Wheelchair Sports Camp – Queen City Sounds and Art

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond July 2025

**Planning For Burial performs at the Hi-DIve on 07.03.25, photo by Matt Hannon**

Planning For Burial, photo from Bandcamp

Thursday | 07.03
What: Planning For Burial w/Volunteer Coroner, Verhoffst and Patience, Ophelia
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: It’s Closeness, It’s Easy, the latest transmission of deep, troubling thoughts as slow and unsettling, yet beautifully rendered, musical exorcism from Planning For Burial is the kind of record any of us with life experience need in this moment. The grinding light of its most headlong moments of gritty black metal-shoegaze alchemy burns off a touch of the middle age angst and despair at discovering you are well into and halfway through adulthood and a lot of what you were told mattered, or worse the things you told yourself mattered, don’t amount to much. And living with friends passing away in seemingly rapid succession and the lives of those around you crumbling in this sick excuse of a fake advanced industrialized country hollowed out by the savage neglect of late capitalism with no end in sight. But the album is also about finding the flickering of meaning and significance and emotional resonance among those ruins and scraps and holding on to what and who moves you the most with a tightness that you might not have understood without having gone through all the things that don’t affirm your dreams and fantasies but instead attempt to chisel them into nothing yet failing just a little. It’s also just a gorgeously heavy, atmospheric work of borderline lo-fi, scuzzy shoegaze with heartfelt lyrics and an irresistible uplift. Opening are harsh noise soundscape sculptor Volunteer Coroner, power electronics ambient composer Verhoffst and ambient bedroom pop band Patience, Ophelia which includes Samuel Rupsa and Madeline Johnston (Midwife).

Meet the Giant in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 07.03
What: The Frickashinas w/The Born Readies and Meet the Giant
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: The Frickishinas are a melodic skate punk type of band from Denver in that sort of melodic hardcore borderline emo vein. The Born Readies are a kind of hybrid of hard glam and garage rock band also from the Mile High City. Meet the Giant, though they rock hard enough, are more of an alternative rock band steeped in electronic music aesthetics and deep mood atmospheric music so they might be considered a shoegaze outfit by some or leaning post-punk and even downtempo by others, there is an intensity and emotional depth to the music that reaches further than most more straight forward rock and roll.

Tuesday | 07.08
What: Jackson & The Janks w/El Welk and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Jackson & The Janks is one of those retro old timey rock and roll and R&B bands with some garage rock spirit and gospel sensibility in its sound from New York City. El Welk is the new band from George Cessna who many may know from being a member of his father’s band Slim Cessna’s Auto Club or his former Americana outfit Snakes. But his solo albums have long been worthwhile for having existential lyrics and a spare and economic style. The Milk Blossoms is one of the best indiepop bands in the land at the moment with ear worm melodies and lyrics of uncanny poetic insight and imagination.

TopHouse, photo by Electric Peak Creative

Tuesday | 07.08
What: Fruition and TopHouse
When: 6:30
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens
Why: TopHouse is a Montana-based band whose roots in indie Americana and its bluegrass influences have been fully integrated into its heartfelt songwriting. In 2025 the band released two EPs: Theory in May and the newly released Practice. Obviously there is conceptual wit behind naming the two sets of songs but with the earlier EP was more upbeat and summery, the latest delves into struggle and self-re-discovery. The band’s masterful musicianship combines a sense of orchestral arrangements with emotional intimacy.

Thursday | 07.10
What: Howling Giant, Abrams, Voidlung
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Stoner rock went out of style more or less around the turn of the 2010s but was replaced by its modern equivalent, psychedelic doom metal. But Howling Giant skipped the trend morphing and offered the kind of heavy music that is melodic yet hard hitting and and imbued with a sinuous rhythm style that gives the music a bit of sway. Denver’s Abrams clearly has similar musical inspirations as the headliner but with more than a touch of post-hardcore and post-rock.

Salads and Sunbeams, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 07.12
What: Salads and Sunbeams w/Air Moons (first show)
When: 3
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Salads and Sunbeams is a psychedelic indiepop band whose gorgeously lush songs and literate lyrics sound like something from another era when creative songwriting was at a premium. Yet it’s sound isn’t stuck in the past even if you hear the songs and they have the strong production and ear for impeccable melodies that you’d expect on a Harry Nilsson or Apples in Stereo record. It’s new album Into the Starless Night is front to back a masterpiece of modern pop songcraft imbued with psychological insight and delivered with fantastic vocals both lead and in harmony.

Saturday | 07.12
What: Lost Relics w/Moon Pussy and No Comma
When: 8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Lost Relics’ juggernaut fusion of Unsane-esque noise rock and post-metal circa Neurosis will headline this show which includes the mutant noise rock tricksters Moon Pussy who absolutely blur the line between Butthole Surfers, Big Black and Shellac in style, methodology and substance. All the bands are from Denver and No Comma doesn’t play often but it will bring a blunt and clipped hardcore and noise punk aesthetic to the proceedings.

Sunday | 07.13
What: Lyle Lovett w/The Five Blind Boys of Alabama
When: 7
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Lyle Lovett is one of the most popular artists in modern country whose career spans over four decades. He first burst into popular consciousness with his 1986 self-titled debut and his hit song “Cowboy Man.” In an era when pop country lacked a certain authenticity of expression Lovett distinguished himself with a style that’s eclectic and drew on swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues but with his lyrics somehow tied it all together to be more authentically country than a lot of what else was going on as true to form for a genre that itself was made up of a rich tapestry of influences. This time out Lovett is touring with his Large Band so you’ll get to see those classic songs and newer favorites writ large.

Saturday | 07.19
What: J. Carmone, Paranoid Image and Cosmic Smoke Wagon
When: 5/5:30
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: The recent J. Carmone stuff sounds like a one-man psychedelic garage rock blues thing. Fuzzy melodies and simple chord and rhythm structure that’s broadly expressive even within that narrow range of elements. But in the songwriter’s bag of tricks are power pop hooks and a touch of indie jangle. Paranoid Image is an alternative rock band rooted in acoustic sounds and almost world music melodic structures. Cosmic Smoke Wagon as perhaps the name suggests is sort of a heavier blues rock quartet.

Saturday | 07.19
What: Rain City Drive, Arrows in Action, Charlotte Sands, Taylor Acorn, Beauty School Dropout, If Not For Me
When: 4
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: The Summer School Tour lands at the Fillmore showcasing some prominent bands in the realm of modern alternative rock informed by pop punk and melodic post-hardcore. Rain City Drive fronted by The Voice runner-up Matt McAndrew though from Palm Coast, Florida derived its name from the city where they all met for the first time, Manchester UK. Arrows in Action from Nashville is touring ahead of the release of its new album I Think I’ve Been Here Before out soon on Nettwerk Music Group. The new, third, record is brimming with summery energy and songs informed by youthful exuberance and a spirit of rediscovering one’s joy of life. It’s a complete fusion of electronic pop and the kind of eclectic alternative rock from the late 90s that embraced production elements in the songwriting. Charlotte Sands blends glitchy alt-pop and emo for a sound that fans of Charli XCX may enjoy. Taylor Acorn seemingly takes the structure and sound of pop country and infuses it with the kind of alternative pop exemplified by Echosmith. Beauty School Dropouts do look like if Ratt reincarnated as later era scene kids. And its music is rooted in that kind of emo but one that also recognizes that processing vocals and other instrumentation can make more straight ahead songwriting sound more interesting.

Lyra Muse, photo by Adam Debary @mr.debary

Sunday | 07.20
What: Lyra Muse w/BabyBaby and Dandelioness
When: 7:30/8
Where: The Crypt
Why: Lyra Muse is a dream pop artist from Santa Fe, New Mexico whose command of production, layered atmospheres and vocal processing is thoroughly entrancing. Like a downtempo act that learned a bit from maybe listening to a bit of early 80s Brian Eno, Nicolas Jaar and The Knife. The music’s organic flow and intimate tones are a little like New Age darkwave. On tour with Lyra Muse is Danelioness from Taos whose music is superficially the opposite from Lyra Muse with sounds you might expect more out of an indie folk act including clear and evocative singing but the production on the recorded music suggests something that was influenced by experimental 1980s pop like Kate Bush or Marianne Faithful’s synth-infused period. And from Denver BabyBaby will thrill your ears with exquisitely crafted synth pop and enhanced by charming and idiosyncratic stage antics.

This Will Destroy You on the original Young Mountain tour in 2006, photo by Tom Murphy

Sunday | 07.20
What: This Will Destroy You w/Jesse Beaman
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station Perplexiplex
Why: This Will Destroy You will be performing its 2006 debut album Young Mountain and likely highlights from its album since then. This Will Destroy You from early on set itself apart from the glut of post-rock by making truly cinematic and expressive guitar compositions with emotional heft and dynamism that didn’t sound just like guys jamming out on a theme. The album has gone on to be a classic of the genre and nearly 20 years later its essential appeal as a set of music that stirs the imagination is intact.

Thursday | 07.24
What: Supreme Joy and Flutter dual album release show w/Team Nonexistent and Sun Swept
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: There’s probably a numerological significance to the title of Supreme Joy’s new album 410,757,864,530 Dead Carps or it’s just a surreal semiotic exercise in the absurdity of naming an album brimming with themes of “everchanging American identity, class warfare and Debord’s spectacle.” It’s an overwhelming number which may by part of the point but the psychedelic garage rock post-punk is a sprawling and shimmering collection of sharp observations and an attempt to make sense of so much nonsense in the context of one’s own living of life which can be perilous at best but that doesn’t mean there can’t be plenty of play to be had while figuring it all out and that’s what the record sounds like in all its sonically kaleidoscopic glory. Also releasing an album this night is the great Denver power pop band Flutter and its refreshingly earnest and romantic When You Love Somebody and its full arc exploration of the course of love—the insecurities, the infatuation, the travails of being in love with a human rather than one’s image of one and coming to terms with the highs and lows. It has the exuberance of a record informed by adolescent spirit but the nuance of someone with a bit more emotional maturity making it more relevant for someone that wants to love someone for real and being willing to deal with everything that comes with it.

Wheelchair Sports Camp, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 07.25
What: Wheelchair Sports Camp, Jello Biafra and Alice Wong
When: 6-10
Where: Denver Art Museum
Why: Wheelchair Sports camp takes over the Denver Art Museum for an evening of performances and an interactive element in celebration of Disability Pride Month and the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s a way to flip the usual narrative in which disabled folks serve as entertainment for society and instead own the spectacle rather than merely be it for the amusement of others. It’s activism as art and engagement as an act of transforming the usual dialogues and contexts. As part of the proceedings you’ll see Jello Biafra who will have some choice words and long-time disability rights activist Alice Wong, founder and Project Coordinator of Disability Visibility Project which collects oral histories of people with disabilities in the USA.

Saturday | 07.26
What: of Montreal – The Sunlandic Twins 20th anniversary tour
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Long-running indie pop group of Montreal is celebrating the 20 year anniversary of its 2005 album The Sunlandic Twins. The album is a bit of a fusion of the group’s signature, psychedelic pop and early Brian Eno solo album strangeness for an effect that is like listening to something just out of the frame of usual reality which is what you want from an of Montreal album. And per usual there will probably be a unique stage presentation of the music including sets and costumes to enhance the sense of being witness to something fantastical.

Saturday | 07.26
What: Caamp w/Whitney
When: 7
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Caamp had modest beginnings when Taylor Meier and Evan Westfall met at, yes, summer camp in middle school and then formed the band after high school while students at Ohio University. It’s upbeat indie folk apparently struck a chord with its simple but appealing melodies and intimate presentation. Its latest album is the summery Copper Changes Color. Opening is Chicago’s Whitney which came out of the now defunct psych rock band Smith Westerns when Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich formed the project when their old band split in 2014. What they’ve done as the band has evolved and taken on new members is write orchestral pop songs in the vein of Laurel Canyon circa 1972 psychedelic folk rock but with a modern sense of exuberance and tapping into that time’s exquisite use of tonal arrangements. The band released a new single “Darling” so maybe it’s safe to say to expect a new album in the none-too-distant future.

Tuesday | 07.29
What: Sculpture Club, Flesh Tape and French Kettle Station
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sculpture Club is a post-punk band from Dallas that sounds like it took more inspiration from the more pop inflected end of that music like some of the upbeat Smiths-esque guitar melodies were a direct influence. Its 2024 self-titled album is reminiscent of The Prids with that neo-New Wave flavor and breezy dynamics and upbeat yet moody music. Flesh Tape is a vital hybrid of noise rock grit, emo vulnerability and shoegaze soundscape songwriting style. French Kettle Station could be any incarnation of his music of the moment from New Age glitch ambient or emotionally vibrant experimental pop. You’ll just have to go and see.

Fitz and the Tantrums, photo by Matty Vogel

Tuesday | 07.29
What: Fitz and the Tantrums
When: 6:30
Where: Denver Botanic Gardens
Why: Fitz and the Tantrums from Los Angeles have had a successful career with its brand of fusing indie pop and neo soul and ably tapping into uplifting melodic hooks and bringing to them great mood and emotional range. Sure its songs tend to be the kind built for parties and summertime fun but there is something that seems to bridge the style and sound of decades for something that sounds like something for today in the songwriting. The group is currently touring in support of its new album Man On The Moon and its outer space imagery as a vehicle for injecting the music with some hope and romance.

Wednesday | 07.30
What: Tripp Nasty, Debaser, Sense From Nonsense and Pythian Whispers
When: 7
Where: Squirm Gallery
Why: Full disclosure, the writer of this piece is in Pythian Whispers. But really this show includes some old school Denver DIY scene artists from the 2000s through the 2020s era. Tripp Nasty these days has brought to bear his skills as a composer and technician of electronic music to produce vibrant and imaginative analog synth music that is both avant-garde and accessible. Debaser is the drums and bass guitar solo project of Monkey Mania founder Josh Taylor. It’s like the joyous noise rock with pop exuberance that is an analog to what he brought to the original Friends Forever. Sense From Nonsense is the solo project of former Echo Beds drummer/vocalist/synth composer Tom Nelsen. Sense From Nonsense has gone through various iterations but the current version has been a vehicle for doing live versions of the music from his short films and performance art like an outsider live juke box that irreverently deconstructs unexpected hits. Pythian Whispers for over a decade has included former Tornado Alley and 900 Ancestors guitarist Tom Murphy, former Odam Fei Mud percussionist and current Animal / object multi-instrumentalist David Britton and former Great Atomic Motor and Sense From Nonsense bassist Harmony Fredere. As this band it’s left field ambient and abstract progressive rock with elements of the band members’ various influences blended and layered into dense and dynamic soundscapes.

Thursday | 07.31
What: Midwife w/Jenny Haniver and Fainting Dreams
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Midwife is of course Madeline Johnston whose ethereal guitar work and live production transforms a core of deeply emotional and melancholic songwriting into something that feels like experiencing a dream in real time. Her records are a catalog of giving honor to the pain and loss one must bear across a lifetime as well as the more understated joys that sustain us in unexpected moments when we need them most. Jenny Haniver is a post-hardcore industrial post-punk band from Portland. Fainting Dreams might be described as a transcendent black metal band that channels the trauma and emotional catharsis of surviving the degradations and limitations imposed on us by late capitalism.

Thursday | 07.31
What: Ozomatli w/Las Cafeteras
When: 7:30
Where: Arvada Center Amphitheater
Why: Ozomatli kind of got dubbed a party band in the 1990s because its music was popular at celebrations of all kinds. But the members of the band met when trying to form a workers union in Los Angeles. The band’s seamless integration of elements of hip-hop, funk, Chicano rock and various cultural music from around the world has mean its sound has been evolving from the beginning and with an appeal that transcends genre boundaries. All along the band has lived its social convictions and supported farm-workers’ rights and immigration issues and decidedly anti-war in the 2000s when it seemed like Americans were encouraged to be rah rah for expanding the empire. To the band’s credit its politics have become even more relevant as has its ability to bring joy and celebratory energy to its famously exuberant live shows.

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond May 2025

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

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

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

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

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

Chella & The Charm in 2022, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magdalena Bay, photo by Lisyelle Laricchia

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

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

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

Rilo Kiley, photo courtesy Little Record Company

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

Peter Bjorn and John, photo by Johan Bergmark

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

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

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

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

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

The Black Angels, photo courtesy Partisan Records

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

St. Vincent in 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

The Effigies, photo courtesy effigies.com

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

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

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

Horse Jumper of Love, photo from Bandcamp

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

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

Stephen McBean aka Pink Mountaintops, photo from pinkmountaintops.com

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

The Carbon Diablo Ensemble in 2023 including Mark Mosher

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

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

To Be Continued…

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond October 2024

**Charli XCX performs at Ball Arena on October 11, photo by Harley Weir**

Fontaines D.C. photo courtesy the artists

Wednesday | 10.02
What: Fontaines D.C. w/Been Stellar
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. has always been a bit different from the current crop of shout-y punk bands yet sharing a sharply observed critique of contemporary society and politics with a literary sensibility. For its 2024 album Romance the group took a bit of a different turn in its sounds drawing inspiration from manga, horror and existential cinema, ambient post-rock, a post-ironic absorption of nu metal and trip-hop. It sounds almost entirely unlike their previous offerings while preserving the core of its irreverent spirit and poetic leanings and transforming the expression of both. Openers Been Stellar from NYC is almost an American cognate of the musical impulses and instincts one finds in Fontaines D.C.. Its own melodic yet brooding rock is also brimming with an energy that suggests a sober assessment of the world as it is and deciding to reject the temptation to dissociation and despair. The quintet’s new album Scream from New York, NY is noisy and atmospheric with shades of Washington, DC post-punk and NYC arty noise rock.

Wednesday | 10.02
What: Mint Field w/Wave Decay
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Mint Field is a shoegaze/krautrock band from Mexico City that has garnered a bit of a cult following the past several years. Its songs have the kind of entrancing melodies one would hope to hear out of a dream pop outfit but its arrangements wax into the realm of the avant-garde with the use of noise and recursive production and sound processing so that its music ripples in hypnotic if not always incredibly predictable directions. Its latest full length is 2023’s Aprender a Ser and its autumnal moods and atmospheric resolves are reminiscent of Blonde Redhead in a more gloomy mood. In 2024 the group released the songs that were cut from the previous year’s albums as a mini-LP called Aprender a Ser: Extended. Wave Decay is of course the Denver band whose music most directly sonically aligns with Mint Field’s unorthodox rhythms and otherworldly leanings.

High On Fire in 2010, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 10.02
What: High on Fire w/Weedeater and Cobranoid
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: High on Fire is the band that Matt Pike started following the 1998 dissolution of foundational stoner rock band Sleep. High on Fire has been more hard edged even if the sludgy guitar sound is there. Depending on what record by the band you check out you’ll get a different flavor of heavy music. 2024’s Cometh the Storm is the first to feature Big Business and former Melvins drummer Coady Willis following the departure of Des Kensel. It’s vintage High on Fire but there is even more of a punk attitude in the energy behind the music’s rhythm.

Thurdsday | 10.03
What: Deicide w/Krisiun, Inferi and Cloak
When: 6
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Death metal band Deicide hails from what many may consider the home of the genre in Tampa, Florida where legendary studio Morrisound Recording is located as well. The group has courted controversy from early on even before it changed its name from Carnage to Deicide in 1989 with wild theatrics and lyrics that were and have been gloriously, and colorfully anti-organized religion. But all of that wouldn’t amount to much if Deicide’s music was simply brutal guitar riffs and relentless rhythms with lead vocalist/bassist Glen Benton growling out scenes of horror and struggle. There is more creativity in what the group has done and while consistent in those regards its new album Banished by Sin reveals a good deal of evolution of style and experimenting with arrangements.

Thursday | 10.03
What: Luna Li w/John Roseboro
When: 7
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Luna Li came out of Hannah Kim’s garage rock band Veins. But people apparently showed up thinking they were going to be some kind of metal band or the like and the group switched its name to Luna Li in 2017. The COVID-19 pandemic gave Kim the opportunity to create videos of performances from her home with her playing various instruments that went viral and established the project as a noteworthy act out of the then nascent bedroom pop movement. With the release of 2024’s When a Thought Grows Wings, Luna Li has proven that its lo-fi aesthetic translates well to a more high end production with lush atmospheres paired well with Kim’s knack for the intimate quality of her songwriting. Think cosmic dream pop made for the late night roller skating rink.

Thursday | 10.03
What: Wardruna w/Chelsea Wolfe https://www.redrocksonline.com/events/wardruna-539577/
When: 6
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Wardruna won’t release its new album Birna until January 24, 2025 but you’ll probably get to hear a good deal of its orchestral, epic, ambient, Nordic folk majesty in one of the perfect settings for that music at Red Rocks. This is the band’s only North American show ahead of that album release but the group has demonstrated a desire for playing iconic, historical settings in the past and a fall show at the natural amphitheater will only add to the experience of the music in a one-of-a-kind way. Also on the bill is the dark, atmospheric, Gothic metal and experimental music artist Chelsea Wolfe who brings to her own shows a mystical quality that will bring to the show another expression of blurring the mythical with the aesthetics of the present. Wolfe and Wardruna composer Einar Selvik recently did an interview with Frank Godla or Metal Injection discussing the upcoming show and you can watch that below.

Friday | 10.04
What: Air play Moon Safari
When: 7
Where: Bellco Theatre
Why: Air’s 1998 album Moon Safari released in January of that year became something of an instant classic. It borrowed heavily from the aesthetics of library music, downtempo, abstract funk and psychedelic lounge music. But it was also an amalgamation of some of the musical impulses of the time in its retrofuturist compositions. Other bands in other styles of music were tapping heavily into 70s and 60s music that at that time might have been considered schlockily self-indulgent but recontextualized and recombined with innovative production techniques and modern sensibilities it was like an aural vacation to a more chill space than some of the conflict of the late 90s often forgotten in the current sweep of history in which horror seems to be piling on top of horror and every week and sometimes every day there’s something new that seems to take up the oxygen of existence. So maybe you’ll get to experience a temporary exit from all of that at this show marking a celebration of that singular record whose magic Air didn’t quite capture again even as it innovated further.

Friday | 10.04
What: Blonde Redhead w/Allison Lorenzen
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Blonde Redhead doesn’t often make an appearance in Denver more than once every two or three years but this is a chance to see the legendary dream pop/art rock band outdoors before the colder days of Fall descend. Opening is ambient indie folk luminary Allison Lorenzen whose delicate and emotionally rich soundscapes will fit in well with the music to follow.

Faye Webster, photo by Michael Tyrone Delaney

Friday | 10.04
What: Faye Webster w/Miya Folick
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Faye Webster has established herself as skilled practitioner of delicately orchestrated melodies and deeply personal storytelling across her five albums. Her imaginative songwriting is delivered with a soulful accessibility so that Webster can indulge moments of musical whimsy and inventiveness that make for albums that have a paradoxical diversity and consistency that lend them a timeless quality. Live, the singer-songwriter also bucks expectation in not just embodying the vulnerability and sensitivity required to make the music she does with authenticity but taking chances with stage sets and costumes that can make you wonder if you’ve stepped into an alternate reality serving the worlds and stories Webster has on offer. The summer leg of the tour for her 2021 album I Know I’m Funny Haha included the stage being flanked by giant, mythical, mysterious beings like something out of a supernatural manga. So expect something theatrical and entrancing for the presentation of the 2024 record Undressed at the Symphony.

