TGIF! We made it to the weekend! Another fine lineup of live music in store for you in the Mile High City over the next couple days. Tonight, Overcasters play the second night of its three-night stand at City Hall. Dubbed Gathering of the Clouds, the second edition of this three-day festival marks the release of Overcasters' third album, Curses//Prayers, and to celebrate, the outfit pulled together all its favorite acts. Glass Hits and Coles Whalen also have new platters, and they're also celebrating with a pair of releases parties. And there's some choice imports in town this weekend, including T-Pain, Zola Jesus and more. Page down for this weekend's best live music bets.
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 23
GATHERING OF THE CLOUDS @ CITY HALL As monikers go, Overcasters is a magnificent name for a rock-and-roll band, especially one as noisy, tempestuous and imposing as the outfit that Kurt Ottaway leads. It also happens to be an apt metaphor for the ominous pall that's hung over the musician's endeavors from the very beginning. Every significant event in his career has been marked by some sort of turmoil, starting with an automobile accident right around his 21st birthday in which he almost died in a car crash to forming Overcasters after severely injuring his hand when he got caught in the middle of a fight between his Chesapeake Bay retrievers. After delivering two exceptional albums, Overcasters are celebrating the release of their outstanding third record Curses//Prayers in style with the second edition of a three-day festival featuring them with all their favorite bands. Tonight is the second night of the three-night stand. (Read full Overcasters profile)
GLASS HIT (CD RELEASE) @ RHINOCEROPOLIS Glass Hits dives into a savage bit of noise rock that sounds like it was recorded right at the line of pegging the board. Fans of Drive Like Jehu and the VSS will appreciate the driven energy and splintery aesthetic of the music this outfit creates. Songs like "Under Arches" sound like a fragile melody shattered and welded back together at sharp angles, while the vocals in tunes like "Relocation Disposition" sound like they're coming through a fan, adding to a sense of dislocation and desperation. Equal parts feral garage rock, cathartic post-punk and amphetamine-fueled psychedelia, Glass Hits have here a raw shard of lo-fi street poetry. (Read full Glass Hits profile.)
Also Tonight:
- Zoogma with Mikey Thunder at Bluebird Theater
- Adam Bodine Trio at Dazzle Restaurant and Lounge
- ...And the Black Feathers at 3 Kings Tavern
- Poor Man's Whiskey performs Dark Side of the Moonshine at Oriental Theater
- Broken Tongues at Oak Tavern
- Mark Chesnutt at Grizzly Rose
- Electric Pony at Appaloosa Grill
- Halden Wofford & the Hi-Beams at Skylark Lounge
- The Ingrates with the Sickly Ferguson at Loin's Lair
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25
ZOLA JESUS @ LARIMER LOUNGE Nika Roza Danilova grew up in rural Wisconsin. Without access to the usual distractions available to most children living in a big city, Danilova had to use her imagination and natural curiosity to keep her mind stimulated, which clearly contributed to the timeless, haunting sound of her subsequent musical project, Zola Jesus. Essentially a solo endeavor in the beginning, Zola Jesus grew as Danilova discovered how to fully incorporate percussion with gossamer synths and her spirited, soaring vocals into a vibrant whole. If Danilova smoothed down the harsh edges of her earlier releases, on 2011's Conatus she expands her sonic palette and atmospheric dynamism. Now touring as a full band, Zola Jesus has become the perfect vehicle for Danilova's creative maturity to find its full expression.
COLES WHALEN (CD RELEASE) @ CASSELMAN'S BAR AND GRILL Singer-songwriter Coles Whalen originally planned to release her third full-length, I Wrote This for You, last November, but while the CDs were in production, she listened to a copy of the master and realized that there were four up-tempo rocking country songs that she didn't want on the album. "I was like, 'I do not love these songs,'" Whalen says. "So we stopped the press of the record and we canceled the CD release. We went back to Nashville, and we took those songs off and put four other songs on instead. I just decided that if I'm going to put this out and actually own it and feel good about it that I want to like every song on there. I really want to feel good about it." (Read full Coles Whalen profile.)
