MUSIC PICKS: MAR 3 – 9 – Salt Lake City Weekly

DeVotchKa at Park City Egyptian Theatre

DeVotchKa is the kind of band that you might feel some cool friends hipped you to not that long ago, possessing a sound that incorporated global elements and cabaret-friendly material alongside a stage show that hinted at the latter, especially when presented in larger venues. That “not that long ago” feeling, though, dissipates as you start looking at some dates. A basic example: DeVotchKa’s been around since 1997. And they scored a commercial breakthrough way back in 2006, with the release of Little Miss Sunshine. While the soundtrack to that film, with the group’s imprints all over it, may have provided a popular catalyst, it’s the band’s deep, long history of live dates that have kept them a vital, if more-intermittent-of-late touring act, picking up new fans to couple with those who’ve been with the band for two-decades. Through the initial part of the century, DeVotchKa was recording and releasing music at a prolific clip. The band’s release pace has slowed in recent years; 2011’s 100 Lovers came a full seven years before 2018’s This Night Falls Forever, while band members have moved on to solo pursuits and non-band work, including film scoring. Luckily, they still crank up the touring machine from time-to-time, and a series of regional shows find the Denver-based band close to us soon. DeVotchKa appear at Park City’s Egyptian Theatre for a trio of sets, with 8 p.m. shows scheduled Thursday, March 3 – Saturday, March 5. Tickets range in prices based on the night of show and the seating arrangement of choice, with tickets $23-$49 via egyptiantheatrecompany.org.

The Birthday Massacre at Soundwell

The Birthday Massacre co-produced their brand-new album, Fascination, with Skinny Puppy founding member Dave Ogilvie—a feather in the cap, indeed, what with calling on a senior member of a musical movement that they’ve run alongside for a couple of decades now. A new single, “Cold Lights,” has also been offered to the public in recent days. The track and album are nice extensions of the band’s career, which has incorporated a whole bunch of genres and reference points. In the group’s press kit, publicists point to a note in Artforum, of all places, where Patric Dicaprio, a New York–based fashion designer, summed them up quite succinctly and effectively, so let’s give him the mic. In discussing their 17-year-old album Violet, an all-time-fave of his, he thinks of the album like so: “Rage, longing, romance, self-loathing, hope, innocence, ambivalence—I bought the Birthday Massacre’s 2005 album, Violet, on CD from Hot Topic when I was fourteen. I would listen to ‘Blue’ on my gold iPod Mini between classes in high school and grit my teeth. I love the way this song oscillates between nostalgic 1980s pop and sinister metal. ‘Blue’ is a mall-goth classic that stands the test of time.” He gets it! The Birthday Massacre play the type of music that’ll delight, among others: your uncle who saw Bauhaus live in their heyday; your dental hygienist with the AFI wrist tattoo; your assistant manager at who hung a She Wants Revenge poster in their work locker; the checker at the grocery who visibly brightens up when Evanescence’s “Bring Me to Life” arrives on the PA system; your cousin with the encyclopedic knowledge of Marilyn Manson. They can all find kinship in a band that’s shimmied through life on the outer edges of what’s cool at a given time. Which is a plenty cool way to do it. The Birthday Massacre play Soundwell (149 W. 200 South) with Julien-K on Sunday, March 6 at 7 pm. Tickets are $20-25 at soundwellslc.com.

Maita at Kilby Court

Residing in the fertile musical soils of Portland, songwriter and vocalist Maria Maita-Keppeler helms the band Maita, an indie-rock fan’s dream group. With a new album called I Just Want to Be Wild For You on the Kill Rock Stars label, Maita offers up 11 cuts that vary in tone and pace. A highlight is the upbeat, hummable-all-day rocker “Honey, Have I Lost it All?,” a video of which you may wish to call up on YouTube at your earliest convenience. In a super-recent interview with highclouds.org, Maita-Keppeler says that the album is somewhat rooted in disconnect, saying “I always take inspiration from the things around me. From books, from art that I’m seeing. I get inspired by strange places a lot. I get inspired by strange hotels, or strange cities, or cities where I don’t feel at home. That feeling of not being connected to a place brings up a lot of fascinating emotions that I find are really good for songwriting. A lot of the songs on this record are tied to a place where I felt kind of strange.” With a thick pack of western states shows leading up to an appearance later this month at South by Southwest, Maita should be in mid-tour form when appearing in Salt Lake this weekend. If the highclouds piece still holds, saying “hi” after the gig’s a requisite. “I’m excited about playing shows with real people, with other bands, with real audience members, and having those fun conversations with people that you never would have met,” Maita-Keppeler says. “One thing that I really missed about being on tour is that we don’t meet strangers in the pandemic. I’m excited to meet some strangers.” Maita appears at Kilby Court (748 S. Kilby Court) on Sunday, March 6 with Drusky and Josaleigh Pollett. Tickets are $12 at kilbycourt.com.

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