Category: Coming Soon

Listings and stories about bands coming soon to one of the hundreds of Denver venues.

The UMS hits full speed today – plan accordingly! Don’t worry – we’re here to help.
July 23, 2011 Off

The UMS hits full speed today – plan accordingly! Don’t worry – we’re here to help.

By Billy Thieme

The 11th Annual UMS is now in its third day, and rounding the inside corner to slingshot itself into full, reckless, dangerous and foolhardy speed, and you’re going to want to grab on for dear life about now, and hold on. It’s going to get a lot more beautiful before too long, and there’ll be more than you can imagine to see, hear, taste and drink.

All the more reason to follow our recommendations for which bands to see, where, and just a little bit of why.

Today’s also the day that the all ages crowd can take the most advantage of the many, many options – and we’ve put a little emphasis on the bands playing that anyone can see, to encourage you to get out from under the Xbox and GET OUT HERE, NOW!

The UMS is rockin’ – Here’s DenverThread’s list for Day Two
July 22, 2011 Off

The UMS is rockin’ – Here’s DenverThread’s list for Day Two

By Billy Thieme

Day one’s in the books, and it looks as if the 11th Annual UMS is off to a roarin’ start!

But – if you thought last Thursday night’s activities were brilliant, epic, miraculous – or tragic, melancholy, maudlin – hold on to your pants. The momentum’s just beginning!
Friday is the New Black

Here are our toppers for Friday, July 22 – and we’re happy to say that it was a damned tough job boiling the lineup down! The first few are our predictions for Friday night’s owners of the UMS. Scroll on down for a listing of the rest of our recommendations, in chronological order (still just a fraction of all the action!).
Friday’s UMS Lineup is owned by …
Colourmusic –
3 Kings Tavern – Sailor Jerry Stage @11PM

Oklahoma seems to be fertile ground for a sort of bombastic optimism. Or maybe it’s a heightened sense of existentialism that leads artists to just say “Fuck it! I’m partying!” And then watch everything in their lives happily begin to fall into place. It’s chaos at its most beautifully complex, and most hilariously sublime.

Cue Colourmusic.

‘Nuff said. Go see them.

SRSLY.

The 11th Annual UMS Starts Today – So do DenverThread’s lists – here’s day one
July 21, 2011 Off

The 11th Annual UMS Starts Today – So do DenverThread’s lists – here’s day one

By Billy Thieme

It’s here! And it’s definitely THE highpoint of Denver’s summer music season! A full Red Rocks schedule, the Warped and other festival tours, multiple nights of Widespread Panic – even the monster U2 show in Invesco Field at Mile High – all pale in comparison to the magnitude of this weekend’s pinnacle. The 11th Annual Underground Music Showcase (UMS) starts this Thursday evening, and will dominate a few square miles of South Broadway for the following three nights.

This year’s show features close to 300 bands, comedians , singer songwriters and other talents, and will be housed in a huge number of venues, restaurants, bookstores, skateboard shops and t-shirt shops along South Broadway (here’s a handy listing, with a MAP!) – including two major outdoor stages – from 6th Avenue at the top to Cedar at the bottom.

Needless to say, the choices for live music abound – heck, they’re pretty overwhelming. Let’s face it: there’s no way anyone can possibly see all that the UMS has to offer, and it’d be a miracle to see everything you’d like to see. So let us at DenverThread take a little of the pressure to decide off of your shoulders, with our daily preview lists for this year’s festival.

Through the weekend, we’ll be listing our choices of the best things to see – for a lot of reasons. Whether your tastes run into the sludge-stoner-metal quagmire, meander through dreamy twee-pop or get hypnotically lost in psychedelic shoegaze, we’ll get you where you want to be, and make sure you’re catching something you’ve hopefully never seen before while we’re at it.

