Rubedo is a psychedelic prog and pop band from Denver. The trio is comprised of childhood friends Kyle Kramer, Alex Trujillo and Gregg Ziemba whose roots in the influence of alternative rock and art rock bands like The Mars Volta has meant Rubedo would never be trend hoppers and with an interest in concepts of alchemy and how that can inform how music can be made and functions, Rubedo has had a different kind of journey through, around and out of the Denver music scene. In the early 2010s they met R. Isaiah “Ikey” Owens, keyboard player for The Mars Volta and Jack White’s band and became friends and collaborators as he produced the albums Massa Confusa (2012) and Love Is The Answer (2013). Owens became a mentor to the band influencing their ethos, their already strong work ethic as artists and their drive to continue to put out worthwhile releases. Even with the tragic passing of Owens in 2014, Rubedo has continued their friend’s commitment to community and cultivating artistic vision. For a handful of years they were involved in running the influential DIY space Unit E which has since morphed into a record label that focuses on quality local releases including their 2025 album Citrinitas which started brewing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and was written and recorded across sessions at R.A.R.E. Records in Winchester, TN (co-owned by Michael McDonald) with Michael Lee, Tayler Martin, Jeremy Mason and Charlie Powell. Additional engineering at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado with Andrew Berlin, mixed by Matt Embree (Rx Bandits) at ICS in Long Beach, CA and mastering by Tyler Lindgren (The Milk Blossoms). It’s a record that reflects the band’s community and connections local and beyond and the album is co-release with Mash Down Babylon, Embree’s label. The album is typically both a touching and personal set of songs and those that are an incisive and poetic commentary on the times in which we find ourselves ravaged by the psychopathy of oligarchs, fascists and the ways in which we’re encouraged to isolate ourselves when the opposite is what is needed.
Sunday | 06.01 What:Peach Pit w/Briston Maroney and BNNY When: 6 Where: Red Rocks Amphitheater Why: Peach Pit started off at an unusual time in pop and rock music. The mid-2010s indie world was dominated by surf rock, psych and some reinterpretation of classic rock sounds. Fortunately, the quartet from Vancouver, British Columbia seemed to have focused more on songwriting craft rather than trying to play a style or fit in with a trend. The result has albums that have interesting arrangements and reveal a real ear for creating a mood and telling stories of romance, breakups and all the heartache and mixed emotions involved. The group recently released the “expansion pack” (kudos on the nerdy gamer lingo) version of its 2024 Magpie and includes alternate versions of eight songs, a cover and new material. Better than half a chance you’ll get to see some of that live. And the openers for this show are worth showing up to catch. Briston Maroney just released his latest and third album Jimmy on May 2, 2025. Even early in his career, Maroney had a knack for imbuing his songwriting and performances with an honesty and vulnerability that transcended any stylistic affectations he picked up from influences. On the new record Maroney delivers some heavy lines but in the context of songs with an upward emotional swing that doesn’t downplay the melancholic moods and the raw places in his heart that inspired the lyrics. BNNY might for those familiar with the music and songwriting is best experienced in a small club because the delicacy and intimacy of the music feels like something a handful of people would connect with more immediately than a large audience. But Jessica Viscius’ songs also have a cinematic quality that will fit perfectly fine on a bill with other artists who don’t hesitate to present music with an emotional openness and an inviting spirit.
E.T., photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 06.01 What: E.T. (Minneapolis synth punk), Redder Moon (KC darkwave) and Church Fire When: 7:30 Where: D3 Arts Why: Egalitarianism Today (E.T.) might be described as an anarcho-darkwave band. From Minneapolis, the duo’s pulsing rhythm and driving beats are represented well on its new album Full Anarchism. Think something musically like Lords of Acid but with lyrics that delve into science fiction concepts, radical left political rhetoric and the dire consequences of destructive worldviews rather than hedonism. Church Fire is thus of course the perfect band to share the bill with its own righteous industrial dance music. Church Fire expertly weaves in humor and fun into its performances while so many of its songs are heartbreaking in their evocation of collective agony. Kansas City’s Redder Moon is more of a post-punk band but one with the synth augmenting its gorgeously melancholic songwriting.
Wednesday | 06.04 What: Lords of Acid w/Little Miss Nasty When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Lords of Acid is the Belgian industrial dance band that has combined campy, sexually explicit lyrics with undeniably well-crafted dance club music. Its 1991 debut album Lust is a classic of both dance music and EBM. The live show is also not short on theater and bombast with long-time band leader Praga Khan hyping the crowd with his own enthusiasm and on stage antics. The band seems on the verge of releasing a new record and this may be the opportunity to catch it live in full effect.
Ava Maybee, photo by Whitney Otte
Wednesday | 06.04 What: Ava Maybee w/Annika Rose and Emi Grace When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Ava Maybee is touring behind her debut EP Orange Drive. Although the daughter of Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame, Ava Maybee’s music isn’t much like what her dad is known for being a part of making. Hers is a vibrant alt-pop informed by vivid everyday observations and colorful splashes of melody. That and her uniquely commanding vocals. There is some light vocal processing on the EP but you can tell there is power and conviction behind what you’re hearing and the variety in the songwriting is evidence that Maybee isn’t stuck in one flavor of music.
Ringo Deathstarr, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 06.04 What:Ringo Deathstarr w/American Culture When: 7 Where: HQ Why: Ringo Deathstarr is a shoegaze band from Austin, Texas who despite a humorous name and recorded material that is reminiscent of classic shoegaze band is as a live act a force to be reckoned with. The enveloping atmospheric elements have a visceral presence in person and the songwriting isn’t finely honed with an ear for using the more psychedelic side of the style in a manner that reveals the band isn’t just using neat effects, they know how to use the often unpredictable sonic shapes to great effect. Opening is Denver’s American Culture whose own shoegaze turn has also been one more in the direction of the earlier, weirder Britpop but steeped in punk and indiepop.
OMD, photo by Ed Miles
Thursday | 06.05 What: OMD When: 7 Where: The Paramount Theatre Why: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark aka OMD were one of the pioneers of synth pop as we know it though clearly in the realm of post-punk as also influenced deeply by Kraftwerk. Its first five albums are practically a blueprint for synth-infused New Wave and one that has aged exceptionally well because the songwriting wasn’t tied to the aesthetics of a movement and the subject matter of the music was as personal and emotional as it was conceptual. As a live band OMD also came off like a punk band with a lot of power and charisma that gave a dimensionality to the music that sticks with you once you’ve seen the band in person. This quality persisted up to the current time and in 2023 OMD surprised many with the release of Bauhaus Staircase, an album worthy of its early era with richly composed songs and synth work and song ideas that comment on human civilization in this moment with an insight not common enough in popular music.
Pig Destroyer, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 06.05 What: Pig Destroyer w/Cephalic Carnage, Author & Punisher and Sex Prisoner When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Pig Destroyer is the influential grindcore band from Alexandria, Virginia whose 2004 album Terrifyer got the 20 year anniversary treatment last year as a reminder that the band was not just of that moment in grindcore but ahead of its time. Sharing the bill is legendary Denver death metal jazz weirdos Cephalic Carnage, industrial avant-metal project Author & Punisher and Tucson-based deathgrind group Sex Prisoner.
Daikaiju, photo from band’s Facebook
Friday | 06.06 What: Daikaiju vs. TripLip, Smokey Mirror and Black Yeti When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Daikaiju is the long-running, mutant surf punk band originally from Huntsville, Alabama but now based out of Houston. The group wears masks kabuki style and its live shows are joyful and highly energetic and theatrical and usually with an outdoor component involving fire. In general it could be gimmicky and silly but Daikaiju makes it feel like getting to see something special. TripLip is a math-y punk thrash band from Denver. All instrumental with bass and drums but coming off with a full wall of sound and surprisingly visceral and riveting.
Wombo, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.07 What: Wombo w/Mainland Break and Spliff Tank When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Wombo is the psychedelic post-punk/art pop band from Louisville, Kentucky that has been evolving a sound that is part introspective delicacy, playful menace and the kind of angular rhythms one might expect out of a DC post-hardcore band. Think a 2000s indiepop group that got into darker and more challenging music. The band is currently touring ahead of the release of its new album Danger in Fives due out on August 5, 2025 via Fire Talk Records.
Blondshell, photo by Daniel Topete
Sunday | 06.08 What:Blondshell w/Jahnah Camille When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Anyone that caught Blondshell on her 2022 tour prior to the release of her debut album witnessed a songwriter and performer that had uncommon self-possession and a willingness to incorporate movements in the live show that were like acrobatics in slow motion but without missing a beat or a line. Since then Sabrina Mae Teitelbaum aka Blondshell has released two albums of vulnerable and commanding indie rock imbued with great personal insight a musical edge that adds a touch of scrappy spirit to finely crafted melodies. The latest Blondshell album If You Asked For a Picture is brimming with the kind of emotional honesty one would hope for in any pop music worth listening to and Teitelbaum’s absurdist and self-aware sense of humor that has made much of her music as endearing as it is heartfelt. Also on this tour is Birmingham, Alabama-based singer and songwriter Jahnah Camille who is about to release her new EP My sunny oath! Camille’s music is swimming in the granular atmospherics that blur the line between early 90s alternative rock and the more ambitious, shoegaze adjacent modern indie rock. Camille’s vocals ground the emotional resonance of the music with a sense of intimacy. The layered guitars utilize the mix of acoustic and electric to great effect lending Camille’s songs a wide range of sounds. The songwriter’s lyrics are both thoughtfully poetic and filled with a heartache that she has clearly explored to its inner depths and outer edges and articulated the nuances and complexities of truly feeling for another person.
Jahnah Camille, photo by Elizabeth MarshPanchiko, photo by Adam Alonzo
Tuesday | 06.10 What:Panchiko w/Alison’s Halo When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: The myth of Panchiko could be more interesting than its actual music and it’s a story worth delving into of a band whose late 90s and early 2000s music was rediscovered on poorly preserved CDs but garnering a cult following before discovering they could return and be much more successful than its first go round. Since reuniting the dream pop/psychedelic band has released two full length albums including 2025’s Ginkgo. Sharing the bill is Alison’s Halo who also started in the early 90s as part of that first or second wave of dream pop before splitting in 1998 only to reconvene in 2009. Musically it appears to have melded the lingering melodicism of Slowdive and its more gritty early music with the ethereal vocal style and rhythmic dive of Lush but of course transmogrified into its own heady soundscapes.
David J, photo courtesy the artist
Tuesday | 06.10 What:David J spoken word w/The Milk Blossoms and Gogo Germaine + Shon Cobbs When: 7 Where: HQ Why: David J is of course the artist known best for being a member of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets. This year he is releasing a new album The Mother Tree alongside a book of poetry titled Rhapsody, Threnody & Prayer. The album is spoken word and spare yet musical accompaniment, evocative and music of introspective moods to match the tenor of David J’s reflective rhetoric in tribute to his mother. Opening the show is Glory Guitars (2022) author Gogo Germaine with music by former Plume Varia guitarist/synth player Shon Cobbs and the emotionally charged poetry of the music of Denver indiepop band The Milk Blossoms.
PINES, photo courtesy the artists
Wednesday | 06.11 What:PINES at Meow Wolf w/Sugar Nova (ft. Luke Miller of Lotus) When: 8 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex Why: Australian electronic duo PINES returns to Denver for it’s second visit to the Mile High City in support of its new EP SUN which released on April 15, 2025. The new songs are a further evolution of the project’s uplifting fusion of EDM and glitch pop. Listening one gets the sense that PINES are soundtracking a movie in their own heads taking place in a realm of perpetual summer nights and the psychological and emotional space to truly delve into feelings and embrace the broad range of the human experience without getting stuck in the lowest lows or the highest highs because none of that is sustainable. The music should also resonate with fans of early 2010s chillwave.
Julia Wolf, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 06.12 What:Julia Wolf w/Worry Club and Ellis When: 6 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Julia Wolf appears to have been processing hard lessons of being in the music business lately and the demands and compromises required of you if you’re going to be the kind of artist that can sustain a career. The cover of her new album Pressure (May 23, 2025) shows Wolf leaning backward and held up by hooks or some other device like she’s a suspension artist. The music is still well within the realm of the intimate, raw and often experimental pop that has garnered Wolf a respectable following but this new record is much more noisy and gritty with Wolf’s expressive vocals awash in crafted beats like a an amalgamation of industrial music, trap and glitchcore but with an undeniable pop accessibility.
Glass Human, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 06.13 What: Glass Human w/The Milk Blossoms and Fainting Dreams When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Glass Human is issuing its latest release on vinyl, The Hive. The record showcases the band’s atmospheric, jazz-tinged art rock and gift for layering rhythms and moods for an effect like a prog album cast in an almost downtempo mode. But the 4-song EP dives deep into utilizing noise and the kind of soundscaping that doesn’t fit into a narrow genre yet expresses perfectly the sense of a world and a psyche swimming through the nascent disorder of the current era and embracing the vital strands of meaning that remain. The Milk Blossoms too have an undercurrent of experimental structures and unconventional, often intuitive modes of expression held together by Harmony Rose’s gift for impressionistic and emotional, poetic storytelling. Fainting Dreams is at this point a wonderfully stark yet atmospheric fusion of stark post-hardcore and emotionally-charged black metal.
Sunflower Bean, photo by Lulu Syracuse
Saturday | 06.14 What: Sunflower Bean w/Gift and Dry Ice When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Sunflower Bean released its latest album Mortal Primetime in April 2025. Perhaps more than its previous releases the new album makes obvious the trio’s talent for songwriting and crafting melodic hooks. The band had already proven itself capable of experimenting to great effect in genre and song structure and in writing solid pop songs. There is just a creative clarity in the new set of songs that serves the elegance and emotional nuance of the words and the delicacy of much of the music that pairs well with when the band gets into much more gritty sonics. Overall the record has an analog quality like some long lost-70s rock record without having immediately obvious touchstones. And live the group has always had a visceral presence that makes even its most tender songs resonate with an uncommon intensity.
Yelawolf and J. Michael Phillips, photo by Edward Crowe
Saturday | 06.14 What: Yelawolf and Three 6 Mafia When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Yelawolf is a rapper originally from Alabama who has spent the last 20 years exploring his musical curiosities mainly in the realm of hip-hop but in recent years also in Sometimes Y, his rock band with Shooter Jennings. There was some speculation he would stop making hip hop but in 2024 he released his latest album War Story. True to form the record is stylistically diverse with live instrumentation and atmospheric and moody beat-making to frame his stories of American life in a fashion opposite of the portrait of luxury and the good life common in the songs of more mainstream hip-hop artists. Yelawolf also recently collaborated with J. Michael Phillips on a new album Whiskey & Roses that drops July 11, 2025. It’s mix of soulful and atmospheric country with hip-hop style beats and production in a way that draws on the strength of both styles of music. Co-headlining this show are southern hip-hop legends Three 6 Mafia, pioneers of horrorcore and an influence on Yelawolf. Their own inventive beats and energetic and creative vocal delivery has yielded a career of music that feels like it’s ahead of its time while awash in contemporary cultural resonance.
Broncho, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 06.17 What:Broncho When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Broncho originally came out of Norman, Oklahoma when former Starlight Mints member Ryan Lindsey launched the group shortly after his old band dissolved. Since then Broncho has been fairly prolific and seeming to pursue a unique musical vision with each album. The earlier records were in the lane of garage rock psychedelia but not in the cookie cutter fashion that plagued the 2010s. Always weirder and more interesting and genuinely transporting. The band’s new record Natural Pleasure (2025) is steeped as well in a vintage, analog sound and mood like something that picked up where girl groups left off in the 60s but not where The Ramones took that inspiration, more resonant with what Cindy Lee did on 2024’s sprawling epic Diamond Jubilee. So more haunted and imbued with what some might call intentional imperfections but really lending the melodies character and a quality that doesn’t feel like an obvious imitation of something else.
Meltt, photo by Zachary Vague
Wednesday | 06.18 What: The Blue Stones w/Meltt When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: The Blue Stones are a blues rock duo from Windsor, Ontario, Canada currently touring in support of its 2025 album Metro. A fuzz-drenched affair with at least some rhythms that set the band apart from the standard issue blues rock bands that operate in every city of size in North America. Opening the show is Meltt from the western end of Canada in Vancouver. Its own sound has some similar roots as The Blue Stones but Meltt clearly combines an electronic music aesthetic into its psychedelic sound. There is a tranquility at the heart of Meltt’s songwriting that puts a focus on reflective moods in crafting uplifting and soothing melodies that transport the listening supported by rhythms that draw upon downtempo dance music. The effect is a lush fusion of dream pop and chillwave.
Mr. Pacman in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.20 What: Magic Cyclops, Jocko Homo, Mr. Pacman and Little Fyodor When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Magic Cyclops aka Scott Fuller is celebrating 25 years as a performance project that is part comedy, part synth music of various stripes and all absurd. Along for the proceedings are Devo tribute band Jocko Homo, the surreal and inspired synth punk band Mr. Pacman and avant-garde punk pop artist Little Fyodor and maybe he’ll have his full band with him for this show as well. Maximum weirdness for the month in Denver.
Salin, photo courtesy the artist
Friday | 06.20 What:Salin w/Tyler Adams Organ Trio When: 7 Where: Cervantes’ Other Side Why: Salin is a drummer, producer and composer who was born in Thailand but based in Montréal. The Juno-nominated artist has built a body of work that sounds like a fusion of psychedelic Afrobeat, summery downtempo, funk and cosmic jazz with sounds and ideas from indigenous Thai musical traditions. Her live performances reveal a musician who brings undeniably positive energy to the shows and great nuance of polyrhythms while making musically sophisticated songwriting accessible. There’s something uplifting and soothing to Salin’s work solo and with her ensembles. Fans of Kamasi Washington will find some resonance here in terms of the richness of tones and sheer ability to communicate complex emotions through the music alone.
Perfume Genius, photo by Cody Critcheloe
Saturday | 06.21 What:Perfume Genius w/Ulrika’s Bedroom When: 8 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Over the past decade and a half Mike Hadreas aka Perfume Genius has well established himself as a writer of sophisticated and emotionally vibrant pop songs imbued with an orchestral sensibility. Hadreas combines in his songwriting a vulnerability and confidence that is immediately captivating. On stage the artist has a theatrical flair worthy of 1970s glam rock legends. The new Perfume Genius album Glory is fascinatingly raw, intimate and tender and expansively atmospheric in just the right measure throughout. Like an indie folk album but resonating with cinematic production and rich emotional coloring. Will guest vocalist Aldous Harding tour just to perform “No Front Teeth” and bring with her that special, experimental pop weirdness? Likely not, but either way this is a chance to see Perfume Genius touring in support of what is arguably his best record to date.