Blood Incantation, photo by Julian Weigand

Friday | 10.04
What: Blood Incantation – Absolute Everywhere album release w/Steve Roach
When: 8
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: This will be completely different kind of show with the headliners being Denver-based, psychedelic death metal band Blood Incantation celebrating the release of its new album Absolute Everywhere. But this year also marks the release of a documentary about the band’s time in Berlin called All Gates Open: In Search of Absolute Everywhere. The group’s 2022 all synth album Timewave Zero revealed explicitly the fact that the members of the band had an interest in sculpting atmospheres beyond what it had done on previous albums and the new set of songs fuses the two worlds in a seamless way and expanding in some ways what death metal can be. So who is opening this show but legendary ambient composer Steve Roach who would be worth making out to see all on his own.

Saturday | 10.05
What: The Milk Blossoms album release, Wheelchair Sports Camp and George Cessna
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The Milk Blossoms are releasing their latest album Open Portal on vinyl this night. The record is a resonantly introspective dive into memory and how little details can spark and linger in your brain, shedding light on significant moments and details of experience that the conscious mind can pass over and miss their holistic connectedness when limited by linear thought. These songs break down that process and turn it into poetry and music that feels like a direct experience rather than mere snippets filtered by one’s own psychological conditioning. Because of this the band’s songs can feel like dreams rendered into melancholic yet emotionally vibrant bits of pop goodness. Wheelchair Sports Camp is an amalgamation of dirty rap, masterful production, jazz wizardry and sharply observed social commentary in a brilliant and playful performance style. George Cessna’s songwriting like that of the late Kris Kristofferson recognizes no boundary between pop, rock and Americana with lyrics that are poignantly observant of personal struggle and common human moments navigating the often emotionally perilous world.

Saturday | 10.05
What: Kate Bollinger
When: 7
Where: eTown Hall
Why: Kate Bollinger recently released her debut full-length album Songs from a Thousand Frames of Mind (2024) on the Ghostly International imprint, a label more known for experimental and otherwise left field music. Bollinger’s own indie folk songs is the kind of thing you’d hear on the local indie rock station but if you listen deeper and watch any of her music videos it becomes obvious the Bollinger is an artist that experiments in tone and tonality and unconventional arrangements that somehow come together sounding like something from another era, but a mythical version of that era and her mastery of atmospheric songwriting is reminiscent of the warmly spookier end of The Velvet Underground’s folkier, drifty songs. Maybe on another tour the songwriter would be playing a regular club but this time around you can catch her at eTown Hall in Boulder and its finely curated programming.

Saturday | 10.05
What: Ginger Root w/Pearl & The Oysters
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: With a name like Ginger Root and knowing nothing about the artist you might be expecting a jam band but no, the project led by singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Cameron Lew straddles the realms of soul, funk, jazz and pop in a seemingly self-aware style. Lew’s records unabashedly center the cheesier aspects of East Asian culture as a starting off point in writing with insight about the usual personal concerns while also commenting on society in a playful manner that at times can come across as surreal. His new album SHINBANGUMI is like a stroll through the kind of daytime television world that anyone that has spent time watching regular programming in Japan, Taiwan or Hong Kong will find familiar. That bizarre realm of crass commercialism, forced enthusiasm and manufactured positivity that serves as the backdrop of programming that isn’t necessarily advertising with often fantastic sound design is part of the aesthetic. But Lew turns the vibe on its ear while borrowing the chillout lounge energy to inform his own charming, psychedelic pop.

Saturday | 10.05
What: SynthBanger’s Fest: Arcade High, The Bad Dreamers, Master Boot Record, Starfarer, Watch Out For Snakes, The Runsaway Wild, Komonic, Bob Sync and Jacket
When: 3
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: DJ Tower presents the latest edition of his showcase of current Synthwave artists from Denver and beyond including Pittsburgh’s Arcade High, Los Angeles’ The Bad Dreamers and their late night crime drama pop and Master Boot Record from Rome, Italy and its orchestrated, energetic chiptune heaviness.

Saturday | 10.05
What: UPSAHL w/Conor Burns and Zoe Ko
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: UPSAHL came up as a trained multi-instrumentalist and singer but fortunately she channeled that knowledge into a skillset that has made her indie pop bangers have and uncommon musical depth and sophistication. Her early singles showcased her musicianship a little more but her newer work demonstrates that UPSAHL has a great command of production in crafting hooks for hedonistic dance club fare with interesting pop culture references like that to Jennifer’s Body in “Summer so hot.”

Descartes a Kant, photo courtesy the artists

Sunday | 10.06
What: Descartes a Kant
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Descartes a Kant from Mexico City sounds like its members came up listening to a combination of art rock and 90s alternative pop. Its 2023 album After Destruction is like the soundtrack to a pirate takeover of a television station including commercials and instructions on the use of technologies. All with a healthy, surreal and subversive sense of humor. The music is often a fusion of synth pop and punk for a sound somewhere between a Garfunkel and Oates song with a frenetic noise rock version of pop punk. Fans of Otoboke Beaver and Deerhoof may like this band’s strange sounds and undeniable flair for theater.

Sunday | 10.06
What: J.R.C.G. w/American Culture and Candy Apple
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Justin R. Cruz Gallegos’ second album Grim Iconic…(Sadistic Mantra) is a cathartic burst of hybrid musical ideas that bring together raw noise experiments, structured beats and a sound that has punk spirit but irreverent IDM sensibilities. It’s like a modern manifestation of the sort of thing Meat Beat Manifesto got up to in the early 90s and Trans Am’s more rock moments. But really it’s something different and more original than a lot of music with solid hooks and accessibility that came out in the past five years. Think something like if Fugazi and Sleaford Mods did a mashup project with a resurrected Macha producing. American Culture underwent a bit of a reboot of sound more in the direction of rediscovering and repurposing the melodic soundbending of Britpop groups and The Cure in a power pop mode without losing a raw human mode of expression in the past few years and is all the better for having pushed its boundaries past where it has been before. Candy Apple is what happens when hardcore kids realize the full noise potential of that music and stretch it into creative shapes outside the standard format.

Sunday | 10.06
What: Illuminati Hotties w/Daffo
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Sarah Tudzin is known at least as much for her masterful work as a producer, mixer and audio engineer as she is for her music with her band Illuminati Hotties. The latter put out its latest album POWER in August 2024 with Tudzin as producer alongside another luminary in audio production John Congleton. Though the songs are spare in their arrangements they are imbued with an energy and a fuzzy edge reminiscent of 90s alternative pop with often surprisingly introspective melodic vocal hooks that pair well with those Tudzin crafted for guitar. The wryly observational lyrics and personal insight makes the record something with more depth than is obvious because the songs are so catchy. Opening the show is Portland-based indie folk artist Daffo. Growing up in Philadelphia, Daffo was involved in the DIY scenes of Philly and New Jersey where they developed some of their uncommonly sensitive songwriting and fluidly dynamic musicianship. Their song “Poor Madeline” is an affecting work that captures the wistfulness of looking back on a time of displacement and emotional turmoil in one’s life and specifically about the loss of the feeling of having a place one associates with home. It’s immediately relatable and Daffo’s arrangements reflect well the welling of emotions and the granular flow of them in your mind as you’re feeling them. This characteristic the songwriter brings to their other released material so far as collected on the album Pest/Crisis Kit released September 20, 2024.

Sunday | 10.06
What: Boris “Amplifier Worship Service” w/Starcrawler
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: Few albums have been as singular in exemplifying an aesthetic as succinctly summed up by the title of an album as Boris’s epochal 1998 album Amplifier Worship. Boris didn’t invent doom metal or necessarily do it better than everyone else but that record is like a user’s manual for how to make heavy music that’s dense with atmosphere, not too polished to be interesting and thoroughly informed by a willingness to let the wildness and bleeding edges of the analog technology employed drift where it may while guiding it all to great heights of artistry and intensity. And for one night in Denver you can witness the Japanese heavy music greats deliver that album in its entirety.

Tuesday | 10.08
What: Pixel Grip w/Madeline Goldstein
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Pixel Grip is a Chicago-based band whose industrial dance club sound is steeped in EBM and techno. Its rhythms and tones have an angular quality but the band’s vocals are ethereally melodic. Live the band looks like they come straight from a Goth club that never existed in a cyberpunk manga but the music goes hard and has the kind of visceral impact one wants from a darkwave act with pretensions to dance music. Pixel Grip doesn’t pretend. Madeline Goldstein has been making a mark for herself as a producer of moody synth pop in the wonderfully gloomy post-punk vein. Her 2023 album Other World couches Goldstein’s melodiously, yes, otherworldly vocals reminiscent of Siouxsie Sioux in layers of entrancing tones and driving rhythms.

Shannon & The Clams, photo by Jim Herrington

Tuesday | 10.08
What: Shannon & The Clams w/The Deslondes
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Shannon & The Clams have been building a cult following for years since their 2007 inception. Lead vocalist Shannon Shaw was a startling presence with a powerhouse voice that made the band stand out when it was playing dive bars and the like a decade and more ago and the songwriting a mix of garage punk and the emotional delicacy and grit of 1960s girl groups has proven to be versatile and fruitful in exploring themes of love and heartache with creativity and passionate tunefulness. The outfit’s latest album The Moon is in the Wrong Place bears all the hallmarks of Shannon & The Clams’ blend of vital soulfulness and vulnerable introspection and waxes further into its psychedelic pop leanings.

Wednesday | 10.09
What: Crumb w/Vagabon
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Crumb’s foundation of jazz-inflected, psychedelic dream pop started garnering a bit of a following with its first two EPs Crumb (2016) and Locket (2017). It wasn’t the standard issue indie psych that had been flourishing often blandly in the middle of the 2010s. Crumb’s creative vision was more experimental and imaginative and its songwriting seemed to be informed by a deep listening of electronic music of the 90s and 2000s with rhythms that though often driven by live instruments flowed like something stemming from a production base. With its new album Amama, Crumb pushes its sounds further into colorful soundscaping with an aesthetic resonance comparable to the unique worlds of a Dash Shaw film and the wondrous imagery and sense of mysterious emotional familiarity.

Thursday | 10.10
What: Thou w/Slowhole, BleakHeart and The Flight of Sleipnir
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Thou may still be a cult band but its one that has garnered critical acclaim for its unique take on sludge and doom metal. Anyone that has seen the band live knows they don’t look like they’re about to get up and play the heaviest music of the night with a wild energy that stretches the music into interesting sonic and emotional shapes. They often look like you’re about to see some weird Americana. And in some ways that’s exactly what you get—a sonic portrait of aspects of the tortured American psyche. The group’s new album Umbilical is its most expansive and accessible yet without sacrificing the band’s rouch edges and idiosyncratic textures and tonal layers that make its songs such gloriously nightmarish passages of cathartic sound.

Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage, photo by Brent Cole

Thursday | 10.10
What: Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage w/The Grasping Straws and Gila Teen
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club
Why: Jeffrey Lewis is a songwriter from New York City who is currently on tour with his band The Voltage. His rich and prolific body of work is a broadly diverse presentation of ideas and biographical/autobiograpical sketches that have a refreshingly and fascinating honesty and earnestness that fans of Half Japanese, Daniel Johnston, Camper Van Beethoven and Billy Bragg will find rewarding. It’s part punk, part folk, part Americana and all what might be described as captured, on recordings anyway, in brash burst of lo-fi vulnerability. Look for a new record from Lewis due out in March 2025 but for now take a visit to his Bandcamp page and really start anywhere.
https://jeffreylewis.bandcamp.com/

Friday | 10.11
What: Charli XCX w/Troye Sivan
When: 6:30
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Brat Summer just got extended into the Fall with Charli XCX’s latest tour in support of her 2024 album. The singer-songwriter-producer has long found ways of crafting enthralling modern pop music either largely on her own but often with various collaborators. Brat combines the brashness of Charli’s performance style and a radical vulnerability that has been an element of her lyrics for years. With Brat Charli and company tap into aspects of synth pop and transforms them into undeniable bangers with genuine emotional resonance. “360” became an obvious hit over the summer but “Apple” finds Charlotte Aitchison aka Charli XCX branching into new creative territory making the album one of the more innovative in mainstream popular music.

Little Fyodor and Babushka Band circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 10.11
What: Franksgiving – in Memory of Frank Bell: Little Fyodor, Mr. Pacman and Sense From Nonsense
When: 9
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Franksgiving was a yearly fundraiser for colitis and Crohn’s Disease charities led by the late Frank Bell, DJ and purveyor of fine musical weirdness for years. The banner of that cause has been taken up by Little Fyodor who has shared Bell’s appreciation for the musically odd and a maker of plenty of that one his own whether with tape collage legends or his long running, bizarro punk band that is more punk than most bands calling themselves such. But then you also get costumed video game superhero glitchcore/synth pop legends Mr. Pacman and the ambient/soundtrack project of former Echo Beds drummer/programmer/vocalist Tom Nelsen.

Saturday | 10.12
What: Meet the Giant 15 Year Anniversary w/Church Fire and Jaguar Stevens
When: 8
Where: 1010 Workshop
Why: Meet the Giant is a post-punk band with a keen ear for electronic soundscapes resulting in a music that is visceral, emotionally rich and possessed of great sonic nuance. The band has two albums under its belt after a decade of incubating before playing its first shows and on the verge of releasing a third and you may get a chance to hear some of the new material at this show. Industrial dance synth pop firebrands Church Fire are releasing the vinyl version of their great 2022 album puppy god through Witch Cat Records at this show as well.

Sunday | 10.13
What: GEL w/MS Paint, Destiny Bond and The Mall
When: 6
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: GEL recently released its most recent collection of punchy and caustic hardcore in the album Persona. Hailing from New Jersey, the quartet started life as a powerviolence outfit called Sick Shit. But starting in 2018 the fledgling group leaned further into more pure hardcore but with more expansive rhythms and a layer of moodiness under the aggressive bluster. And this show features some of the most noteworthy acts out of the recent wave of American hardcore with Destiny Bond and its amped anthems of navigating ideas of identity, personal politics and a bursting of narrow definitions of how we have to be and a resistance to bland yet destructive conformity. MS Paint came out of the hardcore scene but its synth and drums-driven post-punk is like something new with resonances with the likes of The Screamers and The VSS. It’s also one of the most powerful live bands you’re likely to see this year.

Monday | 10.14
What: Unwound w/Quits
When: 7
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Unwound was considered one of the premier noise rock bands of the 90s and early 2000s even though it mostly earned a cult following playing dive bars, DIY spaces, basements and in the end small theaters. Its raw and both controlled and unhinged post-hardcore style had an intense energy and dreamlike passages of a transcendent emotional headiness that implanted so many of the band’s songs in the psyches of fans. At one point a critic or two compared their style and influence to that of Sonic Youth, a band that likely had more than a passing influence on Unwound. Following the 2001 tour in support of its then and most recent studio album, the highly experimental and even avant-garde Leaves Turn Inside You, Unwound split in 2002 only to resurface in 2022 after the passing of bassist Vern Rumsey. For the recent spate of live shows Jared Warren of Big Business and formerly of KARP has taken up role as bassist as one of the only people who could really do it justice as he like Unwound was based out of Olympia, Washington in the 90s as well not to mention Rumsey worked on KARP records. Opening are Denver noise rock legends Quits whose emotionally charged songs may sound like jagged emotions and caustic pronouncements about humanity but are really sensitively rendered observations and fantasies about life in a world that can feel hostile to human frailty.

Monday | 10.14
What: Clairo w/Alice Phoebe Lou
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Bedroom pop artist Clairo in her relatively short career has created a body of work and musical style that has had reverberations for other songwriters in the past several years and garnered a cult following as well. Her melancholic and delicate vocals and inventive use of organic and electronic instruments have a timeless quality because Clairo has mastered mixing and blending the aesthetics of multiple eras into her own style so that even if there’s a nostalgic aspect to the song it has a paradoxical immediacy. Her new record Charm has some of Clario’s most accomplished production and songwriting so that so many of the compositions feel like indie instrumentation over beatmaking paired with the usual melodious and chill vocals and every so slightly psychedelic sensibilities.

Tuesday | 10.15
What: Iguana Death Cult w/Los Toms and Supreme Joy
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Iguana Death Cult from Rotterdam, Holland formed in 2015 when singer/guitarist Jeroen Reek brought together a group of friends who didn’t know each other but had his friendship in common. As they began to develop their music their sound absorbed the garage and surf rock influences of the 2010s and manifested those ideas in music that moved beyond trendy aesthetics and by the time of its 2023 album Echo Palace you might be excused for thinking they were influenced more by the likes of Parquet Courts, Gang of Four and The English Beat. Still fiery but angular, arty and more daring in its guitar work than most garage rock acts. Also on the bill is the ferocious, Denver post-punk band Supreme Joy whose own roots in garage rock adjacent-modes isn’t so obvious.

Tuesday | 10.15
What: Mr. Gnome w/Spyderland and Glass Human
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Since its 2005 inception Mr. Gnome has cultivated an eclectic and evolving style of art rock that on its albums dives deep into concepts and aesthetics like they’re making a unique work with world building but not lacking in personal storytelling. Songs stand on their own yet fit into the mosaic of the work at hand. Its a level of creative songwriting that not many bands achieve without coming across as a little corny. Its latest offering is 2024’s synth-infused A Sliver of Space a seeming record about clinging to meaning as the world falls apart and resisting being washed away in the flood of world and life events.

Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday and Saturday | 10.18 and 10.19
What: Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille album release w/Slow Caves, May Be Fern and Cactus Cat on 10.18 and w/Bubby Lucky, Jesus Christ Taxi Driver, Dayton Stone & The Undertones on 10.19
When: 7 both nights
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The rock and soul review of Rootbeer Richie & The Reveille celebrates the release of its new album Never Needed Me with a weekend of shows including luminaries of the local rock and roll and indie rock scenes in Denver and Fort Collins.

Testament, photo by Stephanie Cabral and Mia Demonz

Tuesday | 10.22
What: Testament, Kreator and Possessed
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Testament is one the most important of the second wave of thrash metal bands out of the Bay Area in the second half of the 80s that helped to define the genre with its unique approach to the musicianship. It had the wild exuberance of thrash in its first few years but backed by a technical precision and creativity in its execution that set the band apart from some of its contemporaries. Like its contemporaries, Testament was able to weather the implosion of the popularity of metal in the early 90s because its music seemed rooted in something more durable than hedonistic rock and roll tropes with more to say and its songwriting more imaginative than what was on offer from glam metal. By the 21st century the style Testament cultivated was vindicated with a new wave of popularity and the reunion of its classic lineup with brilliant lead guitarist Alex Skolnick returning to the fold. But this show includes other giants of 80s metal with influential German thrash group Kreator and pioneering death metal act Possessed.

Wednesday | 10.23
What: Minami Deutsch w/Nightfishing
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Minami Deutsch is the minimal techno-inspired psychedelic prog band from Tokyo whose motorik beats and hypnotic minimalism is both consistent and ever evolving in its soundscapes. Its 2022 album Fortune Goodies is like a gentle version of Kosmische that some may find resonances with the more abstract end of Deerhunter.

Wednesday | 10.23
What: Marc Rebillet w/Flying Lotus and Reggie Watts
When: 5
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Marc Rebillet is an eclectic music and multi-media creator whose live performances and YouTube streams, Facebook/Instagram live feeds etc. blur the line between electronic music, funk, R&B, comedy, performance art and whatever else seems to strike his fancy in the moment as an artist who has found a way to use the format as the medium of his artistic expression. For this tour he is bringing along like-minded creatives like filmmaker, experimental hip-hop and avant-garde jazz composer Flying Lotus and comedian and multi-faceted post-punk R&B storyteller Reggie Watts.

Thursday | 10.24
What: David Liebe Hart w/Magic Cyclops and DJ Wayzout
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: David Liebe Hart came to the attention of a wide audience for his appearances in the Adult Swim program Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! His surreal songs and puppet theater many probably assumed to be purely a character but there is an earnestness to Hart’s creative work that comes from a genuine place and his status an outsider artist is no pose. The music with his various collaborators has evolved to a truly unique kind of synth pop with themes of aliens, trains and the litany of tragedies of his love life. Magic Cyclops is not quite the Colorado (or is it Iowa, IYKYK) equivalent of Hart but his own take on surreal synth pop is driven by a concept of an egotistical people star whose personal is fueled by bombast and at times technical incompetence. His own songs, nevertheless, have their own charm and odd humor.

Friday |10.25
What: Photay w/M.Sage
When: 7
Where: Lost Lake
Why: For roughly the past decade Evan Shorntein has released experimental-leaning, electronic pop music as Photay. His latest offering is 2024’s Windswept which mixes minimal techno rhythms and structure with subtle textures and ethereal, sparkling melodies building to a playful mood. Opening the show is noted Colorado-based ambient artist, composer and curator M. Sage.

Trees Inside Out, photo courtesy Myshel Prasad

Friday | 10.25
What: Trees Inside Out (first show) w/Pleasure Prince and Extreme Sports Club
When: 7:30
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Trees Inside Out released its debut album IOVI on September 12, 2024. It’s a drifty bit of dream pop and space rock reminiscent of Low and Eleventh Dream Day. Its principle songwriters though are known figures in Denver’s shoegaze scene of the 90s and early 2000s with Roger Green (Idle Mind, The Czars) and Myshel Prasad (Space Team Electra) so really that alchemy of sounds extends from their own deeply creative songwriting and soundscaping and left field poetic sensibilities. Also on the record are Todd Ayers who was part of an early part of STE called Dive but later in Volplane and Sonnenblume; Sean Eden (Luna); Bill Kunkel (STE); Kit Peltzel (STE); John Rasmussen (among others, Pale Sun); and Lee Wall (Luna). That alone should be a reason to go to the show. Then Pleasure Prince is also on hand with their beautifully orchestrated, emotionally vibrant, experimental, electronic pop.

Saturday and Sunday | 10.26 and 10.27
What: The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs 25th Anniversary Tour
When: 7 both nights
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Indie rock band The Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs in 1999 to great critical acclaim. Written as a concept for a music review by main songwriter Stephen Merritt that could have been 100 songs long but thought the shorter length more attainable and the math worked better for three sections of 23 songs apiece. The album is stylistically diverse and delivered with an almost nonchalant energy in the vocals and Merritt’s songs range in subject matter widely and depict relationships in a spectrum of sexual orientations. But mostly it’s an ambitious and sprawling collection of finely crafted pop songs that go well beyond the cliches and tropes of a subject that has been written about entirely too often without a fraction of the creativity.

