Alysia Kraft: 105.5 The Colorado Sound’s Featured Artist

May 25, 2022

Alysia Kraft can keenly use nature as a metaphor in her music. But in the case of “Little River,” a song with rich layers of meaning and potential interpretations, the inspiration was frighteningly literal.

“I almost drowned in the river by my parent’s ranch in the summer of 2020,” Kraft tells BandWagon. “It was a freak accident. The railing snapped on a bridge I was standing on and I was instantly tossed into a very high, very debris-choked river raging with freshly thawed spring snow.”

She lived to tell the tale. And in turn, make some of this year’s most resonant music.

A Wyoming native, Kraft’s is known in Colorado as one third of folk-rock favorites Whippoorwill and the voice of The Patti Fiasco. With therapeutic guidance, she came to an epiphany following the river trauma.

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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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Cloud Catcher: Carry the Heavy Torch

May 3, 2022

Some kids grow up listening to Barney, Elmo or Little Einsteins. Rory Rummings listened to Dio, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden. 
“My Dad raised me on the classics,” Rummings tells BandWagon, and you can hear it in Cloud Catcher, the Denver band he formed nine years ago. Rummings is the frontman and main songwriter, and he loves paying homage to the classic metal of the 1980s as well as the bands that started it all, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. 
But Rummings insists that Cloud Catcher isn’t just another replica.

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Jyemo Club: 105.5 The Colorado Sound’s Featured Artist

April 11, 2022

“From my own experiences, I’ve always wished more people from this country would listen to music that is not sung in English,” Jonny Jyemo tells BandWagon. “There is so much out there. Language should not be a barrier, but an invitation to connect.”

Jyemo is the founder of Jyemo Club, a Colorado band with members from 5 different countries. The band is based on a simple, inclusive idea: a concert where people from anywhere in the world would feel welcome. Where beats invite dancing and lyrics are felt beyond language. The Club has so many varying backgrounds that they can only be described as universal. 

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Album Review: Holdfast. – Movies

April 6, 2022

Holdfast.’s new album Movies brings their expected electro dark-pop and rock aesthetic but leans into other styles that open their doors to new fans.

Singer Charlie Maddocks demonstrates a dramatic contrast in dynamics, one that MUSE’s lead Matt Bellamy is well known for, though Maddocks’ tone is undoubtedly his own, becoming one of Colorado’s most recognizable lead vocals. Holdfast. continues to deliver strong songs while experimenting with new sounds and textures.

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Album Review: Thom LaFond – The Moon Leans In

March 8, 2022

Nederland, Colorado’s Thom LaFond is most well known as the guitarist and singer in Denver’s four-piece gypsy jam rock outfit Banshee Tree. But on this, his debut full-length, he lets his inner voice shine.

Close, acoustic and intimate speckles of piano, pizzicato violin and nimble upright bass frame his hushed, masculine baritone with gorgeous minimalism; a composition on par with a Kandinsky.

“Did they take the moon you were after and give it back piece by piece?” the record’s first lyric asks, initiating a song and an album dense with gorgeous prose, artful arrangements and beautiful music.

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Right Back Into It: Ben Pu Stays True

March 2, 2022

At the end of most of his gigs, and in conversations with other musicians or friends, Ben Puchalski gets the question: “Dude, why aren’t you bigger?”

Puchalski, these days, answers with a shrug, and that’s not because he’s a little tired of answering it, even though, truth be told, he kinda is.

“You always try to increase your fan base no matter how long you’ve been doing it.”

“I’ve had a lot of good fans, especially through the pandemic,” he said. “They really kept me afloat. They still come out. It’s unfathomable.”

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