Album Review: Wolf van Elfmand – All Blue

March 8, 2021

Coloradan songwriter Wolf van Elfmand’s music has always had a western flair. This remains true in his newest album All Blue released in February, but he also incorporates what the title suggests: the blues.

Cool and steady like a long lost J.J. Cale gem, van Elfmand incorporates improvisation and musical playfulness between the melody and simple chord structures, leaving comfortable spaces for harmonica, pedal steel and lead guitar to add conversational nuances to the texture. 

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Album Review: Shwarma – Loveworthy Live

March 5, 2021

On (yes) Valentine’s Day, Colorado’s funky genre-hopping Shwarma continued their saga of madness with the Loveworthy Live EP, debuted as a live stream. In the video, the overtly-silly mix of tightly-arranged funk jams and melodramatic ballads is accompanied by a revolving door of meticulous costumes, sets and effects.

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Stayin’ Alive: Unconventional Venues Save The Scene

March 4, 2021

When Ben Mozer was 14, he took a trip to Spain with his family. Across from their hotel, a theater was playing the newly released hit Pulp Fiction, which he and his brother had been unable to see in the U.S. due to its R rating. But what stuck with him after the movie was over wasn’t Samuel L. Jackson’s iconic monologue. What stuck with him was the theater. 

Earlier this winter, Mozer’s Fort Collins movie theater the Lyric was one of the only venues in Northern Colorado that was still producing live music.

And Mozer isn’t the only one finding a creative way to amplify local sounds. This winter, Dan Mladenik has tapped local talent for the Mishawaka-produced Live on the Lanes series at Chipper’s Lanes, converting a bowling alley into a cosmic live music experience.

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Kolby Cooper’s Best, Worst Year

March 2, 2021

Kolby Cooper returned through single-digit temperatures and deep snow to his East Texas home on January 17 to find the hallways full of water.

That just sounds like a country song, doesn’t it? Well, here’s how Cooper referred to it in an interview with BandWagon: “Whatever man, it’s nothing. Yada yada yada. We were lucky, man. It was a horrible year, and a great year,” Cooper said.

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