Category: Features

Community, Features

Buckle Up: FoCoMX Drive and Jive Continues Despite BoHo NoGo

August 7, 2021

Taking place on Sundays this month at the historic Holiday Twin Drive-In, FoCoMX: Drive and Jive continued its live offerings last month with further programming into August and beyond. Reimagining the series to feature a mix of established veteran Colorado acts as well as “discovery” artists from the region, Drive and Jive aims to build engaged audiences and more.

In light of yesterday’s news that the Bohemian Foundation’s recently announced Bohemian Light Music Festival is now in fact cancelled due to COVID precautions, the Drive and Jive series offers a live music format which has proved to function well under pandemic restrictions.

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Bohemian Light Brings Heavy Hitters Back to Famed Fort Collins Festival

August 3, 2021

The Bohemian Foundation will put on a music festival this summer in downtown Fort Collins, and though the headliners are big names, fans of Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest should temper their expectations somewhat.

Dubbed the Bohemian Light Music Festival, free, live concerts will commence two nights instead of three, featuring psychedelic soul band Black Pumas and singer-songwriter Randy Newman, plus Shovels & Rope and dozens of Colorado’s top bands.

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Orville Peck: Home On The Fringe

July 19, 2021

“I don’t get blowback from traditional country fans,” Orville Peck said in an interview with BandWagon. “There’s always been something new introduced to that genre, whether it’s an instrument or Willie singing about weed or it’s me singing about men and wearing a mask. Everyone freaks out and says it’s not country, and then slowly it becomes part of it. I don’t mind that blowback. That means I’m doing it right. I take it as a challenge.”

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Yawper Goes West: Nate Cook Defies Death; Cycles Nation-Wide for Musicians’ Sweet Relief

July 2, 2021

“I’m terrified. The scope of this is insane and it’s going to be heavily publicized,” The Yawpers’ front man Nate Cook tells BandWagon. The last time he attempted a feat a quarter as intense, he stated: “I was absolutely certain I was going to die.”

This summer, Cook’s attempts a nation-wide, musicians charity bike ride stretching from Greeley Square in NYC, through Death Valley in August, to LA in September with live gigs along the way. With characteristic dark wit, he quips: “I’m concerned about failing, although, I feel like if I get hit by a car or something it will drive donations even more.”

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Make More Everything: FoCo Film and Music Collide and Connect

June 30, 2021

“A lot of people that are emotionally driven tend to gravitate towards the arts,” musician Maxwell Tretter tells BandWagon. “But, then they also hit this pivotal moment between the path of isolation or the path of connection. I’m sick of hearing about the tragic origin story. I want to hear about the well connected, like, ‘life went great for me and I made amazing shit’ story.”

And thus sparked Make More Everything, a “game of telephone between writers, musicians and visual artists.” Tretter collaborated with film-slam organizer Jesse Nyander, culminating in a bonanza, multi-media event Friday, July 2nd at The Lyric in Fort Collins.

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Ian Munsick Finds His Own Lane

June 15, 2021

When he’s reminded that he will open for Dwight Yoakam, who was country before country was hip the way it is now, Ian Munsick’s reflexive response is exactly what you’d expect from a rising young star: “Oh, man, that’s gonna be awesome,” says the Wyoming native. But then he pauses and chuckles when asked how he thinks the crowd will respond to him at the 99th annual Greeley Stampede. Are those nerves?

“It’ll be interesting,” Munsick tells BandWagon. Munsick, after all, is doing what he can to push the music beyond the traditional sound that made Yoakam and others like him a legend.

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Flobots: Our Patriotism Is Future-Facing

June 7, 2021

As footage of the capitol riots circulated online, James Laurie, aka Jonny 5, watched with a unique kind of discomfort. A discomfort that stemmed from familiarity. Some of the rioters looked like they could have been at a Flobots concert circa 2008 — an era where the band’s merch was decorated with stars and stripes and their music was the soundtrack to protests against the Iraq war.

Their latest single, “When It All Falls” directly addresses the tumultuous, to say the least, landscape of the past year – one which mobilised, yet polarised much of the nation on both intimate and massively public scales.

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For Life: Emily Nelson on The Drums

June 3, 2021

Emily Nelson had a feeling the universe had something in mind for her.

“The drums were just a fun way to get healthy again,” she said, “and a year later, Erica was there.”

Erica, Brown, the Denver blues diva and Greeley favorite, brought Nelson in to her all-woman band the Cast Iron Queens after several life-changing events gave Nelson the strength not to be paralyzed by perfectionism.

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