Monday | 10.28
What: La Luz w/Tele Novella
When: 7
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: La Luz has evolved rapidly and in always interesting directions from its more surf rock-oriented sound when it began in 2012. But even then Shana Cleveland’s songwriting has set the band apart from presumed stylistic leanings. The band’s 2024 album News of the Universe is a futuristic, softly psychedelic set of songs that sound like the group has moved well into the richly atmospheric side of Krautrock and fused that perfectly with Cleveland’s expert pop songcraft and gift for intermingling classic songwriting and styles and sounds across decades and cultures into a coherent and entrancing whole.

What: The The
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The The was both a critically acclaimed and commercially successful band throughout the 80s and 90s. Having come up from experimental music and post-punk roots, The The has always had a bit of an arty, left field edge even as many of its songs have enjoyed a bit of mainstream popularity like “Uncertain Smile” from its 1983 debut album Soul Mining, “Uncertain Smile” featuring Sinead O’Connor from the 1989 album Mind Bomb and “Dogs of Lust” from 1993’s Dusk. From 2003 through 2017 the project went on hold while main songwriter Matt Johnson focused on crafting music for soundtracks. In 2024 a new The The album emerged with Ensoulment a record of brooding, Americana flavored art rock noir songs about love, existential pondering and the band’s usual poignant social commentary.

Monday and Tuesday | 10.28 and 10.29
What: SHEROES Live with Carmel Holt
Where/When: The Colorado Sound 105.5 FM at 3PM on 10.28 and Indie 102.3 time TBA (10.29)
Why: The Road to Joni is a podcast that launched on September 6, 2024 hosted by SHEROES’ Camel Holt. The podcast honors the great folk rock/experimental pop legend Joni Mitchell. Guests have and will include the likes of St. Vincent, Brittany Howard, Hozier, Arooj Aftab and Bonnie Raitt. The first episode featured Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Lucius and Kathleen Edwards. Carmel taped episodes on her way across America from Kingston, NY to the “Joni Jam” at The Hollywood Bowl which occurred on October 19/20. She has also been making stops in various cities for on air visits and tapings at local NPR stations including The Colorado Sound in Fort Collins on October 28 and Indie 102.3 in Denver. Listen to the archived episodes here.

Tokyo Police Club, photo by Ross Macdonald

Wednesday | 10.30
What: Tokyo Police Club final tour
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: The members of Tokyo Police Club grew up and went to school together in their hometown of Newmarket, Ontario forming the band in 2004 when most of the group were still in high school. Unlike most bands formed in that way, TPC has stuck it out and its particular style of left field, guitar-driven post-punk went on to garner a sizable following and commercial success with songs imbued with great energy and immediacy alongside a spontaneous quality and willingness to go off standard melodic structures. The band has thus been able to consistently craft music that comes across authentic because a little rough around the edges. In January 2024 the quartet announced it was splitting up with a final tour concluding in Toronto on November 29.

Vince Staples in 2017, photo by Tom Murphy

Wednesday | 10.30
What: Vince Staples w/Baby Rose
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Vince Staples released his sixth album Dark Times in May 2024 and offered a more vulnerable set of songs than his already impressive catalog of songs of emotionally open and introspective storytelling. This time out the moods are more downcast in a way that feels cinematic like Staples has written an album like an anthology of vignettes best embodied as a series of short films that illuminate themes of acceptance and the kind of resistance that comes not from some hokey everything’s gonna be alright insipidity but a deep assessment of how things are and working to not be overwhelmed by the challenges of finding meaning in a society that makes a genuine effort at doing so challenging.

Wednesday and Thursday | 10.30 and 10.31
What: T-Pain w/Akon (10.30) and Lil Jon (10.31)
When: 5:30 (10.30) and 6:30 (10.31)
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: T-Pain is most often associated with the popularization of Auto-Tune in popular music of the past twenty years and more. But for the artist it’s more than just a gimmick and he’s used it creative to give his vocals another dimension of expression beyond their normal range. And beyond the vocal treatment, T-Pain is a songwriter who has consistently tried to push the boundaries of hip-hop with his songwriting and production. In 2023 he released a record of eclectic covers called On Top of the Covers that includes “War Pigs” for which Ozzy Osbourne and Geezer Butler have expressed great appreciation. Other than the selections the album showcased the singer’s prowess as a vocalist without Auto-Tune. So for this show you’ll probably get to witness T-Pain at the peak of his abilities thus far. The first night of this two night run includes a performance from Akon who early in T-Pain’s career helped to give that artist a leg up into the music industry through his record label Konvict Muzik. But Akon’s own pop-inflected hip-hop and world music infused R&B has garnered himself no small following as well. The second night you will get to see Lil Jon who was pivotal in developing crunk and that EDM (particularly bass music) and Southern hip-hop crossover as embodied prominently by his hit 2013 single “Turn Down For What” which he performed at the 2024 DNC.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond August 2024

**Bikini Kill performs at Mission Ballroom on August 27, photo by Debi Del Grande**

Brotherhood of Machines in 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.02
What: Brotherhood of Machines (album release), Seance, Snowswept and Aloe Static
When: 8/8:30
Where: Glob
Why: Brotherhood of Machines is the project of Tyler Knapp who has been crafting haunted experimental electronic music for years in Denver alone. You wouldn’t call his music ambient though adjacent, not beat driven dance music though those influences are present and not noise though aspects of his compositions incorporate what often sound like field or otherwise repurposed recordings. In July 2024 he released two albums Loops From Temple Familiarity and Unknown Set and is releasing one or both at this show. Also on the bill are the ethereal melodies and ambient soundscapes of Snowswept and Aloe Staic’s more glitch and texture post-IDM environmental moods.

Friday | 08.02
What: SUMAC w/Portrayal of Guilt and Trigger Object
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: In June SUMAC released its latest set of moody, evocative and crawling, post-metal improv The Healer. The trio channels intense passages of rhythm and sound into expressive bursts that sound like a death metal band discovered doom and utilized those musical modes to make a heavy post-hardcore designed to embody the deconstruction of the world and shedding of old ways and habits in favor of those more nurturing and open. Even more psychedelic than previous records, The Healer finds SUMAC charting new territories of of how heavy music can seem more immersive than merely monolithic. Portrayal of Guilt is the kind of hardcore band that enjoys drenching its aggressive sounds in caustic moods like it explored to the roots of he music that built where it had been and found the connections with the likes of St. Vitus, Celtic Frost and Possessed.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Alejandro Escovedo w/James Mastro
When: doors/dinner 6, show 9
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: Although Alejandro Escovedo is now rightly known as one of the great artists in modern roots rock and alt-country, he cut his teeth as a member of pioneering punk band The Nuns who were one of the two bands (including The Avengers) that opened for the Sex Pistols at the final live performance at Winterland in San Francisco in January 1978. In subsequent decades and in various bands and under his own name Escovedo has maintained more than a bit of that spirited, early punk and counterculture attitude including on his 2024 record Echo Dancing. Opener James Mastro also his his own unique place in punk and Americana as a member of The Richard Lloyd Group in his teens and later with a variety of music activities including in bands like The Health & Happiness Show. Mastro has been a staple of the rich NYC and Hoboken, NJ scenes and for this show he will be playing double bass in Escovedo’s band but prior to that he will perform liberally from his own 2024 record Dawn of a New Error with graced by the singer/songwriter’s warmly husky voice, expansive spirit and bright and vivid production courtesy engineer and mixer James Frazee and mastering by Greg Calbi.

Saturday | 08.03
What: Listening Lawn IV: Cholla, Blood Out w/Silt, Glissline, Combat Sport & DJ Ursa, Yonbre Netz and Sunswept
When: 5-8 pm
Where: Carpio Sanquinette Park
Why: These events happen in a semi-hidden pocket in Denver at a public park with a setting like ruins of an older Denver long neglected. The perfect setting to witness innovative electronic music in the realms of techno, ambient, IDM and free jazz.

“Horsegirl” in 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 08.03
What: A Rally For Worker’s Rights: Vegan Gore, F1sh1fty, “Horsegirl,” and Clayton Kenney
When: 6-10 pm
Where: Cheeseman Park Pavilion
Why: This is an event to draw attention to collective efforts at promoting the interests of workers in one of the more expensive cities in America with the sprawl of that income inequality spreading everywhere. The musical portion of the gathering includes performances by techno/glitch/IDM artist Vegan Gore and weirdo performance art dream pop band “Horsegirl.”

Wednesday | 08.07
What: Nox Novacula w/Church Fire and Weathered Statues
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Seattle deathrock band Nox Novacular is touring in support of its newly released latest album Feed the Fire. Its brooding atmospheres and impassioned performances have made the quartet a band of choice for discerning fans of post-punk like a commanding mix of Xmal Deutchland and the spookier end of The Cramps. Weathered Status from Denver is cut from a similar cloth with clear roots in punk with standout basslines and haunted synths. Church Fire while not a post-punk band plays its electronic darkwave with an electrifying conviction.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Orville Peck w/Jaime Wyatt and Gold Star
When: 6
Where: The Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Orville Peck performs his 70s cowboy country style music masked like a nod to The Lone Ranger. His songs about love and heartbreak are well within the storytelling tradition of classic country but with Peck infusing the songwriting with a queer perspective his songs have another dimension of potential resonance with fans. His latest album Stampede finds Peck collaborating with the likes of Willie Nelson, Beck and Nathaniel Rateliff among others.

Thursday | 08.08
What: Urban Heat w/Gvllow and Delores Galore
When: 7
Where: HQ
Why: Austin’s Urban Heat makes an appearance in Denver just over a week before the release of its latest album The Tower. The darkwave trio has mastered a reinvention of 80s moody synthpop into expansive darkwave with commanding and soulful vocals. The group’s 2023 cover of Q. Lazzarus’ classic single “Goodbye Horses” brought to the song a tonal richness and expressed the fiery intensity underneath the surface of the original. Urban Heat’s earlier releases showcased the band’s gift for EBM beatmaking akin to what TR/ST and Kontravoid have been doing by fusing techno sensibilities with emotionally-charged pop songcraft. The singles from The Tower thus far have revealed the band has been evolving its use of space to great evocative effect.

Friday | 08.09
What: Keytar Fest: The Jinjas and Claudzilla
When: 8pm doors/9pm show
Where: 715 Club
Why: Claudzilla returns for the most recent edition of Keytar Fest, an event that showcases artists that make use of that most visually iconic of 1980s synthesizer technology. Claudzilla is a little like a lo-fi weirdo outsider avant-pop performance artist that is part personae part a manifestation of inner space. Like if Klaus Nomi made indie pop. The Jinjas are a synth and drums-driven rock band that use bass synth and keytar to build a sound like a retro synth pop band with a songwriting style that’s more modern and akin to something like The Blow and Trans Am gone more pop.

Friday | 08.09
What: Magic Sword w/ESSENGER and Church Fire https://tickets.meowwolf.com/events/denver/magic-sword/
When: 7
Where: Meow Wolf Convergence Station
Why: Magic Sword is the costumed space night synthwave band from Boise, Idaho who sure do have a gimmick but its music speaks for itself with its saturated tones and science fiction epic themes like if Giorgio Moroder had been convinced to score the music for The Terminator, Children of Men or the latest Dune movies. Fresh off opening for Nox Novacula, Church Fire will be in good company here too with their own epic, emotionally vibrant, electronic dance ragers.

Plack Blague in 2023, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.09
What: Plack Blague w/God Save the Queens and Hex Cassette
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Plack Blague is the by now legendary industrial techno and performance artist whose on stage personal is like a leather daddy delivering queer themed bangers in a darkwave mode. Reliably entertaining and charismatic. So it’s only appropriate that God Dave the Queens is part of this show as a drag show with Noveli, Heavenly Powers, Neurotika Killz and Belle Fegore. Opening is the one man, occult EBM freakout and heavy darkwave dance music Hex Cassette who excels at provoking the audience with good-natured ribbing.

Sunday | 08.11
What: Sluice w/Fust and The Milk Blossoms
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sluice aka Justin Edward Morris is an indie folk artist from Winston-Salem, North Carolina whose songs have a textured moodiness and freshness to them that gives the songwriter’s more pastoral musical impulses a tangible presence. His 2023 album Radial Gate is a deeply reflective set of seemingly autobiographical vignettes like a kinder, gentler Bill Callahan. Also on the bill is Durham, NC’s Fust whose music is similarly-minded in the mining personal history for creative illumination of everyday human experiences but in a more country rock mode. Opening the show are The Milk Blossoms whose tenderly rendered indie pop songs have some roots in folk but whose songs and performances have both a raw vulnerability and emotional intensity that powerfully manifest the group’s creatively poetic lyrics.

Monday | 08.12
What: Brijean w/Colloboh
When: 7
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Brijean Murphy is known for her time serving as a percussionist for Mitski, Poolside and Toro Y Moi but this project with multi-instrumentalist producer Doug Stuart has resulted in entrancing, dance-music adjacent art pop. The saturated synths, ethereal vocals and layers of textured polyrhythms sound like something from a retrofuturist disco if the music being played dipped liberally into 70s disco and 2010s deep house. The duo’s new album Macro introduces even more organic percussion and bass to great effect marking the record as one of the most fascinating electronic pop releases of the year alongside that of Mount Kimbie’s The Sunset Violent.

Thursday | 08.15
What: Mac Sabbath w/Tejon Street Corner Thieves
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Mac Sabbath is celebrating 10 years of its absurd concept of doing parody covers of Black Sabbath songs with fast food-themed lyrics and fully committed stage costumes of characters not unlike some of the most well-known of McDonald’s characters. It’s a gimmick that the band has been able to sustain for a decade without admitting to being people other than the stage personae which is an accomplishment in itself in the modern era.

Friday | 08.16
What: Atmosphere w/Method Man & Redman, Deltron 3030, NOFUN! and Skratch Basitd
When: 5:30
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Atmosphere is of course the hip-hop duo from Minneapolis that were foundational figures in early alternative hip-hop and advocates for other underground artists in that style. Its eclectic and atmospheric beats and introspective lyrics are a consistently effective counterpoint to the group’s energetic and extroverted stage performances and Slug’s crowd interaction. The subject matter of the lyrics from Atmosphere have evolved in content and nuance over the years but always informed by a reflective and empathic sensibility paired with a sense of personal exploration of psychological and social issues. All along Slug and Ant have created a body of work with music that speaks to the artists’ innate curiosity and willingness to expand beyond where they’ve already been.

The Green Typewriters, photo by Tom Murphy

Friday | 08.16
What: The Green Typewriters, A Strange Happening and Van Death
When: 8
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: The Green Typewriters have become a bit of a psychedelic glam rock/indiepop mutant with their music but all for the better. The songwriting is as accessible and its sounds comforting yet mysterious and its live show colorful and friendly. A Strange Happening has always been a high concept indie rock band but its music has more of a raw and ragged Neil Young flavor recently.

Sunny Day Real Estate, photo from Subpop.com

Saturday | 08.17
What: Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary 30 year anniversary w/Kevin Devine
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Sunny Day Real Estate’s 1994 debut album Diary is one of the blueprints of the Midwest emo sound with its post-hardcore grit, raw emotional vocal style, quiet-loud dynamics and gritty melodies. Though from Seattle the band’s sound then and now was out of step with the grunge bands its label Sub Pop was known for championing. But the live band and its earnest and intense performances resonated with that realm of music and has had a lasting impact on pretty much all emo since as well as modern sheogaze and a whole swath of punk adjacent music in a way that is obvious from the moment you play a song from that first record and this show will celebrate what SDRE accomplished on Diary.

Saturday | 08.17
What: King Dunn (King Buzzo & Trevor Dunn) w/JD Pinkus
When: 7
Where: The Bluebird Theater
Why: For this show King Dunn will perform the solo work of Buzz Osborne, the renowned guitarist and singer of Melvins with Trevor Dunn of Mr. Bungle fame on hand to provide bass duties as he did when Melvins toured as Melvins Lite a handful of years back. It’s the kind of left field move that Osborne seems to favor with Melvins always trying to do their tours a little differently and pushing into new territory in performance and songwriting. Osborne didn’t get to tour behind his 2020 solo album Gift of Sacrifice and there’s a good chance a lot of people haven’t seen the music from 2014’s This Machine Kills Artists live and the more acoustic guitar-driven songwriting from an artist perhaps most well known for some of the heaviest guitar rock in the modern era.

Barns Courtney, photo courtesy the artist

Tuesday | 08.20
What: The Struts w/Barns Courtney
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Struts are a band from the UK that rode that wave of retro glam rock revival that began in the early 2010s and garnered hit singles along the way. Luke Spiller early on having done his level best to tap into that Freddy Mercury sound. More recently the band has pivoted in a more pop-oriented style of songwriting channeled through the lens of 80s glam metal. Barns Courtney started his career in bands SleeperCell and more professionally with Dive Bella Dive until that band was hamstrung by label contracts. But those didn’t limit Courtney as a solo artist whose early singles caught the attention of audiences and garnered a recording contract. Fast forward to 2024, Courtney released his third full length Supernatural on July 19 for a record that showcases the songwriter’s commanding vocals and knack for crafting sonically rich rock songs of broad stylistic touchstones fusing acoustic and electric sounds. There is the sort of blues rock foundation there but Courtney injects the classic sounds with modern pop song sensibilities.

Tuesday | 08.20
What: Sheppard w/Seth Beamer
When: 7
Where: Moon Room at Summit Music Hall
Why: Sheppard is an indie pop trio from Brisbane, Australia that formed as a duo of siblings George and Amy Sheppard in 2009 but expanded to a six-piece by 2012 including their sister Emma on bass. In 2014 the group released its debut full-length Bombs Away and the record’s second single “Geronimo” became something of an international hit for its undeniably uplifting melodies and the kinds of song elements that invite participation among listeners including choruses pretty much anyone can sing and clap along rhythms, a hallmark of Sheppard’s songwriting in general. In 2023 the group relocated to Nashville and a year later issued its latest record Zora named for the now trio’s grandmother. It’s sounds are more atmospheric but the album is the kind of life-affirming/celebrating work that could be cloying but the songwriting finds Sheppard growing beyond where it has been before and its melodies undeniably infectious.

Wednesday | 08.21
What: Roselit Bone w/George Cessna and Fly Janet
When: 7
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Portland, Oregon’s Roselit Bone writes darkly dramatic songs like a noir version of country music with deep mood and a touch of psychedelia. So it’s a good pairing to have George Cessna on the bill with his own thought-provoking, dusky country in its own existential and cosmic mode. Denver’s Fly Janet will bring the spooky surf-spaghetti Western Americana.

Thursday | 08.22
What: Car Microwave, The Milk Blossoms and mLady
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Kansas City-based indie folk band Car Microwave released its latest record Photo Album in 2023. Its delicately rendered musicianship and vulnerable vocals have an underlying emotional strength that gives the music a charmingly earnest quality reminiscent somehow of both 10,000 Maniacs and one of Mary Timony’s bands or even in moments of Throwing Muses. One might be tempted to call The Milk Blossoms and indie folk band but with it too there is a poetry to the lyrics that more than hint at a more experimental creativity and there is a passionate delivery of the music that imbues even its most beautifully fragile moments with a vibrant emotionality.

Friday | 08.23
What: Acidbat album release w/Lanx Borealis and Church Fire at Glob
When: 8
Where: Glob
Why: Acidbat aka Seth Ogden celebrates the release of his latest album Empty Vial (out on Witchcat records) at this show feature other Denver luminaries of electronic and dance music. The new record is a further evolution of Ogden’s sonically rich and playful, psychedelic techno and ambient compositions using almost if not entirely analog synth sources. Lanx Borealis creates what might be described as ambient pop at least as far as her 2024 EP Released It seems to reveal. But think something darker with more grit but imbued with a sense of the fanciful. Church Fire is the now legendary industrial dance band with strong political content that while polemical doesn’t lack for creativity and a healthy sense of fun and humor. It is cathartic music that doesn’t skimp on the intellectual and socially critical element either.

Friday | 08.23
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Night 1: Noun, Lung, BleakHeart, Ex Everything and Cherry Spit
When: 6
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Every night of Ghost Canyon Fest features some of the best weird and experimental rock and not-rock bands/artists operating today. This night kicks off with post-hardcore, thorny shoegaze locals Cherry Spit. Ex Everything will provide scathing and thrilling critiques of the prevailing order of things with its angular noise rock. BleakHeart’s dark, epic dream pop will provide the paradoxical chill and vibrant emotional expressions for the night. Lung’s fusion of punk, blues and classical sensibilities delivered with its raw energy will be a good pairing to come on the stage before Noun closes the night as the vehicle for former Screaming Females frontwoman Marissa Paternoster’s solo songwriting. The project dates to before Screaming Females formed in 2005 and over the years the songwriter has released Noun albums including the gritty and entrancing dream pop of the 2021 album Peace Meter.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canyon Fest Matinee Show: Flaming Tongues Above, Lake Mary and Matt Talbot
When: 1
Where: Mutiny Information Cafe
Why: Flaming Tongues Above is the solo project of Amos Helvey who has been in various local bands over the years including American Culture, Destiny Bond and Angel Band. This is more a kind of cosmic bluegrass thing with exquisitely intricate musicianship. Lake Mary is the long-running project of Chaz Prymek whose compositions solo or with various collaborators is an embodiment of the spirit of improvisation and the pastoral sides of the American landscape and consciousness. Matt Talbot’s introspective, ambient slowcore minimalism is elegantly composed slices of tranquility in practice. Some may know him better as the lead singer and guitarist of Hum.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Ghost Canon Fest: Replica City, Stress Palace, Nightosphere, Ghostlike, Aseethe, Jaye Jayle, Wolf Eyes
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Replica City is an angular post-punk band from Denver whose atmospheric shimmer contains as much urgency and menace. Stress Palace is a noise rock band from Kansas City, the kind with caustic and desperate vocals and seething, suspended guitar when it’s not gouging the air alongside pummeling percussion. Nightosphere also from KC is a darkly slowcore project that some may be tempted to call dream pop but it’s a little too gloomy and noisy for that and more for fans of the likes of Flooding and Unwound’s more atmospheric moments. Ghostlike hails from Lincoln, Nebraska and its dense drifts of tone are in the region of shoegaze but more slow-moving like a post-metal band with unconventional melodies. Aseethe’s brooding, crushing doom metal sounds like colossal weather patterns struggling with each other until the vocals come in and then it’s like a possessed person for an effect akin to Neurosis gone more grindcore. Its 2024 album The Cost is brimming with the purge of negative emotions transformed into transcendent heaviness. Jaye Jayle is the solo project of Young Widows’ Evan Patterson who brings to this project a sensibility of mystical, experimental, tribal folk. Wolf Eyes is of course the legendary noise improv band from Detroit who have been prolifically exploring the possibilities of the use of sound since 1996. Now a duo of Nate Young and John Olson Wolf Eyes has always bucked the perception of noise being just harsh noise and mere chaos for the sake of putting off normies. There is an odd accessibility to the work of Wolf Eyes that is more like an unpretentious art that live has always been compelling and unlike anything much else even of previous performances and thus more in the vein of early Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Alvvays w/The Beths
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Something about Canadian pop band Alvvays has always set it apart from being just an indie pop band or shoegaze or psychedelic. Its melodies drift and warp in sometimes unpredictable directions off so that Alvvays consistently has a quality of unpredictability and inspired imperfection though its tone is coherent and entrancing. Out the gates with its self-titled debut the band started garnering a bit of a cult following for its emotionally rich vocals and layered, atmospheric guitar and poetic and sharply observed lyrics. The most recent Alvvays album Blue Rev proved that the quartet is as capable of captivating twee sounds as robust guitar rock and live something about the band seems to exude a kind of mystique most bands can’t muster.

