This is mostly a review of Black Eyes, but I want to emphasize the Ghost Canyon Festival which takes place over multiple venues over four days in Denver. If you're like me and used to grab CDs off the record store shelf entirely because that recognizable Touch & Go logo was an assurance that you were holding something well curated, creative, and probably loud, I'm sure it would be worth going to the whole weekend. I only went Saturday night because of small kids and such. And this evening was prioritized entirely because of Black Eyes because of course it was.
There were 7 acts on the lineup just for Saturday night!
- I arrived too late to see El Welk but I'm curious to check them out someday! Dark twangy reverb sounds good to me.
- Cougars were playing when I got there and really just had that classic Touch & Go noise going on. Makes sense, they're from Chicago and recorded at Electrical Audio.
- Up next was Suicide Cages, some tough guy metalcore. There was a small fight that broke out briefly but everyone chilled. As tough guy as the band was, in between songs the singer said the sweetest, most appreciative things.
- After that was another Chicago band by the name of Latter. Holy hell, this was a set. Feral beast of noise skramz, super gripping. A set highlighted by urgent screams, partial nudity, and this thing the Internet tells me is a "three-channel oscillator controlled by photoresistors" which basically I thought was some sort of handheld theremin controlled by a flashing light, which just contributed to the chaos and theatricality of the whole thing. I later checked out this band (actually hit "follow" on their bandcamp and wishlisted both their EPs for next Bandcamp Friday immediately after the set) and while I'm not entirely sold on their music videos, the music still rips and I can wholeheartedly recommend their live show.
- After that was MJ Guider, which had the impossible task of following a chaotic set with something super controlled, with flutes and a laptop and what eventually evolved into some really cool dance beats.
- And finally a band came on that I had some familiarity with, thanks to them getting Album of the Week honors at Stereogum last year, Still House Plants. They had a really cool sound that mostly sounded like some very skilled artists jamming. To me the highlight was the drummer, who came up with some crazy rhythms for the shimmery guitar and otherworldly but subdued vocals to glide over. Kind of what it might sound like if DJ Shadow got ahold of some Greg Saunier samples. There was an irritation factor in a couple audience members who were standing RIGHT IN FRONT yet playing on their phones during the set. Who does that? If you're not into it, don't stand up front where the band can see you ignoring them like that.
OK yeah I'm going long here. All that text and we're just getting to the main event.
At this point it was nearing midnight and the tiny Hi-Dive stage was getting loaded up with more and more drums and other equipment. Lots of cymbals and the famous double drum kits plus another drum for Daniel Martin-McCormick. Some dude stood directly in front of me and talked pretty loudly with his friend about the double basses and double drum kits and whatnot. One other thing about the Hi-Dive is that it's got one set of stairs to the stage and that's right in the front/middle so everyone has to load up through the crowd and up the middle of the stage. This dude was not paying attention and kept being in the way. So I was getting irritated again. But no matter, I wasn't going to let it bother me. This was about me and Black Eyes, one of my favorite bands of all time. I was locked in. This was a band I tried unsuccessfully to get many friends to buy into, particularly their more experimental second album Cough. I had one friend that liked their first album quite a bit and tolerated the second one (I hoped to run into him here but nope). I had one other friend who loved it as much as I did...but he passed away 19 years ago. So as the tiny venue continued to fill up while I stood about 2-3 people back, behind those dudes, I was ready to just let the music carry me to another plane because I am special in my mind. No one else gets this band like I do.
But then the show began. When they kicked into "Eternal Life," I felt it. Every Whoa-oh, every howl, every beat, the community was there with me. Shit went crazy. Hugh McElroy held down the control while Daniel Martin-McCormick found all sorts of crazy toys to use to disrupt. The dub parts had this great tension because you knew any moment it would explode. As I joked to myself, when the sax player (Jacob Long) has a Warren Ellis beard, you're about to die in that pit. I'd thought I would amuse myself by wearing my slip-on Toms with glow-in-the-dark ghosts. You know, because Ghost Canyon. Those shoes did not want to stay on when I got in that pit. Plus I was standing in the same dingey venue for about 6 hours, not that I remembered foot pain once Black Eyes started. Those dual drums and bass create such a rumble that surrounds you while McCormick's guitar stabs you from all sides. Then there's other stuff.
McElroy had a good speech about the crazy situation occupying DC and the importance of all types of civic engagement from the punk things to the nerdy civics class things particularly at this point in time. McCormick was more succinct with his "fuck the genocide, [redacted] ICE, transgender liberation" comment. These two sides are crucial in community building, fighting fascism on our streets, and making the best music out there.
The encore was "A Meditation" and there was a dude who looked like Pedro Pascal out there who was maybe even more excited about it than me. When McCormick pulled out his slide whistle he and I had a synchronized "oh fuck yeah" moment. At other times during and after the set people in the crowd said things like "I can't believe this is happening, I'm so happy." I saw a line of people doing the can-can at some point? I hugged a few strangers. Afterward someone else said "the noise nerds managed to hang around" and I wasn't sure if that was just because the crowd thinned a bit at the end there (it was now after 1:00am) but I took it to heart anyway that this band that put out just two classic albums over 20 years ago was able to come to the middle of the country and get this kind of amazing reception. There are noise nerds around. Some probably flew in from other states, but Denver has a collection of them. They're making noise like "OWWWWWW OW OW OW Oh-Oh-Oh-OoOoOoO" and I will never forget the night we all shared.
The encore was "A Meditation" and there was a dude who looked like Pedro Pascal out there who was maybe even more excited about it than me. When McCormick pulled out his slide whistle he and I had a synchronized "oh fuck yeah" moment. At other times during and after the set people in the crowd said things like "I can't believe this is happening, I'm so happy." I saw a line of people doing the can-can at some point? I hugged a few strangers. Afterward someone else said "the noise nerds managed to hang around" and I wasn't sure if that was just because the crowd thinned a bit at the end there (it was now after 1:00am) but I took it to heart anyway that this band that put out just two classic albums over 20 years ago was able to come to the middle of the country and get this kind of amazing reception. There are noise nerds around. Some probably flew in from other states, but Denver has a collection of them. They're making noise like "OWWWWWW OW OW OW Oh-Oh-Oh-OoOoOoO" and I will never forget the night we all shared.
After the show I went to the merch table because I'd planned on picking up Cough on vinyl. The two people in front of me got the last two copies. They were also out of pretty much everything else. No matter. I can always buy it online. I'm just stoked that there are that many vinyl copies of that album spinning all over the metro area.
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