Frail Talk Microspirit
As far as albums go, Microspirit is more of a frolic in the garden than a wonder through the woods. Quaint almost to the point of cutesy, Frail Talk crafted a subdued fourteen tracks, spit shining their superb indie folk in nostalgia. Helmed by Northern Colorado-based Cor Wright and Alex Woodchek along with drummer Tobias Bank and bass/ banjo player Nathanial Riley, Frail Talk delivers an inspired sophomore album that aches as much as it heals.
While Microspirit may not fully elevate in energy, there is a subtle groove for much of the album. Songs like opener “shapeshifting” and “pining” push the album forward and “little like you” gives it that nice scene kid landing. The real heart of the album though is found on tracks like “little al” and “little shapes”, where Wright and Woodchek’s hushed vocals and simplistic songwriting doesn’t simply add another layer but elevates the songs to a new place.
Recorded in Silsbee, Texas at Lazy Bones Audio, productionwise the album is crisp and polished, carefully crafting an
elegant blend of whispering acoustic folk with experimental electronic elements. While the style might not be breaking any new ground it clearly captures some very special moments presenting an album that feels both organic and modern without contradicting itself.
The undercurrent to Microspirit is a sense of holding on to special little memories and riding the intoxicating wave of nostalgia that is such a comforting place to draw from for modern artists. While it serves the music for Microspirit and scratches a certain itch, it leaves the listener carrying the baggage of a past that looks a little more shiny than it probably was. It gives us childhood memories neatly tucked in and buttoned up when the reality was most likely very different. Where we like to remember happy moments and simple pleasures, those moments were spent just like our present; barely keeping it together while trying to live up to our own expectations from moment to moment.
This is where Frail Talk finds themselves at the end of Microspirit. What they have on their hands is a cup that overflows with hopefulness and whimsy, so much so that we might all be in danger of drowning. The real question then becomes, when that cup runs dry what’s left? When we peel back that top layer of slick production and fond memories, is there enough substance to stand alone? The answer is in the eye of the beholder but if you asked Frail Talk they would probably say stop taking it so seriously and get some sunshine.
Laura Giagos BandWagon Magazine
LAWLESS LOVE
DNA PICASSO & DOMINIQUE CHRISTINA
BY LANDON UNGERMAN
There’s something unmistakably powerful about watching artists at the height of their creative force. It’s not just about the songs or the poetry; it’s about the way everything they touch becomes an extension of their essence. And for Denver-based artists DNA Picasso and Dominique Christina, their new album LAWLESS: A Love Story is the truest manifestation of this power. It’s not simply a collection of tracks; it’s the culmination of their love, their stories, their process, and their refusal to be anything but authentically themselves. “The time for this project is now, and it’s the realest extension of who we are as people that I’ve ever put out. We’re giving you us,” DNA Picasso says.
As Dominique Christina put it, “The most daring thing you can do is to love authen-
tically and to live authentically,” That’s the feeling that radiates from LAWLESS. It’s as if every note, every verse, every melody is a bold declaration of who she and DNA Picasso have become—both as artists and as partners. The album, set to release on October 25, isn’t just about music. It’s poetry, it’s storytelling, it’s a love letter that the two have written together.
But it’s not just any love story. “LAWLESS” is a process—one that reflects the way they create and the way they love each other. The couple encounters the rules, expectations, and limitations that artists often face, but they are not bound by them. They have matured to understand that there isn’t just one ‘right way’ to make music, just as they’ve rejected the idea that there’s only one ‘right way’ to love.
“We couldn’t follow in anyone’s footsteps,” DNA Picasso explains. “Many creative couples keep their art separate, but for us, that wasn’t an option. Our love is our art.”
BREAKING THE RULES TOGETHER
From the beginning, Picasso and Christina were artists who didn’t play by anyone else’s rules. Christina, an award-winning poet, author, and actor, has spent years using her work to challenge societal norms, explore the deepest layers of identity, and call attention to the ongoing civil rights struggle. Picasso, a hip-hop artist whose discography includes acclaimed albums like Midsummer and The Color Blü, has made a name for himself by being creative and resourceful to
PHOTO: NERD RAT MEDIA
build bridges in the Denver music scene that just weren’t there before. Together, they have created a cohesive piece of art that speaks the language of both love and art.