EMF, photo courtesy the artists
Saturday | 06.21 What:EMF and Spacehog w/Ecce Shnak When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: EMF will forever be linked to their 1990 breakout single “Unbelievable” which was ubiquitous on college and then pop radio in the US in 1991 after emerging on UK charts the year of its release. The song got a further boost when the band put out ots debut album Schubert Dip in 1991 as well. But the band was never able to fully capture the excitement that the debut single seemed to instill on first hearing it and by the late 90s EMF had split. With some reunion gigs in the 2000s EMF returned to being active in time to release its first album in 27 years with Go Go Sapiens and returned to atmospheric rock informed by dance music roots but with a clear ear for modern production and with songwriting instincts that have evolved and whose early aesthetics have aged well. Spacehog co-headlins this bill. The band consists of four men from England who were living in New York City when the group formed in 1994 and as wouldn’t be so strange for those heady times had a major label deal yielding its 1995 debut album Resident Alien. Its hit single “In the Meantime” sounded like an anticipation of the full incorporation of electronic production in the context of a rock song albeit one that sounded like it was inspired by 70s glam rock akin to Bowie and like a bridge between Brit Pop and later era grunge without coming off as trying hard to fit into a trendy style. While the cultural and musical milieu that had early nurtured Spacehog was done by the late 90s at least the band didn’t sound like the watered down version of alternative rock that plagued the middle of the 90s and to a certain extent to today.
Spacehog, photo courtesy the artistsMoon Pussy in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 06.21 What: Bull Market, Moon Pussy, Blood Oath and The New Creep When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bull Market from Billings, Montana sounds a lot like it listened to a lot of Failure but even more Harry Pussy and Melvins. Its edgy, blunt noise rock indulges in fuzzy drones and Coachwhips-esque splintery minimalism and experimental flourish. Moon Pussy is the kind of angular noise rock band whose gnarly punk discharge will tear your face-off but whose stage banter in its sincere awkwardness will make you laugh and somewhere in that mix of ideas the group has genuinely compelling and innovative music of its own. The New Creep is an industrial noise rock post-punk band from Denver.
eHpH in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.27 What: eHpH album release w/Cruel Morning, Unnatural Element and Modern Devotion When: 8 Where: Bar404 Why: Denver EBM/industrial band eHpH returns with a surprise new record called CORRUPTION AND FEAR with front to back wonderfully scathing songs against the oligarchy, fascism and the anti-woke agenda. The duo has always had superb production but for this album it has taken everything to new heights with impassioned performances and heady beats. Opening the show is the dark techno project of Voight guitarist Adam Rojo.
Rubedo at We Labs with Ikey Owens (3rd from left), November 15, 2013. Photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 06.27 What: Rubedo, RAREBYRD$ and Redamancy When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Rubedo is a psychedelic prog and pop band from Denver. The trio is comprised of childhood friends Kyle Kramer, Alex Trujillo and Gregg Ziemba whose roots in the influence of alternative rock and art rock bands like The Mars Volta has meant Rubedo would never be trend hoppers and with an interest in concepts of alchemy and how that can inform how music can be made and functions, Rubedo has had a different kind of journey through, around and out of the Denver music scene. In the early 2010s they met R. Isaiah “Ikey” Owens, keyboard player for The Mars Volta and Jack White’s band and became friends and collaborators as he produced the albums Massa Confusa (2012) and Love Is The Answer (2013). Owens became a mentor to the band influencing their ethos, their already strong work ethic as artists and their drive to continue to put out worthwhile releases. Even with the tragic passing of Owens in 2014, Rubedo has continued their friend’s commitment to community and cultivating artistic vision. For a handful of years they were involved in running the influential DIY space Unit E which has since morphed into a record label that focuses on quality local releases including their 2025 album Citrinitas which started brewing in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and was written and recorded across sessions at R.A.R.E. Records in Winchester, TN (co-owned by Michael McDonald) with Michael Lee, Tayler Martin, Jeremy Mason and Charlie Powell. Additional engineering at The Blasting Room in Fort Collins, Colorado with Andrew Berlin, mixed by Matt Embree (Rx Bandits) at ICS in Long Beach, CA and mastering by Tyler Lindgren (The Milk Blossoms). It’s a record that reflects the band’s community and connections local and beyond and the album is co-release with Mash Down Babylon, Embree’s label. The album is typically both a touching and personal set of songs and those that are an incisive and poetic commentary on the times in which we find ourselves ravaged by the psychopathy of oligarchs, fascists and the ways in which we’re encouraged to isolate ourselves when the opposite is what is needed.
Anthony Ruptak, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 06.28 What:Anthony Ruptak w/Porlolo and The Trujillo Company When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Anthony Ruptak is a veteran singer-songwriter from Denver who has run the gamut of hosting shows, playing numerous others, recording and releasing albums of great poetry and personal insight. His latest, released tonight for this show, is Tourist. The title perhaps refers to Ruptak’s having felt like a tourist in many situations socially but from listening to the songs also psychologically and how one can often suffer from impostor syndrome when you’re an artist or any sort of sensitive person who has to try to navigate situations and fractured egos that aren’t your own. It balances dissonance and melody in a way that both enhance the effect of the other. Pololo is the project lead by Erin Roberts that has been going on for around 20 years but you don’t get to see Porlolo all that often and every time it’s striking how Roberts’ lyrics seem to sum up a state of mind or the state of the world in a compelling way.
Church Fire in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 06.29 What: Denver Pride After-Party: Church Fire, YAN YEZ, Mr. Knobs and May Be Fern When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Denver pride happens the weekend of 6.28-6.29 and this event is a choice way to wind down the festivities, not that the likes of indie funk group May Be Fern is exactly tranquil stuff. Nor that Church Fire’s highly charged, industrial dance anthems tearing down the theoretical and spiritual framework of the patriarchy is tranquil either but it will be a catharsis we all need in time when it seemed like we should be rebuilding a better world instead of once again having to take on patriarchy’s most extreme manifestations in fascism and late capitalism because no one is coming to save us.
Saturday | 03.01 What: Munly & The Lupercalians, Rowboat at Redwing Blackbird When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club Why: Jay Munly has been making music with his Munly & The Luperclians project since the mid-2000s when not focusing on Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Denver Broncos UK. It’s more dark folk, more Goth than the other configurations of music for which he’s known down to the more ritualistic stage garb. But the level of songcraft and sonic details we have come to expect from Munly as well as the richness of storytelling infuses this band as well. In a completely different style but equally steeped in literature and emotionally charged indie rock is Rowboat fronted by Sam McNitt. Some may know him from his time in the great shoegaze band Blue Million Miles but with Rowboat McNitt seems to have found his most fruitful lane for songwriting with high concept albums and insightful lyrics backed by finely sculpted songs that often soar into passionate passages that bring the listener along for the catharsis. Redwing Blackbird is a fusion of Cure-esque post-punk and synth-driven darkwave with creative flair and more than a touch of grit.
Glixen, photo by Jocelyn Pacheco
Wednesday | 03.05 What:Glixen, She’s Green and After When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Glixen is a shoegaze band from Phoenix that formed in 2025 and in 2024 could be seen touring with DIIV. This year the group released its latest EP Quiet Pleasures. Though citing influences as disparate as Godflesh, t.A.T.u, Hum and Björk the band’s output thus far seems most obviously inspired by My Bloody Valentine with the warping yet dense guitar atmospheres and paradoxically low key but loud and present production. Like floating through a storm of sounds and emotion with the band into transcendent spaces. She’s Green from Minneapolis is likeminded though more in the realm of indiepop but not short on the granular Slowdive-esque beauty in its melody crafting.
Finom, photo by Ash Dye
Wednesday | 03.05 What:Finom w/Brother Bird When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Finom is the experimental pop duo from Chicago formerly known as OHMME. Its 2024 album Not God was produced by Jeff Tweedy and sounds like some kind of lost avant-garde New Wave from the 80s and benefiting from the excellent dual vocals the band has made a feature of its songwriting all along. It sounds like music for a stage play or other theatrical performance that has yet to manifest in the physical world outside the band’s typically engaging live performances.
Chat Pile, photo by Matthew Zagorski
Thursday | 03.06 What:Chat Pile w.Gouge Away and Nightosphere When: 6:30 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Chat Pile delivered yet another scathing and electrifying set of songs with its 2024 album Cool World. There is more experimentation with the atmospheric backdop of the songs but don’t worry its delivered with the blunt and caustic fervor that has rendered the band one of the most exciting in the world of modern heavy music and noise rock. Somehow the band manages to skewer the worst aspects of culture and civilization while demonstrating a vulnerability and compassion for the less fortunate and oppressed in its pointed lyrics. Live the group also injects the performances with a sense of humor without downplaying the moment we’re all in given political and environmental reality. Gouge Away has been in a similar lane with its own lyrics but the Florida hardcore/noise rock band has a more angular flow to its rhythms that perfectly accent the ferocious vocals that fans of DC post-hardcore will fully appreciate. Nightosphere is a shoegaze-inflected post-hardcore outfit from Kansas City, Missouri who expertly navigate dreamlike reverie and scorching intensity and emotional heft. When the group played at Ghost Canyon Fest in 2024 in Denver it was a clear standout among standouts.
Palomino Blond, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.06 What: Palomino Blond w/High., Moonpool and Blackberry Crush When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Palomino Blond released its latest album You Feel It Too last October confirming its mastery of blending a kind of pop-inflected shoegaze and grungy emo. High. from Boonton, New Jersey issued its new album Come Back Down on January 24, 2025 as an excellent set of glittery and fuzzy slowcore songs. Moonpool used to be called Sickly Hecks and put out some worthwhile indie rock in the more shoegaze vein but with the new name the outfit has traveled further in that direction including increased use of synth to craft its evocative soundscapes. Rounding out the evening of modern shoegaze is Denver’s Blackberry Crush whose inspirations from 90s grunge is really only apparent in its deft use of distortion and crunchy riffs in its more recent songwriting.
Cathedral Bells, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 03.07 What: Mind’s Eye w/Cathedral Bells and Bruha When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Mind’s Eye has been mining the territory between dream pop, early 2010s indie rock, 2020s bedroom pop and post-punk for the past few years with vulnerable songs of yearning and heartache. Catch the group ahead of its March 21, 2025 release of the new album If she looks like heaven… Orlando, Florida’s Cathedral Bells has been one of the bands of choice for those with a taste for ethereal, synth infused, shoegaze-y chillwave. The recordings have a kind of lo-fi charm that the band is somehow able to translate well to the live setting even with the more present, richer tones, just the intimacy and immediacy of the performances intact.
Almanac Man, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 03.08 What: Almanac Man, Only Echoes, Burning Sister, Shewolf When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Almanac Man are a noise rock trio from Denver whose sound seems rooted in early 90s post-hardcore and the angular, math-y rhythms of DC post-hardcore and maybe they came together as appreciators of the likes of mclusky and Unsane. Its lyrics take a more creative approach to commenting on social issues and the state of the world as it has been for decades clearly informed by literature as much as music. Only Echoes is an instrumental, post-metal band with a knack for crafting epic melodies and equally grand, crushing riffs with a gift for dynamic arrangements that lend its songs a cinematic quality worthy of poetic song titles like “Locus Mons” and “Truth Unveiled By Time.” Burning Sister’s psychedelic stoner rock sounds like a better version of what some of the 2000s stoner rock bands were doing partly because this trio though clearly touched by the foundational mutations of Sleep and Black Sabbath appear to have gotten into Loop, Mudhoney and the heavier end of Krautrock. Shewolf, the Denver artist, is in a similar vein to the other acts on the bill but his sounds seem more influenced by shoegaze and he even has an ambient album but this show will probably be the heavier rock but it would be cooler if it was a full on ambient set instead to break up the evening a little.
Crush of Souls, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 03.10 What:Crush of Souls, Weathered Statues, Plague Garden and Kill You Club DJs When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Crush of Souls is a coldwave/post-punk band from Paris, France that sounds like he absorbed the great, percussive synth work of the better EBM bands, the mix of acoustic and electronic blend of Clan of Xymox and a touch of the enigmatic flair of Legendary Pink Dots. Opening are two of Denver’s, and America’s, best deathrock/post-punk acts. Plague Garden’s rhythm-driven songs and cinematic arrangements lend its songs a depth to match the emotionally-charged vocals. Weathered Statues is a band that came out of the local punk scene and that spirit is infused into its songs so that even as they are on the melancholic side they have an arresting exuberance, especially live. And like Plague Garden its electronic side of the music is imaginative and brings to the songwriting an early 80s New Wave sensibility that transcends time.
Lime Cordiale, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 03.10 What: Lime Cordiale w/The Orphan and The Poet When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Australian pop group Lime Cordiale formed in 2009 and spent some years developing from the founding duo of brothers Louis and Oliver Leimbach. Icehouse frontman and songwriter Iva Davies saw the brothers perform at a type of band competition and took them under his wing inviting the fledgling band on the 2011 Icehouse tour. After a string of EPs Lime Cordiale finally released its debut album Permanent Vacation (2017, no relation of or nod to a comeback record by some other band released thirty years prior). By that point the group obviously had a gift for crafting songs with a wide open feel, lush arrangements and the ability to take on heady themes without a heavy hand. 2024 saw the release of Enough of the Sweet Talk. This time out the band chart the course of a relationship from early idealizing of one’s beloved to that period when people understand one another and accept each other as they think they are and to the end when they don’t feel like they ever really knew each other. It is in a way the opposite of the usual pop album about how great love is, rather something more realistic about how many relationships progress yet without dishonoring the feelings of the best of that arc of human experience. And all graced with the band’s elegantly crafted melodies and vocals imbued with a sensitivity and warmth.
Soccer Mommy, photo by Anna Pollack
Monday | 03.10 What: Soccer Mommy w/Hana Vu When: 7 Where: Ogden Theatre Why: Sophie Allison’s gift for vulnerably introspective songwriting and imaginative songwriting and masterful guitar work has been on fully display since her earliest releases. And the 2024 Soccer Mommy album Evergreen with its embrace of a more intimate and organic sensibility dives fully into sounds that reflect an immediacy and tenderness that is palpable. Like hearing an indie pop reincarnation of the more cinematic end of Sparklehorse. There’s something so compellingly fragile about the songwriting that its easy to get caught up in its gentle energies even when Allison kicks up the grit a little on, say, “Drive.” Live Soccer Mommy seems to effortlessly prove she’s one of modern indie rock’s most interesting musicians and with flourishes of her prowess on guitar without undercutting the elegance of her entrancing songs.
Ripley Johnson of Rose City Band, photo by Sanae Yamada
Thursday | 03.13 What: Rose City Band w/Tan Cologne When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Ripley Johnson is perhaps more widely known by many for his membership in influential psychedelic space rock band Wooden Shjips and the experimental psych rock outfit Moon Duo. Rose City Band delves into another corner of the psych universe as what might be described in short as a cosmic country band in the classic vein. With transporting pedal steel courtesy Barry Walker Jr. and Ripley’s seemingly effortless countrified riffs like a band playing in a backyard with a carefree spirit. The result is something that fans of early 70s Grateful Dead and Gram Parsons would appreciate and with an easy pace that is as calming as it is transporting. The songs get into your head the way and uplift the way a patch of nice weather will lift your spirits. The group’s fifth album Sol Y Sombra dropped on January 24, 2025 via Thrill Jockey and available on vinyl and for digital download and streaming.
The Space Lady in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.14 What: The Space Lady w/Golden Brown, snowswept and RAREBYRD$ When: 7-12 Where: The Aztlan Theater Why: Susan Dietrich grew up in the rural environs of Las Animas, Colorado before trying college in Boulder and being disillusioned with academia made her way to San Francisco and became involved with the hippie movement. For years she and her then husband survived off their art and landing in Boston following the development of a fledgling synth and guitar band that morphed into a solo project for Dietrich. Starting what became The Space Lady with a winged helmet Dietrich evolved from performing with an accordion to a Casiotone MT-40 keyboard with vocals done through a delay pedal becoming a fixture of the San Francisco underground, street performer scene upon returning to the city in the mid-80s. Performing some originals and uniquely rendered covers of classic rock, synth pop and country Dietrich has become a legend of outsider music even after “retiring” in 2000 to return to Colorado to care for her parents. These days The Space Lady performs now and again in Colorado and beyond and this is a rare chance to see her at one of Denver’s classic, independently-owned venues with experimental artists no strangers to expanding the limits of conventional musical expressions.
The Tammy Shine in 2024, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.14 What: Witch Cat Records Presents: Tammy Shine, Baby Baby, Debaser, Head Slug When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: Witch Cat Records is celebrating its founding with this showcase of artists that reflect the eclectic yet well curated roster of the imprint. Tammy Shine is the charismatic frontwoman of Dressy Bessy and this solo project is no less spirited and raw but the songwriting is a little more stripped down without losing the emotional impact. Baby Baby is the art pop solo project of Lily Conrad. The 2023 album BabyBabyForever is like some kind of unlikely No Wave synth pop record that reflects the performance art aspect of Conrad’s live show. It is collection of melancholic dreamlike singles imbued with an entrance, ethereal appeal and richness of feeling that really sweep you into their spell. Debaser is the drum and bass project of Josh Taylor who some may know for his various projects over the years including Friends Forever and this particular effort dates back to that time as well and splices what might be described as outsider garage rock and jazz and punk. Head Slug, recorded anyway, sounds like the kind of haunted, lo-fi slowcore that you would hope to hear in some DIY art film.
Lazarus Horse circa 2017, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 03.15 What: Gold Glue w/Zoya When: 7 Where: Leon Gallery Why: Gold Glue is the latest band from Eddie Durkin of Lazarus Horse and Sparkler Bombs so it’ll probably be heavy on well crafted pop songs with earnest poetry deep personal insight.
Lesser Care in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 03.15 What:Lesser Care w/Candy Apple When: 8 Where: The Crypt Why: El Paso post-punkers Lesser Care are currently producing one of the most potent blends of shoegaze atmospherics and vulnerable post-punk melancholy played live with a forceful energy suggestive of a youth spent playing in punk and metal bands. Their 2024 album Heel Turn is like that sound but album-wise informed by great hip-hop records of the late 80s with an intro and nice interludes that connect a kind of narrative of survival and reinvention.
flipturn, photo by AJPG Photo
Saturday | 03.15 What:flipturn w.Krooked Kings When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: flipturn from Fernandina Beach in Northeastern Florida released its sophomore album Burnout Days in January 2025. The album seems informed by loving reflection on times in one’s life that felt like they lasted forever filled with a kind of vitality even if you spent that time spending one’s moments with a careless abandon as if one’s health and free time wouldn’t ever really run out. But the band doesn’t seem to bemoan this so much as try to reconnect with what made that time special. It’s a record of glimmering atmospheres and a wistful yet exuberant energy that illuminates its raw portraits of everyday life like the musical equivalent Polaroids that take you back to the exact moment and context depicted.
Evan Honer, photo by Harrison Hargrave
Saturday | 03.15 What:Evan Honer w/Leon Majcen When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Evan Honer is a singer-songwriter whose eclectic style includes bits of acoustic folk, Americana and indie pop in the mix. He got a big boost when his cover, with Julia DiGrazia, of “Jersey Giant” by Tyler Childers went viral after its 2022 release to day garnering over 120 million streams on Spotify. Two years later Honer released his sophomore album Fighting For independently recording in unconventional spaces with friends. The album has a homespun minimalism that puts Honer’s emotionally vibrant vocals in the center with the spare instrumentation sharing space in the mix for a set of songs that feel intimate and worthy of Honer’s poignantly insightful portraits of everyday life and his own confessional explorations of personal struggles and working through the painful moments we all often have to deal with in isolation.
