felt like where she wanted to be. When shows started happening again, CALAMITY became an active project and most often during 2022. The musical style would be difficult to narrow down to something definitive except to say that it has elements of shoegaze, left field punk, Americana and all united by strong songwriting and Hannington’s powerful and expressive voice and strong stage presence. All of this can be heard strikingly on the debut CALAMITY full-length Chiromancy. From the gorgeously symbolic cover art to the vividly captured and produced recordings there is a unified intentionality that seems obvious in every detail. Hannington’s stories hit as deeply personal but also as a widely relatable set of narratives of letting go of relationships, the beliefs, the habits and associations that hold us back from a fulfilling and rewarding life and moving on toward it. Listen to our interview with Hannington on the Queen City Sounds Podcast.

Friday | 10.06
What: Mac Sabbath at The Oriental w/Cybertronic Spree and Playboy Manbaby
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Mac Sabbath is the enigmatic Black Sabbath parody tribute band from Los Angeles that dresses up in costume as the characters from the McDonald’s franchise. The cover songs have name changes like “Sweet Beef” for “Sweet Leaf” and “Frying Pan” for “Iron Man.” Led by Ronald Osbourne and managed by Mike Odd, lead singer of hard rock outfit Rosemary’s Billygoat, who handles interviews and does other promotional activity to keep the group’s outlandish mythology in the public eye. It could be mere gimmick and kitsch, which it is, but with solid musicianship and a commitment to the bit that is rare in an entertainment milieu that so often rewards individual ego.

Saturday | 10.07
What: Cavalera: The Morbid Devastation Tour w/Exhumed, Incite and No Future
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Cavalera is a heavy metal band that consists of brothers Max and Igor Cavalera who founded influential thrash and death metal band Sepultura in 1984. The brothers had a falling out and Max left Sepultura in 1996 followed by Igor in 2006. Within a year the brothers reconciled and formed a new project that would undergo various name changes including Cavalera Conspiracy. But now Cavalera is releasing re-recording versions of Sepultura classics. 2023 saw the release of new versionf of Bestial Devastation (1985) and Morbid Visions (1986) and thus the name of the tour with a full band that by watching some of the leaked live footage seems to point to the vitality of the source material and the Cavalera brothers’ reinvention of themselves.

Saturday | 10.07
What: Yeule w/SASAMI
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater

Saturday | 10.07
What: DROELOE w/NASAYA and Demotapes
When: 8
Where: Ogden Theatre

Saturday | 10.07
What: Meet the Giant w/The Picture Tour and …And The Black Feathers
When: 7
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Meet the Giant recently released its new album We Are Revolting and didn’t exactly get a chance to do an album release show or other such typical rituals of celebration. But at this show you’ll get to hear a good deal of that material from a band that is steeped both in highly emotional hard rock and electronic production and sensibilities without fitting neatly into some already established and discredited hybrid like industrial rock though fans of that might appreciate MTG’s more atmospheric and vulnerable manifestation of similar creative impulses. …And The Black Feathers somehow makes blues rock, punk and glam rock work in a cohesive style with commanding performances. The Picture Show could devolve into The Cure worship but Billy Armijo’s knack for pop songcraft and bordeom with a rote, paint by numbers version of gloomy post-punk and shoegaze has ensured that former Emerald Siam lead guitarist continues to make deeply evocative and inventive guitar rock with his new bandmates.

Sunday | 10.08
What: Slow Pulp w/Babehoven
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slow Pulp from Madison, Wisconsin just released its sophomore album Yard on September 29, 2023. The band’s gift for fusing earnest bedroom pop and fuzzy 90s-esque indie rock in a way that gives off shoegaze adjacent vibes but channeled into succinct statements of modern malaise and yearning for more meaningful and life affirming connections and experiences rather than the drab and second-rate fair we’re expected to think is adequate and deserved. Fans of Bully and Liz Fair will appreciate what Slow Pulp has to offer.

Sunday | 10.08
What: Djunah w/Quits and Almanac Man
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Djunah’s 2023 album Femina Furens is a ferocious and intense display of what might be called art noise rock. Hailing from Chicago the duo live hits like what a blues rock and jazz band with chops might sound like if they challenged themselves to do something radically different with their skill set. Emotionally distorted vocals and dynamics that from tense and quiet to unfurled rage and despair transformed into bursts of reclaiming one’s power make the new set of songs a riveting listen. Denver’s noise rock kings Quits are releasing their new album Feeling It for this show. Yes, these guys have been in the local scene for years and worth checking out for that etc. But if the raw power of the songs and the performance thereof wasn’t there the band would be like any other rock group today that was inspired by Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go and the like. Quits deliver surreal yet poetically observational lyrics that comment on the conflicted and challenging world and times we all navigate. Quits turns those frustrations into a fractured and seething catharsis on the album and definitely on stage where there’s no barrier between you and the pure expression thereof. Almanac Man is also one of Denver’s handful of fine noise rock bands who probably grew up listening to and seeing Gravity Records bands and catching the punk-adjacent but too weird bands of the 90s and 2000s while absorbing that inspiration for their own brand of sonically disruptive excitement.

Sunday | 10.08
What: The Chats and Cosmic Psychos
When: 7
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Chats from Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia make no bones about their irreverence with album titles like High Risk Behavior (2020) and Get Fucked (2022). But it’s not just the thrill of using swear words in the adolescent way that is the appeal of the band’s music because they take aim at collective anxieties and “racism in surf culture.” Musically imagine an even more nervous energy-driven Stiff Little Fingers and its punk sound a perfect splicing together of protopunk, anarcho punk and honest to goodness pop hooks. Like if Wire was really going for broke toward the most abrupt start and stop dynamics of Pink Flag. Opening this show are Aussie punk legends Cosmic Psychos who have been giving us a wonderful unvarnished noisy punk that at times is reminiscent of a more punk Motorhead and even more raw The Gordons with shout along choruses and a surprising bit of melodicism that tempers that edge just a little without blunting it.

Monday | 10.09
What: Lebanon Hanover w/Hex Cassette and DJ Katastrophy
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Lebanon Hanover is a darkwave/post-punk band from Germany whose deeply atmospheric music doesn’t fit neatly into the aforementioned categories as elements of ambient and world music are in the mix. Particularly on its 2020 album Sci-Fi Sky. Guitar lopes along in a song or two in chord progressions one hears more often in music from the Arabic world and all drifting on the foundation of EBM beats and brooding vocals. Hex Cassette brings his blood cult and bombastic live stage presence to the show opening with his unique brand of industrial darkwave and rock theater.

Monday | 10.09
What: Boris and Melvins
When: 7pm doors, 7:30 pm show
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: Two titans of sludge rock on one bill with Japan’s Boris and The Melvins from the USA. Chances are Melvins were an influence on Boris in some capacity along the way as the trio originally from Washington State has been for a huge swath of alternative rock and heavier music. Boris may play a weird blend of heavy metal, psychedelia, noise and art rock but its own stage antics are unusual and theatrical like there’s a ritual component to it that is impossible to define but which is always striking. Melvins somehow keep playing one of the greatest shows you’ll see all year with its own mix of playfulness, precise power in the performance and an effusive spirit and energy.

Tuesday | 10.10
What: Dope Lemon w/Franklin Jonas
When: 7
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Angus Stone has come a long way since performing at open mics with his sister Julia in their hometown of Sydney, Australia in 2005. Since 2016 he has performed under the moniker Dope Lemon and his idiosyncratic pop songs have dipped liberally into the realms of folk, psychedelia and soul. There is a left field sense of humor informing the presentation of his songs in music videos and a playful, even impish, spirit to his visual style as a live performer. But the music itself is a sensitive, thoughtful, gentle, acutely observational meditation on everyday human existence and with a keen ear for evolving melodies and the physicality of the rhythms. His new album Kimosabé dropped on September 29, 2023 and the videos so far a mix of Simon Hanselmann-esque animation and Zack Galifianakis gone 1980s spoiled rock star gangster vibe are truly some of the most entertaining offerings from any artist in the last few years.

Tuesday | 10.10
What: The Darkness w/The Comancheros
When: 6:30
Where: The Summit Music Hall
Why: The Darkness survived the hype many predicted would collapse in on the band when it garnered a good deal of it when its 2003 debut album Permission to Land basically presaged the unabashed classic rock and glam metal revival that would happen in full the following decade. Singer Justin Hawkins’ soaring vocals, the specific style of driving rhythms and the effusive guitar solos were basically banished to an earlier decade and yet The Darkness rocketed to stardom because even if you rolled your eyes at the throwback style, at least the band delivered a commanding live show with conviction. Most bands eager to do more than just settling for playing to friends and local fans have to believe in their own importance and even exult in it. The Darkness just had the songwriting and chops and stage presence to be more than a gimmick. But the pressure to sustain that momentum caught up with the band and it split in 2006 after seeming to have run out of some steam and person issues within its membership. But in 2011 the original group reconvened and over the next few years Rufus Taylor, son of Roger Taylor of Queen joined on drums. The Darkness’ most recent album Motorheart (2021) revealed more than just a hint of the influence of thrash around the edges so the version of the band you’ll get to see won’t skimp on the hearty, melodic hard rock that earned it the popularity it has enjoyed but it might have a little more edge in the guitar work.

Thursday | 10.12
What: Kneecap w/Time/Calm. and An Hobbes
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Kneecap is an alternative hip hop trio from Belfast, Northern Ireland whose known for rapping in Irish and political activism for human rights at home and abroad. Fifteen years ago there was pretty much no rap in the Irish language and Kneecap has garnered a bit of notoriety for writing a song that was banned from Irish language radio for “drug references and cursing” which the group said was a satire of life for young people in Belfast. But Kneecap’s body of work has challenged conventional notions of masculinity and political power structures with beats that could come right out of a punk band if that band used samples. One of the opening acts Time (really Calm., the duo of Time and AwareNess) is no stranger to nuanced and sharp takes on politics and culture with creative beats that free associate musical ideas from experimental music and classic hip-hop sensibilities. Time aka Chris Steele is an internationally recognized author and activist whose writing on class and human rights include well received interviews with Noam Chomsky and mutual aid efforts.

Friday | 10.13
What: emme w/Astral Tomb, Polly Urethane, Coldglare, Hyasynth, Trenchfoot and Combat Sport
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: emme might be described as a performance artist whose accompanying music fits within a loose realm of industrial noise with elements of pop accessibility like a deconstruction of dance music and a subversion of noisenik expectation of format for presentation and generally accepted aesthetics and methods. So of course Polly Urethane from Denver is an appropriate artist to share the bill whose shows can range from almost pure performance art to industrial pop and deconstructed scene nü metal to industrial noise, classical music sampling and operatic vocals and pop songcraft. The first half of the show will be live music and the second half running into the late night will be more DJ sets.

Friday | 10.13
What: Church Fire tour kickoff w/Voight, Weathered Statues and Bell Mine
When: 9 doors 9:30 show
Where: The Broadway Roxy
Why: Church Fire are set to go out for three weeks taking its playfully confrontational yet emotionally vulnerable and harrowing industrial dance music to places far and wide. A reformed Voight will treat you to industrialized shoegaze post-punk and maybe a bad joke or two. Weathered Statues is the most pure death rock/post-punk band out of Denver aside from maybe Plague Garden and definitely for fans of Xmal Deutschland and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Bell Mine is an electro-acoustic ambient synth pop band with lushly elegant production.

Friday | 10.13
What: Corsicana album release w/Joseph Lamar and Gazes
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Corsicana is celebrating the release of its new album Kept with this show sharing the stage with experimental R&B and psychedelic pop artist Joseph Lamar and avant-indie rock trio supergroup Gazes which includes former members of Tyto Alba and Male Blonding. Kept is another collection of keenly observed indie rock in that more soft tone shoegaze vein. The album is being released on digital and limited edition vinyl.

Saturday | 10.14
What: JOHN w/Tunic and Supreme Joy
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: JOHN (TIMESTWO) is an acclaimed punk duo from London, UK that recently released its fourth album A Life Diagrammatic. With just guitar from Johnny Healey and John Newton on drums and vocals, the group’s driving and intense yet emotionally nuanced songs hit with the force of the conviction of the lyrics that often examine the pitfalls of modern life and the corrosive effects of capitalism as it has been crushing down on most of us all our lives. Within the band’s music you can hear warps and bends in the rhythm and tones to amplify a sense of liberated thrill and sense of freedom in the music as an act of resistance. Touring with JOHN this time out is Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada’s noise rock trio Tunic. In April Tunic released its own new record Wrong Dream which sounds like new territory for the group and some of its most emotionally devastating material to date. It has a similarly disciplined structure and rhythm one might expect from earlier releases but with great splashes of spiky noise and fragmented emotion reflecting not only personal turmoil but a deeply human reaction to the seemingly myriad barrage of challenges floating around the world like a caustic, psychic pollution.Opening is Denver’s Supreme Joy, a band that is an outlet for the more lo-fi garage-y post-punk songwriting of Ryan Wong who some may know for his membership in psychedelic pop rock band Easy Ease, having been in psych garage band Cool Ghouls and more recently for his fine country songcraft.

The Mountain Goats, photo by Jackie Lee Young

Friday and Saturday | 10.13 and 10.14
What: The Mountain Goats w/Mikaela Davis
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre (10.13) and Gothic Theatre (10.14)
Why: The Mountain Goats are one of the most beloved indie rock bands going. Led by frontman, guitarist and primary songwriter John Darnielle since its foundation in 1991, The Mountain Goats have somehow managed to have some great consistency of style and sound without seeming to ever stuck in a rut. The earnest and scrappy energy of the songs and Darnielle’s literary yet not pretentious lyrics seem to tap into some element of the zeitgeist at the time of writing that brings a freshness of spirit to inform the performances and sound. Its 2023 album Jenny From Thebes sounds like it had to have been written by a newer band maybe two or three years into its career speaking to Darnielle’s ability to reinvent yet dip into the well of his legacy in creative ways.

Saturday | 10.14
What: The Happy Fits w/Windser and Hot Freaks
When: 7
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: The Happy Fits’ sound seems like it was influenced a bit by late 2000s indie rock when bands were trying to figure out how to be joyous and embrace their quirky sense of humor without having to lean too hard into being self-aware. Its own unabashedly upbeat songs have thus been able to be able to have some fun with what it’s like to be an imperfect human dealing with the multiple excessive demands of modern life but having fun with it in a way that is unmistakable but not dire. It’s a nice balancing trick and to do so with a free-spirited energy in the form of catchy pop songs is no mean feat. Windser released his debut EP Where The Redwoods Meet the Sea in 2022 with its handful of songs that aimed to capture his memories of earlier in life resulting in a dreamlike and nostalgic that felt like a reconciliation of the past with the present. His newer singles “Get Lost” and “Friends I Barely Know” take the concepts of the EP and expands upon them for an effect like a dream pop version of The War on Drugs.

Sunday | 10.15
What: Ulrika Spacek w/Holy Wave and Wave Decay
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ulrika Spacek from London, UK sounds like it absorbed a great deal of krautrock and 60s and 70s avant-garde music on its 2023 album Compact Trauma but channeled it into a kind of synthesis of art-y post-punk, math rock and psychedelia. Definitely for fans of FACs. Holy Wave from Austin, TX brings to this show its spectral, drifty, synth-driven psychedelic pop and currently supporting its new record Five of Cups. Wave Decay fuses motorik beats with heavy shoegaze guitar wizardry.

Monday | 10.16
What: Better Lovers w/Suicide Cages and Muscle Beach
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Better Lovers started in 2023 bringing together Stephen Micciche, Clayton Holyoak and Jordan Buckley formerly of prominent metalcore band Everytime I Die with Will Putney of Fit For An Autopsy and Greg Pusciato who some may know as the frontman for influential metalcore group Dillinger Escape Plan, darkwave outfit The Black Queen and alt metal supergroup Killer Be Killed. The lead single from the band “30 Under 13” and the debut EP God Made Me an Animal are a bit of what you might expect which is to say the fusion of hardcore and extreme metal done right and with a furious energy that has translated well to its live shows thus far. Opening this Denver show are two heavy hitters from that world of where extreme metal and hardcore collide with Suicide Cages and Muscle Beach. If what Better Lovers is doing is your thing definitely catch the locals for this gig.

Madison Cunningham on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in January 2023, photo by Todd Owyoung/NBC

Tuesday and Wednesday | 10.17 and 10.18
What: Hozier w/Madison Cunningham
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Hozier is artist from Ireland whose blend of folk, blues and blue-eyed soul hit the big time with his 2013 single “Take Me To Church” and seemed to have come out of nowhere at age 23. But Andrew Hozier-Byrne was a member of choral group Anúna from 2007 to 2012. The song to those that didn’t delve deeper might have seemed like some call to go back to one’s roots in traditional culture but the song addressed homophobia and the bare bones music video went viral through Reddit. Since then Hozier has built upon his early boost for a career of earnest and impassioned songwriting and on point activism. Opening these shows is Madison Cunningham whose third album, 2022’s Revealer, won a Grammy for “Best Folk Album.” Often those awards don’t mean much and Cunningham’s record features unorthodox instrumentation for a folk album including electric guitar and keyboards but her spirited vocals and inventive musicianship is right out of the folk tradition and channeled into a pop format with guitar work that shifts effortlessly between the intricate and the spare to perfectly suit the mood of the moment. Fans of Neko Case and Jenny Lewis’ own more folk-oriented songs will appreciate what Cunningham has to offer.

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Holy Fawn w/Carcara and lowheaven
When: 6:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Cosmic black metal band Holy Fawn returns to Denver with a show at Meow Wolf to demonstrate its arresting and moving fusion of black metal, ambient music and at times emo. Philadelphia-based post-hardcore group Caracara will offer the kind of music that sounds like punk kids that got into shoegaze through rediscovering the more atmospheric end of stuff like Mineral and Sunny Day Real Estate and injected tender and raw emotions into driving yet ethereal melodies. Toronto’s lowheaven is somehow screamo, dark post-punk and space rock in a way that might remind some of when Coalesce got a little weird.

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Laufey w/Adam Melchor
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Laufey is an Icelandic singer-songwriter who describes her particular musical style as “modern jazz.” What that means when you listen is the kind of sensibility like something out of a jazz club in the 1960s maybe in a more Southern European or South American country with a touch of pop Bossa Nova. Laufey grew up around classical music with a grandfather who was a violin teacher in China at the Central Conservatory of Music and in her teens she was a cello solist with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and later graduated from Berklee. Her debut EP Typical of Me garnered her critical acclaim and won a fan in Billie Eilish. In 2023 Laufey released her second full length Bewitched which has the kind of sonic touches and sophistication of composition one would expect from a Rodgers and Hammerstein production but applied to the relative short scale of lush and emotionally delicate jazz pop songs. Also on this bill is Adam Melchor who began making a name for himself writing lullabies. But he’s greatly expanded upon what he learned from operating in that modest format. Yet there is a hushed, delicate aspect to his songwriting paired with warm, earnest, thoughtful observations that at times might be considered lullabies for adults. His latest EP Fruitlands has a quality like short snapshots reflecting slices of life yearning for something more meaningful and reflecting on the small joys in life cast in vivid and instantly relatable details and hazy melodies.

Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin circa 2018, photo courtesy the artists

Wednesday | 10.18
What: Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin Live Screening of Dario Argento’s and Lamberto Bava’s Demons Goblin
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Claudio Simonetti was one of the founding members of Italian progressive rock band Goblin who are perhaps best known for their soundtracks for some of the great horror films of the 1970s and 1980s including Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso aka Deep Red (1975) and Suspiria (1977) as well as Argento’s cut of George Romer’s Dawn of the Dead (1978). But the group basically dissolved in 1982 and its members went on to other projects including Simonetti scoring Argento’s 1985 film with another horror legend Lamberto Bava and Demons. This is of course a live screening of the film with Claudio Simonetti’s version of Goblin.

Thursday | 10.19
What: Darlingside
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Boston’s Darlingside released its latest album Everything Is Alive in 2023 and it sounds like something written to reflect a day of deep reflection and small journeys visiting friends and being reminded of the memories that anchor your psyche after a long period of feeling adrift without realizing it. Its orchestrated arrangements preserve an intimate feel with instrumental performances that sound like you are there playing the music yourself and joining in on not just the music but the psychological journey undertaken to reconnect with oneself. If this is indie folk it’s more in the vein of more existential artists like Iron & Wine and anyone else with a foot in psychedelic folk of the 70s and one in modern production methods that help to render the sonic details of the songwriting in vivid contrasts.

Friday | 10.20
What: Sextile and N8NOFACE
When: 8
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Sextile is a post-punk band from Los Angeles that has been releasing music for several years that focuses on lush and hazy soundscapes and ethereal melodies. Particularly on its 2023 album Push. The effect is more like a shoegaze band and one steeped in electronic soundscaping. The new record feels like a 90s downtempo band with a different sound palette and an ear for tonal melancholia. N8NOFACE is an electro punk artist whose aggressive and distorted electronic beats is reminiscent of something like Realicide with similarly pointed lyrical content.

Acid Mothers Temple, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 10.21
What: Acid Mothers Temple w/The Stargazer Lilies and Night Fishing
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Acid Mothers Temple has been together since 1995 under the leadership of guitarist Kawabata Makoto and its alchemical fusion of krautrock, Japanese folk, noise, space rock and cosmic glam has kept its sound fresh over the course of various incarnations and lineups with live shows that are as mind-altering and as intense as the name of the band suggests. The Stargazer Lilies sound like a thoroughly entrancing mix of some trippy 60s hip lounge film and futuristic, epic journey through a star rich sector of outer space. It has a transcendent, luminous quality and a sense of mystery that one would have to peel back decades of jaded and conditioned music listening to remember how it felt to first hear Slowdive’s album Pygmalion to recapture but you can just go ahead and see the band touring with its 2022 album Cosmic Tidal Wave living up to its name as well.

The Stargazer Lilies, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 10.21
What: Botch w/Primitive Man
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Botch is the legendary and influential metalcore/mathcore band from Tacoma, Washington that formed in 1993 and for nearly a decade helped to define a sound and an attitude of a movement throughout that time that was not in line with the prevailing threads of alternative rock, metal or hardcore. But its abrasive and driving sound didn’t lack for mood and atmospherics and one could easily imagine the band sharing bills with the likes of Unwound and Heroin. The group reformed in 2022 and this is its first wide national tour. Opening is Primitive Man whose own brutally heavy version of metal has some roots in noise rock and hardcore as well with its own internationally respected gift for sculpting sounds and moods that feel like an indisputable truth of human existence given sonic form.

Saturday | 10.21
What: Midwife w/Fainting Dreams and Kelly Garlick
When: 7
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: Midwife brings her heartbreaking ambient folk heaviness to the Mercury for a night with dream pop legends in the making Fainting Dreams and avant-ambient and musique concrète producer Kelly Garlick whose own emotionally rich compositions hit heavily in the feels as well.

Sunday | 10.22
What: Deeper w/World’s Worst and Gazes
When: 8/8:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Deeper from Chicago has long been a band for connoisseurs of post-punk with its live show hitting like an angular version of The Cure with its rich synth tones and the physicality of its rhythms. Its 2023 album Careful! doesn’t feel like as much of an exorcism of anguished emotions as its 2020 album Auto-Pain but the math-y changes are evocative and pull you into the momentum of the music and its unconventional melodies with vocals seeming to strike a certain tenor and the synths at a complimentary counter resonance. The songs have great forward momentum but the emotional range is wide and the soundscapes easy to get lost following. Gazes is a dream pop/post-punk band consisting of former members of the great dream pop group Tyto Alba and local post-punk greats Male Blonding. World’s Worst is an emo-informed post-punk band with shoegaze leanings from Salt Lake City.

Brian Jonestown Massacre circa 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 10.23
What: The Brian Jonestown Massacre w/Asteroid No. 4
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The Brian Jonestown Massacre is the long-running and influential psychedelic rock band originally from the Bay Area now based in Berlin where leader, lyricist, songwriter, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Anton Newcombe lives and has his studio. The BJM’s latest album The Future Is Your Past (2023) has garnered great critical acclaim with some writers saying how it’s the group’s best record in years. And sure it has that signature finely crafted fusion of folk psychedelia and other musical styles infused so deeply into the songcraft it feels like Newcombe is operating on a conceptual as much as broadly emotional level as a songwriter with an ear for fine details. Sure you’ll hear classic BJM elements but within this new set of songs you’ll hear Newcombe’s gift for reinvention without the need to scrap what he’s done before unless it serves the art in moving forward and you’ll hear plenty of musical experimentation and for the discerning listener his latest passions in experimenting with musicianship and production. At the show you’ll likely see one of the classic lineups playing some of your favorite songs from the band’s back catalog but maybe even some of the excellent new material.

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Blonde Redhead w/Angelica Garcia
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Blonde Redhead proved itself worthy of interest and its own creative evolution throughout the 90s and 2000s with going from a more noisy, No Wave-esque art-y post-punk of its early days to a shift toward more lush sounds and introspective dream pop around the turn of the century. All along the group’s songwriting ambition was clear if not overtly stated and the arc of albums from 2000’s Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons, 2004’s Misery Is a Butterfly and 23 from 2007 firmly established the group as a powerful live presence with thoughtful and thought-provoking albums that reached wider audiences. After 2014’s Barragán, Blonde Redhead didn’t release much new material though vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Kazu Makino released her first solo album Adult Baby in 2019 with guest performances from Ryuichi Sakamoto, Ian Chang (Son Lux), Greg Saunier (Deerhoof) and Mauro Refosco. In 2023 Blonde Redhead dropped its new album Sit Down for Dinner, a record of what might be described as tranquil, pastoral soundscape pop sprinkled with field recordings and arranged like a minimalist, experimental jazz record but still brimming with the vibrant emotional nuance that has made its best material so entrancing.

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Fearing w/Sacred Skin
When: 7
Where: The Crypt
Why: Fearing made a name for itself in the heady days of 2010s darkwave and the then post-punk revival with its moody take on a death rock sound that would become de rigeur in certain circles of post-punk. That is to say somewhat lo-fi but using that aesthetic to create a tinge of mystery rather than simply chasing a style. What sets it apart from some cookie cutter post-punk is the elegantly gorgeous guitar work and ear for atmospherics over driving and present low end. The group is currently touring in support of its latest record Destroyer.

Wolves in the Throne Room, photo from Bandcamp

Tuesday | 10.24
What: Wolves in the Throne Room w/Blackbraid, Garea and Hoaxed
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Wolves in the Throne Room released its new EP Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge on September 29, 2023 via Relapse Records. Across its long career WITTR have explored various expressions of its roots in black metal, folk and ambient music including an entire album of synthesizer music Celestite (2014) as a companion record to its 2011 album Celestial Lineage. Around the time of that album the group announced it would reduce its touring cycle of old and for a time seeing the band live wasn’t as common an occurrence and even now a chance to see its majestic and pastoral, deeply atmospheric, transcendental black metal is a rare treat. Not a band for black metal purists, the new EP sounds like a blend of all its creative impulses for a set of songs that are expansive, immersive and hypnotic.

Wednesday | 10.25
What: Addison Grace w/Madilyn Mei and Brye
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Non-binary singer-songwriter Addison Grace released their debut album Diving Lessons on September 29, 2023. Grace got a hold of a ukulele from their brother at 13 and seeing YouTubers use the instrument as a vehicle for songwriting and started making songs of their own and performed them at coffee shops while working various retail jobs. The early songs found an outlet on YouTube in 2017 and comprised bedroom cover songs that Grace took also to Instagram and TikTok. One of these performances in which Grace was wearing a Cavetown sweatshirt caught the attention of that band’s management. Through that connection Grace was signed to Warner’s Level Music and Grace got on a tour with popular indie pop artist Chloe Moriondo whose own bedroom compositions found a wide audience. The acoustic demo of “I Wanna Be a Boy” released in late 2020 went viral on YouTube. And yes TikTok has also been good for Grace’s career and reach as an artist. What makes Grace interesting and compelling, though, is none of these factoids but rather the songwriting itself. Yes, the vulnerable exploration of various aspects of identity that seem especially sensitive and thoughtful though rendered in vivid personal details that resonate beyond specific context. His new single “SLIME!” has a layered emotional impact with a joyous spirit but with a tinge of melancholic melody. Grace’s vocals are nuanced and expressive across a wide and complex spectrum of emotion which is the hallmark of any pop artist worth one’s attention.

Thursday | 10/26
What: Stuck w/Forty Feet Tall and Dry Ice
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Stuck released its latest record Freak Frequency in May 2023 and treated the world to a set of eccentric, wiry and frantic art punk. The title says it all, really, and it captures an anxious desperation of the current era. The vocals border on hysteria while wandering among noisy, atonal sounds that warp and modulate and pulse with a sense of menace at times and in others the melodic calm of that time of life when you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop on a dire situation and there’s something thrilling about these emotional territories Stuck seems to traverse. For fans of Protomartyr, IDLES and Parquet Courts.

Friday | 10.27
What: Bison Bone album release w/The Patti Fiasco
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Bison Bone recently released its new EP 40 Grit. As the name suggests the stories across the EP’s five tracks are tales of everyday endurance and honing the rough edges of life to where it more suits your existence in the moment and to get through more trying patches. Its warm melodies and Courtney Whitehead’s introspective yet direct vocal style engages thetpo listener and the elegantly orchestrated music pulls you into an intimate and vividly observed moments the highlight moments that aren’t the stuff of striving and grinding and performative positivity of a lot of pop and rock music. But they are the stuff of real life that anchor your memories and stay with you for a lifetime. Whitehead seems skilled in putting together his own experiences in contexts that can resonate with people who recognize the psychological and emotional truth in a well crafted narrative enmeshed in music. Bison Bone formed in the mid-2010s after Whitehead moved to Denver from Oklahoma via Texas and found a community in which he could share his songwriting and find collaborators who got his creative vision and style of working class stories that didn’t glorify the lifestyle so much as highlight the inherent dignity of experiences most of us have and which translate well to the style of music Bison Bone offers which is to say Americana and at times a touch of psychedelia and country but informed by the humanistic psychological insights and poetry of Bruce Springsteen and Uncle Tupelo.

Julian St. Nightmare, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.27
What: Julian St. Nightmare, Hex Cassette, Team Nonexistent and Sell Farm
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Julian St. Nightmare is a post-punk band from Denver that has never been penned in by adherence to expected genre style. Rather its fusion of darkwave, surf rock, art rock and post-punk is a vehicle for its impassioned and emotionally immersive songwriting and richly imagined songwriting. Hex Cassette brings his industrial dance death cult act to this show to challenge the audience to let loose and have some fun because life is a shadow of itself if you’re not having fun at least some of the time and not taking absurd artistic expressions too seriously. Team Nonexistent is a band that seems to be drawing some inspiration from original grunge and modern punk and infusing it with a raw energy and earnest emotions. Sell Farm is a solo act informed by electronic industrial music and big beat and dub sound sculpting.

Friday | 10.27
What: Sorcha Richardson w/PAPA
When: 6
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sorcha Richardson is a Dublin-Ireland-based singer-songwriter whose soft and thoughtful pop songs blur the line between synth and indie pop with gently expressed introspective lyrics and a clear command of atmosphere and mood. In 2022 she released her latest album Smiling Like an Idiot and one has to applaud that level of self-deprecating awareness of one’s own shortcomings and charms. PAPA is Darren Weiss who took an extended break from the project after 2016 and spent some time as a session and touring drummer for people like Lana Del Rey, Albert Hammond Jr., Perfume Genius and Sky Ferreira. But he relaunched the band and released the new album Dig Yourself Or Dig A Hole on October 13, 2023. Recording with Devendra Banhart keyboard player Tyler Cash and violinist Daphne Chen, Weiss offers an album of pop music in a retro style and one that hints at the influence of people like Scott Walker and Bruce Springsteen or maybe more modern songwriters like Britt Daniels and Dan Boeckner. It’s an album that sounds like the current season when fall trickles toward winter and examining one’s regrets and sitting in one’s emotions and sorting them out with flares of the melodramatic in your heart.

Bambara at TV Eye in 2021, photo courtesy Bambara

Saturday | 10.28
What: Gilla Band w/Bambara
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Bambara has been slowly, because organically, building its reputation as one of the most original and compelling of post-punk bands in the current wave of that music. But the band began in 2001 in Athens, Georgia and released its earlier albums under the name 23jinx. At some point the group comprised of twin brothers Reid Bateh (lead vocals, guitar) and Blaze Bateh (drums) and William Brookshire (bass) changed their name to Bambara after a character in the animated series Æon Flux which many may remember from its broadcast on the Liquid Television segment of MTV. In 2018 Bambara got a big boost from Joe Talbot of IDLES declaring Shadow on Everything his favorite album of 2018 and the group was invited to open some dates on the IDLES tour of that year including a memorable performance at Larimer Lounge. There’s a dark, bluesy quality to the music reminiscent of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds but more punk and perhaps looking back to Nick Cave’s previous band The Birthday Party. Bambara is reissuing its early albums Dreamviolence and Swarm on double vinyl expected out November 1, 2023. Also sharing this bill is Irish, experimental post-punk outfit Gilla Band. Formerly known as Girl Band, the group’s fusion of more rock songwriting with raw noise and the aesthetics of bombastic electronic big beat artists and No Wave disregard for how songs have to sound or be structured. All to thrilling effect.

Sunday | 10.29
What: Bluphoria and Noah Vonne co-headlining w/The Disasters and Sunstoney
When: 7
Where: The Black Buzzard
Why: Bluphoria is a band now based in Nashville, Tennessee that originally formed in 2019 when lead singer and lead guitarist Reign LaFreniere moved to Eugene, Oregon to study film. LaFreniere grew up in the East Bay and South Bay in California loving horror shorts and went to an arts high school that allowed students to rent/borrow video equipment and production software. Raised in a musical family, LaFreniere didn’t really start playing music until high school in his sophomore year after getting a guitar. On a trip on the John Muir trail a friend only had Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and some Simon and Garfunkel songs on a player and being in a setting where music wasn’t as readily accessible for long stretches gave him a deeper appreciation of its importance listening to that music. When he returned from that hiking trip he got into Jimi Hendrix as someone who looked like him playing music of that caliber with Hendrix’s singing style an inspiration for LaFreniere’s fledgling attempts as a vocalist. But his focus was on film until he got to Eugene, Oregon when he met like-minded students like Dakota Landrum (rhythm guitarist, backing vocals) and Rex Wolf (bass).

At one of the band’s house shows an EDGEOUT Records intern was in attendance and signed the group to EDGEOUT/UME/UMG in January 2021 around the time when drummer Dani Janae joined the group. A year later Bluphoria drove to Tennessee to record their self-titled debut full length album which released on May 5, 2023. Even a casual listen to the songs and even the band’s 2020 debut EP Alone reveals a knack for entrancing melodic hooks in a power pop style mixed with touches of psychedelic rock and what might be described as soulful garage punk. With LaFreniere’s commanding vocals providing some of the grit and emotional resonance fans of The Replacements and The Plimsouls will find a lot to like about what Bluphoria has to offer.

Monday | 10.30
What: Allah-Lahs w/Sam Burton
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Allah-Las released their new album Zuma 85 on October 13, 2023 via their own imprint Calico Discos. When the group launched in 2008 it was an early adopter of a retro psychedelic pop and rock sound that a few years later would explode with surf rock and psych garage bands gaining an ascendancy in popular music. But Allah-Las had the benefit of actually crafting the songs more so than simply the style. Its roots in folk and left field pop as well as the aforementioned psychedelic bands like The Zombies, The Kinks and Love has resulted in a surprisingly consistent body of quality songwriting with a live show that preserves some of the inherent mystery of the milieu of its most obvious influences. The new record establishes a deep sense of space and time and with its rich use of field recordings has a subtly cinematic quality that conveys a continuity throughout the album like a experiences from an extended lucid dream.

Tuesday | 10.31
What: Flooding w/Church Fire, Allison Lorenzen and Fainting Dreams
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Flooding is an experimental rock band from Kansas City, Missouri whose elemental noise rock seethes with the force of expelled outrage and trauma in bursts of jagged noise and movingly emotive vocals whether cast in cathartic screams or ethereal introspection. Its new album Silhouette Machine sounds like what a stark and detailed sketch of a bleak future in the eroded world of diminishing expectation that we see before us but one flickering with a scrappy and agonized hope in the seeming absence of it. Also on the bill is industrial dance revolutionaries Church Fire fresh from its tour and likely in fine performance shape, Allison Lorenzen’s tender, mystical, luminous ambient folk and the vulnerable and emotionally charged dream pop of Fainting Dreams.

Tuesday | 10.31
What: Becca Mancari w/Bloomsday
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Becca Mancari’s 2023 album Left Hand propels their folk-rooted songwriting into new territory. Lead single “Over and Over” is a queer joy anthem featuring Julien Baker and at the heart of the song is an expansive quality that makes each song on the record feel like being able to stretch out and feel free after prolonged periods of feeling trapped by circumstance, culture and one’s surroundings. Because of that the album’s music feels like something that settles in your brain with a gentle touch that eases ambient anxieties.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2023

**Troller performs at Lost Lake with The Body on August 24, 2023**

Thursday | 08.03
What: Weapönizer w/Abhoria and Belhor
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Weapönizer is a band from Denver that has been obliterating the line between classic thrash and black metal with songs that seem to be tales of a near future dystopia. Think something like Venom soundtracking a film that’s a collision of Mad Max and a grimy cyberpunk universe. Abhoria from Los Angeles is of a similar vintage but with more atmosphere and groove to its blunt abrasion. The group recently added local Denver metal and grind scene veteran Ben Pitts to the lineup. Belhor is a long-running, blackened death metal band that doesn’t play live as much these days but its corrosive sound and haunting songs have an undeniable visceral impact.

