(the playlist updated July 14, 2025: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0opArkqnlFh74axrOOoXMc?si=SY38QgYdS765aZOZEQdzIA&nd=1&dlsi=1bb25c4606c348b1
Baby boy doesn’t speak. His mother and three sisters sing along with Gene Autry at Christmas, acting the roles of Santa and his reindeer, and baby becomes “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer” by scrunching up his nose when each of them taps it. No nod to daddy; that deer had flown. (1952)
The toddler sits on a throw rug of rags on the pine board floor, listening for the refrain he has learned to repeat. His sisters, two with dark hair and one light, sing the song along to the radio, stretching the syllables, “The one with the waggly tail.” “(How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window?” He knows “doggie” and “window.” The low ceilings in the upstairs living room make him feel bigger, and he sings along. This is where his father first lived, when his mother rented rooms to returning soldiers. Now they’ve cleaned it up to rent again. His oldest sister can paint with her left hand. Baby’s crushing on the Three Girls. (1953)
The oldest sister marries and has a baby girl. She doesn’t live far from the parish school where the boy is in fifth grade. Since his mother works as a doctor’s receptionist, he spends afternoons in his sister’s basement abode, looking at her record albums and listening to either the Rat Pack or folksingers like Peter Paul and Mary or the Kingston Trio while he does his homework. He learns the lyrics to the “MTA Song.” He can’t understand why a song would celebrate the hanging of “Tom Dooley.” Her husband isn’t around much; he works late. A neighbor tells him his daddy died in the war. (1961)
Straight black hair and bangs plays “Sukiyaki” over and over, the 45 spinning nonstop, the selector arm of the pink pastel record player pushed away from the center — no other singles ready to drop. His youngest sister, still his senior by ten years, only plays this Japanese song. He sits mesmerized hearing a new language, a refrain of whistling, a song that sounds sad. Is it the language, or the exotic tone and timbre of another world? This memory as melancholic as his youngest sister. She lost her father when she was five. She may have remembered him. (1963)
“Who do you like better, the Beatles or the Beach Boys?” asks a girl classmate. The previous summer, he had met a twelve-year-old West Coast girl visiting relatives across the street from a friend’s house. She acted older, had breasts, and kissed another guy. He has a skateboard, surfs the sidewalks. He has not been to the coast, although his mother had promised a trip to Disneyland. Girls scream too much for the Beatles. He likes the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.” His answer is wrong. He can tell by the look on her face. Surfers seemed like soft males. He knows the lyrics to “King of the Road” to show he’s a man, and he hoboed for Halloween. (1965)
A DJ plays the Doors’ “Horse Latitudes” on progressive radio, but only once — 6it’s too harsh for an AM audience. The Lovin’ Spoonful and Monkees populate his soundtrack for sophomore year of high school — young love, infatuations with girls from North Denver; good girls not sluts, but how would he know. He doodles their names on his blue three-ring binder. He keeps “I’m a Believer” rolling ‘round his head. He kisses a girl during a slow dance to the Kingston Trio’s “Scotch and Soda” at Mullen, another all boys school that sponsors mixers. He still rides the bus with his little Napoleon friend and they hear two girls say, “I live for the weekend” riffing on the Grassroots “Let’s Live for Today.” They repeat this line, and laugh over and over. He plays the dating game, talks on the phone, takes girls to dances — one time his sister’s boyfriend drives them, and drunk turns down the wrong side of a divider on Sheridan Boulevard. He figures it’s a natural mistake, but he remembers once when he was younger when the boyfriend fell in the tub when his sister was heating water for his bath. Fainting father figures. (1967)
Hendrix plays the Regis College gym. Two brothers in the bookstore a day before agree he doesn’t play soul music. During the concert, Jimi keeps blowing fuses. I imagine calling to those brothers, “Hey Joe,” Jimi’s righteous.
Peter Paul and Mary play at Red Rocks. He blows up a huge black balloonthat the crowd bats about at the start of the concert. He howls to a group of friends that PP&M made Bob Dylan by popularizing “Blowing in the Wind.” A buddy laughs at his cheekiness.
Dionne Warwick wears a long white gown on the outdoor stage at Red Rocks, as he and his best friend swoon as she sings Bacharach and David’s “Walk On By” and “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me.”