Saturday | 08.24
What: Dad Bod w/Oruã and Totem Pocket
When: 5
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Dad Bod is a psychedelic pop band from Salt Lake City that seems steeped on folk rock of the 70s. Oruã is like if a great modern jazz band decided to start doing a garage rock version of krautrock and came off a little like a bedroom version of a psychedelic rock band from Texas but just a little weirder. Totem Pocket rides the line well between 2010’s psych rock and shoegaze.

Nina Nastasia, photo courtesy the artist

Sunday | 08.25
What: Ghost Canyon Fest: Animal Bite, Fainting Dreams, Bear Claw, Missouri Executive Order 44, Nina Nastasia and Young Widows
When: 6
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: The final night of Ghost Canyon Fest begins with a set from Casper, Wyoming’s mutant, heavy, psychedelic noise rock quartet Animal Bite. Fainting Dreams is now like the opposite image of its more dream pop beginnings, more thorny, more sonically pointed yet also moody and an intense release of tangled emotions. Bear Claw is a two bass and one drum set outfit from Chicago whose jagged and clipped dynamics range widely and akin to the likes of Mclusky and yet one gets the impression that at least one person in the band is into Failure. Missouri Executive Order 44 may or may not be based out of the Missouri side of Kansas City. But its post-hardcore, math-y riffs and mischievously surreal song titles suggest metalcore roots before the members discovered the Butthole Surfers.

Nina Nastasia is the critically acclaimed songwriter currently based in Seattle who grew up in Hollywood but moved to New York before making a name for herself as a gifted musical artist who worked throughout much of her career recording with Steve Albini. Due to years of abuse by her then partner, Nastasia left music in 2010 before returning to writing and releasing songs Her return to releasing music was the 2022 album Riderless Horse, an album or tender sounds and textures but whose subjects are a rich tapestry of the evocation of love, despair, loss, and finding moments of joy and humor in the great sprawl of life especially when you’ve been suppressing your creative gifts and now finding your vehicle of expression once again free of former limitations. The album charts the aftermath of the death of Nastasia’s former partner in 2020 and her own rediscovery of being able to write music with integrity after around a decade of finding herself unable to do so. It’s a record of rare beauty and deep personal insight that while bearing the hallmarks of going through periods of personal darkness ends up being an uplifting record and a declaration of self-empowerment. While writing and recording that record, Nastasia was simultaneously crafting the songs that would comprise the 2023 self-titled debut album by Jolie Laide, a duo with Nastasia and Jeff MacLeod. Both records have a noir quality in the nuance of emotional expression and entrancing moods that have a cinematic quality that one might compare favorably to Lana Del Rey and Cat Power.

Young Widows from Louisville, Kentucky formed following the dissolution of influential post-hardcore band Breather Resist. Young Widows’ own music was in a post-hardcore vein with roaring guitar sounds and crushing rhythms. But its musical ideas stretch out the sounds into unpredictable shapes a little more and its lyrics often depict the world as we know it, not inaccurately, as a place of great perils and challenges.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday | 08.26, 08.27 and 08.28
What: Khruangbin
When: 7 (each night)
Where: Mission Ballroom (08.26) and Red Rocks (08.27 and 08.28)
Why: Houston’s Khruangbin is a trio that may have absorbed the surf and garage psych influences that were shaping a good swath of rock music in the 2010s but all along the group also employed non-standard rhythms and elements of dub, funk and non-western musical forms into its sound. Its latest album A La Sala (2024) is more mellow than one might have expected and yet it’s perfectly in line with the energy Khruangbin has tapping into for years with the mood of a chill disco lounge in a retrofuturist cosmopolitan city near the beach.

Monday | 08.26
What: HIDE w/Mirrored Fatality, Bent and aeonexit
When: 7
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: HIDE is the industrial noise punk duo from Chicago that has been releasing some of the most pointed and cathartic music of the past several years critical of the worst aspects of our culture and civilization. Its live performances are confrontational and not for the faint of heart or the easily spooked. And just from the raw intensity of the the band especially vocalist Heather Gabel’s seeming embodiment of the collective outrage of the oppressed and of the abused world challenging the foundations of power. Bent is an industrial noise project from Colorado Springs with a similar aesthetic and ethos. Mirrored Fatality is a brilliant, darkwave industrial hyperpop duo that produces scathing yet danceable critiques of late capitalism and its corrosive effects on us all. And aeonexit has long been producing experimental electronic music in forms that are as cohesive as they are eclectic, as structured and as coherent as they are intuitive and amorphous. Its in the realm of noisy ambient but even at its most darkly menacing has a gentleness that renders the music inviting rather than forbidding.

Bikini Kill circa 1995-1996, photo by Lisa Darms

Tuesday | 08.27
What: Bikini Kill w/Sweeping Promises
When: 7
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Bikini Kill is the legendary feminist punk band originally from Olympia, Washington that in part inspired the riot grrrl movement and a branch of third wave feminism. The group was part of a community of like-minded artists of various types and not just musical and often lost in the projected hype is how Bikini Kill’s music while a vehicle for an important perspective was also thrilling and exciting with performances that helped show other women how you could be a member of a powerful band or something else cool and important and reclaim and own your power regardless of your role in life without having it be contingent upon what a man would have to say or the conventional social mores of mainstream society with its baked in misogyny. That was an important message and example to set even when the band split in 1998 but oddly just as relevant when the band reconvened in 2019 at a time when the then president’s influence on society seemed to expose deep currents of American racism, misogyny and xenophobia. Bikini Kill had to cancel its 2020 tour for obvious reasons but making up for it at a time that feels like yet another too soon cultural crossroads for the USA.

Thursday | 08.29
What: Lamb of God & Mastodon w/Kerry King and Malevolence
When: 7
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Lamb of God formed in 1994 and Mastodon in 2000 in Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia respectively. That was a time when metal other than Metallica and “nü metal” was largely relegated to the underground. But both groups evolved and built up a strong following that has all but broken into the mainstream. Lamb of God has generally written music in a groove metal vein but its 2022 album Omens leans into the harder-edged and at times sounds like its members have been influenced by crossover thrash with lyrics reflecting the state of the world seemingly on the edge of environmental collapse and the rise of global authoritarianism. The band has teased the release of a new album and you may hear some of the new material at this show. Mastodon tends to be more psychedelic and melodic in its sound with progressive rock structures and diversity in rhythms. Its own most recent album Hushed and Grim is like a anthology of haunted and spooky stories utilized to discuss personal struggle in a way accessible and more creative than something more straightforward. Kerry King is one of the former guitarists of Slayer who released his debut solo album From Hell I Rise in 2024.

Friday | 08.30
What: Alternative TentaclesFEST hosted by Jello Biafra: Tsunami Bomb, Kultur Shock, Wheelchair Sports Camp and Dead Pioneers
When: 6
Where: Levitt Pavilion
Why: Legendary record label Alternative Tentacles headed by former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra is having a festival in Colorado featuring various acts on the label. Tsunami Bomb from Petaluma, California is a pop punk band with keyboards so it’s sound is decidedly different from other bands in that vein. Seattle’s Kultur Shock is a self-styled gypsy punk band that sounds more like Grazhdanskaya Oborona and its eclectic and experimental leanings than Gogol Bordello. Wheelchair Sports Camp is the great hip-hop group from Denver with the charismatic Kalyn Heffernan as the MC and contributors who are most often musicians with serious jazz chops. Dead Pioneers is a heavily political punk band from Denver but with a wry sense of humor that keeps the music from feeling didactic.

Friday | 08.30
What: Daniel Rachel Appearance Promoting Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story
When: 6 (start time)
Where: Tattered Cover (Colfax)
Why: Acclaimed and prolific writer and journalist Daniel Rachel saw the 2024 US publication of his 2023 book Too Much Too Young: The 2Tone Records Story, a non-fiction history of the influential but relatively short lived record label that helped launch modern ska into international consciousness and the careers of the likes of founders The Specials as well as The Selecter, Madness, The Beat and others. It is part oral history and part narrative and a compelling read particularly since Rachel was able to interview or find quotes from almost all of the major figures in the history of that music and movement. This event will be hosted by Queen City Sounds and Art writer and editor Tom Murphy whose own work has appeared in publications such as Westword, The Onion A.V. Club, Dagger Zine, Birdy, Denverse and Tidal HIFI.

Daniel Rachel, photo courtesy the author

Friday | 08.30
What: X
When: 7
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Influential Los Angeles punk band X is doing one final tour in conjunction with the release of one final album so if you’ve ever wanted to see the pioneering poetry, punk and Americana band definitely make it to this show. They may swing back through before retiring the band but maybe not.

Friday | 08.30
What: Isadora Eden, Pill Joy and May Be Fern
When: 8
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Dark dream pop band Isadora Eden has a rare headlining show at the Hi-Dive ahead of taking some time off to work on its next record. Also on the bill are all non-male funk band May Be Fern and the excellent slacker pop shoegaze group Pill Joy.

Pleasure Prince, photo courtesy the artists

Saturday | 8.31
What: Pleasure Prince w/Sunstoney, DeEt ta Jain
When: 8
Where: The Skylark Lounge
Why: Pleasure Prince is releasing its new album General Pallor at this show. The project is the duo of Lilly Scott and William Duncan whose eclectic background and musical chops prior to this project has yielded a strong body of creative work that blurs the line between avant-garde electronic music and ambient, techno, hip-hop, jazz, downtempo and dream pop. The new record further reveals the band’s knack for innovative songwriting with hazy atmospheres layered with those more vivid. As vocalists both Scott and Duncan complement each other well in delivering thoughtful lyrics and a deep sense of tranquility. The songs from the new album is like a fusion of neo soul and krautrock-flavored chillwave and a welcome respite from living in interesting times.

Best Shows in Denver April 2022

What: Baroness
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Savannah, Georgia’s Baroness never got to tour behind its 2019 album Gold & Grey for the reasons most bands didn’t do a lot of touring in 2020 and a good chunk of 2021. But now the group with new guitarist Gina Gleason will get a chance to perform older favorites as well as material from the aforementioned album showcasing a seemingly different approach to songwriting different from the brash, bombastic and playful style of previous records. John Baizley’s vocals still soar with great expressive control but the music seems more tied in with the rhythms and beautiful minor chord progressions so that when the songs engage into expansive choruses they always seem to resolve in ways that feel like the group decided to push themselves to say something different and worthwhile with each song. It’s frankly their best album and it would be simply lazy and clumsy to merely refer to this era of Baroness as sludge metal.

Friday | 04.01
What: Brandon Wald (owner of Black Ring Ritual Records out of ND), Viator, Many Blessings, Maltreatment, Tripp Nasty and MPW
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: There aren’t too many noise shows or places to see noise in Denver these days meaning a form of music/sound art is hard to come by in the live setting where it is best experienced. But this show will include local stars like Many Blessings aka Ethan McCarthy of Primitive Man doing his harsh industrial noise project and Tripp Nasty whose body of work is so diverse and broad that some of it is in the realm of noise so who knows how that will manifest for this show so just best to go if you’re so inclined. Brandon Wald runs Black Ring Ritual Records, home to some of the more prime noise records and tapes of the last several years and his own noise is part power electronics, abstract industrial, harsh ambient and musique concrète.

Friday | 04.01
What: The Blue Rider w/Cleaner and Wes Watkins
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Psychedelic garage rock band The Blue Rider hasn’t been playing much in recent years since Mark Shusterman has been busy playing in Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. So catch the always surprisingly powerful and brain expanding show with Wes Watkins who has been involved in a variety of projects over the years like Wheel Chair Sports Camp and the aforementioned Night Sweats. But his own music betwixt jazz, R&B and funk is worthwhile in its own right.

Friday and Saturday | 04.01 and 04.02
What: The Goddamn Gallows & Scott H. Biram w/JD Pinkus
When: 8 p.m. both nights
Where: Larimer Lounge (04.01) and Swing Station (Laporte, CO on 04.02)
Why: The Goddamn Gallows sound like something you’d get if you mixed a scuzzy punk band, some murder ballad honky tonk and Black Sabbath. Scott H. Biram plays solo and while many men of his ethnic persuasion have abused the blues and country in ways largely boring and unforgiveable, Biram’s songwriting is so strong, diverse and sincere yet poetic he’ll make you forget those other guys that served as a blight in blues clubs for decades. JD Pinkus is indeed the bass player of Butthole Surfers and member of Honky. But this tour showcases his fragmented, haunted psychedelic country material. His 2021 album Fungus Shui is the peak of that aesthetic as crafted by Pinkus thus far.

Monday | 04.04
What: Spiritualized
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: With the 2022 album Everything Was Beautiful expected out on April 22, 2022, Jason Pierce finds yet another way to blend freaky, spooky yet warmly engaging folk with space rock in ways transporting and transcendent. The roller coaster dynamic of late 90s music has long since given way to lush orchestral builds that flow in unpredictable yet satisfying directions so that listening to the album gets your brain to go down a different path than previous records from Pierce. With any luck the live show will reflect this bright aspects of this album without losing the dark cool that has made the songwriter’s material so fascinating since his early days with Spacemen 3.

Tuesday | 04.05
What: SASAMI w/Jigsaw Youth
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Squeeze, the 2022 album from SASAMI, is definitely a departure from the songwriter’s 2019 self-titled debut. Whereas there was a deeply chill energy to the downtempo aspect of that album, there is a more distorted and visceral quality to Squeeze that seems like a mirror image of the wonderfully ethereal quality of that first record. This might seem like too wide a stylistic swing, Sasami Ashworth has had a very eclectic career playing in Cherry Glazerr and contributing to albums by artists as widely different as Vagabon and Wild Nothing. Ashworth explores metallic sounds and much more aggressive song dynamics this time around while pushing the boundaries of her knack for pop songcraft with songs that sound sometimes metal, sometimes industrial, sometimes grunge and all made accessible. Fans of the broad spectrum of St. Vincent’s catalog would appreciate what SASAMI has been doing the past few years and beyond.

Tuesday | 04.05
What: girl in red w/Holly Humberstone
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: girl in red is the performance moniker of Marie Ulven Ringheim whose guitar pop has garnered critical acclaim beyond her home country of Norway. Her 2021 debut album if i could make it go quiet found the songwriter expanding beyond the bedroom pop compositions and recordings that brought her to prominence and it charts her struggles with the various ways in which one’s mind can sabotage your life. In addressing these personal demons in such a direct, honest and relatable way with such luminously warm melodies Ringheim doesn’t insult herself or the listener by suggesting something as trite as it’s all going to work out. Her depictions of the head spaces in which you can get stuck seem so vivid and immediate that they seem like something you can overcome or at least survive and dare to want more for yourself and reach for it than you seem to think is possible when you’re in the depths of your own personal hell.

Tuesday | 04.05
What: Hiatus Kaiyote
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Melbourne, Australia’s Hiatus Kaiyote is refreshingly difficult to pin down without sounding like they’re trying too many things. Their unique style of soul and R&B is so idiosyncratic it sounds like the kind of band J. Dilla would have wanted to have started or at least produced because the avant-garde jazz flourishes in the songwriting almost sound like well-produced samples. Its 2021 album Mood Valient is the group’s most coherent offering to date and its organic and evolving rhythms so fresh and unusual it sounds like an improv session developed until the rhythms are tight but never stale.

Wednesday | 04.06
What: Charli XCX w/Baby Tate
When: 06:30 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: This show should probably be at a bigger venue but hey you get a chance to see Baby Tate before word gets out that her sex positive songs aren’t all production in the studio and in music videos. Sure, her mom is Dionne Farris who hopefully most people remember from her time in Arrested Development before branching out into a popular music career under her own name. But Baby Tate’s confidence isn’t just swagger, regardless of subject matter and word choice there is a deft and creative wordplay that syncs her words with the always imaginative beats with a fine ear for the use of bass that one doesn’t hear in enough hip-hop these days. Fans of Kari Faux should probably give Baby Tate a listen. And of course headlining is Charli XCX who is touring in support of her 2022 album Crash. Whether the record is the end of a chapter in the pop star’s career or hinting at a more experimental future direction, the singer sounds as confident as ever and the eclectic influences are on display so that beyond the typically strong vocals the driving bass of post-punk and the expert electronic dance music production allows for all elements to flow freely together in a way divergent from the hyperpop aesthetic of earlier offerings. Of all the pop songwriters in the mainstream, Charli XCX has long been one of the more consistently inventive and fascinating whose lyrics also hit as poignant and poetic.

Thursday | 04.07
What: CELE Presents: Chihei Hatakeyama w/Carl Ritger and Wind Tide
When: 7-11 p.m.
Where: 860 Vallejo St. (Denver)
Why: Chihei Katakeyama is an ambient/experimental electronic/drone artist from Tokyo, Japan whose work has found a home on Kranky but lately largely out of his own White Paddy Mountain imprint which showcases other artists that operate in similar realms of composition and sound design. Carl Ritger has been producing prepared environmental sound experiences under his own name and as Radere and a fixture of Denver’s ambient music scene for more than a decade. Wind Tide is presumably the musique concrète/ambient artist from Littlefield, Texas whose use of field recordings and processed noise captures the essence of the background sounds of civilization that often go ignored unless brought explicitly to your attention though not often as creatively as Wind Tide has done in an extensive Bandcamp catalog.

Thursday and Friday | 04.07 and 04.08
What: Jawbreaker w/Descendents, Face To Face and Samiam
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Between 1986 and its break-up in 1996, Jawbreaker helped to shape the aesthetics and sound of what became pop punk and emo during that time and going forward. With albums like 1994’s influential 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Dear You from 1995, which the group celebrates with this tour, Jawbreaker brought an existential self-examination to the lyrics and a creativity to the dynamics and textures of its songs that transcended the genres it helped to define. The trio has been back together since 2017 with a documentary about the band Don’t Break Down: A Film About Jawbreaker releasing that same year. Listening back to its old albums the fingerprints of that music is clearly evident on a large swath of punk-oriented music of the past 25 years. Also on this bill are pioneering pop punk band The Descendents whose own anthemic songs likely proved an inspiration for Jawbreaker and both Face to Face and Samiam also sharing the stage this night.

Sarah Shook & The Disamers, photo by Harvey Robinson

Saturday | 04.09
What: Sarah Shook & The Disarmers w/Lillian
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Sarah Shook could have had a perfectly fine and successful career sticking to the modern country sound of their excellent first two records Sidelong and Years. Shook’s expressive vocals and finely crafted songs have always been informed by a thoughtful sensitivity with some grit underlying the delivery. The new album, 2022’s Nightroamer, produced by Dwight Yoakam collaborator Peter Anderson, has touches of effects on Shook’s voice which might strike some longtime fans as odd but overall those sonic details and a more expansive quality to the sound in general on the album feels like it opened up the singer’s songwriting a bit and lends it a quality that sounds more full and the musical equivalent of a color photo versus a black and white. Both have their appeal but more hues in emotion are emphasized. Lillian is a Denver-based singer-songwriter whose luminous songs in an Americana vein are difficult to pigeonhole. Her new album Chasing Shadows will be released at a show at The Skylark Lounge Bobcat Club on April 21.

Hex Cassette at Hi-Dive 2021, photo by Tom Murphy

Saturday | 04.09
What: Lose Your Head II: Ponce (Swampy Erotic Punk Blues), Julian St. Nightmare (Goth Rock), Ray Diess (Goth Pop), Savant Tarde (Post Wave), Hex Cassette (SynthGoth For Satan), Painted City (Synth Pop)
When: 6:30 p.m.
Where: Jester’s Palace
Why: Lose Your Head is an event that highlights some of Denver’s better underground bands in a more dawkwave, post-punk and experimental pop vein. The genres listed above in parentheses work as a vague idea of what you’re in for. Julian St. Nightmare are a visceral yet atmospheric post-punk band. Hex Cassette is industrial darkwave pop with a confrontational and wildly energetic live show. Painted City is for sure synth pop but in that art rock sense one might have seen more in the early 80s but with a sensibility that speaks to having coming up post-Radiohead. Ray Diess is definitely “Goth Pop” but also with a theatrical live show that fans of classic EBM will appreciate.

Saturday | 04.09
What: Abandons, Brother Saturn, Equine and Denizens of the Deep
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: Brother Saturn will celebrate the release of his latest album Dreams of Sand at this show. As per usual, ethereal soundscapes that are both subtle and transporting and fans of the Hearts of Space program will find a lot to like with his material in general. Abandons is a heavier post-rock band. Denizens of the Deep also produces ambient/noise/modern classical music in a variety of modes but the latest album End Times is a good deal of distorted synth drone over mournful, melancholic compositions and moody piano. Equine is avant-garde prog informed by modal jazz and cosmic mathematics.

Saturday | 04.09
What: Fern Roberts, Vampire Squids From Hell and Mossgatherers
When: 8-11 p.m.
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Fern Roberts is a band that isn’t easy to classify and its latest album I’ll Do It Again Tomorrow occupies a musical space between late 80s Talk Talk, Animal Collective and Beach Fossils. Vampire Squids From Hell are an instrumental, psychedelic surf rock band.

Sunday | 04.10
What: Ministry w/Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: For this tour Ministry is mainly tapping into its songs from Psalm 69 and earlier and even playing”Supernaut” which leader Al Jourgensen covered for an EP by his side project 1000 Homo DJs. So maybe some other early material is in store for the rest of the tour as well. Corrosion of Conformity wasn’t explicitly a crossover band but one whose hardcore bridged the worlds of punk and thrash almost from the beginning. And of course Melvins are always a reliably entertaining live act that has pushed its own envelope since its early days in the 80s when it inspired a great swath of the grunge scene including guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osbourne teaching Kurt Cobain to play guitar and drummer Dale Crover having been a member of Nirvana for a time in the early days. The trio’s impact on modern rock music is often underrated but indelible. In 2021 Melvins released two albums, Working with God, a record more in line with its always compelling noise rock, and Five Legged Dog, an acoustic album. You never have to worry about a rote Melvins show so get there early and see one of the truly great bands of the last 40 years in a place that sounds as great as Mission Ballroom.

Monday | 04.11
What: Girl Talk w/Hugh Augustine
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Gregg Gillis as Girl Talk took the mashup to new levels in the 2000s as a DJ who, inspired by 90s IDM, alternative artists and noise, created surprisingly unique blends of sounds, rhythms and musical concepts. In 2022 Girl Talk released a collaborative album with Wiz Khalifa, Big K.R.I.T. And Smoke DZA called Full Court Press in which Gillis was able to use his production expertise to weave together the contributions of three hip-hop artists not short on personality and idiosyncratic styles. The album represents Gillis’ first full record since 2010’s All Day but also one of the higher points of an already interesting and genre bending career.

