R A R E B Y R D $ – Page 3 – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in the Denver Area 3/21/19 – 3/27/19

RAREBYRDS_Feb26_2019_TomMurphy — **R A R E B Y R D $ performs at Mercury Café on March 23. Photo by Tom Murphy**

Thursday | March 21

What: Throwing Thimgs, Bert Olsen (tour kickoff), Sad Dance Party and Zealot
When: Thursday, 03.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Bert Olsen is taking its post-punk/death rock pop songs beyond Denver for a tour and kicking it off with this show alongside other musical misfits like Zealot, a pop band that is deep under the influence of The Mountain Goats—texture rich melodies, irrepressibly upbeat and crackling with wiry energy.

Rubblebucket_RobAbelow1 — Rubblebucket, photo by Rob Abelow

What: Rubblebucket w/Twain and Toth
When: Thursday, 03.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: Rubblebucket reached deep into its members hearts in search of the material for Sun Machine, which discusses the struggles of life, death, heartbreak, despair, a yearning for rebirth into a next, better chapter of life while sitting in the depths of one’s psyche. The live presentation of this material, alongside the group’s fine earlier work, is done with an exuberant sense of theater.

What: Equine Tour Kickoff w/Death In Space, J. Hamilton Isaacs, Radiant Filth
When: Thursday, 03.21, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: Equine will be taking his abstract guitar compositions on the road for a series of shows out to the east coast. Calling it ambient or “prepared guitar” isn’t quite accurate as Kevin Richards brings to bear a technical knowledge of tone and chord structure applied to his imaginative ear for an interesting and compelling arrangement. To launch him on his way are local peers in the like-minded Death In Space whose own guitar and loop experiments will be on full display as well as J. Hamilton Isaacs and his way of making analog synths make playful and bright dance beats and melodies.

What: Bright Light Social Hour w/Rubedo and Other Worlds
When: Thursday, 03.21, 8 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour will treat you to an uplifting blend of ethereal tones and motorik beats. If psychedelic rock went a little bit synth pop and the emphasis was on soothing vibes rather than simply pursuing wild sonic gyrations, it might sound like what Bright Light Social Hour has perfected. Denver’s Rubedo is one of the opening acts. The trio has evolved its sound, aesthetic and conceptual thrust over the years. But lately it’s been a nice balance of heartfelt, soulful vocals and blues-inflected art work with intricate yet intuitive changes throughout its songs. It’s a band whose themes are essentially uplifting and on accentuating the positive but never with a heavy-handed and corny take.

Friday | March 22

MarchFourth_AndrewWyatt — Marchfourth, photo by Andrew Wyatt

What: MarchFourth w/Southern Avenue
When: Friday, 03.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: MarchFourth predates by several years but is otherwise spiritual kin to Denver’s Itchy-O. Both used to have “Marching Band” as part of their name due to the robust horn and percussion sections of both bands. But wheres Itchy-O embodies a more experimental, darker, post-apocalyptic ritualistic side of the music, MarchFourth plays an eclectic kind of instrumental funk. Both are an eye-catching spectacle the likes of which you’re not likely to quite see with a more conventional band format. At a MarchFourth show you’ll also see acrobats, dancers and stiltwalkers with members dressed in a dazzling array of color and personalized detail.

What: Rubie Gold, nIGHTtIMEsCHOOLbUS and Talk Perfect
When: Friday, 03.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: nIGHtIMEsCHOOLbUS is the downtempo hip-hop collaboration between Otem Rellik’s Toby Hendricks and Robin Walker of Shocker Mom. Emotionally tender, borderline ambient beats and warm vibes.

Saturday | March 23

RachaelPollardBonnieWeimerJohnnySherry — Rachael Pollard, Bonnie Weimer on left, Johnny Sherry behind. Photo by Tom Murphy, May 2008

What: Spine, Raw Breed, Cadaver Dog, Videodrome and Mob
When: Saturday, 03.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Aggressive hardcore night at 7C with some of Denver’s best as well as Spine from Kansas City/Chicago. If those guys drive to practice that truly is hardcore.

What: R A R E B Y R D $ tape release w/Bulldozer Boy
When: Saturday, 03.23, 9:30 p.m.
Where: The Mercury Café
Why: R A R E B Y R D $ is releasing its debut tape MIXTO$ at this show as well as other merch. The album was released digitally in 2018 under a slightly different name on Glasss Records but underwent a remixing via Tyler Breuer whose work as a musician and producer in various bands in Denver brought a different sensibility and ear to the proceedings. The experimental hip-hop trio will celebrate the occasion with a show including downtempo-jazz beatmaker Bulldozer Boy.

What: Get Your Ears Swoll: Night 4: Sweetness Itself, Rachael Pollard and Death In Space
When: Saturday, 03.23, 8:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: Get Your Ears Swoll is a monthly music event at The People’s Building in Aurora. Rachael Pollard has been playing her fragile, playful, thoughtful, introspective songs in and around Denver for twenty years or more. The music feels like you’re getting glimpses into a private universe of talking animals, rainbow bridges to other dimensions and some of the most confessional poems written by anyone. Her shows invite you to connect with the better part of your own psyche. Death In Space could be anything at this point since Aleeya Wilson has integrated synths and guitar with loops. Only expect something interesting and sonically spare but not simplistic.

Sunday | March 24

LizPhairCrop — Liz Phair, photo courtesy the artist

What: Liz Phair w/Califone
When: Sunday, 03.24, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Had Liz Phair only released her 1993 album Exile in Guyville, her place in music history would have been set. The album was a deep, sophisticated, at times profane, feminist exploration of the dynamic in far too many music and creative scenes then and now in which men dominate and sideline women (or anyone that can be sidelined for reasons of identity) in subtle and not subtle ways. Her stories are so vivid and capture a truth so poignant they sound personal but they were not, Phair was just particular adroit in her portraits verbally and emotionally. Since then Phair has written straight ahead pop songs, fuzzy alternative rock, soundtracks and done sound design work so that her more recent albums seem like experiments integrating her career as a musician. Live she’s not the type to refuse to play her classic, beloved material and her sense of humor and sensitivity makes for a captivating time.

What: Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow
When: Sunday, 03.24, 5:30 and 8 p.m.
Where: Dazzle
Why: Carla Bley was a major figure in 60s free jazz and her 1971 album with Paul Haines (father of Emily Haines of Metric), Escalator Over The Hill. Called a “jazz opera,” Escalator combined avant-garde jazz and folk and one has to assume it exerted influence on the spontaneous compositions of French prog band Magma. While Bley has played in various configurations large and small this Denver show, her first in around thirty years, will be a trio performance with Andy Sheppard on saxophone and Steve Swallow on bass.

Monday | March 25

Paperbark_Nov22_2017_TomMurphy_web — Paperbark, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Carla Bley, Andy Sheppard and Steve Swallow
When: Monday, 03.25, 5:30 and 8 p.m.
Where: Dazzle
Why: For Carla Bley see above.

What: Centered Volume 5: Paperbark, Entrancer, Street Soul Nekyia and Pameshen
When: Monday, 03.25, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Jacob Isaacs has been putting together some of the greatest, underground showcases for artists of synthesizer music in the Denver area with his Centered series. This edition includes modular synth artist Paperbark. John Mulville lived in Denver for a handful of years where he became entrenched in the avant-garde and ambient scene with his atmospheric work that projected a tactile sensibility like sculpture done with sound. Entrancer’s own modular synth work has absorbed the influences of old school avant-garde electronic music as well as techno. Both Paperbark and Entrancer also draw inspiration from the production side of hip-hop and while it may not be so obvious in their work with more adventurous hip-hop artists embracing noise and experimental music of late the connection seems obvious especially when the waves of this music hits you in the live setting where its visceral impact is undeniable.

Wednesday | March 27

Jerry-Paper-by-Monika-Mogi-03 — Jerry Paper, photo by Monika Mogi

What: Jerry Paper w/Ava Luna and Ashley Koett
When: Wednesday, 03.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Lucas Nathan was involved in making noise and psychedelic music before he finally decided to start making electronic music to disabuse himself of his prejudices against it. Because of that his music has a truly unusual and original take on what is essentially sample-based composition and retro-futurist weirdo hip-hop.

What: Palehorse/Palerider, Nox Novacula, No Gossip In Braille, Voight
When: Wednesday, 03.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Post-metal, post-deathrock, post-punk, post-shoegaze. The kind of bill that should happen all the time but rarely does when artists so unlike each other (beyond all being some kind of rock) have sounds that compliment each other well.

What: Deafheaven, Baroness and Zeal & Ardor
When: Wednesday, 03.27, 6:30 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: Baroness is on the verge of releasing its latest double album Gold & Grey. The band that has distinguished itself in the realm of sludge metal with intricate and imaginative guitar work and solid vocal harmonies has said that the new record will be the last in its series of color-themed titles. Seeing as guitarist and singer John Baizley is one of the most distinguished and sought-after visual artists in metal and music generally, it’ll be interesting to see what themes emerge from here. Until then you will likely be able to hear a good deal of the new material on this tour with blackened shoegaze band Deafheaven and experimental black metal outfit Zeal & Ardor.

eugenechadbourne (1) — Eugene Chadbourne, photo courtesy the artist

What: Eugene Chadbourne / Ryan Seward, Bret Sexton / Farrell Lowe
When: Wednesday, 03.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: Eugene Chadborne has been one of the important figures of avant-garde/free jazz for over four decades. Born in Mount Vernon, New York (just north of NYC), Chadbourne grew up in Boulder, Colorado before leaving for Canada to avoid the draft for the Vietnam War. Can hardly blame him. When he came back to America, he moved to NYC where he worked with Henry Kaiser and John Zorn and was encouraged by Anthony Braxton to keep with playing music rather than enter into a career as a journalist. Chadbourne’s prolific output, not fully documented on his Wikipedia page of course, has encompassed a broad range of musical styles and ideas. He has collaborated with Fred Frith, Sun City Girls, Camper Van Beethoven and Charles Tyler (who worked with Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman). For this performance, Chadbourne will perform with Colorado based improvisational/spontaneous composition artist Ryan Seward with a performance from other Denver area heavy hitters in the local avant-garde scene, who frequently perform with Seward, Bret Sexton and Farrell Lowe. Chadborne will also play a fundraiser for the nonprofit Creative Music Works on Thursday and we’ll provide the information on that event in our next show listing.

Best Shows in Denver 2/21/19

Serengeti3 — **Serengeti performs at Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox on February 26**

Thursday | February 21, 2019

Who: Tokyo Rodeo w/The Born Readies, The Vashon Seed and Landgrabbers
When: Thursday, 02.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: There’s a not insignificant segment of Denver underground music consisting of bands that play all the dive bars and small clubs, garnering an audience but playing music that isn’t being championed much by the local press. But solid bands with good energy and presence and songwriting chops. Some of it straight ahead, bluesy, or southern fried, rock, some of it with a leg in other styles of music but always respectable. In recent years some of these bands included Cutthroat Drifters, The Patient Zeroes and, of course, Tokyo Rodeo. Meaningful storytelling, unexpectedly interesting moods mixed in with layered dynamics and nuanced rhythms that a straight-ahead rock band eschews in favor of run-of-the-mill rocking. There’s more depth to Tokyo Rodeo than all of that and while probably not for everyone that might read this site for the weird music, absolutely worthwhile.

Who: The Gones, Calamity Champs and Sunrise Drive
When: Thursday, 02.21, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Matt Sumner and Kelly Prestridge are the rhythm section of weirdo art pop band The Inactivists. Sure, plenty of humor there, but also a lot of respectable musical talent. The Gones are their power pop band. Because of who they are along with songwriter and guitarist Jef Krauth there is a sense of humor informing the music but really just a great pop band with some punk energy driving it.

Friday | February 22, 2019

Who: Bison Bone album release w/The River Arkansas and Jess Parsons
When: Friday, 02.22, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Bison Bone is releasing Take Up The Trouble tonight. The Denver-based Americana band has always written sonically diverse story songs with a literary flair. The new set of recordings seems less dusky than previous offerings but ineffably more direct and confident. Live, like a great honky tonk band that hasn’t devolved into self-parody.

What: Lifeforce 35mm
When: Friday, 02.22, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Sie Film Center
Why: This concludes The Scream Screen series celebrating the films of Tobe Hooper, director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist. Lifeforce is his 1985 homage to Hammer horror films in the science fiction disaster fame with the antagonists in the form of three naked vampires from space. Which sounds more lurid and corny than this dark and unusual movie happens to be.

Who: The Bellrays w/The Atom Age and Hot Apostles
When: Friday, 02.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The BellRays are what a lot of bluesy garage rock bands want to be. From Riverside, California, sounding like they hung out with the MC5 in the late 60s. Fronted by the charismatic Lisa Kekaula since the early 90s, The Bellrays are one of the greatest American rock and roll bands right now.

Who: How to Think, Full Bleed, I’m a Boy
When: Friday, 02.22, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The People’s Building
Why: The latest in the Get Your Ears Swoll series at The People’s Building in Aurora. I’m A Boy is one of the most underappreciated, yet best, most dynamic live rock bands out of Denver. Part glam, part power pop, the group includes former and current members of 40th Day and Gata Negra. How to Think claims to be an experimental rock band and it is but its soundsculpting on various songs is like if a funk band abstracted that a whole lot and made use of loops and a sampling aesthetic. Other times How to Think is an unadulterated yet unusual, noisy rock band the likes we saw more of in the heyday of alternative rock before that whole thing got reduced to a limited genre.

Saturday | February 23, 2019

ItsJustBugs_Oct17_2017_TomMurphy_web — It’s Just Bugs, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Plastic Daggers EP release w/Its Just Bugs, FATHERS
When: Saturday, 02.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Kind of a Sailor Records showcase but this time in celebration of the release of Plastic Daggers’ latest EP Stitches. Somewhere between punk and bluesy garage rock, Plastic Daggers are appropriately named with their fuzzy riffs honed to a fine edge propelled by a nearly mechanistic drive. Its Just Bugs blends hip-hop, metal, punk and noise for a sound and presentation that seems coherent and of a while despite its eclectic sonic palette. FATHERS is a post-hardcore band for fans of the likes of Glassjaw and Dillinger Escape Plan.

Who: American Standards, Kenaima, Tuck Knee, Didaktikos
When: Saturday, 02.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: This is a hardcore show featuring some of Denver’s best younger bands in that vein of music. Catch them early on in their development before they have it figured out.

