Music
NedFest reboots
Kristen McFarland, acting event coordinator for this year’s NedFest up in Nederland, has spent the last nine months keeping the festival alive, on schedule and, with some help at the box office, on budget. But despite the fact that she was one of Michigan Mike Torpie...
A certain kind of kin
Fourteen years ago, Yonder Mountain String Band formed over a Guinness in a bar in Nederland, according to a tale spun by guitarist Adam Aijala. The members were young, recently relocated to Colorado and looking for musical companions...
Movement towards collaboration
The creative process of a singer-songwriter can be a lonesome one. You write songs alone, rehearse alone, often perform alone. A byproduct of that solitude is total control over the final product, but when it comes time to start working with bands, the reality of ...
Pilgrims of the stage
For me, folk music is a drug, a truth serum of sorts. It has the ability to make me see my life for not only what it is but also what it could and should be. I suspect I’m not alone. The side effects of such inward clarity can’t be taken lightly. Too much of the ...
Still playing folk guitar
If Stephen Stills isn’t doing cartwheels across the stage and jumping off of amplifiers this summer on his tour with Crosby, Stills & Nash, he’ll have a good excuse...
Sharon Van Etten finds road to happiness passes through ‘Tramp’
Completing an album can be like a life passage, closing one chapter and opening another. The third chapter in Sharon Van Etten’s recorded history, Tramp’s a haunting record that pushes out beyond the minimalist, emotionally raw folk of Van Etten’s first two albums. ...
Laurie Morvan burns in blue
California blues guitarist Laurie Morvan and her band are in that place right now where they draw two-paragraph mentions in local newspapers, generous but usually short features, CD reviews in small-circ blues magazines, and generally positive festival appearance ...
Mighty fifths to end the summer
The 2012 Colorado Music Festival (CMF) surges to its conclusion this week with concerts Thursday and Friday by the Festival Orchestra — one of the best I have heard in recent years at CMF — conducted by Michael Christie...
Stomp that thang
Blake Rooker, lead singer and guitarist from the Boulder-based West Water Outlaws, responds a little cautiously when we press him to share some highlights from the band’s recent swing through the steamy Southeast, a sure sign that the big noise/big beat blues-rock ...
Contests part of RockyGrass tradition
Through a bluegrass career spanning nearly four decades, Tim O’Brien has played on many stages and with numerous players, but RockyGrass holds a special place in his heart. Hell, he’s performed there 28 times, which is why organizers asked him to fill the final slot ...
