Adam Martin peers out from behind his band’s moody decorations at the Hi-Dive on Friday. Photos and text by .
Crepe-paper streamers and cardboard stars hung from the ceiling as an explosion of multicolored confetti littered the stage and most of the floor. cracked open a couple bottles of schwag champagne on stage, sipping it from plastic Dixie cups. Even to the most socially awkward rock geek, it was clear the Jim Jims were celebrating, and Friday night’s party was to mark the release of the band’s seven-song “Bottom of the City.”
Not one to let things get too cheery, the band’s gloomy, confrontational post-punk quickly cast a wet blanket on the party, which, paradoxically, only made things more fun. A pair of shrill guitars slashed like rusty razorblades as a rhythm section powered into commanding punk rock rhythms, destroying any notion of the disco-punk beats usually associated with the post-punk revival in a heartbeat.
Frontman Adam Martin alternately channeled Ian Curtis’ disaffection and Birthday Party-era Nick Cave’s intensity as he rocketed through seedy songs about booze, sex and suicide. The baggage of Joy Division and Gang of Four clones attached to hipster-era post-punk went up in a fireball, as the Jim Jims reminded a half-full Hi-Dive that it’s still possible to terrify and entertain audiences with its chosen style.
Not that the band worried too much about the carefully-scripted sense of control usually associated with its style. Taking its cues from generations of garage and punk bands, the Jim Jims’ set was just sloppy enough around the seams, full of rough, unfiled edges and the spontaneity little flubs add to a set. Don’t get too comfortable, folks. This is a band that could come crashing down in splinters at any moment.
It never came close to unwound, though, as the band galloped through a set that highlighted its latest release. Opening the night with its ode to drunken sex, “Horny,” the five-piece raced through “City City,” “Anti-Suicide” and “Strobe Light” at a clip quick enough to impress even Warped Tour skate-punks and rowdy enough to win over diehard Detroit proto-punkers.
Before the Jim Jims’ launched their celebration, and treated fans to a different sort of celebration. With Kissing Party’s own new album waiting for release and a new video to premiere, Denver’s best jangle-pop outfit poured itself into the boy/girl vocals and lilting pop of classic Sarah Records acts and most of the current Matinee Records roster. The Kissing Party’s sunshine was the perfect foil for the Jim Jims’ gloom.
The Mile High City has a lot more to celebrate than merely a seven-cut album from the Jim Jims. We should be celebrating the return of smarmy, dangerous rock, the sort of smart and violent noise that’s been a rare commodity indeed since the hipsters’ refined sensibilities made folk, avant-garde and orchestral pop de rigueur for the scene. That’s certainly reason to celebrate, Denver. Crack into a bottle of the second-cheapest bubbly in the house.
Matt Schild is co-founder and editor of , which has been grumpily chronicling the underground since 1999. He’s also written for most all of Denver’s weeklies at one point or another, as well as wracking up bylines in an ominous number of failed glossy music rags.
MORE PHOTOS: The Jim Jims
The Kissing Party
