Queen City Sounds Podcast – Page 9 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E06: Brian Polk

Brian Polk has been a fixture of Denver’s local music and literature scene since the 90s. From early punk bands to current projects like the politically-charged art punk bands Joy Subtraction and Elegant Everyone to the deeply personal and sharply humorous, long-running ‘zine The Yellow Rake, the defunct but culturally significant magazine Suspect Press and his fiction (including novels Turning Failure Into Ideology (2007) and Placement of Character (2017)) , Polk has brought a level of craft and intellect to the local scene that frankly we could stand to see more of around the Mile High City. In 2023 Polk released his latest book a bit of a memoir of his time going to see music and becoming involved in the punk subculture called A Lifetime of Ephemera: 25 Years in Punk Told Through Ticket Stubs, Flyers & Memorabilia. It’s an engaging document of Polk’s becoming immersed in punk as related through anecdotes about live show’s he has attended with ticket stubs as they were available, flyers and other memorabilia linking the shared memories to a physical link to the event itself. It was an inherently great idea for a memoir and Polk simply put the work in and present it in a highly accessible manner with insightful commentary about the significance of punk in his life even beyond the music and a subculture in which he could become involved at young age. Perhaps especially significant is Polk’s documentation of the local music scene and venues and the experience of being in a place like Denver and of a time that isn’t otherwise well covered in any other source in one place. In some ways it picks up where Bob Rob Medina’s important 2019 book Colorado Crew: Denvoid Part 2 – A Collection of Tales & Images from The Colorado Punk Scene 1988-1996, his sequel to the also crucial 2015 book Denvoid and the Cowtown Punks: A Collection of Stories From the ’80s Denver Punk Scene. Polk connects the line from that era of the local punk scene to the current era, filling in a critical gap in the narrative of Denver’s underground music scene in a form and style that’s accessible and illuminating.

Listen to our interview with Brian Polk on Bandcamp and follow Polk’s work at the links below. Catch Elegant Everyone at The Skylark Lounge on Wednesday, January 17, 2024 with Cheap Perfume and Dead Pioneers. Doors 8, show 9, $10 advanced, $13 at door.

Buy A Lifetime of Ephemera at Mutiny Info Café

Elegant Everyone on Instagram

Joy Subtraction on Facebook

yellowrake.com

birdymagazine.com

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E05: Lunar Tunes

Lunar Tunes is the the collaborative musical project from Felix Fast4ward (also Felix Ayodele) and Grant Blakeslee (MYTHirst and Skyfloor). The two musicians have been a staple of the local experimental music scene with music that blurs the boundaries between dance music, ambient, indie rock, folk and hip-hop. In both their individual projects and this collaboration, Felix and Grant utilize a spectrum of electronic instruments and those more analog for a hybrid style of performance and production that yielded a half dozen songs on the recent Pieces of Advice EP that are like the more playful and uplifting end of IDM. In moments songs hit like what chillwave might have evolved into had its primary songwriters been more steeped in jazz and avant-electronica. The songs are emotional expansive with even the hint of heaviness eased out of melodies and tonal choices that might be melancholic in the hands of other songwriters. The attention to percussion, rhythm and textural elements is impressive and reminiscent of more experimental hip-hop producers and IDM sound architects alike. Altogether it’s a testament to how the two musicians complement each other well with their individual sensibilities and musical skill sets. It’s an eclectic yet unified and coherent aesthetic of forward thinking, dance adjacent electronic music that is a hallmark to a monthly event Alphabeat Soup that Blakeslee helps curate the second Thursday of the month at The Black Box in Denver, Colorado.

Listen to our interview with Lunar Tunes on Bandcamp and follow the Felix Fast4ward and Grant Blakeslee at the links below. Also linked is the YouTube playlist for Pieces of Advice.

Felix Fast4ward on Instagram

Grant Blakeslee on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E03: Kissing Party

Kissing Party is the self-styled “slop pop” band from Denver that formed during the heyday of the wave of indie rock that came to prominence in the mid-to-late 2000s. The band’s sound early on and even to the current moment might be considered in the realm of twee pop except the group has had two guitarists for years but whose interplay has meant lush and delicate melodies that compliment the gentle exuberance of the songwriting and passionate live shows. What is “Slop Pop”? According to the band’s bio it’s “a perfectly blended chaos of dream pop, shoegaze & beach goth. But fans of Belle & Sebastian, Sarah Records and C86 bands and Denver indiepop from the 90s will find Kissing Party’s earnest sentiments, refreshingly and completely lacking in irony, and exquisitely crafted melodies much to their liking.

