mid to late March, 09

D rallygators,

Hope your season of all things Irish is as green as the grass on the moors of Cork. We are going to stretch our season out at least until this coming Saturday with our first Colcannon show. A few of our friends, Brian Mullins and Mike Fitzmaurice, play in this lush and inventive Irish band, but it took us six years to convince them to come play the D Note. Help us show them a warm welcome. $12 advance tickets/ $15 at the door. 7:30pm.

After Colcannon Saturday night is Confunkcious w/ Giannina Ashe at 10pm, a solid funk band we discovered on New Band Night. $5.

During the day on Saturday, 4pm, we have more good St. Patrick tidings with Gobs 'O Phun, this month's installment of The Music Train Family Concert Series. $7 adults/$3 kids. We've had this band in a few times in the past and not only do they live up to their name, they're good.

Friday night we have a band new to the D Note, Tequila Mockingbird at 9pm. We've been hearing about this band for awhile and are proud to welcome them to the D. Playing at 8pm is a band formerly known as 10% Genius. This will be their first gig with their new moniker...Without Trees. Playing at 10:30pm is a humble sleeper band called 2:10 special. $5. Opening the night on Friday at 6pm there is an art opening showcasing the talents of D Note staffers Adam Ferrill, Carissa Rhodes and Matt Dougherty. The amazing Robert Eldridge will be providing musical accompaniment. A good eclectic home grown night

This last month of trivia with Geeks Who Drink at 6:30pm on Thursday nights has been a blast. If you haven't had a chance yet, come check it out.

Next weekend: Hazel and Hafla, Hafla and Hazel, Hazel and Hafla.

Love,

D fibberlooter

Extra Credit: Since we are stretching the celtic cheer, here's a poem by George Mackay Brown from a book we found in a used bookstore in Louisville, Co, "Poems for Every Day Life", editied by the poet Robert Hass. This poem would be hard to find if you were looking for it, which makes it a kind of fragile and tenuous thing, a found secret. The poem has traveled a long way to be here, passed on with care, bookstore to bookstore, reader to reader. We'll include Hass' introduction.

"I spent some time in August in the west of Scotland, on the Isle of Skye in the Inner Hebrides, and in the west of Ireland, in Galway and the Aran Islands. And I haunted bookstores aftewards in Dublin because the whole experience made me hungry for the language of those places. On the long flight home I read the poems of George Mackay Brown, a Scottish poet of the remote Orkney Islands in the far north. Brown was born in Stromness in the Orkneys in 1921 and lived for 70 years on those islands."

PEAT CUTTING

And we left our beds in the dark
And we drove a cart to the hill
And we buried the jar of ale in the bog
And our small blades glittered in the dayspring
And we tore dark squares, thick pages
From the Book of Fire
And we spread them wet on the heather
And horseflies, poisonous hooks,
Stuck in our arms
And we laid off our coats
And our blades sank deep into water
And the lord of the bog, the kestrel
Paces round the sun
And at noon we leaned on our tuskars
--The cold unburied jar
Touched, like a girl, a circle of burning mouths
And the boy found a wild bees' comb
And his mouth was a sudden brightness
And the kestrel fell
And a lark flashed a needle across the west
And we spread a thousand peats
Between one summer star
And the black chaos of fire at the earth's centre.

middle March, 09

D nuts,

We woke up this morning and checked The Daily What (a blog worth checking out daily). We came across an item entitled "17 Hottest Irish Maidens" and, of course, we clicked. The list that showed up is as follows. 17. Lucy Lawless 16. Jojo 15. Drew Barrymore 14. Mariah Carey 13. Bridget Moynahan. 12. Mandy Moore 11. Laura Prepon 10. Jenny McCarthy 9. Jennifer Connellly 8. Heather Graham 7. Kristen Bell 6. Katherine Heigl 5. Lindsey Lohan 4. Rosario Dawson 3. Vanessa Hudgens 2. Rose McGowan 1. Anne Hathaway. We can't say why, exactly, but looking over this list got us in the mood for the St. Patrick festivities. For those of you looking for 17 Irish dudes to think about, make your list. Bono, Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson?

Ah yes, middle March, the time of year we give over to Irish debauchery. And you can't ask for a better local Irish band than The Indulgers with which to debauch. We are proud to have them back rocking the D Note this Friday night, March 13. We're catching them on the beginning of their St. Patty run, so they should be wild and bucking. Ladies, you should put Damien of The Indulgers on your hot 17 list. Opening up for the Indulgers is Liz Clark, playing with Tessa Perry, all the way from Cork, Ireland. Liz used to be a staple around these parts until she moved to NYC. Check out her sweet website. It will be a rare treat to hear her with Tessa. $10.

