Baby, it’s cold outside — so why not stay warm by checking out a hot up-and-coming local music act?
From hardcore to honky-tonk, there’s a little something for everyone looking to thaw out this winter in Boulder County and beyond.
Big Richard
When Colorado’s Big Richard first got together in 2021 for a one-off festival appearance, the quartet didn’t have any plans to make the group named after a dick joke a full-time endeavor. But the initial welcoming reception and subsequent packed-out shows proved Bonnie Sims (mandolin and guitar), Joy Adams (cello), Hazel Royer (bass and guitar) and Eve Panning (fiddle) had tapped into something special that resonated with audiences.
Soon enough, Big Richard found themselves plugged into the festival circuit, where they built a reputation as a supergroup of sorts, sharing a blend of bluegrass, Americana, country and pop. (The crew’s cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” is one of the best things you’ll hear this season.)
While the four musicians had played together before across several different groups, Big Richard seemed like a good excuse “to rage fiddle tunes and smash the patriarchy,” according to the band’s marketing materials.
The wildest part about Big Richard’s quick rise to the folk forefront is that the foursome has only released a handful of singles and a live album, Live from Telluride (2022), so far. But that’s about to change with their upcoming debut, Girl Dinner, set for release Jan. 24. “The Missing Stair” and “Town Line” offer a nice sneak peak, which is definitely some “Big Richard energy,” Adams quips.
“We hope that as you listen to our music, you feel big feelings,” she says. “And that as you drift off to sleep at night, our songs are the soundtrack to your dreams where you simultaneously dismantle the patriarchy, burn down capitalism and disarm the great war machine.”
Candy Apple
Carving out a career in a local hardcore scene isn’t for the faint of heart. The subgenre only thrives if bands are committed to a DIY ethos of booking their own shows and road-dog touring. Luckily, the Front Range is home to a healthy hotbed of groups doing just that, including Denver’s very own Candy Apple.
“The hardcore [and] punk scene in Denver is in a good place still. The post-COVID music boom has definitely died down a bit, but I think that just means things are back to their regular levels,” vocalist and guitarist Tristan Sagar says. “Those that are still around and involved are the ones that have made Denver so special. It’s the diehards still making shit happen. It’s not for everybody, and that’s how it should be.”
Sagar, guitarist Nick Brownson, bassist Quinn Hudson and drummer Preston Weippert are certainly making shit happen. Together they show why Candy Apple continues to be one of the best hardcore acts around with new record Comatose, put out earlier this year via Denver label Convulse Records. (You can still pre-order a special-edition live cassette of Comatose until Jan. 1).
Sagar says these nine tracks, including “Paralyzed” and “Heaven’s Gate,” have been marinating for a while, and Candy Apple is currently busy working on more original material.
“Those songs are also already several years old to us,” he says. “So it’s very exciting to be able to start putting new stuff together.”
Infinite Cousins
Infinite Cousins is one of Boulder’s newest bands, but the mastermind behind it, Theodore Stevens, is no stranger to the scene. In fact, the former guitarist of indie-rock quartet Pool Sharks and solo ambient artist admits the idea to start his latest psyched-out project came to him years ago when he began messing around and recording demos by himself at the onset of the pandemic.
“Living in Colorado inspired and gave space for this project to come to fulfillment,” Stevens says.
Now, Infinite Cousins — including fellow Centennial State musicians guitarist Sam Moylan (Red Light Ritual), bassist Jake DeMarco (In Plain Air), synth player Leo Trevino (Pool Sharks) and drummer Will Tyson (Enso) — are ready to make their official introduction with debut album, Nebulous Tremulous, set to drop independently on Jan. 3. There’s a release show Jan. 9 at Denver’s Lost Lake, with supporting acts Virgil Vigil and Soneffs.
Lead single “Mister Transistor” is a nice tease of what to expect from the psych-rock group, with its synth-forward soundscape and Zappa-esque zaniness.
“My vision for this project, as it runs alongside several other musical endeavors, is to keep recording and writing until my time here is up,” Stevens says. “To explore melodies, harmonies, rhythms with our ever-growing Infinite Cousins.”