The Front Bottoms, photo by Jimmy Fontaine

Friday | 08.04
What: The Front Bottoms w/Say Anything and Kevin Devine & the Goddamn Band
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Depending on where you check in with New Jersey’s The Front Bottoms their brand of raw and emotional songwriting might be described as folk punk early on and an electro-acoustic form of emo later on as Brian Sella and Matthew Uychich have fully adopted a variety of sounds and styles as suited their evolving songwriting. Early material sounds like the duo listened to a lot of The Moldy Peaches, Andrew Jackson Jihad and Pat the Bunny. And yet established their own sound that brought a tender sensibility and personal insight to impassioned punk songs. For this show the group is doing something fairly unorthodox by having the album release show for You Are Who You Hang Out With, which releases this day, at Red Rocks with some like-minded friends. The latter includes Los Angeles-based emo legends Say Anything whose heartfelt anthems are a distillation and evolution of its 90s post-hardcore and pop punk influences. And yet Say Anything has never been limited to that realm of music and its songwriting reflects a focus on songwriting over style and Max Bemis’ lyics and intense live delivery comes across as the kind of honed poetry that comes from pulling directly from the essence of the emotional resonance of what inspired the outpouring of words. Its new single “Psyche” contains all of that as well as a confessional, unvarnished spoken word section like pages from an unedited diary entry and that’s what you get from the band—a direct line to some personal truth.

Illuminati Hotties, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 08.05
What: Boygenius w/illuminati hotties https://www.redrocksonline.com/events/boygenius-475298/
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Boygenius is the indie rock supergroup comprised of three of today’s most gifted songwriters formed by and comprised of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Their 2018 self-titled debut EP made a splash for its evocative amalgamation of the members’ unique gifts as artists and lyricists. In 2023 the group released its debut full-length, the somewhat cheekily titled The Record. Its fusion of delicate melodies and wide emotional range from the tender and introspective to the expansively cathartic, its tightly crafted, experimental atmospheric elements and rhythmic melodies proves not just that the debut Boygenius release wasn’t a fluke but that a collaborative record by three songwriters whose individual efforts are remarkable can be just as impressive. Opening the night is illuminati hotties fronted by music producer, mixer and studio engineer Sarah Tudzin. The band started out as a showcase of Tudzin’s technical skills outside of songwriting but the project’s 2018 album Kiss Yr Frenemies made it clear that her obvious talents behind a studio desk were equaled by her knack for crafting an ear worm indie rock/soft punk hook with slyly observational lyrics reminiscent of Liz Phair.

Kelly Garlick, photo courtesy the artist

Saturday | 08.05
What: Listening Lawn III: David Castillo & Silt, Snowflyer, Kelly Garlick, Entrancer, H-Lite, Combart Sport and DJ Ursa
When: 5-8 pm
Where: Carpio Sanguinette Park, Denver
Why: Denver-based experimental electronic music label Multidim is hosting its now so far annual event showcasing some of the most forward thinking, left field artists in the Denver area including new ambient star Kelly Garlick, modular synth genius Entrancer, dance glitch IDM experimentalist H-Lite, free jazz and dub mutant David Castillo and crafter of luminous, rhythmic ambient Snowflyer.

Monday | 08.07
What: Temple of Angels, Polly Urethane, Cherished and H Lite
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Temple of Angels formed in Austin in 2017 among hardcore and punk musicians Avery Burton, Patrick Todd and Cole Tucker who recruited Bre Morell as lead singer to explore more atmospheric sounds and more expansive sonics. After two EPs and a single the band released the Cocteau Twins-esque debut full-length Endless Pursuit on July 8, 2023. Joining the group or this show is modern classical/electronic pop/experimental industrial ambient-sample manipulation performance artist Polly Urethane whose shows always seem to be significantly different than the one before. As well as local shoegaze pop group Cherished who recently recorded their new record out of town and H Lite whose minimal techno glitch compositions are a playful progression beyond the usual blend of live hardware DJ sets and beatcrafting.

Gov’t Mule at Salvage Station in Asheville, NC on June 3, 2022, photo by David Simchok

Monday | 08.07
What: Gov’t Mule’s Dark Side of the Mule w/Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Gov’t Mule began life as a The Allman Brothers Band side project with current leader and gifted guitarist Warren Haynes and then bassist, the late Allen Woody. But even early on though the music is rooted in the kind of improvisational blues rock that the Allman Brothers made famous Mule has established itself as the kind of jam-oriented band that has taken the format and style in fascinating directions. Even if you were never into jam band music or modern blues or Southern rock in general Gov’t Mule is one of the few bands out of that milieu that has injected imaginative arrangements into the masterful musicianship to craft songs that have a widely emotional resonance and its detailed compositions aren’t merely a showcase for technical prowess, which is of course there, but making insightful commentary on life and the ways in which we make and find meaning. On the group’s new album Peace…Like A River finds Haynes and company weaving in introspective melodies and touches of a funky fluidity that truly expands the group’s already impressive songwriting range and includes guest performances from Billy Gibbons and Ivan Neville. As the name of this particular concert suggests, this is a performance of Gov’t Mule’s excellent interpretation of Pink Floyd’s 1973 masterpiece The Dark Side of the Moon. As well as choice cuts from across the band’s career. Jason Bonham, son of John Bonham of Led Zeppelin fame, will open the show with a selection of the songs of his father’s band.

Thursday | 08.10
What: Dear Nora w/Elaine
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Dear Nora is the long-running musical project of Katy Davidson. Formed in 1999 in Portland, Oregon, Dear Nora was one of the definitive bands of the turn of the century indiepop underground. With songs that offer a tender and perceptive observations of the quiet moments in life when you have time to consider what your feelings are really about beyond the immediate demands of a work world and the like, exposing a world where you have the time and emotional space to really live unburdened by the expectations of a commodified existence. In 2008 the project was sunsetted but re-emerged in 2017 for a tour and in 2018 Dear Nora started releasing new records once again the latest being 2022’s human futures. This will be a solo appearance by Davidson with local opener Elaine.

Friday | 08.11
What: Lower Tar (LA), K129, Precious Blood, Modern Devotion and CXCXCX
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This will be an all techno and noise show headlined by Los Angeles based industrial techno artist Lower Tar with sets from Denver-based, beat inflected harsh noise artist CXCXCX as well as Voight’s Adam Rojo putting in a rare performance with his techno solo side project Modern Devotion.

Friday | 08.11
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 1: Ghost Canyon Fest: GPR, Heet Deth, Quits, Moon Pussy, Shiny Around the Edges
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: The inaugural Ghost Canyon Fest kicks off with a slate of prominent bands in the noise rock and experimental rock world with the demented psychedelic noise of GPR, garage industrial psych group Heet Deth from Chicago, Denver noise rock legends Quits, Moon Pussy, the band that somehow combines sharp, absurd humor with harrowing and thrilling blasts of noisy not-punk and noisy shoegaze group Shiny Around the Edges from Loveland, Colorado.

Friday and Saturday | 08.11–08.12
What: The National w/The Beths
When: 7
Where: The Mission Ballroom
Why: The National is one of the most prominent bands out of the modern indie rock era that has somehow managed not to slide into a creatively rote niche. Its latest album First Two Pages of Frankenstein has a title that should appeal to literature nerds but it’s not merely clever rhetoric. It is an album that came together during a time of great uncertainty and personal turmoil for the band once its tour for I Am Easy to Find (2019) was canceled when the whole live music world shut down for an extended time and the aftermath of that time of imposed performance exile. Frontman and lyricist Matt Berninger, according to a January 2023 article in Clash, struggled to come up with lyrics and melodies for a ninth album and things seemed up in the air but when taking some different songwriting approaches and writing from what feels like a raw and vulnerable place the resultant record seems much more introspective and reflective than usual even for a band not short on those qualities. Like a big reassessment of life and what has helped define it for you and the foundations of your identity. The single “Eucalyptus” contains references to The Cowboy Junkies and The Afghan Whigs and searching through the things in your life that you don’t notice until you’re forced to look at them and these disparate details embodied in the things in your possession and what they represent or represented and the memories they stir and the conflicted swirl of emotions that can sink you except the song, like the rest of the album, feels like a gentle, personal reckoning and returning to find what makes life meaningful all over again on a new basis, a process which can be rough and make you feel like you’ve not found your footing but The National has give us music to perhaps ease this process with a spirit of solidarity that has in many ways always been a hallmark of its songwriting. Also, don’t miss The Beths from Auckland, New Zealand whose eclectic indie rock is in the grand tradition of Kiwi Rock in which all the bands sound different from each other and all manage to write incredibly catchy and clever music that could have come from nowhere else with an idiosyncratic style that can be easy to miss because the groups are so energetic and charming. The Beths’ fusion of fuzzy psych pop and shoegaze soundscaping at times in equal measure will take you by surprise even if you’ve seen them before.

Saturday | 08.12
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Matinee Show: Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE), Many Blessings, New Standards Men/Sex Funeral and ABANDONS
When: 1
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This afternoon matinee edition of Ghost Canyon Fest includes a solo performance from Mat Ball of BIG|BRAVE, the industrial noise stylings of Ethan McCarthy for his Many Blessings project, a collaborative set from post-rock/avant-garde rock band New Standards Men and free jazz weirdos Sex Funeral and heavy post-rock group ABANDONS from Denver.

Pleasure Venom, photo by Ismael Quantinillailliq

Saturday | 08.12
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 2: Pleasure Venom, Rick McGuire (Pile), Big’N, Endless, Nameless, Hoaries and Almanac Man
When: 7/7:30
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The second night of Ghost Canyon fest will feature sets from avant-garage post-punk group Pleasure Venom, a solo set from Rick McGuire of noisy guitar post-punkers Pile, Chicago noise rock legends Big’N performing a rare live set after recently reforming, post-hardcore/post-shoegaze/post-rock heroes Endless, Nameless, fuzzy, angular post-punk group Hoaries from Texas and Almanac Man’s amplified noisy attitude and heavy riffs.

Mary Gauthier, photo by Alexa King Stone

Saturday | 08.12
What: Mary Gauthier w/Jaimee Harris
When: 8-10
Where: Swallow Hill – Daniels Hall
Why: Mary Gauthier lived a whole life before launching her professional music career at age 35 in the late 90s. As an orphan Gauthier started life in challenging circumstances and struggled with alcoholism, drug addition and emotional and physical abuse, particularly as a gay woman in the 60s and 70s. But she weathered these storms and tried college as a philosophy major before going to culinary school and opened a Cajun restaurant in Boston called Dixie Kitchen after which she named her 1997 debut album. Her latest record is 2022’s Dark Enough to See the Stars and she is currently touring a series of career retrospective shows that feature her songs, steeped in folk and country styles, that seem to fuse a hardened resolve with a raw vulnerability to produce a particular resonant body of work. If Tom Waits and Bob Dylan are fans of your music you’re probably doing something right. Gauthier is also a published author whose fiction has appeared in numerous books and magazines and her memoir and statement on art and a peek into her craft of songwriting Saved by a Song: The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting appeared in 2021 to great acclaim.

Sunday | 08.13
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 3: BIG|BRAVE, Masma Dream World, Church Fire, Dug, Flooding, Only Echoes, Abandoncy
When: 6:30/7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This final night of the Ghost Canyon Fest will be an opportunity to witness the thorny and elemental grandeur of BIG|BRAVE’s soundscapes, Masma Dream World’s unique sonic vision part spiritual performance art and part ambient composition, Church Fire bringing the heavy dance beats and catharsis of political commentary, Dug’s grindy noise rock, Flooding’s dark dream pop and post-punk, the post-metal and soaring melodies of Only Echos and Abandoncy’s riotous collision of guitar splinter and broken rhythms.

Monday | 08.14
What: Bully w/Bev Rage & The Drinks
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Alicia Bognanno helped to usher in the modern period of the fusion of grunge and modern indie rock with her band Bully in 2013. The singer and songwriter had earned a degree in audio recording and interned with Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio studios where she recorded demos before moving to Nashville to work at Battle Tapes Recording as an engineer and at the music venue The Stone Fox. The early Bully records sure sounded like what might be dismissed as “neo-grunge” but Bognanno’s songwriting shined through the superficial comparisons and live Bognanno has an authenticity and command of the stage that’s mesmerizing and from there the music seems fresh and powerful and not like a throwback. The new Bully album Lucky For You is peak songwriting for Bognanno with her signature use of sonic bombast to contrast with an unvarnished introspection and emotional honesty. Some critics have described it as darker and perhaps moodier but the record’s candid observations and confessional quality is without doubt a great degree of its appeal.

Tuesday | 08.15
What: Everything is Terrible Kidz Klub! 2023 Summer Tour
When: 6
Where: Convergence Station
Why: Since 2007 Everything Is Terrible! has mined the detritus of media cultural artifacts from thrift stores, garage sales and the like in the form of VHS tapes and in more recent years some streaming video for content to recontextualize clips of the most absurd and awful videos into informative and hilariously disturbing new forms. EIT helped to propel trash media culture into the mainstream of meme-making with its now nine found footage documentaries that shine a light on what our culture has produced and often decided to forget the way it does the rest of disposable media that reveals often uncomfortable truths about the submerged aspirations and dreams of our collective, modern civilization. Since 2009 the artist collective has toured with screenings of its films and have incorporated a puppet variety show and music to add just that special little layer of the surreal and weird to enhance the viewing experience of the people that show up. Perhaps the collective’s most infamous project is its goal of collecting thousands of VHS copies of the 1996 film Jerry Maguire with the goal of building a pyramid from the tapes in the desert. As of May 2023, the collection has reached 40,000+ copies and counting. In 2022 EIT released perhaps its greatest and most coherent creation to date, Kidz Klub! The film draws on the sheer dreck of the most misguided and misconceived television and home video programming made for children designed to educate and in many cases indoctrinate the nation’s youth. Even a casual viewing of the movie reveals recurring themes that edited together seem to be a continuous narrative with a touch of hypnotic reputation. For this iteration of the collective’s creative output the soundtrack pulled both from the original source material and original composition establishes the perfect air of the hyper real and otherworldly at once. In the live setting the movie is split up into roughly 5-10 minute sections interspersed with the puppet show and dance and song routines giving it the air of a psychedelic variety show in real time. It’s the kind of thing no one was asking for but which we all needed as a dose of sanity in a world in which we are increasingly bombarded with random content disconnected from the endless stream that is life itself. Listen to our interview with Commodore Gilgamesh of Everything Is Terrible! on the Queen City Sounds Podcast here.

Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.15 and 08.16
What: Beck, Phoenix, Japanese Breakfast and Sir Chloe
When: 5/5:45
Where: Red Rocks
Why: This duo of concerts features three generations of the best alternative/indie rock bands of the past 30 years. Beck made great waves in the mid-90s as alternative rock was flaming out as a movement by not being limited to narrow genres of rock. He went beyond the more creative singer-songwriter and folk rock sound of his early music into more and more sonically adventurous records throughout the 90s and beyond establishing an idiosyncratic vision that connected with an audience that wasn’t ready to embrace a mediocre creative conformity. Phoenix from Versaille, France, launched in 1995 the same time as labelmates Air. Whereas the latter perfected atmospheric, experimental lounge pop, Phoenix went on to a career of different kind of sophisticated synth pop. Most American audiences probably first heard the group, at least those with a taste for arthouse cinema, in the soundtracks of Lost in Translation and Shallow Hal. But the group broke out of cult band status following the release of 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and undeniably appealing singles like “Lisztomania” and “1901.” 2022’s Alpha Zulu proved that Phoenix wasn’t out of ideas and had absorbed recent production ideas and utilized that in the songwriting itself. Japanese Breakfast started as a side project for Michelle Zauner then also of indie rock band Little Big League. But with the new band Zauner had the full freedom to use it as a vehicle for not only writing songs about the tragedies in her personal life but also to transform her creative expression completely and after the first album Zauner proved herself entirely capable of writing ambitious art rock as well as heartfelt synth pop as well as evocative soundtrack work. Sir Chloe is at the beginning of a similar arc of development with the 2023 release of its debut album I Am the Dog with its knowing songs exploring identity and the roots of one’s yearnings and how that can shape the course of lives in ways both unexpected and seemingly inevitable. The songs are a mixture of the ethereal and introspective and more thorny and gritty that might be favorably compared to the early albums of St. Vincent.

Wednesday | 08.16
What: Shamarr Allen
When: 6
Where: Dazzle
Why: Shamarr Allen has been a professional musician in his hometown of New Orleans since he was a teenage member of Rebirth Brass Band. Allen grew up playing trumpet in a musical family and steeped in the rich and diverse musical traditions and legacies of the city as reflected across his varied and active career. Allen has cited Willie Nelson as his favorite songwriter and Prince, Pharrell Williams, Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones as influences. Allen calls his style “bridge music” because it brings together a variety of sounds and musical leanings. He has collaborated with Harry Connick, Patti LaBelle, Lenny Kravitz, Willie Nelson and local legends Galactic. In 2009 he released his debut solo album and performed the National Anthem for President Barack Obama in New Orleans which lead to an invitation to play at the Governor’s Ball at the White House and serving as a musical/cultural ambassador for the United States to Brazil, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Congo. In 2020 Allen established Trumpet Is My Weapon, a gun exchange program following the death of a nine-year-old and the wonding of two other children in a shooting in New Orleans. In 2023 Allen released his latest album True Orleans 2 (due August 18, 2023), a sonically inventive set of songs that is at times reminiscent of a great southern hip-hop album but one informed by pop songcraft, R&B, soul and jazz and long on wit and sharp social observation.

Friday | 08.18
What: Dead On A Sunday w/Haunt Me and Hex Cassette https://www.bluebirdtheater.net/events/detail/476291
When: 8
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Denver-based post-punk band Dead On A Sunday is headlining this hometown show ahead of its extensive tour in September and October. As for the variety of post-punk think somewhere between darkwave and alternative hard rock depending on the song and release. But however the style might be described these people have a sense of rock theater in a way that seems taboo among local bands in general more like an L.A. band with a glam rock/art rock attitude. Haunt Me is a darkwave duo whose fog enshrouded live show does nothing to hide the joyful energy of its songwriting that seems to contrast with the melancholic subject matter of its lyrics. Hex Cassette is the one man EBM blood cult whose wickedly humorous stage presence, often cajoling and goading the audience, is all part of a delivery system for well crafted industrial dance music that he often says is about death but which is more often than not stories with actual poignancy or at least melodramatic fictionalizing of real life events to highly entertaining effect.