Who: Rat Bites (last show), Grave Moss (last show), Moon Pussy and Dead Characters
When: Saturday, 02.23, 9 p.m.
Where: Carioca Café
Why: Noise rock band Grave Moss has the vibe of an early death rock band but the exorcistic quality of some 80s and/or early 90s performance art like something Diamanda Galas or Karen Finley might have done. Unfortunately, the band is calling it quits after this show. And so is Rat Bites, a group that might have fit in best during the heyday of 31G Records where its unconventional punk wouldn’t have seemed as out of step with where punk went boring. Moon Pussy is similarly-minded and its use of truly inventive guitar treatments built from the onboard electronics out alongside cathartic vocals and rhythms that operate at odd angles against rock orthodoxy makes it one of the most interesting bands in Denver or anywhere now. For fans of Daughters and Parts & Labor.

Sunday | February 24, 2019

BryceVine-FrankMaddocks2 — Bryce Vine, photo by Frank Maddocks

Who: Bryce Vine w/Travis Thompson and 7715
When: Sunday, 02.24, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Bryce Vine is not yet widely known but that’s likely to change with the spring 2019 release of his debut full-length Carnival on Warner Brothers. His deftly executed raps combine aspirational fantasizing (while making it seem attainable if not already inevitable) and introspective speculation. His coolly confident vocals seem to transfer that quality to the listener. With beats that wouldn’t be out of place in a well-crated, electronic indie pop song, Bryce’s music has a cross-genre appeal with undeniable swagger and elegance.

Monday | February 25, 2019

TalosNiallOBrien — Talos, photo by Niall O’Brien

Who: Talos with Aurora
When: Sunday, 02.24, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Talos, aka Eoin French, recently released his second album Far Out Dust on February 8, 2019. It’s emotionally soaring, richly melodic synth pop. French is skilled at putting together tiny details in a song like he’s live composing an impressionistic film that evolves into something with greater density of detail and color as it progresses on its timeline. His vocal range lends his songs an unconventional range of sonic texture with interesting upper register intonation. Fans of Perfume Genius will find much to like with Talos and his articulation of yearning without desperation.

Who: Peter Murphy with David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus
When: Monday, 02.25, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Peter Murphy and David J were two of the four founders of influential art rock/post-punk band Bauhaus. For this tour the two musicians will perform selections from the band’s iconic albums in celebration of the forty years of the group’s founding. Though inspired by glam rock, punk and dub, Bauhaus was also steeped in the avant-garde in film, music, literature and theater. It gave their performances a ritualistic quality that its members took to their projects after Bauhaus initially split up in 1983 (with reunions in 1998 and a brief return from 2005 through 2008). With Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins having toured in 2017 playing Tones On Tail songs as Poptones, maybe we’ll get to see a Love and Rockets tour for Hot Trip To Heaven (as the band never toured for that record, one of its best) or even a full-fledged Bauhaus reunion. Until that now remote possibility this is as close as you’re going to get to seeing these songs get their proper delivery.

Tuesday | February 26, 2019

FATWF-Credit-David-Evanko-3 — Frankie And The Witch Hands, photo by David Evanko

Who: Serengeti w/French Kettle Station and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Tuesday, 02.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: David Cohn aka Serengeti is a prolific musical and artistic chameleon. He often adopts a persona that shapes the aesthetic of a musical project so that when he performs those songs you’ll get a truly idiosyncratic show. Whether that’s as Kenny Dennis or his numerous collaborations with other notable underground/alternative hip-hop artists like Why?, Jel & Odd Nosdam, Sufjan Stevens Sicker Man, Cohn’s imagination and creative vision brings a focus to the project that would be difficult to duplicate or imitate. Opening the show is synth pop/performance art superstar French Kettle Station and R A R E B Y R D $, Denver’s premiere ambient gangsta rap/abstract dub mystic trio. Maybe the only one but an act not to miss on any bill.

Who: Peter Murphy with David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus
When: Tuesday, 02.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: See above for 2.25 entry on Peter Murphy and David J: 40 Years of Bauhaus.

Who: Bob Mould Band w/The Trujillo Company
When: Tuesday, 02.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: For those not in the know, Bob Mould was the pioneering guitarist for Hüsker Dü, a band that operated between the late 70s through the late 80s and one that often played and toured in the punk underground of its hometown of Minneapolis and far beyond. But it never fully fit in with the hardcore scene because its sonics were too weird and its knack for beautiful melodies amidst sometimes abrasive music too much like pop. Hüsker Dü was making a music for the future and exerted a massive influence on all guitar music of the alternative rock era by the early 90s. Mould would start a new band called Sugar as well as launch a solo career immediately after the 1987 dissolution of Hüsker Dü and has navigated a respectable musical career since. Mould still plays with the drive and passion that informed any of his previous projects and his 2019 album on Merge, Sunshine Rock, could be a safely personal record, and it’s not short on that, but Mould injects some of the sharp social and political critique that made Hüsker so interesting but poetically taking on modern concerns with an ear for nuance.

Who: Frankie and the Witch Fingers w/Lot Lizard and Eye and the Arrow
When: Tuesday, 02.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Frankie and the Witch Fingers sound like they absorbed a ton of early garage and surf rock and the Nuggets compilation then realized they couldn’t simply regurgitate and mime it in the 2000s after so many other bands had done that so well since the 60s. Their music isn’t that fast, silly riffing and then primal scream formula that “worked” for too many bands in the 2010s. Rather, as evidenced on the group’s excellent full-length ZAM, Frankie and the Witch Fingers brought the elegant and intricate leads and the imagination to its songs. They have songs called “Dracula Drug,” “Dark Sorcerer” and “Head Collector” so clearly an offbeat sense of humor and appreciation for kitsch is part of the group’s musical DNA. Yet, the band never comes off as gimmicky or silly. Direct support is post-punk band Lot Lizard from Sioux Falls, South Dakota (read our interview with bassist Patrick Nelson here) whose own ghostly garage psych underpinnings fit in well with this bill.

Wednesday | February 27, 2019

Thumpasaurus_CodyChoice — Thumpasaurus, photo by Cody Choice

Who: Thumpasaurus w/Boogie Mammoth and Denver Jamtronica
When: Wednesday, 02.26, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Sure, Thumpasaurus drummer/producer is Henry Was, son of Don Was. But pedigree is not necessarily and indication of one’s artistic talent. But Thumpasaurus, on the surface a wildly eclectic, weirdo funk band and one informed by a bizarre creative vision that incorporates meme culture (see their video for “You Are So Pretty”), outfits that look like someone borrowed liberally from designers who were told to make clothes for an adult contemporary punk band inspired by a peak EDM light show and the strangeness of Frank Zappa telling listeners to talk to any vegetable. Whatever the constellation of influences, Thumpasaurus have made it their own and now the group is touring in support of its 2018 album The Book of Thump.

Best Shows in Denver 12/27/18 – 1/2/18

ChurchFire_Nov1_2018_TomMurphy — **Church Fire drops *Summer Camp Doom Diary* @ Hi-Dive this Saturday, 12/29/18. Photo by Tom Murphy**

Thursday | December 27, 2018

Sliver_Dec17_2018_TomMurphy — Sliver, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Drink Drank Punk w/Sliver and Denver Meatpacking Company
When: Thursday, 12.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Drink Drank Punk sounds like a party game of some kind but it’s actually a punk band that sounds like some 90s grunge-inspired musicians decided to call themselves punk because that’s where grunge came from anyway. On the band’s “About” section on Facebook words have semi-randomly capitalized letters and other odd bits of bravado. Listing one of your own other projects as an influence on the band you’re in? Really? Hopefully the band is good. Fortunately, the other two bands, clearly own the influence of grunge and 90s alternative rock and make it their own. Sliver’s fury and emotionally raw performances feel like they come from a very real place. Especially with Demry West on drums playing with a joy that balances out Chris Mercer’s churning anomy. Denver Meatpacking Company could have been a solid pop band but there’s something cathartic about playing music with a bit more grit even if you’re old enough to remember when “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was toppling the glam metal temples in the early 90s without even trying. That comes across in DMC’s songwriting and shows.

Who: Sleepy Animals EP release, Bluebook, Lowfaith
When: Thursday, 12.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Sleepy Animals releases its EP Mirrored Polygons today. Its downtempo indie rock is in good company with the avant-garde indie pop of Bluebook and Lowfaith’s gentle and expansively moody post-punk.

Friday | December 28, 2018

GreenDruid_Jul21_2018_TomMurphy — Green Druid, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Khemmis w/Dreadnought, Green Druid
When: Friday, 12.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Doom band Khemmis has been making waves well beyond Denver for a few years at this point and this weekend is doing a two night run showcasing some of the best metal local metal bands including tonight with Dreadnought and its majestic, folk-inflected, atmospheric doom and Green Druid’s psychedelic tinged brand of heavy music.

Who: Joseph Lamar, Talking Mirrors, My New Dad
When: Friday, 12.28, 9 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Joseph Lamar has been a bit of a musical alchemist and chameleon with his songwriting steeped in dream pop and R&B while taking on various roles as a musician in his band an in other projects. His live show is a mixture of the intimate and the mystical.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Denver Broncos UK and Midwife
When: Friday, 12.28, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club has, since its beginnings in the early 90s, established itself as one of the definitive bands of the Denver music outside the mainstream. With an international fanbase, SCAC, like many of the Mile High City’s best bands, plays small club shows in its hometown. The group’s lively performances of harrowing yet ultimately life-affirming music is reliably compelling, moving and, though highly theatrical, human. For this three night run (also including 12/29 and NYE) the band is bringing in refreshingly different opening act from the usual “same genre” billing. For this show, sure, dark post-punk Americana side project Denver Broncos UK, well worth seeing, but also the delicate, ethereal outsider folk brilliance of Midwife.

Saturday | December 29, 2018

Mirror Fears_Jul30_2017_TomMurphy_web — Mirror Fears at UMS, July 30, 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Church Fire: Summer Camp Doom Diary release w/The Milk Blossoms, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Mirror Fears
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Church Fire’s latest album Summer Camp Doom Diary was many years in the making from shedding the quaint but necessary early compositional ideas and methods represented by the phase in which the duo was calling itself Sewing Buttons on Ice Cream. When the band emerged into the type of group that could make powerful tribal, industrial dance music infused with a sophisticated sociopolitical orientation it really found its core audience among people who don’t see why bangers are irreconcilable with rich and thoughtful content. The new record is the apex of Church Fire’s most recent wave of artistic development which, in many bands, is where its future music will plateau even if it’s worth a listen hereafter. But if you’ve seen Church Fire in the last half year you’ve seen hints of the future direction of the band all of which is more than hinted at across Summer Camp Doom Diary like mini-prophecies, Easter eggs, of self-liberation for both the band and listener alike. For this show Church Fire is joined by other local visionary artists in the more experimental realm who make music that stretches the brain and expands your inner horizons.

Who: Khemmis w/Of Feather and Bone and NightWraith
When: Saturday, 12.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Second night of Khemmis’ local showcase with the grindcore-esque Of Feather and Bone and the thrash-core doom of NightWraith.

Who: Pale Sun, Emerald Siam and Wild Call
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: When silly people talk about the “end of guitar rock” they should be so lucky as to catch this line-up with Pale Sun’s hypnotic and moving post-shoegaze ambient rock, Emerald Siam’s left field stretch beyond brooding post-punk by incorporating hooks and emotional depth and Wild Call’s gritty, dreamy, visceral songwriting.

Who: Itchy-O w/PPL MVR
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O is doing a three night run for the new year beginning tonight with costume weirdo metal band PPL MVR. While a lot of its music is some kind of sludgy hard rock the yeti-looking group freely plays with sounds and methods from other styles of music including psychedelia and hip-hop.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Munly & The Lupercalians and Voight
When: Saturday, 12.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: This second night of three of SCAC’s NYE run at Globe Hall includes performances from the spooky, costumed ritual folk band Munly & The Lupercalians and shoegaze/industrial post-punk duo Voight.

Sunday | December 30, 2018

HandyDiner_CloudlessRainAndSheetMetalSkinGraft_Feb25_2017 — Cloudless Rain (left) with Sheet Metal Skin Graft (left) circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Textures: Brother Saturn, Cloudless Rain, Gutter Spirits
When: Sunday, 12.30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: The final Textures ambient showcase of 2018 with performances from post-rock/loop-shoegaze/electro ambient project Brother Saturn and Cloudless Rain whose own music seems to be one of freefloating, endless horizons as one would expect from a persistent virtual world chillout zone.

Who: Wildermiss w/The Solid Ocean and Panther Martin
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Red Fox Run was a promising band that realized that ambition when some of those guys got together with Emma Cole to form Wildermiss. It’s upbeat, earnest indie rock with interesting tonal flourishes and imaginative song dynamics that separate its musical offerings from the current spate of cookie cutter indiedom. The Red Fox Run guys also bring to the project much of what they learned about promoting themselves beyond just overplaying and oversaturating the local scene in the seemingly aimless manner of many of their peers. This is the first night of a two night run to ring in the new year.

Who: The Beach Boys
When: Sunday, 12.30, 6 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: It is indeed The Beach Boys probably performing choice cuts from across its career with some surprises thrown in because Brian Wilson isn’t a rote creative talent.

Who: Itchy-O w/Radio Scarlet
When: Sunday, 12.30, 8 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Second night of Itchy-O’s run at The Oriental, this night Denver deathrock band Radio Scarlet will open the show.

Who: cindygod EP release
When: Sunday, 12.30, 9:30 p.m.
Where: Pon Pon
Why: cindygod is the newest band from the former members of noise rock band Gauntlet Hair. When the group emerged in the spring/summer of 2018 it had grown to a four-piece with a new name but with sounds that fans of the old band would find immediately likeable. Live, cindygod has been a reminder of what a great band Gauntlet Hair was but one that has evolved beyond that era of musical development but with the same frantic yet nuanced dynamics and joyous outpouring of sound. The group recently released the digital version of its debut EP with the vinyl available at this event.

Monday | December 31, 2018

Who: Rubedo w/Fed Rez, R A R E B Y R D $, DJ Polyphoni
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Rubedo doesn’t play too many Denver shows these days. Its winning, accessible and energetic mixture of funk, noise rock and prog has found an audience beyond Denver. In 2017 Rubedo released Vaca, a sort of farewell album to the trio’s late mentor and musical partner Isaiah “Ikey” Owens. Perhaps this show will include some of the material that will make up its next chapter. For this NYE show you also get to see raucous, insightful and witty hip-hop group Fed Rez and R A R E B Y R D $, another hip-hop group but one whose soulful, even spiritual, sound is rooted in an ability to channel pure emotion in nuanced, gentle yet powerful ways.

Who: Wildermiss w/Retrofette, Coastal Wives, Levi Double U
When: Monday, 12.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: This second night of Wildermiss’ NYE run at Larimer Lounge will include performances from synth pop band Retrofette, indie blues rock band Coastal Wives and hip-hop production-influenced house music artist Levi Double U.

Who: Itchy-O w/Mr. Pacman
When: Monday, 12.31, 9 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Itchy-O concludes its three-night run of shows this NYE with peformance art/synth pop group Mr. Pacman. Traditionally the 3 or 4 members of the latter have performed in costume like something out of an 80s cartoon cosplay demonstration but the confrontational performance will fit in well with what follows with the onslaught of Itchy-O.

