Justin Hackl, lead singer of Only Thunder, bends head-to-knees over his guitar, the tattoos on his forearms a blur of motion as he slams out driving rhythms. At the Old Curtis Street Bar, bordello-red walls throb with sound, and music promoter John Baxter stands riveted, punching the floor with his cane in perfect percussion.
Call this a concert for a cause. Musicians at this event hope to raise consciousness about the disease scleroderma, as well as a little cash to help one of its victims, Baxter, pay some medical bills.
The performers joke that these rock benefits — there seems to be one every week these days — serve as their unique form of group health insurance. But just as important, they point out, such concerts are another sign that musicians here have evolved and matured.
Same can be said about the Denver music biz in general.
“I’m so excited about Denver,” says Baxter, a native of Chicago who was active on that scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s. “I see the same excitement I saw in Chicago in the punk and hardcore scene back then. The town is coming together.”
Hackl and Baxter met a few years ago on the underground music scene, which was then fragmented, even fractious. But now these friends find themselves at the heart of a renaissance, an unprecedented explosion of rock bars and clubs, filled with quality artists — several now assigned to major recording labels. The newest venue is the Old Curtis, where Baxter has created a vibrant live-music mix of punk, rock, experimental, hip-hop, jam, bluegrass and garage-blues.
The first show that Baxter promoted in Denver was a 2005 benefit for Amber Martinez, a 27-year-old mother with breast cancer.
Since then, he’s become the go-to guy for musicians without insurance, swamped by unpaid bills for everything from heart attacks to broken bones. He’s yoked his compassion for the medically disadvantaged to his passion for growing Denver’s indie art scene.
Martinez remembers meeting Baxter late one night at a diner and how they became fast friends. He shared his dream about promoting, and she told him about her struggle with breast cancer.
Showcasing goodness, music
“It was almost like a godsend for him to meet someone who needed assistance,” she says. “It gave him ideas about how not only to showcase the goodness in his heart, but to bring out the indie music and art that he wants to showcase.”
Now, in a twist of fate, Baxter needs help. As a teen he battled scleroderma, a connective-tissue disease that attacks joints, ligaments and organs. But the illness went into remission, not to return until a few months ago.
He’s facing nearly $5,000 in unpaid medical bills, and scleroderma has triggered rheumatoid arthritis. He walks with a cane. Tendons grind together in his back. He dislocates his shoulder almost every day, doing something as simple as reaching for a piece of clothing. Sometimes his toes and hands lock up. One morning, two friends had to lift him out of bed, dress him and carry him to the hospital, where he was shot full of morphine.
“Pretty righteous person”
So the indie community is giving back to Baxter. During this snowy, Sunday night benefit, enough players have shown up to create a local Lollapolozza — musicians from Killfix, Turbo Knife Fighters, Machine Gun Blues, and the Legendary River Drifters.
Even the Boston band Static of the Gods braved white-out weather conditions to arrive in Denver to participate.
“He’s a pretty righteous person,” says Jay Fox of the local punk/art band Fragments of the Divine, who immediately contacted Baxter last summer when his good friend John Stabb — a legend of the ’80s punk scene — was jumped and badly beaten in his hometown of Washington D.C.
“He’d already heard what happened to John and was extremely supportive, putting on a benefit for him.”
Despite his illness, Baxter remains relentless in his work on the concert scene, constantly texting his network about upcoming shows and creating buzz about the Old Curtis by hosting such live-music events as the West Memphis 3 benefit this past weekend featuring Get Back Loretta, the California indie-rock band.
It would be hard to underestimate how much impact the benefits and the energy they bring have helped the scene here. Good intentions have sparked a good vibe — in music, retail, real estate and beyond.
Suddenly, places like the Old Curtis Street Bar are getting attention from people like Sean Porter, founder of Gigbot, which has tracked more than 2,900 live music shows in the Denver area since August.
“Now Old Curtis is getting really serious about music, and Bar Bar a block over has started doing shows, and the Lion’s Lair has been reinvigorated,” Porter says. “It’s really cool that so much music is going on here, and that there are little clubs becoming pacemakers.”
Uniting a community
These little pacemakers are helping to drive the recent wave of major-label signings of such bands as Meese, recently picked up by Atlantic Records, and the Fray, whose Epic CD “How to Save a Life” went double-platinum last year.
And building a cutting-edge culture here that unites music with fashion, food, retail and more.
“Denver is much more well-rounded artistically now,” says Porter, pointing to such places as the retail store and art gallery called The Fabric Lab and the new cupcake design store, The Shoppe. “Denver is becoming more cosmopolitan. It’s like a momentum of things starting to knit themselves together. It empowers anyone with a good idea to do anything.”
Each edgy establishment has given birth to another — or at least drawn new clientele to a growing subterranean network of scene-makers in hoodies and knit caps.
“The subcommunities are now intermixing,” Baxter says. By that he means the scene is no longer segregated into the warehouse crowd and the rock-bar crowd, or those who play big clubs and those who play small ones.
With such connections comes not just camaraderie, but something deeper. And that circles back to the benefits.
“If you’re a serious music fan and go to a lot of shows, it’s impossible not to develop a sense of community,” says Karl Alvarez of Fort Collins, known for his work in the pioneering punk band Descendents. “And that means a sense of shared responsibility.”
Denver’s “great colors”
The indie-arts community has shouldered a lot of responsibility in the past few months, thanks to a run of freak accidents and ordinary illnesses.
This October there was a benefit for comedian Greg Baumhauer, which Baxter promoted, at the Comedy Works after he broke both hands. About that same time, there was a benefit at 3 Kings Tavern for Mykel Martinez of the punk-metal band Black Lamb, who suffered head injuries in a motorcycle accident.
And these benefits came soon after a local DJ/musician called Magic Cyclops broke both wrists during a gig at the Hi-Dive, when someone launched him through the air.
Jeff Reese and Karl Alvarez, members of the band Underminer, quickly put together a rock benefit for Magic Cyclops, and somewhere around that time, Alvarez himself ended up in the hospital with a minor heart attack.
Just as Alvarez played in Cyclops’ benefit, so did Cyclops play in the gigs that Baxter help promote for Alvarez. All those benefits helped pay off both musicians’ medical bills.
“We’re sold this line a lot in this country that it’s every man for himself, but this disproves that,” Alvarez says.
The next benefit is March 29 for a bartender at the Carioca Cafe who broke both ankles. After that, there’s another benefit for Baxter, at the Hi-Dive on April 4, where pamphlets and a short video about scleroderma will mix with homegrown bands.
“People show their true colors when things get serious,” says Baxter, tapping his cane, which is tipped with the rubber bumper of a mike stand. “And Denver has got some great colors.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