Who’s Playing What Where? Accordion Babes, Mancub and The Tubes (Yes – The Tubes)
July 8, 2011 Off

Who’s Playing What Where? Accordion Babes, Mancub and The Tubes (Yes – The Tubes)

By Billy Thieme

Hell – we’d give up our tickets for the aforementioned shows for these, if the economy didn’t already make us feel like grade-H junkies (when are you gonna get the chance to see The Tubes again, right?)

Best Bet – Accordion Babes, Sunday night, July 10, at the Lion’s Lair (2022 E. Colfax, Denver – Thanks to Amber Lee Baker and Renée de la Prade – known together on this tour as The Accordion Babes – these once pernicious precursors to the keytar are inching ever closer to private & sultry boudoir serenades than adolescent living room talent shows.

— ••• —

Saturday – Mancub, Flashlights and Mercuria and the Gemstars – Hi-Dive, 7 S. Broadway, Denver

Flashlights, one of Denver’s newer, light-up electro-pop numbers, just got signed wicked fast to a record deal, and just released a new EP last month, but they still remember their base. So they’re opening a show for some local scene-mates, Mancub, at the Hi-Dive Saturday night. Mancub is a duo that’s building a reputation for using lo-fi electronics and hands-on passion to make a kind of electro-shoegaze combination. Worth taking in, if only to see their dexterity and sound combo skills. Plus, lights from both bands should make everyone feel a little bit interplanetary.

Live Thread – Erik Husman @ the Walnut Room, Thursday, March 24, 2011
March 29, 2011 Off

Live Thread – Erik Husman @ the Walnut Room, Thursday, March 24, 2011

By Billy Thieme

The Walnut Room provided the perfect flavor of intimacy and concrete last Thursday night to encompass – enthrone – the recording of a local fledgling artist’s second album. The 50-some people gathered to watch and listen to Golden’s Erik Husman were treated to a mix between Merle Haggard and a Pete Seeger that spent more of his life on the rails than in protest. Husman, suffering from a cold that caused between-song hacks, sniffles and a dry-throated rasp, nevertheless marched all of us through two sets of some emotive, lively tunes, most of which were original.

And that crowd loved every one.

Golden’s Erik Husman records sophomore effort @TheWalnutRoom Thursday night
March 22, 2011 Off

Golden’s Erik Husman records sophomore effort @TheWalnutRoom Thursday night

By Billy Thieme

One of the more popular new trends lately has been a band’s live rendition of an influential record from their past. It’s a pretty cool thing, too, to see bands like Pixies play albums we all grew up listening to, live, in their entirety.

It’s not often, though, that we get to share the stage with the performers to help create a recording that just might become one that everyone remembers years from now. This Thursday, local troubadour Erik Husman and the Walnut Room are offering just that opportunity. Husman, a brand-spanking new addition to the scene, out of the city of Golden – will be playing a set of all new material that night, and recording the entire affair, and will produce the result as his second release.

“I’m kind of freaking out, really,” said an almost giddy Husman when I sat across from him in a Golden bar recently. “It’s not like preparing for a gig. I’ve got to do about 180 hours of studio performance [about the time it took to record his first album] free-form, live, in one take. There’s no going back,” he added. “But it’ll be the most genuine thing, the only way to capture the real me.”

Husman’s style ranges from rough spirituals and anthems that recall Woodie Guthry and Pete Seeger with heavy influence from classic country, to a solid indie feel with a little more more than a nod to the Radiohead crowd.

What/Where This Weekend? The “Love Project” debuts, and Sunder plays at the Larimer Lounge
February 11, 2011 Off

What/Where This Weekend? The “Love Project” debuts, and Sunder plays at the Larimer Lounge

By Billy Thieme

This weekend’s one night stand will feature some photos from the “My Life” project, but is focused on “The Love Project.” As the Denver Post’s John Moore reported recently, “The Love Project” came out of De Giovanni’s deep desire to “… figure out how to recognize real love,” as a result of her last breakup. The methodology of each shoot is to open the shutter quickly, again and again and again, for one minute, and one minute only, as the couple in question attempts to show her their love. One and only one photograph is chosen to represent the couple, and becomes a vision of their connection.