Bootblacks, photo by Katrin Albert Photography

Tuesday | 04.12
What: Bootblacks w/Plague Garden and DJ Kilgore
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Bootblacks started in New York City in 2010 around the early stage of the current wave of darkwave and post-punk. Its intricate rhythms and brooding atmospherics sync well with what feels like a visceral intensity, especially live, that brings an urgency and forcefulness to the music that is missing from the music of some later bands tapping into similar sources of inspiration. Bootblacks didn’t get to tour on its 2020 album Thin Skies for reasons with which we’re all too entirely familiar so this tour will find the band able to give the material its proper presentation. Fans of Chameleons will appreciate Bootblacks dusky take on dreamlike, observational nightlife anthems. Plague Garden is a similarly-minded post-punk band from Denver with roots in punk and EBM.

Anton Newcombe of Brian Jonestown Massacre, photo by Thomas Girard

Tuesday | 04.12
What: Brian Jonestown Massacre w/Mercury Rev
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Brian Jonestown Massacre and Mercury Rev started around the same time around the beginning of the 90s on opposite sides of the country. But both incorporated elements of folk, psychedelic rock and experimental soundscaping into their respective mix of sounds. BJM became an influential band in the American and international underground with a fiercely DIY spirit that went from making records to touring and promoting its music. Singer Anton Newcombe’s thoughtful and poetic lyrics and ever evolving songwriting injected the expansive and imaginative spirit of late 60s psychedelic rock and art rock into a the zeitgeist of the often anemic late-90s post-alternative rock musical landscape and culture with ample personality and unpredictable live shows, some going sideways, mostly striking a chord with disaffected creative people wherever the band toured. Since that time Newcombe has tried his hand at a variety of musical styles while maintaining a subversive and forward thinking creative vision channeled into prolific output. In late spring we can expect to see the release of the new BJM record Fire Doesn’t Grow On Trees and its the result of Newcombe’s active experiments in composition and production over the past few years in his Berlin studio. Of course live the group is reliably vital. Mercury Rev from upstate New York was started by former Flaming Lips guitarist Jonathan Donohue and with longtime guitarist Grasshopper, Mercury Rev too has been on a creative arc that has taken them to fascinating places from early, warped psychedelia and space rock to the deeply affecting dream pop of breakthrough album Deserter’s Songs (1998) and explorations of personal mythology and the ways our inner lives manifest in how we make sense of the world on every album since. Live, Mercury Rev is transcendent, inspirational and just the thing you need to fill up after a long time being hollowed out by the less fun aspects of life.

Tuesday | 04.12
What: Bill Frisell Trio
When: 6 p.m.
Where: MCA Denver’s Holiday Theater
Why: Bill Frisell is one of the great living jazz guitarists. From Baltimore, Frisell spent many of his formative years in Denver and Colorado as a graduate of East High School. Going to Berklee took him back to the east coast and he was a studio musician for the prestigious jazz label ECM and when he was living in Hoboken, New Jersey he became a fixture in the NYC jazz scene where he came to collaborate with multiple luminaries of the era including John Zorn, going on to become a member of Naked City, the wildly experimental jazz band. By the late 80s Frisell had relocated to Seattle and continued his already noteworthy solo career but also continuing to collaborate with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto and on film and television scores. Frisell maintains his connections to the Denver avant-garde and occasionally plays locally including this rare chance to see his trio at the MCA Denver’s Holiday Theater.

The Velveteers, photo by David Mermilliod

Friday | 04.15
What: The Velveteers w/Dry Ice and Rose Variety
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre
Why: The Velveteers released its most recent album Nightmare Daydream in 2021 and demonstrated a great leap forward in terms of songwriting for anyone that hadn’t been keeping up with the band in its live performances. Produced by Dan Auerbach of Black Keys fame, Nightmare Daydream is a blues rock record informed by imaginative songwriting with lyrics that reveal an astute assessment of relationships, the social scene around the world of music and the nuances of human psychology but channeled into bombastic songs that in the live setting have proven to be forceful and captivating. Anyone that saw the Gothic Theatre album release show got to witness a band in full command of its powers with a fiery performance that felt like you were getting to see a famous rock band on the verge of reaching a far wider audience. With upcoming dates with Rival Sons and Greta Van Fleet it’s likely the trio’s star will be rising so catch The Velveteers for a hometown show at The Fox Theatre before it breaks through to a mainstream audience.

Friday | 04.15
What: Mogwai w/Nina Nastasia
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Scottish post-rock band Mogwai has consistently delivered cinematic guitar music across the breadth of its career going back nearly three decades. But even at that its 2021 album As the Love Continues comes as a bit of a surprise as it includes even more evocative vocals in no way buried in the mix as well as those more processed and a finely nuanced soundscaping with electronic elements and rock instrumentation working in perfect sync to at times remind one of a Wendy Carlos composition (i.e. “Fuck Off Money”). There are no mediocre Mogwai albums but it is one that goes to wider vistas musical vistas than to which the band has traveled in some time.

Saturday | 04.16
What: Actors w/Scifidelic, Weathered Statues and DJ Sin
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Canadian post-punk band Actors have been crafting New Wave-inflected darkwave for around a decade now and its 2021 album Acts of Worship sounds like a dance club soundtrack from a forgotten, 1980’s transcendental science fiction movie. Like maybe if the club Tech Noir from The Terminator got its own movie after being re-opened in 2020. The album’s echoing guitar riffs, melodically brooding vocals, hazy synth lines accented with crystalline tones are reminiscent of early 80s Human League had the league fully incorporated guitars and taken some inspiration from Fad Gadget. And the warping, upbeat, melancholic melodies of songs like “Killing Time (Is Over)” is thoroughly captivating with its unconventional dynamics like something you’d hear on an early Brian Eno “solo” album.

Saturday | 04.16
What: Calm./Time w/Wilt to Live and Lucy Freedom at Mutiny Information Café 8 p.m.
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Calm./Time is one of the great hip-hop projects of Denver music with sharp, political lyrics infused with an incisive and playful sense of humor. With some of the most creative beats steeped in not only classic alternative hip-hop but experimental music and art pop, Calm. (comprised of rapper Time and producer Awareness) always seems to make high concept social commentary accessible and engaging.

Saturday | 04.16
What: Pile (Rick Maguire solo)
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective
Why: From the Facebook event page because I can’t do better: “While the band is known for its dynamic and bombastic live performances, Maguire recontextualizes the material by performing on his own, something he has continued to do throughout the project’s history. 2021 saw documentation of this aspect of Pile in Songs Known Together, Alone, a solo re-imagining of 15 songs across Pile’s catalog.”

Sunday | 04.17
What: Snail Mail w/Joy Again
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Lindsey Jordan seems to have packed more than a lifetime of heartbreak and pain into her 2021 Snail Mail album Valentine. The title track alone so vividly captures what it feels like to be in the worst throes of a bad breakup and is kind of an inverted Valentine expressing feelings of love and affection that have no direction because of the split and how that can churn inside you leaving you in agonized confusion. Which is a tricky feeling to get across. “Ben Franklin” is apparently about Jordan’s time in a rehab facility, a place for which there all sorts of reasons to end up in for a time, and in the music video for the song she moves about with an energetic playfulness the way many people do with words and actions until they’re ready to have the breakthroughs that are necessary to move on. But the whole record is a brilliantly poetic pop exploration of the various phases of being in some of life’s lowest places set to lush arrangements and inventive guitar compositions that are reminiscent of the more interesting late 90s emo bands that blurred genre lines like Rainer Maria and Milemarker except that Jordan’s sounds reflect the gentleness better suited to expressing wounded feelings and lingering hurt. And yet there is a sense that these songs helped Jordan to crawl through the most vivid memories of their inspirations.

Sunday | 04.17
What: ~~Radolescents w/The Haji, Noogy and Egoista~~ – canceled
When: 7 p.m.
Where: HQ
Why: Radolescents is Rikk Agnew and Casey Royer of the Adolescents along with original Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew’s son Frank Agnew Jr on vocals, Dan O’Donovan on guitar and Dan Colburn on bass performing the Adolescents’ 1981 self-titled record aka The Blue Album in its entirety. Rikk Agnew has been responsible for some of the most inventive and memorable guitar tones out of punk rock including his performance on the 1982 deathrock classic Only Theatre of Pain while a member of Christian Death. Live performance video out there for this lineup has been pretty solid so here’s a chance to see one of the most iconic bands out of punk of the last 40+ years.

Sunday | 04.17
What: mssv aka Main Steam Stop Valve (Mike Bagg, Stephen Hodges and Mike Watt)
When: 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: mssv has quite a pedigree including obvious master bass player Mike Watt of Minutemen, fIREHOSE and Stooges fame but also Stephen Hodges who played drums on Tom Waits records like Swordfishtrombones, Rain Dogs and Mule Variations. He also played on various soundtracks including those for Until the end of the World and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. No big deal. But with Mike Bagg whose own performance resume is respective for his work with distinguished jazz artists and avant-garde musicians like Nels Cline. Together they make what might be described as a mutant type of free jazz and surf rock.

Monday | 04.18
What: Sleep w/Superwolves (Matthew Sweeney and Bonnie Prince Billy)
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The right people are going to appreciate this strange folk and blues band Superwolves comprised of Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Chavez guitarist/singer Matthew Sweeney opening for psychedelic sludgerocks’s heaviest of the heavy, Sleep. Some people are going to be so put off and angry that will be amusing on its own. Too bad for those people though because two great bands on one bill with this stylistic swing should happen more often. Will Oldham (Bonnie “Prince” Billy) has influenced a generation of musician though his various bands over the years and his solo records as well for inventive and intricate guitar work and heartfelt, tender, poetic and witty lyrics and Sleep has perhaps more than any other single band outside of Black Sabbath spawned the doom metal genre as we know it but few have equaled their sonic grandeur and imaginative songwriting.

~~Monday and Tuesday | 04.18 and 04.19~~
What: ~~The Airborne Toxic Event w/Mondo Cozmo~~ — Rescheduled, date TBD
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Joshua Ostrander aka Mondo Cozmo made a name for himself as the frontman for Laguardia in the the first half of the 2000s and then for a decade as the lead singer for Eastern Conference Champions. But since 2015 he has been recording and performing under the Mondo Cozmo moniker and crafting heartfelt and genre eclectic music. His new album, 2022’s This Is For The Barbarians takes Ostrander deep into his roots in rebellious folk artists like Bob Dylan and his more experimental electronic interests at the same time. The album is like a Radiohead album but more informed by folk and more overtly pop but with the appropriately rough around the edges quality to suit the times that surrounded the process of writing the songs with Ostrander commenting on the highs and very low depths of the world in the past half decade and his insight into personal psychology and the American zeitgeist is as cathartic as it is inspirational. And yes, opening for Toxic Airborne Event whose own long career of luminously gritty alternative rock has garnered a bit of a cult following. Its 2020 album Hollywood Park, sharing the title with singer Mikel Jollett’s memoir of the same name from the same year, was unsurprisingly as literarily as musically as poignant album as any in the group’s career to date and certainly seemingly its most personal.

Tuesday | 04.19
What: IDLES w/Automatic
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: IDLES first came to the attention of a wider international audience with the 2017 release of its debut full length album Brutalism. Its exhilaratingly spirited live shows and the poetic intensity and social consciousness and deep self-examination reflected in the lyrics had an immediately appeal that seemed another high point in the then relatively recent resurgence of punk and post-punk that made that style of music seem relevant and exciting again. The 2018 second album Joy As An Act of Resistance in title alone sounded like a call to action for putting energy and will into the world around you that engages people in a positive and compassionate yet passionate manner. Since then 2020’s Ultra Mono took some knocks by various critics as a creative plateau if not a dip in the exciting potential of the band’s previous work but Crawler (2021) proved IDLES is not out of ideas and certainly not out of the incredible energy that is clearly behind its live performances. When IDLES performed at Larimer Lounge 2018 it was unlike most club shows of late with lead singer Joe Talbot ranging far into the crowd to break down the performer and audience barrier the way the songs often do, like they’re speaking directly from your life. Opener Automatic is a trio from Los Angeles whose own flavor of rhythm-and-synth-driven post-punk is reminiscent of early OMD. Its forthcoming and second album Excess releases on June 24, 2022 with retrofuturist music videos that compliment its aesthetic so well. In commenting on the song “New Beginning” the band references the Swedish science fiction film Aniara which is one of the better neo-dystopian films of recent years.

Tuesday | 04.19
What: Soft Kill w/Alien Boy, Topographies, Candy Apple and Destiny Bond
When: 7:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Soft Kill was one of the earliest of the current wave of darkwave/post-punk bands with a decent string of releases with its 2020 album Dead Kids R.I.P. City being its finest and a poignant commentary on the confluence of the growth of Portland, Oregon both organically and through the poisonously mutant manner that the tech industry and other moneyed interests have initiated globally and the ways in which underground music scenes and cultures have been all but washed out of larger and perceivedly hip cities. The music was a little predictable in that obviously influenced by The Cure and The Chameleons way early on but that latest record has some more inventive songwriting and what comes across as a sincere and tender, melancholic observational lament on people lost and a way of life for creative people and others involved in vital subcultures essentially made a thing of the past or at least a shadow of its former self. Alien Boy is also from Portland and its own melancholic blend of punk, emo and atmospheric guitar rock is imbued with its own melancholic spirit inspired by the struggle with the usual everyday stuff that can be a drag if you’re at all sensitive and thoughtful but also with a culture that in too many quarters is hostile to the very existence of certain sectors of society. Candy Apple from Denver perfectly combines spirited hardcore and Hüsker Dü and The Jesus And Mary Chain-esque noise rock. Destiny Bond also from Denver comes from a similar realm of music but one closer to emo but more aggressive in its expression of vulnerability.

Tuesday | 04.19
What: 10 Years w/Black Map and VRSTY
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Black Map is a post-hardcore band from San Francisco comprised of members of Far, Dredg and Trophy Fire. Though supporting alternative metal band 10 Years on this tour its 2022 album Melodoria is the kind of melodic heavy music that bends toward emo and definitely in your wheelhouse if you’re a fan of Circa Survive as its not on the screamo or pop punk end of post-hardcore.

Tuesday | 04.19
What: Jon Spencer & The HITmakers w/Quasi
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Jon Spencer has been giving us gloriously demented and exciting psychedelic blues and garage rock since at least his time in Pussy Galore. But with his new band he collides together all of the stuff you might expect with industrial music production and willingness to introduce non-musical sounds and concepts into the mix. The group’s new album Spencer Gets It Lit is like a retrofuturist science fiction movie as imagined through the lens of an unlikely Suicide and the Cramps team-up and then turned into wonderfully strange and sometimes unsettling songs, which has been Spencer’s modus operandi through various projects for decades. Anything to weird out the squares and honestly the world has been in desperate need for such creative gestures in increasing amounts over the last several years. On the record you can hear the synth and vocal stylings of Sam Coomes of opening band Quasi which is no experimental rock slouch project either with drummer Janet Weiss who in rock and roll right now has to be considered one of the top tier talents. Most people probably know her from her long stint in Sleater-Kinney but anyone lucky enough to have seen her with Quasi or Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks has seen a different facet of her considerable talent.

Letting Up Despite Great Faults, photo courtesy the artists

Wednesday | 04.20
What: Blushing, Letting Up Despite Great Faults, Old Soul Dies Young and Moodlighting
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: This is pretty much the shoegaze or shoegaze adjacent show of the year with Blushing touring in support of its new album Possessions. Its hazy and urgent melodies are enveloping and hypnotic. Letting Up Despite Great Faults also based in Austin weaves in a bit more twee pop stylings into its gorgeous soundscapes. Its own new album, IV, is back to back entrancing material about the more subtle sides of life and daily struggles and in “She Spins” one of the great melodic guitar progressions of the past two decades. Old Soul Dies Young from Denver mixes expansive guitar atmospheres with an almost black metal grit and lo-fi aesthetic seemingly inspired in part by anime and manga, or so its releases on the group’s Bandcamp suggests. Moodlighting like Letting Up Despite Great Faults puts the pop songcraft at the center of its own amalgam of indiepop and dream pop.

Wednesday | 04.20
What: Parquet Courts w/Tim Kinsella and Jenny Pulse
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: If you were to name the top ten post-punk bands now that are pushing that form of music forward with creativity and ambitious songwriting while putting out some of the most sharp critiques of modern politics and society, Parquet Courts would be near the top of that list. Its 2021 album Sympathy For Life has an almost mystical album art design and its songs combine the use of mythical storytelling with stories of the folly of human civilization, especially late stage capitalism, and our often flawed ways of coping in the face of a deeply uncertain future.

Friday | 04.22
What: Waxahatchee w/Madi Diaz
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Katie Crutchfield has been releasing deeply personal and insightful folk pop albums as Waxahatchee since her 2012 solo debut album American Weekend. Crutchfield’s gift for articulating existential uncertainty, personal devastation and yearning has imbued her recorded output with a underlying but always present spirit of compassion for self and others. Her 2021 album Saint Cloud expands her sound palette further with synths and programming serving as a backdrop, a context for songs that speak directly to a world of accelerating sources of anxiety and by grounding her songs in directly relatable experiences rather than contemplative theoreticals. The songs come off like a great country record informed by imaginative songwriting that pairs grit with poetic observations as ingredients in keeping present when so many things drive us to dissociate.

Friday | 04.22
What: Emerald Siam, Weathered Statues and We Are Not a Glum Lot
Where: Enigma Bazaar
Why: Emerald Siam has long been fusing a dark and melancholic sound with a brightness of spirit that rises through the psychological murk that can bog everyone down so easily these days. Its membership includes former members of bands like Twice Wilted, Tarmints, The Bedsit Infamy and Wild Call and its alchemical use of rhythm tied to dynamic rhythms plus frontman Kurt Ottaway’s passionate vocals is hard to beat. Weathered Statues is a post-punk band from Denver whose sound is rooted in the classics of that subgenre but there is something so upbeat and spirited about its sound and performance that associating the music with something gloomy seems inaccurate as its moody atmospherics have an expansive energy. We Are Not A Glum Lot all but suggests it’s going to be a an emo band of some kind and that wouldn’t be too far off the mark as its intricate guitar melodies and wiry rhythms have a leg in 2000s emo but also one in shoegaze and gritty post-punk. Think something like Sunny Day Real Estate mixed with Jawbox and you have some idea of what you’re in for.

Saturday | 04.23
What: Ho99o9 w/N8NOFACE
When: 7 p.m.
Where: The Marquis Theater
Why: Ho99o9 from Newark, NJ have somehow managed to completely fold together industrial music, hip-hop, hyperpop, hardcore and noise for one of the most immediately riveting sounds around. The live show is as visceral and as confrontational as you might imagine but also brimming with a sense of joy at shattering the conventions of established genre music-making.

Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs, photo by Chris Phelps

Saturday and Sunday | 04.23 and 04.24
What: Mike Campbell & The Dirty Knobs w/Sammy Brue
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre and Bluebird Theater
Why: Mike Campbell is indeed the influential guitarist who was once a member of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and a co-writer of many of the band’s hit songs across decades. This is his new band and they’re touring small venues in support of the band’s lively new album External Combustion. So go expecting an arena rock level show at these small theaters. Less polished than the Heartbreakers, this project from Campbell showcases the musician consistently cutting loose a little more than he has in his long and storied career.

Sunday and Monday | 04.24 and 04.25
What: PUP w/Sheer Mag, Pink Shift
When: 7 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre and Boulder Theater
Why: PUP is one great bands to have emerged out of the 2010s as purveyors of the kind of heartfelt pop punk that seemed to revitalize that style of music and bring to it a healthy sense of self-deprecation and introspection expressed in spirited, anthemic songs that feel less like refurbished angst and more like catharsis in camaraderie. Its new album The Unraveling of PUPTheBand has more than its fair share of tasty hooks but also of lyrics that vividly capture the frustrations of the average person trying to navigate the vicissitudes of life in the modern world seemingly on the brink of some kind of disaster. Sheer Mag is the punk band that sounds like it grew up listening to a ton of AC/DC and Slade but ended up discovering working class punk and decided not to see why those sounds and ideas should be separate. Its 2019 album A Distant Call has the visual aesthetics of a Judas Priest record but lyrics that were a sharp critique of plain old American greed and political corruption and the immediate and deleterious impacts on every aspect of life.

Particle Kid, photo by Randi Malkin Steinberger

Monday | 04.25
What: The Flaming Lips w/Particle Kid
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: The Flaming Lips will forever be to some people the scrappy weirdo band from Oklahoma that made strange, psychedelic music with vivid lyrics about life’s challenging and colorful moments before and after a brief flirtation with mainstream popularity in the mid-90s before circumstances within the band and a crisis of creativity sent the group back to the drawing boards. After the parking lot experiments in performance, the perhaps ill-considered yet brilliant Zaireeka released on four CDs meant to be played simultaneously for the full effect of the music and then deep diving into alternative methods of recording with its creative high point then thus far with 1999’s The Soft Bulletin. In the 2000s the band’s star ascended further than most people might have expected with its various stylistic experiments and becoming the kind of band that seemed to be playing every festival and embraced by fans of unusual rock music and jam band types. And then the Lips would put out some of its most daring and deeply introspective and insightful albums like 2013’s The Terror and American Head from 2020. If history seems correct for the Lips, this would be a tour to see. Opening the show is Particle Kid and his eclectic, countrified, psychedelic new record TIME CAPSULE includes collaborations with J Mascis and Willie Nelson. Which sounds like it could be a trainwreck but instead it’s an unusually touching set of contemplative, observational songs on American culture and our trying to make sense of it all. It is somehow both nostalgic and imbued with a paradoxically chill immediacy.

Monday | 04.25
What: Yumi Zouma w/Mini Trees
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Yumi Zouma from Christchurch, Canterbury, New Zealand have spent the last eight years or so crafting tender dream pop imbued with a buoyant energy tempered by hazy, introspective tones. It’s 2022 album Present Tense explores the nuances of love and romance in the current period with a poetic sensibility and music that flows with a smoothly cinematic quality lending each song feel like a short film with all the drama of the story coming together poignantly in under four minutes. Jazz-like structures and strings throughout the album renders it like a new take on chamber pop without any of the pretentiousness.

Monday | 04.25
What: Deftones w/Gojira and VOWWS
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Ball Arena
Why: Deftones are arguably the most influential of the newer style of metal band that came to prominence in the 1990s. The ability of the band to not just tap into a hybrid metal aesthetic but to weave in an always interesting and evolving atmospheric element that has been a part of its songwriting since early on. 2000’s White Pony was like a dream pop album written with the sound palette of a brooding metal group in search of a sound that better expressed the breadth and depth of emotions of its content with the tonal nuance to hit the ears with something more creative and interesting than the usual bludgeoning edginess of much of 90s metal. The combination gave the anger and pain in the album a raw accessibility than it might have had otherwise. The group’s 2020 album Ohms pushed the songwriting further into a more soundscape-y mode that had more in common with the likes of Failure and at times Swervedriver than metal. But that record came out in the middle of the first wave of the pandemic and of course the veteran band didn’t have a way to tour in support of what might be its finest set of songs until this run of shows with support from French death metal band Gojira and prominent darkwave duo VOWWS.