Judge Roughneck, photo by Hi-Def Photography

Saturday | 08.19
What: Reggae on the Rocks: Rebelution, Iration, The Abyssinians, The Expendables, The Skatalites, Passafire, Judge Roughneck and DJ Mackie
When: 1
Where: Red Rocks
Why: The nearly annual showcase for some of today’s most noteworthy acts in modern reggae. Rumor has it this might be the final edition of the event so if this is up your alley consider making it.

Jess Williamson, photo by Jackie Lee Young

Sunday | 08.20
What: Jess Williamson w/Snakes and Patrick Dethlefs
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Acclaimed songwriter is making an appearance in Denver in support of the July release of her new album Time Ain’t Accidental. The latter allows for subtle musical interplay to frame and accent Williamson’s expressive voice and allowing it to guide the rhythm and pace in an almost intuitive fashion as she sings vulnerable and open songs about heartbreak and personal rediscovery and self-reconciliation coming to terms with missteps and coming out of a prolonged period of isolation and stasis. While Williamson’s frustrations are on display on the album it always seems, even when painfully honest, to be rendered in terms that undisguised but gentle and never simplistic. Williamson has never been one to mince words as a songwriter but on this new record her approach seems to be one anchored even more in rich personal detail that seem immediately relatable and which resonate widely.

Vision Video, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 08.22
What: Vision Video w/Urban Heat and Redwing Blackbird
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Vision Video is the unabashedly Goth and New Wave-inflected post-punk band from Athens, Georgia. They look the part. They act the part. Singer/guitarist Dusty Gannon even has a hilarious yet endearing and engaging “Goth Dad” persona in his social media presence with videos of advice and information about the subculture for younger Goths everywhere. But the songs are incredibly thoughtful, well crafted and not a cliché and the live show is impassioned and commanding. Urban Heat from Austin, Texas is also a post-punk band whose focus appears to be the more electronic end of that with soul style vocals but with a sensibility akin to that of Sisters of Mercy but more synth pop. Redwing Blackbird from Denver has similarly-minded aesthetics but with a robustly, shoegaze-inflected guitar style to bolster the electronic side of the songwriting.

Wednesday | 08.23
What: W.I.T.C.H. w/Metius (Jacco Gardner)
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: W.I.T.C.H. is the legendary Zamrock band making its second appearance in as many years in Denver bringing its fun-loving psychedelic rock that threads seamlessly together blues and garage rock and more traditional African popular musical forms.

Thursday | 08.24
What: The Body w/Troller and Dead Times
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Body is the experimental metal duo originally from Providence, Rhode Island but now based out of the opposite end of the country in Portland, Oregon. Since 1999, Chip King and Lee Buford have pushed the boundaries of extreme music by switching up the content of the music and tweaking the subtleties of tone and rhythm all while often still sounding like one of the most monolithic and elegantly punishing bands around. The Body has also worked in collaboration with numerous bands over the last two and a half decades and one of the most fascinating of these partnerships yielded the 2021 album with BIG|BRAVE called Leaving None but Small Birds, a haunted folk album. But whatever the configuration, The Body brings the intensity and catharsis at every show. Troller from Austin, Texas lets the weightiness of its lyrics and the deep mood of its compositions provide the heaviness of the music. Before it became a trendy underground style Troller was crafting evocative darkwave songs led by melodic bass lines provided by vocalist Amber Star-Goers and enshrouded in transporting electronics from synthesist and rhythm programmer Adam Jones (also of S U R V I V E, the band that wrote the theme music for Stranger Things) and guitarist/engineer Justin Star-Goers. The sound design approach to the songwriting lends it a cinematic quality that has always set the band apart from other groups that might be put under that darkwave umbrella. In 2023 Troller released its latest opus Drain via Relapse. There are a few bands calling themselves Dead Times but this one is the melodic hardcore/noise punk band from Austin.

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 08.24
What: My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult w/ADULT. and Kanga
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult is currently touring celebrating its 36 years as a band with a set list that focuses on the group’s first decade. The band’s campy, industrial disco sleaze has always demonstrated a more fun and lighthearted side of industrial culture while offering a distinctive visual and musical style in its bombastic live shows. By the time Thrill Kill Kult appeared in The Crow (1994), the band had already been staples of the more underground end of alternative rock write large but its performance in the film was the perfect embodiment of the aesthetics of the movie. ADULT. is the great industrial post-punk duo from Detroit whose music of the past few years has really been the musical reflection of the conflicted and dystopian times we’ve been going through with a world on the brink of domination by authoritarian regimes and the already unfolding disastrous consequences of climate change with little to no vision and action by world leaders. ADULT.’s music is an act of human solidarity and a catharsis of ambient despair. KANGA is a Los Angeles-based producer whose dusky pop music is darkwave adjacent but also adjacent to a more dance beat infused chillwave and vaporwave with sultry vocals. It might be more apt to compare KANGA to the likes of Charli XCX and Jessie Ware than an artist out of the Goth world.

Friday | 08.25
What: Corey Taylor w/WARGASM and Oxymorrons
When: 6
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman Corey Taylor is headlining this show and touring in support of his 2023 album CMF2. The solo stuff is more melodic hard rock and serviceable enough for what it is proving the singer/musician is capable of more than the screamy and more extreme vocals for which he’s known in his other bands. UK-based post-hardcore/electronic duo WARGASM is one of the opening acts and its sound is like an update on 90s industrial rock but with much more interesting production akin to hyperpop club music. The other opener is Oxymorrons from NYC. Rap rock deservedly got a bad name in the 90s and 2000s and Oxymorrons’ mix of rock and roll attitude and musicianship and cloud rap style vocal production shouldn’t work but it somehow does because the performance fuses the swagger of both styles of music seamlessly and because it songs combine earworm melodies with a brashness of spirit. The band’s debut album Melanin Punk drops October 20 via Mascot Records.

Friday – Sunday | 08.25-08.27
What: Vortex
When: Friday doors 4:30, Saturday and Sunday doors 1:30
Where: The Junkyard
Why: This second annual Vortex festival at Meow Wolf will feature over this weekend performances and sets from international stars of techno, house, and various other branches of electronic music as well as indie rock and pop that may not yet be household names but are certainly rising talents. Headlining Friday night is renowned indie rock/bedroom pop phenom Remi Wolf who quickly went from high school contestant on American Idol to signee to Island Records and Virgin EMI a handful of years later and in 2023 Wolf performed at Coachella. Her funk and soul-flavored songs are a new interpretation and fusion of modern pop songcraft and classic R&B style vocals with conviction and idiosyncratic vision. That same night Denver experimental indie rock stars Kiltro will perform its own brand of Latin flavored IDM indie folk psychedelia.

Headlining Saturday and Sunday night is internationally beloved producer and musician GRiZ who incorporates live saxophone performance with electronic production fusing dubstep, his self-styled future funk and glitch. Sunday is a special showcase of his mixtape series called Chasing the Golden Era. Rumor has it these may be GRiZ’s last live sets. That same night is also a chance to catch TOKiMONSTA and her widely eclectic set of electronic dance music that runs that gamut of hip-hop, IDM, house, R&B, pop and beyond.

Portrayal of Guilt, photo by Addrian Jafaritabar

Saturday | 08.26
What: Portrayal of Guilt, Fearing, Spine, Gag, Edith Pike, Cloakroom, Royal Drug, Raw Breed and Candy Apple
When: 5
Where: D3
Why: This mini-festival will include sets from some of the best bands out of modern hardcore and experimental music. Portrayal of Guilt has long mingled noise rock, black metal, grind and post-hardcore with live shows that are caustic and forceful. Its latest album is Devil Music which released on Run For Cover in April 2023. The darkly cast tones and harrowing lyrics have been part of Portrayal of Guilt’s aesthetic from early on but this time the music seems a tad spookier and reaching to genuinely more pained places in the psyche. Edith Pike and Raw Breed are noteworthy hardcore bands from Denver but whose music isn’t cookie cutter and more with flavors of noise rock in the mix. Same with Candy Apple whose music is like a highly energetic cross between Hüsker Dü and one of those early straight edge bands. It shouldn’t work but it does. The bands that will be very different from the rest are deathrock band Fearing and heavy shoegaze band Cloakroom but they’ll also help to give this show a nice break from all groups with a decided root in hardcore.

Saturday | 08.26
What: The Dendrites 20th Anniversary Show w/The Repercussions, Potato Pirates and Denver Vintae Reggae Society
When: 7
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: The Dendrites have been arguably Denver’s most prominent ska band for decades at this point and its seven members deliver a high energy show that redeems a modern form of a style of music that nearly got ruined by some of its 90s cognates. Same with The Repercussions whose own history with the music goes back to the 90s. Potato Pirates are one of the great ska punk bands of today who went from emerging from early street punk origins into a tight and popular band. And of course a night like this wouldn’t be complete without Denver Vintage Reggae Society.

Saturday | 08.26
What: Fear w/CH3, Frontside Five and Sack
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Fear is one of the first wave of Los Angeles punk bands that was captured so dramatically by Penelope Spheeris’ 1981 punk documentary classic The Decline of Western Civilization. Notorious for misanthropic lyrics but really irreverent and dark yet sharply observed humor, Fear has nevertheless written some of punk’s most recognizable anthems in “Let’s Have a War,” “Beef Bologna,” “I Don’t Care About You” and “I Love Livin’ in the City” from its 1982 landmark The Record. Channel 3 were an early hardcore band also from Southern California that helped establish the sound and ethos of that early hardcore era and joined for this show by Denver street punk greats Frontside Five.

Tuesday | 08.29
What: City and Colour w/Jaye Jayle
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Dallas Green performing as City and Colour is one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of the last couple of decades. But before his current arc of songwriting, Green sang and played rhythm guitar for melodic post-hardcore group Alexisonfire (which he rejoined in 2015 when that group reconvened). But it was that level of detailed songcraft and passionate vocals that he has brought to City and Colour. The songs for the project Green had been writing and honing since his mid-teens and when Sometimes released in November 2005 its vulnerable and personally insightful songs cast in a folk-adjacent style struck a chord with fans. For the next some eighteen years Green has developed his sound and used City and Colour as a vehicle for his more introspective and atmospheric musical expressions and in March 2023 he released his latest album The Love Still Held Me Near. It’s a Green’s most sonically rich and widely expressive record to date and delves into the depths of loss and how to move through low points in the heart while honoring the connections you had with people you won’t be seeing around anymore. The subject matter is weighty but the album in its delicacy of sentiments and soaring melodies embodies a perspective that embraces human imperfection and limitations without being sunk by them. Opening the show is Jaye Jayle aka Evan Patterson who releases his own more acoustic and experimental singer-songwriter-oriented material. Patterson too has had his own past in acclaimed post-hardcore music as a former member of the influential mathcore band Breather Resist and later as the more heavy noise rock group Young Widows. His recently released Don’t Let Your Love Life Get You Down is cosmically pastoral and tinged with spectral fuzz and electronic sounds like a brooding, post-punk, psychedelic country record.

Tuesday | 08.29
What: Poppy and Pvris w/Tommy Genesis
When: 6
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Poppy and Pvris bring their Godless/Goddess co-headlining tour to Denver. Both artists have made a career of genre-bending and breaking music that incorporates a strong visual element in both performance and in creative and innovative music videos. Poppy with a background in dance brings a real sense of choreographed movement to the stage show with music that is simultaneously a sort of hyperpop and heavy metal. Her song “Bloodmoney” garnered her a 2021 Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance, a first for a solo female artist. For this show you’ll probably get a preview of the forthcoming album Zig, due to drop on October 27, 2023. Pvris dropped its own new album Evergreen on July 14, 2023 and its lead single “Goddess” with its refreshingly racy music video is a little like a Charli XCX song gone industrial rock.

Wednesday | 08.30
What: Guerilla Toss w/DJ Bhodi
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Guerilla Toss is flying into Denver for this one-off “Day Zero Party” to perform two sets of its brilliantly entrancing fusion of Krautrock, psychedelia, improvisational pop and art rock. Its latest album Famously Alive (2022, Sub Pop) bubbled up out of the stasis of the early pandemic as a statement of vitality and an expression in defiance of the political and cultural impulse toward austerity. From its early days Guerilla Toss has brought a rich tapestry of colorful sonics to the music and live show and with two sets of music, who can say exactly what that will look like, for this event you’ll probably get to see a vibrant representation of what the band has done before and where it’s going next.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond June 2023

Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform at Red Rocks on 6/5/23, photo by Jason Al Taan

Thursday | 06.01
What: Kiltro w/Nina De Freitas
When: 7
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Kiltro started as the solo acoustic project of Chris Bowers Castillo who as a Chilean-American, had moved to the port city of Valparaíso where he worked as a walking tour guide. And that job not only afforded him the time to learn the city and take in its richly diverse cultural influences but also the opportunity to write a body of work as a songwriter. After returning to Denver Kiltro formally came to life in 2017 and Bowers Castillo developed his acoustic songs with loops, pedals and percussion elements. But in 2018 the project expanded into a trio with Will Parkhill on bass and drummer Michael Devincenzi and later with Fez Garcia on board as a percussionist for live shows.

Kiltro’s 2019 debut album Creatures of Habit had been recorded after the material had been performed live and getting feedback from audiences and friends before being committed to an easily transmitted and shareable form. But the group’s new album, 2023’s Underbelly, is the product of crafting music in quarantine and working in the studio, following whatever creative paths sparked the most inspiration in the moment resulting in a more experimental set of songs which incorporates aspects of shoegaze, ambient, South American folk, psychedelia and a literary yet spontaneous form of storytelling that feels like a deeply personal experience in the listening. The record is a hypnotic and transcendent work of surprising immediacy that one might compare with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Hermanos Guitérrez and more locally to the work of artists like Midwife American Grandma. It fuses the aesthetics of electronic music with the intimacy of mythical folk music around the campfire for a truly unique record refreshing in its originality.

Kiltro is following up the release with a tour throughout the USA in June and July with other live dates in support of the album in August and September with an appearance at VORTEX festival at The JunkYard at Meow Wolf on August 25. Listen to our interview with Bowers Castillo on Bandcamp linked below.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Reptoid w/Quits and Endless, Nameless
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Reptoid is a one man, industrial noise rock freakout from Oakland. His most recent album WORSHIP FALSE GODS (2020) is a borderline, or not so borderline, nihilistic set of songs like a series of trainwrecks about how we’re all pretty much screwed in face of likely developments in the history of our species and its impact on the environment. If you’ve been into Buck Gooter or Author and Punisher this is your thing. Quits is a crushing noise rock juggernaut of a four piece from Denver whose incisive songs and eruptive energy can be startlingly scathing and heavy at once. Endless, Nameless erases the line between progressive metal, post-rock, post-hardcore, black metal and shoegaze with a forceful elegance. Its 2023 album Living Without should end up on the more discerning year end best lists.

Thursday | 06.01
What: Sorted: Surgeon & John Templeton
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: Surgeon is a DJ and electronic music composer from England whose labels Counterbalance and Dynamic Tension has been issuing some fine techno records for over 20 years. John Templeton is based in Denver whose own techno music has made a bit of a splash in the Mile High City and his Great American Techno Festival brought some of the most innovative practioners of that style of music to town for several years.

Friday | 06.02
What: ACxDC w/No/Más and Berated
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: ACxDC is the infamous powerviolence/grindcore band from Los Angeles whose 2020 album Satan Is King is a seethingly uncompromising run of anarchistic political sentiment set to blast beats and oddly anthemic antiestablishment shout along songs.

Saturday | 06.03
What: M. Sage Paradise Crick release show w/Zander Raymond
When: 3 p.m.
Where: TBA in Boulder
Why: M. Sage has been a prolific and evolving songwriter and composer going back to at least far back as when he was based out of Fort Collins and doing early indiepop groups. But when he started writing and releasing music as M. Sage and often through his now defunct label Patient Sounds (2009-2019) it became obvious that Sage was thinking beyond standard songwriting even in the more experimental folk vein. His latest release, and first for RVNG Intl., is Paradise Crick, a collection of meditations on communing with nature as a route to a sustainable relationship with the world we all share. The pure fusion of acoustic and electronic aesthetics resonates with some of the more avant releases on the ECM label and its intuitive rhythms and informal structures ease the mind out of the standard pathways of being within one’s own mindset. This show is at unique venue and one must purchase a ticket at the link provided to get the address.

Saturday | 06.03
What: Danceportation – Justin Jay and others
When: 9:30
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Danceportation is an immersive dance party pulsing through the worlds of Convergence Station. Be immersed in the full exhibition while stunning live performances on several stages with psychedelic projections and sentient universes welcome you. Danceportation on June 3rd will feature a takeover from Justin Jay’s Fantastic Voyage, the Los Angeles-based electronic dance music imprint now celebrating its seventh year of exisence.

This lineup features multiple sets from Justin Jay, along with performances from Ardalan, DJ Swisha, Juliet Mendoza, Todd Edwards, Adrian More, B Goody, Blake, Coldsweat, Danny Goliger, DJ Parqués, Don Jamal, Ed Hoffman, Gusted, Keefe, Lipgloss, Massii, Mick Jeets, Mizzmegan, The Other Jon, Planet Bloop, and Taylor Bratches.

Sunday | 06.04
What: Korine w/CD Ghost, Voight and DJ Niq V
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Philadelphia-based dream pop band Korine plays a headlining show in Denver for the first time in support of the release of its 2023 album Tear. The group’s sound is somewhere between 80s New Wave groups like, yes, Tears For Fears, late 90s emo’s earnest emotional release and punk attitude. Voight will bring the dark industrial intensity with its scorching shoegaze/techno concoctions CD Ghost from Los Angeles released a set of lush pop songs called Night Music in 2022 that sounds like a a more synth driven and more ethereal Black Marble.

Monday | 06.05
What: Yeah Yeah Yeahs w/Perfume Genius
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Yeah Yeah Yeahs have been delivering scrappy, uplifting pop music with punk attitude since forming in 2000 and as first put into recorded form with its 2001 self-titled EP. But the band comprised of three art school kids from New York never rested on its laurels and immediately its creative ambitions drove the band to explore new sounds and expressions to match its emotional growth as well. Its spirited live shows turn even its more melancholic songs into epic anthems that sweep you up in its always deep mood. In 2022 the band released its first album in 9 years, Cool It Down, a record that showcases the group’s gift for richly evocative songwriting and ability to surprise with its willingness to explore new directions in sound and subverting the tropes of pop lyrics while offering new ways of thinking about and feeling timeless themes of human experience with a thrilling immediacy. You also get to see Perfume Genius whose own career in crafting meaningful and engrossing synth pop isn’t short on reinvention and re-envisioning core artistic impulses.