SHOWS
Hot Buttered Rum @ Velvet Elk Lounge
If you’re looking for something a little more relaxing and laid back to kick off the new year, then check out Hot Buttered Rum with Sam Walker at the Velvet Elk Lounge on Jan. 9. But be ready to move, as the cozy Boulder space known for its menu of “live music and good booze,” according to the sign that hangs outside along 13th Street, hosts the longtime sextet known for its progressive mix of bluegrass, Americana, jazz and folk. Add in Walker from up-and-coming Denver country crew Clay Street Unit and you might be nursing your first hangover of 2025 the morning after this show if you’re not careful. At least you can say you had a good time.
Hot Buttered Rum — which is Bryan Horne (double bass and vocals), Erik Yates (banjo, guitar and vocals), James Stafford (drums and mandolin), Ben Andrews (violin), Jeff Coleman (keys) and founder Nat Keefe (guitar and vocals) — most recently put out an EP of Ralph Stanley covers, Butter Plays Ralph Stanley, earlier this year, along with Live at The Freight & Salvage 2002. Of course, the band regularly pulls from its catalog of eight studio albums, including their latest offering, Shine All Night.
ON THE BILL: Hot Buttered Rum with Sam Walker. 8 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 9, Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St. $26
Mount Eerie @ Fox Theatre
We can’t be sure if the promoters did it on purpose, but having Mount Eerie play the Fox Theatre on Feb. 22 is the perfect post-Valentine’s Day show, especially if you spent the heart-shaped holiday alone.
As the solo project of Pacific Northwest producer and songwriter Phil Elverum, Mount Eerie’s lo-fi indie rock may be just what the doctor ordered to treat any lingering melancholia you’re experiencing. Night Palace, Elverum’s latest, is another brooding collection of 26 songs showcasing Mount Eerie’s penchant for turning somber subjects into cathartic, fuzzed-out tomes.
“I have a devotion to this life of creativity and subversion that has never wavered,” Elverum said in a press release. “These songs and works dig down into the bedrock of this place and try to bring forth a fresh exhale, a big picture glimpse, small beneath the sky, clear water trickling.”
New tunes “I Walk,” “Huge Fire” and “Non-Metaphorical Decolonization” are sure to hit harder live. Plus, Elverum is bringing along another Olympia, Washington, act in doom-loving, black-metal duo Ragana (the band name is Latvian and Lithuanian for “witch”) as opener. It’s going to be hard to stay sad after this one.
ON THE BILL: Mount Eerie with Ragana. 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St. $39
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club @ hi-dive
Peanut butter and jelly. Salt and pepper. Green eggs and ham. Those are just some examples of two things that always go together. The same can be said about Slim Cessna’s Auto Club and Denver’s hi-dive, particularly the duo’s annual New Year’s Eve run on December 30-31.
The divey (no pun intended) space is a quintessential rock venue — intimate and loud — which is why it arguably remains the unofficial home of Front Range alternative music. Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, the OGs of what has become known as the “Denver Sound,” have a long history with hi-dive, cutting their teeth there over the band’s 30-plus years, while continuously returning to share its one-of-a-kind brand of alternative Americana.
“I was trying to be a country singer and I wasn’t very good at it, and I think the reason for that is I’ve always been kind of weird and I wasn’t really like that,” Cessna told Boulder Weeklyin 2022. “It took having these other people with me who are really interesting, oddball people. We just dropped any idea of genre, and I think that is the most important thing we’ve been able to accomplish.”
Now armed with new album Kinnery of Lupercalia: Buell Legion, leadman Slim, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Munly Munly, guitarist and banjo picker Lord Dwight Pentacost, steel pedal player Rebecca Vera, bassist George Cessna (Slim’s son) and drummer Andrew Warner are set to fill the hi-dive with a bevy of morbid tales that run the gamut from Gothic country hymns to bizarro alt-rock. It’s definitely more a green-eggs-and-ham medley than anything else.
Joining Slim & Co both nights this year are Texas crooners Rattlesnake Milk and Denver DJ Ryan Wong.
ON THE BILL: Slim Cessna’s Auto Club with Rattlesnake Milk and DJ Ryan Wong. 8 p.m. Mon.-Tues., Dec. 30-31, hi-dive, 7 South Broadway, Denver. $25
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