Tuesday | 04.26
What: Deserta w/Little Trips and Mon Cher
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Deserta is a Los Angeles-based shoegaze band whose songs sound like a more benevolent side of a Nicolas Winding Refn movie. The project’s new album Every Moment, Everything You Need has whispery vocals that fit right in with the languid builds and grainy melodies and insular mood. Its previous album 2020’s Black Aura My Sun was reminiscent of a more summery Slowdive if influenced by bedroom pop and the new record like a modern take on 80s New Wave but with sultry guitar atmospherics that trail off into the middle distance. Little Trips is a lo-fi dream pop outfit from Denver with a knack for subtle synth melodies that integrate well with chill beats and Mon Cher, also from the Mile High City, is a synth and piano-driven dream pop trio whose melancholic spaciousness is refreshingly not in some trendy mold of that style of music broadly speaking.

Tuesday | 04.26
What: Bloody Knives w/Twin Image and Juliet Mission
When: 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Austin’s Bloody Knives sound like what might be called an industrial shoegaze band with fairly strong electronic and electric musical components in its sound and seeming inspiration from 90s experimental electronic pop. Twin Image is the latest project from former Fell frontman and songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Josh Wambeke and this time it’s more like a shoegaze/slowcore hybrid which is roughly the lane in which Fell existed but Twin Image is even more introspective and somehow more brash. Juliet Mission includes former members of alternative rock/shoegaze band Sympathy F and this long-running project truly captures and expresses the dark, moody vibe of Denver from back when downtown at night was both a perilous and magical place, evoking the specific melancholic flavor that is one of the hallmarks of the city no matter how much shine Nü Denver projects try to gloss over the top.

Wednesday | 04.27
What: Knocked Loose w/Movements, Kublai Khan and Koyo
When: 6 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: While metalcore battered itself into self-parody as a movement sometime in the 2000s its leading lights and adjacent artists of note like Poison the Well, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge and others have endured as an influence on hardcore and heavy music for their ability to express a furious kind of outrage through cathartic live performances and having a more imaginative take on that hybrid musical style that can seem monolithic. Since the 2010s metalcore has experienced a kind of renaissance with Knocked Loose from Oldham County, Kentucky being one of the most prominent bands out of that new wave. In 2021 Knocked Loose released its latest EP A Tear In The Fabric of Life with an full animation of the EP by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Jonsson from a story by Knocked Loose frontman Bryan Garris. This time out the band seems to be drawing out its grindcore influence a bit while expanding its dynamic range.

Thursday | 04.28
What: MON O w/Bing & Ruth
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Japanese post-rock band MONO has been quite prolific in its 23 years of existence releasing creatively ambitious, mostly instrumental rock albums that speak more eloquently to emotions and ideas in a nuanced and eloquent way than many standard issue rock bands that spell out what they have to say more explicitly. This has mean the group’s music takes on rendering its meaning beyond specific cultural context. The music is rock but also extends to a modern version of classical music with elegant structure and formal composition tempered by an organic spontaneity. Live this quality translates perhaps most directly.

Vahco Before Horses circa 2018, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | 04.28
What: Vahco Before Horses, Polly Urethane, Pearls and Perils, Blank Human, Esu the Illest, Space Pirate, Morpgorp and Joohs Uhp
When: 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Vahco Before Horses is moving to the Netherlands soon and this is going to be his last show as a resident of Denver. The producer/singer/musician has run a local record label called Glasss and now Glass Melts which focused on more experimental music in the local underground and beyond. Vahco spent some time on both coasts in the music industry at various levels and brought some of that sensibility to his work in music in Denver. His own music is a surprisingly soulful form of electronic pop music with powerful vocals and vivid emotional portraits of life. Also on this bill is experimental downtempo artist Pearls and Perils, the weirdo techno of Blank Human, avant-garde mashup hip-hop hooligans Joohs Uhp, transcendent industrial pop soundscaper Polly Urethane, forward thinking rapper-producer Esu the Illest and others. Though kind of a farewell show to Vahco it’s also a fairly solid showcase of one important branch of left field underground music from the Mile High City.

Friday | 04.29
What: VR Sex w/Lunacy
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: VR Sex is the more punk alias of Andrew Clinco of Drab Majesty fame. This project is more gritty in tone, noisier and more brash. Adopting the performance moniker of Noel Skum (an irreverent anagram of Elon Musk which is pretty on point), Clinco’s songwriting for VR Sex is ordered around clashing dynamics that sound like the kinds of songs a futuristic biker gang might listen to when getting up to some crimes aimed at yet another attempt at authoritarian control of all things in an asymmetrical warfare approach to taking down the man. The new record Rough Dimension with its cover clearly a nod to The Blair Witch Project all too poignantly encapsulates in sound the static, urgency and chaos that we face every day but blasting it apart with buzz saw riffs and attitude. Lunacy from Pennsylvania recently released Echo In The Memory is a bracing, ghostly industrial post-punk record that sounds like life after humans per the History Channel series but for real—gorgeously stark soundscapes with firm rhythm lines and washes of ethereally caustic atmospheres.

Friday | 04.29
What: Big Thief w/Kara-Lis Coverdale
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Big Thief became so popular so quickly you might be excused for dismissing it out of hand as a buzz band of the moment. But its particular brand of indie folk rock strikes deep chords, comes off as deeply honest and personal and its use of space expertly rendered so that it feels like Adrianne Lenker is singing directly to you about your own life. Its 2022 album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You seems so developed and practiced yet also unvarnished and vulnerable. If there is a popular style of indie folk that has been plaguing playlists and the airwaves and watering down the impact of the music, Big Thief here is the opposite of that by embracing what might be considered flaws as simply an essential aspect of our analog humanity and the way we live and exist in a world where not everything is streamlined for easy consumption and the band takes many sonic chances on the record that many artists on a similar level of popularity would not and that makes what Big Thief is doing now seem incredibly refreshing.

Saturday | 04.30
What: Tempers w/Lesser Care, Julian St. Nightmare and Kill You Club DJs
When: 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Tempers from NYC has been developing its dusky darkwave synth pop for the last several years with albums that seem to draw on a hazy 80s post-punk aesthetic for inspiration but also rooted in modern techno. Its 2022 album New Meaning is arguably its most coherent effort yet with songs about coming to terms with living in a time of great uncertainty and needing to create meaning where it might be eroding in meaningful ways in various areas of life and in the world around you. The cover image of the staircase to nowhere that is a part of contemporary creepy pasta culture as manifested so powerfully in Butcher’s Block, the third season of prematurely canceled horror anthology series Channel Zero. As a symbol for the album it works too as an enigmatic image that requires us to imagine where we might make the staircase take us and the peril of not building something beyond the great unknown that seems to be paralyzing the psyches of so many and otherwise sowing insecurity and desperation in a social environment that wasn’t already short on such things.

Saturday | 04.30
What: LEAF w/Negativland and SUE-C
When: 7 p.m.
Where: The Arts Hub
Why: Lafayette Electronic Arts Festvial returns with a set from legendary performance art/avant-garde electronic/sound collage project Negativland and live cinema artist SUE-C collaborating on a performance that comments on the dystopian tech environment that is plaguing so much of life in the 21st century thus far.

Best Shows in Denver and Beyond 11/21/19 – 11/27/19

LisaPrank_Aug15_2016_TomMurphy — **Lisa Prank performs at Hi-Dive on November 24. Photo circa 2016 by Tom Murphy**

Thursday | November 21

WILDERADO_Grant — Wilderado, photo by Grant Spanier

What: Zeta (Venezuela), Clarion Void, Disposal Notice, Its Just Bugs
When: Thursday, 11.21, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Venezuelan band Zeta has been developing its experimental hardcore sound since 2003. It’s sound is a parts progressive rock and punk but in a way that’s expressive and moody while not sacrificing the intensity. Currently touring in support of its 2019 album Mochima.

What: Mt. Joy w/Wilderado and Adam Melchor
When: Thursday, 11.21, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Wilderado’s new single “Surefire” sounds wistful and nostalgic in a way that allows for words to develop into an introspective narrative that blooms into an expansive melody alongside the story. Reminiscent of the way The War On Drugs echoes some of the vibe of Bruce Springsteen’s reflective, diary-like lyrics, this offering from the band builds on the atmospheric experiments of its 2018 EP Favors with more electric instrumentation and a more immersive sound without compromising the group’s use of space as a canvass for its emotional colorings.

Friday | November 22

MarriedaDeadMan_ Ana_Irene_Valdes-Behrens2019 — Married a Dead Man, photo by Ana Irene Valdes-Behrens

What: Married a Dead Man w/False Report, Dead Characters
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Goosetown Tavern
Why: Denver’s Married a Dead Man is releasing its second album Awakening this night. The group’s sound might be described as somewhere between Xmal Deutschland’s wiry, urgent, dark atmospherics and modern pop melodies. The new set of songs, no doubt honed from live performances, are not just bandwagon new post-punk revival and darkwave. At times Megan Kelley’s performance and songwriting chops from her time as a solo artist infuse the songs with a warmth and coherence that gives the music a broader range than the genre of late can sometimes have with songs like “Burn” having a massive, expansive, dramatic dynamic that stretches the boundaries of what one might this band is capable of at first blush. Worth delving into beyond a casual listen.

What: Wildermiss w/Slow Caves
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Wildermiss is a Denver-based indie rock band that is probably on the verge of much wider circles than simply relatively successful local band status. Its new EP In My Mind captures the spirit of our time now of great contrasts of emotional states and expectations, a mixture of fear and hopefulness that most people are experiencing due to the state of the planet, politics, culture and economics. We stand on the precipice of disaster and promise of a better future if we do not lack the will to make it happen. In My Mind expresses that tension well across its length.

What: Briffaut, Down Time and Inaiah Lujan
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Briffaut’s new album A Maritime Odyssey: Heaven is Only a Boat Race Away is a nice capsule of this band’s idiosyncratic songwriting. Fans of both King Krule and Deerhunter will find something to love about the band’s lush and unpredictable song structures and raw, emotional swells of tone and a disregard for whether a song or style or performance fits in with some established aesthetic outside its own. Too much music in the indie world is boringly predictable. Not just the indie world. Imitators of milquetoast artists and already successful formulas are rife in music now as at all times since popular music has been a thing. Thankfully Briffaut and its willingness to embrace its own weirdness has been intact since the beginning and gloriously so on the new album of imaginative soundscapes, completely unconventional songwriting and the ability to utterly transport us outside our usual frames of musical reference.

What: King Diamond w/Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats and Idle Hands
When: Friday, 11.22, 6 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium

What: Faim, Tuck Knee, Gack
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café

What: Atomga w/Dandu, Spellbinder and DJ Yahru
When: Friday, 11.22, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

What: False Cathedrals, Gila Teen, How to Think and Wolf Larva
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: Glitter City

What: Sour Boy, Bitter Girl and Dirty Shrines
When: Friday, 11.22, 8 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge

What: Broncho w/Hot Flash Heat Wave and Rinse & Repeat
When: Friday, 11.22, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Saturday | November 23

BloodIncantation1_Nov30_2018_TomMurphy — Blood Incantation, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Blood Incantation w/Vermin Womb, Dreadnought and Superstition
When: Saturday, 11.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Blood Incantation recently released its new album Hidden History of the Human Race. The Denver-based death metal band is a big of an enigma in that it has been slowly building a cult following for years and playing few local shows. But its songs, especially live, come across as larger than life, psychedelic although imbued with the technical precision of the best death metal, and as oddly accessible as the genre has ever been. The record is a science fiction concept album but one that has a cover designed by Bruce Pennington who did cover art for A Canticle For Leibowitz and the Dune books after the initial novel. Plus the guy did the iconic cover for Gene Wolfe’s landmark science fiction fantasy book The Shadow of the Torturer. Fine stuff for an album that is a thrilling reminder that death metal can still be fun and not a forbidding drag.

What: Black Star Gang ft. Yasiin Bey, Talib Kweli, DJ Premier w/Brother Ali, Evidence and The ReMINDers
When: Saturday, 11.23, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Mission Ballroom
Why: Black Star is a hip hop duo comprised of Talib Kweli and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), two of the sharpest critics of American culture and innovators in the genre themselves. The project only has one album up to now, 1998’s Mos Def & Talib Kweli Are Black Star, but rumor has it they have another in the works produced by Madlib. So if you’ve caught the recent live performances maybe you’ve heard some of the new material and it seems likely it’ll be on display for this show.

What: Lusine w/JUSCHILL and HU
When: Saturday, 11.23, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

What: Broncho w/Hot Flash Heat Wave and Rinse & Repeat
When: Saturday, 11.23, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: Matt Rouch & The Noise Upstairs, Chella & The Charm, The Maykit
When: Saturday, 11.23, 7:30 p.m.
Where: The Skylark Lounge

Sunday | November 24

TheShift_Jan15_2015_TomMurphy — The Shift circa 2015, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Lisa Prank w/The Tangles (fka The Tickles) and Horse Girl
When: Sunday, 11.24, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Lisa Prank has established refined and thoughtful emo pop songs as a national artist since starting the project in Denver several years back. Her new record Perfect Love Song is a a little fuzzier, more confident but just as wise and as insightful.

What: Shibui Denver #8: Dead Orchids and The Shift
When: Sunday, 11.24, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: For this edition of Shibui Denver we will have two bands that don’t get nearly the attention they deserve. The Shift is an improvisational, experimental progressive rock band and includes Esmé Patterson and former Bad Weather California bassist Jeremy Averitt. Dead Orchids’ dark, brooding songs are a vital mix of post-punk and Americana but without the trendy habits that often mar bands trying their hand at either.

What: Vérité and YaSi
When: Sunday, 11.24, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: Kris Kristofferson & The Strangers
When: Sunday, 11.24, 5 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre

What: Neyla Pekarek’s Rattlesnake w/Chris Fleming, Bluebook and The Newfangled Four
When: Sunday, 11.24, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: Goon w/Whiskey Autumn and We Are Not a Glum Lot
When: Sunday, 11.24, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair

Monday | November 25

Midwife_May22_2017_TomMurphy_web — Midwife, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Midwife w/Hogwaller
When: Monday, 11.25, 7 p.m.
Where: Forest Room 5
Why: Midwife is an ambient folk artist of the highest order who was recently tapped to perform at The Flenser showcase at the Roadburn Festival in 2020 with her debut album on that record label later in the year. See her at these small rooms while you still can.

Tuesday | November 26

HIDE_Aug13_2016_TomMurphy — HIDE circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

What: HIDE w/Echo Beds, Church Fire and Cau5er
When: Tuesday, 11.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Confrontational, performance art-oriented industrial band HIDE is the urban dystopian futurist ritual catharsis we need now to burn off the darkness of the modern world. Its new album Hell is Here is a searing, discordant exorcism of the demons that plague the body politic.

What: B. Dolan w/Wheelchair Sports Camp
When: Tuesday, 11.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

Wednesday | November 27

THE HU --PC-E.Altankhuyag — The Hu, photo by Altankhuyag

What: Pigface w/eHpH, DJ N810, DJ Mudwulf
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Pigface is the long-standing industrial supergroup with roots going back to the 80s with members of Ministry, KMFDM and other industrial luminaries. EhpH is a Denver-based duo whose mix of EBM and industrial rock is actually compelling and cathartic and doesn’t come off like its members’ musical imagination got stuck in the early 2000s.

What: Shark Dreams w/Nuancer, The Milk Blossoms and GhostPulse
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Best local dream pop line-up in more than a minute with some of Denver’s best. Shark Dreams is more the kind of drifty indie pop with a leg in glittery, slowcore dynamic. Nuancer is as informed by experimental electronic music as pop. The Milk Blossoms are a hip-hop trio disguised as a heartfelt, hyper sincere, experimental indie pop group with a sense of humor and humanity. GhostPulse weaves together downtempo beats, unconventional instrumentation and luminously cloudy atmospherics.

What: The Hu w/Crown Land
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 6 p.m.
Where: The Black Sheep
Why: The Hu is a rock band from Mongolia that performs with traditional instruments, uses throat singing and yet its songs are an exquisite hybrid of Mongolian folk music and heavy metal. Could be corny but it is not, it is powerful, stirring stuff. Fans of Laibach will enjoy the sound of this band even though the styles are so different. Around since 2016 The Hu recently released its debut album The Gereg on Eleven Seven Records.

What: Neon Indian w/Lou Rebecca
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

What: Emma Mayes & The Hip w/Los Mocochetes and Ghost Tapes
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: Flaural w/Oko Tygra, Wet Nights and DJ Lexie
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

What: An Evening of Never Kenezzard 2 sets
When: Wednesday, 11.27, 9 p.m.
Where: The Squire Lounge

Best Shows in Denver 9/26/19 – 10/2/19

Cellista performs at Mercury Café on Friday, September 27, 2019

Thursday | September 26

Pink Turns Blue circa 2016, photo by Daniela Vorndran

What: Pink Turns Blue w/Radio Scarlet and DJ Katastrophy
When: Thursday, 09.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Herman’s Hideaway
Why: Pink Turns Blue formed in Berlin in 1985. Its dark, moody atmospherics and driving bass lines meant its sound very much resonated with the post-punk of the day as it included synths in the mix and guitar chords that rang out and gave the songwriting an introspective quality. Fans of Chameleons and The Sound will probably much to like about Pink Turns Blue’s melancholic urgency and Mic Jogwer’s desperate yet resigned vocals. The group toured with Laibach in 1987 band recorded subsequent albums in Ljubljana, Slovenia smuggling in studio equipment from the West to do so. When the group moved to London in 1991 it lost some of its momentum and split in 1995. But since 2003 Pink Turns Blue has been active once again ahead of the revival and rebirth of darkwave that has been going on for the past decade. Also on the bill is Radio Scarlet, a Denver-based death rock band.

What: Toro Y Moi wChannel Tres (DJ set)
When: Thursday, 09.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre

What: Animal / object, Arc Sol and Joohsup
When: Thursday, 09.26, 9 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Animal / object is Denver’s premier avant-garde improvisational band utilizing unconventional instrumentation. Arc Sol is proof you can be influenced by progressive rock, psychdelia and Silver Jews and refreshingly sound like none of that while bearing their mark. Joohsup is a left field hip-hop noise duo.

Friday | September 27

Bellhoss, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Cellista’s Transfigurations w/Sean Renner
When: Friday, 09.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Mercury Café
Why: Mulimedia artist Cellista recently released an album called Transfigurations with a companion book, A Listener’s Guide to Cellista’s Transfigurations, that gives the ambitious work some context. The album explores those moments in life and in one’s personal and maybe creative development when you are struck and forced to consider the moment and evolve taking in that transformational input. With the processed samples of authoritarian voices speaking to that effect is both chilling and a reminder of those times when we could have stepped in to take a different path but haven’t yet. The album seems arranged as piece of politically-charged, avant-garde literature with an elegantly composed soundtrack that deconstructs and re-synthesizes classical music, pop, hip-hop and sound design. For the live performances of Transfigurations Cellista will incorporate dance, film, music and literature for an experience like little else going on this week or any other in Denver.

What: Babymetal w/Avatar
When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: Babymetal is a Japanese “kawaii metal” band whose relentless death metal is overlaid with J-pop-esque vocals and melodies. And the stage shows just like something out of a big time production of a Japanese pop band on one of the massive Saturday marathon variety shows, choreographed dance moves and matching outfits. Gimmicky, to be sure, but weird enough to be enjoyable.

What: Dodie w/Adam Melchor
When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Dodie Clark is an English singer-songwriter whose spare melodies and breathy vocals give the space for her sharply observant and poetic lyrics to develop and create vivid images in your mind of a situation and feeling, a real slice of the experience of that moment. Her 2019 album Human expands the sonic palette some while also imbuing Clark’s voice with more clarity and impact.

What: Adrian Belew w/Saul Zonana
When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Boulder Theater
Why: Adrian Belew is the brilliant and inventive guitarist whose solo albums are worth exploring for this imaginative songwriting. But some may remember him for his time playing in King Crimson, as a live member of Talking Heads, in Tin Machine with David Bowie or even on William Shatner’s 2004 album Has Been.

What: Mile High Comedy Festival Presents Maria Bamford w/Aparna Nancherla and Jackie Kashian
When: Friday, 09.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Paramount Theatre
Why: The Bammer is the genius, socially critical surrealist of the current era.

What: Bellhoss tour kickoff w/Short Shorts, Mainland Break and Claire Heywood
When: Friday, 09.27, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Bellhoss is taking off for a tour of the American West and launching that with this show including some of Denver’s most interesting indie rock bands in Short Shorts and Mainland Break. Bellhoss’ Becky Hostetler nails the anxiety and hope of modern life on her tender and earnest pop songs.

Saturday | September 28

Dodie, photo by Kyle Jones

What: John Densmore
When: Saturday, 09.28, 2 p.m.
Where: Boulder Book Store
Why: Doors drummer John Densmore will be signing copies of his 2010 book Doors Unhinged.

What: Dodie w/Adam Melchor
When: Saturday, 09.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre

What: Adrian Belew w/Saul Zonana
When: Saturday, 09.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater

Mike Watt and The Missing Men circa 2011, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Mike Watt & The Missingmen w/Slim Cessna
When: Saturday, 09.28, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair
Why: Mike Watt is indeed the bassist singer who was a part of Minutemen and fIREHOSE and who has been playing bass in the Stooges of late. This trio includes Tom Watson who was a member of jangle-y post-punk band Slovenly and Raul Morales who also plays with Watt in Mike Watt and the Secondmen. This project combines Watson’s textured, melodic guitar style with Watt’s angular, jazz-inflected, wiry and urgent rhythms. Watt being one of the most animated and talented bass players in all of punk and rock and a sharp social critic is always worth checking out. He’s still jamming econo and the band’s tours and booking are still well within the realm of DIY in the old school and modern sense.

What: Sway Wild w/Megan Rose Ellsworth
When: Saturday, 09.28, 7 p.m.
Where: The Walnut Room
Why: What saves Sway Wild from being the kind of “Indie” radio darling band that is the stuff of too many would-be tastemaker playlists crafted by those with fairly conventional and safe taste in music is not just Mandy Fer’s warm vocals and her and Dave McGraw’s dynamic songwriting. It’s that making up its charming melodies and playful performances is imaginative and creative instrumentation that displays their technical prowess as players channeled into zesty, tightly crafted pop songs. Currently the trio, which includes Thom Lord, is on tour in support of its self-titled, full-length debut.

Sunday | September 29

Rowboat, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Shibui Denver #6: Total Trash and Rowboat
When: Sunday, 09.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: This latest edition of Shibui Denver showcases Total Trash and Rowboat. The former is a psychedelic noise pop group whose members have played with the likes of Fingers of the Sun, Fissure Mystic, Quantum Creep, Lil Slugger, The Pseudo Dates and other bands that mean little if you’ve not been paying attention to the Denver underground of the past ten years. But it also means some of the more creative musical talents in the realm of local rock music have come together to make something different from what they’ve done before. Rowboat combines literary yet deeply emotional and heartfelt lyrics with haunting atmospheres and melodies in songs that plumb the depths of human existence and the things that give meaning to our lives.