Rachel Platten, photo by Jess Lynn Hess
Monday | 03.17 What: Rachel Platten w/Ben Abraham When: 7 Where: The Gothic Theatre Why: Prior to the 2024 release of her latest album I Am Rachel Platten the singer/songwriter hadn’t offered a new album of material since 2017’s Waves. Platten has said that the new album came out of a time experiencing mental health struggles like anxiety, postpartum depression, deep self doubt, the vagaries of having a public presence and the turmoil of leaving one’s major label. The resulting music are the cathartic and vulnerable songs one would hope from an artist who isn’t simply patting herself on the back for having the inner strength to get through those struggles, rather Platten’s songs are filled with a knowing that you don’t conclusively overcome some issues forever because life has a way of challenging you in different ways. Platten shows that one can have some grace and dignity even in the darkest of moments. Her live shows are where Platten shines with an uplifting and at times exultant energy and she delivers her songs real emotional force.
Poppy, photo by Sam Cannon
Monday | 03.17 What:Poppy w/kumo 99 When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Poppy has been defying easy categorization since early in here career seeming to free associate between metalcore, synth pop and industrial rock and whatever other strands of style help to realize her musical leanings. Her latest album Negative Space sometimes hits as screamo but equally hyperpop and progressive metal. It is paradoxically eclectic and cohesive like if the members of Garbage had been born roughly 30 years later and absorbed then developing musical styles. Sometimes when a band tries to combine too many different musical ideas it’s a mess or it doesn’t work yet Poppy somehow orchestrates it all into a surprisingly effective synthesis especially live where the singer seems to channel that energy into a focused and theatrical performance like an updated version of something from the 90s and more than a cut above a lot of artists drawing upon similar inspirations.
Pelican, photo from Bandcamp
Wednesday | 03.19 What:Russian Circles w/Pelican When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Russian Circles is the Chicago-based post-metal trio that has garnered a bit of a cult following over the past twenty plus years that it’s been crafting its sound and songwriting concepts. Its most recent album was 2022’s Gnosis on which the group experimented with Celtic music tunings and the inclusion of a Moog Taurus synth to enhance the low end. The album while not hailed as among the band’s best nevertheless represents the band coming more fully into its cinematic musical ambitions. Also on the bill is another Chicago band that has made a name for itself with its heavy soundscapes and creative use of repetition, Pelican. The latter is on the verge of releasing its new album Flickering Resonance (out May 16, 2025) so you may get to hear where the group has gone since its excellent 2019 album Nighttime Stories. Earlier in its career the band wrote the early forms of its songs mostly on acoustic guitar to work out the chords and dynamics but since the 2019 record the group has gone for the louder foundation with electric instruments resulting in songs that take even more immediate advantage of the ways those sounds intersect to create unique resonances.
Vyva Melinkolya, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.20 What:Midwife and Vyva Melinkolya perform Orbweaving w/BleakHeart and Volunteer Coroner When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Midwife and Vyva Melinkolya released the collaborative album Orbweaving in 2023, the product of becoming friends in 2020 and meeting in person in 2021 for a recording residency. The album is a hazy, gauzy set of songs that are about dreams, personal myths, the beauty and horror of the world and getting through a time of extended grief and perilous uncertainty that seems to still be running through the world with no end in sight. The delicacy and vulnerability heard in its songs though is the ability to hang on in spite of these challenges and to navigate it with creative acts and being willing to feel those emotions that threaten to engulf you. The night begins with the ambient/analog synth sounds of Volunteer Coroner and the deep moods and engrossingly gorgeous harmonies of doomy, post-rock dream pop band BleakHeart.
Los Mocochetes, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 03.22 What:Los Mocochetes, My Blue Heart and The Milk Blossoms When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Los Mocochetes is releasing its new 7” record “Huaraches”/”Sun Will Shine” via Unit E records and celebrating the occasion with this performance. The Chicano/funk band from Denver has been performing uplifting music aimed at turning the social and cultural power structure on its head since the 2010s. My Blue Heart might be described loosely as an art pop band in that its eclectic style is theatrical in presentation and in the way the music is performed but includes elements of blues, funk, jazz, prog and psychedelic rock. The Milk Blossoms is a band that seems to gather day dreams and poignant observations about the peaks and valleys of human emotional experience and crafts them into exquisite and finely honed pop songs that maintain more than a bit of the edges and unravellings that make for music that actually moves you.
Bluebook, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 03.22 What:Bluebook w/Body and Pleasure Prince When: 7 Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Why: Bluebook is a brooding yet electrifying dark, art folk band that has changed musical shape and membership for the past 20 years into its current form that comes across like a progressive art rock band with emotionally vibrant vocals and a riveting intensity. Body is a darkwave disco band that sounds like the trio spent a lot of time just listening to a bunch of mid-80s synthpop but updated by late 2000s indie rock. That the band includes Edmund Garthe and Stuart Confer formerly of Ned Garthe Explosion tells you there is a lot of creativity and imagination behind the music but then there’s also Roni Beer who brings her own left field pop energy into the mix. And to round out a fantastic bill is Pleasure Prince who seem to have mastered the art of pop songwriting utilizing real music chops in the vocals and percussion as well as a deep infusion of experimental edge.
Pom Poko, photo from Bandcamp
Tuesday | 03.25 What: Pom Poko w/Fake Dad and May Be Fern When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pom Poko from Oslo, Norway released the bright yet introspective album Champion in 2024. Across its eleven songs the band showed the missing links between indiepop, post-punk and Kiwi rock resulting in a unique sound. The way Orions Belte, another Oslo band, seems to have fused jazz, psychedelia, world folk and pop without quite sounding like anyone else either.
Alex Wilcox (left), image courtesy the artist
Thursday | 03.27 What: Alex Wilcox, Vegan Gore & Vicky Burp, Church Fire and Sell Farm When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Alex Wilcox came up in Texas but spent some time in Austin, Texas and then LA where he worked at Chalice Recordings in production and further refined the techniques and aesthetics of pop and hip-hop which he has subsequently applied to and evolved from in making his own style of glitchcore/experimental electronic dance music. Now based in Berlin is pushing boundaries as a DJ and crafter of cutting edge dance pop. Church Fire just got off tour with Moonpussy so who can say how this show will be except finely honed and maybe with some even more amped up stage antics. Sell Farm hasn’t flexed his industrial ambient music in a while either so catch him at a now not as common live show.
Martha Wainwright, photo courtesy the artist
Thursday | 03.27 What: Martha Wainwright w/Brad Barr When: 6 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Martha Wainwright might have had a bit of a big legacy to live up to as the daughter of Kate McGarrible and Loudon Wainwright III and with her brother being Rufus Wainwright. But Martha came out of the gates, as it were, with the 2005 EP Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole and the title track which is like a response to her father’s manner of writing songs about his family rather than tending to them as people. The EP also established her as a songwriter of note with a passionately expressive voice and command of rhythm guitar inflections to match her singing. In 2025 Wainwright released her new EP 6 Songs, a collection of songs rendered in her signature nuanced and emotionally vibrant vocals and delicate and imaginative guitar accompanied by a touch of psychedelic shimmer.
Dreadnought in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.28 What: Faetooth w/Iress and Dreadnought When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Faetooth is the Los Angeles-based doomgaze band whose heavy atmospherics pair well with the fantastical lyrics. In moments bordering on dark folk but mostly feral energy and crunchy, crushing riffs with hovering menace to heighten a sense of otherworldliness. Think SubRosa leaning heavier into its Black Sabbath influences. Denver’s own Dreadnought will fit well with that rich atmospherics and science fantasy storytelling but more with touches of classical and orchestral sensibilities informing its dramatic compositions.
Advance Base, photo by Jeff Marini
Friday | 03.28 What:Advance Base w/”Horse Girl” and Ground Hum When: 7 Where: Glob Why: Owen Ashworth is fondly remembered for his project Casiotone for the Painfully Alone and its almost outsider songwriter take on lo-fi indiepop. But there was always something endearing about his emotionally open lyrics and tender melodies as well as his unvarnished yet tuneful vocals. When Ashworth retired the project in 2010 with a final tour. But it wasn’t long before he continued making music under the moniker Advance Base and starting his Orindal Records imprint. With the new name Ashworth has delivered entire albums worth of deeply observant and poignant pop songs both melancholic and a celebration of the moments in life that we take for granted but which connect what we might consider the more peak (for good or bad) experiences. In December 2024 he released his latest album, the luminously warm Horrible Occurrences.
Gleemer in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy
Saturday | 03.29 What:Gleemer w/American Culture and Ampule When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Gleemer has been playing in the local scene in Colorado since 2011 but garnered an underground cult following by touring and making a bit of a name for itself far afield. Mixing emo, slowcore and shoegaze before that really became a bigger thing in the past handful of years, Gleemer’s musical instincts manifested most fully with its fifth and latest album End of the Nail (2024). Fans of Sunny Day Real Estate and Death Cab For Cutie will find a lot to like in Gleemer’s blend of grit and atmospheric melodies. American Culture came out of the indiepop underground but its players have real chops and lately have sounded more like they have been immersing themselves in the catalog of The Cure and the better end of early Britpop and C86.
Chloe Wilder, photo by Jesse Del Florio
Saturday | 03.29 What:Spencer Sutherland w.Stacey Ryan and Cloe Wilder When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Spencer Sutherland is a pop R&B artist who was already honing his skills as a singer and arranger before appearing on Today in 2017 followed up by being a contestant on the UK edition of The X Factor and then signing to a major label the year after. It did his career no harm appearing in films and TV series. But his 2023 debut album In His Mania and subsequent national tour boosted his musical endeavors some with opening slots from Cloe Wilder also on this tour in support of Sutherland’s 2024 sophomore effort Drama. The new record builds on the singer’s sense of humor as well as reveals an obvious influence from Freddy Mercury. Wilder recently released her latest EP Life’s a Bitch (March 21, 2025). Like her prior output the songs have an immediacy and intimacy built around her breathy vocals and knack for writing stories vivid with images of people, places and the emotional resonances of her experiences. Although only 19 years old, Wilder’s songwriting is confident and has a depth of feeling and nuance of expression more in line with a veteran artist.
Bob Log III, photo by C. Elliott Photography, from Bandcamp
Sunday | 03.30 What:Bob Log III, The Black Gloves and The Oldmen When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Bob Log III has been doing his “One Man Band Boom” thing for three decades now performing with a Silvertone archtop guitar and percussion he provides with his feet. All while dressed up like a human cannonball. It’s unvarnished rock and roll played with punk spirit and although a bit of a gimmick it’s one that is entertaining and there is an appeal to the kind of music he’s doing that deconstructs rock and roll just a little while tapping into the spirit of the early era of that music. The Oldmen are a garage punk band that includes former members of Boss 302 so even if the name is a bit of a joke these guys will provide plenty of entertaining stage antics of their own with solid power pop hooks.
Amyl and the Sniffers, photo by Jamie Wdzieknoski
Monday | 03.31 What:Amyl and the Sniffers w/Sheer Mag When: 6 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Amyl and the Sniffers from Melbourne, Australia are one of the most prominent punk bands at this moment. Its sound came out of a pub rock sound but live the group has a joyously ferocious presence with charmingly pointed lyrics. In 2024 the group released its latest album Cartoon Darkness which expanded upon the bands sound with a more focused presentation without losing the unhinged energy the band has made part of its essential appeal. Philadelphia’s Sheer Mag also powerful threads together classic rock’s best instincts and modern punk and power pop. The band’s own exuberant live shows are like an American analog to what the headliner’s are doing though Sheer Mag has been at it a little longer.
Mayhem in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 03.31 What: Decibel Magazine Tour 2025: Mayhem, Mortiis, Imperial Triumphant and New Skeletal Faces When: 5:30 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Decibel Magazine seems to put together a solid lineup for its tours and headlining this one is the legendary Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. The group’s storied history almost overshadows the music itself. But its iconic sound has been a template for the metal subgenre with sepulchral vocals over hanging atmospherics and headlong pacing. With Attila Csihar fronting the band expect plenty of theatricality and soul shaking vocals. Mortiis is from the black metal world of Norway but under this moniker he is more known for dungeon synth, ambient and what might be described as industrial darkwave. Imperial Triumphant is a more experimental black metal band from New York City whose new album Goldstar is like an avant-garde opera arranged in torrential black metal soundscapes. New Skeletal Faces might seem out of place here even though it fuses black metal guitar sounds and musicianship with death rock era The Cult. Fans of Final Gasp will appreciate what New Skeletal Faces are doing.
Friday | 01.03 What: RAREBYRD$ album release w/Machu Linea and Shocker Mom When: 9pm Where: Roxy on Broadway Why: RAREBYRD$ is an experimental hip-hop group from Denver whose mix of sensuous soundscapes, earthy romanticism and radical compassion and sensitivity has produced a powerful and playful body of work that hits deep. This show ushers in the release of its first album on vinyl with Pa$$-A-FiSt. On hand for this show is electronic pop producer and DJ extraordinaire Machu Linea and his creatively imaginative R&B-inflected songwriting as well as ambient indie pop genius Shocker Mom.
Brian Posehn, photo from brianposehn.com
Thursday-Saturday | 01.09-01.11 What: Brian Posehn When: Varies by date Where: Comedy Works Denver Why: Brian Posehn is an active and prolific whose career spans decades including doing some writing and performing on the beloved comedy show Mr. Show. He’s had parts in The Big Bang Theory, The Mandalorian, Lady Dynamite, New Girl and he’s been in films like Devil’s Rejects and Uncle Nick. But his comedy that is partly surreal and confessional spanning subjects from personal issues, nerddom and his status as a lifelong metalhead. There’s something charming and immediately relatable to Posehn’s delivery that makes even his more playfully transgressive material accessible.
Oryx in 2021, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 01.10 What:Oryx, Midwife, Many Blessings and Aridus When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Oryx is the doom/sludge band from Denver that recently released its latest album 2024’s Primordial Sky (available through the group’s Bandcamp digitally and on cassette and through Translation Loss on limited, colored vinyl editions). Starting out as a the duo of guitarist, vocalist, synth player Thomas Davis and drummer Abigail Davis, Oryx recently added bassist Joshua Kauffman who contributed to the writing of the new record. The sounds of the new release are more open and cavernous than the previous Oryx offerings which were inspired forays into brutal yet epic and cathartic compositions blurring the line between grind, doom and Oryx’s own style that incorporated unconventional rhythms and a heaviness that was dense yet dynamic. The new album is a commentary on the hubris of our civilization seem built on a bedrock of endless consumption at the expense of all. Also on this bill is “heaven metal” artist Midwife whose immersive soundscapes of processed guitar and vocals are like if folk music was being transmitted from a future existing in the consequences of current human hubris but expressed from deep emotional places processing despair and loss. Many Blessings is the solo harsh noise project of Primitive Man guitarist and vocalist Ethan McCarthy. Aridus is a moody black metal band from Santa Fe that includes Galen Baudhuin who contributes to the live lineup of influential “Cascadian black metal” legends Wolves in the Throne Room.
David Dinsmore, from his Facebook page
Saturday | 01.11 What:Celebrate the Life of David Dinsmore featuring Judge Roughneck and Lost Dog Ensemble (vinyl release party) as well as Tivoli Club Brass Band and guests. When: 6:30 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: The late David Dinsmore passed away in 2024 suddenly due to health complications when he was on the verge of doing more music of a wide spectrum of expression. He was of course the long time trombone player in the great jazz ska funk band Judge Roughneck, he was a singer and musician in Tom Waits tribute band Lost Dog Ensemble, he performed experimental music in various projects including Bowshock. He was a friend to many in the local scene and certainly a fan of supporter. What isn’t obvious is his broad taste in music and his willingness to get out and see new music regularly, weekly. He was someone who isn’t often celebrated but is one of the true linchpins in the music scene, some of the social connective tissue in one person and he is already greatly missed. This show is a celebration of his life with performances from a couple of his old bands.
Ipecac, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.11 What: Boot Gun, Ipecac and Radio Fluke When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Boot Gun isn’t just some classic rock revival band though that’s certainly one of the flavors of its music. Its members have absorbed modern psychedelic garage rock and a touch of prog. But its vocals are at least as strong as the musicianship and it seems obvious someone in the band has spent some time listening to a lot of soul records and southern blues rock. Ipecac similarly is hard to pigeonhole as purveyors of fuzzy hard rock with fiery musicianship and a charismatic, soulful vocalist but all of that is what makes the group noteworthy in the realm of music taking inspiration from another era.
Pink Lady Monster, photo by Tom Murphy
Thursday | 01.16 What: Pink Lady Monster, Ray Diess, Part Weapon and Babybaby When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pink Lady Monster is like the reincarnation of both a No Wave band and an avant-garde glam rock band with the performance art aspect very part of the delivery of the music. Ray Diess likewise incorporates performance art into his experimental, hyperpop strangeness. Part Weapon actually fuses psych rock, shoegaze and post-rock into a cohesive whole that isn’t a boring mish mash of elements or a derivative manifestation of any of them. BabyBaby is what happens when someone who has spent time making more conventional music with others lets loose and crafts gorgeously entrancing experimental electronic pop like something from the memory of blissful dreams.
Teacup Gorilla, photo courtesy the artists
Friday-Saturday | 01.17-02.01 What: JANE/EYRE with live music from Teacup Gorilla When: See link for dates and times. Where: Buntport Theater 717 Lipan St. Why: Denver-based theater production troupe Grapefruit Lab is putting on an encore run of its debut full-length show JANE/EYRE, a queer exploration of Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name. The show includes musical performances by art folk/indie pop group Teacup Gorilla with songs written by the band and former Bad Luck City, current The Gentlys frontman Dameon Merkl. The multimedia show in its first run was an inspired examination of issues of class, religion, gender identity and sexuality. This remount of the show also celebrates the release of Teacup Gorilla’s debut full-length album also titled JANE/EYRE now available on digital download, streaming and limited edition vinyl.
ABANDONS, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.18 What: ABANDONS, Church Fire, Oyarsa When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: With its new album Liminal Heart, Denver instrumental, ambient post-metal band ABANDONS has made a great stylistic leap forward. Its earlier work didn’t fit into a neat and easy category with songs that seemed as informed by Pelican and Isis as Slint and 90s slowcore, especially live. With the new record the music is more deeply atmospheric and meditative with even greater attention paid to soundscaping details in the composition and the recording. The band lets tones hang and drift organically, setting them in motion and playing into where the sounds carry the melody. Fans of Mogwai will appreciate how ABANDONS now seems to embrace even more a richly moody dynamic to the way the songs unfold.
ZEPHR, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.18 What:ZEPHR Record Release w/Tuff Bluff and Black Dots When: 9 Where: The Squire Lounge Why: Heart on sleeve punk trip ZEPHR is releasing its latest album at this show sharing the stage with power pop/garage punk greats Tuff Bluff fronted by former Pin Downs and The Manxx guitarist and singer Sara Fischer and pop punk inflected quartet Black Dots. It’ll be an evening of music that reflects and represents an era of Denver punk that was a bit more diverse and cohesive.
Ashes Fallen, photo from Bandcamp
Saturday | 01.18 What: Ashes Fallen, Redwing Blackbird, Hypersomnia When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club Why: Ashes Fallen is a three piece post-punk band from California whose sound incorporates New Wave-esque keyboard work and slightly quavering Goth rock style vocals. But its guitar work and gift for moody, icy synth melodies set it apart from a cookie cutter modern darkwave band. Redwing Blackbird is a similarly-minded duo but Paul Baker’s guitar style is more in line with the vibrantly moody, melodicism of The Cure and a touch of shoegaze soundscaping. Hypersomnia is an electro darkwave dance project from Colorado Springs seemingly influenced by classic EBM but without waxing into future pop.