Aretha Franklin walks off the stage at Red Rocks after her revue plays for two hours, saying, “The man didn’t pay me my money.” She deserves “Respect” with her rising fame. She’s got soul. He’s sitting with his tall blonde steady in the fifteenth row as bottles start flying over their heads. He aims to protect her, but they are spellbound by the riot going on. The crowd torches the piano onstage and the brush around the park. His girl digs the chaos. He would learn to love this story even though he didn’t hear Aretha sing. (1968)
He takes her to see the Reverend Gary Davis at the Denver Folklore Center. He feels cool, hanging with beats and folkies, acting her “Candyman.” He sees her off in the fall for a school trip to Europe. He sings “Leaving on a Jet Plane” to her. Abroad, she discovers sex. He breaks it off. He wouldn’t even see James Brown at the auditorium with her. She goes with her mother. Without a male model, he isn’t sure that “This Is a Man’s World.” So he tries “Pickin’ Up the Pieces” with Poco and the Byrds’ country rock.(1969)
Freshman orientation week screens The Persecution and Assassination of Marat/Sade. Paul Butterfield, already a hero of his, blows the “Walkin’ Blues,” in a free concert. He is amazed by college. He listens to the newly released Abbey Road in a crowded dorm room and everyone shivers at the finish of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” An acquaintance tries to turn him on to Neil Young and Cat Stevens, but he has discovered John Coltrane. Otherwise, the big brass of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and the piano stomping of Les McCann on “Compared to What” keep him jazzed. One of his “Favorite Things” is a recording of Le Sacre du printempson Nonesuch conducted by Pierre Boulez — a Jamaican girl with blonde curly tendrils and a lilt in her step introduces him to the music and he rewards her with his fractured French pronunciation of the title. In his red striped Indian cotton shirt, he acts the provincial charmer. (1970)
The blues head north out of Chicago to play the old college food hall nearly every weekend: Hound Dog Taylor and Buddy Guy transfix the white boys, while the brothers groove at lunchtime to the Chi-lites’ “Oh Girl” in the mezzanine. The son of the psych professor sports a wild wandering Jewfro and lives the blues.
He moves between cliques. Leads a band of science and math nerds in a line dance to Motown hits through the labyrinth halls of their historic residence. He joins a fraternity because he and his freshman roommate visit their lounge on a pledge night where ten guys are drinking beers and listening to soul music — no girls and no rush. He blasts John Phillip Sousa tunes early Saturday mornings from his second floor shared residence — his frat brothers hail “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” despite the long curly hair and dark glasses he sports. He falls in love with a redhead, and turns her on to Roberta Flack, and the black girls down the hall ask where did that guy come from.
He manages a trip to Berlin with her as an exchange student. “Do What You Gotta Do.” She lives with a grad student who drives a VW van down the walks to circumvent traffic; he lives with a mother and two sons, who take him to see Champion Jack Dupree. He takes her on a date to see Ella and the Count, wearing a purple vest he bought that day in a thrift store. It’s clear they’re walking “On the Sunny Side of the Street.” They make love for days on end without a break. The bulls in Pamplona push them to the edge, as she is assaulted and he’s not around.
Back in the States, he picks up with his old college counselor, who had once loaned him a dashiki to wear to Chicago. They drive cross-country to attend the baptism of his nephew. His brother-in-law from Pittsburgh is a bigot. He satisfies a commitment to be the godfather. His own godfather gave him some silk ties as a kid, a few years after his father left town. Can he be any kinder? He will loan a book of photographs by Carl Van Vechten to the kid, to give him diptychs of heroes to emulate. (1971)
Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” and the Stones’ Exile on Main Street rip him from his embrace of CTI’s cool jazz and album art. His new squeeze, a brunette with thick black brows who forces him to relax by looking out the window, turns him on to scotch, Johnny Walker Red, Black for his birthday. He engineers the radio show of a frat brother named Cooch who plays oldies, mostly from the 1950s. He takes on the Sunday afternoon classical show of a commuter student, who begins and finishes each show with John Fahey and Frank Zappa. He writes music reviews for the school newspaper, skewering the George Harrison solo release that his dark lady likes. He dons his own thoughts about “What Is Life?” and they tend towards the raucous ramblings of Mick and Bobby Keys on “Sweet Virginia.” Over drinks with his oldest sister during the summer, she tells him they had different fathers. News to him. The next time he sees his mother, she’s prepared to take questions. He doesn’t have any. Despite his departure, she says she loved his father. He discovers years later from their marriage license that his father had already been divorced. Why did she trust him to stick around? Naïve love? (1972)
