Tag: fort collins music

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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: Big Brooklyn – Everyone Everywhere

March 9, 2022

Denver based Big Brooklyn begs the question “what is jazz?” with their new album Everyone Everywhere, in which every track dips a toe into different sub-genres underneath the jazz umbrella. 

They have enough “straight ahead” stuff,but they also share some funky fusion you might hear from Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters era. Their incorporation of Melody Dornfeld on clarinet (and bass clarinet) lends a quirkier sound for a group that doesn’t focus on gypsy jazz or 1920’s repertoire.

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Still Thirsty: G. Love & The Juice Stir it Up

February 23, 2022

The band still carries his name, but G. Love is taking a step back from the spotlight. 

G. Love was as synonymous with the Special Sauce as a Big Mac and fries, but he’s now touring with The Juice, and the move signals a shift in musical direction, both in his music and the way he approaches it. 

“Special Sauce has been great, but I’d been thinking about a bigger band for some time,” G. Love said in a phone interview for BandWagon. “It was a chance to play with a lot more soloists instead of just a trio. It was a lot of fun for me.”

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