You could also put Martin Gilmore on your hot 17 Irish dudes list. Gilmore, a good friend of ours, is playing his beautiful songs and others at 6pm on Friday before Liz and Tessa.

Saturday night we take a hop and a skip over to reggae. But hey, wasn't Bob Marley half Irish? We have The Desciples playing at 7pm and Lion Vibes at 9:30pm. $7. Both bands are great and this is going to be yet another epic and spectacular night of music.

Saturday day at 3pm we have an acoustic rock group from Westminster, Ironwood Rain. Free. Bring the family.

Also for you Irish music lovers out there we'll have more with the magnificent Colcannon next Saturday, the 21st.

Hope to see you. If you got a second it is time for Best Of Westword 2009 voting. Have fun voting. Keep us in mind.

Later,

D nut butter

Extra Credit: Time once again to dip into the endlessly deep wells of Irish poetry, way way down into some Yeats.

THE SONG OF WANDERING AENGUS

WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

early March, 09

D notables,

We've got a swell D noty weekend lined up for you. What is so D Noty about it? Read on.

Today, Thursday, March 5, we've got Geeks Who Drink trivia at 6:30pm (click the link for the intensive blog) followed by a set of electro dance music by DJ Thrill at 8:30pm. Thrill is the DJ alias of our web designer Sean Wolter and he puts together a great set.

Friday night is our first annual Pisces Party. Chef Amy, a pisces, natch, asked us to bring in music for her birthday, so we did, and we asked some other D Note Pisces for their picks too. Matt Dougherty chose DJ DbL tRbL to spin at 7pm. Chef Amy chose Reverb and The Verse and Basheba Earth at 8pm and Genevieve George chose Mono Verde at 10pm. Wow, killer night of music lined up for the Pisces lovers out there. $5. Check out the poster Dougherty put together for this one on the D Note Facebook page and become a friend while your at it.

Saturday at 3pm we have our second Kani Ka Pila (Hawaiin Jam) at 3pm. Free. Last time these guys packed the house and gave us some really beautiful island vibes. We love that they've found a home here.

Then Saturday night beginning at 8pm we have an evening of acoustic art rock put together by DARC (Denver Art Rock Collective) featuring Yerkish, 19ADD and The Inactivists. Yes! Check out Yerkish myspace page to check out the beautiful poster for this show.

All very D Noty, no?

Next weekend we have the Indulgers on Friday the 13th (St. Pats fever) and Lion Vibes on Saturday the 14th.

Hope to see you always,

D scribe

Extra credit: Even though we love poetry and we love the New Yorker we almost never like the poems in the New Yorker. Go figure. But in this week's issue we liked both poems. The first is a poem by Leonard Cohen called A Street, and you can hear an audiolized version of that poem here. The second is a meditation by Jack Gilbert, which we shall now retype for you.

WAITING AND FINDING

While he was in kindergarten, everybody wanted to play
the tomtoms when it came time for that. You had to
run in order to get there first, and he would not.
So he always had a triangle. He does not remember
how they played the tomtoms, but he sees clearly
their Chinese look. Red with dragons front and back
and gold studs around that held the drumhead tight.
If you had a triangle, you didn't really make music.
You mostly waited while the tambourines and tomtoms
went on a long time. Until there was a signal for all
triangle people to hit them the right way. Usually once.
Then it was tomtoms and waiting some more. But what
he remember is the sound of the triangle. A perfect,
shimmering sound that has lasted all his long life.
Fading out and coming again after a while. Getting lost
and the waiting for it to come again. Waiting meaning
without things. Meaning love sometimes dying out,
sometimes being taken away. Meaning that often he lives
silent in the middle of the world's music. Waiting
for the best to come again. Beginning to hear the silence
as he waits. Beginning to like the silence maybe too much.

Late February, 09

D plus,

Pop quiz: How are you? Good? Blah? Bad? Circle one. (Hint: choose good.)

