Category: Live Reviews

Live reviews of Denver shows, including both local and national acts.

Live Review: Kate Nash @theOgden, November 6th, 2010
November 9, 2010 Off

Live Review: Kate Nash @theOgden, November 6th, 2010

By Billy Thieme

What a delight Kate Nash turned out to be at her first-ever visit to Denver for an Ogden show last Saturday night. I expected her to be perfectly satisfactory; what I didn’t expect was to be challenged by and enthralled with this rising Brit-pop sensation, right from the first warbling of her remarkable voice to the final, giggling post-encore farewell.

On record, Nash is comparable to the Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan, at least vocally, and her songs tend toward over-wordy, romantic pop. Live, she’s a different story.

Last Saturday night she was more like Poly Styrene, the frantic lead singer of the early punk band X-Ray Spex, than a light-hearted, soft spoken folk singer. She brought a definite, mature and sexy riot grrrl aspect to her songs as well, reminiscent of a young and brash Liz Phair, and positively bled Morrissey influence from time to time, sans all the whining and dour phraseology.

Gangcharger and Smoothbore – two Denver bands release new tunes, noise in a new direction
October 17, 2010 Off

Gangcharger and Smoothbore – two Denver bands release new tunes, noise in a new direction

By Billy Thieme

There aren’t too many bands that can withstand an entire personnel change and keep going. There are even less that come back stronger for it – but Gangcharger is one that has. Ethan Ward’s love child – with huge emphasis on the love – has not only rebounded after being abandoned by virtually every member of the band over the course of late 2009, he’s driven the rebuilt band beyond anyone’s expectations, maybe beyond his own – and definitely miles beyond the previous lineup’s promise – with their latest release, “Free Exhaust.”

HeyReverb! Live Review: Sonic Youth @the Ogden – 10/04/10 – on a BRAND NEW Reverb site!
October 5, 2010 Off

HeyReverb! Live Review: Sonic Youth @the Ogden – 10/04/10 – on a BRAND NEW Reverb site!

By Billy Thieme

After last Monday night’s show at the Ogden Theater, I’m convinced that Sonic Youth are immortals – beings that refuse to age. What else explains their uncanny ability to remain constantly relevant, prescient – and continuously young – in the face of a culture hell bent on replication of the popular, and often the most vapid? Of course, we could agree that the members of this group of musicians – more a family than a band, really, after nearly 30 years – are intuitive charlatans, well-versed in manipulation of guitar strings, effects, anti-rhythms and atonality, but also steeped in the pop ethos that breeds automatic acceptance – or intrinsic danceability.

But then, you’d also have to explain short lives of other bands that sprung from that same NYC, post-post-punk, “no-wave” noise scene that attempted to espouse that same musical ethos. The truth is, Sonic Youth has proven they’re not only the only surviving band from that movement – but that they’re the most deserving.
They’re the only band that mastered the ability to turn pop sensibility on its ear, wrestle it through dissonant filters, and still know how to present the outcome in an irresistibly accessible way, without giving up any of their D.I.Y., no-wave roots.

Reverb: Nuns of Brixton, Gestapo Pussy Ranch @Bender’s Tavern, September 24th, 2010
September 25, 2010 Off

Reverb: Nuns of Brixton, Gestapo Pussy Ranch @Bender’s Tavern, September 24th, 2010

By Billy Thieme

Having seen Jim Yelenick in his other bands — the hardcore Pitch Invasion and the hilarious acousti-punk Sputnik Slovenia — I figured I’d seen the gamut of his personas, and loved them all. But none topped his loose adaptation of Joe Strummer in a full nun habit, wildly leading a packed house through a litany of the best tunes from the Clash. Yelenick fronted local quintet the Nuns of Brixton (a Clash tribute band) last night at Bender’s Tavern and put on a simultaneously heroic and hilarious show — all in full convent uniform.

The Clash, a.k.a. “The Only Band That Matters,” has forever topped my live dream list. I’m a bit skeptical of tribute bands, so I was prepared to take in a mediocre show at best, but I knew I’d enjoy just being a part of the nostalgia.

Reverb: Live Review of Bobby Bare Jr. @ the Hi-Dive, and Bobby’s reply. . .
September 17, 2010 Off

Reverb: Live Review of Bobby Bare Jr. @ the Hi-Dive, and Bobby’s reply. . .

By Billy Thieme

I reviewed Bobby Bare Jr.’s show at the Hi-Dive on South Broadway last Wednesday, September 15, for Denver Post Reverb, and Bobby took the time to comment. I was shocked, and pretty stoked – but not too surprised. I’ve seen him a number of times, and have known him to be damned personable, approachable and easy to talk to. What concerned me was that he seemed just a little pissed at my review – because I pointed out that this show was a little “morose,” in comparison to past ones.

Here’s an excerpt:

“Bare’s been through Denver a number of times in the last six or so years, usually with his band the Young Criminal Starvation League. He consistently entertains full houses with a show bursting with energy, smiles and laughs and filled with hopelessly catchy tunes and brilliant lyricism. While the lyricism and catchy tunes haven’t changed, Wednesday night’s performance was much heavier, more morose. He used to play barefoot, howling impossibly quaint stories that inspired giggles more than sympathy from behind an unwieldy mop of sweaty curls, out of a mouth always bent from recent laughter.

But on Wednesday he wore a dark blue jacket and slacks, a white cowboy hat and shoes. His hair was still a wild mass with a mind of its own — it’s gained even more independence over the years — but it wrapped a lined face adorned with sensible glasses. And his mouth inspired a visage of Joe Cocker crooning amidst considerable pain, rather than ebullience.

He looked and performed more like a later-in-life Roky Erickson than the wonderful and careless Bobby Bare Jr. that has been here before.”

New Music Threads – Murder Ranks and St. Elias add new life to Denver music
August 26, 2010 Off

New Music Threads – Murder Ranks and St. Elias add new life to Denver music

By Billy Thieme

Reaching back to the tradition of dancehall, the updated, stripped down and visceral outgrowth of reggae that revitalized that already tired genre, Murder Ranks uses its basic musical tenets to distill a sweet, strong and minimalist – but sickeningly catchy – punk/dub concoction, and layers it upon modified (sometimes completely transfigured) dancehall riddims. But, where dancehall deejays may use horn sections, other instruments and/or background singers to enhance riddims that they chant and toast over, Murder Ranks reworks these parts with their instruments, and with Scratchie’s vocals, to fit their own aggressive and fun style.

REVERB: Warlock Pinchers’ reunion show – There was blood, and so much more . . .
August 9, 2010 Off

REVERB: Warlock Pinchers’ reunion show – There was blood, and so much more . . .

By Billy Thieme

Cheerleaders, men in diapers (one of them covered in blood) and a clown with a mohawk making balloon animals. That was the scene on the Gothic Theatre’s stage last Friday night.

All of that, and there was also a rock band — Warlock Pinchers, one of Denver’s legendary locals from the late ‘80s/early ‘90s — tangled up in there somewhere, celebrating a reunion after nearly two decades of separation, in front of a packed and ecstatic house. Nothing strange about that lineup, at least not if you’re familiar with the Pinchers’ history.

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.