TopHouse, photo by Electric Peak Creative
Saturday | 01.18 What:TopHouse w/The Wildwoods When: 7 Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: TopHouse will release its new EP Promise on February 14, 2025 and this show will likely give you an early exposure to that music aside. The band started off in Missoula, Montana but relocated to Nashville where the prospects for developing its blend of bluegrass, Americana and chamber pop more fully among a wider range of peers and for larger audiences in a place where music the music industry is long established and robust. The band’s recorded output seems to reflect the sonic clarity and the intimacy of the live show with its lively and detailed instrumentation captured as perfectly as its uplifting vocals.
Lana Del Rabies, photo courtesy the artist
Monday | 01.20 What: God Is War, Lana Del Rabies, MPW, Maltreatment, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Ashen Glaze When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: God Is War is a noise/power electronics artist from Los Angeles whose aggressive, industrial style is also menacing and more layered in its composition of atmospheric layers than a more straight ahead artist operating in similar spheres of music. Lana Del Rabies is an artist that is refreshingly challenging to genre tag. Her ritualistic drones, industrial noise atmospherics and intense and theatrical live performances are cathartic and mesmerizing. Fans of HIDE and Lingua Ignota should definitely check out her music and go to this show. Maltreatment is the solo harsh noise project of Brandon Artus from death/grind group Vermin Womb. MPW is an electro-harsh noise and tape manipulation artist from Denver. Ethan Lee McCarthy will be doing some noise of his own that doesn’t fall under the aegis of his Many Blessings or Spiritual Poison projects. Ashen Glaze’s own compositions fall under the umbrella of noise but with his clear vocals and pounding, disintegrating rhythms and overtly industrial beats his stuff is more akin to a Justin Broadrick project of Omaha’s CBN.
Phil Hanley, photo from philhanley.com
Thursday-Saturday | 01.23-01.25 What: Phil Hanley When: Varies by date Where: Comedy Works Denver Why: Phil Hanley is a comedian from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada who worked as model in New York and Europe before trying his hand at stand-up. Now Hanley tours regularly and his crowd work videos are among the best you can find online showcasing his gift for turning awkward moments and unpretentious human insight into great moments of shared humor and absurdity.
Ghosts of Glaciers, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 01.24 What: Ghosts of Glaciers, Palehorse/Palerider and Clarion Void When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Ghosts of Glaciers released its latest album Eternal in October 2024 and its searching, wandering, drifting aspects of its sounds give the music an enigmatic quality suggestive of the title of the album. But not to worry, the band soars off into the fiery post-rock flourishes that have been the hallmark of its music since it evolved out of its earlier doom metal inclinations. But the band has always been different from many of its peers in being inspired in part by experimental, progressive metal bands and being capable of shifting back from intense and forward charging riffs into almost ambient tranquility with a vulnerable grace. Also on the bill is the current incarnation of heavy desert shoegaze band Palehorse/Palerider who also buck expectations with songs that sure fit what you might expect but the imagination behind the songwriting makes a difference as evidenced by previous shows in which the band had an almost tribal musical configuration in its rhythms and the execution of its instrumentation. Clarion Void’s death sludge sound seems to have been tempered by the sludgy waters of a time in heavy music when stoner metal seemed overly abundant and these guys just took that foundation and gave it some edge without losing the melody.
Alan Sparhawk, photo by Sophia Photo Co.
Saturday | 01.25 What:Alan Sparkhawk’s The White Roses Tour w/Circuit des Yeux When: 8 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Alan Sparhawk’s 2024 album White Roses, My God is to most people familiar with his legendary slowcore band Low a drastic departure. But Low’s last two albums were part of a series of departures from expectation and the most experimental of the band’s career and for some the group’s best and most daring releases to date. For this second solo album Sparhawk couldn’t simply do what was expected of him. He seems to have took a deep dive into the realm of hyper pop, psychedelic IDM, trap and whatever amalgamation of all of that is manifest in the music of 100 gecs and SOPHIE. But true to form Sparhawk has created a unique piece of work that may not be fully appreciated by fans of Low or anyone with narrow expectations of what Sparhawk “should” be doing. There is a playful and alien beauty to the songs that exults in irreverent humor and a self-aware vulnerability that challenges listeners to set aside presumptions and indulge in experiencing something new and unexpected from a familiar artist who has done a ton of soul searching and the processing of grief and seems to have concluded that to indulge divergent creative instincts that feel like a renewed self and the freedom to reinvent is the best and most fulfilling path forward after some of the worst pain of one’s life has crashed into your psyche.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, phot by Kyle Cassidy, from the band’s Wikipedia page
Saturday | 01.25 What: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Shake the Sheets 20th Anniversary When: 7 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have been touring for the 20 year anniversary of the 2004 release of their Shake the Sheets album. That record came out right before things started completely collapsing for the Lookout! Records imprint and for the band marked a sound that was a complete unification of its punk and indie rock impulses. Its exuberant, melodic punk was not the pop punk that was the bread and butter of the label and arguably the band’s creative peak to date with songs that are political and non-didactic.
Extra Kool and Time, photo by Tom Murphy
Wednesday | 01.29 What: Extra Kool and Time vinyl release party for The Grimies w/Box State University, Helga Pataki and Preacher vs. Choir When: 8 Where: The Crypt Why: Extra Kool and Time are two of the most gifted lyricists and rappers in Denver of recent years but whose work has not often been championed in local much less national press and culture. Years ago they worked on tracks together in a project they called The Grimies with singles appearing on obscure compilations now challenging to track down. But separately and contributing to each other’s work they have written poignantly personal and vulnerable, insightful and emotional songs about life and society that are vibrant and heartbreaking. Time has frequently released music with the brilliant producer AwareNess as the experimental hip-hop duo Calm. and along with Extra Kool and artists under the label umbrella of The Dirty Laboratory they were a force in alternative hip-hop in the 2000s. That world imploded or faded away in “commercial relevance” if not in impact in influence around the 2010s but the legacy of that time has continued in the more interesting hip-hop of today and certainly Time and Extra Kool didn’t stop creating powerful work just because the crumbling music culture wasn’t shining as much of a spotlight on alternative hip-hop for a long time. In September 2024 Extra Kool and Time finally released their fully collaborative album titled The Grimies. It’s full of vivid and emotionally resonant bars traded by both artists with tales of Denver and existential exploration of what endures in the mind and heart long term, the ghosts that haunt us, our communities and our various cultures. It’s a deep record with richly realized production from the likes of Fumes the Threat, AwareNess, Satyr and Preacher vs. Choir with contributions from Illogic. In typical operating fashion from Time and Extra Kool the openers are up and coming artists from a variety of musical styles including punk band Helga Pataki, young hip hop crew Box State University and aforementioned San Diego based production collective Preacher vs. Choir.
Thursday | 01.30 What: Head Slug, When The Sun Explodes and Plastik Mystik When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Head Slug is a weirdo ambient slowcore project with haunted soundscapes and vulnerable guitar work, melancholic moods. When the Sun Explodes is also a noisy shoegaze band apparently that has its roots among students at D.U.. Plastik Mystik (aka Plastic Mystic) is a band that splits the difference and mix and matches elements of post-hardcore, noise rock and deconstructed Dischordism.
Michael Blaustein, photo from neonentertainment.com
Thursday-Saturday | 01.30-02.01 What:Michael Blaustein When: Showtime varies by date Where: Comedy Works Denver Why: Michael Blaustein co-hosts the Stiff Socks Podcast, has been on MTV’s Battleclips, On Campus Tour and the reboot of Punk’d. But watch his clips and shorts and you see a brilliant comedian with gift for surreal humor and turning any situation into art with his masterful crowdwork.
Cursive, photo by Bill Sitzmann
Friday | 01.31 What: Cursive w/Pile When: 8 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Cursive is one of the most important and influential bands out of 90s post-hardcore/emo and helped to put its hometown of Omaha, Nebraska on the map as one of the flagship bands of the Saddle Creek Records imprint. Cursive could also never be pigeonholed as post-hardcore or emo beyond convenient touchstones for the style of music from which it emerged and which impacted its development. Cursive has always been more experimental and deft at pop songcraft than might seem obvious and its breakthrough records Domestica (2000) and The Ugly Organ (2003) offered insight into the American psyche of that era with a poignancy and poetry to match the band’s exuberant energy as a live band. Its new record Devourer (2024) is the recognition of and embracing of being a consumer and integrator of creative work and culture as part of the process of interpreting and passing forward the legacy of the world in which one finds oneself but also the dark side of that process and how that process can have a negative aspect that affects not just others but oneself and the physical and psychological ecosystem. Heady concepts aside it’s vintage Cursive with the memorable hooks and willingness to go off predictable sonic habits. But hey the great slowcore/post-punk/post-hardcore noise rock band Pile is opening so get there early and see two of the most consistently interesting rock bands of the past 30 years at one show.
Saturday | 03.02 What:Thor w/Joecephus and the George Jonestown Massacre, Chamber Mage, DJ Eagle Wing When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: THOR is the legendary, early heavy metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Founded and fronted by Jon Mikl Thor, a body building champion who among other titles won the designations of being Mr. USA and Mr. World Canada. When forming the band in 1973 Thor brought together his status as a body builder with music with his physical appearance and presence lending itself well to incorporating an early Viking warrior and gladiator image. In the mid-70s the band toured throughout the Eastern USA and Canada before gaining the attention of Merv Griffin who had the group perform on the Merv Griffin Show when it was broadcasting from Caesars Palace. That appearance garnered the group a record deal with RCA. With a new band lineup in 1977 and regular touring along with some releases under its belt, THOR made it over to England following a distribution deal where it signed with Motörhead manager Douglas Smith and relocated to London in 1984. Two records and three years later, the band called it quits in 1987 with Jon Mikl trying his hand at further his acting career. But that wasn’t the end of the road for THOR and a cult following lead to enough renewed interest that the group re-formed in 1997. The band has since become more active and musically prolific than it ever was in its first run and THOR continues to tour and evolve its performance concept, these days with THOR as a cowboy more in that heroic Roy Rogers and maybe even The Lone Ranger vein. In 2024 THOR will release its latest album Ride of the Iron Horse on March 15, 2024 and this may be an opportunity to catch those songs live. Give a listen to our interview with Jon Mikl Thor here.
Voivod circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
Sunday | 03.03 What:Voivod and Prong w/Cobranoid When: 6 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Voivod is the visionary early thrash band from Canada whose sound embraced elements beyond heavy metal and as the years have progressed Voivod could sometimes sound like a strange post-punk or industrial band and its own progressive metal/thrash roots have always been more imaginative than many of its peers. Its latest album Morgöth Tales (2023) is vintage Voivod with the spiraling twists and turns in its guitar leads and both gritty and haunted vocals with science fiction themed lyrics that clearly comment with great clarity and poignancy about the state of the world and with some nice Easter Eggs in the music and lyrics referencing earlier Voivod albums like Dimension Hatröss (1988). Live be prepared for a band that performs more like a hardcore band than one might expect from its art rock leanings. Prong also early on from its 1986 inception more than flirted with electronic sounds, industrial beats and what might be described as thrash psychedelia in its songwriting. And now the veteran band is touring in support of its 2023 album State of Emergency. An ideal double bill in classic heavy music.
Cat Power, photo courtesy matador.com
Monday | 03.04 What: Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert When: 7 Where: Paramount Theatre Why: In 2023 Cat Power released the ambitious live cover album Cat Power Sings Dylan: The 1966 Royal Albert Hall Concert (she knows it was at Manchester Free Free Trade Hall, but the legend differs). It’s a faithful recreation of the concert wherein Dylan switches halfway through from acoustic to electric instrumentation and someone in the audience yelled “Judas!” because how dare one of the darlings of folk music betray the tradition so callously and publicly. Quainter times but Cat Power’s performance, now recreated live on stage, is powerful and brilliantly rendered in exquisite detail in a way that is both ironic and sincere as an act of cultural and creative time travel and trying on a classic outfit for size in a musical sense in the way only Chan Marshall can. Why did she do this? Marshall has long made other people’s music her own as a tribute to their influence and impact and this was just the next level and taking on an absolute classic performance traded as bootlegs for years, a move that perhaps Dylan would have approved and who knows, maybe did behind the scenes. Whatever the origins of this effort Cat Power is a commanding live performer with undeniable mystique and emotional range and this will probably be the only time she tours this show.
Otoboke Beaver, photo courtesy the artists
Tuesday | 03.05 What:Otoboke Beaver w/Drinking Boys and Girls Choir When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Otoboke Beaver is the hyperkinetic hardcore/post-punk/garage rock band from Kyoto that seemed to leap from very underground status in America before 2022 to a bit of a cult phenomenon following the release of that year’s ferocious, culturally and politically incisive and sharply humorous album Super Champon. The group toured extensively behind the record including a stop at Globe Hall in Denver where it sold out the show and with relentless energy and raw charisma more than earned its growing popularity followed by a return show at The Bluebird and now The Gothic. The group deftly uses media and cultural references in deconstructing consumerism and misogyny in almost a parody of Japanese television and its phantasmagorical reality TV shows and advertising. There is a nuanced awareness in what the band is doing while also making it all fun and exciting and to any extent that it’s kitschy it is a knowing employment of tropes that also embraces the uniqueness of Japanese popular culture and its widely varied manifestations.
Real Estate, photo by Sinna Nasseri
Wednesday | 03.06 What: Real Estate w/Florry When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Real Estate is a veteran band of 2000s and 2010s indie rock that survived changing tastes and the whole period when blogs and online music journalism made and sometimes unmade bands. And the pandemic which has been rough on the world of music generally. Its early sound may have been more shaped by jangle pop and surf rock with a drift toward dream pop in the 2010s. But with the release of its 2024 album Daniel it seems that Real Estate is firmly comfortable in embracing the entirety of its musical development with a soft melodicism that lends itself well to observational songs of adult introspection and assessment of what makes living meaningful and resonant after the rush of youth has long burned out but one’s desire to do more than just go along with being a cog in society’s machine. The record speaks to how none of us really wants to just plug in and go along with being a passive consumer when there’s so much of life left to live yet and so much of it is more than just going to work, doing some menial thing for 8-10 hours and commuting home and watching TV and maybe on the weekend do some shopping or engage in some light local tourism or super premeditated and marketed “adulting” amusement. The songs on Daniel are more reflective and speak to more going on than what we’ve been lead to believe means what it looks like to “grow up.”
Cherry Glazerr, photo by Maddy Rotman
Wednesday | 03.06 What: Cherry Glazerr w/Wombo When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Clementine Creevy has been doing Cherry Glazerr since she was a teenager in 2013 and the project has evolved in always sonically interesting and ambitious directions. Early on the music might have been described as dream pop and shoegaze and that has been a consistent sound that runs through the band’s music through to today. But the 2023 album I Don’t Want You Anymore seems more gritty and raw and with more distorted, jagged edges and orchestrated moments of poignant dramatic flourishes alongside the masterful fusion of electronic composition and moody guitar rock. It sounds like the kind of album that serves as a way to write out coming to terms with the downbeats of one’s own life with daring honesty and arguably the trio’s finest record. Opening the show is the arty post-punk band Wombo from Louisville, Kentucky who for many is one of the great underground bands of the last several years. Its records are all inventive exercises in threading together psychedelic rock and whatever it was Pere Ubu was doing in its early days yet making it oddly immediately accessible with a startlingly commanding live performance.
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, photo by Olivia Oyama
Thursday | 03.07 What: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum w/Dreadnought, Surplus 1980 When: 7 Where: Bluebird Theater Why: Sleepytime Gorilla Museum established itself as one of the great cult bands out of the 90s and 2000s with its utterly unique melange of theater, heavy art rock and psychedelia. Safe to say it would be challenging to compare the band’s music to that of any of its contemporaries except maybe something Mike Patton might be doing around the same time and in fact Matthias Bossi and Patton worked together for a live score for the 1924 film Waxworks. Its records are all fascinating pieces that at times seem industrial, others the kind of industrial noise rock one might expect from Cop Shoot Cop with the cathartic flourishes heard more often in the music of Swans—Frank Zappa gone fully jazz punk. When SGM split in 2011 probably no one was expecting a reunion but that’s what happened in 2023 and now the legendary experimental band is touring behind the release of its new album of the Last Human Being and yes it’s as wonderfully weird and as challenging and rewarding as one might hope to hear. Opening are Denver psychedelic doom band Dreadnought and Surplus 1980, a group headed by SGM’s Moe Staiano and in a what might be described as an avant-garde post-punk dub vein.
Ryan Beatty, photo by Lucas Creighton
Thursday | 03.07 What: Ryan Beatty When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Ryan Beatty got started in his musical career by posting videos on his YouTube channel beginning in 2011 and while still a teen embarked touring but with his image and thus to some extent his music and personal expression limited by adhering to a supposedly palatable media image for mainstream consumption. So he fired his management team leading to his not being able to actually put out his own music until he was around 20 years old. But Beatty’s warmly expressive vocals and ear for evocative arrangements meant he has been able to find success on his own terms. His 2023 album Calico with its wide open yet intimate sounds and production that lets the songs sound like they might be recorded at home minus the rich vocal sounds and orchestral touches that contrast well with sound design that capture background sounds to give the more pristine elements a human context.
Body, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.07 What: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash w/Body and Ryan Wong Band When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Clayton Dexter’s Country Backwash is sort of a psychedelic country band from Denver that includes of course Clayton Dexter and at least for the 2023 self-titled album Paul Dehaven (Paper Bird, Eye & the Arrow, Heavy Diamond Ring). But of course the music stylistically ranges far from that sometimes limiting format and at times the band sounds like some sort of glam rock-flavored synth pop band with guitar twang. Body is a synth pop band that includes former members of Ned Garthe Explosion and Hindershot that though a trio seems to produce a massive and immersive panoply of sound. Ryan Wong Band is refreshingly a fairly straight forward country band from Denver that seems to draw its roots from a time when country didn’t need to stay on some narrow brand for a sound palette and dips into the realm of cosmic country as well.
Replica City in June 2023, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.08 What: Replica City w/Quits and Supreme Joy When: 6:30 Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Replica City is a post-punk band from Denver that is more informed by the likes of Dinosaur Jr than Joy Division and it will release its new EP Gift of Knives on March 5, 2024 for which this show is a celebration. Quits is the great Denver noise rock institution whose own album Feeling It released in September 2023 with a support tour in 2024. Supreme Joy is an angular post-punk band from Denver that has more than a leg in jangly psychedelic rock but think more in the vein of something like JOHN, Women or Swell Maps.
Black Flag, photo courtesy Artists World Wide
Saturday | 03.09 What:Black Flag – 40th Anniversary of My War When: 7:30 Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Black Flag’s 1984, second album My War introduced fans of the group’s ferocious and technically proficient hardcore to sludgier, heavy sounds and grinding tempos in a way that proved influential on the genre and crossover bands. Apparently, Black Flag had already done the accelerated punk thing for years and simply had to do something different. And for this show you’ll probably get to see the album in its entirety as well as other Black Flag classics. Greg Ginn is the only original member but getting to see Ginn unleash those crazy Black Flag riffs is still something impressive to behold.
