The corner of Josephine Street and 43rd Avenue last weekend was fairly quiet. Nobody was on the street — but an electronic thrum emanated from the graffiti-covered walls of a short, blocky commercial building.
Opening the door to that building unleashed the tsunami of sound that was Denver Noise Fest, hosted at a new venue known as The D.M.V.
The small performance space was packed on Saturday night. There was no mingling during performances; audience members listened studiously while speakers blasted them with sound. Most everyone was wise enough to bring a pair of earplugs.
“Ironically enough, I enjoy it because it's overstimulating, but in a good way,” attendee Pierre Booth told Denverite. “It gets to the point where you're just listening and enjoying it as a whole experience rather than ‘music.’”
The three-day Noise Fest featured local and out-of-state artists who played all kinds of ‘noise’ microgenres and other experimental music: harsh noise, drone, sound collage and freak folk, just to name a few.
It was also a prime chance to show off the Denver Music Venue — one of the city’s newest spaces for music, where a crew of avant-garde creatives are trying to make the economics of art work.
DIY scene is “thriving” after a few years of turmoil
The D.M.V. officially opened in 2025, and the team is hoping to keep it open for the long haul as a space for experimental music. Previously, the building was a marijuana growing facility and then a rave venue. Visitors have left their marks over the years, leaving the walls covered in layers of graffiti.
“At least for me, in a lot of the scene, there was really a big gap in places that were platforming everything from noise music to experimental jazz and avant-garde performance art,” the venue’s founder, Jason Davidoff, told Denverite.
There seems to be demand for a venue devoted to experimental music.
“It's on an upslope for sure,” Tim Walfard told Denverite. He’s been making noise music since the 1990s. “I see a lot of stuff coming out. The newer, younger guys are going to help us get up and running again.”
The landscape of noise is vast and lawless. That’s one of its biggest draws.
“It’s not something somebody took a bunch of classes to learn scales and timing and music theory and all that,” Walfard said.
Walfard’s friend, the performer known as Ragz Rejected, said the scene is “thriving.” He describes his music as “catatonic, ambient, esoteric. Just driving beats with crumbling bass.”
In comparison, Walfard describes his work as “very mood driven.”
“I go from a very noisy beat, like pulsating, to a grinding screamy thing,” he said.
Many noise music veterans are excited to see newer, younger faces join the scene.
“There's a lot more young kids now and they're doing some really cool stuff. It's exciting to see,” Alexis Cadiz, who performed as Anime Love Hotel, told Denverite.
She’s been touring as a noise musician for over 10 years. She incorporates sounds that make her “excited to be a girl” in her music, like “reality TV samples” and “positive affirmation videos.”
Experimental DIY venues have had a rocky few years
Davidoff is 26 years old, squarely Gen Z. They consider The D.M.V. the "spiritual successor” of Rhinoceropolis, the warehouse on Brighton Boulevard that was shut down by the fire department in 2016 alongside sister venue Glob.
Some of the warehouse’s tenants worked to get the building up to code, but it was an uphill battle. John Golter lived in the warehouse and was involved with the effort at the time. He said they got official permission from the city to reopen the venue in 2019, after a couple years of costly renovations that the city helped to pay for. Events restarted, but then COVID-19 lockdowns interrupted the effort.
“It was a quick year and then, you know, March 2020,” Golter told Denverite. “We didn’t really do a single thing for probably about two years.”
The Rhinoceropolis space did open back up, now operating under the name Squirm Gallery. Glob is still going next door, too. Golter is no longer running things, but he handed the reins over to local community members.
“Is it called Rhinoceropolis? No. Are some of the old heads like me going to call it Rhinoceropolis? Maybe,” Golter said.
Making money is hard
Davidoff and their team are currently renting The D.M.V.’s building for $4,000 a month. They hope to own the space outright one day, but specializing in experimental music makes it hard to generate enough cash to do so.
“We don't really get big crowds, so it is pretty tough. We're not really bringing in the dough,” Davidoff said. “It's much easier to make a profit in the music scene when you cater towards the types of music that bring a lot of people, things like raves. All of the times where we've actually made a good amount of money have been from raves, and then punk shows do really well too.”
Denver and its surrounding areas already have well-known DIY punk venues like D3 Arts and Seventh Circle Music Collective. Davidoff wants to keep The D.M.V on the more “avant-garde” side of things.
The D.M.V. also doesn’t turn anyone away for lack of funds. Visitors say that helps with building a true community, but consistent funding is hard to find at the moment.
“Donations are what really keep us going,” Davidoff said.
Davidoff created a nonprofit called Solid State Arts that includes The D.M.V. They hope that if the venue can hold on for just a few more years, the space can start qualifying to get money from the state.
“That should keep us afloat,” they said. But the future is still filled with maybes.
“Long-term, as great as things are, little things could rock the boat and who knows how soon a venue could disappear because of who knows what,” Davidoff said. “It’s almost just like a fight for the four to five year mark, and then maybe we’ll get some money and be able to be legit.”
The cost of living in Denver makes DIY venues, especially new ones, difficult to operate.
“COVID hit it real hard and it feels like there wasn't a lot of hope for DIY to come back because of the cost of living being so astronomical in Denver and consistently going up and up and up,” Booth said. “That has a snowball effect where people can't afford to live in a house, everyone lives in an apartment, so then we can't have a house venue. And then no one had just extra funds laying around to rent another warehouse or just odd space to turn into a venue.”
Anyone can make art
Noise enthusiasts say that having a venue like The D.M.V., which has a real sound system and real stage, makes it easier for performers and audience members alike to participate in noise-making in Denver.
“So many performers really feel they love the D.M.V. because we try to be nice to performers,” Davidoff said. “They just feel really happy to know that they have a space they can play. That's also not just a living room and a house.”
Musicians will keep creating. And anybody can make noise.
“It allows the performer to just be who they are. There's no rules. The only rules or restrictions are what you put on yourself. And so it allows context to the eternal, the inner self, the whatever the fuck you want to call it,” musician Walfard said.
