Weekend Review: Denver and Murder By Death

Those who know me well know my general hatred for any and all things associated with the state of Colorado (that may have to be the subject of a future post), but I must say that once in a great while, fun times can be had south of the Wyoming border.

The main purpose for the trip was to catch Murder By Death at the Bluebird Theater Saturday night.  Murder By Death is one of my favorite bands.  Saturday's show marked my fourth Murder By Death experience.

I went in to the show and found my buddy Sam and his girlfriend.  It was their first MBD experience and one they won't soon forget.  The two openers, Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets followed by The Builders and the Butchers, were both great bands with wonderful stage presence.  By far the best openers I've seen with MBD.

Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets

The Builders and the Butchers

MBD hit the stage and started cranking them out.  They managed to play my particular favorites; "King of the Gutters" from their latest album, "Fuego!", a solo (i.e. just Adam) "Shiola", "Until Morale Improves...", and an encore that began with "Desert Is On Fire."  

Murder By Death

The lovely Sarah Balliet on cello

Adam Turla

Adam and Matt

We had a chance to talk with both Adam and Sarah after the show.  Sam, my previously mentioned buddy, works for the Student Activities Council at the University of Wyoming.  His main goal in life during his tenure with SAC has been to bring MBD to UW for a free show.  He claimed to have succeeded in doing that about a month ago, but I refused to believe him.  Nowhere on the band's website did it mention anything about a show in Laramie, WY.  However, we confirmed with the band their plans to come and play a free show at the Union Ballroom on March 30.  I'm looking forward to seeing them in Laramie.  Having a whiskey sour with them at the Buckhorn after the show would be pretty dang cool.

Photos stolen from Allen Klosowski at heyreverb.com.  Great photos!

Continuing on the Subject of Beards...

I wonder if I should amend the title of this blog to explicitly include beards, since my obsession and admiration for beards may be too great to be contained within the general label of 'ramblings.'  

I wish to focus on one of my favorite things about having a beard;  frost beard.  Frost beard is a condition that occurs when the outside temperature is so low that the condensation expelled in one's breath through the mouth and nose makes it no further than the fur of the beard, freezing in place.  Frost beard can also contain spit that hasn't been completely expectorated from the mouth.  Whatever the mixture, frost beard is fun because it's hard to return from a run outside with a frost beard and not look like a total bad-ass.

Now, frost beards do exist on different levels; not all are created equal.  One can develop a frost beard in most temps below zero, however, the right combination of weather conditions can produce a masterpiece of epic proportions.  I have found that my greatest frost beards have occurred in humid (and keep in mind that humid in Wyoming is anything over 30%) conditions with a temperature hovering around zero.  These conditions are rare in the Laramie Basin, and such frost beards are relished and worshiped to the point that it is difficult to go inside, lest the room temps melt and destroy the glorious-ness.

Most frost beards are nothing more than icicles around the corners of the mouth.  The wind in this area blows so constantly and fiercely that humidity does not survive long enough to properly condense on the beard follicles.  Here is an example of my run of the mill frost beard:

This beard is the product of a 10-mile trail race in the mountains on a frosty, 20 degree morning.  While somewhat humid, I hypothesize the ambient temperature was not low enough to develop an epic frost beard.  Nice try.

A few weeks ago, I met a few of my running buddies in town for a nice little 5-miler at 6am.  The temperature that morning was below zero with a -19 wind chill.  Here is my beard from that morning:

As you can see, I had a decent amount of icicle action occurring around my mouth; however, I feel that to be a truly epic frost beard, one must develop frost over at least 60% of the entirety of the beard.  This, as can plainly be seen, does not qualify.

In fact, now that I think about it, I've probably only reached epic frost beard levels once or twice.  Neither time did I have a camera immediately available  to capture the epic-ness.  I do have one example, and I'm sure the subject won't mind me using his mug as an example:

This is Patrick.  He ran with me that -19 degree morning a few weeks ago.  While my frost beard came up sub-par (due, I theorize, to a lack of girth), Patrick's thick beard produced one of the greatest frost beards I have ever observed.  

So, with all that in mind, I once again must use Brett Keisel as an example:

Can you imagine this thing with a layer of frost and ice on it?  Holy cow, would that be the frost beard to end all frost beards.