For the past four years, the Boulder record label Adventure Records has released a vibrant collection of local music.  This year's release marks the label's fifth year, and they've assembled another eclectic roster of bands and singer-songwriters.  The CD will be released August 15th at the release party at the Hi-Dive featuring the Swayback, , Three Cheers Faraday, John Common, Goodbye Champion and Kissing Party.

By way of introduction, we're profiling all the bands on this year's volume.  Some of the names may be familiar to you, but if they are't, be prepared for a big boost in your indie cred (which, unfortunately, might not be as cool as actual street cred).  Welcome to Part III of Get To Know Your Local Band.

Also visit our Clog to read about Adventure Records' CD release party.

Despite rumors of Salma Hayek and Ray “Guitarzan” Stevens having been in the band, Everything Absent or Distorted (A Love Story), or EAOD for short, was formed by a group of friends who were trying to create pop songs with a massive sound and, considering the current line-up for their next album coming in at 12 members, equally massive roster. Taking their name from an Amiri Baraka reference (who was himself borrowing from W.E.B. DuBois) when, according to singer/guitarist Bryce Merrill, he “said that black people in representations of American life have either been left out or misrepresented. We think nearly every one at some point in time is either left out or horribly disfigured and the parenthetical was a way to keep people from thinking we’re a metal band, which we might be.” Anyone lucky enough to catch the band live or listen to their critically-acclaimed 2006 EP, The Soft Civil War, would never confuse EAOD for a metal band except for maybe in the bombast of some of their more unfurled and abandoned moments.

Despite the band’s high-minded and absurdist myth-making, as evidenced on its Myspace page, the music that this group of people has written is immediately arresting for its earnestness, it’s sonic grandeur and the intelligence underlying its clever turns of phrase. As a live unit, EAOD can come off more forceful and shambolic than it does on its recordings, but also obvious on stage is the act’s charisma and the obvious camaraderie between its performers. Having already played Red Rocks is only appropriate for this band whose music is pop writ large. This fall The Soft Civil War will be re-released on vinyl and shortly thereafter a new full-length of the material the band has been working on for the last year and a half will be launched.

Anytime someone performs music under their own name, it’s tempting for critics to categorize that person’s output under “singer-songwriter.” This moniker, while technically accurate of John Common, is equally accurate in describing the work of Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart and Nick Drake. In the 1990s, Common was in the rock band Rainville. While that band enjoyed a degree of critical and popular success, John grew weary of the, as he says, “inevitable band breakup drama” and he began performing songs under his own name, enlisting a changing roster of friends to fill the songs out and give them the sonic depth for which his music is known.

Common has seemingly always had a knack for writing an imaginatively conceived pop song but perhaps his greatest gift is his clear, resonant voice that hints at the myriad of stories from his life that he draws upon for each piece. In 2006, John and some friends performed a series of shows in which they recreated Tom Waits’ classic Rain Dogs album in its entirety. It was a tour de force of musicianship and confirmed Common’s versatility and strength as both a singer and as an interpreter of song. A regular regional performer, John Common’s uncommon talent can be caught at a wide variety of venues and in even small towns in Colorado. Charismatic and witty, profane and profound, John, in shows and on his handful of albums, creates vivid emotional soundscapes that help to untangle the complexity of everyday life.

Although this band’s songs have a melancholic and sentimental flavoring to their songs, the upbeat pace and air of innocence of their music allows for them to convey the shadings of complicated emotions that are at the foundation of the lyrical content. Primary songwriter Gregg Dolan grew up in northern Ohio where his experiences as a young person informed the music he would later write. Much of Kissing Party’s material focuses on the past and so each song sounds like it is capturing the essence of a moment in time—a treasured memory too vivid to go unexpressed.

