B-Side Guys

Anthony Ruptak lists the symptoms systematically. Shot rock, stopped clock, bleak parade. Cheap-shot, tik-tok, weapon of mass decay. Blue pill, phone bill, throwing it all away. White collar crime, lithium mine, last crusade. Blue line, good time, less lethal hand grenade. “Phantasmagoria” operates as inventory of the apocalypse, documenting the specific mechanics of how everything falls apart while we swim around in the gene pool pretending we’ve got something to say.

The Colorado songwriter, who divides his time between emergency medical work and backcountry hiking, wrote much of his album Tourist during quiet hours between shifts as a paramedic—when the thin veil between life and loss feels most visible. That proximity to human fragility infuses “Phantasmagoria” with the clarity of someone who witnesses suffering professionally and then doom-scrolls through more of it on his phone. The track functions as fever dream of disillusionment where personal and political collide, capturing what Ruptak describes as navigating roles and responsibilities during rapid, volatile change while becoming desensitized to massive scale suffering on this shared, warming planet.

The production builds through shifting rhythms, lush vocal layers, and cinematic arrangements that move between introspection and catharsis. Ruptak’s sound—often compared to Elliott Smith, Death Cab for Cutie, and Broken Social Scene—maintains emotional honesty while scaling up to match the apocalyptic scope of the material. The final two minutes (which Ruptak notes gives him chills) provide the track’s payoff, presumably expanding into something that matches the epic messaging he intended.

The lyrics acknowledge futility without surrendering to it. There’s recognition that it’s hardly enough time to get a sense of what makes you you, that you’re likely to miss it getting snagged in your lifelines, using up near the whole damn spool. But Ruptak frames this as tragedy rather than inevitability, calling us “beautiful misfits” even as we participate in the mess we’ve made. The repeated refrain “crazy goddamn hell of a mess we made” functions as both accusation and elegy, owning collective responsibility while mourning the wreckage.

A cornerstone of Denver’s music scene for over sixteen years, Ruptak has shared stages with Slim Cessna’s Auto Club, Kiltro, Mimicking Birds, and Anna Tivel, performed at Red Rocks, and returns to 2025’s Underground Music Showcase as a Legacy Artist. He spent seven years co-hosting the award-winning Syntax Songwriter Open Mic alongside Rachel Pollard, fostering connection in Denver’s songwriting community with monthly guests including Nathaniel Rateliff. Beyond music, he works with Denver’s refugee, immigrant, and homeless populations, organizing music-based fundraisers and awareness events for humanitarian aid.

That community activism informs “Phantasmagoria” without turning it into protest song. Ruptak’s not offering solutions or suggesting ways forward—he’s bearing witness to what people are experiencing: loneliness, fatigue, fear, chronic doom-scrolling, feelings of inadequacy and helplessness. The track captures the specific exhaustion of watching ultra-wealthy amass infinite capital while the poor become poorer and powers-that-be decimate the planet, all viewed through screens we can’t stop checking. It’s an anthem for the apocalypse that doesn’t pretend anthems change anything, just documents what it feels like to live through collapse while hanging on to the old school and asking to be shown cool new ways to pass the days.