What: Mike Watt & The Missingmen w/Slim Cessna
When: Sunday, 09.29, 9 p.m.
Where: Lion’s Lair

Tuesday | October 1

Periphery, photo courtesy the artists

What: Periphery w/Veil of Maya and Covet
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 6 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Progressive metal band Periphery sounds more like a post-hardcore band than simply metal. And probably because the attack of its songs is fairly angular and driving in a way that sounds more like it comes out of a similar place of primal energy. Although there’s plenty of precision and technical prowess on display in its songs with many songs in drop C on the six-string, the group’s songs often sound like they’re about to fly off the rails. Sometimes bands with those types of sounds and dynamics take themselves way too seriously but Periphery’s 2019 album is called Periphery IV: Hail Stan. There is a song called “Chvrch Bvrner” and references to the supernatural and animals. So someone in the band, probably everyone involved, has a healthy sense of humor and an ability to see its music in a way that evolves organically than the sort of pure logic level that is often assumed with the genre.

What: Plague Vendor w/No Parents and The Ghoulies
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Plague Vendor came off as a fairly straightforward melodic punk band early on. But at this point, and particularly on its new album By Night, the band from Whittier, California has evolved its sound into something more akin to glammy post-punk without sacrificing its fiery energy.

What: An Evening With Paula Cole
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Buffalo Rose
Why: Paula Cole made her popular music bonafides as an act on Peter Gabriel’s Secret World Live tour from 1993-1994. Her musical background includes having studied jazz singing at Berklee College of Music and in her dusky, soulful vocals you hear that training put to good use. In 1996 her second album This Fire yielded the hit single “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” and like anything popular it got played ad infinitum making it easy to dismiss Cole like any other pop act put forth by the music industry as it tried to find hitmakers in the collapse of the alternative music explosion of the early 90s. But Cole, turns out, has always been a strikingly powerful performer and her performances for the final Lilith Fair tour in 1998 undoubtedly won her fans who had written her off previously. Currently Cole is performing a string of intimate shows in support of her 2019 record Revolution.

What: Ghosts of Glaciers album release w/In the Company of Serpents and Echo Beds
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver-based progressive metal/post-rock trio Ghosts of Glaciers returns with its new album The Greatest Burden released through Translation Loss Records. More than even previous releases, the group conceives of this arc of songs in cosmological time from the primordial oceans that spawned life (the opening track titled “Primordial Waters” through the inevitability of the decay and collapse of the eons long cycle of life and the fall into the chaos that will once again spawn new worlds and universes. The music charts that path with slow, dynamic arcs that dive into furious, churning progressions and sublime, swimming melodies. To celebrate the release of this new record the band will share the stage with local doom juggernauts In the Company of Serpents who have some of the most compelling and powerful art in the local scene and industrial post-punk legends Echo Beds.

What: The Waterboys
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Waterboys came out of Edinburgh, Scotland with a blend of Celtic folk and post-punk and made inroads into the world of 80s “college rock.” While not as dark and overtly political as an arguably like-minded band like New Model Army, The Waterboys extolled the virtues of a universal mysticism based in nature and how that connects everyone. Fans of The Hothouse Flowers and The Alarm will definitely find much to like about The Waterboys who are now touring in support of their 2019 album Where the Action Is.

What: Prissy Whip, Moon Pussy, New Standards Men
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Prissy Whip is an eruptive industrial noise rock band with the emphasis on noise and breakneck dynamics. Who to compare them to other than maybe Melt Banana? New Standards Men is the kind of weirdo experimental metal band you get when the people in the band are into way more music than what you might think listening to what they’re doing. Probably into Naked City as much as the Locust and Neurosis. Moon Pussy combines gnarly song dynamics with a thorny tunefulness that is impossible to ignore making it one of the most interesting bands out of Denver right now.

What: Titus Andronicus w/Control Top
When: Tuesday, 10.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

Wednesday | October 2

Kishi Bashi, photo by Max Ritter

What: Weird Wednesday: After the Carnival, Cop Circles, Enji w/Cabal Art
When: Wednesday, 10.02, 9 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: No Wave disco artist Cop Circles will bring plenty of the weird this time around for this edition of the monthly showcase of unusual and outside music curated by Claudia Woodman.

What: Wheelchair Sports Camp w/Dry Ice and Rocket Dust
When: Wednesday, 10.02, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Wheelchair Sports Camp is a brilliant combination of jazz chops in the live end of the music and experimental beatmaking and playful, conscious wordplay on the production and MC end. And a powerful and compelling live band to boot. This is the group’s launch show for its upcoming tour.

Loving, photo by Harold Hejazi

What: Loving
When: Wednesday, 10.02, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Victoria, British Columbia’s Loving turns the sort of introspective, light psychedelic pop sound on a different angle because its music really does sound like the band is going to take you on a trip to some otherworld realm of elegance where time and space are interactive concepts driven by your imagination so better brush up on your creative skills before sitting down to one of the band’s trippy folk records.

What: Kishi Bashi w/Takénobu
When: Wednesday, 10.02, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

What: The Pharcyde w/Ladygang (Weds) and Wes Watkins (Thurs)
When: Wednesday, 10.02 and Thursday 10.03, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox

Best Shows in Denver 8/29/19 – 9/4/19

Phonebooks_Nov20_2010_TomMurphy — Phonebooks (Colin Ward and Stephan Herrera L-R) circa 2010 at Rhinoceropolis. CRFW Benefit at Rhinoceropolis on August 29, photo by Tom Murphy

Thursday | August 29

CopCircles_Jul20_2013_TomMurphy — Cop Circles circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

What: DJ Fresh Kill, Earth Control Pill, Cop Circles and H-Lite
When: Thursday, 08.29, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: This is a benefit show for the CRFW Fund which supports the body of work of the late Colin Ward and which “assists artists via grants and other means of support.” Ward would have turned 29 on this August 29 and the artists on the bill were friends and creative comrades of the artist and musician. A lot of high energy electronic dance music from DJ Fresh Kill and H-Lite, conceptual No Wave afrobeat post-disco from Cop Circles and the chill soundscaping of Earth Control Pill.

What: The Sugar Hill Gang w/Furious 5 and White Fudge & The Antagonist
When: Thursday, 08.29, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: For a lot of people The Sugar Hill Gang was the first rap band. But hip-hop pre-dated that by some years beginning with the soundsystem parties thrown by DJ Kool Herc. The Sugar Hill Gang was probably the earliest, commercially successful rap group with its 1979 hit song “Rapper’s Delight.” Also on this bill is the Furious 5 who, with Grandmaster Flash, had been a pioneering hip-hop crew before The Sugar Hill Gang hit the charts. So this is a bit like getting to see some of the earliest days of hip-hop as we know it in one show.

Friday | August 30

PawPaw_Apr10_2013_TomMurphy — Paw Paw circa 2013, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Meek, Future Scars, Kali Krone, Madelyn Burns
When: Friday, 08.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Rhinoceropolis
Why: Meek mixes live drums with 31G and-esque processed vocals and electronic beats for a result that’s somewhere between noise and industrial. But really not like much except for maybe, maybe, solo USAISAMONSTER minus guitar. Santa Fe’s Future Scars is pretty much impossible to pigeonhole except to say it’s a rock or a pop band but it has the cutting, hard hitting guitar drive of metal, the delicacy and texture of the most tender indie rock, the soaring vocals of some torch song pop and post-punk rhythmic drive. And that’s for one song. Other times, meditative, heavy drone with introspective melodies like Emma Ruth Rundle. Kali Krone’s dreamy slowcore seems about perfect for the swelter cool off. Madelyn Burns’ spooky singer-songwriter should appeal to fans of early Grouper.

What: Mutual Benefit w/Paw Paw and Card Catalog
When: Friday, 08.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Mutual Benefit’s moody, soundscape-y pop songs are like getting a glimpse into someone’s having processed some deep thinking and distilled it to the poetic essence of those collective feelings. Loosely in the realm of Americana but with some great sound collage in the songwriting. Paw Paw is the project of former Woodsman drummer Eston Lathrop. Sort of ambient, sort of organic electronic pop, experimental solo guitar and synth songs to transport you to another, better place for a half an hour or so.

What: Nuancer LP release w/SSIIGGHH, Dr3aMC@$T, Larians and Andy AI
When: Friday, 08.30, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Daniel DiMarchi is the genius bass player in the great dream pop band Tyto Alba and great indie rock band Oxeye Daisy. But part of what makes him a great bass player is his true ear for tonality and composition which he brings to his experimental electronic pop project Nuancer and this is the release show of I Hardly Know Her. Also on the bill is a rare show from Larians, the solo project of former Male Blonding guitarist/singer Noah Simons. Though a guitarist, Simons has long had an interest in left field and forward thinking electronic music like Burial and Larians is the manifestation of that interest. And tonight Larians releases the first EP Looming Boy. If Nicolas Jaar made trap it might sound something like that.

What: I Hate It Here, Causer, $addy, Eraserhead Fuckers and Kid Mask
When: Friday, 08.30, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms Gallery
Why: The noise/heavy processed dance ambient/industrial show of the week. Granted the only one but heavy hitters like noise rapper Eraserhead Fuckers, hypnogogic environment sculptor Kid Mask and post-Goth ambient noise genius $addy alone make this a noteworthy lineup.

Saturday | August 31

TheVelveteers_VOSSLING — The Velveteers, photo by VOSSLING

What: The Velveteers UK tour kickoff w/Boot Gun, The Kinky Fingers and Bitter Suns
When: Saturday, 08.31, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: The Velveteers is a rock and roll trio from Denver whose live show is surprisingly powerful, forceful and grippingly emotional. The group is headed to the UK for a tour and this is the kickoff show with some of Denver’s other great, local, non-subgenre-specific rock bands including The Kinky Fingers who may be in the garage psych vein but its songwriting so tight and poignant it’s strikingly original.

What: To Be Astronauts, Meet the Giant, The Center and Bad Britton
When: Saturday, 08.31, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Hard rock band To Be Astronauts is relasing its “Thoughts and Prayers” single tonight. Hard rock is a little generic a term. So yeah, in their sound you’ll hear a bit of industrial rock, grunge and anthemic punk without being stuck on any of that. And other like-minded bands are on the bill including Meet the Giant who, despite their ethereal and moody atmospheric rock gets heavy and driving often enough that they’ll fit in here.

Sunday | September 1

MollyBurch_DaileyToliver1_web — Molly Burch, photo by Dailey Toliver

What: Molly Burch w/Jackie Cohen and Bellhoss
When: Sunday, 09.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall
Why: Molly Burch has the kind of classic pop voice that many try to imitate but few nail the cadence and tonality that she seems to do so effortlessly. Her songs are intricate and delicate but her poetic observations sharp and illuminating. Jackie Cohen taps into an earlier era of music but her sound is more like a strange strain out of ABBA and 60s girl groups. Bellhoss is in good company here with Becky Hostetler’s idiosyncratic storytelling and inventive guitar work somewhere betwixt Dinosaur Jr, Edith Frost and Joanna Newsom. Yeah, let’s go with that until a better description of this unique songwriter and performer comes to mind. Hostetler will also make all the charmingly awkward jokes on stage so you don’t have to.

What: The Wes Watkins (EP release) w/Dr3@m Ca$t and Snubluck
When: Sunday, 09.01, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Wes Watkins is the brilliant trumpet player and vocalist whose talents have brought grace, cool and imagination to a broad swath of Denver music including his stint in Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. But The Other Black, playing with poet, mystic, avant-garde hip-hop songwriter Bianca Mikahn, Wheelchair Sports Camp and others? His track record speaks for itself and tonight he’s releasing his new EP, a collection of jazz-inflected pop songs that seem to be streaming from a time in the future while sounding like it had to be recorded in the past putting Watkins out of time thus timeless, as seems appropriate for his soulful musical stylings.

Tuesday | September 3

ShonenKnife_Oct16_2014_TomMurphy — Shonen Knife circa 2014, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Shonen Knife w/Me Like Bees and Sexy Pistils
When: Tuesday, 09.03, 7 p.m.
Where: The Oriental Theater
Why: Shonen Knife is the legendary Japanese punk bands whose roots go back to the late 70s when not many women were playing music in Japan much less in a punk band. Its songs are often about fanciful and mythical things but its songwriting is sharp, powerful and uplifting.

What: Holy Grove (PDX), DØNE (SLC, ex-SubRosa), and Shepherd
When: Tuesday, 09.03, 8 p.m.
Where: Tooey’s Off Colfax
Why: A kind of doom metal show including the latest project from former SubRosa drummer Andy Patterson, DØNE.

What: Ian Svenonius DJ set / Dream Wish of a Casino Soul Closing Party
When: Tuesday, 09.03, 8 p.m.
Where: Pon Pon
Why: Philosopher, brilliant social commentator, media mogul and genius frontman (The Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses, Weird War, Chain and the Gang etc.) Ian Svenonius will hold court with one of his unique DJ sets for the closing party for the art exhibit Dream Wish of a Casino Soul.

Wednesday | September 4

Sunn_May2_2016_TomMurphy — SunnO))) circa 2016, photo by Tom Murphy

What: SunnO))) w/David Pajo and BIG BRAVE
When: Wednesday, 09.04, 7 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: SunnO))) creates such intense, dense frequencies and slow dynamics with, assuming Atilla Csihar will be on hand, otherworldly vocals that run a broad spectrum of tonality that your brain may work differently after the show. Calling it “extreme metal” just doesn’t cut it as it’s a truly ritualistic experience and so engulfing you feel like you’ve really been through something by the end. David Pajo is the iconic guitarist of Slint, The For Carnation and a host of other bands including a short stint in the death metal group Dead Child. His solo material runs a fairly wide range of sounds and emotions and as Papa M he recently toured with Mogwai. Not to be missed. BIG BRAVE is a cathartic collision of industrial, drone metal and emotional exorcism.

What: Weird Wednesday: Gothsta, Dorian, Hypnotic Turtle Radio DJ, Cabal Art
When: Wednesday, 09.04, 9 p.m.
Where: Bowman’s Vinyl and Lounge
Why: Weird Wednesday is the monthly musical showcase that lives up to its name and curated by Claudia Woodman. This time she will be performing in her persona of Gothsta and for this performance she says, “Gothsta covers goth songs on the melodica that have some link to climate change-related themes, because Gothsta is depressed about global warming. Gothsta will have some extra special content that has to do with the Amazon burning and will be joined by Hypnotic Turtle’s Diablo Montalban for dueling melodicas/improv along with noise loops generated for this performance.” It’s rare that anything lives up to hype like that but this show probably will.

Best Shows in Denver 04/25/19 – 05/01/19

Interpol_Matador — Interpol headlines Red Rocks on May 1.image courtesy Matador Records website

Thursday | April 25

Starjammer5_SquiddsMadden — Starjammer, photo courtesy Squidds Madden

Who: Starjammer featuring Kuf Knotz
When: Thursday, 04.25, 4 p.m. – ?
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Starjammer, the avant-garde dub reggae one-man/device band, will be playing two sets tonight in phases like a rocket launch. The Launch Pad Prep runs from 4-7 and the Late Night Lift Off starts at 9 and runs until the musical equivalent of escape velocity is reached. Or at least until you have to leave whether you want to or not.

Who: Bowshock and El Tigr3
When: Thursday, 04.25, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: This week’s Speakeasy Series presented by Glasss Records includes Bowshock, the experimental improv psych jazz reggae band.

Who: Stop Motion EP release w/Ramakhandra, Fresh Fruit!
When: Thursday, 04.25, 7
Where: Lost Lake

Friday | April 26

Yawpers_Live_2018_by_Michael_Passman_0 — The Yawpers circa 2018, photo by Michael Passman

Who: The Yawpers release of Human Question w/In the Whale and Fast Eddie
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: The Yawpers have been writing solid, rough around the edges, southern fried punk rock and roll for years. While earlier releases honestly cataloged singer Nate Cook’s headlong dive into desperation and self-destruction, Human Question, with the image of an immolating figure walking out of the fields into the forest on the cover, is more introspective and taking into consideration a subject as the title suggests—what is the purpose and significance of living in the world as a creature fully capable of being self-aware, reflective and capable of extremes of behavior and of consciously choosing a path other than the most immediate and obvious. The record is a collection of rockers but, especially with the single “Carry Me,” The Yawpers prove that they are capable of more than rocking and that even at the root of that is a raw and nuanced cauldron of emotion and now more an ability to write from a place beyond primal urges with a finely tuned discernment as articulated with fiery displays of musical and poetic catharsis.

Who: Superorganism w/Simpson
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Gothic Theatre
Why: Originating in London, Superorganism is an international, multi-ethnic indie pop band whose members met through various internet channels and mutual friends. Its sound might be described as electronic music pitched to sound like something made using unorthodox, highly tactile instruments. In some ways the group’s 2018 self-titled debut is reminiscent of Kala-period M.I.A. with its fusion of styles and sounds and strong visual element to its performances.

What: PRF BBQ Day 1
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Black Sky Brewery
Why: This is a three day music festival featuring some of the better Denver underground bands. On this night you can catch Dead Characters, New Standards Men, Modern Goon and Clutch Plague.

Who: Lotus
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Certainly Lotus’ fan base is largely comprised of those with a love of all things jam band. And Lotus’ free flowing groove and sprawling improvisations fit in that pocket as well. But there’s something more experimental to the band’s music slightly beneath the surface. Its 2018 album Frames Per Second showcases this well with unusual jazz structures and dynamics, moody bass lines, vocal processing, playful and colorful synth work. Like the inevitable musical offspring of Steely Dan and Jean-Michel Jarre, Lotus sounds like a band with chops playing fairly straightforward yet intricate grooves but there is a layer of subversiveness to keep it interesting beyond technical flourishes.

Who: Murs w/DJ Eps, Locksmith, Cojo and AstroGrizz
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side

Who: Cactus Blossoms w/Jack Klatt
When: Friday, 04.26, 8 p.m.
Where: Globe Hall

What: Outrun presents Final Wave
When: Friday, 04.26, 7 p.m.
Where: Hyperspace Arcade

Saturday | April 27

MoonPussy_Jan25_2019_TomMurphy — Moon Pussy, photo by Tom Murphy

What: Lotus w/Ghostland Observatory, Jade Cicada and Magic Beans
When: Saturday, 04.27, 5 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: If Lotus wasn’t responsible for this line-up directly, someone somewhere put together a great bill of bands who share a similar sensibility in adventurous electronic music suited to a large stage format.
What: DMX w/DJ Chonz
When: Saturday, 04.27, 7 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall

What: Weird Touch
When: Saturday, 04.27, 9 p.m.
Where: Syntax Physic Opera
Why: It’s one of many hip DJ nights probably more focused on indie releases than average that we’re fortunate to have in Denver.

What: The North Ensemble
When: Saturday, 04.27, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Trident
Why: An avant-garde improvisational show in the back room/outdoors area in the back of Trident. Boulder likes to act like it’s weird but stuff like this is the rare occasion when it is in a productive way.

What: PRF BBQ Day 2
When: Saturday, 04.27, 4:30 p.m.
Where: The Bakery
Why: Simulators will rip your face off with their angular noise rock and when Moon Pussy finishes the process with its cybernetic psychedelic post-punk you will be glad you went unless you’re into safe, boring music. The other bands are probably worth it too. Schedule below.

430 – 500 – Simulators
515 – 545 – The Oxford Coma
600 – 630 – Moon Pussy
645 – 715 – Laurium
Food break
815 – 845 – Conan Neutron and the Secret Friends
9 – 930 – Hooper
945 – 1015 Sewingneedle
1030 – Future Scars

Sunday | April 28

LaDispute_PoonehGhana — La Dispute, photo by Pooneh Ghana

Who: La Dispute w/Gouge Away and Slow Mass
When: Sunday, 04.28, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Summit Music Hall
Why: Maybe it’s because Jordan Dreyer was a writer before ever making music. Maybe it’s because La Dispute’s take on post-hardcore and emo isn’t tied to the usual sounds and progressions. Sure you can hear bits of the influence of At The Drive-In and Refused but on another level the band’s music sounds like a heavier Bright Eyes or even Slint—that sense of desolation and desperation. Also on this bill/tour are two other bands within the realm of punk that are a bit different yet share some of the same sensibilities with Gouge Away, a band that combines an atmospheric heaviness with eruptive energy and an unexpectedly forceful frontperson in Christina Michelle. Slow Mass is one of the better bands out there that has fused emotionally taut math rock with fluid post-hardcore.

What: Shibui Denver #2 – Victoria Lundy and Blank Human
When: Sunday, 04.28, 7 p.m.
Where: Mutiny Information Café
Why: Denver avant-garde veteran Victoria Lundy may play some of her classical material on Theremin or some of her spookier faire with the same as well as synth. Blank Human is a drone/ambient project from Dan Coleman also of Luxury Hearse.

What: PRF BBQ Day 3
When: Sunday, 04.28, 4 p.m.
Where: The Bakery
Why: Final evening of PRF BBQ including a performance from glam/psych post-punk stars Teacup Gorilla.

400 – 430 – Flowlines
445 – 515 – 50 Miles of Elbow Room
530 – 600 – Little Beards
615 – 645 – Falsetto Boy
Food break
745 -815 – Church Van
830 – 900 – Teacup Gorilla
915 – 945 – Purple Honey
1000 – The Gary

What: Sabroso Taco Fest: The Offspring, Bad Religion, The Vandals, Black Flag, Strung Out, Dwarves
When: Sunday, 04.28, 12 p.m.
Where: Fiddler’s Green
Why: Kind of a craft beer and taco event with some of the more well-known names in punk. One of the few chances to see Greg Ginn perform with the new version of Black Flag. No matter one’s opinion on that matter, Ginn is always startlingly impressive with the material.

Monday | April 29

BeachFossils_EvanTetreault1 — Beach Fossils, photo by Evan Tetreault

Who: Beach Fossils w/George Clanton
When: Monday, 04.29, 7 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Beach Fossils is from Brooklyn but capture a more West Coast breeziness in its melancholic surf pop confections. Unlike artists mining similar territory, Beach Fossils’ songwriting in its emotional colorings. That Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell contributed to the group’s 2017 album Somersault gives the direction Beach Fossils have been going some cachet by lending some of her low key yet evocatively powerful vocals to the record. George Clanton brings his lush, IDM-esque, deeply atmospheric electronic pop along for this leg of the tour as well.

Tuesday | April 30

Bayonne_JackieLeeYoung — Bayonne, photo by Jackie Lee Young

Who: Bayonne and Palm Daze
When: Tuesday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Roger Sellers as Bayonne uses minimalist layers of texture-as-percussion and simple melodies to craft atmospheric pop that recalls late 2000s chillwave and its capacity to seemingly dispel anxiety and angst. His latest record, 2019’s Drastic Measures, should be on anyone’s short list for summer listening and to save for the winter months when it seems like warmer times are a distant memory.