Several releases over nearly two decades has proven Kissing Party adept at creating deceptively simple songs about love and life that offer genuine insight without coming off corny or insincere. Sure there is some humor on stage and you might catch a show that’s loose around the edges but the charm is in the humanity of the music and its presentation while taking care to give listeners accessible songs of substance. The latest album Graceless released on November 17 via the band’s own label BbyV Records and available for digital download and streaming. It is a particularly focused and emotionally wide-ranging record from the band yet still retains a freshness of spirit that has been a hallmark of its previous recorded output and sustained song to song with a sense that the whole album is an emotional journey rather than a collection of resonant pop songs. It feels like a creative next step for a group that has been consistent in quality throughout its career thus far. For those interested the band’s generous back catalog is still available and in a handful of cases on a physical format, each worth a listen and all of which has aged well because Kissing Party seems to tap into timeless themes and aesthetics.

Listen to our interview with band founder, primary songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Gregg Dolan on Bandcamp and follow Kissing Party at the links below along with a few music videos for the new album.

Kissing Party on Twitter

Kissing Party on Facebook

Kissing Party on Instagram

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E03: Best Albums, Songs and Shows of 2023

This isn’t a definitive list of the best music that came out in 2023 but just a selection of some of the best that seemed to stand out for Brian Tallman and myself (Tom Murphy). I already chimed in heavily on my Birdy column and will eventually publish my extended year end best albums list in the coming weeks. Tallman is someone I met when I would work out of coffee shops when I was still freelancing for Westword and getting Queen City Sounds and Art off the ground and he seemed very aware of newer music for someone close to my age and had seen plenty of shows going back to the 80s and worked at record store in NYC in the 90s and 2000s. We both went to college in Illinois around the same time, him at Northwestern in Chicago and me at Knox College in rural Galesburg and have a shared cultural background in underground and popular music. We began work on a podcast in 2022 that hasn’t yet seen the light of day discussing music scenes and albums and shows so I thought this year to ask him about a top list of albums and songs for 2023 and shows because he’s been living in other parts of the country and traveling to see shows across America and I’ve been only seeing shows in Colorado but as an active music journalist I’ve been able to see more than most people. Oh yeah, the Sex Swing record is a live album but its versions of previously released material is fantastic. Hopefully you find something of interest in our discussion and maybe discover artists you might not otherwise have known about or whose work you have heard of but have yet to explore. Listen to the discussion on Bandcamp and below I will include playlists for the albums, songs and music by artists at the shows covered.

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E02: Weathered Statues

Weathered Statues in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Weathered Statues is a post-punk band from Denver whose sound is more in the deathrock vein with clear roots in punk with an edge in its overall sound. The quartet got its start in the mid-2010s when singer Jennie Mather’s previous band Cloak of Organs dissolved and she, original guitarist Jason Heller and then (and current) drummer Andrew Warner reconvened as Weathered Statues, borrowing the name from the 1982 T.S.O.L. EP. The group played its first shows by spring of 2017 and was immediately striking for not really fitting in with the ascendant darkwave scene but very much in the post-punk vein of dark tones and an exceptional rhythm section. The following year the band released its debut LP Borderlands via Finnish label Svart Records and toured Finland and Europe in the wake of that release. But within a year or two Heller dropped out of the band, Andrew Warner took a bit of a hiatus during which Clusterfux guitarist Justin Lent filled in on drums before taking over on guitar when Warner returned to the fold and syncing perfectly with Bryan Flanagan’s creative and powerful bass lines.

Since the current lineup has gelled in the last few years Weathered Statues has released the Desolation EP (2019) and played numerous shows and expanding its sound some with Mather taking on the role of keyboardist as well. The band’s music hasn’t always fit in neatly with a subscene in Denver because it isn’t a darkwave band but whose emotionally resonant songs, reminiscent of Xmal Deutschland, Christian Death and Skeletal Family, is clearly adjacent to the sounds of modern darkwave and post-punk groups but its guitar tones tend to be more robust than one often hears among many bands out of that movement and Mather’s vocals more passionate. All the members of the band have been veterans of the Denver music scene with Lent as a member of the aforementioned, long running punk outfit Clusterfux, Mather and Flanagan having been members of punk group The Nervous and Warner in numerous noteworthy rock and experimental bands over the years (including Bad Luck City, Red Cloud, Snake Rattle Rattle Snake, Dormition and currently Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) which goes some way to explaining why Weathered Statues isn’t much like its presumed peers but that storied lineage has also not instilled in the members of the band a sense of resting on its laurels or riding a trend it helped to establish. Its songwriting and commanding live shows speak to deserving that recognition on their own. Expect a new Weathered Statues album by summer or fall 2024.

