Overcasters drummer Erin Tidwell bangs it out at Moe’s Original BBQ on Nov. 8th during her band’s CD release. Photos by .
Shoegazing, the ‘80s and early ‘90s music phenomenon characterized by effects-drenched droning guitars, indistinguishable vocals and a “wall of sound,” has enjoyed a recent mini-revival of late. It looks official, with the recent growth in popularity for bands like A Place to Bury Strangers, Film School, Sian Alice Group and others. Hell, even the seminal shoegazer band, My Bloody Valentine, released a box set and did a mini-tour this year, and Nov. 8th nightap noisy, psychedelic extravaganza at ensured that Denver has an active, thick vein in the genre.
The event, a CD release party for Denver’s , featured three more local bands, , and , and offered a nearly four-hour barrage of only slightly variant psychedelic noise to a consistently half-filled house. More than anything, the event proved that once again, everything old is new again… again.
Each of the bands kept their sets relatively short, starting with Widowers in a mostly acoustic setup. Widowers was the only anomaly in the event in terms of overall sound. Mike Marchant and the rest of the lineup played a solid set for about 40 minutes that featured the strongest vocals of the night, backed by just a touch of power pop with full, nice harmonies and strong melodies. After their set, save for the space between bands, it became increasingly harder to tell the rest of the bands apart.
Blue Million Miles and A Shoreline Dream played two distinct sets that blended almost too well into each other, leading to a pretty large clearing out of the audience. Fortunately, some of the crowd from the KC & the Sunshine Band show at the neighboring showed up to add some numbers to the anemic crowd, many of them dressed as if for a costume party in flagrant disco attire.
The one thing that sticks out from the set would be Blue Million Miles’ vocals — truly the definition of drone, and the band’s biggest challenge. Just because the genre calls for indistinguishable vocals doesn’t mean itap fine to eschew any melody whatsoever, and the band’s backing sound would only be enhanced by adding some.
Overcasters, on the other hand, have a strong grasp of melody, and their overall sound that Saturday night was fairly dynamic. Kurt Ottaway, the band’s leader, has a long local music history, having been a part of two influential bands: Twice Wilted and the Tarmints. Of the two, the Tarmints had the more rocking, loud and fast, in-your-face punky-psychedelic sound, while Twice Wilted emulated U.K. shoegazers like Cranes, Chapterhouse, and the like.
With Overcasters, it appears that Ottaway has decided to abandon the Tarmints sound, and has returned almost wholeheartedly to that of Twice Wilted. Not that the sound is anything but attractive and complex, itap just a tad too familiar.
Joined onstage by Erin Tidwell, Jeremy Ziehe and John Nichols, Ottaway put on a satisfyingly loud, effects- and echo-drenched set for just over an hour, and what audience was left seemed happy to sway along. Throughout the set the stage was awash in the light of ongoing films of color, animations and visual loops. But even the band seemed just a little bored at times, and there was a steady stream of people leaving the show after the setap first 15 minutes.
All the members of the other four bands remained, as far as I could tell, for the entire show, and each band had great things to say about their stagemates during their sets as the night went on. It reminded me of one of the popular descriptions of the shoegazer genre, coined by British pop magazine Melody Maker: “The Scene That Celebrates Itself.”
Itap a good thing they appear to do just that — they don’t seem to be too successful at getting the audience to celebrate them. But who knows? The revival is young yet, and maybe giving Denver a second chance to take in Twice Wilted is just what the scene needs.
Billy Thieme is a Denver freelance writer and regular Reverb contributor.
is a Denver freelance photographer and regular Reverb contributor.
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