He’s a College Scholar, defining his own curriculum of American theology, history, and literature, theorizing about Jonathan Edwards and William Faulkner. He sees little purpose in life, and argues that plenty of people get by and succeed without heeding a higher calling. (His mother reproves the point by putting most of her widowed ambition into him.) He teaches a class on American Protestantism because he knows more than the youthful instructor. He limits his record collection to a single wooden fruit crate, and starts to recycle albums like Leon Russell by handing them to strangers on the streets of Chicago. His girlfriend and he regularly hitchhike into the city on weekends for the adventure of it, once listening to Santana’s “Oye Como Va” at peak volume in the back seat of a Charger. Another ride turns him on to the bittersweet croon of the Carpenters’ “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Nancy Wilson, and Dinah Washington, he considers limiting his small collection of records to women vocalists. They speak sultry to him; men sing with too much attitude. (1973)
Post college, he drives a cab in Denver, drinks martinis for dinner. His Rasta posse listens to Bob Marley and Burning Spear. “Get Up, Stand Up” becomes their anthem. He apprentices as a taxidermist, and invites his oldest sister, who has remarried an accountant in lieu of dogging her womanizing first husband, to pet the stuffed trophy tigers. The transformed Lou Reed revolves on his turntable, and his pals moan, “How Do You Think It Feels.” A mate writes about their “Satori in C-9.” The drink and dope disgust his blonde high school girl — she sees him wasting his life. His mother avoids visiting his apartment. He pines like Jacques Brel for his “Madeleine.” He and a good friend ride in the back seat of his sister’s car to see George Jones and Tammy Wynette at Cheyenne Frontier Days, and he thinks “We’re Gonna Hold On” but they’re both so high they can hardly stand up getting out of the car. The Colorado and Southern Railroad hires him as a gandy dancer, repairing track in town. Louie, an older Mexican who sings mariachi on the weekends, bellows in his baritone the RR gang’s mantra on hot afternoons: “Is there any hope?” to which everyone responds, “No hope.” He avoids listening to the radio, scarcely hearing the hit “Sweet Home Alabama,” where his daddy was raised. After an unbecoming affair with the wife of a friend, he departs for Chicago to rekindle his dark flame: no doubt what his daddy would have done. (1974)
Riding the couch with his dark lady and her roommate in New Town, he finds work as a computer programmer because they want English majors who can talk to clients. He settles in a studio near Old Town. His girl refuses to go to the Aragon Ballroom to see Dr. John and Lou Reed, in their leather and feather finest. “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” suggests his desultory worldview after a day of yuppie suits and perforated punch cards. She brings him to her best friend’s wedding in Oak Park, the couple who turns him on to Roxy Music. The lyrical weltschmertz and lowly crooning of Bryan Ferry mask the “Thrill of It All” in a city full of music and bars and behaviors surpassing provincial Denver: he sees Springsteen up close at the auditorium, and the Stones at the stadium. He’s laid off from the insurance company and becomes a bartender and day manager at a bar first owned by lawyers bought by their Persian cook, who’s the first man he has admired for some time, outside of a college prof or two. He’s cohabiting a garden level apartment with his dark lady just a few blocks from the restaurant. He typically gets high before work. The head waitress, the kindly truck stop type, recognizes his youthful angst — she sets him up with a Hemingway, a frozen daiquiri with no sugar, and lets him zone on the patio before customers arrive. He moves back to Denver in December, in a Power Wagon drive-away, at the first flurry of snow. He can’t stand the Chicago weather nor can he stomach his lady’s control. She works for Wells Fargo and plays rugby. Like his daddy, he was “Born to Run.” (1975)
Back at a mile high, he looks for any kind of work, but finds few leads. It is like the summers back in college, when he worked for a friend’s father who managed the May D&F warehouse — listless work that only let him relax for a nap at lunch on plastic covered couches waiting to be shipped. His friend’s dad was nicer to him than he was to his own son. Too many expectations of kin? He works separating piles of brick and steel in a vacant lot on Zuni in the Valverde neighborhood. He leaves after a day, foregoing the check. He cleans the Denver Coliseum during the National Western Stock Show, picking up Jim Beam bottles after the rodeo and mopping stadium concourses through the night. Mary McCaslin’s “Way Out West” gains traction in his drear dilemma, directionless under wide skies. He wanders through girlfriends and obsesses over music, from Hank Williams to Hank Jr., from Roxy Music to Lou Reed, listening to collections of Charlie Parker and Dancing in Your Head by Ornette Coleman. A girl from college who rides a motorcycle takes him to a Dave Brubeck concert in Boulder, but he’s over that cool phase and only manages a “Take Five” with her. (1976)