Clan of Xymox in 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 06.05
What: Clan of Xymox w/Curse Mackey, A Cloud of Ravens and The Siren Project
When: 7
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Clan of Xymox is the pioneering dutch darkwave band whose early post-punk songs has been foundational to the modern version of that music with its icily melodic synths and deep, mysterious yet emotionally resonant vocals from Ronny Moorings. Curse Mackey has been involved in a variety of electronic industrial bands of the past few decades including My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult and Pigface and the music under his own name has been more in the vein of synth pop end of darkwave. The Siren Project is a Denver band that has persisted since the old local Goth scene of the 1990s but has never been a fashion victim group in sound or appearance. Its downtempo music and dream pop guitar sound with Malgorzata Wacht’s soaring vocals and emotional power has set it apart from most bands in the Denver Goth scene so its music has aged well and its excellent and so far only official album Denouement should appeal to fans of Dead Can Dance and Faith & The Muse.

The Cure at Riot Fest in Denver, September 20, 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 06.06
What: The Cure w/The Twilight Sad
When: 5:30
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: The Cure is of course the foundational post-punk band whose gloomy, darkly melodic songs has exerted a lasting influence not just on what one might presume in the realms of Goth and darkwave but also shoegaze, pop music and even certain corners of hip-hop. Singer Robert Smith’s sensitively and sharply observed lyrics embody poetically a sensibility that takes in the possibilities and harsh realities of the world and casts dreams for the best against the odds. Though the band’s music has a reputation for melancholy sounds and sad songs its rich body of work is quite varied and not short on expressions of joy, amusement, romance and hope. Its music conveys the broad human experience like few popular bands get to with the level of power and nuance The Cure has brought to bear across decades and as a live band there is an uplifting warmth and sense of human solidarity to the performances. Scottish post-punk band The Twilight Sad is cut from a similar artistic cloth with songs that are both vulnerable and ferocious.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, photo by Jason Galea

Wednesday and Thursday | 06.07 and 06.08
What: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard w/Kamikaze Palm Tree
When: 6 p.m (06.07) and 12 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. (06.08)
Where: Red Rocks
Why: With a name like King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard you might imagine some acid head RPG nerds making psychedelic metal with lyrics based on an epic fantasy story arc. And other than maybe the RPG part and maybe the doing LSD bit you wouldn’t be wrong in essence. The group from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia has steadily built a large cult following with a prolific career (in both 2017 and 2022 King Gizz released five albums each year with other years yielding at least one if not two records) with sounds from psychedelic pop to prog, to synth pop and groove metal, thrash and psych power metal. With album titles like Flying Microtonal Banana, Nonagon Infinity, Butterfly 3000, Fishing for Fishes and the 2023 album so far PetroDragonic Apocalyp; or Dawn of Eternal Night: An Annihilation of Planet Earth and the Beginning of Merciless Damnation you’d expect bizarre concept albums worthy of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Tarkus or Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or at least unclassifiable songs like Pink Floyd’s “Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict.” And King Gizz delivers just that. The kinds of albums and songs and shows that take you on a mind-bending, genre-bursting musical journey worthy of Hawkwind or Gong at their self-indulgent best.

Thursday | 06.08
What: Alphabet Soup #61: Machu Linea, Dub FX, Savage Bass Goat, Yung Lurch, Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor
When: 9
Where: Black Box
Why: This monthly showcase of some of the most forward thinking/experimental producers in Denver includes some of the usual suspects like Furbie Cakes and Skyfloor and their brand of glitch and melodic ambient but this time out also Machu Linea whose avant-pop R&B/techno fusion has long crossed over into the realm of the indie scene.

Friday | 06.09
What: Endless, Nameless and Antibroth tour kickoff w/Rose Variety and Polly Urethane
When: 7
Where: D3 Arts
Why: Antibroth and Endless, Nameless are embarking on a tour to the East Coast and back through the Midwest after which Antibroth and its weirdo, experimental, angular form of post-punk and confrontational surrealism will effectively come to an end though during the tour the trio will release its final EP, Satan and the Dying Baby. This is the band’s final show so don’t miss it. Endless, Nameless is a multi-genre band crossing the boundaries of post-hardcore, death metal, math rock and shoegaze. Rose Variety from Boulder came out of a time in local music that had recovered from that wave of really cookie cutter psychedelic and garage rock but took that raw material and made a pop band out of it with some real punk kick. Polly Urethane always reinvents her show with every performance so maybe you’ll get a gorgeously classical vocal show with some vinyl sampling or backing track or raw noise and signal processing or a pure performance art piece or all of it. Always worth coming to check out.

The Sisters of Mercy, photo by Lara Aimee

Friday | 06.09
What: The Sisters of Mercy w/A Primitive Evolution
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Sisters of Mercy will probably fill the venue with a thick fog and you’ll get some colored murk in which to experience its foundational political post-punk but maybe this time the fog won’t be so thick and you’ll get to see Andrew Eldtrich and his band clearly delivering the kind anthemic, dark rock that launched a thousand Goth bands without directly being that music itself.

Elizabeth Colour Wheel, photo from Bandcamp

Saturday | 06.10
What: Jerome’s Dream and Elizabeth Colour Wheel and Only Echoes
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jerome’s Dream is the influential screamo/powerviolence band from Sacramento that started out in the early heyday of that music in the late 90s and early 2000s and during its first run of 1997-2001 the trio made a major impact on the kind of music that would later be associated with modern hardcore and extreme metal and where those two fuse. The band has been reunited since 2018 and its latest album The Gray In Between is a fine example of the kind of cathartic extreme music that is has had a popular resurgence in the last handful of years. Elizabeth Colour Wheel is of similar sound but its fusion of noise rock and shoegaze but delivered like a hardcore band has made it a wonderful musical mutant of the past several years. Only Echoes is an instrumental post-metal band from Denver that has been honing its imaginative soundscapes on the road and around Denver whose 2022 album Sunsickness is both melancholic and fiery, reconciling both musical impulses.

Saturday | 06.10
What: Bayonne w/Mmeadows
When: 8
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Bayonne is the project of producer and composer Roger Sellers who started off releasing music under his given name but beginning with 2016’s Primitives he adopted his current moniker. The latest Bayonne record Temporary Time (2023) is an entrancing, orchestral electronic pop record of spacious melodies and melancholic yet summery moods. At another time some critic might have lumped Bayonne in with the “hypnogogic pop” of John Maus or even Dean Blunt but his style is more in the vein of downtempo ambient of Tycho but more grounded in texture and strong, organic rhythms.

Monday | 06.12
What: Drowse w/Agriculture, Sprain and Palehorse Palerider
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kyle Bates is a composer and multi-instrumentalist whose work has most often been heard as his musical project Drowse. Founded in 2013 in Portland, Oregon, Drowse has released a few albums and numerous EPs and split releases. The music could be considered in part ambient, slowcore, shoegaze, drone, experimental folk and perhaps even transcendental black metal. But all categories aside, each Drowse recording is a journey into unique and nuanced emotional spaces exploring and living within a flow of emotions and thoughts that open the mind to new ideas and interpretations. And more so the moods, frequencies and textures on a Drowse recording, or really any of the releases in which Bates is involved, express a state of mind that one enters after having moved past a peak of anxiety or personal darkness and contain that tenderness and rawness one often needs to pull oneself out of a place of acute pain and psychological paralysis. The gentleness of the music is part of its power and appeal as Bates seems keenly aware of what it’s like to experience that period in life where you don’t feel like you can push or strive any further and you need an experience that is the opposite of that very modern and American internalized urge to keep at things to the extreme and prove yourself endlessly more and more. The core sound of Drowse is that of the musical equivalent of acceptance of one’s human limitations and of being open to what will nurture your well being and spark your imagination into nudging you toward fulfilling experiences.

Throughout his work as Drowse Bates has collaborated with Maya Stoner (Floating Room), Thom Wasluck (Planning for Burial), Madeline Johnston (Midwife), Taylor Malsey, Amulets, Daniel Schmidt and others. In 2023 Bates released an album as Kyle Bates and Lula Asplund called A Matinee that expands upon the format of his songwriting and production with two extended tracks that sound like an improv session one might have stumbled into in cutting room floor recordings of Alan Hankshaw and/or Brian Bennett had they been asked to provide music for a forgotten and mystical place. While it may sound like Bates’ work sets your mind into a different place than where it began upon listening to it, it does, but it is not escapist. Like the work of Grouper or Tim Hecker, Bates’ music has delicate immediacy that engages as it soothes and it stirs the emotions and the imagination.

And you’ll get to see the great Los Angeles black metal band Agriculture which will release its feral self-titled album on The Flenser on July 21, the Unwound-esque noise rock/post-punk group Sprain on its first time in Denver and the Mile High City’s own Palehorse/Palerider whose desert drone and cosmic shoegaze will add more than a touch of the epic and mysterious to the evening.

Tuesday | 06.13
What: Earth w/Burning Sister
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: It is indeed the foundational doom and post-rock doom legends Earth bringing their extended mystical blues to Globe Hall which mostly gets more indie and Americana fare most nights. Its languorous psychedelia somehow manages to be dreamlike and weighty at once for a contrast that allows for a wide-ranging dynamic driven by a sense of wonder and self-discovery.

Wednesday | 06.14
What: Joan w/Harriette
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brooklyn based pop artist Harriette recently released her debut EP i heart the internet and a music video for the title track that features a bevy of older computer technology (including a flip phone of all things as well as old CRTs and is that an iMac in there?) as a celebration and send-up of internet culture for a song that takes a whimsical and self-aware approach to the phenomenon of people living perpetually online. The EP of upbeat and gentle melodies is a collection of songs as snapshots of modern life with free association of cultural signifiers and artifacts like mentioning listening to an “Folsom Prison Blues” on the appropriately titled “Johnny got it right.” Its genre-bending songwriting in the realm of indie pop and sharply and poetically observed descriptions of everyday life. Joan is a pop duo from Little Rock, Arkansas whose EPs over the past six years have established it as band that is gifted at crafting the heartfelt, expansive pop song as manifested most fully on its 2023 debut album superglue.

Thursday | 06.15
What: Garbage w/Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds and Metric
When: 5:30
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Metric’s 2022 album Formentera has all the creative ambition, dream-like atmospherics and lush soulfulness that has has been the hallmark of the band from the beginning. But this time around Metric takes aim at some of the serious facing the human species as a collective and on the personal level. Also in 2022 the group headlined what it called the “Doomscroller Tour” after the song on the album about the habit of scrolling through social media and online taking in the news as a steady feed of the host of terrible things seeming to occurring every day and at a seemingly more rapid and dense pace than at any point in historical memory. And taking in this horror as a kind of act of soporific disassociation that Metric has sought to disrupt with its music and performance even if for just a little while and to get people to reconsider this habit and perhaps do something about these issues rather than be a passive actor in the human experiment. Metric is in good musical company with legendary alternative rock band Garbage whose own advocacy for social causes is obvious from its own social media presence and its way of discussing its work in the context of living as a human connected with the world. And Noel Gallagher is the former songwriter, singer and guitarist of Oasis and his new band High Flying Birds has been his musical outlet since 2010 following the 2009 final split of his old group. In 2023 the project released its latest album Council Skies perhaps as a reference to Gallagher’s having come up poor in Manchester and his own aspirational daydreaming as a youth, imbuing an album out in his mid-50s with some of that sense of wonder and looking forward.

Legs. The Band in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 06.15
What: Legs. The Band EP release w/Hen & The Cocks, The Ephinjis and Gila Teen
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Legs. The Band is releasing its new EP. The group that combines rockabilly blues with proto-punk sounds has been one of the more charismatic rock bands out of the Denver scene of the past couple of years and really sounds like no one else with a commanding and raw stage presence. The Ephinjis are a Boulder-based punk band whose own sound seems to borrow liberally across decades and manages to make a kind of pop-punk that manages not to sound stale because the band’s songwriting is steeped in a diverse sound with eclectic roots. Gila Teen is the Goth emo band everyone should get to experience at least once in their lives because their music is heartfelt and mysterious at the same time informed by a playful and surreal sense of humor but not one that distracts from the poignant emotional moments that clearly inspired so much of the songwriting.

Atmosphere, photo by Chris Fiq Colclasure

Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Heads & Atmosphere & Stick Figure w/DENM, The Grouch and Mike Love
When: 4:20
Where: Fiddler’s Green Amphitheater
Why: Atmosphere is a hip-hop duo from Minneapolis, Minnesota comprised of rapper Slug aka Sean Daley and DJ/producer Ant aka Anthony Davis. Slug and Ant have been influential well beyond their own remarkable work as artists as co-founders of the respected Rhymesayers Entertainment imprint which has long been one of the torchbearers of underground and alternative hip-hop going back to the mid-90s and releasing not just the work of Atmosphere but that of Aesop Rock, Brother Ali, Eyedea & Abilities, Dilated Peoples, Grayskul and others. Including its debut album Overcast! (1997), Atmosphere has released thirteen full albums and ten EPs up through the new record So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously (2023) making the project one of the more prolific acts in hip-hop. In its various lineups and incarnations Atmosphere has consistently paired sensitive and thought-provoking lyrics with a sonically rich and diverse production ranging from some more classic hip-hop sounds to the clearly experimental and avant-garde all to deliver powerfully evocative music that engages the imagination and the heart. In the live setting Atmosphere create an intimate and inviting energy that creates an environment of the shared experience as Daley’s lyrics aim to not just tell relatable stories with roots in his own direct experiences but with resonances for common experiences and emotional spaces we’ve all known. On the new record the songs take us through a journey through un rest and hope, the latter the primary feeling Daley hopes to convey to everyone that shows up to an Atmosphere show because it is hope that lingers and can carry you through trying times into those that are better.

Allison Lorenzen in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 06.16
What: Allison Lorenzen, Openly Weep and Bell Mine
When: 7:30
Where: Leon Gallery
Why: Allison Lorenzen has for several years made the kind of transcendent indie folk that seems to combine a mystical sensibility with ambient soundscapes and tender yet emotionally powerful songwriting and performances. Openly Weep is the debut musical project of Ryan Hall who is one of the founders of the Whited Sepulchre imprint which releases some of the most fascinating experimental music out of the underground on physical and digital formats. His own music is the kind of ambient music that combines beats and the sensibilities of house music. One might call it IDM but it bridges various electronic musical worlds for a sound that feels tribal, primal and completely modern. Listen to his 2021 EP Overpass here. Bell Mine is a Denver-based avant-electronic pop artist whose entrancing and darkly downtempo music is reminiscent of the work of Laurel Halo and Jenny Hval.

Dirty Few at 2013 original album release show for *Get Loose Have Fun*, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 06.16
What: Dirty Few 10 Year Anniversary of Get Loose, Have Fun w/White Lightning Co., The Sickly Hecks and host Matt Cobos
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dirty Few were stars of the local garage punk scene in Denver in the early 2010s with a rightfully earned reputation for raucous shows that for better or for worse depending on your perspective and the show you caught embodied the so-called “Denver party rock” attitude. What was perhaps less obvious from the revelry is that Seth and Spencer Stone were talented songwriters whose music had real heart and undeniable hooks as perhaps best heard on the 2013 album Get Loose, Have Fun which the group is reuniting to celebrate with this show.

Friday | 06.16
What: Sour Magic album release of Forbidden Fruit w/The Crooked Rugs, Fly Amanita and Chaarm
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Sour Magic is a psychedelic rock and pop band from Denver that’s releasing its debut album Forbidden Fruit. At first listen maybe you’ll think you’re in for the kind of post-Tame Impala and Temples music but Sour Magic takes that sound into different directions with inventive tempo changes perfectly synced in with the way the melodies flow and unfold. The shimmery sound alongside that more gritty and the way the music allows all elements to shine immediately sets the band apart from much of the psych rock that came out of Denver in the 2010s. Fans of Beach Fossils’ shoegaze pop will appreciate the way Sour Magic often lets the rhythm section lead the music and how that lends the songwriting a weight even as its midnight hued atmospheric elements indulge in blissing out into the moonset. Also, not since Sunboy has a Denver psych band seemed to have such a strong command of the aesthetics of electronic music and rock fused as a unified whole.

Saturday | 06.17
What: The Blue Stones w/Compass & Cavern and JACK
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Canadian blues rock band The Blue Stones has turned its musical roots into an expansion of the sound especially on its 2022 album Pretty Monster. Even a cursory listen through the album reveals a band that takes solid melodic lines and strong rhythms and employs modern production methods that give a tried and true formula and gave it some expansive mood in a psychedelic sheen and modern pop accessibility. It’s a shift in direction for The Blue Stones but Tarek Jafar and Justin Tessler seem to realize that taking chances and not being defined completely by one’s artistic past is more key to longevity than getting stuck doing the exact same thing for an entire career.

Sunday | 06.18
What: Child of Night w/Dream of Industry, Teller and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Child of Night is a darkwave dance band from Columbus, Ohio whose ethereal duskiness is driven by strong rhythms and robust low end. Its 2021 album The Walls at Dawn has an alluring moodiness like the soundtrack to a near future, urban techno thriller that is the missing link between TR/ST and Actors.

Monday | 06.19
What: Temples w/Post Animal
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: UK psychedelic rock band Temples has been one of the leading lights of the modern manifestation of that music. And its own sound informed by the aesthetics of synth pop has given its music a different trajectory and greater longevity than some of the bandwagon artists of the 2010s. Its music flows with layers of luminous melody and hits with a dream-like resonance that sounds like a quick trip to a sun dappled vacation destination in a beautiful and exotic place. Thus the title of its 2023 album Exotico seems entirely appropriate as each of its sixteen songs is like an immersive sampling of a place you’d like to visit long enough to soak in its uniquely affecting environment. Post Animal are like the younger creative cousin to Temples and its 2022 album Love Gibberish is nine transporting meditations on the glories and foibles of love and a myriad of perspectives on a perennial theme of rock music with the band moving a bit beyond its more hard rock early era into what is often lush 1970s pop-flavored, hazy psychedelia.

Tuesday | 06.20
What: Oliver Tree w/UPSAHL, Tai Verdes and Little Ricky ZR3
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Oliver Tree got his break in the music industry proper making presentations for the likes of Skrillex and Zeds Dead though he’d long been a musician and songwriter who has pursued a variety of styles before finding his greatest success making the kind of pop music that is eclectic and informed by the kind of irony that serves to express the sincerity of feeling that is the core content of his songwriting. The eccentric stage performance style and drily and absurdly humorous music videos might give the impression of his music being a put on but songs aren’t. UPSAHL is an up-and-coming pop artist whose spirited and eclectic sound borrows liberally from various genres of music and fuses them into music that is somehow both deeply witty and amusing and thought-provoking. At least if her 2021 album Lady Jesus is any indication not to mention her 2022 EP Sagittarius (Taylor Upsahl being a Sagittarian herself). In 2023 the singer/songwriter announced the release of THE PHX (Phoenix) TAPES which will pair two songs as (SIDE A/SIDE B) to showcase her evolving interests as an artist and producer and so far singles like “GOOD GIRL ERA” (SIDE A) and “CONDOMS” (SIDE B) as well as “WET WHITE TEE SHIRT” (SIDE A) have demonstrated Upsahl’s range as a vocalist and gift for genre-morphing into whatever style suits her always sharp and sassy yet sensitive observations.

