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FM Goes to Red Rocks | Part I

Welcome to Fucking Monolith. Stay tuned week-by-week as we countdown to the “biggest festival” (their words, not ours) ever to come to Red Rocks Amphitheatre. We’ll be picking through the Monolith line-up and posting reviews and interviews from select festival-bound acts. It won’t always be pretty–but it’ll always be honest.

_THIS WEEK’S ALBUM REVIEWS: CLOUD CULT & DEVOTCHKA

Cloud Cult
Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes)

Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes) is like the calm before the storm. And then the storm. And then the wreckage that the storm caused. And the family with a heart of gold who rises from the ashes of their ruined home and are grateful to just have each other. Cloud Cult, with their latest album, prove themselves cream of the DIY crop. Within 13 tracks, the Minnesotan eight-piece experiment with chipmunk vocals, regal strings and synthesized keys–all recorded on their own eco-friendly label. Stories of ill-fated first loves, natural disasters, and strength of the human spirit make Feel Good Ghosts powerfully intoxicating and universally timeless. [Laura Webb]

Cloud Cult plays Friday, 9/12, Bluebird Theater (Monolith Kick-Off Party)

Devotchka
A Mad & Faithful Telling

After How It Ends was released in 2004, Denver’s Devotchka had some big shoes to fill. The wait for their latest, A Mad & Faithful Telling is understandable even without an album of cover songs and some wonderful film scores keeping them busy. Within the first seconds of the eerie yet danceable, tempo rollercoaster “Basso Profundo” it’s clear that they’ve not simply filled but outgrown their clownishly large shoes. The quartet’s most varied offering yet, Mad never lets up. “Head Honcho” highlights the accordion so beautifully it seems unbelievable every band doesn’t need one, while “Transliterator” blurs the line that defines pop, with a melody so catchy it would seem right at home on any major radio station. Rest assured there is plenty of the lovesick crooning front man Nick Urata does so well, “Undone” in particular finds him warning God himself to stand aside, sins atoned for or not, as he makes his way back to his lost love. In the end Mad is a triumph that, once unleashed on the Mile High City will ensure no dregs of whiskey are safe. [Ryan Nobles]

Devotchka plays 10: 30 pm Saturday, 9/13, Main Stage at Red Rocks

Busy, busy weekend. Like always.

The Denver Post was like, “We need a good dance party.” We were like, “Done.”

CHECK IT! DENVER POST UNDERGROUND MUSIC SHOWCASE

ALSO: Come over to our hood for First Friday (2990 Larimer St) for the opening of BEN EINE at Andenken. Eine is the house printer for London-based Pictures on Walls. He is responsible for the prints of such artists as BANKSY, JAMIE HEWLETT, and ANTHONY MICALLEF. The show is sick. Seriously. Go here for a preview.

PLUS: Up the street at Skinny Squirrel Gallery (3047 Larimer St), our friend and FM freelance photographer Michelle Douglas will be opening her own show of photographic wonders. She’s good. Really good.

PS: I found some SKATEBIKE pics here.

SKATEBIKE

Next Saturday, July 26! FM MAG presents SKATEBIKE: A Skateboard/Fixed Gear Mash-Up! At EMAGE SKATE SHOP, 1620 Platte St! 2 to 9 p.m.!

skatebike

THE FM OFFICE PARTY NEXT SATURDAY

Post-DAM

FM03 is out now. Pick up a copy at 3 Kings Tavern (60 S. Broadway), Buffalo Exchange (230 E. 13th Ave), The Lab at Belmar (404 S. Upham St, Lakewood), Independent Records (937 E. Colfax Ave), The Shoppe (3103 E. Colfax Ave), or many many other local locales.

No funny stories from the launch at DAM. No crazy mishaps either. (At least nothing I’d want to blog about anyway.) Thank you to everyone who came to the party; and a big thanks and congrats to all involved in the entire production. It was great. Really.

