Death Cab for Cutie and Andrew Bird at Red Rocks

A dazzling night at Red Rocks July 14. Andrew Bird opened with a full band and plenty of whistles, and Death Cab for Cutie played a majestic and surprising set with plenty of very old songs from 1990s albums, as well as brand-new songs from The Open Door EP. A friend from Florida got to see Red Rocks for the first time, and was greeted by a double rainbow.

(As usual, there are many more videos at the YouTube library.

Flobots Community Space Opens in Denver

I'm always writing about Flobots because I'm so impressed that they walk the talk, more than any band I can think of (check this blog's archives for more). The band runs two interlinked nonprofits for social change, flobots.org and fightwithtools.org. On June 12, they opened a special Larimer Street community space in Denver for nonprofits to work on social, political, arts projects. The evening began with Serafin Sanchez's jazz band:



Then, Flobots poets/singers Jonny 5 and Brer Rabbit did a welcome/thank-you session:



I talked with the new flobots.org executive director Laura Bond about plans for the site:



... and then talked with board member Sarah Gill about how this crazy opportunity arose:



The evening ended with some very moving speeches from Lesley Johnson and Joshua Watkins, about what it meant to become a member of the Flobots' Street Team:



Now, even in the midst of a world in turmoil, how can you stay pessimistic in the midst of energy like this?

...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead

Funny thing about ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. In 1999, they were considered the hope of the Western World, or at least Austin, TX. Then the band signed with Interscope and developed a nerdy interest in ancient civilizations and imaginary spiritual landscapes. Critics charged band co-founder Jason Reece with taking too much bad acid and attempting to sound like early Pink Floyd while ending up more like latter-day Styx. An Anti-Jason Reece club even emerged on MySpace, later the subject of a bruising lawsuit. Everything seemed poised for a ToD meltdown.

Well, the 2009 independent-label return of the band, Century of Self, was actually quite good, and Reece began collaborating with a wonderful group of Austin crazies, Midnight Masses, who provided occasional choral and spiritual support. I went to the Denver show March 9 with some misgivings, but was blown away by a bank for three guitars (four counting bass), dual drums, and dual keyboards. They opted for frenzy, not for overly-pompous orchestration.

Jason was on his best behavior, dragging a wired microphone out into the crowd, while Conrad Keely was shooting full cans of Budweiser before launching into something that might have been a cover of "LA Woman," getting the crowd to chant at a bouncer roughing up someone in back, and calling more than 40 members of the stage crew and support bands to come up on stage and help sing the encore.

Above is a 25-second instrumental madcap clip to give you a taste of the band. A newer number with choral support, 'Isis Unveiled,' is here, and one emphasizing keyboards, 'Bells of Creation,' is here. I also captured 'Far Pavillions' here, and an unknown song which I believe is from the legendary Source Tags and Codes album.

The Hot IQs Throw a Christmas Party!

It's so special to have a nice Jewish boy like Eli Mishkin throw the best durned Christmas party in town. The Hot IQs were celebrating the release of their "Houndstooth" video and seven-inch single on Dec. 19, and threw a hellacious party at the Bluebird Theater, complete with dancing elves doing a choreograph thingie they called Team Firefox. The lighting was too dark to catch the amazing Elaine Acosta on drums, but below is the video for "Firecracker," and I also took some quick Flips of "Retromuff," "Duck and Cover," and a song I didn't know with a chorus of "Wait for Me." I didn't get a video, but the last encore was a wonderful cover of The Magnetic Fields' song, "I Think I Need a New Heart." Eli also did a hilarious holiday Q&A for the Denver Post.

One of the openers was an absolutely maniacal hip-hop-primitivo-techno-disco duo that called themselves the Chaingang of 1974. Here's a drum excerpt of their performance.

Merry Christmas and belated Happy Chanukkah!

Puppet Parades, Iranian Images, Gitmo Tour, Mark Rudd

Day Two (Monday) of Denver street activity was a needed absence for me, but I came back to town on Day Three. Missed Monday night, when a small crowd left Civic Center Plaza and was tear-gassed.

Tuesday was an odd but interesting day of dispersed activity around town. Code Pink intended to do an action chiding the telecom companies and NSA over the FISA act, but I sure couldn't find the demo. Instead, my friend David and I went to Civic Plaza for the start of the Backbone Campaign's Procession for the Future. Plenty of oversized puppets, to wit:



Before leaving the plaza, we saw what looked to be an inflatable mosque, and I wondered if it was some odd monument to Muqtada al-Sadr put up by some sectarian group. It was actually a wonderful "Images of Iran" display created by something called the Manjushri Project. Images of Iranians were reproduced on enormous translucent fabrics that were printed on both sides, a new type of silk-screening recently developed.




We went back to Tent State University later in the afternoon, after a brief detour to grab cold beers at the Lion's Lair (which, incidentally, is no longer the home of Modern Drunkard magazine, as MD now has grown to hold its own convention over three bars, and has signed a licensing deal of some type with HBO). I got a tour of a mock Guantanamo cell designed by Amnesty International as part of a global awareness tour. Late in the afternoon, former SDS and Weather Underground activist Mark Rudd gave an informal workshop to talk about the difference between social organizing and personal activism. Unlike Barack Obama's Swift-style nemesis Bill Ayers, Rudd completely renounced the violent philosophies of Weather. When someone asked him, "When will the time be ripe for a violent revolution in this country?", he answered unequivocally, "Never."



The rest of Rudd's talk is here. Today (Wed.) is Rage Against the Machine and other music.

Denver, Democrats Unite to Insure Convention Ugliness

The Democratic Convention in Denver this summer already was shaping up to be an ugly affair, what with the DNC canceling the hotel reservations of Michigan and Florida delegates as a means of "punishment."

Now, the city of Denver is working overtime with Democrats to deny a protest group, Recreate '68, any rights. A lottery for the use of parks, held on March 18, was so rigged it had to be stopped. And on March 20, the city "awarded" the Democrats the use of Civic Center Park over several civil groups. Organizers of Recreate '68 said they will protest at the convention site even if police confrontation is guaranteed. Even though Mayor Hickenlooper said he is liberal, he's beginning to look more like Richard Daley Sr. every day. And even though I'll probably vote for the Democratic candidate that wins, the party convention is shaping up to be a shameful affair.