What: Ambigere (WA), Causer, Paranoid Preacher and Emotional Calcification
When: Tuesday, 04.30, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Thought//Forms
Why: The noise show for the week.

What: Sage Francis & B. Dolan: Epic Beard Men and Vockah Redu and Wheelchair Sports Camp
When: Tuesday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Other Side
Why: Sage Francis and B. Dolan, two giants alternative hip-hop and superb lyricists, are touring in their collaborative alternate personas Epic Beard Men. The masterful phrasing won’t be in short supply tonight with Denver’s Wheelchair Sports Camp and its jazz and beats rooted offerings.

What: Santigold w/Naeem
When: Tuesday, 04.30, 7 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium

What: The 1975, Pale Waves and No Rome — canceled
When: Tuesday, 04.30, 6 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks

Wednesday | May 1

Processed with VSCO with a6 preset — Lil Pump, photo by Gabe Shaddow

Who: Interpol w/Car Seat Headrest, Japanese Breakfast and Sunflower Bean
When: Wednesday, 05.01, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Red Rocks
Why: Interpol could just tour on the strength of its fan base and pick some weird music industry management openers (and maybe that is part of this booking) but instead the post-punk stars are having three of the best indie rock bands opening the show. Between Car Seat Headrest’s lo-fi, emotionally raw math rock, Sunflower Bean’s driving, brooding post-punk and Japanese Breakfast’s highly imaginative and powerful guitar rock soundscaping the opening sets alone are worth the price of admission but then you get to see Interpol whose back catalog has held up better than that of many of its peers from the late 90s and early 2000s.

What: Lil Pump w/Lil Skies
When: Wednesday, 05.01, 6 p.m.
Where: Fillmore Auditorium
Why: Lil Pump turned 18 last August so expecting wisdom and thoughtfulness even on his 2019 album Haverd Dropout might be a bit much. He’s got a long way to go before his mumble trap is in the same league as Migos or his raps and performance in the same realm as Vince Staples or anyone in the A$AP crew or Odd Future. But it’s obvious he’s borrowed a lot from all of them. Nevertheless, Lil Pump is likeable enough despite his deficits and as he grows as an artist and as a human hopefully he’ll grow in more interesting and original directions so that the implicit faith that collaborators like Kanye West, Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz put in his sophomore album. It’s clear Pump is a weirdo so with any luck he’ll embrace that side of himself and give us a third album on which he truly lets his freak flag fly.

What: Weird Wednesday: Orbiting Olympia, Elk Minister, Tears to Light
When: Wednesday, 05.01, 9 p.m.
Where: 3 Kings Tavern
Why: Weird Wednesday this month features Orbiting Olympia which is a grand alchemy of Eve Orenstein’s opera training and Sean Faling’s mastery of synthesizers both analog and otherwise. Elk Minister is a multi-instrumentalist, self-styled mystic and songwriter who has been sitting on his material for years. His visual presentation on his social media accounts look like he’s come back from some junkyard holy site with the appropriate twenty-third century raiment.

Lizzo_LukeGilford — Lizzo, photo by Luke Gilford

What: Lizzo w/Tayla Parx
When: Wednesday, 05.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Ogden Theatre
Why: The show is sold out but if you can get in you can catch rising hip-hop/pop star Lizzo before she starts playing much larger venues (like her October date in Denver at the Fillmore) from now on. Her 2019 album Cuz I Love You has the kind of frisson that sounds, at times and certainly the “Juice” single, like something that might have come out of a late 70s-period Studio 54 playlist. Except not dated. And across the record Lizzo shows off her chops as a vocalist of great emotional power and a songwriter with a keen ear for dynamics. Fans of Prince are well-advised to give Lizzo’s new album a deep listen because it’s worth it.

What: Ben Kweller w/Mainman and Modern Love Child
When: Wednesday, 05.01, 7 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake

Best Shows in Denver 4/11/19 – 4/17/19

EarlSweatshirt_Steven Traylor — **Earl Sweatshirt at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom on April 11, photo by Steven Traylor**

Thursday | April 11

BrotherSaturn_Feb25_2018_TomMurphy — Brother Saturn, photo by Tom Murphy

Who: Earl Sweatshirt & Friends w/Bbymutha and Liv.e
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom
Why: Earl Sweatshirt released his first mixtape, Kitchen Cutlery, under the name Sly Tendencies in 2008 when he was just fourteen years old. Within a year he was contacted by Tyler, the Creator, who was a fan and changed his performance/musical moniker to what it is now. Born Thebe Neruda Kgositsile, the son of an American law professor and a South African poet and political activist, Sweatshirt has created some of the most sonically inventive and thought-provoking hip-hop of the past decade. He got a bump up early on due to his association and work with Odd Future but his solo albums from 2013’s Doris onward revealed an artist in touch with and non-judgmental toward the deeper regions of his psyche and whose imagination and musical instincts have never been narrowed down to how ideas and sounds fit into established channels of expression. The 2015 album I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside lives up to the suggestion of the title and probably won’t be played at many parties. But it’s a record that dives deep with an uncompromising search for something real and something that can cut through the haze of our world overstimulated by blandness broadcasted as exciting. 2018’s Some Rap Songs has brighter atmospheres but the words manage to plumb personal darkness further. The production, though, is reminiscent of Black Moth Super Rainbow in its sampling of sounds and music in a highly refined collage of feelings and imagery that fizz and fade out in perfect orchestration with the complimentary layers of rhythm and poetry.

Who: Life After Earth and Brother Saturn
When: Thursday, 04.11, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Hooked On Colfax
Why: Guess this edition of the Speakeasy Series hosted by Glasss Records could be called An Evening With Drew Miller. Life After Earth is Miller’s darker electro ambient project while Brother Saturn’s gorgeously gauzy, guitar-driven, ambient post-rock is decidedly brighter and more uplifting.

Who: Slow Magic w/Covex
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8:30 p.m.
Where: Fox Theatre

Who: Dead Characters, Obtuse, Bernie & The Wolf Rita Rita, Fragile Fires
When: Thursday, 04.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Seventh Circle Music Collective

Who: Great Falls w/False Cathedrals, Muscle Beach, Fathers
When: Thursday, 04.11, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive

Who: Blacc Rabbit w/Shark Dreams and Jeff Cormack
When: Thursday, 04.11, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge

Friday | April 12

lusine_sarah_m_686x320 — Lusine, photo by Sarah M

What: Double-Ply Translucent Caterpillar #5
When: Friday, 04.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox
Why: The free jazz improv prog fusion all-star extravaganza is back (sans the late, great, Ikey Owens who was a regular back in the day) but rather than at DIY space Unit E, at Ophelia’s. Includes members of Rubedo, Holophrase, déCollage, Wheelchair Sports Camp, Kendrick Lamar’s band and The Other Black.

Who: Lusine w/Milky.wav and Snubluck
When: Friday, 04.12, 8 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Jeff McIlwain has produced a consistently interesting, evolving body of work as Lusine for twenty years. Combining samples that contain elements of physical sound (chains, chimes, bells, other objects truck for textural qualities) into his beats and soundscaping, McIlwain’s songs truly transport the listener to a place that is both unknown and yet ineffably tangible.

Who: Memorybell, Sine Mountain, Mosh
When: Friday, 04.12, 9 p.m.
Where: Tandem Bar
Why: With Memorybell, Grant Outerbridge is able to use his mastery of piano beyond his classical training to craft evocative, minimalist compositions that suggest an intimate familiarity with doubt, unease and the overwhelming demands of modern life and how to untangle that with songs that transcend such contexts by subtly coaxing you lateral thinking and feeling.

Saturday | April 13

JaneSiberry-courtesyArtist — Jane Siberry, photo courtesy the artist

Who: DBUK and Norman Westberg w/George Cessna
When: Saturday, 04.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Denver Broncos UK is basically the alter ego of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club but one that is moodier, less upbeat and post-punk in the sense as, say, Shriekback, Crime and the City Solution and New Model Army, all of whom incorporated elements of folk, a sense of brooding introspection and a broad array of musical ideas to tell stories that many of their contemporaries weren’t. In 2019 DBUK released Songs Nine Through Sixteen, the follow up to its fantastic 2015 album titled, what else, Songs One Through Eight. For this show the band is joined by Slim’s talented son and experimental singer-songwriter George Cessna as well as Norman Westberg, the legendary SWANS guitarist whose solo output while not sprawling is always worth a listen and where he is able to demonstrate his interest in crafting unique atmospheres with guitar, banjo and drum machine. It might be described as ambient but the kind one might have to compare to the likes of Marisa Anderson or Helen Money.

Who: Get Your Ears Swoll 5: Meet the Giant, Gata Negra, The Jinjas
When: Saturday, 04.13, 7:30 p.m.
Where: People’s Building
Why: Everyone should get to experience Meet the Giant’s powerfully evocative dream pop. Maybe “pop” isn’t the word for it as its music borders on hard rock but informed by the aesthetics of electronic music and post-punk. And the raw emotional honesty of Mic Naranjo’s vocals transcends genre. Gata Negra is probably an anomaly now in Denver in that its blues-tinged music would have been considered alternative rock in the early 90s because it’s using that musical vocabulary in offbeat ways that allow for nuanced and poetic expressions of inner space.

Who: Jane Siberry w/Antonio Lopez
When: Saturday, 04.13, 7 p.m.
Where: Swallow Hill/Quinlan Cafe
Why: Jane Siberry is a Toronto-based singer-songwriter whose prolific career should be more well-known in America outside college radio in the 80s and 90s. Her lilting and melodious vocals and use of space and dynamics give her sometimes minimal elements an unconventional versatility and inventiveness. She has worked with Michael Brook, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel. Her song “It Can’t Rain All the Time” was featured prominently in the film The Crow and other songs have been part of the soundtracks of the Wim Wenders films Until the End of the World and Faraway, So Close. Though typically conceptual in nature, both musically and in terms of her subject matter, Siberry’s songs are accessible and relatable in a way music that is more obviously experimental isn’t.

Who: Shana Cleveland (La Luz guitarist/singer) w/Down Time and Ryan Wong
When: Saturday, 04.13, 8 p.m.
Where: Lost Lake
Why: Shana Cleveland’s sparkling and lush guitar work in La Luz is one of the reasons that band has never been stuck in some kind of throwback surf guitar thing. That and her introspective vocals that imbue her songs with an enviable mystique in modern music. Her debut solo album, 2019’s Worm Moon, is more ethereal than the music of La Luz but has the same entrancingly dusky quality that band exudes. Worm Moon may be more stripped down than what we’re used to hearing from Cleveland but it feels like we’re hearing her plumbing another layer of emotional depth in an already respectable musical career to date.

Who: Street Tombs (Santa Fe), Zygrot, Blood Loss and Secticide
When: Saturday, 04.13, 6 p.m.
Where: Chain Reaction Records
Why: It’s record store day and Chain Reaction Records, in Lakewood, is worth the trip particularly to get to see some of the best local and regional hardcore bands.

Sunday | April 14

Swervedriver_SteveGullick — Swervedriver, photo by Steve Gullick

Who: Swervedriver and Failure w/No Win
When: Sunday, 04.14, 6 p.m.
Where: Oriental Theater
Why: Before the word “alternative” was a clumsily and ubiquitously applied term for a broad swath of music that emerged out into mass public consciousness in the early 90s, a generation of bands inspired in part by underground music were already embodying music that seemed like a paradigm shift into something different from what was then most “commercially viable.” Swervedriver rumbled to life in Oxford, England in 1989 when sole original member and vocalist/guitarist Adam Franklin and some friends laid down the roots of the band based on songs Franklin had written after his former band Shake Appeal (a nod to the influence of the Stooges) disbanded. Perhaps the right place at the right time, the nascent Swervedriver knew Mark Gardner of Ride, also from Oxford, who gave their demo to Creation Records head Alan McGee who signed the group. Creation would become all but synonymous with “shoegaze.”

All the bands on Creation, pretty much, were sonically massive and shared similar influences but unlike brilliant, ethereal soundcapers Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver had more traditionally hard rock underpinning to the songwriting and its sound seemed more gritty and distorted like some of its American counterparts in the USA who were already poised to turn the music industry on its head while cultural commentators and journalists struggled with an overarching term for that phenomenon. Swervedriver didn’t become a household name like Nirvana or Pearl Jam but its records have remained revered and influential. The group split in 1998 but reunited in 2008 and has since released two noteworthy records since in 2015 with I Wasn’t Born to Lose You and 2019’s Future Ruins. Like former labelmates Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine, Swervedriver wasn’t inclined to release a record that wasn’t worthy of its legacy.

Failure_PriscillaCScott — Failure, photo by Priscilla C Scott

In Los Angeles, Failure formed a year after Swervedriver in 1990 at the peak of the popularity of glam metal. Drummer Kellii Scott had grown up a fan of Rush and Iron Maiden and had been an avid live music fan in Los Angeles’ diverse musical world including taking in the sorts of shows at Gazzari’s and The Troubadour as one might have seen in Penelope Spheeris’ 1988 documentary The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. But Scott’s eclectic musical tastes meant he was open to whatever seemed interesting or exciting. He was once the drummer of alternative funk band Liquid Jesus whose cover of “Stand” by Sly & The Family Stone appeared on the soundtrack to the 1990 film Pump Up the Volume and through that band and other projects Scott established himself as a talented drummer in town. He was alerted to auditions for a little known group called Failure which was in the process of recording what would be its 1994 album Magnified. When he heard the demos future bandmates Ken Andrews and Greg Edwards had recorded and was immediately struck by the songwriting and how fresh and different its approach to making the music seemed that he wanted to be part of the band.

Failure’s 1992 debut Comfort as well as early Sunny Day Real Estate songs seem obvious influences on midwest emo and post-hardcore by mixing strong melodies with noisy, urgent songwriting and nuanced emotional colorings in the lyrics and Andrews’ vocal delivery. But Magnified put bass at the center of the the instrumentation allowing for guitar to gyre out out in plasmic bursts as the drums kept the dynamics corralled even as each song threatened to careen off into chaos. The new style gave the music a cinematic quality that the band expanded upon greatly with its 1996 then swan song Fantastic Planet. On the latter, Failure prominently introduced piano and acoustic guitar to give its urgent juggernaut of sound another layer of detail, giving the songs some space, no joke intended for a space rock record, to come down from the emotional heights and extremes present across the thrilling but sometimes harrowing record.

Even with a few critically acclaimed albums under its belt and having played on the 1997 Lollapalooza tour, Failure split in 1997 citing personal differences. Which is perhaps inevitable given the time, the pressure, knowing that you made some of the cooler records of the era but without that propelling one into the mainstream. After the break-up all the members of the band went on to different projects that helped each develop new musical skills and cultivate creative interests that would go on to help make Failure an even better band when it reunited in 2013. Edwards formed the fantastic, experimental post-punk band Autolux. Guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen (who had joined after Fantastic Planet was in the can) went on to play in A Perfect Circle and now plays in Queens of the Stone Age (and hasn’t returned to Failure). Scott played in various bands including Blinker the Star, Veruca Salt and Enemy but also did studio sessions for Linda Perry including performances on tracks by Christina Aguilera and Courtney Love. He also did work on a recent Dr. Dre album. Andrews has becoming an in-demand producer and engineer whose work can be heard on songs and albums by Paramore, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Chris Cornell.

After announcing a reunion with the classic lineup of Edwards, Andrews and Scott in late 2013, Failure played its first show in nearly 17 years in February 2014. Later that year Failure would tour the US including dates as part of Riot Fest. Fairly early on in that cycle of rehearsals and performances Failure wrote new material and released the Tree of Stars EP in May 2014 which included live tracks and the new song “Come Crashing.” But it wasn’t long before the band was preparing material for a new full-length, 2015’s sprawling The Heart is a Monster. The album demonstrated how far the band members had come individually as well as its chemistry as a collective. Arranged, produced and sequenced in an almost narrative fashion the albums songs work individually but taken as a whole like a collection of musical vignettes. While critical reception of the new Failure album was mixed it was obvious that there was still something there.

2018’s In the Future Your Body Will be The Furthest Thing From Your Mind was conceived and recorded in phases with three EPs released separately throughout that year and the complete album including the fourth EP released in November. Scott feels it’s the group’s best album and in terms of focus, utilizing the group’s complete skill set, sound palette and bringing to bear a mature, creative sensibility it’s hard to disagree unless one is burdened with the misguided, though often justified, conceit that a band does its best work on its first few albums. The new Failure album sounds like a band that has already been through the stage of discovering what it wants to be and rediscovered what it can be.

What: Kalyn4Mayor Battle of the Bands: Pay2Play Politics: Venus Cruz, Felix Ayodele, Church Fire, R A R E B Y R D $, Tammy Shine, Bolonium, Josh Blue, Chris Fonseca and Christine Buchele
When: Sunday, 04.14, 6 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Kalyn Heffernan is running to be mayor of Denver. As a producer and hip-hop MC with her band Wheelchair Sports Camp, Heffernan has demonstrated her imagination, talent and managerial skills. As an advocate for people with disabilities and queer youth, she has shown her ability to both reach out to and critique vested authority in a productive manner while not compromising her righteous mission. As mayor of Denver Heffernan will bring a much needed helping of good sense, pragmatism (you can’t navigate the world when you’re disabled without this quality), compassion, a knack for productive engagement, a knowledge of issues facing not just struggling populations and gentrification but the city as a whole as well as a love of the city and the people that make Denver a world class city. For this event Heffernan has brought together some friends to raise awareness of her candidacy and to raise funds for her campaign. All the bands are some of the most interesting acts in the Mile High City and the comedians among the town’s most talented.

Monday | April 15

exhex_michaellavine3 — Ex Hex, photo by Michael Lavine

Who: Ex Hex w/Moaning
When: Monday, 04.15, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: Ex Hex was probably not the kind of band anyone would have expected from Mary Timony. The wiry, noise post-punk of Autoclave, Helium’s evolving experiments in tone and concept, Timony’s widely different albums under her own name exposing different aspects of her talent as a musician and songwriter. Inventively angular, often utilizing lo-fi aesthetics to create a quality of mystery, Timony is one of the most interesting musicians of the past three decades. So with the second Ex Hex album, 2019’s It’s Real, Timony, Betsy Wright and Laura Harris have written songs that sound like they could have come out of a weird nexus of early 80s power pop, garage rock, new wave and hard rock. Huge, brash, riffs. Unabashedly bombastic hooks. Plenty of bands have drawn on that earlier era of rock for inspiration but too often it comes with embracing the regressive topics and sensibilities of that time as well. Not the case here. And none of the cheesy production. Just the unabashed joy but paired with a futuristic vision untethered from old school rock and roll cultural baggage. Also on the bill is Los Angeles-based noise rock band Moaning who sound, in the best way, like You’re Living All Over Me period Dinosaur Jr after immersing themselves in the Siltbreeze catalog. Meaning understated, emotionally demolished vocals and urgent, gritty melodies and an energetic live show.

Tuesday | April 16

Buke-and-Gase-self-portrait1 — Buke & Gase, self-portrait

Who: Yob w/Amenra and In the Company of Serpents
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Marquis Theater
Why: Amenra is a Belgian metal band that has in its twenty year history helped to redefine what metal can be and sound like and embody the concept of heavy not just sonically but emotionally. Its blend of doom and ambient post-rock is well suited the dark, majestic outbursts threaded together with ethereal introductions, builds and interludes. Its full-length albums are titled Mass followed by a Roman Numeral indicating its sequence in the band’s catalog but also serves as a nod to chapters in the canonical works of a mystical sect. In The Company of Serpents recently overhauled its sound and while still well within the realm of extreme metal and doom, the songwriting bears some comparisons to artists that tap into a dark, forbidding blues. Like maybe Grant Netzorg listens to a bit of Nick Cave or later era Swans. Yob is the influential psych doom band from Eugene, Oregon. Influenced by, of course, Black Sabbath and imaginative art rock bands like King Crimson and Pink Floyd, Yob’s music is incredibly heavy but there’s a fluidity and playfulness to its songwriting and presentation that ultimately transforms that heaviness into something uplifting, like a purge of the detritus that plagues the mind due to the build-up of the unreasonable demands of everyday life in late capitalism America.

Who: Buke & Gase w/Like A Villain and Holophrase
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Larimer Lounge
Why: Buke & Gase has always pushed boundaries in its exquisite use of unusual rhythms and otherworldly melodies. Its new album Scholars has the band absorbing mainstream and synth pop and transforming it to suit the group’s own sensibilities as only it can. And this whole bill is filled with vocalists who use their powerful voices as instuments in themselves. Holland Andrews of Like a Villain creates sound environments that recall the soundtracks to Michael Powell films or Diamanda Galas and Björk collaborating on music to accompany a Stanislaw Lem adaptation. Holophrase’s Malgorzata Stacha channels moods and modes seemingly directly from the unconscious and makes it work in the context of experimental downtempo music.

Who: Show Me The Body w/Euth, Law of the Night and TARGETS
When: Tuesday, 04.16, 7 p.m.
Where: Hi-Dive
Why: Show Me the Body from New York is technically a hardcore band but the vocal delivery sounds as much like what you’d expect as something from a weird hip-hop band. Fans of Sleaford Mods and IDLES will probably find a lot to like here though Show Me the Body is a bit darker than the aforementioned. The group recently released its 2019 sophomore album Dog Whistle.

Wednesday | April 17

HEALTH-credit-FaithCrawford-hires — HEALTH, photo by Faith Crawford

What: HEALTH w/Youth Code and French Kettle Station
When: Wednesday, 04.17, 7 p.m.
Where: Bluebird Theater
Why: With the 2019 release of Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear, its first since the departure of guitarist Jupiter Keyes, proves that the remaining trio still absorbs new musical ideas and applies them creatively in its sonic palette while experimenting with its own production and sound processing as it has since its inception. This time the 8-bit crushing, driving-yet-fluid noise rock and ghostly, pitch-shifted/autotuned vocals give the impression of being layers in a dance track. It’s even difficult to tell whether the drums are analog or not and if so processed or submixed to EQ in unconventional ways. Honestly, knowing either way is irrelevant to anyone but purists of any stripe and HEALTH is a band that ditched notions of purity in music as boring and perhaps quaint long ago. The element that separates this new album and its music from 2015’s Death Magic is an element of industrial beat making. Sure the group worked with French industrial synth phenom Perturbator but if that was an influence it’s been wholly absorbed and incorporated.

Considering HEALTH’s new sound it’s only fitting that it’s touring with Youth Code. Both from Los Angeles, Youth Code was one of the major bands that was part of the recent darkwave revival of the past decade. Its confrontational EBM had the sharp edges of a hardcore band but its emotional resonance has been much broader.

Opening the show is Denver’s French Kettle Station. Always an incredibly energetic and dynamic performer, some might think there’s something of an act to it all beyond it being a compelling element to a live show. But Luke Thinnes’ enthusiasm is sincere and his mixture of 80s adult contemporary, Talk Talk and Arthur Russell. Speaking of 80s adult contemporary, FKS has been on a bit of a Phil Collins kick of late and even sometimes covers one of his iconic songs live.