Tag: kevin johnston

Music, Print, Reviews

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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105.5 The Colorado Sound's Featured Artists, Print

Big Richard: 105.5 The Colorado Sound’s Featured Artist

March 4, 2022

“It is SO FUN,” cellist Joy Adams says of Big Richard. “We’re always laughing until we cry, and there’s no competition. It’s just genuine, supportive fun.”

Big Richard formed specifically to be the token all-female band at McAwesomefest in Colorado in May of 2021. Lucky for fans of bluegrass, authentic vocals and a little something different, what started as a token quickly alchemized into gold.

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Features

Common Ancestor: LowDown Brass Band’s New Hotness Has Roots

February 10, 2022

“LowDown Brass Band has roots in the Jazz education world,” MC Billa Camp tells BandWagon, “but the Jazz education world has the habit of treating Jazz like an island. As if – Jazz isn’t birthed from the same struggle as Hip Hop. As if they are not Black father and son, born fighting the same fight.” 

Lowdown Nights, the latest and most future-leaning record from LowDown Brass Band, was appropriately released during Black History Month. It takes things further out of the pigeonhole and into the pan-genre stage, using the history of the African American experience as its guide. 

Especially with the hit single “Be The One Tonight,” they go mainstream – and that’s a good thing. The collective has enough talent within its ranks to deliver a show with as much variety as Beyoncés 2018 Homecoming at Coachella. It’s the multi-lingual, multicultural, multi-genre kind of mainstream pop and dance music that encapsulates the musical stew of 2022.

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105.5 The Colorado Sound's Featured Artists, Features, Print

Spoke In A Wheel: Zachary Williams of The Lone Bellow Hits the Road with Dirty Camaro

February 9, 2022

Zachary Williams, whose powerful voice drove him out from the Brooklyn Bar4 open-mic world and onto the international stage, is best known as the belting leader of The Lone Bellow. His new solo record Dirty Camaro is indeed an escape from that band’s gravity; one that’s weird, head-turning, soulful and fresh.

Williams says “I’ve wanted to do it for a long time – really, right after Jim James from My Morning Jacket released his solo record.” He says James had “graciously come out to a couple of my shows,” and the two connected.

What began as a two day trial session resulted in the full length record. The album is rich with expert pedal steel guitar, orchestral strings, saxophone and a Texas-band backbone that really cooks.

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105.5 The Colorado Sound's Featured Artists, Print

George Cessna: 105.5 The Colorado Sound Featured Artist, January 2022

January 14, 2022

Hundreds of hours spent in the basements of dive bars don’t often yield respectable accolades, but for George Cessna, that’s arguably how he came to be this month’s Colorado Sound featured artist.

Cessna and his close friend Brian Buck literally clocked as much time in the basement of Denver’s beloved Hi-Dive, recording and eventually emerging with Lucky Rider, a twangy, dark and lo-fi album released in December.

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: This Broken Beat – Far From Home

December 8, 2021

Julio Perez, lead singer of This Broken Beat has the kind of pop-rock cross-over voice that would make Adam Levine turn his chair around. Perez’ tenor shows clear Ed Sheeran influences, and with such an asset at the heart of their sound, it’s no wonder This Broken Beat shot for the stars on Far From Home.

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