The Mile High Makeout: Did somebody say barbeque?
By eryc eyl | July 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »
The Larimer Lounge is just one Denver venue offering the classic combination of summer, barbeque and live music this weekend.
If there’s one thing I love better than live, local music, it’s barbeque. I don’t care what kind of meat you’re serving me — pork, chicken, beef, Wash Park squirrel — if it’s barbequed, I’ll eat it.
During the seven sad years I was a vegetarian, I could often be found at the Creative Vegetarian Cafe in Boulder, scarfing their delicious barbequed tofu. After those dark days, I made many trips to Kansas City with my ex-wife, and became a student of that Midwestern Mecca’s smoke-flavored alchemy.
During the summertime, my hankering for barbeque is nearly insatiable. There’s just something about the food — its messiness, its steaminess and its potential for causing minor household fires — that makes barbeque ideally suited to outdoor dining. Put a beer next to it and I’ll love you forever. Put some live music on the side and I’m transported in a paroxysm of ecstasy. As far as I’m concerned, summer, barbeque and live music is the best threesome money can buy.
Fortunately for me — and for others (maybe you?) who share my fetish — the glorious, unholy union of music, barbeque and summertime is easily come by in Denver. Let me take you on a quick tour.
My first stop when I’m looking for a sweaty, smoky good time is the Larimer Lounge. For years, the divey Curtis Park institution has hosted a summer BBQ series that puts local bands front and center. This weekend, for example, you can catch a lineup of boundary-stretching locals, including Night of Joy, Wire Faces, Ideal Fathers and Dinner With Cannibals, as well as six(!) other bands for a mere $8. Food from Yazoo BBQ is often featured. It isn’t my favorite, but I’m a music writer, not a food critic.
A word of warning: the Lounge’s weekend barbeque shows often start in the middle of the afternoon and stretch late into the night, so you’ll have to pace yourself if you want to make it to the last band. However, you wouldn’t be the first person to catch a sunburned nap on the bar’s capacious patio.
For a completely different feel, head to northwest Denver for some blues at Ziggies. Holding a liquor license that’s coming up on its 50th birthday, the live music institution on West 38th Avenue hosts a number of jam sessions helmed by locals like the Congress and Doc Brown.
This Saturday, however, it’s a big fat blues extravaganza at Ziggies, featuring not one but two performances by Blues Torch. For just a tenner, you’ll get blues from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., and again from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., plus a barbeque feast. Nothing says Independence Day like overindulgence!
The kings of combining barbeque and live music, however, just might be Mike Fernandez, Ben Gilbert and Jeff Kennedy of Moe’s Original Bar-B-Que. With pulled pork, smoked wings, ribs and fried catfish on the menu and its beginnings at the University of Alabama, Moe’s is clearly committed to traditional Southern barbeque. But it’s also committed to local music.
In fact, just before the Underground Music Showcase takes over a few blocks of South Broadway with its 10th annual local music mayhem, Moe’s will be hosting “Our Quiz Could Be Your Life,” a music trivia contest sponsored by Geeks Who Drink, Reverb and the Denver Post, on Tuesday, July 20. All comers welcome. More details will be revealed soon…
Though Moe’s just opened a second Mile High location in the Baker district, the place to catch local music is the Englewood location, right next door to the Gothic Theatre. This Saturday, you can catch the horror-billy of Broomfield’s Captain Blood and the blood-spattered punk of Denver’s long-dormant Cadillacula, along with the Henchmen and Stellar Corpses from California for a paltry $8. Gorge yourself on barbeque, drink yourself silly and remind yourself that America’s freedom was won by guitar-wielding zombie killers.
If you bounce from Moe’s to Ziggies to the Larimer Lounge on Saturday, soaking up psychobilly, blues and art rock, you’ll probably burn up enough calories to earn yourself an extra pulled pork sandwich and a PBR. You’ll also be taking part in the Denver tradition of summertime, barbeque and live music — the hottest threesome you’ll ever have.
Eryc Eyl is a veteran music journalist, critic and Colorado native who has been neck-deep in local music for many years. Check out Steal This Track every Tuesday for local music you can HEAR, and the Mile High Makeout every Friday. Against his mother’s advice, Eryc has also been known to tweet.
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