Listen to our interview with Jennie Mather and Justin Lent of Weathered Statues on Bandcamp and follow the band at the links below. You can catch the outfit live on Saturday, December 30, 2023 at the Hi-Dive with Moon Pussy opening for Denver Americana legends Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Thursday, February 22, 2024 at HQ with Circling Over, Summer of Peril and Mood Swing Misery.

Weathered S tatues on Instagram

Weathered Statues on Bandcamp

Queen City Sounds Podcast S4E01: Church Fire

Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy, concept by Church Fire

Church Fire is a trio from Denver, Colorado that formed around 2010. It’s sound is “…equal parts industrial synth pop, hyperkinetic dance punk and dreamlike ambient 8-bit EDM doom,” or so this author wrote some time back. The project began as a duo of Shannon Webber and David Samuelson originally calling itself Sew Buttons on Ice Cream and performing shows in the local underground and DIY circuit. Samuelson had been a member of art rock bands Bangtel and Dinner With Cannibals and Webber in political noise punk trio Dangerous Nonsense (which she would continue to front until the mid-2010s). The latter and Samuelson’s previous bands were welcomed by the local, weirdo art rock scene of groups with a penchant for the mutant sounds of artists like Mr. Bungle, John Zorn, Chrome and Frank Zappa that once had a loose affiliation as the Denver Art Rock Collective before that fizzled out in the early 2010s.

In 2012 Church Fire dispensed with its odd assortments of instrumentation and focused on the more electronic songwriting with Webber’s commanding and emotionally electrifying vocals and stage presence and changed its performance moniker to its current form. The name seeming to reflect the band’s anti-authoritarian spirit and its always creative and earnest anti-patriarchal critique. Its developing sound then was more in line with what was going on in the nascent darkwave scene of which Church Fire was not a part and which didn’t have a strong showing in Denver. So the band garnered its own following in Denver aside from what one might presume to be its scene with always strikingly powerful live shows and its undeniably compelling dance beats, entrancing and transporting melodies and rare fusion of joy and righteous anger. All qualities that have remained an aspect of the band’s sound and performance style even as it has evolved.

Around the time Church Fire took on its then new name it shared bills with other acts emerging in new forms and under new names like The Milk Blossoms who had once been called Architect (in which Samuelson plays bass) and Mirror Fears, the solo project of Kate Warner, formerly of dream-pop/indie rock band Talk All Night. Webber and Samuelson grew up south of Denver and Warner grew up on the north side in a family that encouraged creative endeavors and with siblings who made a mark in music in their own right, her brother Andrew now in Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Weathered Statues and having been in groups like Bad Luck City and Snake Rattle Rattle Snake. There seemed to be a natural affinity and stylistic compatibility between Church Fire’s music and that of Mirror Fears. Warner had played keyboards and synth in Talk All Night but for Mirror Fears she learned electronic production/composition and principles of audio engineering (in part from doing live sound and trouble-shooting gear for a local rehearsal studio and various events) further and her emotionally rich and vulnerable voice has a unique resonance that transcends any specific musical style. In the summer of 2019 Warner had joined Church Fire and put Mirror Fears on hiatus.

As a trio Samuelson took up drums with a rigorous practice regimen that honed a precision and power suitable for the band’s existing music with Webber and Warner experimenting with combining and playing off each other’s strengths as vocalists while taking the group’s songwriting in new directions and maintaining an inspiring and engaging live show. You can go to a Church Fire and be guaranteed to see a fiery performance that invites you along for a shared catharsis. To date the band has played hundreds of shows and released four full-length albums, an EP and a few singles, all worthwhile listens with memorable songs throughout.

