Tag: Punk

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.

Threading the Scene with Denver City Saltlicks – The DenverThread Interview
April 15, 2010 Off

Threading the Scene with Denver City Saltlicks – The DenverThread Interview

By Billy Thieme

Denver City Saltlicks – or DCS – pack a musical punch with tunes that explode out of their private backwoods still and into your face with the force of a moonshine firehose. As it finds its way down your throat, it burns with a feeling like it’s removing most of the smooth lining, and then sits inside, warming while it generates a small nuclear reaction that powers unstoppable hips, cheeks and ankles. I defy you to avoid dancing next time you see them live, without suppressing an inevitable and overwhelming full body twitch fit.

The four-piece, currently fronted by ‘Bama Slim and Cate Hate, a brother and sister team that covers vocals, ukelele, washboard and the “Blue Spruce” Johnson (look below for more on this fabulous home-grown piece of music history) and joined by bassist George Wilson and Bullseye Dray, the drummer, can just as easily croon any packed bar into a teary singalong with vocal stylings akin to a duette between a young Elvis and a punkier, grittier Supremes’ Diana Ross. And they fill in the spaces everywhere in between with solid delta blues, smoking surf guitar and frenzied, scathing punk rock – it all depends on their mood, and possibly the heat in the room at the time.

Introducing: 43rd Street Zoo Presents – promoting Denver’s punk and techno scenes
October 2, 2009 Off

Introducing: 43rd Street Zoo Presents – promoting Denver’s punk and techno scenes

By Billy Thieme

“. . . . 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. . . .