Laetitia Sadier, photo by Marie Merlet
Saturday | 03.09 What: Laetitia Sadier w/Susan James When: 7 Where: Lost Lake Why: Laetitia Sadier is the charismatic and soulful singer and songwriter who is perhaps best known for being a lead singer in experimental rock band Stereolab. But Sadier has long had projects outside the latter including a reliably fascinating solo career consisting of five albums since 2010 including Rooting for Love which dropped on February 23, 2024. In the album’s songs one years the lush, downtempo, jazz and Bossa Nova inflected art pop that has been Sadier’s signature musical flavor for decades. But there is a spaciousness in Sadier’s solo work that is inviting and soothing without being soporific. Her warm and expressive vocals sit solidly in the mix of drifting atmospheres as well as grounding the more energetic passages. The album sounds like a conversation about weighty subjects in French and English but in a manner that invites imagination and compassion to combine to look toward a world that is moving beyond the petty and incredibly destructive civilizational patterns, a death spiral really, in which our species now seems stuck. Sadier looks toward a time past that psychological gridlock honoring the complexities of human existence and habits that got us there. Susan James is a renowned singer-songwriter whose experimental, psychedelic folk also seems to draw bit from 60s French pop as well and whose 2015 album Sea Glass marked a shift in the artist’s songwriting to more incorporation of her influences among minimalist composers. It was also produced by Sean O’Hagan of High Llamas fame, an artist who in his own music fused psychedelic pop and the avant-garde.
Kendra Morris, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 03.10 What:Kendra Morris w/Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille and The Milk Blossoms When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Kendra Morris is a singer-songwriter from NYC whose sound is clearly rooted in soul, R&B and the neo-soul end of hip-hop. And there’s a touch of psychedelia at the edges of her lush arrangements and a general sense that Morris is writing her music driven by imagining unusual short stories that themselves inspire creativity and giving her songs their own personality so that her records while having some consistency of quality and imbued with a style that is uniquely Morris’ own are refreshingly varied and mysterious because there are no hackneyed premises and if there are playful uses of common subject fodder for pop music it’s all surround by unusual, often moody and deeply evocative music and Morris’ commanding vocals. Opening the show are two Denver bands in the rock and soul theater of Rootbeer Richie & the Reveille and The Milk Blossoms. The latter is more in line with Morris in the eclectic and emotionally rich songwriting and soundscapes and some roots in hip-hop, R&B, left field psychedelia and indiepop.
RAREBYRD$, photo by Tom Murphy
Friday | 03.15 What:RAREBYRD$, Sell Farm, Baby Baby and Doll When: 8 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Witch Cat Records is a record label based in Colorado that has been a home to some of the more experimental and forward thinking electronic and psychedelic music out now. While its roster is small its releases include offerings from Edward Ka-Spel of The Legendary Pink Dots fame, LPD reissues, Thanatoloop, Church Fire, Mourning Cloaks, Acidbat and Orbit Service. This is a showcase for acts whose own aesthetics align with the Witch Cat aesthetic and a now infrequent appearance by hip-hop greats RAREBYRD$, industrial/EBM auteur Sell Farm, left field pop artist Baby Baby and Doll.
Eyedress, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 03.15 What: Eyedress When: 7 Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Eyedress has been a notable figure in modern pop/indie rock/psychedelia and hybrid forms of each with some hip-hop production and glitchcore thrown into the mix. Originally from the Philippines Eyedress now calls Los Angeles home and his most recent releases read like a modern hip-hop joints with multiple collaborators that Eyedress has brought in to expand his own sound palette and range as an artist.
The Brook & The Bluff, photo by Noah Tidmore
Friday | 03.15 What: The Brook & The Bluff w/Teenage Dads When: 7 Where: Boulder Theater Why: The Brook & The Bluff formed in Birmingham, Alabama among two brothers and childhood friends around 2015 but has since relocated to Nashville. The group’s sound is in the realm of 1970s soft rock with a touch of psychedelia and Americana and its 2023 album Bluebeard highlighted the way the band can turn simple arrangements into intricate and lush soundscapes in which its stories take on an intimate quality that soothe as much as they take on subjects of everyday life and its usual struggles with a tender poignancy.
Deap Valley, photo from Bandcamp
Sunday | 03.17 What: Deap Valley farewell tour w/Death Valley Girls When: 7 Where: Marquis Theater Why: Los Angeles-based blues-garage duo Deap Valley is taking one last run as a live band this spring through June before dissolving hopefully into other projects. Fans of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The Kills will definitely appreciate the energy Deap Valley has been giving since its inception. Also on the bill is the great psychedelic shoegaze band Death Valley Girls. Also from Los Angeles. One hopes when the tour was being put together the two bands recognized the humor value of Deap Valley and Death Valley Girls touring together even though there’s nothing gimmicky about the music of each.
The Dandy Warhols, photo courtesy the artists
Monday | 03.18 What:The Dandy Warhols w/Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: The Dandy Warhols have been together since 1994 and from the beginning of their career the members of the group have pulled together an eclectic set of influences to synthesize into various styles of music yet not without a coherent sound. Early on its music seemed rooted in psychedelic garage rock, nascent Britpop and shoegaze soundscaping. As the group has evolved it has incorporated elements of electronic music and production to sculpt its songwriting into something compelling and unique even through times when perhaps some of its fans haven’t been as on board with the innovations and evolution of the Dandys’ songwriting experiments. But all along the quartet’s spirited and charismatic live show has remained worth witnessing. In 2024 the Dandys released the new album Rockmaker. In typical fashion the group has seemingly reinvented itself and indulged a kind of free association approach to its sonic elements so that the record is equally an electro rock and chill big beat affair and fuzzy, groovy psychedelia with a deep sense of play, an irreverent sense of humor and deft cultural and musical allusions. Hopefully the band plays liberally from the new album but it has always been good about giving fans a generous dose of its remarkable back catalog live.
Hulder, photo by Liana Rakijian
Monday | 03.18 What: The Decibel Tour: Hulder, Devil Master, Worm and Necrofier When: 6:30 Where: HQ Why: Decibel Magazine is celebrating its twentieth anniversary with this tour featuring some of the more interesting bands in the broad realm of heavy music. Hulder is the transcendental black metal band from the Pacific Northwest, Devil Master is a Philadelphia-based, blackened crust/death rock group, Worm is the funeral doom project from Florida and Necrofier is the dark, death thrash outfit from Houston.
The Schizophonics, photo from Bandcamp
Monday | 03.18 What:The Schizophonics w/The Omens and Cleaner When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: The Schizophonics is a garage rock band from San Diego who have more than a touch of psychedelia in their sound and its nervy energy and widely expansive sound is reminiscent of MC5 and a more feral 13th Floor Elevators. So yes Denver’s The Omens are coming out of semi-retirement with their own brand of unhinged garage rock power alongside heavy psych rock band Cleaner from Denver fronted by Kim Phat (Dirty Few, Keef Duster) with musicianship from members of other noteworthy Denver bands like Arj Narayan (Black Acid Devil etc.) and Justin Sanderson (Muscle Beach, Colfax Speed Queen, Night Fishing etc.).
Slow Hollows, photo by Elizabeth Klein
Monday | 03.18 What:Slow Hollows w/P.H.F. When: 7 Where: Globe Hall Why: Slow Hollows split in 2020 but songwriter Austin Feinstein kept making music and relaunched the project himself in 2023. A year later the new Slow Hollows album Bullhead dropped on March 8, 2024 showcasing Feinstein’s gently intricate arrangements, evocatively thoughtful lyrics and eclectic style somewhere between indiepop and post-punk. Feinstein this time out sounds more confident and emotionally forward yet vulnerable and introspective. The drifts and bends in his melodies lend the song a disarming quality that makes you wonder if he’d been listening to a lot of My Bloody Valentine and Microphones for a few years but managed not to rip off their songwriting style while adopting some of their methods of crafting tone.
Monday | 03.18 What: The Kooks, The Vaccines and Daisy the Great When: 6 Where: The Fillmore Auditorium Why: Crazy to think The Kooks have been around for twenty years at this point but the group based out of Brighton, England has evolved beyond its early sound rooted in 60s mod and turn of the century post-punk and its most recent album, 2022’s 10 Tracks to Echo in the Dark, is almost like a Britpop revival sound but one that might have happened had The Verve embraced electro-funk and some hip-hop production and chillwave soundscaping. The Vaccines came along in the wake of The Kooks out of West London with its own brash stage show and fusion of surf rock and melodic punk. It’s 2024 album Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations sounds like one of those triumphant New Wave power pop records of the 80s but without the cheese and just the soaring melodies and touch of nostalgia for one’s younger days as fuel for your present existence. Opening this leg of the tour is Daisy the Great. The indie pop duo of Kelley Dugan and Mina Walker started when the two were acting students at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who were writing a musical about a fictional band and then made that band into a real life thing. The group’s 2017 debut composition “The Record Player Song” was hit with to date over a quarter billion streams. Two albums and three EPs later including 2023’s Tough Kid Daisy the Great has garnered a bit of a following for its folk and R&B-inflected pop songs informed by a wry self-awareness and sense of humor. It’s charmingly spare live performances will definitely be an interesting counterpoint to the headliners for the night in some ways but Daisy The Great is also known to put in a lively set of its own.
Madi Diaz, photo by Muriel Margaret
Tuesday | 03.19 What: Madi Diaz w/Daniel Nunnelee When: 7 Where: The Bluebird Theater Why: Madi Diaz is an acclaimed songwriter who got her start playing shows in NYC in 2007, the same year of the release of her debut album Skin And Bones. Her observant and emotionally refined lyrics and gift for building textures into her melodies and rhythms has helped set her songwriting apart from many of her peers. Her 2024 album Weird Faith centers Diaz’s vocals in music that is at once orchestral and minimalist with rich yet unobtrusive production that showcases the songwriter’s immediately relatable lyrics about relationships with self, others and the universe we all try to navigate as best we can.
K.Flay, photo by Danielle Ernst
Tuesday and Wednesday | 03.19 and 03.20 What: K.Flay w/Cam Kahin When: 7 Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Kristine Flaherty aka K.Flay is a songwriter very much of the current vintage whose music isn’t bond by strict genres and whose music is eclectic yet coherently stylized. She began writing music in her late teens as a reaction against some of the popular music of the time writing a parody song only to realize she enjoyed the process of doing so and over twenty years later Flaherty has released multiple albums and collaborated with the likes FIDLAR, Tom Morello, Danny Brown, Matt and Kim, MC Lars and countless others, a testament to her gift for genre-bending. These two nights at The Marquis are part of of K.Flay’s MONO: Live in Stereo tour which are a series of intimate shows in just seven major cities in the USA.
Torres, photo by Ebru Yildiz
Wednesday | 03.20 What: Torres w/Liza Anne When: 7 Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Torres pushed her songwriting envelope much further than her already unorthodox pop songwriting with the 2024 release of her new album What an Enormous Room. The album cover makes one wonder if the absurdity of the image as a concept made Torres both laugh and take as a challenge to reach beyond where she’d been before as an artist. The songwriter has of course been no stranger to crafting arty synth pop but the new record will probably alienate some people expecting her to give us more of what they’ve been expecting. Torres is embracing the strange and the experimental with this set of songs without sacrificing songcraft and thoughtful lyrics of an emotionally refined vintage. Could Torres take this impulse creative further? Of course but the new album is a welcome expansion of sounds and creative ideas one might compare to when Cat Power released her 2012 electronic pop/glam rock record Sun.
Savana Leigh, photo by Acacia Evans
Wednesday and Thursday | 03.20 and 03.21 What: Night Cap w/Savanna Leigh When: 7pm doors both nights Where:The Coast (03.20) and Lost Lake (03.21) Why: Night Cap is an indie rock band from Austin, Texas whose eclectic sound merges acoustic songwriting, rock and synth pop. Opener Savanna Leigh is a Nashville-based songwriter whose style synthesizes acoustic indie pop and electronic production. Her string of singles over the past year have revealed an artist whose vulnerability and sensitivity informs songs that are insightful examinations of the inner life and how when we take the time to listen to our often unspoken emotional turmoil and trauma we can attempt to unravel the control of past experience has over our present. Her evocative vocals and lush production combine a cinematic songwriting style with an intimate delivery of the music.
My Blue Heart, photo by AlyssaPerkins of Captivating Visions Photography
Th – S | 03.21-03.23 What: My Blue Heart Tour (3.21 with VALDEZ, 03.22 w/The Patient Zeros, SweetStreak and Rocky Burning and 3.23 w/Get the Axe and Gatehouse When: 7 (3.21 and 03.23) and 8 (03.22) Where:Magic Rat (03.21), Goosetown Tavern (03.22) and Vulture’s (03.23) Why: Art pop My Blue Heart from Denver is celebrating the March 15, 2024 release of its new album Masquerade with a mini-tour along the front range. The album genre bends and seems to discard standard song structures and rhythm schemes. It’s musical roots seem to borrow heavily from blues and funk but mutated by the influence of art rock bands like Hamster Theater and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and channeled into people songs that aren’t much like what anyone else in Denver is putting out at the moment unless you’re into weirdo music territory like TripLip and Bolonium.
Autoheart, photo by Lesli & Rose
Thursday | 03.21 What:Autoheart w/Pigeon Pit and RAEGAN When: 6 Where: Meow Wolf Why: Autoheart is a sophisti-pop band from the UK that has been perfecting its emotionally vibrant synth pop songs that don’t sit neatly in a stylistic box as the group draws on inspiration from disparate sources. In its sound you can hear a touch of R&B, soul and chillwave. The group recently dropped its Punch Demos compilation which includes eighteen demos including remasters of songs from the 2023 10th anniversary edition of the debut Autoheart album Punch. Fans of Erasure and Perfume Genius will definitely find a lot to like about Autoheart. Pigeon Pit is the well known folk punk band from Olympia, Washington. RAEGAN is a pop artist from NYC whose songs are sonically creative, insightful commentaries on popular culture, social dynamics and identity. She combines glitchcore beats, trap production, dub, strings and unconventional textures in rhythms that give her music a distinctive sound that cuts through the familiar trappings of modern alt-pop. Her forthcoming debut EP FUCK RAEGAN promises an expansion on the artist’s sound and the video for the lead single “Waltz” is a sort of queer re-telling of Romeo & Juliet with a music video with visuals like something out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Vatican Vamps, photo courtesy the artists
Friday | 03.22 What: Vatican Vamps album release w/Knuckle Pups and Wildcat When: 7 Where: The Black Buzzard Why: Vatican Vamps is celebrating the release of its self-titled album for this show. The record is filled with urgent and gritty songs brimming with brooding atmospheres and a sense of menace. A lot of post-punk and darkwave bands seem to be following sonic trends lately but Vatican Vamps seems to have carved its own path with seeming influences from the post-punk revival of the turn of the century, Britpop and 1980s deathrock. The vinyl edition of the album can be pre-ordered on the Vatican Vamps’ Bandcamp and should be out in April. Also on the bill is one of the great, modern indiepop bands Knuckle Pups.
Cellista, photo by Yellow Bubbles Photography
Saturday | 03.23 What:Cellista and prologue by The Drood and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore When: 7:30-9:30 Where: Dairy Center for the Arts Why: Cellista is a Los Angeles-based performance artist with roots in the Bay Area and Colorado and over the past several years she has created what she calls stage poems which are narrative multimedia works after those of artist, filmmaker and writer Jean Coctea drawing together seemingly disparate thematic elements and modes of expression. In 2021 she performed at Lincoln Center and she has worked with Tanya Donelly, John Vanderslice, Troyboy, Don McLean, Casey Crescenzo of The Dear Hunter, Van Dyke Parks, Toni! Toni! Toné and Pam the Funkstress. Her work has been heard and scene on film and television and she has appeared as an extra on the TV shows Better Things and Will & Grace playing cello. In fall 2021 her stage poem Pariah explored themes of othering and exile within communities and it featured a companion book by philosopher Frank Seeburger. In 2024 Cellista is unveiling her latest stage poem Élégie. Directed and performed by the artist, Élégie is a one-woman show for cello, static trapeze and cinema. Choreographed by Cellista, Kennedy Kabasares and Joel Baker with film editing by Jennifer Gigantino and cinematography by Bryan Gibel, the one hour piece stars Cellista as the titular figure, a blackbird who shape shifts into human form and back. According to the press release for the stage poem, “Élégie awakens one day in her magical tree outside the walled off city of Cloture to find its entire population has disappeared. In their departure, the citizens have left behind a city of altars, decorated with unlit candles; each containing the memories and mementos of the banished citizens. Élégie shape shifts into human form to find out what happened to Cloture’s disappeared. In her journey she finds serenity.” As with Cellista’s previous stage poem the performance will be a uniquely evocative experience that brings those in attendance deeply into the story with visuals, music, spoken word, the choreography and the event’s baked in literary dimensions that blur the lines between all mediums involved. This Colorado date includes opening performances by ambient-industrial, psychedelic post-punk group The Drood which released its latest album The Book of Drood on March 1, 2024 and Dustin Schultz (Skinny Puppy) and Hilary Whitmore. Listen to our interview with Cellista here.
Chew, photo by Asha Lakra
Monday | 03.25 What:Chew w/Moon Pussy and Church Fire When: 7:30 Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: Chew is a band from Atlanta, Georgia whose music defies simple categorization. Until late 2023 Chew had been a trio is now a duo comprised of Brett Reagan who plays sampler, synth bass and guitar while running strobe lights and Sarah Wilson who plays drums and bass lines with a drum sample pad. The project has toured the US and Canada extensively with three European tours under its belt. Because the outfit’s music is so unorthodox it’s music spans and often in the same song the realms of psychedelic and noise rock, ambient, noise, industrial and electronic dance music. Fans of the likes of fellow travelers of eclectic weirdness like Guerilla Toss, Black Moth Super Rainbow and The Spirit of the Beehive will find an immediate connection with the music Chew has been crafting since its inception. Its 2022 album Horses resonates with recent releases by Jockstrap and Sextile without the inspiration of either to feed into its stream of inspiration and influences. In addition to the music Chew’s surreal album covers and inspired song titles suggest more than a passing familiarity with esoteric knowledge and other obscure and niche realms of knowledge as well as a knack for clever wordplay. It all adds up to an uncommon depth of creative development that rewards anyone taking in the music and its presentation beyond the surface level. Also on the bill are local noise rock phenoms Moon Pussy and legendary industrial dance trio Church Fire.
Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy
Monday | 03.25 What: Midwife w/Vyva Melinkolya and Body Negative When: 7 Where: Squirm Gallery Why: Midwife brings her style of ambient folk soundscapes and vulnerable lyrics that she calls “heaven metal” back to Denver for a tour with artists operating in their own realms of music resonant with the vulnerable energies of Midwife’s textural soundscapes. Vyva Malinkolya and Midwife collaborated on an album recently with the 2023 release of Orbweaving and its fusion of gauzy shoegaze and emotional deep diving as a path to processing trauma and grief. Body Negative is an artist with whom Madeline Johnston aka Midwife has worked as a producer on the the newly released album everett that blurs the line between melancholic ambient and dream pop.
HEALTH, photo by Faith Crawford
Monday | 03.25 What: HEALTH w/Pixelgrip and King Yosef When: 7 Where: Gothic Theatre Why: With the December release of RAT WARS, industrial noise/electronic punk band HEALTH has shown itself capable of reinvention on a deep level with a gritty, melancholic yet cathartic album that combines well with its glitchy and more experimental electronic impulses. And so bringing along the great industrial pop group Pixelgrip along for this tour will only make for a great evening of music with talented producer and recording engineer King Yosef opening the show with his industrial hardcore.