Who: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Wayfarer and George Cessna (solo)
When: Monday, 12.31, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The third and final show of SCAC’s NYE residency featuring opening sets from Denver doom band Wayfarer and George Cessna performing a solo set.

Wednesday | January 2, 2019

AdamSelene_SpookieDarlingOfDarlingHouseMedia — Adam Selene, photo by Spookie Darling of Darling House Media

Who: Weird Wednesday: Adam Selene, The Jinjas, Vampire Squids From Hell
When: Wednesday, 01.02, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This is the first Weird Wednesday of 2019. The series, curated by independent, underground promoter Claudia Woodman, aims to highlight the stranger or more eccentric and/or more experimental music happening in Denver or dropping in on tour. For this show it’s poet/hip-hop artist Adam Selene whose beats are definitely not the standard faire and incorporates a broad palette of sounds and instrumentation, being more akin to the likes of Eyedea & Abilities and other hip-hop projects that don’t hesitate to use straight up rock and other noisy samples to give the music some edge. A good pairing with synth rock/pop weirdos The Jinjas. Psych/Americana-twinged surf rock band Vampire Squids From Hell aren’t overtly weird except when you consider that at times the group sounds like a strange hybrid of The Brian Jonestown Massacre and a mellower Man Or Astroman?

Best Shows in Denver 10/20/18 – 10/24/18

Mothers_TonjeThilesen — Mothers performs with Megabog and Down Time on Saturday, October 20 at Larimer Lounge. Photo by Tonje Thilesen

Due to technical difficulties, it wasn’t possible to write up the first two dates of this show list in even remotely a timely manner. For now we present to you the rest of the week’s picks as we’re able to complete the writing.

Saturday | October 20, 2018

MegaBog_Sep28_2011_TomMurphy — Megabog circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: MC 50 with Starcrawler and The Yawpers
When: Saturday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Influential, even foundational, early punk band MC 5 is now on tour celebrating its fiftieth anniversary as MC 50 playing from the band’s respectable catalog that not only injected radical politics into rock music in an overt way but put an indelible stamp on the rawest version of the music post-1960s. The lineup for this tour will include original guitarist Wayne Kramer, former Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil, Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty, Faith No More bassist Billy Gould and Zen Guerilla frontman Marcus Durant.

Who: Dark Descent Records Ninth Anniversary
When: Saturday, 10.20, 6 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dark Descent Records celebrates nearly a decade of unleashing extreme metal from its headquarters in Colorado. For this edition of its annual showcase you can see Cianide, Krypts, Adversarial, Sempiternal Dusk, Spectral Voice and Blood Incantation

Who: Four Fists (P.O.S. + Astronautilus) w/Angel Davanport and Boss Eagle
When: Saturday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: After guesting on each other’s albums for years, P.O.S. and Astronautilus finally teamed up for a collaborative project yielding the album 6666. It’s what you might expect when two titans of alternative hip-hop that know each other’s work and processes well put their heads and hearts together. Poignant social commentary and, refreshingly, a perspective that points to ways that people might take on social injustice and the world’s ills that they can handle. All while giving us tautly composed and imaginative beats that sound like a sampling of all modern electronic music going back to the 8-bit video game aesthetic the 80s as perhaps an abstract display of how culture is a continuum that can’t be truly broken by even influential bad actors. And if you’re not into the heady content aspect, the debut album from Four Fists is a collection of bangers.

Who: Mothers w/Megabog and Down Time
When: Sunday, 10.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Kristine Leschper of Mothers and Erin Bergy of Megabog don’t fit in any easy, pat category as both have used elements of rock and folk in making their respective, boundary pushing pop music. Leschper and Bergy also both masterfully walk that line between accessibility, challenging their respective audiences and freely experimenting with sounds and song format.

Who: MAX w/Nina Nesbitt and EZI
When: Saturday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Max Schneider, aka MAX, has had a career in film, television and modeling but along the way he also established himself as an up-and-coming soul pop vocalist. Nina Nesbitt is a Scottish singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist who got a big break opening for Ed Sheeran on the European leg of his 2012 tour. In 2018 Nesbitt is set to release her sophomore album and there’s a good chance that you’ll get to see some of that material live for this tour. If you show up early you can catch EZI, aka Esther Zyskind who has roots in the singer-songwriter realm but these days, makes lush, moody, synth-driven pop songs.

Who: Blerd #2
When: Saturday, 10.20, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This event says how Afro Punk is never coming to Denver and it, thus, shines a light on the most interesting and forward-thinking Denver artists of color. Tonight’s showcase includes two of the mightiest Denver musical acts with the otherworldly tones and transcendent hip-hop of R A R E B Y R D $ and The Maybe Sos, an experimental hip-hop duo comprised of notable Denver poets and musicians Bianca Mikahn and Jenee Elise Donelson. Also on the bill are Toluwa and Obi.

Sunday | October 21, 2018

OldSport_Jan12_2018_TomMurphy — Old Sport, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: UK Subs w/Agent Orange, Guttermouth and No Takers
When: Sunday, 10.21, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: UK Subs were one of the bands out of the early English punk milieu that incorporated aspects of the pub rock scene of the same era in the mid-to-late 70s. Beginning with its 1979 album, Another Kind of Blues, the group has released a record beginning with every letter of the English alphabet including 2016’s Ziezo. The Subs have also remained a vital live act since the 70s and haven’t exactly toned down the politics edge, decidedly working class left, of their body of work even when they have written songs about going concerns of youth and everyday life. Also headlining this bill is California surf punk band Agent Orange. Like most of the southern California punk bands that emerged from Orange County in the late 70s and early 80s, Agent Orange had that aggressive intensity that was key to hardcore but also an instinct for melody that gave its songwriting an accessibility that may in some ways have helped give birth to pop punk. Agent Orange didn’t really get stuck in a specific punk niche perhaps one aspect of why the band, like the Subs, has endured and evolved.

Who: Mom Jeans w/Just Friends, Awakebutstillinbed and Old Sport
When: Sunday, 10.21, 6 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Mom Jeans from Berkeley, California has been making some waves in underground music with its irreverent yet earnest songs. Over the past several years a blend of math rock, emo and pop punk has re-emerged in America as various musicians have drawn on the music of their younger years for inspiration and combined it with an interest in various musical styles that maybe they didn’t get to see firsthand when it was originally active. And then, of course, making it their own and using it as a vehicle for writing about similar frustrations and struggles but with a broader palette of sounds and cultural references. The group’s 2018 album Puppy Love is not short on meaningful songs with surreally humorous titles like “Jon Bong Jovi” and “You Can’t Eat Cats Kevin.” Also on the bill is like-minded Denver band Old Sport.

Monday | October 22, 2018

Pond_PoonehGhana — Pond, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Pond w/Sur Ellz
When: Monday, 10.22, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Pond isn’t a Tame Impala side project even though the group has shared members and the latter has taken on ex-members of the former as part of Kevin Parker’s live lineup. Tame Impala went in a more overtly experimental electronic dimension with its excellent 2015 album Currents. Pond’s more prolific career has taken interesting turns and it’s 2017 album The Weather was also much more electronic but very well within the realm of a psychedelic aesthetic. One might compare it to when Super Furry Animals went more off its own deep end than usual but rather than soul wending into dream pop.

Who: A Perfect Circle w/Tricky and Night Club
When: Monday, 10.22, 6 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: On the surface this is an odd pairing of bands. A Perfect Circle is one of the projects of Maynard James Keenan of Tool and for earlier records, it was a hard rock and even metal band. For it’s 2018 album Eat the Elephant the group has transformed fully into an atmospheric pop band. The sound is so different yet not seemingly forced or brimming with try hard musical gestures it’s like it’s a new identity for the group achieved after years of development. Night Club is a darkwave rock band comprised of Emily Kavanaugh and former Warlock Pinchers and Foreskin 500 guitarist Mark Brooks. Though mostly known for his work in film and television these days (for example he wrote for and directed episodes of Metalocalypse), with Kavanaugh in Night Club Brooks has been part of a band that sounds like it mulched 90s EBM and Future Pop with the inspired industrial sleaze of Lords of Acid and My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult and made something that could make a virtue of the cheese factor of all that music without having to express the worst excesses. Night Club is more akin to modern Gary Numan than wack industrial rock and that makes all the difference. And Tricky is on the bill. As in former member of Massive Attack and downtempo pioneer with a respectable trip-hop career playing Red Rocks perhaps for the first time in decades.

Tuesday | October 23, 2018

88rising_CourtesyoftheArtist — 88rising, photo courtesy the artists

Who: Windhand w/Satan’s Satyrs
When: Tuesday, 10.23, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Richmond, Virginia’s Windhand has for nearly a decade refined its fluid doom soundscaping like a pagan metal Bardo Pond. The group recorded its 2018 album Eternal Return with Jack Endino, the architect of the so-called Seattle sound of the late 80s and early 90s. With Endino’s assistance, Windhand cast its gritty grandeur in sharper focus than ever before with the intricacies in tone and texture not essentially buried and blurred together in the mix as part of an unintentional aesthetic choice because that’s how doom is “supposed” to sound. Dorthia Cottrell’s vocals have also never sounded better, coming through the fogbank of sounds like a beacon in the night.

Who: 88Rising: 88 Degrees & Rising Tour
When: Tuesday, 10.23, 6 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: 88rising is a media company that is bringing some of its star artists on this tour showcasing its efforts as a management and marketing company, record label and video production service. Nothing too new there. But most of its artists are Asian pop, trap, hip-hop and R&B projects. For this tour you’ll get to see Rich Brian, Joji, Higher Brothers, Keith Ape, KOHH, NIKI and AUGUST 08.

Wednesday | October 24, 2018

Joan_Baez_DanaTynan2 — Joan Baez, photo by Dana Tynan

Who: Joan Baez
When: Wednesday, 10.24, 7 p.m.
Where: The Paramount Theatre
Why: Joan Baez has been an important figure in American popular music since the early 60s when she helped to popularize folk music to an increasingly commercial and widespread audience. She was an early advocate of Bob Dylan and helped to bring his own talent to national audience as well. Baez famously used her platform and her music to raise awareness of human rights and environmental issues, a course she has followed throughout her career up to and including “Nasty Man,” a protest song she wrote against Donald Trump in 2017. It was a viral hit and it was her first published and released piece of original material in over two decades. Baez followed this with her first studio album in nearly a decade with 2018’s Whistle Down the Wind, an album in which she puts her superb interpretations on the songs of other writers including an interesting choice with Anohni’s “Another World.” Currently Baez is on what is being cited as her final formal tour, dubbed “Fare Thee Well Tour.” If this is Baez’s last hurrah, it’s quite a capstone on the career of an artist possessed of a powerful voice and an uncommon sense of compassion and duty to her fellow creatures on planet earth.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond 8/30/18 – 9/5/18

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — CJ Boyd performs at various venues in Colorado this weekend. Photo circa 2008 by Tom Murphy

Thursday | August 30, 2018

Who: A.M. Pleasure Assassins and CJ Boyd
When: Thursday, 08.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Downtown Artery, Fort Collins
Why: Fort Collins’ great lo-fi post-punkers A.M. Pleasure Assassins share the stage with internationally renowned avant-garde punk/folk/ambient/one-man pastoral classical artist C.J. Boyd. The latter is one of the few artists in general that has played in all fifty of the United States. For a decade, Boyd has traversed the country and collaborated with artists from every state and written some of the most accessible and evocative experimental music that defies any absolute categorization. Pick up at any point in his extensive catalog and you’re in for something interesting that will stretch your musical horizons in some fashion. Boyd is playing other shows in Colorado on this leg of his tour and if you’re not able to make this Fort Collins gig it would be worth seeking out where those other shows are happening whether in a house or a DIY space in Colorado Springs like the new Flux Capacitor.

Smokescreens_Gina-Clyne — Smokescreens, photo by Gina Clyne

Who: Smokescreens, The Molochs and American Culture
When: Thursday, 08.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Chris Rosi and Corey Cunningham were once members of Plateaus and Terry Malts having toured together during the ascent of the garage/psych revival. But by mid-decade both moved to Los Angeles where they formed Smokescreens out of a mutual love for the off-standard melodic strategy of American pop and more in the vein of New Zealand weirdo, jangle-y punk bands of the 80s on the Flying Nun imprint as well as noisier American music like The Velvet Underground and The Aislers Set. One might make a good case for some influence of The Feelies and a touch of Jay Reatard and No Age in there. All of those influences would mean nothing if the songwriters weren’t capable of doing anything interesting or original out of their own skill set. The band’s 2018 album Used to Yesterday is proof that Smokescreens is making some of the more sonically interesting, guitar-driven pop music today. Combining a tenderness and delicacy of tone and texture with great momentum and energy, Smokescreens is a band that is as idiosyncratic as its influences, which is no mean feat given Flying Nun’s catalog of unique greatness alone.

MagpieSalute_DavidMcLister — The Magpie Salute, photo by David McLister

Who: The Magpie Salute w/Brent Cowles
When: Thursday, 08.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Formed in 2016 by former members of Black Crowes including Rich Robinson, Marc Ford and Sven Pipien, The Magpie Salute is perhaps less beholden to the blues rock that was the bedrock of Black Crowes. At least if the band’s new album, 2018’s High Water 1 is any indication. Sure, some of the structure and tones are there but the sonic palette is broader with the band at this point. The title track suggests psych Americana but the album refreshingly doesn’t get stuck in a single mode, mood or dynamic. There’s a 70s feel to the record but one that gives you a greater appreciation for the details that make that songwriting style compelling even today even if you’re heard enough of that sort of thing. Robinson and his bandmates grew up with and within those musical traditions and with this band they’re giving those influences a renewed vitality that is oft-imitated and rarely manifested with this degree of credibility because it doesn’t feel forced and the highly developed songcraft born out of years playing in other bands speaks for itself.

Who: Equine, Tunica Externa, biostatic
When: Thursday, 08.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Depth of sound field throughout this show with the guitar drones and tone sculpting of Equine, Tunica Externa’s super minimal soundscapes with guitar and loops and biostatic’s synth, live sampled trumpet and processed sounds. None of the artists is much alike, uses very different methods of making their sounds but all have grounded in a way of making music that isn’t rooted in any particular, pre-established style, which should be recommendation enough for going to this show if you’re looking for something well outside the mainstream.

