Weaving through Denver Music, Art, Culture, and Life
While last Saturday’s Hi-Dive show was originally setup to celebrate the release of Palmer’s first solo CD, “Postcard,” circumstances cast a sort of pall over it that made it seem more like a goodbye party than a debut.
If you’re familiar with Radio 1190 (KVCU Boulder, The University of Colorado at Boulder’s independent station) in general, or their weekly Friday afternoon show dedicated to the local scene in particular, you already have a pretty good idea of the significance of this release. “Local Shakedown, Vol 3,” is the third installment of the radio station’s compilation of the best of the local best, and this year’s promises to be the best so far.
While the new outdoor festival, put on for the first time last Saturday at Echo Mountain, is certainly no Monolith (yet), it was well attended, and went off pretty much without a hitch.
Arranged and staged in a cooperative effort between local sponsor JamSpace, local promoter Whisper Fiercely and Echo Mountain, the all-day festival featured a lineup of about 20 local Denver bands on two stages, set up smack in the middle of the mountain’s bunny hill and nestled against the “magic carpet” lift, and attracted a crowd that at one point looked like it was comprised of more than 100 fans, despite some pretty stiff winds, wild temperature swings, and a rugged, campground atmosphere.
As you can imagine, putting on any live show isn’t a walk in the park. There are so many places where things can go wrong – from bands canceling at the last minute (even if they do actually call and let the promoter know) to equipment problems, to a myriad of other problems, any of which have the potential to bring all the promoter’s and venue’s efforts to naught, which is to say nothing about any return on their investments in both time and money.
Try and imagine doing it outside, on the side of a mountain, in the middle of a skiing/boarding park, more than 30 minutes from downtown, and more than 12 miles from the nearest significant power grid. Not only are there the usual equipment and sound considerations to contend with, but now you’ve added weather, terrain, transportation and power challenges that no other venue faces, even on their worst day.
Git Some gets a lot of their sound from the now defunct Denver band Planes Mistaken for Stars, once home to both Keener and French (and once voted Denver’s best band in the Denver Post’s Underground Music Poll), but this band’s take on the music is somewhat less dramatic. They’ve kept the weighty metal chords in their sound, but have added a Jesus Lizard-meets-Black Flag song structure, which seems to give the sound some lift. Where PMFS reflected the more traditional, sour sturm und drang behind emo, Git Some offers a faster, more careless attitude.
Both live and on record, The Alltunators masterfully mix honest and passionate acoustic constructions behind Jessica Slater’s heartfelt lyrics and sweet and earnest, soft-spoken vocals, and add brilliant, bluesy jams behind Andy Miller’s sassy juke joint crooning. . . . The result is a summery Sunday afternoon feeling – fresh, relaxing, almost drowsily comforting.
I had a chance to interview the band recently about where they’ve come from, and where they’re going.
did have some idea of what type of music Spot would offer up that night, though, and he did not disappoint. In fact, his skill, jovial charisma and simple, blues-driven, folky punk did everything to completely wipe away any preconceived images I may have had, and replaced them with an almost loving respect for the gentleman musician he really was.
From the first plea in their opening cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Stop the World and Let Me Off,” you could feel that last Tuesday night’s set from John Doe and the Sadies at
There are some artists that need to be alone, and then there are those that just plain can’t play with anyone else. It’s the latter group that put themselves on stage as a one-man-band — performing with total musical independence, total responsibility.