Sleater-Kinney, photo by Chris Hornbecker
Tuesday | 03.26 What:Sleater-Kinney w/Palehound When: 7 Where: Mission Ballroom Why: Sleater-Kinney released its eleventh and latest album Little Rope in Jaunary 2024. The record with its grit and bombast matched with an experimentation with the band’s core sound is a welcome reinvention that finds Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker infusing what might be described as a more cinematic form of songwriting with raw and earnest emotion and the sharply and poignantly observed personal reflection and thoughtful social commentary one would hope for with a set of songs from this band. In moments it feels more like a glam rock album fortified by punk spirit. No one needs a band whose members are over 25 years of age to sing from a place informed by lingering teen angst and tapping into that mindset with a lack of irony. Fortunately Sleater-Kinney has never been stunted that way and this new album is filled with songs written by people plugging into their own sources of personal vitality and offering perspectives that seem to have zeroed in on clear and present concerns and the feelings we all share in navigating the conflicted world in which we find ourselves living right now. And if all tours since the group reconvened in 2014 are any indication, Sleater-Kinney is still one of the great live rock bands everyone should get to see at least once.
Jenny Haniver, photo from Bandcamp
Thursday | 03.28 What:Jenny Haniver, Ethan Lee McCarthy and Fainting Dreams When: 7 Where: Hi-Dive Why: A Jenny Haniver is the carcass of a ray or skate that has been modified and dried into a mummy made to resemble a fictional creature of folklore like a sort of a demon, angel or dragon and in various cultures is said to possess magical powers or otherwise used for ritualistic purposes. The Jenny Haniver in this case is an industrial noise post-hardcore duo from Portland, Oregon whose detailed soundscapes are imbued with a melancholic mood. Ethan Lee McCarthy under his own name will likely perform one of his noise sets but one more steeped in atmospheric compositions and gritty gloom. Fainting Dreams has migrated its sound from its early dream pop songwriting to something more like darkly tribal noise rock.
Ak’chamel, photo from Bandcamp
Friday | 03.29 What: Gothsta, Witch Baby, SORROWS, Ak’chamel, Hypnotic Turtle Radio When: 8 Where: Goosetown Tavern Why: Gothsta is making a rare live appearance with their style of witchy, experimental, glitchy electronic weirdo pop. Think something more akin to the likes of The Space Lady and Renaldo and the Loaf and you’ll be on the right track. Don’t bother looking online for too much of Gothsta’s music because most of it you’ll have to acquire at the show or at Wax Trax. SORROWS is a downtempo electronic dance duo that combines moody melancholic melodies with a robust low end, orchestrated rhythms with a spontaneous energy and emotionally vibrant and operatic vocals. Witch Baby is a spontaneous composition, avant-garde improvisational group with drums, saxophone, synth, drums, guitar and bass. Ak’chamel, or with the full name of Ak’chamel, The Crazed and Sunchalked Bones of the Vanished Herds, is one of the choice musical entities for appreciators of genre bursting/synthesizing artists who employ their aesthetic as a deconstruction of cultures and a commentary on the impact of industrialized societies on those not as technocratically embedded. Its subversive and surreal song titles are an inspired example of the latter. Fans of African psychedelic artists like Mdou Moctar and esotericist psych post-punkers Savage Republic will appreciate the music and fans of theatrical, ritualistic performances should definitely seek out this psychedelic surf rock pan-continental avant-folk duo.
The Egyptian Lover, photo from Stones Throw Bandcamp
Friday | 03.29 What: The Egyptian Lover When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: This is an exceedingly rare chance to catch the influential hip-hop composer, producer and remixer live. His use of analog electronic gear in sculpting his sound made a major impact on hip-hop in the 80s in particular his 1984 single “Egypt, Egypt” from his On the Nile album. It bore the influence of Kraftwerk but stamped with his own masterful production and gift for layering rhythm, vocals and synth melodies that get stuck in your consciousness.
Pictureplane in 2015, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Pictureplane w/Street Fever, Polly Urethane, Dreams of Blights, Kill You Club DJs When: 8 Where: Hi-Dive Why: Pictureplane returns to Denver, the city where he more fully developed the style of music and production for which he is now most well known. He helped to coin the genre term witch house to describe what he was doing in the late 2000s with a blend of noise, hip-hop production and synth pop that tapped into an emotional space that resonated with feelings of nostalgia and yearning for a better time and place that felt within reach. That sound with other artists manifested into chillswave but Pictureplane always had more of a leg in the experimental realm of the music and harder beats. His 2021 album Dopamine found him reconciling his previous creative impulses into music that hit like a return to form but also a step forward. Also on the bill is Boise, Idaho industrial dance legend Street Fever whose music is rooted in a dark kind of techno and house that has proven to influential on a certain stripe of underground electronic dance music world of a more avant vintage with a live show that is both entrancing, enveloping and enigmatic. Perhaps this includes fellow Boise crafters of pounding and pulsing, industrial noise freakouts Dreams of Blights. Another prime reason to go to this show is to witness a now not so common set from Polly Urethane whose often ritualistic performance art isn’t limited to a genre. It could be one of her sublime fusions of operatic classical and pop performances or combined with a confrontational, industrial noise pieces, a noise soundscape with a turntable, an alchemical mix of post-nü metal noise rock or pure performance art never to be repeated with a collage of classical music and her own tracks and unusual yet poetic visuals. You just never really know except that it will be worth your time and that’s part of the appeal.
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
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
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, 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.
Who:Glasss Presents the Speakeasy Series Season 2: Venus Cruz & What Young Men Do, Abeasity Jones When: Thursday, 05.10, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked On Colfax Why: Abeasity Jones’ songs sound like maybe he spends part of his day working in some high rise office in downtown Denver and/or in some media tech office nearby where maybe things are comfortable but there’s an element of compromise and alienation. And while working and tending to the demands of his personal and family life he allows his imagination an escape into chill spaces where he can explore and write stories about his struggles, concerns and daydream life. The beats are downtempo and ethereal and the subject matter often delivered with a sense of acceptance like depleted melancholy. Yet, Jones’ sense of humor and thoughtfulness lifts up the music and his live performance has a positive energy giving the songs a dimensionality that some hip-hop seemingly recorded at home lacks.
Also playing this show is one of Denver jazz and hip-hop’s true luminaries: Venus Cruz. But this time out with the band What Young Men Do. Cruz’s versatile talent has found a place singing, producing and performing music in a wide variety of contexts. Her long-running stint with the Jazz Odyssey program on KUVO on Wednesday nights is an outlet for fans of jazz and the sensibility of jazz outside the classic format. What Young Men Do is more of a funk, soul and jazz-inflected hip-hop project so it’ll be something pretty different for the Speakeasy Series and Hooked On Colfax both.
Who:Musical Mayhem: Bonnie Weimer and The Pollution When: Thursday, 05.10, 9 p.m. Where: Skylark Lounge Why: Bonnie Weimer released her first single in probably several years, maybe even her first released music since her time in folk-punk-Americana group Potato Farmers, in April 2018 with “Pajama Top Man,” a winsome, humorous, self-effacing story song about an awkward would-be romantic encounter set to a spare, banjo melody. Fans of outsider music will find a lot to like about the song even though that designation doesn’t necessarily fit Weimer’s entire musical output. In an interesting pairing, not unusual for Claudia Woodman’s Musical Mayhem night at the Skylark, is The Pollution. Jay Fox was in one of the early DC punk bands, United Mutation, but the latter was never part of the Dischord scene and didn’t play out often even if its blend of psychedelic rock and punk was becoming a thing as bands like Butthole Surfers and Alice Donut were making waves in the underground. Decades hence, Fox, now living in Denver for several years, has set about trying to make bands for whom the intensity, energy, anti-authoritarian spirit and creative fire of punk and psychedelic seemed completely compatible qualities that needn’t be separated by stylistic sectarianism.
Who:Gold Trash, Violent Vickie, R A R E B Y R D $, Pearls and Perils and EVP When: Thursday, 05.10, 8 p.m. Where: Independent Records Why: Glasss is bringing some of its artists to Colorado Springs tonight. Gold Trash is sort of a samples/live electronics take on the kind of collage, trash sound/culture guitar rock barrage that was Royal Trux. Pearls and Perils is lush downtempo beats and the sultry vocals of Olivia Perez who most won’t remember from her old, experimental rock band Gloam. But with Pearls and Perils she gets to put more of herself into the music undiluted by anyone else’s vision and the result is an emotionally cleansing body of work. Like most Glasss artists, EVP is impossible to tag with one genre designation. Part industrial, part pop, part punk, EVP sounds like the kind of music made by people living in a dystopian near future where kids have overtaken the crumbling, cheap housing units made during Denver’s current fake economic boom (real economic booms benefit everyone pretty equally) but then abandoned—scrappy, often angry and melancholy stuff. R A R E B Y R D $ is probably the Denver band now that will attain the underground mythical status of acts like Fissure Mystic and Hot White by the sheer excellence of its material and live shows except it’s an experimental hip-hop group. Its enveloping, rich beats stir the heart and the imagination and the emotional resonance of its lyrics and KoKo La’s and Key Lady’s singing and rapping has the irresistible power of a Kimya Dawson.
Who:Esmé Patterson, Emily Ritz and Eleanor Perry When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: Leon Gallery Why: Most of the time to see Esmé Patterson’s evocative storyteller pop you’d have to go to some kind of bigger bar venue or small theater. But this performance will happen at the much more intimate Leon Gallery. Patterson spent many years honing her craft as a member of the baroque pop group Paper Bird, but since she’s broke out on hr own for the last several years her imaginative songwriting has developed into a vehicle for writing with a warmth and wisdom on uncomfortable subjects.
Who:Charly Bliss w/Skating Polly When: Friday, 05.11, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Theater Why: Charly Bliss’s 2017 album Guppy sounds like the band wood shedded its material in a cabin in a remote location far from its Brooklyn homebase with only 90s fuzzy alternative rock/power pop on hand for its listening diet. Obvious touchstones like Liz Phair, Velocity Girl, The Breeders and Veruca Salt. Even the music video for “Ruby” reinforces that impression looking like something that might have been produced for a segment of The Ben Stiller Show. But there’s no mistaking Charly Bliss’s exuberant energy for a pure nostalgia trip. The songs may rock but like many of the bands that likely influenced Charly Bliss, the lyrics have a raw vulnerability that gives it more depth than might otherwise be obvious. The same could be said for Oklahoma City band Skating Polly whose style of music is probably punk by default but so individual it would be problematic to say the trio consciously tried to be punk as a genre. The latter recently released its latest album, The Make It All Show. Skating Polly shows look like they might blow apart from the sheer, wiry energy of the performance and, of course, that’s what makes for great, scrappy punk rock.
Who:Girls Rock Denver: Showcase Series: Gold Trash, RAREBYRD$, EVP and Nighttimeschoolbus When: Friday, 05.11, 7 – 11 p.m. Where: Spectra Art Space Why:Girls Rock Denver will happen in the summer but these events are a showcase to perhaps make being a musician beyond the camp and beyond those likely temporary bands an attainable goal. Which is crucial because a world where most music and art is still being made mostly by males seems bizarre and past its due date at this point in history. This night features some of the best artists in Denver in the realm of electronic, hip-hop, experimental and industrial music. Most of the artists on the bill were written up earlier in this column but all are worth your time.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Echo Beds and Weathered Statues When: Friday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, one of Denver’s longest running bands and one of its most lively and entertaining, is doing a mini-residence at the Hi-Dive this weekend. Although the Auto Club is a kind of punk Americana with literary lyrics and a joyful, emotionally charged, theatrical live show, it’s been booking opening bands well outside the expected circles of Gothic Americana. This night, organo-industrial darkwave band Echo Beds will bring the punishing beats and cathartic drones and Weathered Statues will deliver its brand of moody but urgent post-punk.
Saturday | May 12, 2018
Great American House Fire, photo by Tom Murphy
What:Fem Fest When: Saturday, 05.12, 8 p.m. Where: MCA Denver Why: Fem Fest is an all-ages, all-genders welcome event that includes various workshops, a bazaar, tarot and astrology readings and more but also musical performances in the evening and night. Fem Fest because representation matters in a truly healthy and just society. There are plenty of, in essence, Men Fests because of booking and conception most of the rest of the year so don’t get caught up on the name and miss out on some of Denver’s best bands and the headliner, Red Aunts. Music kicks off at 5 p.m. with a Girls Rock Denver showcase followed by space angel/earth mother energy hip hop group R A R E B Y R D $ at 6. Princess Dewclaw, Denver’s own electro fuzz punks at 7 with “pastel punk” surf rock trio The Corner Girls at 8. The evening tops off at 9 with Red Aunts.
Who:Dirty Junk, Great American House Fire, Married a Dead Man When: Saturday, 05.11, 9 p.m. Where: The Curtis Club Why: Dirty Junk is a duo from Minneapolis on its 2017 album Snot is the kind of messy, noisy, collage-esque punk-inspired music that we haven’t heard much of since Get Hustle was active. Or like a weirder and noiser version of that raw punk Sleater-Kinney was doing on its first two records. Interesting putting the band together with Great American House Fire, a group that combines a melancholic Americana with moody posthardcore and soulful singing. Married a Dead Man is a post-punk band unabashedly influenced by music out of the Goth world.
Who:Sorted #8: Pangaea, Ganesa & Squane, Newnumbertwo When: Saturday, 05.12, 10 p.m. Where: TBA Why: Kevin McAuley calls London home but tonight he’s performing at the eight edition of sorted, the underground electronic music event that Veronica Lamaak and company put together periodically to showcase some of the most interesting house, techno and more experimental dance music in general happening now. Also on the bill are Jelly Bean Farm artists Ganesa & Squane. Ganesa is the label head of Jelly Bean Farm and her DJ sets tend to be eclectic and futuristic-sounding. Squane’s sound tends to be more low end heavy with thick, dubby bass beats but he and Ganesa share a seeming love of bright, mid-to-upper register melodically ethereal melodies. Newnumbertwo is a resident artist with Sorted whose deep house/dubstep sound mixes in elements of a gentle kind of breakcore.
Who:Slim Cessna’s Auto Club w/Palehorse/Palerider When: Saturday, 05.11, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The second night of the Auto Club residency at the Hi-Dive this weekend but this time with Palehorse/Palerider, a band who are superficially an alchemical mixture of doom/drone and shoegaze but with an industrial/tribal element they bring in for a song or two in the set. Which doesn’t mean much when your sets have three or four songs but nevertheless gives a set of otherwise densely beautiful and crushing songs an expansive sensibility.
Sunday | May 13, 2018
Modest Mouse, photo by Ben Moon
Who:Modest Mouse w/Mimicking Birds When: Sunday, 05.13, 6 p.m. Where: Red Rocks Why: For a band that is one of the definitive incarnations of the too-broad-too-vague-yet-fittingly-umbrella quasi-genre of indie rock, Modest Mouse sure put in a lot of time developing its sound and songwriting style before becoming one of the style’s most iconic groups. Modest Mouse began when its founders were still in high school, it released its first seven inch on K Records, its first two full-lengths on Seattle indie imprint Up Records including its 1997 “breakthrough” album Lonesome Crowded West and every album since through major label Epic Records. Quite an arc for a band whose work remained fairly idiosyncratic, emotionally raw and imaginative even up to its most recent album, 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves. In its first decade or so of its existence, Modest Mouse was a notoriously inconsistent live band. But since then the act has seemingly harnessed the chaos and unpredictability of its youth when maybe there seemed to be less and stake and less to lose if it did all fall apart and channeled that spirit into music more coherent and accessible to a wider audience without having to sacrifice its uniqueness.
Monday | May 14, 2018
Rotstrotter, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Petrification w/Rotstrotter, Alone and Noctambulist When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Petrification is a death metal/grind band from Portland, Oregon on its way to Maryland Death Fest and making a stop in Denver to play with some of the local heavy hitters in that realm of music. The band called its 2017 cassetteSummon Horrendous Destructionwith a rotting zombie face rendered in black and white as the cover. At times the guitar riffs wander into the realm of The New Order-esque period Testament. But that is no bad thing. Rotstrotter have been one the longest-running, and frankly best, D-Beat bands in Denver. Sounding somewhere between SSD and early Discharge, Rotstrotter looks and sounds like they live it and that it’s not a simply a shallow lifestyle choice.
Who:Farrell Lowe Group, Latex Cupcake, Seward / Sexton, Gil Selinger When: Monday, 05.14, 8 p.m. Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective Why: This is a rare opportunity to see some of Colorado’s avant-garde improvisation legends at a DIY space. Farrell Lowe Group includes, of course, Farrell Lowe, Mark Raynes, Dave Willey and Mark Harris. The latter two are members of internationally renowned avant-prog band Thinking Plague. Latex Cupcake is Jennifer Bobola, John T. Nething, Bret Kuyper and Mark Emmons, all of whom have been around Denver playing in various capacities but this is the project’s first show and its, one might say, mutant version of experimental jazz/modern classical will be a great fit on this lineup including a solo cello performance with Gil Selinger and Seward / Sexton, which will be accessible and in the vein of lounge jazz but inspired more by Captain Beefheart and The Fugs than a standard jazz group.
Tuesday | May 15, 2018
Cullen Omori, photo by Alexa Lopez
Who:Cullen Omori w/The Gloomies and Rowboat When: Tuesday, 05.15, 8 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Cullen Omori’s 2016 album New Misery at least lets you know what you’re in for. As in imagine you were in one of the most buzzed about indie rock bands of the first half of the 2010s and then your band breaks up and you didn’t regroup with any of the other members. You’re left to pick up the pieces and try to figure out a way to keep doing the only thing that gave your life any real resonance. Perhaps a bit of a stretch but one can only imagine it’s something like the scene in Apocalypse Now where Willard discusses why he stayed in Vietnam and how it beat working in a factory in Ohio. To go from Smith Westerns and, in Denver anyway, playing the Ogden to playing small clubs. Willard dealt with it through self-harm and self-medication. Maybe Omori did some of that too, who’s to say? But what we do know is that despite its flaws and shortcomings, New Misery is the product of Omori’s tangling with the fallout, personal and creative, of going from being in a band on the verge of mainstream success to having to find a place for oneself doing the thing you love but which is also the source of some of your pain. That quality gives the record a bit of an uneven and at times cringeworthily honest quality but you don’t often get to hear that on what is essentially a pop record. For this show, you can see some of that music live but also, with any luck, a good deal of what Omori has been cooking up since then.
Who:Film On the Rocks: The Last Jedi feat. Church Fire When: Tuesday, 05.15, 6 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: Church Fire’s music sounds like it’s from some future, way-past-post-apocalypse-to-civilizational-rebirth dance club scene. Like synth pop delivered with a fiery intensity and noisy abandon. Sure, a lot of people are going to see a movie during the rainy season for some reason at a place where the wind will doppler the sound and the storms will make watching a movie borderline miserable. Or not. It is Colorado after all. But seeing Church Fire in that environment will make sense as the sun is setting and the diminishing rainclouds provide the perfect backdrop.