After all, this weekend is full of: the special Geeks Who Drink brand of trivia (Thurs 6:30pm), the loungy funk of Boulder band Norman Decibel (Thurs 8:30pm), the island vibe folk rock of Jeremy Dion (Friday 5:30pm), the scarily good musicianship of the kids from The School of Rock (Friday 7:30pm), a fresh new psychedelic rock band on the scene Kahoutek (check out the poster and D Note pic on their myspace (Friday 9pm), a band that takes Beatles tunes and punks them up, RePlay (Friday 10:30pm), another young but smoking blues rock band, Jumping At Shadows (Saturday 3pm), Stapleton's neighborhood basement band The Mitch Lehn Folk Trio (Saturday 7pm) and the progressive indie rock of the Jake Leg Shakers (Saturday 9pm).

If you are still blah to bad after all that please see us after class.

Love,

D minus

Extra Credit: Jeni Olin is a friend of ours. She writes gorgeous glam poems that sound like glass breaking and glitter falling. Here's an excerpt of the last poem she sent us via Facebook...

GOOD KETCHUP VIOLENCE

I depend on an air of violence
to cherish more, calm down. Still
please don't nailgun me
again in my sleep tonight.
Interred in the dripping woods of
the blue elves of the 80's
metabolizing their rejection
openly & then in teams, yay
I want to be in a boy gang
in the worst way. I'd like to be
"carried" in a fetish film. You
think you could love me? You
love me in your dreams you better
wake up & apologize.

Mardi Gras, 09

D gras di mar,

One of the unforeseen benefits of the D Note is that we get to experience every holiday to the max. For instance, here is what we have in mind for Mardi Gras this year:

Henry Butler is coming this Friday. Here's the scoop if you don't already know. Henry Butler was a New Orleans star before Katrina. A blind boogie woogie piano player who not only lived in New Orleans, but studied the culture and then rolled it all up into his own transcendent art. There is no better musician we know of to listen to during Mardi Gras, and the fact that Henry chose to spend it at the D Note (he called us), makes us the luckiest people outside of New Orleans that we know. By the way we were in S.F. last week and noticed that the week after Henry plays D Note he is playing Yoshi's in Oakland, one of the most prestigious jazz clubs in the world, so we're in good company. After Henry at 10:30 we'll have our friend Chris Aaron with his band, one of the best blues guitarists we know, with a beautiful gruff voice and plenty of voo doo. We always like to mention that Chris took guitar lessons from Elizabeth Cotton when he was a kid because that blows our minds. There is a high probability Henry will sit in with Chris for awhile, and we'll all listen to sparks fly while history gets made. 8pm $15.

Saturday at 4pm we have our next installment of the Music Train Family Concerts, carnival style with Aden Harrell and friends. Aden Harrell is a musician deeply immersed in New Orleans, super good and there is nobody better at entertaining the kid in all us. $7 adults/$3 kids.

Saturday night we have yet ANOTHER great musician from New Orlean's, the prince of the royal Carrier zydeco family, Dwight Carrier and the Ro' Dogs. Seriously! Opening for Dwight will be local Tom Waits like gypsy blues band Felonious Smith at 7:30pm. There will be a zydeco dance lesson at 9pm and then Dwight and his band will rip it up.

Then, next Tuesday, which is FAT TUESDAY, we have The D Note Mardi Gras players at 7:30pm, which features Moses from the Clamdaddys, Joseph Barton and Aden Harrell among others. FUN. FREE.

I do believe we are giving the New Orleans jazz fest a run for its money this year.

Tonight, Thursday Feb 19, we have Geeks Who Drink trivia. Check out the great D Note blog from Geeks Who Drink here for a little taste of what we have been experiencing. Ephesus plays after Geeks Who Drink tonight, a cool local band.

Bright beads for all of our friends,

; D ::::)

Extra Credit: Our friend Micah Ballard has a new book of poetry about his hometown of New Orleans called "Parish Krewes". The book can be read in many ways, and one is as a kind of reconciliation, full of a quiet solemn mystery, as words try to find their way, bravely, tenderly, through the devastation left by Katrina, finding the truth askance.

Liturgy

Far from hotel, city street & travel
we return not unharmed
but rather come back to scenes
already dreamed.
Given our final votive offering
she is it, Black Amber with Pole Star.
Inverted & hung upon the chest
let there be no regret
For without it dying does not forgive
nor relation rank pure to those
already gone. Without revenge
might they be carried across
& faces from the street turn back
to those passed in a crowded barroom.
Oh it all gets lost, "that's how
their reflection & retaliation becomes
not bound." Hidden from within,
may we serve to interpret the signs
& as a shore to our wanderings
become one with the vast silence
which moves manifold
to their design.

