Category: National

Live reviews of act traveling through Denver, many published originally on Denver Post Reverb

If you catch one show this year, make it this weekend: Warlock Pinchers are back!
August 6, 2010 Off

If you catch one show this year, make it this weekend: Warlock Pinchers are back!

By Billy Thieme

If you were anywhere around the scene in Boulder and Denver in the late ’80s, chances are you were not only familiar with the Pinchers, but you probably carried some of their merchandise with you daily – clipped to your backpack or in your pocket – or you wore out your shield t-shirt as you attended other local shows, PETA rallies, and the occasional CIA hiring protests. These boys – King Scratchie (AKA Daniel Wanush), and K.C. K-Sum (AKA Andrew Novick), EE-Rok (AKA Eric Erickson), DD-Rok (AKA Derek van Westrum), 3KSK (AKA Mark Brooks) and a drum machine – were tearing up backyards, basements, punk venues like Boulder’s Ground Zero and warehouses with a fusion of Faith No More and Beastie Boys’ funk/punk/hip-hop, industrial and hardcore thrash, all wrapped up in intelligent and hilarious, tongue-in-cheek punk rock rage directed towards a spineless, shallow and directionless society.

The UMS: 4 incredible days, 300+ bands, memories that won’t soon fade
July 27, 2010 Off

The UMS: 4 incredible days, 300+ bands, memories that won’t soon fade

By Billy Thieme

One impossibly acceptable truth: four days and nights of anything might be just about too much. This is what I found myself thinking last night as I carried pieces of a guitar, smashed onstage at the 3 Kings Tavern by a member of the local band Gangcharger, from venue to venue at the end of the best rock festival in the west. After over 300 bands had played their hearts out to thousands of Denver’s music lovers, the effort at the end looked still unfinished, still full of promise, melody, pounding rhythms, desperate screams and wild howls. All of that formed the beginnings of memories that will never fade.

The UMS, Day 3 – So many bands, so little time! More pre-kus from DenverThread
July 24, 2010 Off

The UMS, Day 3 – So many bands, so little time! More pre-kus from DenverThread

By Billy Thieme

Now that we’ve got two, fat and sassy days of the Underground Music Showcase under our belts, the real monster is being unleashed. This weekend, as in festivals past, begins the real UMS proper, and there are more bands, artists, venues, drinks and awesome food today than both of the previous two days combined!

Today also brings out the two-day visit of Lucha Libre Mexicana – a wonderful experience by any standards – in the Groove Automotive Stage at 3:45 & 5:15. If you haven’t seen the masked luchadores before – don’t dare miss this act! You’ll definitely regret it. . . .

The UMS: Day 2 – DenverThread haikus the bands to see tonight!
July 23, 2010 Off

The UMS: Day 2 – DenverThread haikus the bands to see tonight!

By Billy Thieme

Here’s to the hope that you had a fantastic first night of the 10th Annual Underground Music Showcase all along about a mile of South Broadway last night! Having been to all ten years’ shows, I have to say last nights showing was among the most impressive so far. There were lines about 20 people deep at the box office from the second it opened at 5:30 PM, and crowds were filling all of the eight venues that were showcasing live talent until early into Friday morning.

So – as promised – read on for some haiku-sized recommendations for shows to see tonight at UMS: Day 2!

New Threads: New tunes from Gypsy Nomads, Mad Dog and the Smokin’ Js and Deadbubbles
June 1, 2010 Off

New Threads: New tunes from Gypsy Nomads, Mad Dog and the Smokin’ Js and Deadbubbles

By Billy Thieme

The summer music overflow has begun, and Denver looks to be deluged with a constant influx, through-flux and home-spun-flux of music for the season, both live and recorded. Upstate New York’s Gypsy Nomads have released a new collection of twelve songs laced with oodles of magic – of both the cabaret/vaudeville and faerie ilk – that will have even the driest of cynics swaying, maybe even singing along, to the duo’s French medieval folk meets West-Mass punk instrumentation. Mad Dog and the Smokin’ Js recently released a live recording of a show at the Tomichi Tavern in Gunnison, CO that captures the bands’ sonic mayhem and should whet any aficionado’s roots appetite. Among other projects – which include a tribute album (currently in the works) and hosting the legendary Hugh Cornwell (frontman of the seminal British punk band Stranglers) in a truly exclusive show recently – Deadbubbles recently produced the “24 Hr. Nemesis” EP, a collection of early ambient recordings featuring White and current guitarist Paul Humphrey.

The Reverend Horton Heat @ the Boulder Theater, 01/15/10 – Reverb
January 21, 2010 Off

The Reverend Horton Heat @ the Boulder Theater, 01/15/10 – Reverb

By Billy Thieme

As far as psychobilly goes, you’re not likely to find a better practitioner than Jim “Reverend Horton” Heath and the rest of his legendary trio, the Reverend Horton Heat. The Texas group graced the Boulder Theater last Friday night in the middle of a multiple night tour in Colorado. Too bad the Boulder crowd didn’t completely wake up for the show!