Wednesday | May 16, 2018
TV Girl log, image courtesy TV Girl
Who:TV Girl w/Wished Bone and Hairclub When: Wednesday, 05.16, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: The enigmatic pop band TV Girl makes a stop at the Hi-Dive this night. Its sound is like a hyper/surreal, tropicalia-inflected lounge pop. Like a Los Angeles sister band to Sweden’s Death And Vanilla. If someone could make music for a TV show about an America where the 80s never ended and we somehow had Ike back as the president. If Mad Men was a cyberpunk show but took place at a resort with none of the usual dystopian trappings, just life with everyday dramas set in a dreamlike place, an almost too clean place as exists in 60s 70s British science fiction shows. The band’s new album, Death of a Party Girl (read the statement on why the vinyl isn’t yet out because it’s dead on and witty) is an indie pop album that sounds like something that could only really come out of Southern California – hazy atmospheres, downtempo, wistful and soothing – but without any of the creeping insipidity that happens when too much industry input leeches music of any of its inherent character.
Dead Boys perform at Streets of London on Saturday, 11/18/17, photo by Jeff Fasano
Thursday: November 16, 2017
L.A. Witch, photo by Marco Hernandez
Who:L.A. Witch w/Honduras and Palo Santo When: Thursday, 11.16, 7 p.m. Where: Lost Lake Why: L.A. Witch’s 2017 self-titled album has a kind of post-Loaded-era Velvet Underground stark shimmery pop grit coupled with a languid psych spookiness. In the songs there is a strong, often urgent, rhythm giving the songs some oomph even when they’re introspective. Any roots the band may have in surf rock or psych garage or whatever trendy of the sounds of the past five to ten years, it has definitely moved on. “Drive Your Car” could be an updated Wipers song. Singer/guitarist Sade Sanchez has a smoky cool voice reminiscent of a world weary Hope Sandoval. Whatever comparisons seem valid, L.A. Witch has turned tired conventions on their head into an incredibly compelling sound. Denver’s Palo Santo is cut from a similar cloth in every way with haunting yet fiery guitar work and Mimi Nissan’s trance-state style vocals.
Who:Revolting Cocks (Big Sexy Land Tour) and Front Line Assembly w/CHANT, DJ Slave 1 and Ritual Aesthetic When: Thursday, 11.16, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: This show signals the end of the train of noteworthy industrial bands, newer and more established, that came through Denver in 2017. Revolting Cocks started with Front 242’s Richard 23 and Luc Van Acker writing music produced by Al Jourgensen, who was often a collaborator. While clearly irreverent at its heart given the band’s name and album titles like Beers, Steers, and Queers and Linger Ficken’ Good the former of which includes a cover of Olivia Newton John’s “(Let’s Get) Physical,” the latter a cover of “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” by Rod Stewart, Revolting Cocks have interesting and respectable and influential original music across its spate of albums. The current lineup includes Richard 23 and Van Acker, of course, but also former Ministry and Blackouts bassist Paul Barker and longtime Cocks partner in crime, Chris Connelly whose 2008 memoir Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible, and Fried: My Life As A Revolting Cock was a candid, amusing and revelatory account of being in the industrial and alternative music world in general from the 80s forward.
Front Line Assembly’s vision of dystopian global civilization has unfortunately borne out since it sprang to life in 1986. Up to that time frontman Bill Leeb had been a member of Skinny Puppy and his subsequent music in FLA continued that quality that’s difficult to completely nail to a sub-genre of industrial music. The samples put into the music mirrored the influence of hip-hop production on Skinny Puppy, the extensive use of electronic instruments and synths right in line with that like the EBM bands of that day as well as FLA’s imaginative blending of it all to comment on the nature of technology and its impact on human civilization and our everyday lives. Turns out it has continued to be a fruitful subject for not only FLA but science fiction writers mining that rich dystopian nugget of inspiration.
Who: Cindy Wilson (of B-52s) w/Olivia Jean and Battle Pussy
When: Thursday, 11.16, 8 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Cindy Wilson is a member of influential new wave band The B-52s and her unique vocal style alongside that of bandmates Kate Pierson and Fred Schneider made for some arresting melodies amid the incredibly dance-worthy pop songs that were so idiosyncratic in the specific subject matter, no one else could have made it. And yet there was a universal quality to that individual vision that resonated with the oddball and eccentric inside of most people. Currently, Wilson is touring her solo material. Earlier in 2017 Wilson released a fairly experimental, electronic pop EP called Supernatural and on December 1st she is putting out her debut solo album Change, some 41 years into her music career. If the song “Mystic” is any indication, Wilson still has plenty of relevant and inventive music left in her.
Who:Today’s Paramount, Samvega, Alex Culbreth, Buffalo Party, Mynewt When: Thursday, 11.16, 7 p.m. Where: 7th Circle Music Collective Why: Samvega from Napa Valley, California doesn’t fit in a simple box: Its music is heavy, it’s psychedelic, it’s avant-garde and bluesy. Melissa and Mercedes Baker are unconventionally charismatic singers who sound like and come off like they spent a couple of decades touring with Heart and went on to do something weirder. The band’s 2016 album The King is Asleep was one of that year’s most interesting rock albums for its diversity and obvious care for making it a unique from the songwriting to the painting for the cover art. Also on the bill is experimental rock band Today’s Paramount. They look like they might be in a ska band, and maybe on the side some of them are, but their weirdo take on prog, jazz and psych is not like much of anything going on in Denver.
Who:Melkbelly w/Super Bummer, Princess Dewclaw When: Thursday, 11.16, 7 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Initially, Melkbelly may sound like yet another modern rock band copping the vibe of 90s post-grunge underground music. But Melkbelly is way weirder than that and its jazz underpinnings and willingness to sculpt pure noise into something musical is what makes its 2017 album Nothing Valley so listenable to anyone looking for a band that isn’t trying to go full retro these days. One might liken Melkbelly’s sound to stuff like Magik Markers or Shearing Pinx but Melkbelly is often more melodic than that even if it sounds like it too took some cues from Unwound’s sonic fearlessness. Opening are excellent Denver bands Super Bummer with its melancholic, lo-fi, soaring songs of heartbreak and isolation and Princess Dewclaw, who seem to have found a new way to combine noise rock, punk, synthesizers and elemental vocals into something both confrontational and rivetingly fragile.
Who:Roska with Rabit, Trisicloplox, Ulmo, Rameau Contnrol, Laru and ilind When: Thursday, 11.16, 9 p.m. Where: The Black Box Why: Rameau Control you can’t really fit into a narrow category of electronic music from melodic bass, dub techno, straight techno to whatever. Calling this bill merely “experimental electronic” does a disservice to the individual artists who all come at electronic music partly from a dance perspective but also as composers of music that absorb ideas and exchange methods and sounds with like-minded artists and co-influencing each other whether from Denver or otherwise. For example, ilind is Isaac Linder who often played Denver DIY venues as a noise and performance artist but one who was into house music.
Friday: November 17, 2017
Who:Tommy Stimson’s Cowboys in the Campfire When: Friday, 11.17, 7 p.m. Where: Bruz Beers Why: Cowboys in the Campfire is Tommy Stimson of The Replacements fame (he has also played in numerous other bands including Guns N’ Roses) and Chip Roberts of Uncle Sippy playing songs together as the name suggests but usually electric. Country punk? For fans of NRBQ? Whatever it is, it’s Stimson and Roberts playing lively, fun songs in a duo format in small venues, record stores, private homes and various other situations across the country this tour. Next time you see Stimson play it’ll probably be in a large theater or bigger so hey, make it to this and you might even get to interact with the musicians, something that would probably never happen at Red Rocks or The Fillmore without paying for some kind of wack VIP access ticket.
Who:Flobots w/Wesley Watkins & Grumpy Uncle (Wesley Watkins and Kalyn Heffernan) When: Friday, 11.17, 8 p.m. Where: Larimer Lounge Why: Yes, the famous hip-hop band from Denver, Flobots, playing at Larimer Lounge. The opening act, though, is a collaboration between former Night Sweats trumpet player, and leader of The Other Black, Wesley Watkins and Kalyn Heffernan of Wheelchair Sports Camp. So expect something wonderfully weird but with solid songcraft and inspired lyrics.
Who:The Blasters night 1 w/Reno Divorce When: Friday, 11.17, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: The Blasters were and are a respected blues-roots band from Los Angeles where it rubbed shoulders with the punk world, paisley underground and early alt-country acts. The Blasters’ sheer skill and energy made a big impression on everyone that saw them even if the band never quite became a household name. Reno Divorce, a rootsy punk band from Denver, opens this night of a two night residency at Lion’s Lair.
Who:Lost Walks w/Midwife When: Friday, 11.17, 9 p.m. Where: Mercury Café Why: Lost Walks is sort of a high concept Americana-esque band. High concept in that there is a prepared theatrical element to the live shows as the band collaborates with a visual arts group. Also, the lyrics, steeped in a pastoral and noir literature aesthetic, lend themselves to dramatic performance and grand, emotive gestures from the band’s various vocalists including former Bad Luck City frontman, Dameon Merkl. The band’s debut album, 2017’s Wolf, Woman, Man, is a fascinating contrast of bright, dark, moody, reflective and observational. Opening the show is avant-folk artist Midwife whose own 2017 debut, Like Author, Like Daughter, is one of the the best albums of the year for its delicate, fragile evocation of emotions so broad and deep that it always catches you by surprise with its subtle but irresistible power.
Who:Slow Magic w/Point Point and Qrion When: Friday, 11.17, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Slow Magic exists outside of time. The interdimensional creature occasionally releases albums like 2017’s ultra-chillout pop extravaganza Float. You can witness the superstring hopper yourself tonight at The Gothic Theatre.
Who:Big Lo (Florida), RAREBYRD$, iiwii and Brett Gretsky When: Friday, 11.17, 8 p.m. Where: Tennyson’s Tap Why: An experimental hip-hop show at Tennyson’s Tap isn’t unheard of and this time it’s Big Lo from Florida whose beats include a mix of samples and turntablism to create a sense of introspection in the face of impending danger. Before and since moving from Saint Louis to Denver, Rooster Jake has been involved in various hip-hop and experimental projects over the years, his latest being iiwii. Brett Gretzky recently migrated to Denver from Saint Louis as well bringing their mixture of hip-hop and soul. RAREBYRD$ will break your heart with sincerely, deeply felt yet gentle expressions of the lowest points a person can reach in the psyche and still come back with one’s soul intact. They use drum machines, synths and sequencers but it always sounds like it’s coming right out of their imagination and plugged into the P.A..
Who:Ice Troll, Never Kenezzard, Heathen Burial and White Dwarf When: Friday, 11.17, 8 p.m. Where: Pit Stop Tavern Why: Doom shows don’t happen in far West Denver much but tonight doom orchestra Ice Troll will play Pit Stop Tavern along with sludge metal thrashers Never Kenezzard, noisy death metal trio Heathen Burial and stoner rock outfit White Dwarf.
Saturday: November 18, 2017
Warbly Jets perform at The Gothic Theatre on Saturday, November 18. Photo by Moni Haworth
Who:Dead Boys 40th Anniversary tour w/The Roxy Suicide When: Saturday, 11.18, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: For four years Dead Boys were one of the most outrageous and influential of the early punk bands. With just two albums under its belt, 1977’s Young Loud and Snotty and 1978’s We Have Come for Your Children, Dead Boys set a high bar for inventive guitar work between Cheetah Chrome and Jimmy Zero, a primitivistic yet inspired rhythm section in Johnny Blitz and Jeff Magnum and literate yet gritty lyrics from charismatic frontman Stiv Bators. The original band split in 1979 but in its wake a lot of the more interesting and scary punk bands of the 80s emerged. In 2017 the band officially re-formed and issued a re-recording of Young Loud and Snotty called Still Snotty: Young, Loud and Snotty at 40 with its new lineup including Chrome and Blitz as well as new members Jason Kottwitz on guitar, Ricky Rat on bass and frontman Jake Hout. The original record was meant as a demo and the new record is of a much higher quality if missing the genius alchemy of the original band. But you’re not getting a second rate re-tread this time around. This version of the Dead Boys may be older but it still packs a punch.
Who: Galaxy Express 555 (MN), Hippies Wearing Muzzles, J. Hamilton Isaacs When: Saturday, 11.18, 6:30 p.m. Where: Historic Grant Avenue Church Why: Galaxy Express 555 is Christopher Farstad’s project that incorporates elements of ambient music, experiential sound environment composition, sampling and loops to create music that has the effect of being a soundtrack to some non-dystopian future society of wide open spaces and minds. Hippies Wearing Muzzles is a modular synth project from Denver. J. Hamilton Isaacs is basically Dugout Canoe so you know the beats and analog synth combination will be beautifully transporting yet feel grounded at the same time. All of this is taking place in church where the natural acoustics will give otherwise electronic music a warmth it doesn’t often project.
Who:Glasss Presents: The Speakeasy Series featuring Equine w/Mondo Obscura When: Saturday, 11.18, 7 p.m. Where: Hooked on Colfax Why: This is the latest in Glasss’s Speakeasy Series in the basement of Hooked on Colfax. This time with ambient duo Mondo Obscura and experimental guitar minimalist Equine. Kevin Richards of the latter played drone guitar for years as Temples after having spent several years in weirdo post-hardcore outfit Motheater where he made strange jazz chords fit into a punk context. This show will be a collaborative set between the two projects.
Who:King Eddie – Holographic Universe Album release w/Kyle Emerson, Panther Martin and déCollage DJ set, visuals by DenVR When: Saturday, 11.18, 8:30 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: King Eddie is releasing its debut album Holographic Universe and celebrating the occasion with friends Kyle Emerson (whose pastoral psych pop songs are graced with Emerson’s insightful, observational lyrics) and Panther Martin (if indie rock could have come out of late 1970s New York City, it might have sounded like Panther Martin). King Eddie’s songs sound like the band synthesized modern psychedelic rock with math rock rhythms as though assembling a beat over which the band created a colorful and transporting imagery. Reed Fuchs of déCollage will do one of his unique DJ sets and be prepared for some truly unusual and inspired images from DenVR.
Who:It’s Just Bugs, Nearby Liars, Mouthfeel, Falsetto Boy When: Saturday, 11.18, 9 p.m. Where: The Skylark Lounge Why: This’ll be a weird one for some people because few of the bands are anything alike. It’s Just Bugs is an industrial hip-hop band. Nearby Liars are somewhere between slowcore and late 90s emo with all the glitter and drifty, sweeping, swelling, dramatic emotional experiences you’d want vicariously from that kind of music to purge the Fall blues. Mouthfeel includes members of Wrinkle, Altered State and Laurium. Falsetto Boy is some post-emo, lo-fi singer songwriter type of music.
Who:The Blasters w/O.G. Country When: Saturday, 11.18, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why:The Blasters were and are a respected blues-roots band from Los Angeles where it rubbed shoulders with the punk world, paisley underground and early alt-country acts. The Blasters’ sheer skill and energy made a big impression on everyone that saw them even if the band never quite became a household name. Its 1980 debut album American Music really was a demonstration of how much American music the Alvin brothers, Bill Bateman and John Bazz had absorbed, learned, reinterpreted, amalgamated and reinvented. O.G. Country from Denver, opens this second night of a two night residency at Lion’s Lair.
Who:Liam Gallagher w/Warbly Jets When: Saturday, 11.18, 8 p.m. Where: Gothic Theatre Why: Oasis’ 1995 hit “Wonderwall” made way too many people think maybe they too can sing in a pop band. Part of it was Liam Gallagher’s borderline tone deaf vocal delivery. But Gallagher is a gifted, powerful singer with some charming rough edges to his voice. And to his personality, for that matter. His conflict with brother Noel was the stuff of tabloid news. But one thing we can thank Oasis for was in finishing off some real dreck in popular music by offering something better and more genuine because you knew the Gallagher brothers weren’t faking it. Endless naff covers of “Wonderwall” plaguing karaoke nights and dire YouTube videos aside, Liam Gallagher’s real legacy was not just his music but some truly amazing moments of comedy and inspiredly uncharitable bits of rhetoric over the years as well as tender and earnest expressions of appreciation for other artists even when, such as the case with The Verve in recent years, those expressions come off as a bit of a headscratcher. He probably had a good laugh about that. Gallagher’s debut solo album, As You Were, came out in October 2017. It’s a bit reminiscent of 60s blue eyed soul and David Bowie’s more R&B moments but the songwriting is solid.
Opening the show is Warbly Jets from Los Angeles. It’s self-titled debut album is a bit slick and polished for a bunch of young musicians who clearly have it in them to go full on into the kind of gritty yet tuneful rock and roll that inspired them. But that’s what happens in the music industry often enough and you just have to check out the band in their, one would presume, element, on stage. With any luck you’ll see a band that has shed the self-conscious quality of the record and even where it might be derivative, play like the band believes in itself.
Sunday: November 19, 2017
Chad VanGaalen, photo by Marc Rimmer
Who:Chad VanGaalen w/NE-HI When: Sunday, 11.19, 8 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: Chad VanGaalen may not necessarily be known for this now but at some point in the future he may be more widely acknowledged as one of the most influential guitarists and producers of his generation. His bedroom recordings for Infiniheart was picked up by SubPop in 2005. His gift for articulating the anxiety and alienation of the modern era clearly struck a chord and his subsequent music has explored some dark and some merely troubling corners of the human psyche with an ear for the perfect harmonic atmospherics and texture. In 2008, Van Gaalen began his relationship with the math rock/post-punk band Women, a band now oft-cited by younger guitar bands as an influence for its creative use of tone, angular rhythms and dynamics. Members of Women are now in Preoccupations. VanGaalen’s 2017 album Light Information sounds like he’s been listening to a lot of Mission of Burma, Helium, 80s minimal synth music and various Jay Reatard projects but the alchemy of that and his own well-developed aesthetic has rendered the songs into something that sounds like something from a long time ago in a place some of us wish existed. It has the kind of vintage sheen like a Ti West film.
Chicago’s NE-HI put out one of the years most repeatedly listenable albums of the year with OFFERS. It’s labyrinthine melodies and straightforward rhythms are a winning combination because it transforms lo-fi garage rock into something extraordinary. Comparisons could be made to Palm, Pavement and Parquet Courts. But its urgent jangle is coming from a different place and that’s what sets the band apart.
Who:Tori Amos w/Scars on 45 When: Sunday, 11.19, 6:30 p.m. Where: Paramount Theatre Why: Tori Amos was one of the earliest artists to attain mainstream commercial success to sing about sexual abuse, her struggle to attain her own creative liberation in a sexist music industry that often could (and often can, truth be told) value women as objectified entities that must fit a fairly narrow mold to present to potential audiences. And otherwise just refreshingly vulnerable and honest depictions of life. Though Amos spent much of the rest of her career exploring and writing thoughtfully on these subjects, in the 2000s, Amos put more focus on more mythical expressions, giving her work new dimensions only hinted at in her earlier work. 2017’s Native Invader is about how we can heal ourselves and the world through facing our challenges and conflicts honestly—which has more or less been Amos’ core message as a songwriter since her solo debut album, 1992’s Little Earthquakes.