Friday | August 31, 2018

BrotherhoodOfMachins_May21_2016_TomMurphy — Brotherhood of Machines, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Under the Floorboards Celebration: Midwife, Bigawatt, Brotherhood of Machines, Curta and Multicast
When: Friday, 08.31, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: KGNU’s Under the Floorboards program showcases music that is decidedly left field. So this show will include the minimalist, ambient folk/lo fi production of Midwife, Bigawatt’s operatic avant-post-punk paired with experimental drummer Death Pose, Brotherhood of Machines’ Popol Vuh/dub techno-esque ambient in collaboration with Jake Danna of hip-hop duo Curta. And Multicast, which has been doing ambient music in Colorado for longer than most of the people in Colorado’s quite large ambient scene. With biostatic hosting and serving as a DJ for the night.

Who: Sympathy F
When: Friday, 08.31, 8 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Sympathy F came on to Denver stages during the early days of the alternative rock era. Early members of the band included current guitarists Doug Seaman and Tony Morales (who has also been a vocalist in the band from the beginning) and both lived in a building in the Capitol Hill neighborhood called The Blenheim, notable for its gateway looking like something from a medieval urban house, where they lived across the hall from future and current vocalist Elizabeth Rose who became fast friends with the two musicians who one day heard her singing along to the music they were writing. The band became a bit of a fixture in the local scene throughout the 90s, releasing one, self-titled album and a handful of cassette and compilation releases before the focus of the musicians went to other projects even though Sympathy F never disbanded. Over the past decade or so, the group has been more active and in 2016 releases its first album in over twenty years with its second self-titled album. It was a compilation of new and older recordings and demos that the members of the band rendered for a more modern release augmented by overdubs and a proper mixing and mastering treatment. At that time the band had intended to release a double album to get its backlog of material out into the world but that didn’t make sense and now the group is releasing what would have been the second half of the double album with a couple of new tracks that reflect new musical ideas that hint at where the group may go in the future with electronics a part of its lushly atmospheric, moody hard rock.The new album, available tonight, is The Blenheim, a nod to the band’s roots and the creative frisson that launched its fruitful and prolific, if not widely available on a recording until recently, career. See our upcoming interview with Seaman on the history of the band and its recent painstaking recording of at least one of its new songs.

Who: EVP w/Pearls and Perils and Gold Trash
When: Friday, 08.31, 9 p.m.
Where: BarFly
Why: Glasss Records occupies BarFly for the night. EVP’s pointed personal/political commentary informing its impassioned industrial noise pop will bring some edge to the laid back environs. Gold Trash’s noise-scape-y, beats collage electroclash will demonstrate how you can keep it weird and confrontational yet fun. Pearls and Perils makes downtempo R&B with a rich emotional quality and theatrical stage presence that is impossible to ignore.

Saturday | September 1, 2018

ChurchFire_Aug10_2018_TomMurphy1 — Church Fire, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Temple Tantrum Day 1
When: Saturday, 09.1, 12 p.m., music starts 1 p.m. runs to 10 p.m.
Where: The Temple Studios
Why: Temple Tantrium is a two day festival that encourages attendees to arrive in costume and join in the festivities with twenty musical acts, fourteen art installations, comedy and performance art. For list of artists featured see below.
Music: Council of Word, Porcelain, F-ether, Halo Halo, Ginger Perry, JL Kane, R A R E B Y R D $, Princess Dewclaw, Church Fire, Plantrae

Visual/installation Artists: Ancient.Future, Charles Russel, Alex Anderson, Kat Nechleba, Kristina Rolander, Ryan Wurst, Izzy Jarvis, Regan Rosberg, Queen City Harlequinade, Kelly ShortNQueer, Tara Worley, Suchitra Mattai, Katine Lowe, Marsha Mack, Sandra Fettingus, Naomi Scheck, Joanne Shminke, Lori Owicz, Brendan Macleod.

Performance art and comedy: No Gods No Masters, Punketry, Gallagher Fest, Jessica L’Whor, Jaguar Morning Show

Who: Big Business w/Simulators and Quits
When: Saturday, 09.1, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Big Business is the sludge metal/noise rock band from Seattle comprised of former KARP and Murder City Devils members Jared Warren and Coady Willis. The duo spent a handful of years playing in Melvins where its bombastic, playful and joyous sound fit in with Melvins’ sense of the absurd. For this show the duo will be joined by sharp-edged post-punk band Simulators and eruptive noise rock supergroup Quits which includes former members of Denver-based noise rock outfits Sparkles and Hot White.

Who: Pink Fuzz LP release w/Love Gang and Boot Gun
When: Saturday, 09.1, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: BANDITS from Boulder honed its hard blues rock sound for a few years under that name before adopting its new moniker, Pink Fuzz. The group releases what may be it’s first full-length record tonight. Though not a stoner rock band, fans of bands like Fu Manchu and Nebula will probably find a lot to like here.

Sunday | September 2, 2018

TheSpeedholes_Jan19_2001_RebeccaBauer — The Speedholes circa 2001, photo by Rebecca Bauer

What: Temple Tantrum Day 2
When: Saturday, 09.1, 12 p.m., music starts 1 p.m. runs to 10 p.m.
Where: The Temple Studios
Why: See the entry for this event above on September 1, 2018. The list of visual/installation artists and performance art and comedy is the same. But musical guests for this day include: Machu Linea, MEEK, Entrancer, ETERNAL, Baby Tony & The Teenies, L.A. Zwicky, Oxeye Daisy, Vic N’ The Narwhals, NEEFF, Nasty Nachos and Pictureplane.

Who: Merrick 25th Anniversary Party with debut of Rocket Dust, Vashion Seeds and Sam & Catherine from AKA Belle
When: Sunday, 09.2, 5 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Kelly and Dan Merrick were members of noisy garage punk band The Speedholes in the 90s and early 2000s and were active participants in the vibrant Denver punk scene of that time. Both had roots in the Seattle underground scene of the 80s and 90s and were impacted by Denver musicians who made it to the Pacific Northwest regularly or even made it a home like maybe The Derelicts but certainly The Fluid and Spell. They’re celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with the debut of their new band Rocket Dust with this show at Globe Hall.

Tuesday | September 5, 2018

MondoObscura_May3_2015_TomMurphy — Mondo Obscura, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Mondo Obscura and The Counselor (DJ set)
When: Tuesday, 09.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Chiba Bar | Colorado Springs
Why: Denver futuristic new age/ambient band Mondo Obscura lands in Colorado Springs for a two hour live set followed by DJ set from local weirdo The Counselor at a Japanese themed bar. Fortunately it won’t be the “Chiba City Blues” but if some guy named Case shows up looking like he might be hyped on stims and babbles something about Molly Millions and the Panther Moderns just be glad for the distraction and ask him how Acacia Park is treating him.

Wednesday | September 5, 2018

RollingBlackoutsCoastalFever_Warwick-Baker — Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, photo by Warwick Baker

Who: Rolling Blackouts Coast Fever w/Jo Passed
When: Wednesday, 09.5, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: On the strength of the material on its first two EPs, 2016’s Talk Tight and 2017’s The French Press, Melbourne, Australia’s Rolling Blackouts Coast Fever drew favorable comparison by critics like Robert Christgau and Stephen Deusner to influential Australian jangle pop band The Go-Betweens. With the sparkling guitar tone and effluvient, often urgent, dynamics the comparison seems apt. But the band never really sounds like a throwback and especially not so on its 2018 full length Hope Downs wherein the guitar play weaves hanging chords into its bright melodies to convey more fully melancholic undertones and introspective moods. Like American indie rock band LVL UP, RBCF has a real knack for writing songs with a depth of composition using dissonance, textural rhythms and percussive melodies alongside more straightforward guitar work. Live the group performs with a nervy energy that gives what might otherwise be simply solid pop songs a palpable intensity.

Who: Weird Wednesday: KRBS (from Ludlow), Bonnie Weimer, Whimsically Macabre Music
When: Wednesday, 09.5, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This latest edition of Weird Wednesday features artists whose music doesn’t necessarily scream out “weird” but in the larger musical sense really is. Bonnie Weimer whose spare, banjo songs are reminiscent of Maureen Tucker solo or on her rare and excellent vocal performances in The Velvet Underground (particularly “After Hours”). Meaning it’s intimate, powerful and a bit mysterious. Presumably KRBS is Josh Kirby from the great Colorado folk/punk band Ludlow doing a solo performance. Kirby has an offbeat, often surreal sense of humor so that’s bound to be part of the set too. Whimsically Macabre Music is a solo piano project of Stacy Fahrion. The music doesn’t hit you over the head with its strangeness. In that sense it has more in common with how many Erik Satie pieces are haunting or various Shirley Jackson novels have an atmosphere just off enough to get under your skin without having to resort to cheap thrills.

Best Shows In Denver 8.16.18 to 8.22.18

SANDRA-COLLINS---PRESS-PHOTO---19 — Sandra Collins performs in Denver on Saturday night, August 18, at a venue to be announced

Thursday | August 16, 2018

ALightAmongMany_ReturningToAScorchedEarth_cover — The cover of Returning to a Scorched Earth by A Light Among Many

Who: A Light Among Many album release, Sonic Vomit, Green Druid and Vexing
When: Thursday, 08.16, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: A Light Among Many is the doom drone solo project of Franklin Binder. Using voice, guitar and loops, Binder articulates the spirit of the desolate stretches of Colorado’s high plains stitched with lonely highways and an unseen networks of ley lines. His music has a haunted and tortured yet transcendent menace like a violent storm hovering on the horizon, circling loci of civilization, touching down periodically as a reminder of the primacy of nature over humankind’s hubristic plans. ALAM’s new album Returning to a Scorched Earth drops tonight at the Hi-Dive. It is a beautifully despairing composition of rage at mankind’s abusive stewardship of the earth.

Who: Musical Mayhem: Equine, Space Jail, Full Bleed
When: Thursday, 08.16, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Musical Mayhem is now happening at the Lion’s Lair. The monthly event curated by Claudia Woodman is a good way to see some of the more unusual or experimental bands not necessarily seeing a lot of time at most clubs. Equine is the soundscaping/future jazz/avant-garde guitar solo project of former Motheater and Epileptinomicon guitarist Kevin Richards whose been having quite a prolific year recently in terms of releases and collaborations with each of his shows being fairly different from one another. Space Jail is what might be described as a psychedelic downtempo space rock band. Full Bleed fortunately doesn’t fit an easy formula either with elements of more tripped out stoner rock and soundsculpting use of distortion. What does that mean? They use distortion to give a drawn out sound texture and evolving qualities of sound that seem to impact your body and ears with modulating levels of volume and physicality. When one learns to control these qualities more it can be an interesting musical and experiential effect on its own despite not necessarily being a feature of most music that fits into a mainstream songwriting context.

Friday | August 17, 2018

OCMS3CreditDannyClinch — Old Crow Medicine Show, photo by Danny Clinch

Who: Esmé Patterson and The Still Tide
When: Friday, 08.17, 6 p.m.
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Esmé Patterson will bring her thought-provoking and evocative art folk/pop to Levitt Pavilion tonight to share the stage with The Still Tide. The latter is sometimes referred to as dream pop or indie rock and as vague genre designations they both fit. But singer and guitarist Anna Morsett’s emotionally dynamic voice and stage presence elevates the already excellent songwriting.

Who: Old Crow Medicine Show with I’m With Her (featuring Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz and Aoife O’Donovan)
When: Friday, 08.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Old Crow Medicine Show’s existence predates the most recent wave of old timey/string band/folk Americana music and it could be argued it’s 2004 hit “Wagon Wheel” (co-written by Bob Dylan and OCMS’s Ketch Secor) helped to popularize that music with the mainstream and influenced a generation of like-minded musicians in its wake. Mumford and Sons covered the song several years later. Nevertheless, Old Crow Medicine Show sounds like it could have come up during the folk revival of the 60s and 70s. Its 2018 album Volunteer is a lively blend of bluegrass and classic country. I’m With Her is a trio of some of the best Americana artists in the land right now all of whom have highly respectable careers outside of the band.

Who: All Out Helter 10 year anniversary, day 1 w/Muscle Beach and Record Thieves
When: Friday, 08.17, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: All Out Helter is a band that has too much of a hard rock edge to be purely punk and with its progressive politics firmly in place and eloquently expressed, the band’s firebrand energy is very welcome in an era when too many bands shy away from having anything to say without blunting the impact a little for the infirm of heart and mind. To celebrate its first decade as a band, All Out Helter is playing two nights at the Hi-Dive. On this first night a similarly unpigeonholable heavier hardcore band Muscle Beach will share the stage with the veteran group as well as melodic hardcore outfit Record Thieves.

Who: Luke Vibert with Sortof Vague, Seied and Kanyon Walker
When: Friday, 08.17, 9 p.m.
Where: The Black Box
Why: Acid jazz/techno artist Luke Vibert, sometimes collaborator with Aphex Twin, will perform tonight at The Black Box. Vibert’s prolific and diverse career has included some time playing in punk band, a hip-hop crew and the electronic composition for which he’s most well known. His most recent record Smell The Urgency might be described as acid hip-hop as it has more in common with the likes of J. Dilla, Flying Lotus and Jonwayne with its favoring chill yet otherworldly beats.

Who: King Buffalo w/Green Druid, Emerald Siam
When: Friday, 08.17, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: King Buffalo from Rochester, New York makes the kind of vibey psychedelic music that has some connection to the hybrid of atmospheric doom and trippy pop. What sets the band apart from many of its peers, though, is partly the expansive, drifty melodies that have more in common with the early period of The Verve than some later era lazy shoegaze wannabe act. But its basslines are exceptional and set the pace and the mood with a fluid strength that channels the songwriting into interesting sonic spaces. That quality can also be found in Denver atmospheric rock band Emerald Siam. While the latter has some roots in psychedelic garage rock and the retrofuturist soundscaping of The Jesus and Mary Chain its more recent music has struck deep into musical darkness with an uncommon originality born of not wanting to sit comfortably in someone else’s shoegaze or psych subgenre.

Saturday | August 18, 2018

LambOfGod_TravisShinn — Lamb of God/Burn the Priest, photo by Travis Shinn

Who: Slayer, Avenged Sevenfold, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Behemoth and Testament
When: Saturday, 08.18, 3:30 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: This is supposed to be Slayer’s final tour. We’ll see. Nevertheless, the legendary thrash band will share Fiddler’s Green with some of the greats of thrash in New York’s Anthrax and the Bay Area’s Testament. As well as newer bands that managed to come out of the 90s as metal but not nü metal. Poland’s Behemoth on the surface seems to be the most out of place with its occult-y black metal but its root is the same kind of death metal and thrash that Slayer helped to influence. Both Avenged Sevenfold’s and Lamb of God’s sound can also be traced to the first wave of thrash. LoG has recently hinted that it will perform as Burn the Priest with a release harkening back to the time when it performed under that name as a band that was experimenting with a hybrid of death metal and hardcore. In May 2018, as Burn the Priest, Lamb of God released Legion: XX, an album of covers of hardcore, thrash, sludge rock, industrial bands as well as a cover of Big Black’s “Kerosene,” whatever genre that might really be if any. Chances are you’ll get to see a bit of that with this tour.