Tuesday | 06.20
What: Moon Walker w/Annabel Lee
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Moon Walker is a duo from Denver comprised of Harry Springer and Sean McCarthy whose music is a mix of ’70s glam rock and power pop in a modern flavor. The project came out of the early pandemic when Springer’s and McCarthy’s band The Midnight Club couldn’t play out and Springer started writing music for song libraries until he wrote stuff he didn’t want to give away that way and the new band had its roots. It’s a little kitsch, it’s a lot boogie rock but at least the theatrical element is real and it’s not merely yet another couple of people re-re-re-re-discovering classic rock. Opening act Annabel Lee released her debut album Mother’s Hammer on March 8, 2023 and though housed in acoustic guitar, piano, minimal percussion and other traditionally more folk or pop elements, Lee’s vocals are commanding and intense in her expression and at times one is reminded of a peer like Grace Cummings or obvious touchstones like PJ Harvey in the orchestral arrangements and willingness to unmoor the emotional expression from the tethers of pop convention.

Wednesday | 06.21
What: Elf Power w/The Tammy Shine
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Elf Power was one of the early Athens, GA bands affiliated with the Elephant 6 collective and thus one of the bands that helped to chart the musical direction of modern indie rock. The prolific group has reliably put out thoughtful and inventive psychedelic pop up through its most recent record, 2022’s Artificial Countrysides and its dreamlike, fuzzy melodies and transporting electronic shimmer. Sharing the bill is The Tammy Shine, the charismatic and powerful lead singer of Denver indie pop legends Dressy Bessy doing her no less lively and heartfelt solo material.

Wednesday and Thursday | 06.21 and 06.22
What: Bestial Mouths w/WitchHands and eHpH on 06.21 and w/Church Fire and DJ Shannon Von Kelly on 06.22
When: 7 (06.21) 8 (06.22)
Where: Vulture’s (06.21) and Hi-Dive (06.22)
Why: Bestial Mouths began in 2009 as a band that early on might be considered post-punk but even its debut EP, 2009’s Stabile Vices, had elements of noise and industrial set to ritualistic rhythms with tribal percussion. All along, vocalist Lynette Cerezo who has a background in fashion and design brought to performances a striking visual presentation that drew upon the imagery of mythology and dreams in a creative interplay with the music. Cerezo’s lyrics have always explored issues of gender, identity and personal liberation and whether combined with the performance or not, certainly enhanced by the live experience, meant as a conduit for mutual inspiration and uplift by challenging arbitrary societal notions of “proper” social roles and behavior and aesthetics. A Bestial Mouths show and the music embodies aspects of the subconscious and what has traditionally been relegated to artistic darkness and the feminine, the intuitive and the supernatural. Cerezo through the practice of her art reclaims all of that as a source of power and dignity by demonstrating how it isn’t negative, that it is a part of a complete human life and that such things can be harnessed to the benefit of the self and all.

More recent Bestial Mouths records starting with the new arc of music since the project has been mainly headed by Cerezo since 2018 has reconciled the early post-punk and Goth sound and noise completely with the more mystical and non-Western experimental sonic ideas and rhythms that have been a feature if not the focus of the music since the beginning. But in 2020’s RESURRECTEDINBLACK, the first Bestial Mouths record crafted with Cerezo at the creative helm it’s all there for a listening experience not unlike the psycho-mystical depths of a Dead Can Dance album but darker and more harrowing and cathartic. The new album R.O.T.T. (inmyskin), with the acronym standing for Road of Thousand Tears drops on August 11, 2023 and continues the path of its predecessor but with the songs seemingly emerging from the murk that seemed entirely appropriate for a set of songs from a time of great uncertainty and treading new musical paths. Those appreciate Diamanda Galás’ elemental catharsis, psychic fearlessness and avant-garde sensibilities might find a great deal to appreciate about Bestial Mouths as will those with a taste for the political industrial punk of ADULT. and Jarboe’s deeply emotional and unfettered vocal performances but while in Swans and since. Listen to our interview with Bestial Mouths on Bandcamp linked below.

Saturday | 06.24
What: FACS w/Wave Decay and Replica City
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: FACS is a post-punk from Chicago that includes former 90 Day Men and Disappears singer/guitarist Brian Case. Its angular, menacing songs create a brooding soundscape of stark moods like the hollowed out facade of modern industrial culture. Its 2023 album Still Life In Decay is perhaps its most focused effort in articulating the telltale signs of a civilization in decay neglectful of itself and detrimental to all life within its sphere of influence.

Saturday and Sunday | 06.24 and 06.25
What: Graham Nash
When: 6:30 (06.24) and 6 (06.25)
Where: Chautauqua Auditorium (06.24) and Washington’s (6.25)
Why: Graham Nash is a singer/songwriter who established for himself a rich and influential legacy in music and culture as a member of The Hollies in the 1960s and later that decade going forward with Crosby, Stills & Nash (and for a time CSN&Y with Neil Young). The socially conscious and poetically resonant rock proved a touchstone for a generation with an iconic body of work that’s still worth exploring and finding some of the classic rock era’s finest material. On May 19, 2023, Nash released his latest solo record Now and at 81 he is still crafting exquisite melodies and imaginative stories that have something to say and the forward looking perspective that has always been the hallmark of his art. He’s playing two shows in Colorado in celebration of the record.

Saturday | 06.24
What: Godflesh w/Sumerlands, Stormkeep, Spectral Voice and Street Tombs
When: 5
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Maybe the extreme metal even of the summer with headliners Godflesh, the influential and always unforgettable industrial grindcore pioneers whose grinding, scorching menace always hits hard and not without a sense of mystique. And Denver, thorny grindcore legends Spectral Voice make a very rare appearance these days.

Sunday | 06.25
What: JK Flesh w/Terravault, Corpsewhale, CXCXCX, Vox Mnemonic
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: JK Flesh is the pseudonym of Justin K. Broadrick of Godflesh who fresh off performing at the Gothic the night before with the latter will treat an audience at the Hi-Dive to a set of some of his more experimental work in the realm of noise, power electronics, dub and industrial along with some local noise scene luminaries.

Tuesday | 06.27
What: Moon Pussy w/Porcelain, Quits and Messiahvore
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This is probably the noise rock show of the month with Denver-based greats Moon Pussy whose borderline unhinged and visceral live show is always a cathartic experience informed by a surreal sense of humor. Porcelain visits from Austin with its own fusion of atmospheric rock and its noisy cousin. Quits reconciles dissonant art rock with post-hardcore intensity. Messiahvore might otherwise be considered a metal band but a little too weird and disregarding of clear tonal sight lines to be that.

The Head and the Heart, photo by Shervin Lainez

Thursday | 06.29
What: The Head and the Heart w/Rayland Baxter and Sera Cahoone
When: 6:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: The Head and the Heart has since its 2009 inception become one of the most popular and creatively vital bands under the umbrella of indie folk. The group came together organically through the open mic nights at Conor Byrne pub in Seattle and not long after its 2011 debut album on Sub Pop became a bit of an instant classic of modern folk rock with “Rivers and Roads” becoming a major hit with fans as a typical concert closer. In 2019 “Honeybee” was a bit ubiquitous and may have given the impression that the band was being marketed beyond its ability to deliver but fortunately the group’s earnest performances and orchestral and ambitious songwriting made it obvious that even that song was not just hype. In 2023 The Head and the Heart announced its inaugural festival Down In The Valley to take place at Oxbow Riverstage in Napa, CA on September 2 and 3 to feature not just its own performances but those of Waxahatchee, Faye Webster, Rayland Baxter, Miya Folick, Dawes, Madison Cunningham, Mitch & The Coal Miners, Shaina Shepherd and Josiah Johnson.

Friday | 06.30
What: Remember Sports w/Goon and Dry Ice
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Remember Sports isn’t the typical pop punk band if it can truly be considered that at all. But it has that scrappy spirit and emotional openness that makes for the best of that genre. But the group uses a drum machine rather than a more traditional musician in the role. Its songs unabashedly incorporate left field sounds in the mix and its vocals sound like a childhood subjected to the likes of a now more obscure alternative pop artist like Jane Jensen and the much more famous Alanis Morissette by Gen X parents but the members of the band took a foundation like that and took it in a different direction. The band’s 2022 EP Leap Day is four tracks of lo-fi bedroom punk experiments of undeniable charm.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond May 2023

Skinny Puppy performs at Fillmore Auditorium on May 3, 2023, photo by Emilie Elizabeth and John Kraw, 2014

Tuesday | 05.02
What: Ruston Kelly w/Briscoe
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Ruston Kelly has never been limited by his association with country and Americana and his 2023 album The Weakness even expands what that music can sound like. His earnest and dynamically expressive vocals seem to come from a deep place in his live performances and in music that can have a hushed, introspective quality, Kelly brings a vulnerable fortitude to songs that could work as chamber pop or a cosmic and existential brand of folk informed by a frank self-examination that has an appeal that transcends genre. Best to catch an artist at a time of having transitioned to music that bursts past previous boundaries and fans of his earlier work would do well to see Kelly on this touring cycle.

Wilder Woods, photo by Darius Fitzgerald

Tuesday | 05.02
What: Wilder Woods w/Abraham Alexander
When: 6:30
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Needtobreathe lead singer Wilder Woods aka Bear Rinehart is now touring in support of his new album FEVER / SKY, a collection of spirited neo soul roots rock that sounds like it could have come from the same music scene that spawned Joe Cocker. It’s an album that sounds like the songwriter is coming to terms with who he is as a man and as an artist reckoning with his past and his purpose in life born of a time of isolation during the early pandemic and its impacts on the life of anyone that depended on the world of live music and its associated cultural and economic infrastructure. But Rinehart goes much further and hits deep places in his soul bared self-examination that are more cathartic than uncomfortable.

Skinny Puppy photo by Emilie Elizabeth and John Kraw, 2014

Wednesday | 05.03
What: Skinny Puppy w/Lead Into Gold
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Skinny Puppy were pioneers of electronic industrial music when it formed in 1982 out of the Vancouver, BC New Wave scene. Taking new technologies like sequencers and samplers and pushing the potential aesthetics of these new tools, Skinny Puppy had as much in common with hip-hop artists of that time and now as it did with underground and experimental electronic and industrial rock acts. Its themes of alienation, environmental destruction, animal rights and left politics, Skinny Puppy innovated musically and challenging convention in musical form as well as content. When early member Dwayne Goettel passed away in 1995 the band ended for several years even as a recording project before reuniting in 2000 for its first live performance since 1992. Four years later the group’s new album, the pointedly titled The Greater Wrong of the Right, released and Skinny Puppy toured again and has remained an active project since but with composition steeped in sound design and even more keen social commentary. Unfortunately this tour has been announced to be its last and will more than likely include Skinny Puppy’s signature high use of theatrical performances and striking visuals and some of the most well crafted, intellectually stimulating and emotionally engaging electronic music ever made. The bonus is the opening act is Lead Into Gold, the long time project of Paul Barker, former bassist of Ministry.

Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, photo by Danny Clinch

Wednesday and Thursday | 05.03 and 05.04
What: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit w/Angel Olsen
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit is touring ahead of the June 9, 2023 release of the band’s new album Weathervanes so you’ll get plenty of material from the new record for this show. Isbell has become one of the most acclaimed songwriters of his generation for his vivid, sensitive and imaginative storytelling and delicate vocal style that makes it easy to forget what style of music he’s playing as it engages your emotions with an unexpected immediacy. In that way he’s like Neil Young whose own diverse songwriting and performance draw upon a broad array of methods and aesthetics that nevertheless have a comfortable familiarity. For these two dates Isbell will be joined by another of the modern great songwriters of the current era in Angel Olsen who seems to be able to make retro musical sensibilities seem modern and vibrant.

Nuovo Testamento, photo courtesy the artists

Thursday | 05.04
What: Molchat Doma w/Nuovo Testamento and Mothe
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Nuovo Testamento is a Los Angeles-based darkwave band whose sound blurs the line between post-punk, italo disco and synthpop. On its 2022 swing through Denver at the Hi-Dive the group’s performance was like seeing Madonna fronting Depeche Mode but with its own distinctive flavor. Its new album Love Lines is filled with gorgeously produced darkwave dance club hits like the soundtrack to a retrofuturist thriller that has yet to be made. Molchat Doma is the cult post-punk band from Minsk, Belarus whose introspective songs of loneliness and alienation have struck a chord well beyond their homeland. Its of necessity thin production style and minimalist guitar sound has proven massive influential in Russia as well as globally in the realm of post-punk and darkwave.

Saturday | 05.06
What: I Ya Toyah w/eHpH, Hex Cassette, DJ Nitrogen
When: 9
Where: The Broadway Roxy
Why: I Ya Toyah is a Chicago-based artist whose dark electronic music has a kind of European flavor in the production and tonal palette. Like a darkwave/industrial Danielle Dax with elements of noise, ambient and breakcore in the mix. ehpH is the evolving, long time project of Fernando Altonago and Angelo Atencio also of post-punk rock band Plague Garden. The blend of EBM and industrial with punk attitude and social commentary always hits harder than expected and for this show more of the industrial side of their songwriting will be featured. Hex Cassette is a one man EBM/industrial cult leader of furiously energetic dance music and confrontational stage performance whose banter unsettles some but the choice and absurd humor value is undeniable.

Saturday | 05.06
What: Fishbone w/Frontside Five
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Fishbone has been genre bending and bursting since 1979. Its hybrid style of ska, punk, funk and beyond was like the punk side of Afrofuturism. Its songs always seemed to depict a time in the non-too-distant days to come where people could just be who they are and have the normal struggles of life we all face. All along the way the group’s sharp social commentary was couched in a surreal sense of humor and infectious party anthem grooves that didn’t downplay the issues so much as provide a soundtrack for working through them and shining a light on corners of American society that are often swept under the rug. The group recently released “All We Have Is Now” on the Bottle Music for Broken People compilation on Fat Mike’s new NOFX imprint with founding member Chris Dowd performing on a recording for the first time since 1994 and the song has the same irreverent and fun-loving spirit one would hope for with new Fishbone material.

Saturday | 05.06
What: Zealot w/Owosso and Loose Charm
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Zealot is celebrating the release of its new single “Newer Testament” at the Hi-Dive. Its literate yet spirited music is like if an indie rock band got reconnected with the intensity and musical inventiveness of early 2000s New York City rock with a similar level of imaginative songwriting and aim to make music that isn’t background playlist nonsense but which commands your attention. Owosso is a similarly-minded band comprised of local scene veterans who seem to have rediscovered a knack for crafting pop-inflected post-punk noise rock. If Loose Charm can be considered alt-country or post-rock its because its songs seem to be composed with ear for evocative melody and soundscaping that don’t usually go together unless you’re listening to something like Silver Jews or Wilco though Loose Charm doesn’t really sound like either.

Sunday | 05.07
What: Munly & The Lupercalians w/Polly Urethane
When: 7:30
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Munly & The Lupercalians is like a darkly ritualistic, performance art mystical folk version of what Munly has been doing across his career. One might be tempted to compare it to neofolk but it’s more like a musical cognate to cinematic works like The Wicker Man and Kill List including the stage garb but also tied in with the singer’s baroque and stark poetry. Opening the performance is composer and performance artist Polly Urethane who seems to do a different type of performance and while sometimes combining musical elements and methods of previous performance with her new shows she always seems to push the boundaries of where she’s been before. Could be a weird DJ set, a visually striking performance to pre-recorded music with edgy components in presenting the material or who can say but always worth checking out.

Sunday | 05.07
What: Cobra Man w/Starbenders and Stolen Nova
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Cobra Man is a self-styled “power disco” duo comprised of Andy Harry and Sarah Rayne and currently touring in support of its new EP New Paradise which releases on May 19, 2023. The lead single “Thin Ice” has all the bombast and gloriously, unabashedly epic sound of something you might have heard on the soundtrack for a Cannon Pictures action movie from the 1980s. And the live band isn’t just a couple of button pushers basically doing karaoke to well-produced tracks. They’re like a post-irony glam rock band that exults in the grand sweep and sonic excess of its music.

Nox Novacula in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 05.08
What: Nox Novacula, Plague Garden and Weathered Statues
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Nox Novacula is a post-punk band from Seattle in the gritty death rock vein. Its moody guitar is shot through with a wiry energy and urgency that pairs well with impassioned vocals and driving rhythms. Its 2021 album Ascension bears obvious comparisons with Xmal Deutschland but with a more punk edge. Opening the show are two of Denver’s best post-punk outfits. Plague Garden’s music has a more electronic, New Wave-esque foundation with brooding lyrics and fiery, twin guitar work. Weathered Statues is a little more stark but with bright and buoyant vocals.

Tuesday | 05.09
What: Ringo Deathstarr w/Pleasure Venom, Cherished and Bloodsports
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Ringo Deathstarr is the cult shoegaze band out of Austin, Texas’ seemingly vibrant community for that style of music. Its own particular flavor is ethereal, drifty and transporting in that Slowdive and Lush vein but with its own fuzzily psychedelic sheen. It’s been two years since the group’s self-titled full-length so maybe we’ll get to see some newer material for this stop in Denver. For this trip to the Pacific Northwest, Ringo Deathstarr is joined by Austin noise-rock/art punks Pleasure Venom with local support in Denver from Sonic Youth-esque post-punk band Bloodsports and shoegaze/post-punk greats Cherished.

Death Grips in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

Tuesday | 05.09
What: Death Grips
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Death Grips is the now legendary industrial hip-hop group from Sacramento, California comprised of MC Ride, Andy Morin and Zach Hill. The group has become known for its edgy imagery and its disdain for playing along with music industry expectations and doing so with creativity and deep irreverence. But its well-publicized antics perhaps boosted the group’s cachet while its inventive music spoke for itself with artwork and album and track names that demonstrated a keen awareness of internet culture and American social reality. When the band did perform live it was an incendiary and aggressive affair that has been unforgettable.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Pixies w/Pond
When: 6:30
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Pond from Perth, Australia has been developing and evolving its cinematic, psychedelic art rock since 2008 and its 2021 album 9 sounds like a series of interconnected short films. There’s a spaciousness and dramatic sense of mood and atmosphere that washes around the core rhythms and melodies as they burst with emotion. Like if Pink Floyd hung out with Hawkwind more and ditched their epic sweeps in favor of their more raw rock instincts but infused it with disco and funk. Australia has become known for its popular psychedelic bands but fortunately for the world they’re all very different from each other and Pond is a band whose creative trajectory has left behind some fine listening. Of course there’s also the headlining band, Pixies, who were a choice cult band in its first iteration from the mid-80s through the early 90s and highly influential for its wonderfully eccentric lyrics and brilliantly unconventional, noisy, eruptively energetic alternative rock. But once a younger generation caught wind of the band through the appearance of “Where Is My Mind?” on the soundtrack of Fight Club it became a much more popular band and able to tour on the strength of its older material and bring its sound, foundational to modern rock music, to a much wider audience.

