DenverThread New Music Reviews – The Lumineers, Salesman
April 3, 2010 Off

DenverThread New Music Reviews – The Lumineers, Salesman

By Billy Thieme

Two new bands, both associated with Colorado, unleash some damned good EPs on the scene. The Lumineers just moved here from the insanely creative hotbed of Brooklyn, NY about 5 months ago, and we’re ecstatic to have them. After all, the flow of musicians and great music has seemed to be going in the opposite direction of late. Musically, their seven-song, self-titled EP often approaches Radiohead’s signature quiet, tied-up desperation, then moves towards the Avett Brothers’ brilliance in composition and lyricism, and channels that through rhythms that often recall civil war marches.
Salesman brings a huge, flailing guitar sound, strong vocals and soft, driven rhythms, based in Austin-by-way-of Cañon City. This four-piece answers the question: “What would’ve happened if Jeffrey Lee Pierce hadn’t died, and instead invested in a little voice coaching?” Or – maybe a lot of voice coaching.

DenverThread Live Review – Gangcharger plays a secret show at Skylark, Thursday, 03/25/10
March 26, 2010 Off

DenverThread Live Review – Gangcharger plays a secret show at Skylark, Thursday, 03/25/10

By Billy Thieme

. . . saw a Gangcharger onstage that has mastered not only its sound, but also its whole rhythmic philosophy. The sound entwines early, frantic and noisy Sonic Youth rhythms inside Kevin Shields chord habits and unleashes a sound that feels like it’s locked you in the trunk of a 1981 Camaro, as it drives at 145 MPH deep into the Western Slope towards Utah, and forces you to enjoy every minute of it.

The “Denver Sound,” long dead, makes room for lighter, noisier, funner genres in the scene
March 3, 2010 Off

The “Denver Sound,” long dead, makes room for lighter, noisier, funner genres in the scene

By Billy Thieme

The world-famous “Denver Sound” has petered out.

Which is not to say that the beautiful, often over-the-top and heavy handed gothic alt-country sound isn’t significant anymore – not at all. That sound helped put Denver back on the musical globe in the ’80s and ‘90s, and still attracts its fair share of fans. It’s still appreciated world-wide, and many remain ravenous for it – especially in Europe.

But it exists currently in a type of atrophy in Denver – it’s taken a back seat that has allowed an insurgence of more than a few different genres to begin to flourish, or re-flourish, as the case may be. Denver has a strong music scene – perhaps the strongest in the US (at the moment) – and part of its strength comes from its wide variety. So if the sometimes overbearing popularity of the “Denver Sound” – indeed the often overweighted nature of the sound itself – is waning, it can only be good news for the lighter, the more pop-y, the innovative and indie, or the more aggressive and punkier genres.

And that’s exactly what’s happening in the bar, dive, club, backyard and warehouse scene right now.

Live DenverThread Review: The Inactivists provide some sweet, sickly heartbreak for the love-challenged
February 9, 2010 Off

Live DenverThread Review: The Inactivists provide some sweet, sickly heartbreak for the love-challenged

By Billy Thieme

Scott Livingston isn’t someone you want to wrong, particularly in the arena of love. As frontman of Denver band The Inactivists, a band known for its nerdy humor mixed with artsy rock, he’s got a soapbox that’s pretty tall. And with the band’s latest record, “Love Songs and Other Songs About Love,” they’ve taken the heartbreak of a dissolved relationship and bent it into an aural sculpture on a framework of sardonic and geeky wit, and Livingston is the mouthpiece.

Even more extreme than the record, Inactivists’ live show is one to be reckoned with, and they showed it off last Saturday night (January 30) at the Walnut Room in front of an impressive crowd. Behind his electric ukelele, Livingston cuts an impressive figure that belies the internal strife his lyrics portend. He’s more than well met by Victoria Lundy’s wild and earthy performance on the theremin and Pattie Melt’s smooth, punky saxophone and accordion, Matt Sumner’s bass funk and Kelly Prestridge’s complex rhythms.

Lion’s Lair Art Shows: East Colfax finds Jesus, and he’s hangin’ at the Lair!
January 27, 2010 Off

Lion’s Lair Art Shows: East Colfax finds Jesus, and he’s hangin’ at the Lair!

By Billy Thieme

Matthew Hunter is keeping his artful promises, and this time the results approach the sacred – and may come close to a little of the profane as well. Hunter promised himself recently that he would hold a cooperative art show in the Lion’s Lair, Denver’s venerated punk rock dive, every other month into perpetuity, or for as long as he (and the community) could stand it – whichever comes first.

Threading The Scene: The Inactivists spread their love straight into the heart of Denver
January 25, 2010 Off

Threading The Scene: The Inactivists spread their love straight into the heart of Denver

By Billy Thieme

I’ve been introduced to the perfect collection of songs to commemorate the “holiday,” complete with the appropriate level of irony, humor and lovelorn misgivings in The inactivists’ “Love Songs & Other Songs About Love,” released last year. So much more than merely a pile of rosy, soap opera schmaltz, this record, through The Inactivists’ sharp wit and sense of humor, represents probably the most honest revelation of love from the eyes of a constantly unrequited nerd (and let’s face it, all of us have been that, at one time or another), played by a band of Muppets that landed a daily gig in a bar inside David Lynch’s cranium.

The five piece plays an eclectic style of pop that defies any one genre, and deifies many. Sometimes it’s funk from Sly & the Family Stone – albeit often with an overwhelming flavor of Morris Day & The Time – and sometimes it’s arty rock from bands like King Crimson, or sick and flirty forays into psychedelia that rival Butthole Surfers’ wildest.

Music News: Michael Gira announces plans to reactivate Swans in the Fall
January 21, 2010 Off

Music News: Michael Gira announces plans to reactivate Swans in the Fall

By Billy Thieme

Michael Gira, founder of Young God Records and vocalist/visionary front for Angels of Light, used to live a somewhat louder existence. An existence replete with just as much musical and lyrical beauty as the Angels’ output of over the past decade, but one that was also terrifyingly violent, brutal, hostile and swathed in a noise that had not been heard before, and has (so far) not been heard again since it was silenced with the death of his first band, Swans.

And Gira has announced what was constantly up to now only seen as an impossibility: he’s decided to reactivate the legendary band, and will release a new collection of songs (tentatively) in the fall of 2010. Plans for touring are also reportedly in the works.

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!