Who: All Out Helter 10 year anniversary, day 1 w/The Windermeres and Black Dots
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: This second night of All Out Helter’s 10 year anniversary weekend at the Hi-Dive includes performances from two of Denver’s better punk bands The Windermeres and Black Dots.

Who: Sandra Collins
When: Saturday, 08.18, 10 p.m.
Where: Venue to be announced
Why: Sandra Collins made a name for herself as a talented trance artist in the world of 90s rave and electronica long before electronic dance music became synonymous with the acronym EDM. Really her roots in that music pre-date the widespread use of the aforementioned terminology. Whatever designations have been applied to Collins’ music her skills as a producer, remixer and DJ have long been widely respected and she was inarguably the first female DJ in electronic dance music to gain wide popularity. Her ear for solid, evolving rhythms intersected with rhythmic melodies and textures has made for a large body of work as a live DJ and on recordings like one of trance’s creative landmarks, 2000’s Tranceport.3. In 2013 Collins’ career was documented in Kandeyce Jorden’s 2013 film Girl (in 2018 the film started steaming on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon). Still traveling the world and doing sets, Collins remains one of the few superstar artists in an especially male-dominated realm of music but one that has become increasingly less so in part due to her encouragement and example.

Who: Bluebook w/Erica Ryann
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8 p.m.
Where: Aurora Fox
Why: There are pretty much never any shows in Aurora of this kind going on. Experimental folk/downtempo duo Bluebook at downtown Aurora’s classic theater on Colfax? Hopefully the harbinger of more interesting stuff to come to A-town.

Who: Amen Dunes w/Okay Kaya
When: Saturday, 08.18, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Amen Dunes is often presented as merely some of of psychedelic indie rock artist. But if his latest album, 2018’s Freedom, is any indication he’s been ahead of that curve for some time. If clumsy comparisons must be made his songwriting is as unique, as interesting and as unusual as that of Devendra Banhart or going back some decades, Roxy Music. There is an organic yet otherworldly and sultry quality to the songwriting. It’s also earnest in its emotional outpouring recalling a more mellow Soft Boys or solo Robyn Hitchcock.

Who: Fed Rez (album release) w/Los Mocochetes, R A R E B Y R D $, The Original Ills, DJ Bloodpreshah
When: Saturday, 08.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Fed Rez’s version of hip-hop is one that doesn’t get hung up over genre conventions. Its sample-based compositions don’t shy away from acerbic observations but always informed by a sense of humor that is clever rather than cruel. The quartet releases its latest album this night, On the Regs. To usher in the new record Fed Rez has brought together some of Denver’s finest, like-minded musical entities including Latin funk band Los Mocochetes and dream beat, future jazz, post-apocalypse world beat phenoms, R A R E B Y R D $.

Sunday | August 19, 2018

RopeTrickEffect_KitChalberg — Rope Trick Effect (pictured; Molly Zackary), photo by Kit Chalberg

Who: Rope Trick Effect and Halo Halo
When: Sunday, 08.18, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Rope Trick Effect and Halo Halo could loosely be called jazz-fusion. If that fusion included R&B, torch song lounge, punk and the expected prog when one speaks of fusion. But don’t expect Mahavishnu Orchestra style musical gyrations so much as something you might expect to share a bill with Leonard Cohen in the early 80s. Rope Trick Effect vocalist Molly Zackary is billing the show as #jazznotjazz #sorrynotsorry because of the short shrift that the original jazz scene in Denver gets from most of the local media and, well, music fans too who may not know such a thing exists in the Mile High City. As with everything else Zackary has done in music in Denver, as a music instructor and musician, there is a great deal of musical prowess and emotional power involved in Rope Trick Effect. Its 2017 EP is so solid and refined it could have come out on Blue Note. But see for yourself at this free and children friendly/but not wack show at Denver’s underground/above ground culture hub, Mutiny Information Café.

Tuesday | August 21, 2018

WinterAndTriptides_GabeFernandez — Winter & Triptides, photo by Gabe Fernandez

Who: Winter with Vinyl Williams and Corsicana
When: Tuesday, 08.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Samira Winter grew up in Curitiba, Brazil, the daughter of an American father and a Brazilian mother, but went to college in Los Angeles. The mix of cultures has given her pop songs a decidedly different flavor beyond the bilingual lyrics. With her band, named Winter, Samira has crafted lushy atmospheric pop gems and the band’s 2018 album Ethereality is most suitably titled. It’s reminiscent of late 2000s dream pop and chillwave with a lo-fi aesthetic giving the songs hazy edges of nostalgic whimsy. Winter is also set for a late September release of a collaborative album as Winter & Triptides called Estrela Mágica that sounds like a long lost Latin psych/folk record of the 1970s.

Who: The WHEAL and Voight
When: Tuesday, 08.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Blue Ice
Why: The WHEAL came all the way from Paris, France to perform at Blue Ice. The project supposedly has roots and a lineage in 80s electronic music and post-punk.Whatever its origins, The WHEAL is a modern darkwave band that uses ambient tracks, drum machines and synth compositions to create a dense and deep soundscape. Paired with The WHEAL on the bill is Denver’s Voight, a band whose own fusion of electronic/minimal synth and searing post-punk guitar sounds is unique in the Mile High City.

Wednesday | August 22, 2018

BadBadHats_ZoePrinds-Flash — Bad Bad Hats, photo by Zoe Prinds-Flash

What: Centered Volume 3: Ian Sherlock, Mobdividual, Lepidoptera and J. Hamilton Isaacs
When: Wednesday, 08.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Bar Max
Why: This third edition of Jacob Isaacs’ Centered series, which features underground, experimental electronic artists from around the country as well as Colorado, will include local artists Mobdividual, Lepidoptera and Isaacs himself along with Syracuse, New York-based ambient/environmental sound artist Ian Sherlock. Taking place in the basement of Bar Max, the event will make it easy to escape the bustle of Colfax and take in some great, minimalist soundscapes.

Who: Bad Bad Hats w/Cumulus
When: Wednesday, 08.22, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Minneapolis-based indie rock band Bad Bad Hats recently released its new album, Lightning Round. Singer Kerry Alexander has long written music playing with and often subverting pop clichés. Lightning Round is no different with, according to an August 2018 interview with Rolling Stone, Alexander examining the love as drug metaphor as someone who hasn’t indulged in the song “Nothing Gets Me High.” Alexander imagines possibilities in cultural artifacts and their impacts on our lives and popular culture as with “1-800.” Across her career Alexander has commented insightfully on the emotionally/psychologically fraught moments in any relationship as it starts and develops but especially so on Lightning Round with “Absolute Worst” and “Girl.”

Best Shows in Denver 08/9/18 – 08/15/18

EchoBeds_Jan25_2018_TomMurphy — Echo Beds album release Sunday, August 12, 2018 at Mutiny Information Café

Thursday | August 9, 2018

Lady Gang, photo courtesy Jen Korte

Who: Lady Gang EP release w/Venus Cruz & Ginger Perry and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Thursday, 08.9, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Jen Korte has long been known as a respected and talented songwriter in Denver with her inventive songwriting and vivid lyrics. Known mostly for her Americana solo output and her brilliant collaborations with other artists including stints in Gin Doctors and as a guitarist in experimental rock band Teacup Gorilla. Lady Gang is Korte branching out as a songwriter and, this time around, as a producer. It’s a solo project in which Korte uses “a beat machine, a loop pedal, bass guitar, electric guitar and her signature voice.” That voice has some grit, character and confidence. The project’s new EP, released tonight, is Simple Truths, is truth in advertising with Korte finding direct ways of discussing the world in its incredible disarray. The songs resist simple classification. “How Do You Sound” has elements of bluesy psychedelia and hip-hop as interpreted through someone like MC 900 Foot Jesus. “Preface This” like a long lost Helium track with its electro-lounge and mysterious melodic strains. Sharing the stage for the occasion of this release is a collaborative set with two of Denver’s most noteworthy musical figures in jazz/soul/hip-hop phenom Venus Cruz, host of the Jazz Odyssey program on KUVO (one of the most forward thinking radio programs in Denver) and Ginger Perry, one of the Mile High City’s great DJs and not just the kind that shows up with a simple playlist. Oh, and R A R E B Y R D $, one of the most interesting hip-hop crews going that’s injecting a rich spectrum of quality imagination and emotional content into the genre.

Who: Lupe Fiasco w/Mickey Factz, Bill Blue, Dylan Montayne, Connor Ray
When: Thursday, 08.9, 7 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: It’s for the best that Lupe Fiasco didn’t actually quit music as he had intended in 2016 after the controversy over “N.E.R.D.” and the infamously supposed anti-Semitic line. In a time when white supremacy has made a curious rise in American political life, it’s essential to have voices who are articulate and unabashed critics of such nonsense not to mention Fiasco’s sharp critique of the down side of America’s actions on the international stage. Initially shelved, 2017’s Drogas Light was described as a prequel to the 2011 album Lasers. Perhaps for this tour Lupe Fiasco will unveil a bit of his new direction as creatively moving forward certainly suits him.

Who: Angélique Kidjo’s Remain In Light and Femi Kuti & Positive Force
When: Thursday, 08.9, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens (York Street)
Why: Two giants of world music on one bill in a beautiful setting? Both Kidjo and Kuti have deep roots in the development of world music in general but Afrobeat in particular. Obviously Femi Kuti’s father Fela was the founder of Afrobeat and Femi played in Fela’s band starting in his teen years. Kidjo was “discovered” as a jazz musician in Paris but quickly made a name for herself internationally for her powerful voice and inimitable personal style. A rare opportunity in Denver.

Friday | August 10, 2018

MeetTheGiant3_Jun23_2018_TomMurphy — Meet The Giant, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Meet the Giant vinyl release w/Church Fire and The Patient Zeros
When: Friday, 08.10, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Denver-based rock band Meet the Giant releases the vinyl edition of its self-titled debut album tonight with a show at Syntax. The record is a synthesis of moody, deeply atmospheric dream pop, downtempo and fuzzy hard rock. Live the band’s songs have a mysterious yet emotionally vibrant quality accented by a broad dynamic range between the trio’s players. For the occasion Meet the Giant is joined by two of Denver’s best bands. The Patient Zeros emerged from the glut of neo-classic rock, throwback 60s psych-nostalgia and garage rock that seemed to dominate the past several years with its own musical identity and more bluesy like Cream and not a cut-rate Brian Jonestown Massacre. Church Fire is the rare band that bridges electronic dance music, noise, industrial and synth pop and infuses it with a passionate intensity and shamanic stage presence.

Who: Melvins w/WE Are The Asteroid
When: Friday, 08.10, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Melvins have managed to spend its 35 years as a band not just developing its signature sludgy, heavy rock and influencing generations of musicians, it has taken the opportunity to collaborate with other artists in various realms of music. Whether that’s with experimental electronic artist Lustmord or Jello Biafra, Melvins seem to have long realized that you have to keep doing stuff you find interesting and following your curiosity and trying different things along the way. 2017’s A Walk With Love and Death was a double album with half of it being a noisy soundtrack to a forthcoming film in which the band is involved. Now, Melvins are touring its latest record, 2018’s Pinkus Abortion Technician. Reliably great live, do yourself a favor and see Melvins this weekend or if not this weekend sometime if you’ve not before.

Who: Witch Mountain w/False Cathedrals and Wild Call
When: Friday, 08.10, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Witch Mountain is a doom band from Portland, Oregon currently touring in support of its recently-released self-titled album. The quartet has technically been around since the late 90s but with an early 2000s hiatus giving band members some time to pursue other projects, the group reconvened this past decade with female lead singers who really help coalesce the drifty heavy riffs into mythical anthems. Also on board for the show is Denver doom band False Cathedrals and Wild Call who, while not doom, more psych or shoegaze, have an edge and heaviness to its atmospheric rock that will fit right in.

ParkerMillsap2018-JamesCoreas — Parker Millsap, photo by James Coreas

Who: Parker Millsap w/Plain Faraday
When: Friday, 08.10, 8 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Parker Millsap is definitely operating with a tradition of music that includes blues rock artists of his youth like Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan who were doing their level best to tap into the original blues artists of the American South and Midwest. But instead of getting stuck there, it’s obvious Millsap took some time to explore traditional folk and country and more modern practitioners of that art who brought their own ghosts and haunted quality and soul to their own music. Like Townes Van Zandt and Jeff Buckley. Millsap’s own voice and playing has a an impressive subtlety and spectrum of detail, texture and emotional colorings and has established himself as a real talent in his realm of music. In May 2018 he released his latest record Other Arrangements.

Saturday | August 10, 2018

Itchy-O-ChristopherCleary2 — Itchy-O, photo by Christopher Cleary

Who: Itchy-O Record Release w/Codename: Carter
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Itchy-O’s new full-length Mystic Spy | Psykho Dojo, like any recorded work, could never fully capture the exuberant mayhem and visceral impact of a thirty plus member band in elaborate costumes generating an orchestra of rhythms and tones designed to disorient and inspire. Nevertheless, the new album offers listeners a foray into deep sound design that conveys the sheer detail and atmospheric experience of the band in a different context. It’s the band’s most forward thinking set of songs to date and rendered in a way that is as easy to get lost in on its own terms as the band is live. Each of the band’s albums have been impressive works in their own right in terms of recording and execution as a separate experience from the live show but Mystic Spy | Psykho Dojo is much more than an addendum to an Itchy-O concert, it is the realization of the concept of an esoteric spy film soundtrack and sonic training rhythms for tribal psychics to manifest a more vital future. Joining Itchy-O for this occasion is spy rock/surf band extraordinaire Codename: Carter.

PrincessDewclaw_Aug12_2017_TomMurphy — Princess Dewclaw, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Washout Fest at Globe Hall: Muscle Beach, Rotten Reputation, Sliver, Moon Pussy, Princess Dewclaw, Sonic Vomit, Morlox, Ultraviolet, Eraserhead Fuckers, Bert Olsen, Juice Up, Lepidoptera, Fever Dreams, Saddy, Freak//When//Scene, Monty O’Blivio, Clutch Plague, Television Generation, King Slug and Wayward Sun
When: Saturday, 08.11, 12 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Hands down the most eclectic music festival to happen in Denver in 2018. While many try to encapsulate too many genres with not enough interesting artists, others focus on indie rock and NPR-friendly pop, yet others an uninspired and obvious selection of popular artists and token local artists who aren’t going to ruffle any feathers, the organizers of Washout Fest have dug a little deeper. But more than that, not just artists on the Glasss imprint. It includes notable local noise artist Morlox, ambient project Lepidoptera, noisy psych punk group Princess Dewclaw, the industrial noise rock of Moon Pussy, dream psych pop group Fever Dreams, experimental metal band Sonic Vomit, unconventional punk bands Rotten Reputation and Muscle Beach, fuzz rock bands Sliver and Television Generation, noise hip-hop weirdo Eraserhead Fuckers and much more. The more conventionally-minded festivals have their place, especially when they have a local focus like The UMS and Westword Music Showcase, but this is one where radio-friendly wasn’t the consideration, just quality and putting one’s reputation on the line for declaring the bands as such.