ICED EARTH @ SUMMIT MUSIC HALL Iced Earth (due tonight at Summit Music Hall) came out of the rich heavy metal scene in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late '80s. At a time when melodic heavy metal, especially the glam variety, was on the wane, Iced Earth came in with the wave of metal that produced a melodic speed metal as well as the sort that became known as death metal from the mid '80s to around the turn of the decade with peers like Deicide, Death and Morbid Angel, who helped to establish further a newer, more brutal aesthetic than fully existed before. But Iced Earth's musical roots were more grounded in speed metal as pioneered by bands out of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal and its thrash descendents. Iced Earth's latest release, Dystopia came out in October 2011. We recently spoke with founding member and guitarist and backing vocalist Jon Schaffer about Iron Maiden and his love of human liberty and Les Pauls. (Read full interview with Schaffer)
GATHERING OF THE CLOUDS @ CITY HALL As monikers go, Overcasters is a magnificent name for a rock-and-roll band, especially one as noisy, tempestuous and imposing as the outfit that Kurt Ottaway leads. It also happens to be an apt metaphor for the ominous pall that's hung over the musician's endeavors from the very beginning. Every significant event in his career has been marked by some sort of turmoil, starting with an automobile accident right around his 21st birthday in which he almost died in a car crash to forming Overcasters after severely injuring his hand when he got caught in the middle of a fight between his Chesapeake Bay retrievers. After delivering two exceptional albums, Overcasters are celebrating the release of their outstanding third record Curses//Prayers in style with the second edition of a three-day festival featuring them with all their favorite bands. Tonight is the second night of the three-night stand. (Read full Overcasters profile)
NEW ORLEANS SUSPECTS @ ORIENTAL THEATER After 34 years together, the Radiators broke up last summer. Out of the wake of that came New Orleans Suspects, which features Radiators bassist Reggie Scanlan, Neville Brothers drummer Mean Willie Green, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band founder and saxophonist Kevin Harris and Outformation singer and keyboarist C.R. Gruver. The band combines original songs in the New Orleans style with hits and obscurities from the Allen Toussaint and Dr. John songbooks, as well as performing favorites from Radiators, Nevilles and Dirty Dozen repertoire.
JACOB FRED JAZZ ODYSSEY @ DAZZLE RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE Chris Combs, JFJO's secret steel-guitar sauce, wrote and arranged "Race Riot Suite," the quartet's raging new little-big-band meditation on the underreported racial violence that shook Tulsa, Oklahoma (their hometown) in 1921. The piece is much more rooted in jazz than some of their earlier prog freakouts. Tonight's show also features Peter Apfelbaum, Mark Southerland, Josh Quinlan and Brad Goode.
Also Tonight:
- The Belle Jar with Bear Antler, You and Me Apollo at Moe's Original BBQ & Bowl
- The Blackouts with Tyler Jakes & The Bootleggers and Feral Faucet
- Counterfeit Music Company at Herb's
- Growler Records DJ Party with Molly at Old Curtis Street Bar
- Head for the Hills at Aggie Theatre
- J Boog with Nikka T at Cervantes' Other Side
- Fredi & The Soulshakers at Baker Street Pub & Grill
- Frogs Gone Fishin' at Highland Pacific Restaurant and Oyster Bar
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26
T-PAIN @ OGDEN THEATRE Whether you hate him or love him for it, T-Pain is the man most responsible for popularizing the use of AutoTune. Using the pitch-correction filters to further melodize his lyrics, the Tallahassee native emerged onto the scene with hits like "I'm Sprung," "I'm N Luv (Wit a Stripper)," and later joints like "Bartender," which helped him quickly become one of the most popular figures in modern hip-hop. Having perfected the art of both the single and the summer anthem, T-Pain is the king of the ring tone. He's also a welcome guest, making appearances on both Jamie Foxx's "Blame It," and Kanye West's "Good Life." T-Pain knows how to use what he's got to get what he wants, and that's undoubtedly worked in his favor so far.
MILOW @ LARIMER LOUNGE Belgian singer-songwriter Milow (born Jonathan Vandenbroeck) has played over 400 shows in twenty different countries over the last four years, all while running his own record label and publishing company. The singer-songwriter combines folk with beachside pop elements, which is evident on his latest effort, North & South.
JACOB FRED JAZZ ODYSSEY @ DAZZLE RESTAURANT AND LOUNGE Chris Combs, JFJO's secret steel-guitar sauce, wrote and arranged "Race Riot Suite," the quartet's raging new little-big-band meditation on the underreported racial violence that shook Tulsa, Oklahoma (their hometown) in 1921. The piece is much more rooted in jazz than some of their earlier prog freakouts. Tonight's show also features Peter Apfelbaum, Mark Southerland, Josh Quinlan and Brad Goode.
"LATIN QUARTER" WITH THE MANUEL LOPEZ JAZZ TRIO @ DAZZLE RESTURANT AND LOUNGE Colorado native Manuel Lopez discovered a fondness for Latin music after he stared playing congas in his early teens, and then found his way to the drum kit. Together with pianist Peter Ellingson and bassist Eduardo "Bijoux" Barbosa, Lopez's trio delves into a variety of repertoire from old Cuban standards to more modern arrangements. The trio plays at Dazzle every Sunday evening.
Also Tonight:
- Blue jam with With Jasco or Doc Brown at Ziggie's
- The Clam Daddys at Appaloosa Grill
- Bridges Left Burning with Broken Image, Memory Down, A Midnight Run at Gothic Theatre
- eTown with Blues Traveler and Ruthie Foster at Boulder Theater
- Sole with A Sense of Porpoise, Man Mantis, XRockyX, Of Feather and Bone at hi-dive
- Chordis Bell Quixote's True Blue with Jamstain
- Josh Blackburn at Jake's Roadhouse
- Cure For Pain at Lion's Lair
Compiled by Nick Callaio.
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