Sheeshmas ’22: How The Mañanas Saved the Holidays

Christmas can be a real bummer for many, exacerbated by all the holiday cheer. Luckily for all the grinches this year, Denver indie power duo The Mañanas have just the thing to make that cold, dead heart grow at least three sizes: Sheeshmas ’22, an evening of free music at Lost Lake Lounge on Friday, December 23, showcasing some of Denver's freshest and most exciting bands performing your favorite (or least favorite) holiday songs. The concert, organized by the Mañanas and presented by Soundbreaker Records and Youth on Record, will be recorded for a live album that will be pressed to vinyl.

The idea came about easily enough. “[Lost Lake] always does a free show that date, and they give the bands a budget, and I said there's nothing too festive or memorable about going to a regular [Mañanas] show. We’re big holiday guys, particularly Brandon,” says Danny Pauta, founder and director of Soundbreaker Records and producer/bassist of the Mañanas.

“Ultimately, [Christmas] reminds me of family, friends and home,” says lead vocalist and principal songwriter Brandon Unpingco. Unpingco moved to Denver in 2016 from Germany, where he grew up while his father was in the Air Force. “My dad was big on Christmas growing up, so he’d have me and my siblings help decorate. Growing up in Germany also allowed us to experience the Christmas markets all over the country, which always elevated the holiday spirit, no problem.”

Unpingco is ready to inject that spirit directly into the veins of the Denver music scene with Sheeshmas. “At first it started with, like, twenty bands. Pretty ambitious, but we...cut it down to ten or twelve bands, and the idea grew from there,” he says.

And for fans of all the great music coming from Denver musicians, this lineup is stacked. Eleven bands will play Sheeshmas ’22, including Neoma, Pink Fuzz, Little Trips, the Mañanas, Grace DeVine and Fruta Brutal, to name a few, along with a potential appearance from a very special surprise artist.

“The Denver scene is very much alive and working together. We’re diverse, we’re ambitious, and I like to say this is a new wave of younger artists. And it’s just the start," says Pauta. "There’s going to be Youth on Record taking donations, Polaroid stands, gifts and prizes, and we got Brown Jesus. We’re really planning out minute details. I’m really excited."

The night will be hosted by Colorado Public Radio’s Bruce Trujillo, and will also include standup comedy from Garrett Nygren of Pallet City Comedy. “We’re preparing bits with them that will be recorded to be used as interludes in the vinyl. Also, we want to make it in a very storybook fashion and conceptual and play-like, and we’re all in,” Pauta enthuses.

As the head of Soundbreaker Records, Pauta also sees this show as the next level of evolution for the label he started in 2016 as a bedroom recording project. “It was a very humble home studio in my hometown of Cuenca, Ecuador,” he says. “I was recording full-time, trying to make the Ecuadorian minimum wage that was, like, $360 a month by working as hard as I could with anyone.”

He did this for a year and a half before his move to Denver, making his way by trying to be the most affordable person to go to for recording, which led him to high school bands and acts on a budget. “One way I supported them was, at the end of that era, I released a compilation album. I saw a similar [idea for Sheeshmas], as it was stuff recorded for live albums,” Pauta says.

After relocating to Denver, he connected with fellow Ecuadorian and rising pop artist Neoma, who coincidentally also immigrated to the Mile High City around the same time. He joined her band for a time and produced both of her records. Then, at the beginning the of 2019, Pauta connected with Unpingco, whose previous project had ended and who was looking to start a band that was oriented around having fun. The two found common ground in their love of ’50s and ’60s rock, and the potential they saw in taking a modern approach to the genre.

“We wanted to keep that sound alive and build it a bit more. I kind of feel that’s what we based it on when we first started. Lately, we’ve been digging deeper and deeper into those sounds,” says Unpingco. “It took us forever to find a name, though.”

“It was between the Mañanas and the Manzanas. I’m really glad we chose the Mañanas,” adds Pauta.

“Being in more of a producer role with Neoma, I would consider myself more genre-less, but I’ve always been a traditionalist. I’ve loved the band format; I always loved the Beatles. With Brandon, I just understood his vibe,” Pauta continues. “One of our references are the mono versions of 'Revolution' by the Beatles that was on TV — like, the loudest thing they could possibly do with the technology of the time. From a production standpoint, we’re always looking to see what’s next."

Between Pauta and Unpingco, the Mañanas make a formidable musical partnership, and have a substantial body of work to show for it. They released several singles and a full-length album in 2021 titled Cheers, and they have a second album completed and ready for release. The two strike a solid balance between Unpingco’s easygoing and infectious songwriting and Pauta’s breadth of knowledge as a producer.

“I went through this phase where I was trying to get the most hi-fi sound. You can really hear it on Neoma’s last album, that really polished stuff. But then I hear Brandon’s demo that he does on this old Mac on GarageBand. When you hear that, even on really good monitors, you can’t recreate the bizarre guitar and vocal tone that he gets from his process,” says Pauta.

For the majority of their songs, Unpingco will write something and present it to Pauta as a demo, who then helps to produce and develop it. While Pauta was on tour with Neoma in Ecuador during the summer supporting her album Hyperreal, Unpingco spent the time polishing up the tracks that would make up their second album. That album, to be titled 3000, will come out sometime in the spring, and based on the three singles released in 2022, it is shaping up to be their best work.

“Sometimes I’ll write a song and it’s super quick, one session, which I like to do — just finish it right then and there and call it. It’s all about hitting what vibe I’m in. I think that’s why it’s so difficult to finish songs that I take more time with, because it’s hard to get back into that place I was in when I started the song,” says Unpingco. “But then we go crazy when we start recording, and that’s always fun.”

“I always like to pick at Brandon’s brain with stuff like, ‘Check out this plug-in I made that makes the track sound like it was downloaded from YouTube,'” says Pauta. “Then we make something super distorted and wrecked, then go back and tone it down.”

With the album release still a ways off, their focus now is on making Sheeshmas the best damn holiday party the Denver music scene could ask for. And when the Mañanas called, the Denver music community answered. “For as ambitious as this is, I’m really amazed on the back-end of how easy it has been to get everyone together. Every crazy idea we pitched, the bands have been like, 'Dude that’s awesome,'” says Pauta. “I’m really amazed by how nice everyone is in Denver.”

Sheeshmas ’22, 6 p.m. Friday, December 23, Lost Lake Lounge, 3602 East Colfax Avenue. Sheeshmas is free; RSVP at the Lost Lake website.