Tag: bandwagon magazine

Features, Print

100 to 16, Now Down to 4: BandWagon’s Battle Of The Bands Closes in on Title Bout

December 6, 2022

Eternal Glory, $5,000 and the cover of BandWagon Magazine are grounds for musical fisticuffs in Colorado. Last month, 16 Colorado bands who stood out from 100 submissions slugged it out (yes, metaphorically) at 4 of the state’s most worthy music venues: Oskar Blues Colorado Springs, The Moxi Theater in Greeley, The Coast in Fort Collins and The Black Buzzard in Denver.
The four finalists rocked hard to surpass their contenders and secure their spot in the final round on December 10 at The Moxi Theater. In the initial rounds, each act was assessed by a panel of celebrity judges on a combination of talent, skill, stye and conduct (along with an element of fan voting) to determine the finalists. Here’s what the original sweet sixteen brought to the battlefield in the first round.

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Features, Print

Play it For Your Mates: Tones And I Rises Up Solo; Puts the “I” in Team-Macklemore

August 11, 2022

You’ve heard it.

It was written by a busker, in a closet, for a few friends at a youth hostel but somewhere on Planet Earth in the last three years, you’ve heard it.

The song is “Dance Monkey” and the number of times it has been streamed online is literally incalculable.

“I didn’t write that song to release at all,” Toni Watson aka Tones And I tells BandWagon. “I lived at a hostel. Like – I’d parked my van there, I used the showers. I played that song for a year on the street before I decided to release it.”

Now, for the first time, the one woman wonder is ready to collaborate – with her musical hero Macklemore, of course. “It’s just the most perfect track for both of us,” Watson says.

And she will finally release her first song ever about love. “I don’t mean to, but I’ve actually never written a love song,” Watson says. “I just don’t feel like I’d ever really known what it is.”

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: Companion – Second Day of Spring

June 8, 2022

Fort Collins based identical twin sisters Sophia and Jo Babb, otherwise known as Companion, release their debut folk/americana album Second Day of Spring with vocal harmonies that match as perfectly as their DNA.

They find creative ways to use their voices throughout, processing the trauma of their father taking his own life and their own feelings of isolation. Their unisons are striking, the balance and the carefully constructed harmonies giving the illusion that they are coming from the same person.

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Features, Print

Polyrhythmics and the Definition of Vibe

May 31, 2022

When the Polyrhythmics first gathered in a Seattle recording studio a decade ago, they planned to make a vinyl record and then, perhaps, go their separate ways …

“When we started, we wanted to perform the music we recorded,” Bloom said, “and now our live set is a living, breathing thing that we do every night. There is this ethos from the fans that they want to see something new, and that feedback has played into what we do live. We are still sort of trying to reach something every night. We are trying to leave room for magic.” 

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Features, Print

Blast N’ Scrap is Back on Track

May 17, 2022

Blast N’ Scrap has become the de facto community hub for underground music in Fort Collins, but the organization does far more than event production. Its projects include a 6-week theater program for school kids, weekly screen printing classes using sustainable and recycled materials and Band Blast Off, a music education program teaching professional skills to aspiring musicians ages 7 to 17.

The prolific volume of Blast N’ Scrap initiatives is due, in large part, to the scruffy 38-year old at the helm. Michael Gormley is bursting with ideas.

And though Blast N’ Scrap events now include established local bands, Gormley adamantly says they will always be there for local bands to play their first show.

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Features, Print

Horse Feathers: The Endearing Nature of Justin Ringle’s Earnest Sound

May 5, 2022

Horse Feathers’ spin on traditional folk and Americana spans barn dance to backyard reverie, airy ballads to full-blooded country jigs.

Justin Ringle launched Horse Feathers shortly after moving to the Pacific Northwest at a time he says “all the cliches from Portlandia were being developed.” Rent was cheap and you just needed a shitty job to keep your creative aspirations afloat.  
  
“It was really less preposterous for me to try to become a professional musician than it was to get a job in graphic design at the time,” he said. Though dispelling any romantic notion, Ringle points out, “There was really high unemployment in Portland and it was just kind of tough going. Everything was really close to the bone.” 

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