Spike Hellis in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Spike Hellis w/Candy Apple, Moon 17 and Sell Farm
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spike Hellis is basically making the kind of modern EBM and industrial that is informed by punk and even hardcore in its raw energy of delivery. In the live show it’s reminiscent of the kind of hard hitting vibe one might hear in early Nitzer Ebb and Meat Beat Manifesto but with the aesthetics of a modern, glitchcore project but with all the extraneous sonics ripped out but with the bombast left in place. One of the most electrifying live bands in the modern realm of darkwave. Sell Farm has lately been dipping deep into sequencing and sampling to create dystopian, politically charged dub dance post-punk. Candy Apple bridges the gap between a hardcore band and shoegaze-tinged noise rock. Moon 17 is a “Sci-Fi Industrial” band from Kansas City helmed by Zack Hames. The genre seems to fit even if it was dropped as slightly humorous but one hopes Nicolas Winding Refn taps these bands for his next movie soundtrack.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Greg Puciato w/Escuela Grind, Deaf Club and Trace Amount
When: 6:30
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Greg Puciato is the former lead singer and lyricist for metalcore legends The Dillinger Escape Plan. Outside of the context of that band, Pusciato has been a member of synthwave band The Black Queen with its deep atmospheric, cinematic sounds akin to something you might expect to hear from the likes of Failure. And in recent years his solo records have been a fusion and evolution of his past work into something that reconciles an aggressive sound and energy with introspective sentiments and electronic aesthetics. The 2022 album Mirrorcell sounds like where metalcore should have gone and might be more favorably compared to a project like Author & Punisher or Blacklist. Opening are some heavy hitters as well with noise rock supergroup Deaf Club with Justin Person of The Locust, Brian Amalfitano of AcxDC, Scott Osment of Weak Flesh, Jason Klein of Run With The Hunted and Tommy Meehan of The Manx. And Escuela Grind, the modern grindcore/powerviolence legends from Pittsfield, Massachusetts who are quickly establishing themselves as a live band to catch whose songs are informed by a “intersectional progressive” revolutionary, inclusive fervor.

Wednesday | 05.10
What: Metronymy w/Glüme
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Metronymy has been constantly evolving its experimental pop sound with an early focus on exquisitely alien techno soundscapes to its more recent albums that demonstrate its finely honed songcraft with organic elements that seem to more directly reflect tender human experiences with a startling poignancy. Its 2019 album Metronymy Forever wasn’t the first hint at a shift in sound and style but it is an album full of the kind of songwriting one might expect on a Wilco record or an album by The National. And the group’s 2022 album Small World is fully in that mode with songs that are vulnerable yet rich in subtle production that clears the space for the lyrics and organic textures of the music to shine making Metronymy a fascinating anomaly in the expanded realm of modern indie rock.

Friday | 05.12
What: Church Fire w/Calm., Moon Pussy, Sorrows
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church Fire is celebrating the release of its new music video. For what song? Who knows? You’ll have to go to find out and maybe it’ll be released online later. But video or not, Church Fire’s emotionally vibrant industrial dance music is best experienced live without the filters of a purely online experience. Calm. is the hip-hop duo of Time and Awareness who have been putting out some of the most literate and politically charged hip-hop out of the Mile High City in recent years and don’t do many shows at venues like the Hi-Dive or similarly-sized venues these days. And hip-hop in generally isn’t getting a lot of traction at smaller clubs in general but Hi-Dive is an exception to that general rule. Chris “Time” Steele will probably crack wise between songs with genuine wit. Moon Pussy is the getting to be known nationally on the underground circuit noise rock band from Denver whose eruptive music and explosive energy always seems to exceed expectation. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic duo of Glynnis Braan and Lawrence Snell whose dark atmospherics and operatic vocals pull from diverse influences.

Friday | 05.12
What: 7038634357, Verity Larsen, Emilie Craig, sleepdial and Polly Urethane
When: 9
Where: Glob
Why: 7038634357 seems to be a generative ambient noise artist from Arlington, VA whose releases display a knack for signal processing. Verity Larsen combines musique concrète with prepared environmental recordings and ambient soundscapes to produce sonic experiences that recontextualize everyday experiences. French Kettle Station is performing as sleepdial, his more ambient experiments in electronics and sometimes guitar. Polly Urethan you just never know what to expect from how now broad palette of ideas for performance and music and just be prepared to get to witness something unique and potentially challenging.

Friday | 05.12
What: Frontline Assembly and Whorticulture
When: 9
Where: Tracks
Why: EBM pioneers Frontline Assembly is performing for this “Bladerunner — A Cyberpunk Party” and providing the perfect soundtrack for such an event with its dystopian lyrics and electronic industrial.

Friday | 05.12
What: Crowded House w/Liam Finn
When: 7
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Australian band Crowded House is perhaps best remembered for its outstanding 1986 hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over” with its spare yet orchestral melody. But Crowded House produced some quality folk pop during its initial run of 1985-1996 and when it has since reunited in the 2000s and 2020s still led by singer/guitarist Neil Finn who had a fairly successful career while Crowded House was split.

White Rose Motor Oil circa 2021, photo courtesy the band

Saturday | 05.13
What: Scott H. Biram w/Garrett T. Capps and White Rose Motor Oil
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Scott H. Biram is the renowned blues punk musician/solo artist whose troubadour country ballads could seem like pure affectation but he’s done his time in punk and metal and bluegrass in crafting his signature gritty, gospel blues sound. Supporting this bill is the great Denver-based alternative country/outlaw rockabilly band White Rose Motor Oil whose own spare line-up as a duo always seems to punch above its weight in its forcefulness and emotional impact.

Sunday | 05.14
What: Caroline Polachek w/Alex G and Indigo De Souza
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Indigo De Souza’s songs have since early on been an expression of a moody vulnerability cast as deeply atmospheric pop songs that are often pointed but never cruel, simply honest and poetic. Her latest album out on Saddle Creek is 2023’s All of This Will End continues the development of her vibrant songwriting filled with stories that take the pain of lived experience and reflecting on the broad expanse of feelings one goes through in life and sitting in them and finding a way to put them into stories that give them a context that makes them something from which to learn and exult in life rather than be overwhelmed by disappointment, bitterness, petty betrayal (by others and by oneself). And she’s a perfect artist in this line-up of other art pop practitioners of note such as Alex G who has taken conceptual psychedelic rock to fascinating new heights and headliner Caroline Polacek who as a member of Charlift (which was founded in Boulder, Colorado while she was attending CU) made some of the cooler indie rock to have emerged out of that decade that produced the foundations of much of what we hear now. But in her solo career she has emerged as an innovative and experimental artist whose pop songs don’t seem beholden to anyone else’s style bending genres and sounds to suit her creative vision of the moment. For her 2023 album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You you can hear the impact of hyper pop and glitch but as elements and not a root.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 05.14
What: Spooky Mansion w/Sour Magic and Salads and Sunbeams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Spooky Mansion is a surf-rock inflected psychedelic lounge pop band from Los Angeles making a couple of stops in Colorado including this date at the Hi-Dive. Denver’s Sour Magic sound like they could have come from a similar musical lineage but with more luminous guitar melodies. Like maybe they got deep into DIIV and Mac Demarco and found their own voice as a band. Salads and Sunbeams is the kind of band that has crafted exquisite psychedelic indiepop that might have come right out of an unlikely scene that included the Zombies and The Apples in Stereo. But it works and doesn’t have that throwback yesteryear worship vibe even if to some extent that’s what it is because the songwriting stands on its own and worthy of its obvious and not so obvious influences.

Monday | 05.15
What: Wednesday w/Cryogeyser
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Wednesday from Asheville, North Carolina has garnered a bit of a cult following among fans of experimental noise rock and shoegaze and whatever one might call Canadian guitar bands like Women, Preoccupations and FRIGS. But then there’s another side of the band’s sound and that’s the more country flavor of some of its songs, unabashed, borderline cosmic honky tonk stuff. And Wednesday makes it work because it’s obvious the group is fully steeped in both creative instincts and its records are a journey for which a variety of sounds make sense. In particular its 2023 record Rat Saw God and its vivid stories of life in the American South told with great nuance, insight and poignancy. At times the songs can take you by surprise with an offhand lyric that’s so real but delivered with the nonchalance that makes it palatable and it all feeds into what’s making Wednesday one of the most fascinating bands of this moment.

Monday | 05.15
What: Yves Tumor w/Pretty Slick and NATION
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Yves Tumor is an artist whose genre-bending art rock/hip-hop/electronic dance music/funk seems tapped into a raw, otherworldly energy that is a reflection of the anxieties and nightmares of the world we experience everyday. The 2023 album Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) is more overtly rock than earlier albums but still like an alien glam rock that feels ahead of the curve. Live, Yves Tumor is a commanding figure with a lot of swagger and electrifying presence.

Monday | 05.15
What: Narrow Head w/Graham Hunt, Public Opinion and Flower Language
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Houston’s Narrow Head much like Phoenix’s Holy Fawn probably come from a general realm of local scene music but whereas Holy Fawn has transcended black metal into more the realm of a post-rock shoegaze, Narrow Head may have found its origins in a music scene that had or has fine examples of the resurgence of hardcore and emo in the compelling form that emerged all over the country in the past decade. But the band as we hear it on its new album Moments of Clarity is the kind of heavy shoegaze with dynamics like blossoming melodies and soaring vocals that seem to harmonize with the ethereal fuzz and dense low end to give the songs an undeniable uplift.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Tim Hecker
When: 7
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Can’t really blame Tim Hecker for expressing in his recent interview in the New York Times his misgivings for having helped to popularize ambient music since it has become such a workhorse of the bland playlist culture of Spotify. Who wants to be handmaiden to that? But to Hecker’s credit he’s always been an artist who has explored new vistas of the art form in terms of form, structure, sound palette, presentation and instrumentation. His new album No Highs is imbued with a textural, intimate quality that feels very much of the body as his music does in the live setting rather than the offensively bland and background quality of generic playlist ambient.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Mr. Bungle w/Melvins and Spotlights
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: No matter where you check in on the Mr. Bungle timeline you will find boundary-pushing music that bends and breaks genres from the early death metal-surrealism to the lush and theatrical art rock of its late 90s output. Currently the band is touring with a lineup that includes Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, Trevor Dunn, Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo so who can say what the setlist will sound like whether its more baroque pop stuff or the material from its recently reissued 1986 demo The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny. Whatever it might be, the show will be bombastic and mind-expanding. Bonus: Melvins, the sludge rock legends, will bring their always riveting and cathartic performance of its own music that spans various ends of heavy rock with a hard hitting finesse.

Tuesday | 05.16
What: Hoodoo Gurus
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Hoodoo Gurus are the legendary Australian garage rock band that was an influence on generations of bands that have been keyed into its particular brand of jangle psychedelia and punk. Currently the band is touring in support of its 2022 album Chariot of the Gods.

Future Islands in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.17
What: Future Islands w/Deeper
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Future Islands has come a long way from playing DIY spaces in Denver to Red Rocks and now headlining Mission Ballroom. But what hasn’t changed is its emotionally gripping synth pop and impassioned live performances. For this night Chicago’s arty post-punk band Deeper will bring its darkly atmospheric and poignant music to the proceedings.

Thursday | 05.18
What: Sparta w/’68 and Geoff Rickly
When: 6
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The 2002 album Wiretap Scars is where Sparta picked up where At The Drive-In, singer Jim Ward’s then most recently prominent band, left off. The angular, Fugazi-esque, anthemic songs that astutely commented on the times without being so topical as to age poorly in the years ahead. Rather, Wiretap Scars today seems perhaps even more relevant than it did when America was in a state of confusion and nascent authoritarianism and misplaced nationalistic patriotism was starting to settle into the swing of public life. There is a passionate coherence of productive outrage on the record and based on the group’s 2022 tour Sparta will deliver on that messaging on this tour as well.

Thursday | 05.18
What: The Mssng w/To Be Astronauts and Tiny Humans
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Mssng is a band whose hybrid of styles sometimes comes off like people who were inspired by the agglomeration of 90s alternative rock, post-punk revival and the glam rock end of modern garage rock. To Be Astronauts has generally been sort of a 90s throwback, alternative hard rock band who displayed all the stylistic fingerprints of 2000s stoner rock but with more melody. Lately some of the band’s recordings have included versions of songs, live and otherwise, that reveal that if you strip away some of those hard rock instincts you find a band that has some solid songwriting with nothing to prove. Sure, it’s a bit like a better version of the kind of acoustic and electric alt-rock you might have heard from the likes of Counting Crows which isn’t for everyone but respectable nonetheless. Tiny Humans, what can you say, except that the singer has to stop being carted on stage in a wheelchair and in hospital robes and pretending like he’s doing a Nirvana tribute band when it’s more obvious it’s a strange attempt to fully emulate The Amboy Dukes’ guitarist’s entire solo career. But hey, who doesn’t appreciate such fetishistic performance art?

Friday | 05.19
What: Vast Aire (Cannibal Ox) w/Gee Tee and guests
When: 9
Where: Bar Red 437 W. Colfax
Why: Vast Aire is the charismatic and enigmatic rapper who is perhaps best known for his work with alternative hip-hop group Cannibal Ox. His forceful delivery and vivid, socially conscious storytelling once encountered sticks with you because his various collaborators like El-P on the 2001 classic album The Cold Vein are able to create a darkly haunting soundscape from which his voice stands out like an urban mystic and mythological poet.

Friday | 05.19
What: MUNA w/Nova Twins
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Given that the members of MUNA all have academic backgrounds in music or cultural studies one might expect the music to be something more cerebral or conceptual. And initially when developing their own material the trio of Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin and Naomi McPherson experimented with sounds and styles before coming upon exuberant pop songs with earworm hooks and lyrics that are sure about instantly relatable subjects of love and relationships but also with a sensitivity toward issues of identity beyond the usual tropes and which resonate broadly. The group released its 2022 self-titled album to critical acclaim and now MUNA is on a headlining tour of large concert halls with a supporting slot on the upcoming Taylor Swift tour where an appreciative audience for its particularly expansive and upbeat songs will be found.

Friday | 05.19
What: Shady Oaks w/Weary Bones, Fern Roberts and The Picture Tour
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Shady Oaks is a mix of blues and indie rock and Americana. Weary Bones is a bit of an Americana jam band from Louisville, Colorado but more in the vein of Widespread Panic where there are coherent songs that have resonance beyond the genre. It released its latest album Humble Echoes in 2023. Fern Roberts might be described as an indie rock band that seems to be equally influenced by Bright Eyes, 90s alternative rock and the more pop end of Built to Spill. The main reason to go to this show is to see the live debut of former Emerald Siam guitarist Billy Armijo’s band The Picture Tour. Its 2022 album Before the Sound, Before the Light was an audacious debut of introspective, gloomy shoegaze with an ear for interweaving atmospheres and feedback sculpting to produce unique melodies and an enveloping sound.

Friday | 05.19
What: Fruit Bats w/Kolumbo
When: 7
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The new Fruit Bats album A River Running To Your Heart seems assembled and composed as a cinematic experience as much as one more musical. When the record gets up and going its intricate guitar arrangements flow with a grace and elegance that one normally hears more in music that operates at a slower pace and yet for this set of songs Eric D. Johnson and the band never sound rushed. The music is just focused even in reflective passages and there is an energy to the music that pulls you in. Fans of early The War on Drugs will hear some resonance here but Johnson’s songs seem to reign in the impulse to psychedelic self-indulgence and one gets the sense that as free as the music feels that it’s been crafted to edit out excesses that don’t contribute to one of the most consistently enchanting pop albums of the year.

Saturday | 05.20
What: Placebo w/Deap Valley and Poppy Jean Crawford – canceled
When: 7
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Placebo emerged at a time in the mid-1990s when the alternative rock wave was basically spent and a lot of really dull, beige rock and roll and uninspired pop was peddled as exciting. Placebo offered something that seemed to reinvent the edginess of the darker end of grunge with a more glam rock sense of theater and drama. Its early albums dipped into rock and dance music equally before it became even more of a thing at the turn of the century and in a fashion different than had been done by the likes of New Order, Primal Scream and their storied ilk. Its 1998 album Without You I’m Nothing and its promotional videos revealed a band that seemed to have embraced Goth-like personal darkness in musical style and outward presentation. That the band appeared in Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes’ 1998 glam rock fictional biopic of David Bowie and Iggy Pop and that early 1970s era didn’t hurt in establishing Placebo’s cred as a band that embodied the emerging new alternative culture. The band’s 2022 album Never Let Me Go, perhaps a reference to Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 tragic novel of of the same name as well as the 2010 film, its first in 9 years has Placebo pushing its own boundaries beyond where it has been before as a band with an unabashed use of saturated synth melodies and a much more creative use of processed guitar in rock music than we’ve heard in awhile. And if you’re going to have an opening acts like mutant garage psych duo Deap Valley and experimental pop/singer-songwriter Poppy Jean Crawford that just hints that someone in your camp has been listening for something different and actually cool which isn’t always the case in the music industry even on accident.

Fenne Lily, photo by Michael Tyrone Delaney

Saturday | 05.20
What: Fenne Lily & Christian Lee Hutson w/Anna Tivel
When: 8
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: The intimate production on Fenne Lily’s new album Big Picture puts her expressive and breathy vocals front and center without pushing the delicate, almost impressionistic, warm and layered guitar work into the background. The songwriter sounds resigned on these set of songs but that seems to come more out of a sense of having to come to terms with how you can never really get too complacent in life nor do you want to and that sometimes getting to used to comfort can be a path antithetical to personal growth but also how feeling like you’re always having to fend off life’s static and unpredictably intermittent challenges can be kind of a bummer even if you’re able to brush them off and move forward. Lily sounds like she understands and has some deep empathy for how in recent years everyday challenges have seemed like a bit much and how that pace isn’t exactly relenting yet we do have to maintain a core of some grace to weather this steady stream of a whole lot of everything. Big Picture, the title alone, points to how stepping back in the moment can give you the pause you need to keep things in perspective even if you have a moment or ten.

