With school back in session, the kids are back inside and so are the concerts. Fare thee well, Botanic Gardens. Make way for East Colfax.
As the outdoor venues begin their nine-month hibernation, the Central Denver hotspots are starting to call my name—literally. In preparation for this month’s column, I got interview pitches from such dissimilar acts as Toto and the Subdudes, both booked at local venues in September.
Unfortunately, as the halcyon days of summer wind down, so does the imagined leisure of a world without deadlines. Both bands presented themselves just in time to be too late for LIFE Music. Thus, we’ll have to wait to learn of Rosanna Arquette’s connection to “Rosanna” and how one of New Orleans’ '90s exports wound up in Fort Collins of all places.
By the way, Toto will play the Paramount Theater on Sunday, Sept. 4. In July, I had the opportunity to spend some time with guitarist Steve Lukather, who was in town doing double duty with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. Although Toto is best known for such hits as “Hold the Line” and “Africa,” the song “Human Nature” could well have been one of them, too. As Lukather told me, Michael Jackson asked to record the would-be Toto original while the band backed up the gloved one on “Thriller.”
As for the Subdudes, Colorado’s own swampy R&B-Cajun band—assuming that is possible geographically—comes to L2 Church, 1477 Columbine St., Friday, Sept. 30, in a concert produced by Swallow Hill Music Association. I had these guys on my radio show back in the '90s a year or two after they signed with a national label. Although then assumed by some to be an also-ran in the era’s burgeoning world-music scene, the Subdudes had long paid their real-life dues in the clubs of the Crescent City.
Another Colorado-connected band, Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, comes back to the Bluebird Theater on Friday, Sept. 9. This punk-country combo was among the first bands to be interviewed for LIFE Music back in 1999 or so. Though certainly not for every taste, Cessna makes a somewhat convincing musical case for the tie-ins between working-class, three-chord country and working-class, three-chord punk. The band once awkwardly opened for mainstream country’s Joe Diffie, a terrifying event for all involved.
The same night in Five Points brings Fishbone to The Other Side at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom. The band is among the few to convincingly fuse styles as disparate as funk and punk, metal and ska. My personal favorite might be Fishbone’s late ‘80s collaboration with Little Richard on a suitable rave-up of Leadbelly’s “Rock Island Line.”
Sunday, Sept. 11, brings Denver’s odd commemoration of the 9/11 terrorist attacks back to Civic Center Park. The anniversary may be one for flag waving, but it is certainly no July 4. Still, the park will be filled with food trucks and a beer garden as crowds flock to the grass to hear free concerts from founding Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman John Fogerty and Colorado’s own Big Head Todd and the Monsters.
Maybe one day when 9/11 has the distance of Pearl Harbor this awkward mix of mourning and patriotic beer chugging will seem less awkward. But for now, uncomfortably enjoy Americana’s Fogerty, the Californian who turned Louisiana swamps into hit songs and was the genius behind CCR (contrary to the claims of the band’s drummer Doug Clifford, who was interviewed in this column in August 2014).
Big Head Todd was an inspiration to many Colorado musicians in the ‘90s when the band got its major-label deal after years in the Denver-Boulder clubs. I remember interviewing singer-guitarist Todd Park Mohr about the local music scene for Colorado Public Radio back in the day—the pre-internet day when artists actually needed a major label to go national.
Fleetwood Mac completists may want to go their own way to the Ogden Theater Saturday, Sept. 17, when the band’s eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood, shares the stage with Mac’s latter-day guitarist-vocalist, Rick Vito. I can only guess that Vito will at least in part be filling the vocal leads of Lyndsey Buckingham and Peter Green as Fleetwood toms away his athletic drum parts.
On Tuesday, Sept. 20, the same venue will welcome one of the gloomier acts of ‘80s new wave when the British Echo and the Bunnymen take the stage with a remembrance of post-punk neo-psychedelia. Original members Ian McCulloch and Will Sergeant top the bill in the current lineup.
Try to imagine a better September. Enjoy the music.
Contact Peter Jones at peter@lifeoncaphill.com.
