One of my favorite live experiences at SXSW this year was seeing the buoyant and catchy music of You Won’t. Not only is their debut album completely irresistible, but during their live show they won my heart by playing their drums with kitchen utensils (because it made me pretty sure they’d wash their dishes if they ever come through Colorado Springs and stay at my house), and generally making everyone want to dance, even though it was Saturday and all our feet were blistered. Listen:
Right?!
CONTEST! WIN TICKETS: You Won’t is currently on tour with Alcoholic Faith Mission, and Fuel/Friends is co-presenting their Denver show tomorrow night at the Hi-Dive! I have two pairs of tickets to give away. Please email me if you want to check out the show and I’ll pick some folks tomorrow morning! It is going to be totally terrific, and a lot of fun — help kick this grey drizzle right out of town.
[photo by the lovely Brittney Bush Bollay, from the band’s KEXP SXSW show at Mellow Johnny’s]
Seattle songwriter Damien Jurado has been making exceptionally good music for a very long time. His latest record Maroqopa sees him paired up again with Richard Swift (who produced Damien’s incredible Saint Bartlett in 2010, and also that great Mynabirds record, and the forthcoming Pickwick debut). I still stand by my previous three-word review of Maraqopa: “ghostly doo-wop sadness.”
With his newest record, there came a small stack of 7″ singles, with six additional incredible songs. This song absolutely BREAKS MY HEART, and it is a bonus track. I mean COME ON Damien, it is unfair the crazy talent that flows out of this gentleman.
COLORADO CONTEST: Damien is playing Denver’s Hi-Dive tomorrow night. This will be one of the very best shows of the springtime in Colorado, guys. You can buy tickets here, and also email me to enter to win one of the pairs I have to give away! I can’t wait til tomorrow night. Come join me.
AND: In addition to immediately buying Maraqopa and coming to the show tomorrow night, you’d also be well-advised to listen to other Seattle luminaries covering his songs, via the Seattle Times (or, you know, on a rooftop).
DAMIEN JURADO SPRING TOUR
Apr 17 – Hi-Dive – Denver, CO
Apr 18 – Velour – Provo, UT
Apr 19 – Neurolux – Boise, ID
Apr 21 – Biltmore Cabaret – Vancouver, Canada
Apr 22 – HOLOCENE – Portland, OR
May 16 – Schubas – Chicago, IL
May 17 – Warhol Museum – Pittsburgh, PA
May 18 – Davis Square Theater – Somerville, MA
May 19 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
May 20 – Johnny Brenda’s – Philadelphia, PA
May 21 – Black Cat – Washington, DC
May 22 – King’s Barcade – Raleigh, NC
May 23 – The EARL – Atlanta, GA
May 25 – The Basement – Nashville, TN
May 26 – Russian Recording – Bloomington, IN
May 28 – Sasquatch Music Festival – George, WA
Aug 09 – Haldern Pop – Haldern, Germany
Aug 17 – Green Man Festival – Wales, United Kingdom
I am bringing Typhoon and Motopony to our neighboring hippie hamlet of Manitou Springs, to an art gallery the week after next! This show is guaranteed to be incredible. As in, I personally guarantee it 100% or I will give you your money back (and shake my head slowly as I wonder what’s wrong with your ears). So excited! Tell your friends!
TYPHOON and Motopony
March 20th at 7pm (early show! school night!) Venue 515 in Manitou Springs, CO Tickets on-sale now at KRCC
It may be Rocktober here in Denver, what with all sorts of marvelous shows rolling through here this month. But in a few weeks, forget Rocktober because Fuel/Friends is presenting three absolutely fantastic shows coming through Colorado in the first week of November, with bands from the fertile loamy shores of the Pacific Northwest.
We’ll call it Rockvember, which really doesn’t have nearly the same snappy effect as Rocktober, but it will have to do.
Seattle’s The Head and The Heart and Portland’s Drew Grow and The Pastors’ Wives — both bands are becoming addictions of the most socially acceptable kind, meaning that I pretty much just rotate between their two albums in recent weeks but maintain my hygiene and there’s no lying or drug-seeking behavior.
First off, Drew Grow and The Pastors’ Wives are playing the Larimer Lounge on Wednesday, November 3rd (with Kelli Schaefer, the girl joining in for a show-stopping duet on the last lines of the song in the video below). The next night, Thursday the 4th, they are playing a Fuel/Friends house show down in Colorado Springs and I think you should come. It’s $5 and you can BYOB and rock out in my ‘hood.
Every last thing that you need to know about why you should come see Drew Grow & The Pastors’ Wives for one of those two shows can be gleaned from this post here, and from this video here. Wait until three minutes in, when the best kind of musical cataclysm starts to occur:
Their album is one of my favorites of the year, easy. Recently at the Doe Bay Festival in Washington, the Seattle Weekly reviewer wrote, “Two weekends ago, I had one of those rare, game-changing live music experiences, the kind when you’re watching a band and your chest swells up big and red and raw like a great frigatebird during mating season and there’s a lump in your throat and an ACME anvil could fall on the person next to you and you probably wouldn’t even notice the blood spatter because HOLY FUCKING SHIT this band is amazing.”
Then on Friday, November 5th –if we survive the two nights with Drew Grow, maybe rehydrate our electrolytes– Seattle supernovas The Head And The Heart are playing their first show in Colorado at Moe’s (next door to the Gothic), co-headlining with local favorite Ian Cooke, with support by The Lumineers.
Guys, I can’t even tell you how blindingly quick things are exploding for this likeable, insanely catchy band right now, and deservedly so. They just toured through my home state of California, and I had friends at each stop along the way either texting me effusive praise from stageside, or stuck outside in the rain (like in LA, where apparently many folks couldn’t get in, despite the band adding a late show the same night). I have never seen them perform live yet, just pretty much watched the bejesus out of youtube videos.
This is a new song, “Gone,” they have been performing, with a bridge that I just can’t get out of my head. I’m trying here…
BIG OLE’ TICKET GIVEAWAY!
I have five pairs of tickets to give away to both of these Fuel/Friends presented shows (11/3 with Drew Grow and 11/5 with The Head And The Heart) to folks who email me. You can go to both, I’d absolutely love to share these bands with you.
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.
CONTEST! WIN TICKETS: You Won’t is currently on tour with Alcoholic Faith Mission, and Fuel/Friends is co-presenting their Denver show tomorrow night at the Hi-Dive! I have two pairs of tickets to give away. Please email me if you want to check out the show and I’ll pick some folks tomorrow morning! It is going to be totally terrific, and a lot of fun — help kick this grey drizzle right out of town.
COLORADO CONTEST: Damien is playing Denver’s Hi-Dive tomorrow night. This will be one of the very best shows of the springtime in Colorado, guys. You can 
Fuel/Friends is presenting the show, and elegant, intricate favorite 
BIG OLE’ TICKET GIVEAWAY!
Name: Heather Browne