He rents the upstairs of a house on Capitol Hill in Denver, and plays “Living for the City” by Stevie too much and too loud. The downstairs rocker must think he is deaf and blind. After working at the Denver Botanic Gardens as a summer hourly, he wrangles a grounds maintenance job at an apartment complex — he scores high on a personality test the owner requires; the supervisor trusts him. His education isn’t holding him back. He meets the girl but doesn’t realize it. He’s making time with a red head, but his future wife is the one who flashes him in the back yard of her rented bungalow on 9th Street in Boulder. On summer nights when she joins him in Denver, they drink tequila and tonics till the sun sets, in the shade of a massive maple looming over his balcony porch. They hang out at Wax Trax and party with the owners. His sister and her accountant hubbie invite them and his mother for Thanksgiving in Pasadena. She has a new Corolla and they drive the California highways tripping. They see Elvis Costello on his first tour at the Whiskey — only a handful of people are “Watching the Detectives.” He gets a review of a Hank, Jr. concert at the Country Palace published in a local rag — maybe he could be the “Living Proof.” What cliff will mark his fatalistic descent; what wreck killed his daddy? He’ll never know. (1977)
He studies the displays of annual flowers in Denver’s parks, making notes, and buying seedlings from friends he made at DBG. He takes over the gardens of the complex, and mystifies tenants by adding an ornamental vegetable garden, featuring flowering kale, peppers of all colors, Indian corn. During the winter months he sweeps around trash bins, busses the drives, all the time leading his partner in singing “When in Rome” by Tony Bennett from his Bill Evans album. His boss, a suburban rancher who grew up in the city, becomes the latest father substitute. His music choices rev up with weekly concerts at the Rainbow Music Hall. He works as a gardener before showering and changing into concert clothes, hops the Monaco bus, and waits in line sucking up beers hidden behind his back before his girlfriend joins him when doors open. They always sit near a column some ten rows back, stage right. They are courting at concerts, and dancing at the Broadway, a gay disco open to straights. The Wax Trax guys try to introduce Roxy Music to the playlist, but the vibe tends more towards the Love Unlimited Orchestra. He insists that they get a crew together to see Bruce at Red Rocks — he’s the only one who has seen the Boss. They gather twenty friends who share flagstone seats in the sixth row under a full moon in June: “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland” and “Racing in the Street” and “She’s the One” medley.It’s about finding a place together, and they move to a duplex in Baker next to the gay owners who are friends. She wants him for his fatherhood promise. (1978)
Six months later, the duplex is being sold, and their six months of sweat equity seem lost. Reggae and 2 Tone keep them going. There’s no explaining Pere Ubu’s “Dub Housing.” They drive to the hills to hear punk at the Moose Lodge, but stop by the side of the road to dance to “Rock Lobster.” They see a river rock house in the neighborhood for sale, and buy it with partners. Three historic houses on one lot, neglected until his chainsaw levels a dozen tall and long dead elm and locust trees over the first years. Joining friends in Park Hill for Halloween, his wife’s girlfriend helps him pierce his ear with a safety pin in the bathroom before they all venture down to the Punch Bowl for revelry: he’s got “No Feelings.” Devo plays the Rainbow but they don’t include “Space Junk” which everyone is talking about. He practices Lamaze with his lady at Denver General. A son is born in Boulder, for its birthmark, the father enlisted by his mother only during delivery — for all the preg checkups she brings other men friends with her, since he’s working. He checks out John Cale at the Blue Note in Boulder, with Paris 1919, Fear, Slow Dazzle, and Helen of Troy part of his turntable tower; he imagines having tea with “Graham Greene.” They see Magazine singing from “Under the Floorboards” sponsored by Wax Trax. He’s a dad but isn’t clear what that means. (1981)
They see the Chieftains at the Rainbow, and the Clash at Red Rocks. His nieces babysit, and they resume their concert hopping: the Blasters, X, and Laurie Anderson. He shakes James Brown’s hand at the Turn of the Century – the missing concert father of his youth — and they are some of the few white people to see Prince at the Auditorium. They move from standing on the floor to near a speaker in the mezzanine, which Prince decides to climb. “Delirious!” (1983)
He’s working overtime, designing yards and installing plants for friends, beyond his workweek at the apartment complex, “She Works Hard for the Money.” There is less time for music, although he drags an acoustic architect friend to see Laurie Anderson. The Julliard graduate is nonplussed by her electronic wordplay. His best friend gay disjoined by his father joins him to see New Order, who ply the synthesizers on “Blue Monday” but look like stoners from Evergreen, dressed in blue jeans and plaid shirts, fashion precursors to grunge. (1985)