If you missed it, keep checking back here. A video’s a brewin’.

DAM PARTY PICTURES PLEASE! SEND LINKS TO: TUYET@FM-MAG.COM

God, no, not Coldplay.

On a long enough time line, all music becomes Coldplay. Seriously. Tony and I put in 20-hour work days last week finishing up the new issue and through all those long hours we realized that no matter what Pandora station we put on, inevitably it would turn to Chris Martin. Try it for yourself. It is both exhilarating and wholly disappointing.

So last week was pretty brutal (Parachutes aside). When I say 20-hour work days, I literally mean twenty hours. Yeah, we had food breaks, but otherwise it was bang-a-gong for four days straight. During the early morning hours, we wouldn’t talk to each other. The lack of sleep and nutrition made us both a bit cranky and uncommunicative. But by lunch, one of us would crack a joke and the bad air would clear out.

Tony and I are good like that.

Both of us were exhausted and delirious by the end of it; our right arms ached from the monotonous mouse-clicking; and our eyes were all-night-coke-binge-red from staring at the computer screen.

Now it’s the eve before FM03 gets sent off to the printer and I am excited, relieved, anxious, nervous––all the usual giddiness and doubt that comes up right before an issue launch. But we’re not through yet. There’s still the party this Friday (see here) and then, well, who knows what. Listening to more Coldplay, I guess. See you all at the DAM.

<3 tuyet

TEAM FUCK YEAH

Busy, busy, busy. Next issue comes out May 30 and FM is throwing a big ass party at the Denver Art Museum. We got DJs El Brian and Oil Can Harry and Pictureplane working it; 8-Bit Gameboy Electronic Button-Pushing by Ate Bitten and Math You; subversive performance art by Travis Egedy; live (not undead) projections designed by Jeremy Peterson; crafts and button-making; AND this crazy complicated super elaborate you-got-to-see-it-to-believe-it fashion show featuring absolutely beautiful clothes by Shoot the Wounded; PLUS lots of other fun stuff still to be announced. Damn.

OH SHIT. AND THERE’S AN AFTERPARTY! CLUB VINYL, 10 PM, WITH THE PHARCYDE AND DJs EL BRIAN AND TONYO. $10 GA OR $5 WITH DAM TICKET STUB!!

ha.

Thank you for not tagging in the bathrooms.

“Has anybody seen Chris?”

It’s Saturday afternoon, mere hours before the very first FM Office Party, and our events coordinator is nowhere to be found. Great. I know he’s not answering his phone because, well, it’s been sitting on Tony’s desk at the office collecting unread text messages and unheard voice mails for the last four days. Even better.

I feel caught in some sort of running gag.

It’s called “The-day-of-the-party-and-where-the-fuck-is-everyone?” This happens every time. Tony and I end up spending most of the day problem-solving, talking down panicked party planners, putting out the small fires handed to us. The chaos has all but become a bit too routine.

So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that Chris is MIA and we don’t enough beer for the party.

Eventually I call Chris’ roommate who tells me that he thought he saw Chris leave with Olivia (whose clothing line Shoot the Wounded, incidentally, will be featured in the upcoming issue) and I call Olivia who’s at City o’ City where Chris is working and I call City o’ City to talk to Chris who tells me he has the extra beer but he won’t be at the venue until half an hour before the party starts because, you know, he’s working and doesn’t get off until late.

Well, at least I know we have enough beer.

Last Call: The party was packed. I guest-bartended at my own event and (I think) I got a lot of people drunkity-drunk-drunk. There were little post-party damages to report. And we even have some limited edition FM shirts leftover to sell (link to be posted soon). Thanks to El Brian, DreDay, Adam Sikorski, The Shoppe, and all the party people for not puking on the floors or breaking anything.

4/26 FM Office Party Pics:

Jen Nordhem (of Cycle Jerks)

Denver Connect

Got pics? Please post ‘em here. Or email a link to: tuyet@fm-mag.com