Liner Notes for 6 Year Anniversary Mix

We've had thousands of performances at the D Note over the last six years. And at least once a week something amazing has transpired on the stage, often several times a week. If you don't believe me just ask our door man, Phil. He'll tell you! But, despite so many great performances, capturing a good recording isn't easy. For one thing, these recordings were taken off the sound board, and since you mix the sound board to the room, not the recording, most recordings we get are very uneven. Also, we tend to be busy keeping the boat afloat and therefore neglectful of such things as archiving live performances. Still, we have hours and hours on disc and this mix is a small sampling of some wonderful moments in the last six years. For the newer recordings of the last year or so Greg Rendon was probably mixing sound, and for the older ones I probably was.

1. This is a recording of the Clamdaddys during Harvest Festival 3 or 4 years ago. These great souls have held down a jam every Wednesday at the D Note for 4 or 5 years now, for which we are extremely grateful. There is no better night of free music anywhere, I'm convinced. To hear this recording of the core duo of the Clamdaddys play "Wonderful World" on a sunny day at the D Note during the Harvest Fest is to feel something akin to bliss. At the beginning of the recording you can hear Tommy say, "Look at all those beautiful women out there, man." And Mo says back, "I know. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood."

2. Back before the Fray was even formed a very young Isaac Slade used to play and sing jazz at the D Note. I believe the name of the act was After Eight. I don't even have any records that go back five years ago to verify. I also can't remember the name of the girl who sang with Isaac here, but I do remember she was very beautiful. I think they were an item at the time. The Fray played a few shows at The D Note too before their stratospheric leap to world fame. We probably recorded those shows, but who knows where those recordings are now.

3. This is a recording of Elephant Revival from a few years ago. Elephant Revival is a band full of all kinds of bewitching magic. For starters, Bonnie Paine may have the most beautiful voice of all the other beautiful voices to have been heard at the D Note. I can't think of anyone I'd rather hear sing. Bridget Law, on Violin, has played with every one around these parts and is universally loved for her bright spirit and playing. I love the part of this song where her voice subtly echoes Bonnie's. Dan Rodriguez who wrote this song and sings it here with Bonnie is one of our favorite local songwriters.

4. This is a recording from January 23 of this year of the local band Paper Bird. With their beautiful lyrics, melodies, harmonies and unique retro sound, Paper Bird is sure to take over the world.

5. Ian Cooke played the same night as Paper Bird as part of a The Long Spoon Collective, which also includes Pee Pee, Zebra Junction, Bela Karoli and Laura Goldhamer, among others. We were proud to host this remarkable collective at the D. Ian plays Cello and does wonders with the loop pedal. In this song he slowly builds up the melody and harmony into a gorgeous sculpture of a song.

6. This is a band from Oakland California called Free Peoples that came through 4 years ago or so. We've been very lucky to catch some great bands passing through and Free Peoples is one who has stuck in our musical gullet. The message of the lyrics is a good reminder... "Some say that there's a rainbow over me, 'cause I'm satisfied I'm one less greedy man."

7. If Free Peoples represents West Coast Peace and Love here, then we should balance it with some East Coast attitude. The Crooners, from Brooklyn NY, came through and rocked our world one night a few years ago. I remember afterward that one of the fellows was drunk and throwing stuff around our basement after the show. Totally annoying, but somehow it fit the rebellious rock and roll spirit of their music perfectly. If the West Coast music of Free Peoples was all about being satisfied, these guys were all about "can't get no satisfaction." And here we are stuck in the middle of the two coasts.

8. Though we love the bands traveling through, we've got a ridiculous treasure trove of riches in our own backyard. Lion Vibes is a great example. DJ Chaos is throwing down the scratch.

9. We love to hear musicians get together for the first time and explore each other's style. Here the great blind boogie woogie piano player from New Orleans, Henry Butler, is sitting in with local funk band extra-ordinaire U.S. Pipe. During the first part of the jam you can hear little glints of Henry's genius as he plays around in the groove the Pipe is laying down. Then the jam morphs U.S. Pipe leading a rousing version of the Funkadelic song, "Can You Get To That". Though Henry becomes relatively subdued here, you can feel the gravitas he is lending to the music. Citrus . And the Pipe admirably rise to the occasion. The leader of The Pipe, Citrus, another local Arvada boy, probably learned the song from his mentor George Clinton and here he lives up to it.