Valley-Queen_by-Pooneh-Ghana — Valley Queen, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: Valley Queen w/Tyto Alba
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Valley Queen has been honing its live show and songwriting for four years with numerous national tours under its belt to road test its music. Its gift for reinventing a type of rock music that isn’t part of a subgenre and isn’t necessarily trying to remanifest some older style of music is impressive. The band may have borrowed some from its retro peers and 2000s indie rock but with the release of its debut album, Supergiant (2018), the Los-Angeles based band demonstrated it’s perfectly capable of establishing a signature sound of layered melodies and Natalie Carol’s commanding vocals. Valley Queen is no stranger to Denver having made the Mile High City a regular stop on its tours and tonight the group will share the stage with one of America’s most promising rock bands, the warmly moody and emotionally stirring Tyto Alba from Denver.

Who: Great American House Fire and Sophisticated Boom Boom split release
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Great American House Fire and Sophisticated Boom Boom are punk but its roots lie in a similar Denver punk and emo scene of the past two decades. GAHF has a bit more soul and Americana in its sound while SBB is more in the vein of power pop. Both celebrate the release of their split seven inch tonight at Bowman’s.

Who: GhostPulse (single premiere) w/Plume Varia and Ramakhandra
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: GhostPulse is premiering its new single “Dreaming In Hypersleep” tonight. The song is a leap forward for a band that was evolving out of its roots in excellent post-rock/instrumental rock band Lucida Tela. The more electronic, soundscape-y sound of its newer material is very welcome in a city where music rooted in mundane reality currently dominates. Plume Varia will compliment the evening well with its own downtempo dream pop and space jazz/Flying Lotus/Gil Scott-Heron-esque band Ramakhandra will keep things in the outer realms of the imagination as well.

Who: Melvins w/WE Are The Asteroid
When: Saturday, 08.11, 8 p.m.
Where: The Aggie Theatre
Why: See above for 8.10 on Melvins.

Sunday | August 12, 2018

Cannons_Jan22_2010_TomMurphy — Cannons circa 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Goon, faim, Soul Vice
When: Sunday, 08.12, 6 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This benefit for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition features some of the more interesting local hardcore acts including Goom and Faim from Denver and Soul Vice from Colorado Springs. Yes, the bands are doing a benefit for a political organization but their own songwriting is non-didactic and address social and interpersonal issues in a poignant and powerful way. For instance, faim’s great song “All Talk” takes to task the people in its own world and scene who talk a big game and make a major display of what they want people to think they’re about without doing anything concrete in the real world and in their own lives to address those issues in meaningful way.

Who: Cannons w/Echo Beds (album release), Limbwrecker, In The Company of Serpents
When: Sunday, 08.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Over two years after the release of its debut full-length New Icons of a Vile Faith, Denver’s Echo Beds finds its starkly menacing clamor evolving in new directions with its 2018 album Buried Language (officially out on 8.17 through The Flenser). Still in place is the physicality of the music and its inventive and visceral use of percussion and rhythmic sound but added to the mix is a greater sense of the use of production in executing that aesthetic in a way that is an even more full spectrum stimulation of the senses. This show is a bit of a record release and tour kickoff for the band but also a chance to share the stage with like-minded acts. Cannons was an excellent noise rock/post-hardcore act that was most active nearly a decade ago in Denver. In the Company of Serpents is a doom band but its wall of sound is so colossal and caustic it’s almost more like death metal or grindcore slowed down to the pace of magma. Limbwrecker could be said to be a powerviolence band with a sense of humor.

Tuesday | August 14, 2018

TheChamanas_Perfiles_BrettMuñoz — The Chamanas, photo by Brett Muñoz

Who: The Chamanas w/Picture the Waves, Vic N’ The Narwhals, Los Mocochetes and Ghost Tapes
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: The Chamanas is an indie pop band if indie pop were born out of being influenced by not just the type of music that formed the DNA of C86 and American indie pop bands of the 90s (garage rock, psychedelia, folk, noise etc.) but if the folk underpinnings of that music included traditional Mexican music, the various pop traditions of Latin America and Cuban dance music. It’s that mixture that gives the band’s music not only a uniquely eclectic flavor but one that has an immediate connection for fans of earlier and more modern indie pop. Manuel Calderon and Hector Carreon met as sound engineers at Sonic Ranch near El Paso, Texas and after working on projects by other artists the two finally issued their own album as The Chamanas in 2015, Once Once. In 2017 the band released its second album, NEA, titled after the nickname of Carreon’s brother who had recently passed with songs that reflected that loss. With 2018’s NEA II, The Chamanas re-rendered several of NEA‘s songs with five new tracks. Also on this bill are some of the best bands in the Denver music scene whose own music is a brilliant synthesis of musical traditions in Vic N’ The Narwhals, Los Mocochetes and Ghost Tapes.

Who: Wino, Xasthur and Phallic Meditation
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Robert “Wino” Weinrich will perform some of his starkly evocative solo material at this show. Better known, perhaps, for his tenure in doom legends Saint Vitus and The Obsessed, his solo acoustic material showcases his raw gift for songwriting. Xasthur’s spare black metal with acoustic instrumentation came to Denver in 2017 with a haunting performance capable of deep musical darkness without the usual instrumentation and sound one associates with a similar aesthetic. Denver’s Phallic Meditation is more a doomy psychedelic band but with some experimental noisiness that sets it apart from similarly-minded groups.

Who: Lil Ugly Mane, Kahlil Cezanne, Curta, Cadaver Dog, Many Blessings, Videodrome
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: When Travis Miller released his debut album as Lil Ugly Mane, 2012’s Mista Thug Isolation, he had already garnered some praise from members of the Odd Future collective for his absurdist imagery and inventive production that really didn’t obey then mainstream hip-hop conventions with his use of noise and black metal soundscapes/samples in some of the beats. So it’s fitting that on this bill are experimental/noise hip-hop artist Curta, hardcore bands Cadaver Dog and Videodrome and noise soundscaper Many Blessings. If there’s a show demonstrating how all those worlds and their various aesthetics aren’t so far apart this whole year so far, this is it.

Wednesday | August 8, 2018

Aseethe-by-Karlee-Barr — Aseethe, photo by Karlee Barr

Who: Yakuza, Aseethe, Oryx, Terminator 2
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Aseethe’s 2017 album Hopes of Failure is a great example of how one can create an immersive experience with heavy music if you’re willing to go beyond how that music has often been conceived in an earlier era. Not just doom or a subgenre of that subgenre, Aseethe’s music is now more like sound design in the form of songs to render an experience through sound and, live, through the visceral dynamics of how that sound is executed. It would be imprecise and wannabe inclusive to call it ambient. It’s not that. It’s not music that can be easily shuffled off into the background if you wish. Aseethe is in good company for this show with Chicago’s Yakuza, a band that has long been pushing the boundaries of heavy music and Denver’s Oryx and Terminator 2 who both don’t just make experimental metal but whose own songs expand what heavy music can be and the forms it can take when the dynamics aren’t essentially the same trying to fit into what doom or grind are “supposed” to sound like.

Who: Beach House w/Sound of Ceres
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 8 p.m.
Where: The Ogden Theatre
Why: It could be argued that Beach House has been in something of a creative rut since 2012’s Bloom, or, less charitably, sine 2008’s Devotion. While it’s albums have been enjoyable and yielding worthwhile songs, and the live shows have been reliably moving, the songwriting was starting to get a little stale. With 2018’s 7, it’s like the band reinvented itself. Maybe with the help of producer Sonic Boom, former member of Spacemen 3 and Spectrum, but this set of songs sounds like Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally recognized a need to break their own boundaries as the songs are far more experimental and adventurous than the duo has ever been. The band’s previous two albums were nice but Beach House is better than merely nice and has now proven it. Sound of Ceres is now based out of New York but the band is originally from Fort Collins, Colorado and its own dreamlike pop music shares the quality of intimate sound and mood and personal mythology that has made Beach House’s music so resonant for anyone with a rich inner life and imagination.

Who: Father John Misty with TV On the Radio
When: Tuesday, 08.14, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Love him, hate him or find him mundane, at least Father John Misty has some self-awareness of his own creative output. Joshua Tillman, Misty, recently released his new album God’s Favorite Customer and ditched the unifying concept approach to writing the album, which Tillman told Consequence of Sound in April 2018 was “pretentious.” You have to honor that level of frankness and honesty in an artist. Whatever intentionality went into God’s Favorite Customer, the record is a sonically and emotionally rich listen with collaborations with the likes of Haxan Cloak and Weyes Blood. That visionary art rock/downtempo/experimental R&B band TV On the Radio is on the bill too is more than just a bonus.

Best Shows in Denver 7/26/18 – 8/1/18

Tarmints_Aug11_2007_TomMurphy — Tarmints (circa 2007) perform at The UMS on Sunday, July 29, 2018 at The Hi-Dive

Thursday | July 26, 2018

MrPacman_Feb17_2007_TomMurphy — Mr. Pacman circa 2007, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: I Heart Monkey Mania: Mr. Pacman, Robot Peanut Butter & The Shooting Stars, Cyclo-Sonic and Moon Pussy, visuals by Chris Bagley
When: Thursday, 07.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Mr. Pacman is not a band that should be dismissed as mere gimmick. Yes, the band dresses up like characters from a cosplay of some weird, ancient Japanese video game. But it’s live drums, keytar, electronic drums and other instrumentation with, indeed, fairly silly songs but performed with a disorienting intensity and earnestness. At times it’s fun but moderately scary. Which is what any good band should be at least once in a while. Mr. Pacman is that pretty much every time. Robot Peanut Butter & The Shooting Stars is a more out downtempo band and Cyclo-Sonic includes former members of Denver punk legends The Rok Tots, Choosey Mothers and The Frantix. Chris Bagley, one of the filmmakers of the 2008 documentary Wesley Willis’ Joyrides, will provide visuals and make it even more of a trip.

Who: Glasss Presents: The Speakeasy Series Season 2 Finale w/Brother Saturn, Equine, VAHCO, MYTHirst, Bowshock
When: Thursday, 07.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This is the final show of the second season of Glasss Records’ The Speakeasy Series. It’ll be more of an ambient show with Brother Saturn’s soothing and abstract guitar and synth collages, Equine’s avant-guitar drone and beats, VAHCO’s beat-driven soul,. MYTHirst’s bright soundscapes and ukulele and whatever it is one might call Bowshock’s mixture of influences from space rock, reggae and improvisational composition.

Who: Har Mar Superstar sings Sam Cooke
When: Thursday, 07.26, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Har Mar Superstar cleaned up but good for this series of shows in which he dresses up in a suit and tie (which may or may not come off before the set is over in the weather Denver has been experiencing as of late). Sean Tillman (Har Mar Superstar) and his band will perform several of Sam Cooke’s classic R&B hits and maybe even some deep cuts. Seeing as Har Mar’s usual schtick is singing R&B and soul and making a spectacle of himself but pulling off the singing like he was born to it, this is not a huge leap for the performer. And at this time, the socially conscious end of Cooke’s music seems more relevant than ever.

Friday | July 27, 2018

RedBaraat_MarkJaworski — Red Baraat, photo by Mark Jaworski

Who: Red Baraat
When: Friday, 07.27, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Where: Clyfford Still Museum
Why: Red Baraat’s syncretic pop spans South Asian musical styles, Western funk, Afrobeat and Caribbean pop to create something that’s celebratory, immediately accessible and deep. The sprawling band is playing this free concert at Clyfford Still Museum in central Denver in the wake of the release of its latest record, 2018’s Sound The People. With its cultural scope and implicit message of human unity, Red Baraat’s music is an international call of all people to come together to resist the rising wave of aggressive authoritarianism plaguing the world today. Beyond the heady messaging, Red Baraat is a reminder that sprawling, seemingly improvisational compositions needn’t be the pure realm of jam bands and that it is a component of popular musical styles across the world.

Who: SUPER PARTY Day 1: Presented by Remixed Gifts and Hot Sauce the Dog
When: Friday, 07.27,7 p.m.
Where: Remixed Gifts 70 S. Broadway
Why: This parallel event to the UMS amidst the dense and varied offerings there is out on by the boutique Remixed Gifts and the Denver culture-centered comic ‘zine Hot Sauce the Dog written and drawn by the gifted singer-songwriter Rachael Pollard whose new band DEN |V|OTHER will kick off the event at 7 p.m. followed by Joe Sampson at 8 and R A R E B Y R D $ at 9. Simply some of the best people from Denver you can see at any time. The event runs two days picking up again on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. with Bonnie Weimer.

Who: Larians, Real Gongs, Jumanjuhad
When: Friday, 07.27, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Denver Bicycle Café Beer Hall
Why: Larians is Male Blonding frontman Noah Simons’ IDM/experimental electronic project and Real Gongs is that of Male Blonding guitarist Bryce Navin. If the UMS is too much or not of interest for whatever reason or if you have some time Friday night, highly recommended.
Who: Denver Broncos UK, Echo Beds, Simulators and Shadows Tranquil
When: Friday, 07.27, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: Denver Broncos UK is sort of a post-punk side project of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club so a good fit with math-y post punk duo Simulators (think like Shellac but stripped down to even more of the bare essentials) and Echo Beds whose forthcoming album Buried Language (due out August 18 on The Flenser) pushes their harsh organic-industrial soundscape further than previous boundaries.

Saturday | July 28, 2018

CSH-credit-Mikeal-Beland-4 — Car Seat Headrest, photo by Mikael Beland

Who: SUPER PARTY Day 2: Presented by Remixed Gifts and Hot Sauce the Dog
When: Saturday, 07.28, 2 p.m.
Where: Remixed Gifts 70 S. Broadway
Why: Day 2 of SUPER PARTY, a free event amidst the UMS. The following is today’s schedule: 2 – Bonnie Weimer, 3 – Jen Korte, 3:45 Ted Thacker of The Red Tack, 4:30 Andy Thomas solo, 5:30 Kissing Party, 6:30 Teacup Gorilla

Who: Car Seat Headrest w/Naked Giants
When: Saturday, 07.28, 8 p.m.
Where:The Gothic Theatre
Why: Will Toledo of Car Seat Headrest is one of the most prolific and interesting songwriters of his generation. Having put out nine albums independently before signing to Matador in 2015, Toledo clearly didn’t need a label but the distribution and marketing arm of one helped to get his music to a wider audience. The new Car Seat Headrest album, 2018’s Twin Fantasy (Face to Face), is brimming with what has made the band impossible to dismiss with lazy genre designations. Vocals that sometimes soar with an upsweep of deeply felt emotion, sometimes speak quietly about the concerns of the moment that flood your mind and won’t let go. Lo-fi guitar composition in the vein of maybe a Pavement or Sebadoh but informed more by underground rock of the 2000s like Jay Reatard’s more sublimely ethereal moments and more modern lo-fi stars like No Age, Times New Viking and artists from the Siltbreeze imprint. Beyond just the sonics, though, the new record is an exploration of the concerns, anxieties and self-image of a young person in an era when destructive, and self-destructive messages, have been repackaged and made to seem like a viable option. Car Seat Headrest’s new album is a compassionte and vibrant rejection of much of that as well as a suggestion of a path of discovery/rediscovery of what’s truly important in one’s life.

