Noise rap innovators Moodie Black will play Vultures on Oct. 26.
What’s great about Colorado Springs is we get to see all kinds of acts come through here at different stages in their careers. Maroon 5 and Modest Mouse played the former 32 Bleu, 3OH!3 played The Black Sheep, and there are countless more examples. That brings me to Moodie Black, one of the hardest-working bands in the business for over a decade. They’re innovators of the genre known as “noise rap,” along with the legendary Dälek, and they’ve put out genre-defying music and toured on it relentlessly. Moodie Black played Colorado Springs several times at Flux Capacitor, The Black Sheep, Zodiac and The Triple Nickel.
After working so hard, driving hundreds of miles to perform in front of sometimes unappreciative audiences, it can get a little exhausting. So during the pandemic, Moodie Black’s Kristen “K-Death” Martinez and Sean Lindahl switched gears and opened MB Foodhouse, a Tex-Mex restaurant in their current hometown of Minneapolis. Then something magical happened. As it turns out, Maynard James Keenan of giants Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, just happened to be a fan and made that known. “Maynard and his wife started playing MB to grow grapes for their Merkin Vineyards wine. They found out about our taco shop, sent an agent, and invited us to go on tour [with Puscifer],” explains Martinez. So Moodie Black enlisted the help of Bentley Monet (from Snailmate) for drumming duties and embarked on the tour of a lifetime!
“We were on the same bus as Maynard. So we would play shows and sleep throughout the night while the bus drove to the next venue,” says Martinez. “It was wild. All the food and booze you could drink, eating Maynard’s leftover filet mignon, playing to packed audiences every night, pretty much the exact opposite of every other MB tour before and most likely after,” she laughs. Following this summer’s tour, they’ve gone back to the restaurant and while it’s business as usual there, the band is embarking on another small tour. It’s been hard balancing the nonstop work of running a food spot and traveling at the same time, but Moodie Black has never backed away from a challenge. They’re coming back to the Springs tonight, Wednesday the 26th, playing Vultures alongside Snailmate and May Leitz. If you’re into unique, LOUD, dark, LOUD, visually intoxicating, LOUD music, then Vultures is absolutely the place to be tonight!
Halloween Weekend is approaching and there’s a lot of fun to be had around town! On Thursday night, be sure to head to Lulu’s for an evening with Volores and Egoista. Volores is a dark Americana duo consisting of Flogging Molly’s Nathan Maxwell and his wife Shelby. They’ll bring their “mountain goth” sound to Lulu’s in celebration of their new 7” single, “Ages.” Tickets will be a spooky $13 and include a digital download and 7” of the single. If you feel more like some neon-colored breakdown nostalgia, then The Black Sheep is the place to be on Thursday night, with Electric Callboy, Attack Attack!, Outline in Color and Conquer Divide.
On to the weekend! Friday night, head to X103.9’s special birthday bash with lovelytheband at The Black Sheep. If you just feel like dancing the night away in a spooky costume, you can head to The Triple Nickel for DJ Piranha Non Grata playing some groovy tunes. Downstairs at Fritzy’s, check out special Halloween Karaoke with Andrea Stone. Saturday brings more fun at Vultures with A Hip-Hop Halloween! This will be a stacked night of killer Colorado hip-hop featuring Maulskull, Def One, Affliction Music, Earsiq and I in Team. Also on Saturday, you can head to The Triple Nickel for a killer night of metal with Ob Nixilis, Nightwraith, and (disclosure: this is my band) Upon A Field’s Whisper. Sounds like a spooky time!
