That’s When I Reach for…Another Cold Brew

It was, as a coworker of mine says, one hot roscoe this past weekend. Luckily, the evenings cooled down enough to be enjoyable. Which is a good thing, as the boogie was mighty hot…

On Friday, my buddy JT and I caught local pop cats the Breezy Porticos. They put on their usual fun show, which always puts me in a great mood. It was a fun night, and Breezy Andy (frontrunner for the title of "Nicest Guy in Denver") even gave us a “shout out” before their cover of Wire’s Outdoor Miner.

Oh, and somehow we ended up on this stupid website:

http://www.denverdrinks.com/venue.aspx?view=photo&venueId=62&shootDate=07-15-05&marker=10

We’re the second photo from the bottom – don’t we look thrilled to be having our picture taken? As if we were both thinking I sure hope this doesn’t end up on a really lame website.

After the show on Friday, we lucked into some comps for a real doozie of a concert on Saturday – Mission of Burma! I had already been planning on attending, so the freebie was a real treat. The performance was, much like the time I saw them three or so years ago in Seattle, pretty damn terrific (and pretty damn loud as well). Unlike the last time, however, it wasn’t all oldies as they’ve put out some new material since then (the pretty decent On Off On). They played quite a few tunes off of that one, and didn’t skip over any of the old classics – Academy Fight Song, Fame and Fortune, This Is Not a Photograph, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate, That's When I Reach For My Revolver… They closed with an absolutely electrifying cover of the Wipers classic Youth of America. Guitarist/vocalist Roger Miller (who originally left MOB in ’83 due to his tinnitus, splitting the band) is still wearing huge headphones to block out the noise (they look like the kind that the guys who wave in airplanes wear). After the set he took the headphones off, revealing that he also had a pair of earplugs in – he wasn’t taking any chances! The opening act was Matson Jones, the buzz band in Denvoid as of late. The two women who lead both play cello and sing, accompanied by stand up bass and drums. Their tunes reminded me at times of PJ Harvey, but their formula got pretty predictable after a while – start out slow, then speed up to loud finale with huge crashing drums. If they vary their approach a bit, they could really get interesting. That said, it was my first my time seeing them, and I enjoyed them pretty well.