Ambient drone is so neither, when you step into it … – An interview with Kevin Greenspon
So I guess it’s customary to pull a quote from the interview in question for an appropriate headline – but…
Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
So I guess it’s customary to pull a quote from the interview in question for an appropriate headline – but…
The mighty UMS weekend may be drawing to a close, but it’s far from done. The last day brings some of the best of the bunch, and you won’t want to miss any of it. All three days previous have been more than spectacular – and have shown off the Denver scene for what it is: strong, diverse and more than anything just plain good.
So you’ll want to dust off your flippy-floppies and saddle up your hangover, drench yourself in sunscreen and get out on Broadway lickety-split – before it wraps itself up and we kiss another year goodbye!
The final day has its work cut out for it, with a lineup that’s definitely up to the task. Read on to see a few of our recommendations.
The 11th Annual UMS is now in its third day, and rounding the inside corner to slingshot itself into full, reckless, dangerous and foolhardy speed, and you’re going to want to grab on for dear life about now, and hold on. It’s going to get a lot more beautiful before too long, and there’ll be more than you can imagine to see, hear, taste and drink.
All the more reason to follow our recommendations for which bands to see, where, and just a little bit of why.
Today’s also the day that the all ages crowd can take the most advantage of the many, many options – and we’ve put a little emphasis on the bands playing that anyone can see, to encourage you to get out from under the Xbox and GET OUT HERE, NOW!
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.
Hell – we’d give up our tickets for the aforementioned shows for these, if the economy didn’t already make us feel like grade-H junkies (when are you gonna get the chance to see The Tubes again, right?)
Best Bet – Accordion Babes, Sunday night, July 10, at the Lion’s Lair (2022 E. Colfax, Denver – Thanks to Amber Lee Baker and Renée de la Prade – known together on this tour as The Accordion Babes – these once pernicious precursors to the keytar are inching ever closer to private & sultry boudoir serenades than adolescent living room talent shows.
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Saturday – Mancub, Flashlights and Mercuria and the Gemstars – Hi-Dive, 7 S. Broadway, Denver
Flashlights, one of Denver’s newer, light-up electro-pop numbers, just got signed wicked fast to a record deal, and just released a new EP last month, but they still remember their base. So they’re opening a show for some local scene-mates, Mancub, at the Hi-Dive Saturday night. Mancub is a duo that’s building a reputation for using lo-fi electronics and hands-on passion to make a kind of electro-shoegaze combination. Worth taking in, if only to see their dexterity and sound combo skills. Plus, lights from both bands should make everyone feel a little bit interplanetary.