I guess the suits still all get together over drinks and talk about finance and interest rates.  I never thought that subculture had its own version of the cocktail hour, but I suppose it all falls onto the spectrum, one side pursuing the dollar, the other side pursuing beauty, both groups commonly bound by a need to share their passion with other people.  In pursuit of the latter, I stopped into Glob on Friday.  It’s one of my favorite warehouse spaces on the northern fringe of Denver, just up the tracks from the newly constructed Jack Kerouac Lofts.  The lofts are one of Denver’s more laughable ideas, ugly modular crap flopped on top of the old, decrepit landscape that actually housed Kerouac on his frequent forays into D-town.  For a price starting at twice the value of my two bedroom house, you can get yourself a 650 square-foot cell in one of the most inappropriately named buildings in the city.  It’s not that I think that it’s misplaced for the neighborhood of trust fundy Denverites, but the name is just plain rude.  There are some things that money can’t buy, and the implication of a Kerouac lifestyle is one of them.  Then again, those clowns have to live with themselves and if they’re foolish enough to buy into the idea, I suppose the punishment fits the crime.

Fortunately, Denver still has a healthy venue through which culture, in its purest sense, finds outlet.  Sometimes Glob attracts big shows, sometimes small ones, but I’ve never been there and felt like the artists checked their souls at the door.  It’s always seemed like a good place to experiment and the audiences that find their way to it tend to bring a real, genuine respect for the bigger idea that art is a dialectic, a trial-and-error of sorts, something that works itself out on the switchbacks.  Art is as much about the threat of failure as it is the rewards of success and I’ve always pitied places where failure was regarded as a mark on your permanent record.

This particular friday I went to Glob to see my friend, Kevin Richards, play.  He wasn’t the only act (there were five others)but his performance happened to be my main draw for the night.  Kevin’s one-man-band, Temples, was scheduled to unveil a new acoustic song, a relative break from the heavy, hypnotic rhythm of his usual electric set.  Unmic’d with a 12 string guitar, his performance transitioned into new territory with movements chopped up by the alternating slow drone of a down-tuned bass string and intricate melodies that only a classically trained guitarist could pull off.  Between the drone and the melody, Kevin added his own vocals, an almost-throat singing sound that provided  a new sense of depth and dimensionality to his music.  I doubt he’ll be opening for Five Iron Frenzy anytime soon but, then again, he doesn’t live in the Kerouac lofts, either.

I guess the suits still all get together over drinks and talk about finance and interest rates.  I never thought that subculture had its own version of the cocktail hour, but I suppose it all falls onto the spectrum, one side pursuing the dollar, the other side pursuing beauty, both groups commonly bound by ...