Tuesday | July 31, 2018

Weezer-2017_BrendanWalter — Weezer, photo by Brendan Walter

Who: Weezer and the Pixies w/Sleigh Bells
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 5 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Weezer got to be in on the tail end of the legitimate wave of alternative rock in the early 90s. Its 1994 self-titled album, “The Blue Album,” yielded a couple of hits with “Buddy Holly” and “Undone – The Sweater Song.” The crunchy melodies and quiet-loud dynamics pioneered by groups like Mission of Burma and Pixies, who had then recently split, continued the tradition of nerdy punk rockers making music that took that spirit of punk to different places. Weezer could have been another fuzzy, alternative rock/pop punk band with that kind of sunny Southern California flavor. But Weezer’s songs, even when it’s indulging in some fun-loving goofiness, had at its core an impulse to resist being pigeonholed or musically fitting into a specific trend.

After its first record, singer Rivers Cuomo wanted to change gears dramatically and nearly made a science fiction-themed concept album but what came out instead is what could be argued is the band’s most artistically interesting record to date, 1996’s Pinkerton and its darkly conflicted lyrics. Cuomo has since all but disavowed the album as a reminder of a painful time. And to Weezer’s credit, the group has not spent its time as a band trying to recapture past glory. Its most recent full-length album, 2017’s Pacific Daydream, reflects not only Cuomo’s personal alienation but the anomy of our time when many people feel a disconnect with the lives they might want, however modest the aspiration, and the reality we face with diminished expectations. A melancholy set of songs? Maybe not obviously so but despite the title, a song like “Beach Boys” sounds like something that, psychologically speaking, was written in a vast room lit only by small windows on a cloudy day reminiscing about what once brought one joy. Like a less dire but no less impactful musical version of William Friedkin’s depiction of life in the City of Angels.

That Weezer is co-headlining with Pixies seems fitting. Both bands find themselves perhaps having to reinvent themselves for the current era even as their back catalog speaks for itself. Pixies are obviously the influential alternative rock band from Boston, darlings of college radio in the late 80s and early 90s and breaking up with its legacy intact. The band’s humor, unhinged energy, idiosyncratic songwriting filled with seething emotion, delicacy of feeling, have kept its music fresh decades onward. Like any band worth its salt, Pixies also produced new music post 2003 reunion once its internal dynamics leveled out. The group’s first album with former touring, now permanent, bassist Paz Lenchantin, 2016’s Head Carrier, isn’t generally as immediately cathartic and as vital as the group’s 80s and 90s output, it proved Pixies can still write material worth a listen and highlights the band’s ability to clue in to unusual sounds and rhythm and texture ideas that other established artists often don’t.

Who: Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks w/Soccer Mommy
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 7 p.m.
Where: The Gothic Theatre
Why: Stephen Malkmus is obviously the singer and one of the guitarists in lo-fi slacker psyche legends Pavement. But his songs under his own name and with The Jicks are as worthy as anything he did with Pavement. Free to explore unusual melodies, self-indulge a wide range of guitar styles and fusing noise, jangle rock, improvisational instincts, 70s rock, psychedelia and prog, Stephen Malkmus with the Jicks is capable of coming up with refreshingly unusual songs even if they all have the stamp of eccentricity and imagination that Malkmus has brought to all his projects. The group’s 2018 record Sparkle Hard reflects Malkmus examination of the modern world and his place in it as a white man, and father, in his fifties who is still engaged in doing the thing he’s best at—writing unusual rock music—when the world seems to be falling apart and changing at a rapid pace. In typical fashion, Malkmus has a worthwhile and interesting take on all of it.

Opener for this tour, Soccer Mommy, is an interesting pairing because Sophie Allison’s songs have a layered and emotionally rich, compositional style with a sound collage quality that isn’t at first obvious. Her 2018 debut studio album Clean is a solid 10-song collection of sophisticated pop. Unlike many young songwriters, Allison, now 21, doesn’t sound like she’s tapping into a particular era of the 90s or the 2000s except for maybe Mitski and Japanese Breakfast. But, really, those are exceptionally respectable touchstones. What is also noteworthy is Allison’s range of dynamics, command of what, in a film score, might be called sound design, materfully orchestrating textural and atmospheric elements to augment her storytelling. With a debut so strong, one can only hope we’ve not yet seen Allison at her peak.

Who: ModPods w/R A R E B Y R D $
When: Tuesday, 07.31, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: ModPods from Los Angeles with its mixture of electronic post-punk and dance music sounds more like some kind of band from Baltimore in the 2000s or the kind of band that would have played The Smell in its heyday with an eclectic spirit not trapped in adherence to a stylistic subgenre. Either way its beat-driven songs have an edge and an 8-bit melodic fringe on its minimal synth melodies. Fronted by Myriad Slits, the trio, including Mindee Jorgensen and Daniel Guzman who switch up instruments regularly so that the musical duties never really become rote, is like an intentionally lo-fi synth pop/dance band.

Also on this bill is R A R E B Y R D $, the hip-hop trio that keeps pushing boundaries, including its own, in terms of beatmaking and Key Lady’s and KoKo La’s alchemical vocal interplay. The way some guitarists create interesting shapes for chords, the members of this group creates interesting synergy of sounds between vocals, beats and Michael Blomquist’s organic percussion. It’s a deeply emotional experience that you share with the band. It’s like alternative hip-hop if made by people who take great joy in seeing exactly what you can do with a synthesizer and a sampler to make something entrancing and meaningful. Hypnagogic post-disco, endorphin releasing, gangsta dub.

Wednesday | August 1, 2018

Who: Shocker Mom, Spargob and R A R E B Y R D $
When: Wednesday, 08.1, 8-11 p.m.
Where: Fort Greene
Why: It’s a free show and you get to see some of Denver’s best producers of electronic music in the underground. For R A R E B Y R D $, see above. Shocker Mom is Robin Walker who to the big wide world outside of Colorado is not known at all. But for those that have been able to witness her talents as a solo artist, member of lo-fi pop phenoms Cougarpants or one half of the hip-hop duo Nighttimeschoolbus, Walker is a singular talent. As Shocker Mom, Walker taps into her broad musical experience to produce tracks that blur the line between hip-hop, trap, IDM, ambient, dubtechno and indie pop. Aleeya Wilson is perhaps most well-known for her avant-garde guitar/noise project Death In Space. But now the Girls Rock Denver alumn is writing music as Spargob, her production project so expect something refreshingly weird and imaginative.

Who: Weird Wednesday: Universal Devils, Limber Wolf, The Far Stairs facebook.com/events/509245982828786
When: Wednesday, 08.1, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: This edition of Weird Wednesday, Claudia Woodman’s monthly at 3 Kings Tavern, will include Rick Layton’s solo experimental metal project Universal Devils. Layton is a talented multi-instrumentalist who spent several years as the drummer for weirdo punk band Little Fyodor & Babushka Band. The Far Stairs is fronted by former Hindershot keyboard player Jesse Livingston. Imagine a manic New Wave/New Romantics/power pop band influenced by They Might Be Giants. But not just good, but great.

Best Shows in Denver 06/28/18 – 07/04/18

Rubedo_Jan6_2017_TomMurphy — Rubedo will headline its annual summer show at The Bluebird Theater this Saturday, June 30, 2018. Photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | June 28, 2018

PostAnimal_SXSW_Tim_Nagle — Post Animal, photo by Tim Nagle

Who: Post Animal w/Slow Pulp and Serpentfoot
When: Thursday, 06.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Chicago’s Post Animal sounds like a power pop band that has adopted some sludge rock edginess and a lot of psychedelia to warp those edges into interesting directions. Its new album When I Think Of You In a Castle makes you wonder what would have happened had The Sweet and ELO merged because the exquisitely tuneful melodies rock with an earnestness out of step in this decade where many try and fail miserably at projecting that authenticity much less at sustaining the quality songwriting across an entire record. The changes of pace, dynamics, tone and atmosphere throughout the album also proves the band cares enough about its own art and potential listeners to not brand its career with a same-y aesthetic. Post Animal is a rock band but one that isn’t stuck in rock-ist clichés as its sonics are as transporting as they are riveting.

Who: Pretty Mouth video release w/Archipelaghost and Oxeye Daisy
When: Thursday, 06.28, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Pretty Mouth is debuting its video for “This Poison Loves You” at this show at Ophelia’s. The Denver-based quartet combines the drawn out pacing and dynamics of alt-country with windswept dream pop, singer Marie Litton seemingly channeling the energy of ancestral spirits to effect a an emotional catharsis throughout the performance. Joining Pretty Mouth for the occasion is avant-garde pop outfit Archipelaghost and like-minded neo-alternative rock band Oxeye Daisy, which recently released an excellent self-titled debut engineered by Male Blonding frontman Noah Simons.

Friday | June 29, 2018

CopCircles_Jan29_2014_TomMurphy — Cop CIrcles circa 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Froth: A Rhinoceropolis fundraiser w/Superstar & Star, Cop Circles, Lux Hearse, J. Hamilton Isaacs, Mirror Fears, Data Rainbow, French Kettle Station
When: Friday, 06.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Redline Gallery
Why: Denver DIY space Rhinoceropolis, which was closed in December 2016 in the wake of the Ghost Ship tragedy in Oakland, California, for supposed fire code violations, has had multiple hurdles to overcome to re-open including paying rent on the building while it couldn’t be utilized and remodeling to bring the space to code. So this event is happening to help move that along to the final phase before the re-open. The usual suspects of former Rhino inhabitants and those who made the space what it was will be performing but the night will include a special appearance from Neville Lawrence who performs as Superstar & Star, who now lives in Omaha, Nebraska and claims to be the “undisputed king of home-disco.” Watch any of his videos and that’s pretty much impossible to dispute as his VCR 80s era home video aesthetic is much more likeable than one might expect in this age when many things are overproduced and essentially unrelatable.

Who: Strange Goo feat: Pheel, Mirror Fears and PterrorFractyl
When: Friday, 06.29, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fort Greene
Why: This is the latest edition of Strange Goo which includes some of the most forward thinking experimental electronic artists in Denver. Tonight’s show includes dream noise/industrial pop artist Mirror Fears and post-dub techno soundsculptor PterrorFractyl.

Who: Sliver w/Parking With Planets, The Swamp Rats, Bailout, Theoretic
When: Friday, 06.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Moe’s Original BBQ
Why: It would be enough to go see sludge/surf punkers The Swamp Rats. But it would also be worth your time to check out grunge punks Sliver. That despite singer Chris Mercer dropping the bomb on his own band and admitting that his own take on his own band’s style of punk: “Post hardcore that came out in the early 00’s and beyond is just the poppy emo shit with a lot of screaming.” We beg to differ and declare Sliver a refreshingly emotionally raw and honest rock band with a leg in both DC hardcore and NW proto-alternative rock. Sure, Mercer doesn’t do a great job of ripping off Bad Brains and Wipers but he tries and that has to count for something.

Who: Electric Funeral Fest III Day 1
When: Friday, 06.29, 3 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern, Hi-Dive and Mutiny Information Café
Why: This two day festival showcases some of the underground’s best extreme music bands from Denver and elsewhere including Spirit Adrift, Eagle Twin, R.I.P., Aseethe, Amplified Heat, Forming the Void, Love Gang, Urn., Loom, Necropanther, Smokey Mirror, Twingiant, Echo Beds, Augur, Green Druid, Keef Duster and The Rare Breed. Someone also convinced Denver thrash punks Speedwolf to reunite for tonight’s line up. Kudos.

Saturday | June 30, 2018

RAREBYRDS_May31_2018_TomMurphy — R A R E B Y R D $, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Rubedo w/Holophrase, R A R E B Y R D $, Picture the Waves and Mace Windu
When: Saturday, 06.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: In what has become at least a semi-annual tradition, Rubedo headlines The Bluebird Theater in early summer. The Denver band, parts prog, psychedelic rock, noise rock and avant funk, has been at the forefront of one wing of the local DIY scene for years. For these events Rubedo brings together some of the more interesting bands out of the underground like experimental electro-downtempo band Holophrase and the soulful and lush hip-hop of visionaries of a utopian yet grounded, loving and compassionate future, R A R E B Y R D $.

Who: Electric Funeral Fest III Day 2
When: Saturday, 06.30, 3 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern, Hi-Dive and Mutiny Information Café
Why: This second day of heavy and extreme music includes sets from bands across the front range and beyond: Weedeater, Primitive Man, Zeke, Sierra, Duel, Grey Gallows, Cloud Catcher, The Munsens, Communion, Crud, Space in Time, White Dog, Vexing, Pink Fuzz, Wizzerd, Smolder & Burn, Alone and Still Valley

Who: Machinefest w/16Volt, Machinewerx and Society Burning
When: Saturday, 06.30, 6 p.m.
Where: Outdoor location in Wellington, CO
Why: Tempting to call this an event linked to the local Burning Man community and maybe ultimately it is, but in truth it’s an industrial music and sculpture performance event in the middle of nowehere (map on the event page). Coming out for the occasion is infamous/legendary industrial rock band 16 Volt.

Who: Magic Sword w/Church Fire and EVP
When: Saturday, 06.30, 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: This show would be worth attending for Denver bands Church Fire and EVP alone because they’re both pushing forward the aesthetics of dance music and electronic pop with energetic and emotionally stirring performances. But Boise, Idaho’s Magic Sword doesn’t make it here nearly enough with their space knight stage personae and one-would-think-wack-but-never-is combination of 80s prog metal guitar and sweeping science fiction movie soundtrack synthscapes. Camp is pretty played out these days but Magic Sword has taken it to another level that makes it endearing like you’re in on the camp so it’s no longer a joke but just fun.