Listen to our interview with Church Fire on Bandcamp and follow the trio at the links below. Chances are if it’s a month, Church Fire has a show or two. But the next two shows are on Saturday, December 23, 2023 at The Broadway Roxy with The Milk Blossoms, Curta and Debthedem0 at 8:30 pm doors, 9pm show and Saturday, December 30, 2023 at The Skylark Lounge with Watch Yourself Die, Voight and Horse Girl 8 doors, 9 show.

churchfiremusic.com

Church Fire on Bandcamp

Church Fire on Instagram

Church Fire on Facebook

Church Fire on Twitter

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E50: Julian St. Nightmare

Julian St. Nightmare (L-R: Sergio Castorena, Genevieve Fulton and Tan Garren), photo by Tom Murphy

Anyone that has been paying attention to the Denver music underground beyond a very superficial for the past two years has at least heard about Julian St. Nightmare. Its five members are a force with a bit of a mystique to their live performances and its music rooted in post-punk, darkwave, surf and garage rock, synthpop, shoegaze and the various styles of music most prominent in their collective youth in the 2000s and 2010s. The group formed in 2018 among friends including current members Chico Arellanes (guitar, bass, vocals) and Rudy Morales (guitar, vocals) who by July of that year invited Genevieve Fulton into the band knowing them from shows and their interest in being in a band only to discover that Fulton had a talent for keyboards, singing and guitar. Before the group could really get off the ground the pandemic hit. Yet in that first year of the pandemic Sergio Castorena (guitar, vocals) of Los Narwhals came into the fold as did drummer Tan Garren, both adding unique musical gifts and perspective that expanded the band’s sonic palette and performance style.

Julian St. Nightmare has since 2021 been a staple of the DIY and small club scene in Denver earning the respect of its peers. Opening slots for French darkwave pioneers Martin Dupont, Chicago post-punk luminaries French Police and NYC dark synthpop duo Tempers, Julian St. Nightmare seemed like peers of the more well-known acts. The band’s most recent shows revealed a broader sonic palette with a boosted confidence in its own powers and its show in July 2023 with now defunct shoegaze band Dream of Industry and EBM solo project Sell Farm made its own inclinations toward creative soundscaping more prominent. There is as yet no Julian St. Nightmare album but its songs can be found on the various streaming platforms and there is a new single due out by late winter or spring with production by Fulton. Alas, it is around that time that the quintet will call it quits with one final show in the works ending a run of one of the most interesting, engaging and powerful of modern bands out of the broad milieu of post-punk and darkwave precisely because it never adhered to the limitations of genre.

Listen to our interview with Castorena, Fulton, Garren on Bandcamp and follow Julian St. Nightmare at the links provided. You can catch the band’s likely second to last show on Friday, December 15, 2023 at Lost Lake on a bill with Cathedral Bells and Hex Cassette. Doors 7 p.m., show 8 p.m., $15.

Julian St. Nightmare on Instagram

Julian St. Nightmare on Apple Music

Julian St. Nightmare on TIDAL HiFi

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E49: Lord Dying

Lord Dying is a band from Portland, Oregon that formed in 2010 and over the course of the past several years has established itself as a group who took roots in doom/sludge and extreme thrash and created a body of work that is as heavy as it is atmospheric, as bludgeoning and aggressive as it is capable of shifting into delicate and introspective moments. In 2019 Lord Dying released its most creatively ambitious album up to that time in Mysterium Tremendum, a meditation on death and loss and the extremes feelings that come about in their wake. It was the first chapter in a trilogy of albums whose next installment is Clandestine Transcendence which releases on streaming, download, CD and Coke Bottle Clear and Olvie Green 180g vinyl on January 19, 2024 via the MNRK Heavy imprint. The album is perhaps even more diverse in the sonics of its songwriting with the extreme ends of the band’s style emphasized with the most crushing and heavy hitting passages in the Lord Dying catalog and the most ethereal and delicate moments of vulnerable introspection. Stylistically Lord Dying includes its most clear and straight forward vocal performances and a song that starts out like something you’d expect from a punk outfit before it escalates into something much heavier. It is arguably Lord Dying’s most creatively realized record thus far and a welcome entry in a body of work that is uncommonly imaginative and eclectic in the realm of heavy music.

Listen to our interview with Erik Olsen of Lord Dying on Bandcamp and follow Lord Dying at the links provided.