Too often compared to Belle & Sebastian, Kissing Party do have that twee quality to their songwriting but mixed in is a delightfully unpolished element that gives the act a certain rawness that lends the band’s delivery a fragile immediacy. That level of emotional openness can endear or unsettle but it can’ t be ignored. Singer Deidre Sage brings a playful vocal style to each song and the Johnny Marr-esque twin guitar sound provided by Joe and Gregg gives Kissing Party an ethereal, watery texture that perfectly suits the band’s reflective aesthetic.

Rediscover Lovers from 2007 was hailed by critics as one of the best albums by a Denver-based band that year and it was listed at number 3 in the Denver Post year-end retrospective. At the end of August 2008, Kissing Party plans to go into the studio to record the follow up to Rediscover Lovers with the curious and tantalizing title of The Hate Album. Kissing Party may be one of Denver’s best kept secrets but their charming live shows and string of worthy releases should change their fortunes before too long.

Since its inception, teamAWESOME! has written and performed energetically playful twee dance pop music. Their repertoire of songs include as subjects childlike takes on things like cars, pirates, rocketships, forts, the sun, space travel, robots and games of hide ‘n’ seek. The act’s music, in fact, comes off like a really cool kid’s show made for adult teenagers that haven’t entirely lost their sense of fun and who have managed to retain some of their innocence. A teamAWESOME! show is not unlike being on that imaginary program with people on stage playing with an infectiously furious energy and engaging the audience in participating in the music through direct solicitation in singing along or cue cards with drawings indicating the words you’re to join the band in shouting out loud. They’re not a band for people that take themselves too seriously or anyone who has killed the child inside them, but for those of us who are still able experience the joy of youthful exuberance, teamAWSOME! has a lot to offer.

The band’s expansive roster has shifted over the years with a live membership in excess of seven members at one time—basically whomever felt like it might be a fun thing to do. Chuck Potashner and Kara Jorge started the band in Boulder in 2005 and won a CU Battle of the Bands contest to win a mastering of their debut album, Greatest Hits Vol. 1. Subsequently, Jorge left the band and it went on to tour the western US regularly. The current line-up consisting of Chuck Potashner, Anthea Osguthorpe and Logan Corcoran is the leanest, tightest and most musically consistent incarnation of the band to date, most recently releasing the accomplished full-length, The Burnt Siena Album.

Mike Marchant started writing music that would ultimately result in Widowers in 2006 but the project didn’t “officially” start until early in 2007 when Marchant and Corey Brown worked on songs together. Mike joked with Corey that, “If I had a metal band I would call it Widowers.” Brown suggested using that name anyway for the new project even though it was far from metal. “I like the contrast,” says Marchant. “This band with a kind of strange, dark name playing these really upbeat, poppy songs. Some of my favorite bands are ones that create that kind of contrast by playing really beautiful, happy-sounding songs with sad stories or dark subject matter.” In fact, the band’s sonically rich and lyrically vivid material ranges from expansive and wistful, to exuberant to harrowingly intense and cathartic.

In the short time the band has been together, it has enjoyed a great deal of critical success for both its beautifully well-crafted songs and for its energetic live shows. Amid some of the catchiest pop hooks of the last decade, Marchant’s poignant lyrics can get misconstrued. “A friend of mine told me something really interesting recently,” Mike remarked. “’You seem like a relatively happy, stable person but you write some really dark songs.’ I told him that I use music as my outlet for anything negative that I have inside of me. Writing is a great way to address, understand, and sort through your emotions.” In an era of far too much insipid, throwaway pop music, Widowers are a refreshing and vital reminder that pop music need not be vapid. That, indeed, it can be intelligent, poetic and explore the meaning of this human life in a way that is immediately accessible and serves to stir and elevate the spirit rather than numbing it. Currently at work on its follow-up to the self-titled EP, Widowers are sure to deliver another set of deliciously thought-provoking and ear-catching music.

All profiles by Tom Murphy

Photos Courtesy of:  EAOD,  John Common,  Kissing Party, Sarah Cass and teamAWESOME!, Widowers

More Profiles

Part 1 - Adventure Records Volume 5 Compilation Band Profiles

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