"KVDU Live Vol. 1" features live in-studio performances from Everything Absent or Distorted, Paper Bird, Widowers, Kissing Party, Dualistics and more. Photo: Courtesy of KVDU
KVDU has its finger on the pulse of the Denver music scene, and to prove it, DU’s web-only radio station has put together a 13-track CD of live in-studio performances from a who’s who of local bands, including Everything Absent or Distorted, Paper Bird, Widowers, Kissing Party and Dualistics. All the songs were recorded between September 2008 and January 2010 in KVDU’s headquarters in the Driscoll Student Center. They originally were broadcast live on Whitney Van Cleave’s “KVDU Live” show.
The station celebrates the release of KVDU Live Vol. 1 on May 7 at Denver’s hi-dive rock club with a concert featuring performances by Mike Marchant’s Outer Space Party Unit, Blue Million Miles and Old Radio. KVDU will give away free copies of the CD at the concert.
“One of the things I’ve had a problem with at DU is that it’s kind of like an island in Denver,” says KVDU webmaster and audio producer Eric Peterson, who put the compilation together.
“There’s very little cultural interaction between the University of Denver and the city of Denver. So we wanted to bring in a bunch of bands from Denver that would rarely, if ever, play DU for any other reason. And now with the [release party], we’re taking DU students and putting them into a typically city-of-Denver situation.”
Peterson, a Denver native and junior digital media studies major at DU, isn’t just an appreciator of the Denver music scene, he’s also part of it as keyboardist for the band Houses and guitarist and singer in Old Radio. The lineup for the CD release party is full of Houses connections: Marchant, the Houses guitarist who also leads Widowers, will celebrate the release of his new solo EP, Indulgent Space-Folk Vol. 2, at the show; and Houses drummer Johnny Lundock also pounds the skins for Blue Million Miles.
“Completely unintentionally, it turned into a Houses side project show,” Peterson says.
See a full track listing and listen to the station online at www.kvdu.org. For information about the release party, visit www.hi-dive.com.