Sandwiched in the middle of a hipster-heavy set at the Marquis Theater, 2009 Larimer St., was an unknown quantity called
Brainhammer.
And now they're my favorite new band in Denver.
Past the event staff, past the cover band drawing way more love a cover band should and past the fresh recruits and ladies auxiliary of the Striped Shirt Army - their Red Bull-stained breath gassing the block into diabetic coma - was the Marquis Theater. It's a usually reliable island of cool in the always questionable LoDo, and Sept. 22 I badly needed safe harbor.
Oktoberfest raged outside and otherwise masculine dudes were convincing themselves that a sweet, candylike liqueur qualified as a manly drink, provided it had a tough-looking Teutonic umlaut and big ol' stag head on the bottle. Inside, Marquis staff were prepared for spillover with a $7 abomination they called the "Nattymeister:" a shot of Jäger drowned in Natural Ice. I can be possessed of a little morbid curiosity, but I'm no
sicko. It'd have to be cheap bourbon, then.
I made it in time for the last song from one-man dance rock band
The Chain Gang of 1974, a last-minute replacement for Bostonians Dear Hunter, who couldn't make it. Headliners
The Photo Atlas have become a well-oiled machine by now, but this isn't about them.
Brainhammer's campy 80s metal aesthetic owes a lot to Boulder-based worshippers of Iron Maiden,
Dartanian, but Brainhammer kicks out red-blooded American thrash strong enough to stand on its own, full of sloppy punk rock abandon.
Then there's the matter of the inflatable hammers. I guess I should be disappointed that the music of my youth is now a kitsch item, but the joy of smacking people in the crowd with carnival prize inflatable hammers (which seemed to be in endless supply) robs the music of its downer didactism that so often hobbles otherwise gloriously moronic heavy metal. And if those hammers are passed out by a man in a giant brain helmet called The Brainiac, so much the better.
By now, everyone who's grown up with thrash is too old for the hamfisted agit-prop and stoner-level philosophy of the music they love. But you never get too old to shred.
They'll be playing again Oct. 4 at the hi-dive, 7 S. Broadway. Tickets are six bucks. Go towww.hi-dive.com for info.