At an alternative program in Massachusetts, he studies landscape design for a year earning his masters. His classmates find him eccentric, reading everything in the library, plus Dostoevsky and Steinbeck each night before he sleeps. He pins a huge poster shouting “POLKA” on the ceiling of the studio where presentations take place. Every Saturday morning, the local college station is handed over to polka nuts, who aren’t playing Brave Combo’s Music for Squares, but the old school Frankie Yankovic. He wanders with his mates through a hip hop night in Amherst, hosted by Mixmaster Mike. It’s a new scene and they feel out of place. He misses his wife and son. (1986)
Returning to Denver to rescue his wife catatonic from her parents’ three-month stay in their house, he becomes the staff architect and grounds manager at an urban college campus. It took six months to land the job, so finances are tight. His wife makes gig bags, and sells one to a horn player in Burning Spear’s band — they’re comped to see Garvey’s Ghost at the Glenn Miller ballroom, named for another ghost. For the next few years, he only relishes a few new artists, like Terence Trent D’Arby, and the Replacements. One of his employees switching to discs gives him a few of their albums. He likes the notoriety of “Here Comes a Regular” at the bar his buddy opened a few years earlier on Broadway. His wife mostly takes care of the son. In November, she scores scalped tickets to Prince — she meets the perp in a suburban parking lot — and they see Prince Nelson in the round, in the third row. Ten more years of partying till it’s “1999.” (1988)
He sees the Replacements at the Paramount with his friend who’s more into disco, but the show’s killer. That year they see Elvis, and Toots with the Maytals – she had seen him years ago wearing a bikini under a fur, and she didn’t intend to let the “Pressure Drop.” His son had taken him to a Beach Boys concert years earlier on Father’s Day — the boy was disappointed to find out they were no longer boys like him. Now it’s le bon fils turn to attend his first Red Rocks concert, Tears for Fears. It’s a fine introduction to the venue, with the drunk rocker behind them puking before the headliner shows. Still, they are “Sowing the Seeds of Love” for the youngster’s musical tastes. They see David Byrne at the Rocks, but move back because of the loudness of his Rei Momo show. They check out that “Big Boned Gal” k.d. Lang at Mackey in Boulder, and she becomes a new fave. He sees Gil Scott-Heron during Black History Month at the Gothic, who announces that if “mothers want me to stop drinking and driving, I’ll give up driving.” His high school mates chuckle over this. If he can’t see “Lady Day and John Coltrane,” he’ll take Gil-Scott. He visits his best man on his fortieth and he’s cooking up pasta sauce with vegetables culled from his garden, blasting Jane’s Addiction’s “Been Caught Stealing.” He sees Erasure at Red Rocks with his best friend, and the show is “Too Darn Hot.” (1990)
The next few years see the family commit to a range of performances, from the parents being the youngest couple at a Tony Bennett performance cause “I Wanna Be Around,” to fans of Neil Young heckling Sonic Youth only to cheer Crazy Horse playing in the same vein, “My, My, Hey, Hey.” He buys an English import record of the Soundtrack from Twin Peaks, because it’s only available on CD in the U.S. They see the youth’s soccer coach in the Denver Gay Man’s Chorus at Mammoth, but she misses Lou Reed at the Paramount sick because the boy’s grades disappoint again. He attends for the “Magic and Loss.” At the start of summer, they go to the Kool Koncert at Fiddler’s Green, and he leads a snake dance up and down the aisles before being stopped by security — a conga line father to his boy and fans. Lollapalooza shows up, and Eddie Vedder climbs the speakers like Prince, and Ice Cube repeats “fuck” over and over at the same moment she shows up on an extra ticket and says, “nice concert for the kid.” Head banging suburban kids dig Ministry’s Psalm 69. Is this how a father should act, lollapaloozing around with a gang of friends and their youth? (1992)
Because he can’t find albums of Sufi music, be breaks down and buys a CD player ten years after their introduction to play Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan & Party. His nephew is getting rid of his records and he buys his turntable for $25 as a backup. He spends his extra time managing a performance art space he opens with new friends from a play his son is in. The Denver sound originates there with the Denver Gentlemen and 16 Horsepower. He’s fascinated when Janet Feder plays guitar at the venue. At the next Lollapalooza with a gang of friends and his son’s buddies, he heckles Beck for talking about his granddad rather than singing. His “Asshole” reputation for rude antics rises. His son turns him onto the Bosstones. His mother dies and they leave on a working vacation anyway, letting his family handle the details of the funeral, only to cut the trip short. He eulogizes her as mother and father on a Saturday. He doesn’t know what he’s missed. (1995)