10. Funny thing about this track. It was on the same CD as the D Note live performance by Ego vs. Id and so I thought it was by them when the CD was compiled. But I found out afterward that this is actually a song by Mason Jennings which was playing as tweener music between the band's sets. Oh well, still a cool a song, but NOT recorded live at the D Note. Well, I guess it's a live recording at the D Note of a recording, so kind of.

11. This is a recording of a flamenco dance performance at the D Note last last year led by the guitar of our old friend Steve Mullins, a terrific player and composer of flamenco music. You can literally hear the flamenco dancers on this recording. Veronica Medina gives the song duende. (See Lorca's essay on Duende)

12. Lionel Young won the International Blues Challenge last year in Memphis and is finally getting some of the accolades he deserves. Back in the early days Lionel used to play the D Note every Friday night. He would always pull out the D Note Pizzeria song and, like a ritual, Matthew and Jeremy and I would go out and dance. The song would usually go on and on until we were falling down on the dance floor in exhaustion. This is a way abridged version.

13. Another local boy with living legend written all over him is baritone sax man Aden Harrell. Here he is with his ensemble The Otone Brass band, with a performance that encapsulates not only Aden's special spirit, but also sums up perfectly what we wish to say to you.

14. This last recording is one of my personal favorites. I asked Wu Fei, who plays the traditional Chinese instrument, the ghuzeng, and Colin Bricker, who plays the very modern laptop, to get together for a spontaneous performance for our Friday night winetasting a few years back. If you listen and follow the players you can hear them listening and responding to each other, creating a unique musical sonic sculpture on the spot. No one else but the performers were really listening, as wine drinkers like to talk, but now, in the privacy of your own head, thanks to the marvels of modern recording, you listen deep to a snap shot of this dynamic performance.

With emphasis to match Aden's,

Thank you!

Adam DeGraff
Impresario

mid February, 09

D heart,

We have, with your help, lasted six years doing this thing. Thank you!

Friday night we will start the celebrating early with Brethren Fast. We've been trying to get this hard rocking rockabilly band in for the last six years and we're stoked to finally have them. Opening are the Redline Rockets at 8pm and Crowboy at 7pm. All for only $5.

This Saturday night we have our 6 year anniversary party proper. Here are 6 notable things about this coming Saturday night, Feb. 14:

1. Local band, Dyslexic Dinosaurs, will be opening at 6pm.
2. At 7:30 we have a band from Santa Fe, NM that go by the name D Numbers. D Numbers sounds like a perfect band to play on the anniversary of the D Note, no? How did this serendipity happen? D Numbers have friends at New Belgium Brewery. Those friends contacted Matt Kowal from The Reals. Matt contacted us and ta da! Their music is all richly layered instrumentals and really cool.
3. This will be The Reals last show for a long while. They are going underground to mutate and make more music and this will be a kind of going away party for them. So get your fix while you can. It's gonna rain Reals. We love this band.
4. It's Valentine's Day and we're gonna share the love.
5. The first 100 people that ask at the door will get a mix CD of 14 amazing live D Note performances from the past six years.
6. The evening is a benefit for a great new organization FightWithFood.org. If you bring two cans of non-perishable food for the hungry we'll buy you a beer.

Also, don't forget about Geeks Who Drink trivia every Thursday night at 6:30pm (free). Last week was a good beginning with very clever questions and fun, tough competition between 9 teams. Check out the photos on the blog. This week GWD trivia will be followed by the band Latest Vintage at 8:30pm. (Latest Vintage, a new band, features one of our favorite local drummers, Dean Hirschfield.)

And keep in mind Henry Butler will be here next Friday, Feb. 20.

That's probably good for now.

love,

D liver

Extra Credit: A poem from Adam D for his lover.

Poem For G

I was in the shower
and was thinking hard
about a plot, stuck between
two options, this and that,
until my head started to hurt.
Meanwhile my eyes fell
on the can of shaving cream
on the shelf in the shower,
narrowing in on the word "shave".

My mind formed two words from this one,
like on The Electric Company, but in reverse.
The first mouth whispered "shhh"
and the second said "have".

"shhh"......"have"

Suddenly I was calm,
no thought of no plot.
I remembered how hot
the water was, and how cold
it was outside, remembered
that I was listening to The Cure,
"The Hanging Garden"...

I melted in the water
like the wicked witch of the west.

My eyes wandered to the next words
written on the can, "Bengal Spice".
One thought led to another and
soon I was purring like a tiger.
Thus I shaved, slowly and with great feeling,
so that later I might show your skin.