Tuesday: November 21, 2017
In The Company Of Serpents, photo by Travis Heacock
Who:In the Company of Serpents, Goya, Matriarch and Palehorse/Palerider When: Tuesday, 11.21, 7 p.m. Where: Hi-Dive Why: A handful of Denver’s best heavy bands are on this bill. Matriarch is a doom/drone band whose 2015 album Magnumus: The 44th Scribe and Lorde of the Hallucinauts has two tracks. And it’s not an EP. It’s also just two lengthy songs that take you on a journey of crushing epics like the soundtrack to Vikings exploring the lands of Irish legend set in South America. Blend all that imagery together and that’s the Matriarch sound. In the Company of Serpents has cracked the monolith of its own sound this past year and the result is 2017’s Ain-Soph Aur, where the band’s songwriting beyond devastating riffs emerges for some of ITCOS’ best songs to date. Palehorse/Palerider is the kind of band where people who have generally played more punk-oriented music got into the soundcaping possibilities of heavy music whether metal or the deep atmospherics of the best shoegaze and post-rock music. Its own 2017 epic masterpiece is Burial Songs.
Who:Mom Jeans. (Side One Dummy), Prince Daddy & The Hyena (NY), Kississippi (PA), Old Sport and Blue Lane Frontier When: Tuesday, 11.21, 7 p.m. Where: 7th Circle Music Collective Why: The lazy thing to do would be to say this is an emo show. Mom Jeans from Berkeley, California is unabashedly so and thus part of that band’s appeal. And more like the late 90s, borderline indie rock variety with the spidery, jangly guitar work. Old Sport from Denver is on the more math-y end of emo with intricate guitar work and song dynamics that sound like someone is thinking in terms of film editing with dramatic drop-outs and sparkling guitar melodies, emotionally charged vocals and a variety of rhythm and texture not common enough in punk generally. Kississippi from Philadelphia is fronted by singer and primary songwriter Zoe Reynolds whose lyrics possess an impressive insight into her own emotional landscape and the ability to translate that into instantly relatable songs.
Wednesday: November 22, 2017
The Zebroids in 2011, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Git Some, Zebroids, Fast Eddie, Jane Doe When: Wednesday, 11.22, 9 p.m. Where: The Oriental Theater Why: Post-hardcore band Git Some has been around for well over a decade when it started in Chicago in the early 2000s. Through various line-up changes members of the band (Charles French and Neil Keener) have also become members of Wovenhand, bringing another level of grit and intensity to a project not short on that already. It’s essentially noise rock with a sense of humor. Speaking of humor, punk band Zebroids is essentially a ridiculous joke of a punk rock band with absurd lyrics and an equally absurd stage presence. Nevertheless, the band is a lot of fun. Jane Doe is a combination of dark, starkly intense poetry, jagged noise rock and free jazz sensibilities. Fronted by the charismatic Becca Mhalek, Jane Doe is one of Denver’s best kept secrets. For now. Fast Eddie is a hard rock band from Denver which includes Micah Morris who some may know as one of the main people behind Barf magazine. Silly name, perhaps, with some fairly absurdist content, but the magazine has provided some of the better content about Denver music and beyond of recent years
Who:Cannibal Corpse w/Power Trip, Gatecreeper and Of Feather and Bone When: Wednesday, 11.22, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: Cannibal Corpse has been getting under the skin of cultural conservatives and squeamish faux-do-gooders for years with music that itself isn’t something we’re going to hear much of any time soon on commercial radio. But the lyrics, quotable by gore horror fans and metalheads for years, almost gleefully crafted to outrage with being so cartoonishly over the top, is what has landed Cannibal Corpse in some hot water with would-be censors. But the live show isn’t littered with corpses and zombies or anything like that so just go expecting one of death metal’s greatest bands. Opening the show are Dallas-based thrash band Power Trip, Arizonan death metallers Gatecreeper (whose music video for “Desperation” from 2016’s Sonoran Depravation is a harrowing depiction of violence and a bit of a commentary on what leads to that sort of thing), and Denver’s deathgrind powerhouse, Of Feather and Bone.
A$APMOB performs at 1stBank Center on Friday, November 3. Photo by Alexander Bortz
Thursday: November 2, 2017
Bison Bone, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Surfacing: Seal Eggs, Bluebook and Pearls and Perils When: Thursday, 11.02, 6 p.m. Where: Europa Coffeehouse Why: This is the latest edition of Surfacing, the music showcase put on by the Titwrench Collective which, of course, throws the Titwrench Festival in late summer in Denver. The festival focuses on women and LGBTQIA makers of music, generally in an experimental vein. This night is certainly well within that realm with Seal Eggs from Colorado Springs who performs a kind of ambient/experimental electronic music with operatic vocals. Bluebook is Julie Davis and her commanding use of cello, loops and her powerful voice. Pearls and Perils is sort of an experimental hip-hop/downtempo project from Olivia Perez whose dark, cool vibe is a departure from her old band Gloam, which was more in the vein of an noisy alterna-prog band. Perez has been a member of Key Lady & The Frontstrangers, which mostly evolved into RAREBYRD$ and some of that mysterious production quality is present in the soundscapes of Pearls and Perils.
Who:Bison Bone w/The Reals and Larry Nix When: Thursday, 11.02, 9 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: Bison Bone masterfully blends alt-country with experimental guitar rock with thoughtful, evocative storytelling. One is struck by how Courtney Whitehead and the rest of the band make their take on country and rock very much their own thing. You hear nods to Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons and others who connected the rootsy warmth of country with an otherworldly energy except that Bison Bone is connected to another realm of the cosmos and the songs transform intense, potentially soul crushing pain into inspiration and catharsis.
Who: Ultra Metal Pre-Show When: Thursday, 11.02, 6 p.m. Where: TBA Why: Johnathan Cash aka Breakdancing Ronald Reagan moved to Denver in 2017 after having performed at Denver noise events and Denver Noise Fest several times over the years. Now he has put together the sort of event he used to put on while living in Austin with Ultra Metal. It’ll include legendary noise/industrial acts like The Haters, Page 27 and Anime Love Hotel as well as noteworthy local staples of the noise world like Morlox, Solypsis, Blarney Mumble and Acidbat. Tonight’s opening ceremonies of the festival also includes Scammers from Kansas City. Phil Diamond of Scammers usually performs solo with his signature crooning voice sounding like he could have been a studio singer for Motown. But he also generally aims for whatever creative music strikes him and has toured on a Harry Potter-inspired electro pop album. Best believe that said album is as interesting and sonically adventurous as anything else Diamond has done. 2017’s Love is a Rough Cut Stone is Diamond’s take on modern R&B-inflected synth pop. Think in the vein of Purity Ring if they collaborated with Drake. Anyone interested in attending any of the three nights of Ultra Metal, or has other questions about the events, please email the organizers at UltraMetal2017@gmail.com.
Friday: November 3, 2017
Cocordion, photo by Cocordion
Who:A$AP Mob w/Key! and Cozy Boys When: Friday, 11.03, 7 p.m. Where: 1stBank Center Why: A$AP Mob is the New York City-based hip-hop collective that, along with Odd Future from Los Angeles, have taken a more commercial hip-hop sound and aesthetic and injected it with innovative musical ideas, adopting sounds and styles of music that were before only really embraced by “alternative” hip-hop groups. The result has been, whether among individual artists like A$AP Rocky, A$AP Ferg and A$AP Twelvy, or as a collective, a more sonically interesting listening to go along with the usual, clever wordplay commenting on the vagaries of various kinds of relationships, life in urban America and popular culture and where all of those intersect and inform one another. The collective’s latest release, 2017’s Cozy Tapes Vol. 2, is not as strong as albums released by individual members of A$AP (including Twelvy’s debut solo effort, 12) and it’s still steeped in trap production but still worth a listen and certainly the live show will be visually dynamic and include material from across the collective’s career.
Who:Cocordion album release w/Copyleft and Ancient Elk When: Friday, 11.03, 8 p.m. Where: Denver Bicycle Café Why:Expectations is the first full-length album from Cocordion, a self-proclaimed lo-fi indie rock band based in Colorado Springs. Though the second release from the band, it is the product of a great deal of creative exploration and honing and refining musical instincts and chops playing in other bands—most notably, perhaps, is Mitchell Macura’s playing keyboards in Eros and the Eschaton. Expectations is an fitting title for an album whose themes include the various demands, welcome and very much otherwise, placed on us by society, the people in our lives and by our own psyches. It also references the concept of creative collaboration and what everyone brings to a project and expects of each other and themselves in that potentially precarious relationship and how such experiments can yield something greater than can an individual effort that depends on the dreams, energy and drive of an individual.
According to a recent interview we conducted with Mitchell (his brother Mason is also in the band) he believes that great creative work can come out of an individual vision that is strong and guides the work. Certainly the history of music bears this out and as a musician he has certainly contributed to realizing someone else’s creative vision. But for this new album, Macura decided to further push the project out of being a solo project, where it started, and allow the music to cohere between the three musicians (the Macura brothers and Thom Spano). For a lo-fi band the record is beautifully detailed with tones, flowing/intersecting atmospheres and textural percussion. Also on the bill is folk-inflected, experimental psychedelic rock band Ancient Elk.
Who: Ultra Metal Night 1 When: Friday, 11.03, 6 p.m. Where: TBA Why: This is the official first night of Ultra Metal, the noise festival being thrown by Johnathan Cash of Breakdancing Ronald Reagan. Cash recently relocated to Denver from Austin but he’s no stranger to Denver or the Mile High City’s noise scene as he’s performed locally regularly for years including sets at various editions of Denver Noise Fest. Tonight you can see the infamous noise project The Haters who have roots in Denver but affiliation with noiseniks and performance art legends Survival Research Laboratories. Also, Breakdancing Ronald Reagan will do a collaboration set with Chicago’s The Rita, hip-hop beatmaker/breakbeat phenom Morlox will play in the late hours and ambient maestro Solypsis will perform earlier in the evening. Plus much more. Those interested in attending or anyone with any questions of the festival should contact the organizers at UltraMetal2017@gmail.com.
Who:The Hollow “Sleep Talkin” video release w/Silver & Gold and Post Paradise When: Friday, 11.03, 8 p.m. Where: Syntax Physic Opera Why: The Hollow is a rarity in Denver. The group is almost as straightforward rock as you can get without being boring. They’e absorbed what works for a lot of modern rock bands that aren’t tapping into a classic rock vibe. Its hard-edged yet melodic songs are atmospheric enough to escape being mundane and they don’t run from writing hooks. The group is celebrating the release of its video for “Sleep Talkin’”. The band’s music isn’t for everyone and its message of positive mental attitude may strike some as odd but at least it’s not phony and neither are the sentiments in its songwriting.
Who:The Jesus and Mary Chain w/Cold Cave When: Friday, 11.03, 7 p.m. Where: Summit Music Hall Why: The Jesus and Mary Chain is basically the foundational band for the shoegaze genre. Okay, JAMC, Cocteau Twins and Spacemen 3. But JAMC is the band that pushed the use of fuzz in a popular music context to newer extremes than before but wedding those massive sounds to classic pop songwriting. When the JAMC were coming together, they rejected the musical tropes of the day, choosing instead to embrace 60s pop music as produced by Wall of Noise pioneer Phil Spector, much as did the Ramones. But JAMC needed to do something that would be purely easily absorbed and co-opted by music even from the underground. Because of that, the band’s music has aged well and doesn’t sound dated. By carving out their own classic sound, steeped in an older classic sound, the Mary Chain has retained its mystique and its cool well past what might be predicted to be its sell-by date. Opening is Cold Cave, the project of Wesley Eisold who has explored a variety of musical ideas in his career including his former musical life playing in hardcore bands. Cold Cave is more in the darkwave vein of synth-driven post-punk reminiscent of pre-Technique New Order but with a modern flavor revealing Eisold’s deep familiarity with 21st century electronic music production.
Saturday: November 4, 2017
Novasak circa 2009, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Rowboat, The Raritans and Jukebox Spiders When: Saturday, 11.04, 8 p.m. Where: Streets of London Why: Denver’s Rowboat doesn’t play many shows these days. Its primary songwriter, Sam McNitt, played in space rock/indie rock band Blue Million Miles for several years in the late 2000s through the early 2010s. Rowboat was initially McNitt’s outlet for continuing to write his more directly folk-influenced music. Not the usual folk sort of thing because McNitt’s highly emotional, introspective songs have a haunted intensity that gives his music a force a lot of folk simply doesn’t have.
Who:The Corner Girls, Surf Mom, Gamma Death Wave and Phallic Meditation When: Saturday, 11.04, 8 p.m. Where: Tooey’s Off Colfax Why: The Corner Girls play a social critically informed surf rock with punk attitude. And, unlike way too many bands in the last two decades, it’s not a “clever” name as it’s an all female band. Maybe it’s been done before but one noteworthy thing about The Corner Girls is that the band isn’t trying to come off tough and aggo but doesn’t mince words either. It’s like a reinvention of punk for many of us that get bored with the hypermasculine model of a style of music that had in its heart in the beginning the detournement of outmoded social conventions. Plus the songs are good, catchy, well-crafted pop music that doesn’t bother with dumbing down. Similar things could be said about Surf Mom except Surf Mom sounds nothing like The Corner Girls. Molly McGrath’s guitar work is more abrasive at times and her expressions of anger have a thoughtfulness and sensitivity to them without blunting the sometimes pointed rhetoric.
Who: Ultra Metal Night 2 When: Saturday, 11.04, 6 p.m. Where: TBA Why: Second and final night of noise festival Ultra Metal. Tonight you can catch 8-bit grindcore band Rainbowdragoneyes, the mighty Novasak and what one might hope is his amp setup aimed at realigning the molecules of your body back to the proper place through sheer low end sculpting, Sheet Metal Skingraft’s industrialized, ambient harsh noise and an early set from the godfathers of Denver noise, Page 27. For more information on and questions about the event, please email the organizers at UltraMetal2017@gmail.com.
Who:Brother Sister Hex (EP release), Jane Doe and Granny Tweed When: Saturday, 11.04, 9 p.m. Where: Lion’s Lair Why: Brother Sister Hex is releasing its third, and latest, EP End Times tonight at Lion’s Lair. The band combines elements of bluesy sludge rock with a touch of moody, perhaps brooding, atmospheres. Difficult to compare the band with anyone else without getting a little clumsy like Dead Weather, PJ Harvey and Queens of the Stone Age. Heavy but without sounding beholden to the classic rock era like a lot of modern rock and roll bands seem to be. Also on the bill is Jane Doe, the noisy, experimental rock band fronted by Becca Mhalek who has played saxophone with avant-jazz dub noiseniks Nightshark, a bit with Nels Cline and in Denver’s free jazz weirdo combo Aenka. In Jane Doe she doesn’t play any instruments, instead demonstrating singing and poetry chops as a cathartic frontwoman.
Sunday: November 5, 2017
Vic Mensa, photo by Frank Ockenfels III
Who:Jay Z and Vic Mensa When: Sunday, 11.05, 7 p.m. Where: Pepsi Center Why: Before becoming one of the most commercially successful hip-hop artists in the history of the artform, Shawn “Jay Z” Carter paid a lot of dues playing support to Big Daddy Kane, working with DMX and Ja Rule in their respective careers and before that getting by however he could growing up in a single parent household in pre-gentrification in Brooklyn. But out of all of that came his 1996 debut full-length album Reasonable Doubt, which included contributions from Biggie, Mary J. Blige, DJ Premier and other hip-hop luminaries. Since that time Carter has worked with most of the big names in the world of hip-hop and has had plenty of beef with various artists, but up to and including his 2017 album 4:44, Jay Z, like most great songwriters, uses the medium of music to use autobiography as a vehicle for commenting on culture and social issues from a deeply personal perspective. In his case, despite his wealth, it is a perspective that distills common experiences from a broad spectrum of the urban American experience into something in the grand tradition of creative social commentators like Mark Twain.
Vic Mensa dropped his debut full-length album The Autobiography this past summer. The title could be seen as a bit premature for an artist who turned 24 in June. But Mensa has been on a steep and ambitious trajectory in his career. Which would mean nothing if his energy and talent weren’t there as well as taste and imagination. All of that is evident on The Autobiography. Mensa’s songs combine beats seamlessly with what sound like either instrumental sections or samples that don’t try to transform the source material into having a different sonic quality. In that way there is an organic, human quality to the record that plays to the opposite instincts of the boastful end of hip-hop. The album has a large sound and Mensa’s confidence contagious but it sounds like you’re hearing the stories of people you know with all the grounding details that renders the mundane mythical.
Tuesday: November 7, 2017
Beach Slang, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Beach Slang – Drunk of Lust tour w/Dave Hause and The Mermaid and Hannah Racecar When: Tuesday, 11.07, 7 p.m. Where: The Marquis Why: James Alex sure doesn’t play the shows in Beach Slang like he’s two going on three decades in music. As a member of post-hardcore band Weston from 1990 to 2011, Alex had to sustain a level of enthusiasm that would burn out most people two or three years in. But he seems to have brought that energy into Beach Slang when that band got going in 2013. Alex’s schtick probably strikes some as forced or phony but the thoughtful and emotionally stirring words whether in lyrics or its various shared words seem poignantly sincere. Part lo-fi indie rock, part unabashed power pop-flavored punk, Beach Slang has always had a vibe like a cross between Bruce Springsteen and The Clash without sounding like either. The group’s latest release is the Here I Made This For You: Volume 2 EP.
Wednesday: November 8, 2017
Tyler the Creator, photo by Tom Murphy
Who:Night Shapes, Body Meat and Natural Violence When: Wednesday, 11.08, 9 p.m. Where: Mutiny Information Café Why: Night Shapes is a gritty post-punk band from Oakland. Its latest cassette, Wake Up, is being released on Denver’s Heavy Dose Records imprint. It’s sound is more like the noisy, warped, serpentine rhythm type that you hear in bands like Pop. 1280 and Protomartyr rather than the bands that are clearly tapping into Joy Division and the Cocteau Twins (not that there’s anything wrong with that). That the band is sharing the bill with the math-rock-esque Body Meat and the dark synthwave Natural Violence from Denver is only fitting, especially considering Heavy Dose also released the latter’s excellent 2017 release, Synthetic Peace.
Who:Tyler the Creator w/Taco When: Wednesday, 11.08, 8 p.m. Where: The Ogden Theatre Why: As one of the co-founders of the Odd Future collective, Tyler the Creator has been involved in making some of the most innovative hip-hop of the past decade. His wordplay is genuinely clever if perhaps the language isn’t for everyone (throwing f-bombs and not as in “fuck” and the n-bombs are understandably tricky to defend). But the beats and his willingness to draw on some truly unexpected corners of music and sampling from musicians other hip-hop artists generally don’t are what make Tyler’s albums so consistently interesting. For example, 2017’s deeply and colorfully atmospheric, jazz-inflected Flower Boy includes elements of “Spoon” by psychedelic prog band Can.
Who:Shigeto w/Ela Minus and Lemon Future When: Wednesday, 11.08, 7 p.m. Where: Globe Hall
Why: Zachary Shigeto Saginaw writes the beat-driven, melodic kind of abstract hip-hop that synthesizes the aesthetics of that form of music, techno, house, jazz and ambient. More so on the house end with his most recent record, 2017’s The New Monday. But Shigeto uses live percussion to craft samples in the live setting and on recordings that give his beats an organic feel that would be difficult to fully execute with pure electronics. Thus his music is more suited for an intimate, small venue environment rather than stadium EDM like some artists who are mining similar, if not as fascinating, sonic landscapes.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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