He quits the campus job because it’s more maintenance and management than design. They see Bruce at the Paramount on his solo tour, invoking “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” Crash Worship stuns them in a junkyard on Independence Day. The son has already seen these artist provocateurs and pyromaniacs at the Mercury when it was evacuated by the fire department. He’s working independently as a designer. He moves her shop from their house to an enterprise center. The Warped Tour makes its debut, and his son finally finds his core as the crowd piles Pennywise with paper cups on stage at Red Rocks, as one lame girl laments, “Don’t disrespect Pennywise.” Soul Coughing comes up with a new weird sound that mixes heavy bass and word play that makes as little sense as Beck, ala “Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago.” (1996)
They catch mostly oldies over the next few years, seeing the stars they grew up with on big stages, loud productions. The Stones and Bob Dylan, but Tom Waits the carnival barker proves he is the best at the Paramount cooking up that “Filipino Box Spring Hog.” “Casanova” Bryan Ferry arrives at Mackey to the pluck of a harp with a crew of cheesecake string players singing “As Time Goes By.” On a trip south, they take in Al Green at the Tabernacle in Atlanta, hearing why he’s “So Tired of Being Alone.” With his son, he catches one of Rage’s last shows at the Coliseum, where they had seen Nirvana years before. The boy is turning him on to the new shit; he has to give thanks for “Guerrilla Radio.” Closing out the millennium with Tom Morello looking for “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” (1999)
More aging rockers cross his path, like Tina Turner and Bruce, but Patti Smith the “Rock N Roll Nigger” comes to the Paramount for a Gung Ho crowd. They see the Dixie Chicks from a box at the Pepsi Center with their Dallas friends. He sees Elliott Smith at the Ogden with his son. The surprise is “Nothin’ Man” R.L. Burnside sitting on a metal folding chair in a parking lot in the Golden Triangle singing Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down. His son has engineered the old blues man’s popularity: a son repaying the old man for the blues life. (2000)
He still seeks out women singers like P.J. Harvey, who tells some new stories at the Gothic right after 9/11. Does she play “Kamikaze”? She can’t believe they are seeing Smokey Robinson –— she thinks it’s a public radio phonathon — at the Paramount, but everyone needs some soulful “Tears of a Clown” and twisting “Going To a Go-Go.” Years later, they’ll see Smokey on the Grammys wearing a silver 45 disc on a chain, and he orders it for her.Although they see Elvis exploring a mix of song styles, the rocking award goes to Queens of the Stone Age, whom he hears with the boy now a young man, and he expects it will be the “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” for many to come. (2002)
Lollapalooza features the Kings of Leon who he likens to early Stones, and the Queens for another set. Kid’s at college, so he does too many drugs with his dealer buddy, and feels the “Wasted Time” the next day when he goes back to school for teacher planning. Students see him tight at the concert; they have a week to forget it. Neil Young and Crazy Horse do the concept Greendale at Red Rocks that he enjoys as a fiction fest with his writing friend. Listening to “Queen of the Surface Streets” by Devotchka at the Larimer Lounge, he bathes in the Denver sound, but also recalls the Rockford line about a fellow PI who was killed on the highway, which was unusual since the guy only took “surface streets.” He’s of the same ilk. There’s more Elvis and the Stripes, but the next year he finds the Hives irresistible, and sees them at the Ogden with his best man, and what a “Diabolic Scheme” they deliver. His son turns him onto Howl by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and along with the White Stripes at Red Rocks, Neko Case at the Ogden, and the Queens of the Stone Age at the Paramount, he thinks it’s a brand new era of innovative rock and roll, with the boy acting father to the man. (2005)
With his wife, he sees Willie at Red Rocks, and the next year sees Bob Dylan at the same amphitheater in the fourth row. One friend says Modern Times is the best Willie Nelson album Bob could make. “Workingman’s Blues #2” plays to the crowd, but his contractor friend says if he hadn’t been up front, it would have been as disappointing as most Bob shows. Old Crow Medicine Show impresses him as a new flavor in the ole timey tradition, but they sound exactly like their recordings. Who needs concerts? He thinks this after walking out on Neil Young at the DU ice arena — worst sound ever. His boy gets comped with friends at more concerts of new music; he’s not invited, since he has drunk too much at many concerts, and tends to leave early. (2009)
