Bevin Luna: 105.5 The Colorado Sound’s Featured Artist

July 21, 2022

“Madison & Angelus is a garage rock EP because it’s rock and roll. And it was literally recorded in a garage in LaPorte, Colorado,” Bevin Luna says.
True to the garage band ethos, the 6 tracks mesh originals, covers and co-writes with big, fuzzy guitars, overdriven vocals and bashing drums. But the garage has a heart and some depth behind its door. Much of the writing discusses the turmoil of being a musician in the digital age, and as Luna puts it: “In the middle of a pandemic sandwich: never knowing where to begin or if it’s ever going to end – constantly trying to reassure ourselves that everything was gonna be OK.”

Continue reading

Album Review: People in General – friends

July 20, 2022

People in General are making the leap. Since their first release Piglet in 2019, the trio has grown into a full 8 piece band with horns, extra vocalists and more. The sounds on the new EP Friends are more mature, with bigger, fuller arrangements. But the shift isn’t only because the band is suddenly all grown up. Like it or not, the vocalist is the most identifying element of any band, and People in General have changed that up too.

Continue reading

The Bones of J.R. Jones: Desert Rhythms and Dancing Through the Blues

July 14, 2022

J.R.’s life as a touring bluesman came later than some. In his late 20’s, he was living in Brooklyn, bartending and teaching at a pre-school. He had a masters degree in printmaking, but the medium was quickly being usurped by digital alternatives. Still, he needed a creative outlet. 

A few years before, J.R.’s college roommate had introduced him to a song that made him fall in love with the blues. It was Blind Lemon Jefferson, a 1920’s singer and guitarist who is sometimes credited as the “Father of the Texas Blues.”

“I had never heard that raw, gritty passion in anything else,” he said. “It just kind of leveled me.”

From then on, J.R. spent his in-between time — in between work, school, relationships and everything else — playing the blues.

“There were a lot of DIY venues that popped up in loft spaces or garages. They were perfect for the type of music I was playing,” he explained. “All you needed was a condenser microphone, a picnic table and a cooler of PBR.”

Continue reading

Album Review: Pathos & Logos – Cult

July 13, 2022

When you find yourself on the old familiar quest for heavy, ethereal, instrumental music that takes you on a sonic journey through space and time, look no further than the latest effort from Colorado’s Pathos & Logos, “Cult.”
Pathos & Logos is a two-man operation that sounds like a galaxy of performers smearing a solar system of sounds together.

Continue reading

Michal Menert: Things Burn Down

July 12, 2022

Michal Menert has been thinking about fire.

The fires that have burned vast tracts of land near his childhood home in Colorado and not far from his former home in California. The fire that burned a warehouse full of his merch in Detroit last December. A fire that burned down the house in Fort Collins where he used to live with his bandmates in 2004. And all of the other metaphorical fires that have raged through his life over the years.

“Things burn down and then you watch the flowers grow back out of the cracks,” Menert reflected in an interview with BandWagon.

The theme has permeated the Pretty Lights cofounder’s music in recent months.

Continue reading

Album Review: Musuji – Blanket Statement

July 7, 2022

To say that Musuji’s reputation precedes them would be an understatement. Known for their “wild with madness” moniker, Musuji mash together layer upon layer of sound and energy to create their own blend of funky, intense indie rock that is equally as chill as it is disastrous – and that’s in a good way.

Continue reading