Denvoid & The Cowtown Punks (Pt. 1)

Bob Rob Medina’s Denvoid and the Cowtown Punks — A Collection of Stories From the ’80s Denver Punk Scene is a unique and seminal kind of localized punk oral history, for it features over 100 vivid, hand-colored illustrations alongside flyers and other artifacts from the era. Eclectic, in-depth interviews with prominent scenesters range from musicians and culture jammers to reformed skinheads and business owners. Grassroots and outgoing, Medina examines the small window of opportunity in which they impacted cultural behaviors and musical styles at large, even reached a global network desiring to know more about the isolated frontier world that sprang Frantix and Bum Kon. Denvoid avoids lumping punk music and culture into narrow constraints or merely rehashing stories of three-chord, two-minute fiery songs. Instead, Medina highlights how creative people stretched or explored uncharted territories, including post-modern visual culture. Medina is hardly an outsider sniffing around the periphery of Denver’s rich underground music history. As a true blood Colorado native, Medina was deeply rooted in Denver’s raucous scene: he joined numerous bands, masterminded fanzines aplenty, promoted key shows, and jumpstarted his fertile record label Donut Crew Records, which documented Denver’s beloved underground bands.