At its heart, LAWLESS is rooted in R&B, but the project is far from a traditional love album. Funk, soul, rap, and even hints of rock are woven throughout, all held together by a shared creative language. DNA Picasso’s and Dominique Christina’s hard-fought understanding of one another allowed them to seamlessly blend their strengths into something that feels entirely new. “Very few people have heard the album so far, but those who have tell me that this one is really different,” DNA says.
The music itself is highly musical, marked by intricate instrumentals from producers like Mic Coats, Soul Pesci, Son Don, and Rodney Valdez. Tracks like "Origami," one of the lead singles, showcase this interdisciplinarity, melding soulful melodies with Picasso’s autobiographical bars and Christina’s Badu-esque vocals. The pair collaborated on each of the 15 tracks as a unit, allowing their connection to drive the process forward.
As Dominique reflects, “This album was made from a place of joy. Love was the point of all the art I’ve made, but this love, this project, it’s on another level. I didn’t know I would get to love someone like this.”
THE LAWLESS PROCESS: UNRESTRAINED CREATION
If there’s one thing Picasso and Christina make clear, it’s that their process for creating LAWLESS is as unconventional as the album itself. There were no fixed roles, no strict timelines, and no limitations on what the songs could be. Instead, the pair allowed each track to unfold naturally, following their instincts and their emotions.
This fluidity gave rise to moments of creative rush—times when entire songs seemed to materialize almost out of thin air, as if their connection made the creation process effortless. It’s a testament to how well they understand each other, both musically and emotionally.
“Everything we do is intertwined,” DNA Picasso expresses. The album explores this from both a person’s perspective and a partner’s perspective.
This unrestrained approach is part of what makes LAWLESS so special. There’s a boldness in the way Picasso and Christina show up for one another, both in life and in their craft. There is also boldness in proudly representing everything that makes you who you are—family, pain, aspirations—in all that
you do. This is where DNA and Dominique felt this collaboration strengthened their bond, rather than just showcasing it.
LOVE AS RADICAL ART
The theme of love isn’t just woven into the lyrics of LAWLESS—it’s embedded in every aspect of the album. For Picasso and Christina, love isn’t a passive experience, nor is it reserved only for romantic partners. Instead, it’s a radical act, one that extends to their community, their families, and their creative process. As they put it, love is urgent, and it’s worth celebrating.
“We want people to hear this project and know they’re deserving of love,” Picasso says. “Love is real, it’s not corny, and it’s something worth fighting for. That’s what this album is about.”
More than that, LAWLESS serves as a reminder that love—like creativity—doesn’t need to be confined. Love is the culmination of the choices we make and the rules we choose to break. To live lawlessly is to love the world so deeply, even painfully, that you’re willing to push its boundaries and live freely.
LISTEN TO LAWLESS: A LOVE STORY WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR MUSIC, AND CATCH THE LIVE EXPERIENCE 11/22 IN GREELEY (MOXI THEATER) AND 11/29 IN DENVER (THE BLACK BUZZARD)!
PHOTO: CHRIS OPHER
WHOVILLE HOLIDAY
SATURDAY | NOV 30 | 9 - 11:30 a . m .
WHISKEY WONDERLAND
and other Spirits of the Season
• Hor d’oeuvres and wine provided This year’s signature events include:
• Whiskey Giveaways
• Featuring Local Distilleries
• Viewing of the Trees
• Hors d’oeuvres
SATURDAY | NOV 30 7 - 9 p . m .
• Glass Fusion led by Laira Ziegler
THURSDAY | DEC 5 | 6 - 8 p . m .
|
BANDWAGON PHOTO OF THE MONTH | JASON ALFARO OF RIGHT EYE MEDIA BENJAMIN TOD AND LOST DOG STREET BAND | LINCOLN THEATER CHEYENNE, WY
10/ 19 / 24
THE LEGEND
COLORADO’S RISING OUTLAW COUNTRY STAR HAD TO CONFRONT HIS DEMONS BEFORE WE COULD HEAR HIS MUSIC
BY GABE ALLEN
As Danno Simpson sat in the intake room of the Larimer County Jail sobering up, he tried to piece together the disjointed fragments of the night before. He remembered getting angry, swinging his fists and getting shoved into the back of a cop car. One thing was clear: he had been arrested.
