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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Langhorne Slim: A Semblance of Stillness

November 3, 2022

Langhorne Slim’s “Strawberry Mansion” was the result of a burst of creativity that emerged from the pandemic and after winning a battle with clinical anxiety and prescription drug abuse. He’s still happy to talk about that time and his never-ending struggles, and he remains honored to share his experience with mental health organizations. But sometimes he has to remind people that those are things he’s dealt with his whole life. They do not necessarily define him.

“I’m also having fun too,” Slim said with a laugh in a phone interview with BandWagon. “It’s not beating me every day. For the first time ever, I was finding some semblance of stillness. I wasn’t running from myself because I wasn’t able to.”

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Nothing to Hide Behind: Wheelwright’s Jared Kolesar After The Mill

October 10, 2022

“I think there’s an element of a lonely cowboy out on the trail,” Jared Kolesar of Wheelwright tells BandWagon. “There’s many songs now with a story that is best told while I’m alone with my guitar.”

The reworked songs give his Jared & The Mill fans a chance to preview his new sound, one he calls more sonically interesting, with more synth and more effects to his vocals to go with some new hip-hop vibes. He calls the sound Neo-Western and compares it to a mix of 80’s futurism and Americana. Or, in his own words, “like Blade Runner with more cowboy vibes.” 

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A Century of Country – Greeley Stampede’s New Stage Set for Brad Paisley and More

June 21, 2022

The Greeley Stampede’s new stage was built with Brad Paisley in mind.

The last time he played here, in 2007, Paisley had 10 semi-trailers full of equipment, said Justin Watada, executive director of the Stampede. Way back then, three “up and coming” acts performed with Paisley, including a young lady named Taylor Swift.

The brand new stage is bigger and much better, with all the fixins you’d expect from a show at Red Rocks, including a platform that will allow the artists to walk 50 feet out into the crowd. And Paisley is back as the Stampede’s biggest act in a lineup that includes Stone Temple Pilots, Jon Pardi, Cole Swindell and Jordan Davis.

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OGT: To Re-Write a Legacy

June 15, 2022

Kodean IX doesn’t know where he would be without music, but he knows it wouldn’t be good.
He has been in and out of jail, and one of his cousins was in Greeley’s chapter of the infamous 18th Street gang. 

“He asked me why I was gang-banging,” Kodean recalled, “and I said, ‘Because I grew up here.’ – He told me to do something better. Break the legacy. And I did.”

Kodean and a grieving Keen OGT (who lost his sister to suicide) were rapping to help quell the pain they felt, and they began to call themselves OGT, or One Great Team.

Then the Moxi Theater gave OGT a chance, a big show, and Korean hasn’t forgotten it.

“I’d still be in a different life,” Kodean told BandWagon. “[The Moxi] gave me a chance to show what I could do.”

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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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Joshua Ray Walker: King Of The Honky-Tonk Misfits

April 8, 2022

Joshua Ray Walker’s role model for his hit “Sexy After Dark” was not Tim McGraw, Billy Ray Cyrus or Keith Urban. It was Conway Twitty.
Twitty, Walker said in a phone interview with BandWagon, was sort of a goofy guy who managed to sing some of the most romantic songs in country music. It’s not like Twitty belonged on the cast of Hee Haw, but he wasn’t Elvis. One of the intentions of “Sexy After Dark,” Walker said, was to pay a backhanded but lighthearted tribute to all the people like Twitty.

“There’s a history of country crooners who aren’t sexy – putting out sexy songs,” Walker said. “‘Slow Hand’ is one of my favorites. Twitty is so goofy-looking, but he sold it. He really sold it.”

The other intent, Walker said, was to poke fun at himself. He knows he’s also not Elvis.

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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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