Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
This year’s Denver Post Underground Music Showcase (UMS) may have been the biggest and best yet, and – barring the…
Denver’s amidst a record-setting streak of over-90-degree days (we’re on day nine – or ten – or somewhere around there,…
Golden’s Erik Husman, along with his then-band The Golden Rule, recorded a full-length album at the Walnut Room on March…
Ben Dicke, local theater professional, looks for Kickstarter Funding to Premiere the Controversial Emo-Punk Musical at the Aurora Fox, Just in Time for Election Day.
Could it be any more … prophetic?
In an election year that’s rife with populist rhetoric, where pundits on both sides seem to pontificate endlessly about the problems of the common folk of Main Street, the excesses of the rich and Wall Street, and how neither side has the right idea about either, Ben Dicke, a local theater teacher and accomplished producer, director, playwright and performer, has been called by the muses to produce an uncannily appropriate play in the Aurora Fox – “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”
These always tricky (or so I’ve been told) muses have called out to him over an emo-sounding band (actually, it could be argued that emo – with its roots in common angst and the everyday futility of making it through in an overwhelmingly unfair (but often tearfully beautiful) world – might be the epitome of rock’s populist side), to produce and act in one of American Theater’s few emo-rock operas. And – also like much of the real-life action and rhetoric of this year’s supremely important pastime – this musical-American-political-history-lesson-slash-controversial-production promises to pack a strong comedic punch.
Night of Joy, Achille Lauro, Black Postcards (Local); Lee Ranaldo, Willis Earl Beal, Jeffrey Lewis (not local)
Well – This post we’ve got a bucket of sounds, and none too soon (having missed a while – our apologies)…. This one features a slew of locals – two from the same label (Hot Congress) and another totally DIY group that’s almost too new … but has promise. It also features a pile of national acts – a few coming to town soon, but all should be traversing your grey matter between you headphones – if not already, then soon….
Night of Joy – Hardcore Girls are a Hoax
Night of Joy has been around the Denver scene doing everything themselves for a bit – and have always been mighty impressive. Pulling its sound from somewhere amidst the part of New York’s late ‘70s No-Wave scene led by Lydia Lunch’s Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Glenn Branca’s Theoretical Girls and of ‘80s Post-punk like UT and Big Black, and ‘90s Breeders and Bikini Kill, Hardcore Girls are a Hoax (available now on Hot Congress Records’ site, officially released March 21st) is a solid, visceral ride.
Gira discusses SWANS and more, before an upcoming gig with Wovenhand, The Howling Hex, March 24 at the Oriental Theater
When I discovered SWANS at a 1986 punk show at the Eagle’s Lodge (they played cuts from their then-current LP “Greed,” with two bombastic drummers, thundering bass and bulldozing guitar, Jarboe screaming and Michael Gira – barefoot, shirtless, drenched and suffocating himself with a mic chord and self-loathing howls of terror – or pain – or disgust) it was one of the shows that changed my life, and cemented my lifelong involvement in the interpretation of music – especially live music. And it wasn’t just because I was one of two people that I know actually enjoyed the show (my date being the other – and we still talk about that day).
It was because I knew I’d seen something musically that, in my young 20-year-old mind, made no sense. In the context of destroying buildings with sonic explosions, or of torture, or of avalanches of rock and mud tearing through entire villages – sure, in that context what I’d experienced made sense. But not as music. My body, though, felt otherwise, and that gut feeling has remained with me since then.
Fast forward 26 years, and SWANS remains one of the most intriguing and influential musical artforms in my life. And they’ve gone through a world of evolution – from that aggressive, sonically crushing noise in the ’80s, through a terrifyingly beautiful and complex oeuvre of sonic sculpture as the ’90s progressed, to a recently reformed, fully formed and mature modern prometheus the likes of which would likely make Mary Shelley quiver with delight upon discovering – so complete a match for something so human, so man-made, horrifyingly misshapen – and perfectly sublime.
Suffice to say that, if you haven’t seen or experienced SWANS – even on record – do it. The visionary leader behind the seminal noise and eardrum-crunching band, Michael Gira (pronounced gear-AH, I now know), is beginning a tour of the western side of the US and Europe, and is stopping here at our beloved Oriental Theater this Saturday night, March 24th, for a solo opening spot to “warm up” for David Eugene Edwards’ local behemoth Wovenhand, and featuring The Howling Hex.
It’s a pairing not destined to happen again – to miss it would be a huge mistake. Gira was gracious enough to take some time to talk with me about SWANS, his views on illegal downloading, his music, David Eugene Edwards and more. Read on to see what we talked about….
Local troubadour Erik Husman – of Erik Husman and the Golden Rule – was lucky enough this week to be…
DenverThread’s guide to where you should be and what you should be seeing – and, of course, hearing – for…