At this moment, two things occurred to Simpson. First, he had to quit drinking. No more booze. Second, he had nowhere to go but up. So, why not try something crazy? Something he had dreamed about since he was 10 years old? Why not try to play music for a living?
“I sort of had this come to Jesus moment where I was like, ‘man, I’ve fucked my life up really bad and I might as well do exactly what I want to do,’” Simpson said.
A few years, a couple hundred gigs and countless nights in the back of his truck later, Simpson is on the way to his dream. He is quickly becoming the leading voice of the Americana scene in Colorado. His song Honest Work, which was recorded in a cramped apartment bathroom, has more than a million plays on Spotify. Last summer he shared a festival bill with Wilco, Old Crow Medicine Show and the Steel Woods, the last of which he then went on tour with. This February he will take the stage at Oskar Blues Colorado Springs on the 16th, and at The Moxi Theater in Greeley on the 17th for two nights of honest, gritty music.
For a 26-year-old kid that was booking all of his own gigs until about six months ago, it all still feels a bit surreal.
“I’ve gotten a chance to see all my heroes in real life,” he said. “It’s been crazy.”
The seeds of Simpson’s passion for music were planted early. His childhood was a happy one, but it was by no means conventional. His Dad was an ex-professional wrestler and serial entrepreneur who kept the family moving in pursuit of new business ventures. When he was a kid, they moved back and forth between Texas and Georgia twice before landing in Colorado, where his Dad hoped to start a cannabis farm.
With each move, Simpson was forced to start fresh — a new school and new friends. But, music was always there to keep him company. First Bob Dylan, then Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, then Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clarke. Every time he found himself friendless in a new town, his guitar was there waiting.
“I would lean on it when we moved to deal with the social adjustment,” Simpson said. “Music has always been the one thing I could sit and hyper focus on for like six hours at a time.”
At this point, Simpson became a self-proclaimed “scenester” of the Fort Collins DIY punk scene. He was at every show and friends with all of the bands, but his own music was reserved for the beaten up acoustic guitar in the backroom of an afterparty.
“I tried to write punk music and my buddies all laughed at me,” he said. “They were like, ‘dude, those are country songs.’”
The same songs that never quite fit into the punk scene found an ear elsewhere. The year after his arrest, Simpson recorded an EP of original Americana tunes in his bathroom and put them on streaming services during the height of the pandemic. The songs spoke for themselves, and Honest Work began to slowly amass streams from country fans.
A few months later, he played his first open mic at the Swing Station, a rustic venue just outside Fort Collins in Laporte. After he finished his set, a talent buyer for a country bar way up the Poudre Canyon approached him and offered him a gig.
“I realized I could make 100 bucks just playing guitar,” Simpson said. “It was this weird meeting point of opportunity and necessity. I just ran with it.”
Within months, Simpson was able to leave behind the hard-labor jobs that had put food on the table since his run-in with the law. He threw a sleeping bag in the back of his truck and became his own tour manager. Over the past two years,
the young singer/songwriter has covered a lot of ground in Colorado, Texas and everywhere in between.
Wherever he goes, Simpson’s music has a way of drawing people in. From afar, the songs sound like standard, though beautifully sung, Americana fare. But Simpson’s true talent is his lyricism. The stories he tells are clever (but not too clever), emotional and, above all, full of vivid, human characters.
In Pearly Gates, Simpson dedicates a verse each to three people that passed. One for a father that drank himself to death, one to a friend that took a bullet to the chest in a bank heist and one to an ex that was consumed by a meth addiction. These aren’t the vague caricatures of humans that are found in lesser songwriter’s stories, these are affectionate, emotionally-wrought portraits of people struggling to get by in the modern West. By the time the chorus rolls around, Simpson offers some wry advice.
“And if you find yourself at them pearly gates, you oughta lie through your teeth not to seal your fate,”
The characters in Pearly Gates and Simpson’s other songs aren’t entirely real (Simpson’s dad is alive for one), but they aren’t entirely fictional either. They are pieces of himself and pieces of the people he’s known. And they all have something in common, they’re all down on their luck and close to giving up.
