By Duane Davis | By the mid-1980s, Denver was starting to get on the map for second- & third-tier touring bands, driven primarily by the string of label-supported New Wave and Post Punk bands booked into the Rainbow Music Hall by Chuck Morris under the umbrella of Feyline Presents, bands like the Ramones, the Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, the Pretenders, U2, New Order, Devo, Talking Heads, and, as the cliché goes, More More More.
Nibbling a little further down the food chain, were some smaller and very definitely more adventurous promoters: Doug Kaufman, Tom Headbanger, and Marilyn Megenity – three people who had no problem with fire, unusual sex acts or buckets of dead rabbits as long as there was a band on the stage.
Here’s the shorthand for what these three did:
Marilyn at the Mercury: Black Flag, X, Misfits, Birthday Party, Gun Club, TSOL, Bad Brains, the Church, Rain Parade, Husker Du, Nico, Green On Red, Dream Syndicate, etc.
Tom Headbanger did shows at anywhere he could find a space and an electrical outlet: Einsturzende Neubauten at the infamous Junk Yard show in 1985, GBH at the Aztlan, GG Allin, Psychic TV and a long string of local and traveling Punk, Industrial and Hardcore bands at Nancy Kennedy’s Wherehouse. Sidenote: When Tom dropped out of promoting, he handed the baton off to Bob Rob (aka Funky Bob Medina) who gloriously, if insanely, brought Flipper, Swans and Meat Puppets to the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Lodge in Thornton!
Doug Kauffman at the Ogden, Bluebird and Gothic: well, just about everyone else – Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Nine Inch Nails, Jesus Lizard, Butthole Surfers, Pere Ubu, the Beastie Boys, The Blasters, Social Distortion, Sugarcubes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.
[Originally published in Waste Paper #22 – Aug 1988]
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Read the full article here:
https://www.waxtraxrecords.com/blogs/history/resonance-18-a-portrait-of-denver-late-80s-fringe?mc_cid=bc52a6afd2&mc_eid=84acb4f0d3
(Our thanks to Dolly Zander for alerting us to this bit of Denver music history!)