Liars push it with Drum’s Not Dead. His son turns him onto Daughn Gibson’s All Hell, and King Krule’s “Krockadile” catches him like Mose Allison once did. She insists that they see Leonard Cohen after he dismissed him years earlier at Red Rocks because of the steep ticket prices. It’s a fine show in a terrible gymnasium style venue. Bruce fares better at the Pepsi Center weeks later. The next year, they get tickets for a quartet of summertime concerts. In June, there’s Devotchka with the Colorado Symphony, and Tony Bennett at the Gardens. She loves him like her father. He doesn’t have a favorite parent replacement. David Byrne and St. Vincent outdoor at Chatfield in July — hiding under tarps from torrents rain for two hours, both thinking “I Should Watch TV,” they finally thrill to great sets. Exit traffic holds them captive for hours more. QOTSA with Gogol Bordello at Red Rocks bring back the flavor of those early outdoor concerts, seeing bands with lots of friends up close on a summer night. Then on New Year’s Eve, they see Jello Biafra at the Summit — his wife and her old library friends who babysat Eric Boucher get to see him politicize rock again exhorting the masses to “SHOCK-U-PY.” (2013)
Seems like they’ve outlived their friends, and she thinks she is too old for concerts attended by hipsters. Because it’s walkable from their house, he checks out the Underground Music Showcase, and sees Lee Fields, a contemporary James Brown, and the Allah-Las. Mostly they see the tried and true in places that offer some creature comforts: Buena Vista Social Club’s farewell at the Gardens, Rufus Wainwright with the Symphony at Boettcher, the Zombies at the Paramount — he gets invited to this reunion tour of Odessey and Oracle, but “She’s Not There”. His son seems to be saying it’s too late for the old man. He thinks he’s had plenty of good times, even though many were hazy from the drugs and drink. He identifies with Courtney Barnett’s Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. There have to be a few more music outings on the horizon, so he can show the boy why rock and roll “it’s a gas” — what any father would do he thinks. (2016)
His wife is headed to the Frieze art fair with a girlfriend the next day, so she’s unprepared to see P.J. Harvey play The Hope Six Demolition Project. He pledges to the son that Polly Jean will shine, and the sound satisfies and surrounds in a baritonal fashion far beyond the vinyl. “The Ministry of Defence” defiantly brandishes the end of the world. Nick Cave crashes the Paramount hanging from his “Skeleton Tree.” She hangs him out to dry for drinking a martini at the café — he must tell the son how much she dreads the sight and tang of Tanqueray. Rufus doesn’t vary his songs as much as they’ve heard in the past, albeit he throws in Leonard’s “Hallelujah” as a bird sprite skirts his piano midair through the song. It’s a moondance with Pink Martini at Red Rocks. They visit Meow Wolf with CultureHaus and dance the night away to Nosostros for one of the first times in a long while. He catches Wesley Watkins sitting in with 45+1, and Nic Jay shouting with SYCDVK at the UMS, two former students swelling it. They splurge on front row seats at the Paramount for Bryan Ferry, the singer who sealed their love long, long ago. “Love is the Drug,” he croons, she swoons. A day before a show at Hudson Gardens, they opt to see Los Lobos again after some thirty years, only recalling that the band played every instrument imaginable at the Denver Zoo when the boy was but a youngster. Touring with Los Lonely Boys, they feature mostly electric guitar, and the couple feels cheated by the lack of horns and accordion — they wanted a 33 1/3 replay of their earlier garden concert. Early in December, Lady Gaga swells the Pepsi Center with her all-inclusive, anthemic show devoted to the ones she loves. Her passions rise to the rafters of the arena in the forms of clouds and taco shells bearing kaleidoscopic visions of everyone, cartoon lips synching and kissing, “I Was Born This Way.” He sighs and thinks to her, next to him, “It’s just us.” Le bon fils now has two daughters to turn on to the music. He must be excited to show them the way, the way music guides, identifies, enfolds, and reveals, even in parents woke. (2017)
He searches the stacks at every flea market and record store he visits, looking for a decent copy of Natch’l Blues by Taj Mahal. For the reason he can only imagine, he traded his soon after college, when he was traveling light — he thinks he wore the grooves out, but now hears in his head “She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride” every few days, and finally in person at the Denver Botanic Gardens with his hard-headed woman during a rainstorm. Keb Mo and Taj finally treat the audience to an acoustic set after the roadies cover and uncover the equipment through waves of summer rain. He had already seen the blue King Krule, Archy the cockroach, at the Ogden in April, talking his “Easy Easy” like a post punk Mose Allison. For the Underground Music Showcase, where he wanders alone, picking up blasts here and there, the stranger everyone recognizes hits on Oxeye Daisy at the 3 Kings, Frankie Cosmos on the Main Stage, the River Arkansas playing songs the river runs through at the South Broadway Christian Church, and Los Mocochetes in a swelter set outside on Saturday afternoon. He thinks his granddaughter might be old enough next year to wander the blocks of South Broadway on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, pickin’ out the tunes. The girl lead of Ghost Tapes carries him away later that night.