When I asked him why this was, he invoked something Townes Van Zandt once told a reporter who asked him why all of his songs are sad: ”They’re not all sad, some of them are hopeless,” Van Zandt said. Those songs, the hopeless ones, were the ones that stuck in Simpson’s head when he was a lonely kid in a new town. They’re the ones that he leaned on when he was getting sober. And they’re the type of songs that, after having been through all of that, he’s eager to share with the world.
“Letting hopeless people know they’re not alone is a way of giving them hope,” he said.
CASPER’S HISTORIC THEATER BECOMES WYOMING’S COMEDY HUB
After more than a century of entertaining Casper, the historic Rialto Theater is entering an exciting new chapter. Originally opened in 1921 as the New Lyric Theater, the venue has survived financial struggles and shifts in the entertainment industry. In 2023, local investors Pete Maxwell, John Trost, Jake Bigelow, and Dennis Corr purchased the Rialto with a clear mission: to restore it as a live performance space and transform it into Wyoming’s premier destination for comedy.
Casper’s historic Rialto Theater officially reopened in August 2024 with a full slate of performances, following an extensive renovation. The ownership team launched the theater with a packed calendar, offering shows every weekend to reintroduce the iconic venue to the community. The renovation balanced modern updates with the preservation of the theater’s historical charm. One of the standout features is the removal of plaster from the upstage wall, revealing the original brick behind the historic stage. This exposed brick now serves as the perfect backdrop for comedy performances, adding an authentic aesthetic that enhances the theater’s intimate atmosphere.
“WE REALIZED THIS SPACE WAS TAILOR-MADE FOR COMEDY,” SAID CO-OWNER PETE MAXWELL. “THE SIZE AND THE LOOK, ESPECIALLY THE BRICK WALL BEHIND THE STAGE, CREATE AN IDEAL SETTING FOR STAND-UP PERFORMANCES. IT’S UNLIKE ANYTHING ELSE IN CASPER.”
To bring their vision to life, the ownership group teamed up with Ely Corliss of BandWagon Presents (who also publishes BandWagon Magazine) to curate a dynamic lineup of comedians. Kicking off with Dennis Regan on August 3, 2025, the opening series featured a mix of well-known national talent, including Harland Williams, Adam Carolla, Todd Barry, Dave Smith, Natalie Cuomo, and Jeff Dye. These performances have set the tone for what’s to come at the Rialto, with a strong focus on top-tier nationally touring comedy acts.
Local talent won’t be overlooked either. Wyoming native Brandt Tobler was featured in the opening weekends supporting Jeff Dye and is set to return for
a full weekend of headline shows in December, demonstrating the ownership’s commitment to promoting both regional and national acts.
Unlike previous attempts to build a comedy scene in Casper, the Rialto provides a venue specifically suited for stand-up. Maxwell and Corliss have been responsible for booking the room, ensuring that each act aligns with the theater’s character and audience expectations. “When it comes to comedy, our focus has been simple.” Corliss explained. We are committed to booking talent that is, above all else, funny. We want comedians from all walks of life, bringing different styles and perspectives to the stage. The goal is to create an oasis of live comedy here in Wyoming, where people know they can always come to the Rialto for a great laugh and an unforgettable experience.” While he can’t promise you will like every joke you hear, he and Maxwell have promised to keep up the talent acquisition, and provide consistent programming week to week. “Casper hasn’t had a dedicated comedy club until now,” Maxwell said in a recent interview. “This space fills a long-standing gap and gives people a place to reliably enjoy comedy on a weekly basis.”
Beyond its comedy focus, the Rialto is also a flexible venue for smaller musical acts, weddings, conferences, and private events. From a 9 piece funk band on stage for a Halloween party, to ceremonies and speaking engagements, the venue's versatility guarantees that the theater will remain a key player in Casper’s entertainment scene, hosting a wide range of events while keeping its identity rooted in ticketed events open to the public.
The ownership group’s dedication to the renovation is evident in every detail. Their goal was not just to modernize the space, but to ensure it retained its historical allure and charm. “There’s something special about this place,” Maxwell said. “We wanted to restore it while keeping true to its roots, and I think we’ve done that.”
Originally built as a vaudeville house, the Rialto Theater has played an important role in Casper’s entertainment history. From its early days showing silent films to its time as a movie theater, the Rialto has adapted through decades of change. Now, with a renewed focus on live performances, it is once again poised to be a key player in Casper’s evolving cultural scene.