Sunday | July 1, 2018

Immersion-photo-credit_-Toby-Mason — Immersion, photo by Toby Mason

Who: Immersion w/Brother Saturn
When: Sunday, 07.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Immersion is the ambient project comprised of Malka Spigel of Israeli/Belgian experimental post-punk band Minimal Compact and her husband Colin Newman who more than a few people may know as being in Wire. In the 80s their respective bands surely rubbed shoulders in the UK and the rest of Europe and in the early 90s when the duo created Immersion as a way to further explore beat-driven, non-rock music it entered a realm of sound and atmosphere that might have been associated with minimalist IDM and ambient/abstract atmospheric artists of the day like Seefeel and Future Sound of London. The group’s recent albums, including 2018’s Sleepless, have shown a willingness for more overt use of guitar to create texture and tone.

Who: Janelle Monáe w/St. Beauty
When: Sunday, 07.01, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: Janelle Monáe’s new album Dirty Computer spent a decade percolating and incubating in her rich imagination. Apparently she felt as though she had to present an image safe for public consumption, as it were. The album is even more a concept album than any of her other excellent offerings over the past several years and it tells a story of personal evolution and self-acceptance in the face of a world that tries to define you and impose meaning on you especially if you’re an “entertainer” and black and a woman. The short film Monáe released in the wake of the album gives vivid life to the story with Monáe as an android named Jane 57821 struggling against a dystopian society toward a more open and compassionate future. While her music has always been sonically rich and evocative, with Dirty Computer, Monáe has pushed her art beyond previous boundaries by revisiting some of her perennial themes in creative new ways.

Who: Canyon of the Skull, Giant of the Mountain, Voideater, A Light Among Many
When: Sunday, 07.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: If you made it to Electric Funeral Fest III but just want one more night of the heavy, this show will more than do with deep, atmospheric doom act Canyon of the Skull from Austin alongside the more experimental, ambient metal of A Light Among Many.

Who: Nevayda Gunn (last show), Horns and Spyderland
When: Sunday, 07.01, 5 – 8 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: When a lot of rock bands were riding the psych bandwagon and making fairly mundane music that was essentially pop or straight ahead rock with some reverb and yelping, Nevayda Gunn were pushing boundaries of what the music could be and left us one great statement of where it was and where it could have gone with its 2016 album Glitchkraft; A Human Experience. Maybe a slightly art-pretentious title but very much worth a listen. This is their last show. Catch members in Archipelaghost.

Monday | July 2, 2018

DirtyFew_June22_2013_TomMurphy — Dirty Few circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Dirty Few 7” release w/Wyldlife, The Bad Engrish, The Born Readies, DJ Ross Taylor Murphy
When: Monday, 07.02, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Dirty Few is releasing its new 7” EP, Volcom Sessions out on Snappy Little Numbers (you can order the 7” here). While the band has a deserved reputation for being a rowdy party band one thing that is often overlooked is the songwriting. Somewhere between power pop and post-Reatards garage punk, Dirty Few’s fuzz pop has never sounded more focused and and tuneful. It sounds like someone in the band has been listening to a lot of Thin Lizzy but that’s no bad thing. The vocal harmonies really make the songs this time around and this new record represents the band at its current peak.

Tuesday | July 3, 2018

PaleSun_Dec29_2018_TomMurphy — Pale Sun, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Michael Rault w/Pale Sun and Bear and the Beasts
When: Tuesday, 07.03, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Michael Rault, though Canadian, sounds like he spent some time hanging out in Laurel Canyon in the mid-1970s—gently psychedelic pop compositions with a twinge of country rock running through them are the hallmarks of his sound. We’ve heard a lot of that sort of thing in recent years but Rault happens to be better at the songwriting end than most other people mining similar territory. Also on the bill is Denver-based shoegaze band Pale Sun whose cosmic soundscaping has some edge to its hypnotic melodies.

Wednesday | July 4, 2018

FloweringBlade_May13_2017_TomMurphy — Flowering Blade, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Spectral Voice, Superstition, Flowering Blade, Many Blessings
When: Wednesday, 07.04, 8 p.m.
Where: Meadowlark Bar
Why: Spectral Voice is a Denver-based death metal band whose instincts wend toward a more stark sound. And it’s in good company for this show with Many Blessings, the ambient/noise project of Primitive Man vocalist/guitarist Ethan McCarthy, and Aaron Miller of Cadaver Dog doing his solo noise act Flowering Blade. So, musically speaking, all the negative vibes with none of the negative consequences.

Marisa Demarco to Perform at Titwrench Stockholm 2018 This Weekend

MilchJul28_2012_TomMurphy2 — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

Titwrench travels to Stockholm Sweden for Titwrench Stockholm, which happens this weekend running Thursday June 14 through Saturday June 16 (find details here). The festival, which celebrates experimental music and art created by female identified people and LGBT folk, has been going on since 2009, usually in Denver, Colorado. The edition in Stockholm starts off with will include European and US artists including the likes of Denver’s Rachael Pollard, R A R E B Y R D $, Church Fire and Mirror Fears as well as Albuquerque artists Cthulha, Weedrat, Chicharra, Bigawatt and performance troupe extraordinaire Milch De La Máquina. The US artists in particular could use your help to defray the costs of performing at the festival and you can contribute to the cause here or to the individual artist funds linked above.

Before Titwrench last happened in Denver in August 2017, we had the chance to speak with Marisa Demarco of Milch De La Máquina, Chicharra and Bigawatt. Demarco has long been a significant artist and journalist in Albuquerque and we spoke with her about becoming involved in DIY and underground music and art and her evolution from pop/rock musician to noise and visionary avant-garde performance artist.

Milch_Aug26_2017_TomMurphy1 — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Queen City Sounds: You grew up in Albuquerque, is that right? Or did you grow up elsewhere?

Marisa Demarco: Yeah, no, born in Farmington, NM but lived my whole life in Albuquerque, NM.

How did you become aware of underground and DIY culture growing up?

I was performing in just like a regular pop-rock band or whatever called Ya Ya Boom since I was in high school. I was in that band a long time when I was really feeling like I wanted to stretch my ability level and my creativity a little bit. So, I saw this ad on Craigslist where they were looking for players for Cobra Game, which is a game invented by John Zorn. I’ve heard it described as somebody who’s flipping a radio really fast through the stations. I don’t think that’s totally exactly it but that’s maybe the quickest shorthand. So I joined Cobra as a vocalist, which also I didn’t realize at the time was maybe kind of odd. I don’t think there were any other vocalists in the group at that time.

From there, I just kind of met a lot of people who became big experimental players down here and the Cobra group eventually became Death Convention Singers, which is still something that I’m involved in. It no longer performs necessarily John Zorn’s compositions or John Zorn’s game, Cobra, but it does perform compositions, like contemporary experimental compositions. We also are an art collective and do installations and that’s over many years. So, I think I joined [that] Cobra group when I was 25 and I’m 36 now, so it’s over like 11 years I kind of evolved with those other performers and through them kind of found all the faces that in Albuquerque pop up for experimental noise music and performance.

For a long time, what was happening out here was like a space would open up and be around for just a little while, like maybe a year, until, I don’t know, cops start showing up or something, and then we would go to another spot. So for a while it was just a migratory DIY scene culture out here. We also did performances that were not in established venues at all, like we did this one performance on top of the abandoned courthouse in downtown Albuquerque. You know, we were just trying things in different kinds of spaces. That’s kind of how I got connected to all that stuff.

That’s really interesting, I had no idea. I remember Ya Ya Boom played up here I believe. At Glob or someplace like that?

We played at Glob. I think the first place we played was at 3 Kings and I think there’s still a sticker in the bathroom, of our band. [Titwrench founder] Sarah Slater recently took a photo in the last 5 years or something and showed me that it was still in there.

Did you know Raven Chacon from early on?

Yeah, Raven was in the Cobra group. I think he’s one of the two founders of the Cobra group or maybe the founder and he turned it into Death Convention Singers. And there’s another offshoot of that that happens periodically, called Dirty Birdies, which is this kind of long form improvisation with many players. So there’s Dirty Birdies, Death Convention and Cobra group and those are all kind of part of the same tree branch I guess.

Milch_Oct3_2015_TomMurphy — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

One of the best things that happens at Titwrench every year is Milch, of course. Is that something that you kind of got going to play that, or is it something you do there, as well, in Albuquerque?

Yeah, we started it – I mean, I gathered performers together when I even just heard that Titwrench was maybe a possibility. I didn’t even know if it was for sure happening or what but Raven Chacon, who you mentioned, actually sent me Sarah Slater’s contact info and was like, “Hey, I think she’s thinking about doing a festival.” And so I sent her an email and I was like, “Hey, I would super want to come up there to that” and so I kind of got a few friends together to make a group to play Titwrench. So we formed to play the festival. And then every year since then we’ve played every single one of them. We also always do the set here at home in Albuquerque and sometimes we’ve done even more elaborate versions of the set we do up in Denver. For instance, one year Milch did a set that I think had 6 people in Denver and then we came back here and I managed to rope like 30 people into performing it. Just cuz it’s easier to travel with 6 people than it is 30.

Is it “Milsh de la Makeena,” am I pronouncing that right?

Milch de la Máquina (with emphasis on the first a in Máquina)

Pardon me for not knowing, but what’s the meaning of that name?

It means Milk of the Machine and the name is in German and Spanish. The reason is because that very first group of people that I gathered together to head up to Titwrench included a woman from Germany and also, you know, lots of people in New Mexico are bilingual and I think a couple of our members at that time spoke Spanish and English so that’s why the name is in German and Spanish, making it really challenging for just about anyone to pronounce it or understand but, you know, what are you gonna do?

Every year is a new performance and concept?

A different performance every year. There’s some people who’ve done most of the sets. I think I’m the only person who’s done all of them and I actually randomly just listed all the sets today, which I’ve never looked back and considered what each one was but I did it today because I was hunting around for some photos for something else like, “Oh I can see what all the different sets have been through all the 9 years,” you know?

You had a characterization or an idea or a concept behind all the performances you’ve had?

I was just even trying to remember all the things we’ve done and built and who was in it, what we were working into, what was going on that year. I think a lot of times Milch is sometimes intentionally and unintentionally informed by whatever’s happening in the city. There was one year, the one that’s the dress piece, the great big dress.

I remember that, at the Mercury.

Milch_Aug10_2011_TomMurphy — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

Yeah, all these areas around Albuquerque were on fire. There were big wildfires and we were in the middle of this super intense drought and then at night the smoke would settle all over the whole city as if the city was on fire and the moon was this crazy red color, you know? And we just ended up writing a lot about drought. Initially, not on purpose, like not in a really intentional way but in more of a subconscious way and then as the smoke continued for weeks we were writing about it pretty directly. So that dress piece I always think of as having a lot to do with water and drought and fire. Everybody remembers the dress but there were also waterproof microphones that we had in these big jugs of water that we were using to generate a lot of the sound.

Oh yeah, okay. I didn’t make that connection when I saw that back then. I remember the frames, like the illuminated picture frames or whatever they were from another year.

Yeah, the light frame pieces, yeah.

MilchJul28_2012_TomMurphy1 — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2012, photo by Tom Murphy

The Living Bird thing from Titwrench 201. I don’t know if you want to call it that but the performers were wearing hoods or something, and I had the impression you were simulating taking off in flight.

There was a big parade puppet, the Albatross, that’s the first one I think.

Milch is not necessarily a musical thing, it’s more like an experience in sound integrated full with a visual component.

Yeah, and it’s not like we’re like, “Hey let’s do a sound piece that includes a giant puppet” or something, it just all kind of came together that way. And I remember we were at Titwrench, the first Titwrench, and I was just like, “Aw man, did we bring something totally weird that no one’s going to understand or like?” You know what I mean? As it was getting closer to our time to perform I was like, “Did we just, like, venture way out there? Like, go too far?” You know? So I was nervous as heck that first year that we were just in some other – just not on the right trip, you know? And then we did it and it was great and everybody was really great about it. We kind of flew that really big Albatross puppet out of the building, and I remember people followed us! And I was just like, “Okay well let’s keep going until they stop following us” and we were walking down the street and it was cool, it was one of those really cool experiences, and formative for me for sure.

Milch_Jul10_2010_TomMurphy — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

I was really surprised by how interesting it is every year. I don’t really see anybody doing anything like that. I don’t know about you, but maybe that happens in Albuquerque a lot but around here, no, not at all. Nothing like that.

No? I don’t really see stuff like that out here too much, either. Although, a lot of really creative people perform all kinds of different ways, you know?

Had you done anything like that before, even remotely, performance-wise?

Like the first Milch set that happened at Titwrench?

Yeah, that kind of performance art.

Yes, the set I was telling you about the show that happened on this rooftop of this old courthouse in downtown Albuquerque. So it was supposed to be, I think, everyone performing a really quiet piece. Albuquerque’s experimental noise community worked toward really small quiet pieces and I built this rig where I was wearing all hand-built little microphones and I put my sister in all these, kind of, speakers, and theoretically the idea was, and I don’t know how successful it was ultimately, but the idea was that when we were closer together we would be feeding back and then when we were further apart we wouldn’t be. So we developed this whole choreography and system around our proximity to one another and wore these robes and face paint and did it on top of the roof and I think I was just kind of inspired by the idea of being on a roof. That was before the first Milch set and I think Raven, who you mentioned earlier, kind of considered that to be the first actual Milch set, was the one that popped out on the rooftop before I had even ever heard of Titwrench or anything.

Milch_Aug26_2017_TomMurphy2 — Milch De La Máquina at Titwrench 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

You and your sister Monica are in Chicharra together and somewhere the band is described as insect metal or something or other?

Glam insect metal.

That’s great. It’s pretty difficult to describe something like that.

Yeah, it sure is. I super hate describing things, which is funny because I’m also, like you, a writer and a reporter, you know? I find music to be so challenging to describe. I feel like we have a million adjectives that are about visual concepts and relationships and we have like, I don’t know, about 30 about sound. I’m just hazarding a guess again but sound is so hard to put into language so glam insect metal is imprecise.

Chicharra_Feb5_2016_TomMurphy — Chicharra at Sister Bar in Albuquerque, NM, February 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

It evokes a creative image that kind of fits the music.

Yeah, so mostly I just describe [it by saying] that the instruments are all basses so they’re all using low frequency and then we organize more intricate vocal harmonies up top. And then we have either two drummers or one drummer. For Titwrench this year we’re just going to have one, unfortunately. We thought we were going to manage to get them both up there but somebody has a work conflict. But our single drummer, Chris Newman, is amazing and does the job quite nicely. We’re going to play tracks from our album [Let’s Paint This Town in Craters] that’s coming out in October [2017] so it’ll be a lot of newer material that is different from what we played last year.

You have a solo project called Bigawatt. Is that something that you haven’t done in a while or is that something you do pretty regularly?

I did a Bigawatt set on Friday night. It’s the name of my solo project, which has always been really heavily influenced by R&B and hip-hop and also noise. But I interpret that quite a bit differently than a lot of the things that I’m hearing right now that are defined also as being like noise hip-hop. So, sorry to say I don’t know if those are great descriptors for Bigawatt now, either.