Sunday | 05.21
What: Shania Twain w/Hailey Whitters
When: 6:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Shania Twain needs no introduction. The “Queen of Country Pop” is one of the best selling artists of all time. Certainly in the realm of country and pop music of the last 30 years. Normally in this show listing these kinds of artists don’t make the cut because they’re just too mainstream and not creatively interesting. But Twain was a pioneer in pushing country music into the realm of pop. She and Garth Brooks, whether you’re into their music or not, paved the way for people like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood to find an audience beyond the niche of country. Twain’s humor and charisma made her songs appealing beyond genre and continue to do so. In 2023 Twain released her new album Queen of Me which features current production techniques (even some elements of hyper pop) one might expect to hear on the record of a newer artist but of course the draw is her commanding voice and ability to articulate a range of feelings that seem to capture timeless experiences in new ways that fortunately hint that Twain is keenly aware of not only her place as a country artist that has always embraced new sounds but as one who has also been trying on new ways of having her songs hit with fresh sounds and songwriting that doesn’t sound like she’s stuck in the past.

Sunday | 05.21
What: Violent Femmes w/Jesse Ahern
When: 5
Where: Levitt Pavillion
Why: Violent Femmes will perform its 1983 self-titled debut album in its entirety for this show. That record was a staple of alternative rock radio and college dorms for decades. Its weird blend of folk, punk, jazz and outsider pop had an undeniable, immediate and enduring appeal with classics like “Blister in the Sun,” “Add It Up” and “Gone Daddy Gone” but the whole record beginning to end is a journey into the essence of youthful angst and frustrations but expressed in a way that somehow remained relevant well beyond anyone’s teen years. The Femmes remain a force in the live setting and always surprisingly powerful yet fun.

Arts Fishing Club, photo courtesy the artists

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Arts Fishing Club w/Homes at Night
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Arts Fishing Club is an indie rock band from Nashville that formed in 2016. Singer/guitarist Christopher Kessenich grew up seeing live music with his father and older brothers witnessing a mix of alternative music, classic rock and jam bands all of which fed into his own eclectic songwriting. The band’s debut album Rothko Sky (due out June 16, 2023) is arranged as a kind of personal journey of a person who in the first half of the record sets out in life idealistic and open to everything only to find out that all of us have limitations both human and of our own unique psychology. On the album’s second half there is a reflection on the nature and impact of love, sex and pain and how that can shape who we are once the shine and novelty of new experiences evolves into appreciating the breadth and depth of life. The songs have a bluesy grit and an often impassioned delivery informed by the flow of its narrative element for a record that sounds like it had to be made by a band a few releases into its career once it has figured out who it is and what it wants to say with intention but with the exuberance of a new band intact. Listen to our interview with Kessenich on the Queen City Sounds Podcast on Bandcamp.

My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult in 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Monday | 05.22
What: My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult w/ADULT. and KANGA
When: 6:30
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult is currently touring celebrating its 36 years as a band with a set list that focuses on the group’s first decade. The band’s campy, industrial disco sleaze has always demonstrated a more fun and lighthearted side of industrial culture while offering a distinctive visual and musical style in its bombastic live shows. By the time Thrill Kill Kult appeared in The Crow (1994), the band had already been staples of the more underground end of alternative rock write large but its performance in the film was the perfect embodiment of the aesthetics of the movie. ADULT. is the great industrial post-punk duo from Detroit whose music of the past few years has really been the musical reflection of the conflicted and dystopian times we’ve been going through with a world on the brink of domination by authoritarian regimes and the already unfolding disastrous consequences of climate change with little to no vision and action by world leaders. ADULT.’s music is an act of human solidarity and a catharsis of ambient despair. KANGA is a Los Angeles-based producer whose dusky pop music is darkwave adjacent but also adjacent to a more dance beat infused chillwave and vaporwave with sultry vocals. It might be more apt to compare KANGA to the likes of Charli XCX and Jessie Ware than an artist out of the Goth world.

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Martin Dupont w/Julian St. Nightmare and French Kettle Station and Kill You Club DJs
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Legendary French New Wave band Martin Dupont, formed in 1982, is playing few shows on this tour through the US and one of those stops is in Denver. The group has a new album out called Kintsugi that with its sweeping synths and darkly melancholic melodies seems to have arrived in time for the current era of appreciation for its particular style of cold wave pop/minimal synth and marking its first album in 36 years. French Kettle Station might be described as a hybrid New Age/glitch/post-Cloud rap/abstract post-rock artist whose stage antics involve some impressive dance moves and prodigious energy. Julian St. Nightmare is one of the best post-punk bands from Denver at the moment whose songs seem to have emerged out of its members having gone through phases of playing garage and psychedelic rock and surf but come through with some strong songwriting skills and the ability to craft moody yet powerful songs that don’t sound like the cookie cutter version of modern darkwave.

Tuesday | 05.23
What: Y La Bamba w/Ritmo Cascabel
When: 7
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ya La Bamba is currently touring in support of its new record Lucha which in its typically exploratory fashion employs folk music of various traditions and an experimental soundscaping aesthetic that allows for a rich expression of themes and the sounds that serve to anchor them in your mind. The album is one about various identities and how they overlap and how we can come to embrace them as a coherent and intermingled part of our existence no matter what those categories might be of gender, sexuality, culture and individual psychology. It’s a gentle record but one that runs deep into the aforementioned subjects and through that more vulnerable approach that encourages patience with self and others is able to more successfully enter into the more tender realms of the heart and mind and comment with an intuitive insight. The psychedelic folk of these songs are ambitious in scope and imagination and the live band always seems to truly render the songs into a vibrant and moving form.

Friday | 05.26
What: Mareux w/Cold Gawd
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Mareux established his cult following as a darkwave artist with singles and EPs over the past few years. What set him apart from some of his peers though are his deeply lush and detailed production with rich low end, his dusky and soulful vocals and his poetic tales of romantic yearning like something out of late night cafe reminiscing about heartbreak and lost loves. Currently the producer/singer/songwriter is touring in support of his debut full-length Lovers From the Past, a record that reveals a dimensionality to Mareux’s gift for conveying sonic depth and emotional nuance. Opening is the Cold Gawd whose 2022 album God Get Me the Fuck Out of Here was one of the records of choice to connoisseurs of shoegaze and music that pushes the boundaries of established styles. With R&B beats and granular guitar melodies in densely expressive layers, Cold Gawd is helping to reshape what both forms of music have to sound like and whether there has to be a separation.

Friday | 05.26
What: Chromeo and Hot Chip w/Coco & Breezy and Cimafunk
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Canadian electro-funk duo Chromeo seems to regularly tour with its bombastic and visually arresting live show and always with an innovative opening act or two along for the ride. For this outing at Red Rocks you will get to see Hot Chip. The UK band came to prominence in the early 2000s for its innovative fusion of synthpop and dance music that sounds like a successor to the kinds of sounds we heard out of Madchester, the Balearic Beat, disco and neo soul. Hot Chip always seems to have a keen ear for use of space in its compositions and how that can have a very powerful emotional resonance that goes beyond the mere us of dazzling, atmospheric melodies and strong beats. Its latest album is 2022’s Freakout/Release which found the band leaning heavy into its alternative pop sound with some nice experimental moments reminiscent of Kraftwerk and perhaps contemporaries it influenced like Cut Copy. It might be the group’s most full-realized album in its long career.

Friday | 05.26
What: Ganser w/Antibroth and The Red Scare
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s Ganser is probably well within the realm of post-punk but artier and with a more interesting palette of sounds upon which it draws. In moments like noise rock math rock psychedelic weirdos with angular flow but with an ear for sculpting the collective soundscape it creates. In this way the band has more in common with other Chicago weirdo post-punk bands like Facs or Dehd or beyond the Windy City and akin to bands like Studded Left, Body Double, Dry Cleaning, Lithics or FRIGS. Whatever the exact nature of Ganser might be for anyone into more experimental post-punk that isn’t being defined by a trendy sound. Opening are confrontational, mathy post-punk band Antibroth and the more noise rock The Red Scare.

Saturday | 05.27
What: Suzanne Ciani w/Colloboh
When: 7
Where: Central Presbyterian Church
Why: Synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani is doing a rare performance in Denver this night with quadraphonic sound and a projection-mapped light show. Ciani’s long career has seen her work appear in film, television and commercials as music and sound effects and her 1980s and beyond New Age albums have been nominated for a Grammy five times. Her contributions to sound design and music has been a part of popular culture in ways both subtle and overt and her unique achievements as a composer in league with the likes of Morton Subotnick, Wendy Carlos, Laurie Spiegel, Pauline Oliveros and Delia Derbyshire. Don’t sleep on these shows. You may never get another chance to see Ciani live.

Saturday | 05.27
What: Nerver, Almanac Man and Edith Pike
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Nerver from Kansas City is a rising noise rock band in the vein of the kinds of artists you’d hear from Amphetamine Reptile and Touch and Go. It’s 2022 album CASH was a brutal yet haunting selection of songs that are somehow both melancholic and introspective yet fiery in their cathartic moments. In 2023 Nerver released a split with noise rock legends Chat Pile called BROTHERS IN CHRIST. Edith Pike’s self-titled EP from 2022 may have been pretty lo-fi but you can hear the kind of screamo-noise rock crossover sound that may have its roots in hardcore but has evolved beyond the predictable version of that music. Almanac Man also from Denver has the kind of gristly noise rock that’s feral like Neurosis but with a post-punk angularity that gives its music a vibe like Shellac if Steve Albini had come up in the music world he helped to influence.

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 05.27
What: Meet the Giant album release w/Church Fire and The Mssng
When: 8
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Meet the Giant is releasing its new album We Are Revolting. The group’s 2018 self-titled debut was the product of several years of woodshedding musical ideas and songs as well as production and its gritty mix of rock and downtempo with emotionally stirring vocals reflected with the then emergent live band. This time around the trio appears to have focused on an even sonically edgier catharsis with songs that express an anger born of frustration and weariness at the political and cultural situation in which we find ourselves in America and really worldwide. As touchstones one might point to the likes of Failure and its own fusion of rock and electronic sensibilities and a sheen of the cinematic. Or Nine Inch Nails in even further implementing sound design elements in the mix. But Meet the Giant’s songs tend to be more melodic and its sound having more in common with a modern shoegaze band with a bit more rock and roll kick to its songwriting. Church Fire is also on the bill bringing its own reinvented amalgam of political, electronic industrial dance music and are rock touches.

Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, photo by Harvey Robinson

Sunday | 05.28
What: Sarah Shook and the Disarmers w/Porlolo and Wheelright
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Outlaw country, country-punk, whatever designation fits Sarah Shook and the Disarmers, Sarah Shook is one of the most distinctive voices in modern country music on the still fairly underground level where a great deal of the best of that and other musical styles are found. Shook’s voice has enough of a rough edge to be interesting but their melodic resonance serves well stories of every day life written in a way that seems so specific yet relatable in spirit and substance. Speaking of, Pololo is more an indie rock band but Erin Roberts has a gift for turning a sense of humor into music with a sharply observational and existential bent.

Sunday | 05.28
What: Yob w/Cave In and Dreadnought
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Yob is an influential doom band that began in 2000 before splitting in 2006 and reconvening in 2008. Its sound is definitely in that realm of mining what Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Sleep and Earth had done before but seeing Yob live it seems obvious that Mike Scheidt is injecting a sense of fun into the music and its flows of heavy rock is tinged with psychedelia. This coming year the group is re-issuing its debut album Elaborations of Carbon so perhaps the set list will favor that record but either way, Yob is a fun live band that makes music that is both cosmic and deeply human. Cave In is the influential post-hardcore, foundational metalcore band from Massachusetts. Dreadnought is the doom band from Denver whose rhythmic style has a tribal sensibility and whose overall sound is more atmospheric, psychedelic and more rooted in dark folk than many of its heavy music peers.

Monday | 05.29
What: Djunah w/Moon Pussy and Limbwrecker
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chicago’s Djunah is a noise rock band of the kind that fans of the jarring and cathartic music of HIDE and Diamanda Galás might find much to their liking. Fronted by guitarist/singer/Moog bass player Donna Diane, Djunah recently released its new album Femina Furens. The heaviness of the music doesn’t just come from its gloriously clashing dynamics and instrumentation, it’s, per Djunah’s Bandcamp page, “the story of diagnosis and continuing recovery from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, or C-PTSD. The album’s title comes from the Latin for ‘furious woman.’ The artwork is inspired by representations of the divine feminine in 1970s sci-fi metal art.” Touchstones on a quick listen would have to include Chelsea Wolfe, Patti Smith and Nick Cave for the exuberantly unleashed emotional energy present within. Who better to open than Denver’s Moon Pussy whose own eruptive noise rock while often accompanied by an eccentric sense of humor between songs has a similarly elemental energy that releases personal darkness, pain and frustrations in built and rapidly uncoiled tensions. Limbwrecker has a similar aesthetic though from a place that seems more steeped in a foundation of hardcore and extreme metal.

James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem, photo by Ruvan Wijesooriya

Monday and Tuesday | 05.29 and 05.30
What: LCD Soundsystem w/M.I.A. and Peaches
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: LCD Soundsystem is the band started by James Murphy of DFA Records as a vehicle for his experiments in blending indie rock and electronic dance music. Though often associated with “dance punk,” LCD Soundsystem is much more wide-ranging than that designator would suggest with innovative production and a highly experimental approach to songwriting format and style beginning with the early single “I’m Losing My Edge” to its newer material like “New Body Rhumba” from the soundtrack to Noah Baumbach’s 2022 film White Noise based on Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel of the same name. Perhaps just as noteworthy for this show are the opening artists. Sure, irreverent and theatrical electroclash pioneer Peaches was in Denver recently with a powerful and entertaining show at the Summit Music Hall but rapper M.I.A., who learned how to make her own music from Peaches, hasn’t played in this area since her most recent national tour in 2008 at the Fillmore Auditorium, and her own music and performances are informed by her fusion of hip-hop, experimental electronic dance music, non-Western musical styles and an activist bent that challenges human rights abuse and imperialism.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Helloween w/Hammerfall
When: 6
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Helloween is the influential power metal band from Hamburg, Germany. Since 1984 released a string of albums that have often featured concepts and storytelling commenting on the human condition in both personal, emotive narratives and paralleling historical references with current events and commenting on recurring themes of human civilization and the impact of culture and those in power on the lives of people within and without a particular country. The iconography of the pumpkin has been part of the group’s artwork since early on and infuses the often weighty subject matter of the songwriting with a touch of humor and humanity. In 2016 older Helloween lead vocalists Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen rejoined along with long time singer Andi Deris for the kind of sound not many groups in metal have ever had in one band. In May 2023 the group was slated for induction into the Metal Hall of Fame. In the coming days look for our audio interview with guitarist Sascha Gerstner on the Queen City Sounds Podcast series.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Ryan Oakes w/Layto and Cherie Amour
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Ryan Oakes released his new album WAKE UP on May 12, 2023. The album makes good on the rapper’s experiments in genre bending and blending. The subject matter is about personal struggle, mental health difficulties and overcoming adversity but the attitude and delivery is punk set to trap beats and production for a sound that could be a complete disaster but works because the words are raw and real and the music hitting with an exhilarating immediacy. Somehow Oakes takes the anthemic quality of modern post-hardcore emo and a dazzling parade of current cultural references to tell stories of striving and struggling in an era of amplified anxiety and pressure to succeed despite human limitations and vulnerabilities. Oakes doesn’t bother not tapping into hyper pop’s sonic surrealism and industrial hip-hop as well as the aforementioned styles to create a compelling sound of his own.

Tuesday | 05.30
What: Drain w/Drug Church, MSPAINT and TORENA
When: 7
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Drain is a melodic hardcore trio from Santa Cruz, California that recently released its new album Living Proof. Drug Church hails from the opposite end of the country in Albany, NY but its own style of hardcore is also not short on melody but its style is one with some roots in pop punk or the modern, better, version that emerged in the early 2010s. But the real reason to go to this show is to see MSPAINT from Hattiesburg, Mississippi whose debut full length Post-American release came out on Convulse Records. Clearly the band came out of the punk/hardcore scene but it’s synth-driven art punk is stranger and more colorful than a lot of what else is on offer for this night but delivered with the same level of intense energy and outpouring of passion. One might compare the band to Milemarker and The VSS but it’s really its own, unique flavor of challenging-to-classify punk.

Chella and the Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 05.31
What: Chris King & The Gutterballs w/Chella and The Charm and Silver Triplets
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chris King & The Gutterballs is a band from Seattle whose flavor of Americana has more in common with CCR than the more modern country folk strain though that’s in the mix too. Chella and The Charm has for the past decade or so provided the kind of Americana that is an urban soundtrack to contemplating life and the sorts of issues and thoughts and feelings that drive an authentic existence and performed with the earthy energy of a rock and roll band. But even within that you can hear the irreverent humor and sharp social commentary and observations on human behavior with affection and insight.

Ultrabomb, photo from ultrabombmusic.com

Wednesday | 05.31
What: Ultra Bomb w/Black Dots, The Black Gloves and Shiverz
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Ultrabomb is a punk supergroup featuring Greg Norton of Hüsker Dü, Jamie Oliver of UK Subs and Finny McConnell of The Mahones. The music that’s been available appears to be a particularly vibrant style of power pop and fantastic vocal melodies that one might expect from a group of such punk luminaries.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S2E41: Buck Gooter

Buck Gooter is a “Ghost-motivated electronic rock” band from Harrisonburg, Virginia originally consisting of the duo of Terry Turtle and Billy Brett. Across many releases starting in 2006, Buck Gooter has charted a unique creative vision from the music to the artwork and performance style. At times a self-styled “industrial blues” group Turtle and Brett infused their highly political and insightful songs with an electrifying intensity and layered aesthetics fusing the avant-garde with the immediately accessible. Like a punk band that got into arthouse films and drew more inspiration from the likes of The Screamers, Butthole Surfers and Chrome than the usual suspects. Turtle tragically passed away on November 20, 2019 but left the legacy of the band to Brett who has continued Buck Gooter and releasing albums to which Turtle contributed posthumously including 2021’s Head In A Bird Cage and the new album Ghost Brain which includes samples of Turtle’s vocals and music with contributions from Oliver Ackermann of A Place to Bury Strangers who recorded, mixed and mastered the record at Death By Audio in Queens, NY. It represents but the end of a chapter in the life of the band and a new beginning.

Listen to our interview with Billy Brett of Buck Gooter on Bandcamp and see the band on tour in the USA now including on Friday, April 14, 2023 at Glob in Denver with Polly Urethane, Nightshark and Pythian Whispers, show at 9, $10. The tour itinerary below following the Denver show.

4/15/23 – Albany, CA @ Ivy Room 4/16/23 – San Francisco, CA @ Thrillhouse
4/18/23 – San Pedro, CA @ The Sardine 4/19/23 – Los Angeles, CA @ Permanent Records Roadhouse
4/21/23 – Phoenix, AZ @ The Lost Leaf 4/22/23 – Miami, AZ @ Miami Loco Arts Festival

buckgooter.com

Buck Gooter on YouTube

Buck Gooter on Instagram

Buck Gooter on Facebook