Lord Dying on Facebook

Lord Dying on Twitter

Lord Dying on Instagram

Lord Dying LinkTree

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E48: Eddie Durkin

Eddie Durkin is a singer and guitarist and songwriter in indie rock band Lazarus Horse which put out its remarkable latest album Three Birds on August 4, 2023. The album is strikingly economical in its songwriting and audacious in its bare bones production. All but one of the songs is under three minutes and the greater number of the rest in the concise two and a half-minute range. The band could have paid for some studio time and rehearsed the songs to the point of absolute precision and pristine recording condition. But the album was recorded entirely to a smart phone with a few overdubs to preserve an immediacy, an intimacy of emotional resonance and a spontaneity of spirit that reflect the influence of the kind of pop songcraft from the likes of artists on the Sarah Records imprint, Beat Happening and Sparklehorse. It’s a lo-fi affair but with an out sized impact in which the band’s multiple vocalists are given the opportunity to shine. Fans of the song “After Hours” by The Velvet Underground will find a great creative kinship throughout Three Birds.

Durkin grew up on the west side of Denver and like many people had some basic music lessons as a kid including guitar lessons which he gave up when it wasn’t about the kind of music and creativity to which he was most drawn. So Durkin ended up playing football for a short time until it became obvious to him that that wasn’t for him either. Fatefully he was able to catch an OK Go show at the Bluebird Theater in 2005 when he was fifteen-years-old but mainly to see the indie rock band The Redwalls. From then on Durkin aspired to be in a band with the wide eyed faith of youth and by his late teens he was involved in one of his early bands that played live shows in the highly experimental rock band Stupendous Sound Society with his friend Conor Black. But the latter moved on from doing much music and with him went his collection of synthesizers and Durkin formed the more pop-oriented band Sparkler Bombs. With both projects Durkin performed shows in the DIY underground after attending shows at Rhinceropolis and showing up one day to drop off a demo recording to Travis Egedy aka Pictureplane who kindly offered to book Stupendous Sound Society on a bill.

By the early 2010s, the partying and substance abuse and resulting mental health issues caught up with Durkin and he had to be away from it all for a handful of years to get his perspectives more in order and to reconnect with his authentic self. Durkin was always an intelligent and sensitive person with a lot of creativity but when Durkin came back into writing and playing music he seemed to possess a high degree of self-awareness and that informed his songwriting and imbued it with great persona insight. The early incarnation of Lazarus Horse included Hunter Dragon aka Hunter Adams and the latter’s faith in Durkin’s talent gave the project an early impetus that propelled it to its current quartet comprised of Durkin and three members of the great indie rock band Rabbit Fighter: Brooke Theis (bass, vocals), Zoya Brou (guitar, vocals) and Daniel Sayers (drums).

Listen to our deep dive interview with Eddie Durkin on Bandcamp and follow Lazarus Horse at the links below.

Lazarus Horse on Facebook

Lazarus Horse on Instagram

Lazarus Horse on Bandcamp

Lazarus Horse on Apple Music

Queen City Sounds Podcast S3E47: Roger Earl of Foghat

Foghat is an English blues rock band that formed in 1971 initially featuring three former members of Savoy Brown with guitarist and vocalist Dave Peverett, bassist Tony Stevens, guitarist/slide guitarist Rod Price and drummer Roger Earl. Throughout the 70s Foghat enjoyed great commercial success garnering eight gold albums, one platinum and one double-platinum. Perhaps best known for its singles “Fool for the City” and “Slow Ride” both from the 1975 album Fool for the City, Foghat became a staple of the airwaves and later classic rock radio with its music appearing on multiple soundtracks over the past few decades. Its sound on recording and live has been noteworthy for the balance of sounds with the rhythm section as prominent as guitar and vocals, not always the case in the classic rock era and pop music of its heyday. The band split in 1984 but re-formed in 1993 and has been recording and performing live since. The sole founding member of the band these days is Roger Earl and the current line-up includes Bryan Bassett former guitarist of Wild Cherry (most famous for 1976 hit “Play That Funky Music”), bassist Rodney O’Quinn and lead vocalist and guitarist Scott Holt. In 2023 Foghat released its latest album, its first studio record in seven years, Sonic Mojo, a showcase for the group’s chemistry and facility with performing blues classics by Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Chuck Berry, B.B. King as well as its own finely crafted material.

Listen to our interview with Roger Earl on Bandcamp where we discuss a bit of the history of Foghat, his time auditioning for The Jimi Hendrix Experience and his continued engagement in performing music. Foghat links below.

foghat.com

Foghat o n Facebook