When he thought the music died for the year, she buys him last minute tickets for David Byrne at Red Rocks, and they take a bus from the Cheeba Hut on Colfax, basking on a hot summer night in the vapors and vodka of a road trip. The concert astounds him in its staging, a surreal romp of a drum and bugle corps, choreographed inside the volume of a shimmering silver box, like a new wave Ricky Ricardo show; “This Must Be the Place” suits him as his own naïve melody. So glad she made them buy the tickets. They had seen Angelique Kidjo at the DBG just weeks before where she turned Remain in Light into a revolutionary manifesto, where for “Once in a Lifetime” you’re not just passing.
He attends an ESU conference in New Orleans and seesaws between Rachmaninoff and street blues. The Sunday post Thanksgiving yields gift tickets to Elvis Costello at the Fillmore, and with the arthritis in his legs, sometimes it feels like “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down,” but they hold close and watch the rocker sing it swell, wearing a tie, like he did when they first saw him at the Whisky in LA in 1977. Always a stand up guy who wears it well. The grandparents can still do it, too, pumping to “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”
Right before New Year’s, after a dark solstice but aluminum bright Christmas, they catch Gogol Bordello at the Ogden, and see punk reinvigorated with body surfers and hyper-energy. He started wearing purple again after his son admitted his quip about purple being a sign of sexual repression was just a joke. He had bought a purple vest before seeing Ella and the Count in Berlin when he was a college student. He still sported a pair of round purple frames, albeit the prescription was outdated. They had seen Gogol Bordello sing “Start Wearing Purple” when the band opened for QOTSA at Red Rocks. Colors were ok again — goth was never in play, but fashion and gallery black a perennial option — and they “Did It All,” mostly on their own, although she cries about her model of a father and crazy mother when she hears Lutheran hymns. He thinks his mother would have liked the energy of Gogol Bordello the way she liked Elvis Presley. Can’t say what the wayward paterfamilias might have preferred. (2018)
They started off 2019 with a Patti Smith reading and concert at SITE in Santa Fe. His partner in musical mayhem sat like the chanteuse she is on a piano at a lounge before the concert and sang a standard. The posse they were with were notably impressed though not surprised. At the Denver Botanic Gardens they caught Judy Collins, but he only recorded the sound and clouds above as she sang “Both Sides Now.” Otis Taylor a perennial favorite played Dazzle in December, but it was mostly Underground Music Showcase for Mocochetes and Levitt shows through the year. They were starting to bow out from the big concert arenas. Their son had two daughters; their names nonbinary. (2019)
For a year of the pandemic, they only waved to the granddaughters through the chain link fence behind which they worked and gardened. Le bon fils was overly(?) protective of them and us. What could we gain from contact, or lose? No one was sure. No concerts to speak of, but for the Aqua sisters playing their fiddles on the porch of their parents’ house in Baker. One of those community treats like highways empty and streets closed for patios.
The son introduced him to new music on vinyl from Sons of Kemet who makes him “Think of Home” from his 20s in his Rasta place, Sleaford Mods, Nilüfer Yanya gets “In Your Head”, Rosalia, Tirzah, SAULT, and the Kim Gordon solo releases who knocks it on “Air BnB” for all those trips they took the last few years. He learned well from the old man making mixtapes of mixed taste in music.
When the plague broke with vaccines on tap, they started to go for the gold, the big concerts and tributes by the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith with a host of stars at Carnegie Hall slinging “People Have the Power.” They visited Iceland with Rufus Wainwright. He saw the Psychedelic Furs and Jesus and Mary Chain at the Fillmore but from a mezzanine seat that seemed aloof — not loud enough for stadium rock, too much a show for the venue. At the Mission they saw first Blondie, and then Nick Cave who put on one of the best shows he’d seen — real rock and roll preaching, singing “Song of the Lake” like an update of Richard Harris’s MacArthur Park. They miss Meshell Ndegeocello in her tribute to James Baldwin because storms postponed her flight to Denver — too much “Travel.” Too many of his recent musical outings seem more like reaching for the past, rather than exciting about the present albeit Patti Smith and Elvis Costello still excite him in all their versions. Halden Wofford releases a somber album after a hiatus of years filled with too many losses according to his lyrics and patter between songs: “Red Wheelbarrow.” They see Otis Taylor who announces it may be his last, or penultimate concert, and he more than delivers “Hey Joe” and his trance blues songs as fervently as R.L. Burnside. (2020-2025)
