Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
Clutch is heavy. Heavy enough to pull in all the roots of punk, metal, funk and grunge and bundle them into the perfect musical explosive. Their performance at the Fillmore last Wednesday proved it, as they pummeled a more than willing, near capacity audience with over 90 minutes of material from all over their musical history.
“. . . . Our vision for 43rd Street Zoo Presents [is] to bring together the people of two different music scenes, and to expose people to music they might not otherwise consider listening to. Cardinal, whose real name is Kevin Carlberg, is from the drum and bass/techno scene, and I have my roots in punk and rock. We cross-promote across the two scenes, and have begun building a community around this concept at different venues around Denver, including the famous Lion’s Lair on Colfax Ave.” – Brandi Darling of 43rd Street Zoo Presents, on promoting two of Denver’s strongest scenes. . . .
While the new outdoor festival, put on for the first time last Saturday at Echo Mountain, is certainly no Monolith (yet), it was well attended, and went off pretty much without a hitch.
Arranged and staged in a cooperative effort between local sponsor JamSpace, local promoter Whisper Fiercely and Echo Mountain, the all-day festival featured a lineup of about 20 local Denver bands on two stages, set up smack in the middle of the mountain’s bunny hill and nestled against the “magic carpet” lift, and attracted a crowd that at one point looked like it was comprised of more than 100 fans, despite some pretty stiff winds, wild temperature swings, and a rugged, campground atmosphere.
As you can imagine, putting on any live show isn’t a walk in the park. There are so many places where things can go wrong – from bands canceling at the last minute (even if they do actually call and let the promoter know) to equipment problems, to a myriad of other problems, any of which have the potential to bring all the promoter’s and venue’s efforts to naught, which is to say nothing about any return on their investments in both time and money.
Try and imagine doing it outside, on the side of a mountain, in the middle of a skiing/boarding park, more than 30 minutes from downtown, and more than 12 miles from the nearest significant power grid. Not only are there the usual equipment and sound considerations to contend with, but now you’ve added weather, terrain, transportation and power challenges that no other venue faces, even on their worst day.
Velvet Cash played a strong set of great psychobilly at Meadowlark last Thursday night, in what was supposed to be one of the final outdoor shows of the season.
The Colorado Youth Pipe Band, the only competitive pipe band in Colorado comprised entirely of youth under 18, competes regularly – locally, nationally and internationally – against all-adult bands, and has for a lot of years. Their first competition was just about 20 years ago, as a matter of fact, and they’ve not missed a year since. And, in the past three years, the CYPB Competition Band has dominated all of the major Front Range contests, gaining or retaining status of “Band of the Games” for nearly every one.
Pink Mountaintops, perhaps the closest thing to a perfect mashup of shoegaze and freak-folk, have announced a Denver date at Hi-Dive on November 21, 2009, in support of their recently released third record, “Outside Love.”
VIDEO CLIP! For the first time in nearly three decades, Mick Jones and Topper Headon from The Clash, have reunited in the studio! Along with Billy Bragg, they met recently to record a new version of The Clash’s 1977 punk rock hit “Jail Guitar Doors” to help a charity that distributes musical instruments to prison inmates.
Despite sharing nearly all of the characteristics that define many of the other bands in the melodic punk genre, Gamblers are head and shoulders above any I’ve heard in a while, both in skill and passion.
