When Courtney Kaiser and Benjamin Cartel met a few years ago and decided to start making beautiful music together (both on and off the stage), they probably didn’t anticipate having nights like this.
They play what has been described as “low-fi harmony-heavy song-driven bittersweet music,” and brought their show to Denver as part of a cross-country trek that started the new year in Seattle.
It is taking them and their Toyota Prius they call Gertie through the heart of the Midwest (with a visit to Indianapolis, Kaiser’s hometown), up the East Coast (with a couple of stops in his home state of New York, including Brooklyn, which they currently call home) and into the Deep South by the end of March.
KaiserCartel’s first official concert in the Mile High City (they did play the Monolith Festival last summer at Red Rocks, the glorious amphitheater 15 miles west of Denver) isn’t one they’ll likely remember. In fact, odds are they’d just as soon forget it.
Such is life on the road for a cute, thirty-something couple (he’s the tall one, a rugged, darker-haired version of Owen Wilson; she’s the petite one, with long, lustrous black locks and penetrating blue eyes) that so wants to be a union of one they jammed their last names together to form a group.
While male/female duos have been around since the days of Adam and Eve and Sonny and Cher, there has been a recent boost in popularity with such entertaining and powerful pop/rock pairings as Jack and Meg White, Mates of State, She & Him (Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward) and The Ting Tings.
KaiserCartel, performing together since 2005, has a quirky charm and a debut album (March Forth, released last June on bluhammock music) that’s chock full of lovely tunes, including some that could pass for dreamy lullabies.
They might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, though, trying to make the connection by presenting an unfamiliar audience with pretty harmonies, simple melodies and folky lyrics. 
Apparently, that’s not what a less-than-receptive local gathering at the Hi-Dive (emphasis on dive) wanted to hear while waiting to party on Super Bowl Eve with hometown favorite Dressy Bessy.
Article comments
1 - Carmen
I would like to see them in a more favorable setting with a receptive crowd. I do like their music and agree they do have talent and will emerge.
2 - Michael
Thanks, Carmen. It certainly wasn't the band's fault, but you have to wonder what the people responsible for booking them were thinking.