BandWagon Magazine - December 2011

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

The Roots: Colette Pitcher Kelly Cook BandWagon Magazine Art is alive in Greeley.

Through an explosion of group and individual shows, classes, performances and original creations, this little town has been full of so many arts events that Friday and Saturday nights now include difficult decisions on which events to attend and which to skip because it would be impossible to make them all.

The resurgence of energy in the arts is palpable, and it is only because of the years of hard work and solid efforts of a few folks in this town that always believed Greeley was more than just fuel for tired jokes about cows.

One of these true believers is Colette Pitcher. Member of the Greeley Art Association and curator of the Showcase Art Center, Colette is an incredible artist and advocate in Northern Colorado.

Colette teaches, paints, sculpts and is the author of Watercolor for Dummies and Acrylic Painting for Dummies (yea, the real ones!). She hosts classes for artists at all levels through the Showcase Art Center One. As if that didn’t keep her busy enough, she aims to spread a better appreciation of the value of art for the

community of Greeley. “People need to realize that original art enlightens their home, office, and life.” Says Pitcher. “Art (created by Northern Colorado artists) is affordable, because we charge too little to accommodate this market. Art will make you feel great and will appreciate better than the stock market that gives one stress.”

Pitcher’s assessment of art’s value is not an opinion. The President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities released a study just a few months ago that stated “...decades of research show strong and consistent links between highquality arts education and a wide range of impressive educational outcomes. Arts integration models, the practice of teaching across classroom subjects in tandem with the arts, have been yielding some particularly promising results in school reform and closing the achievement gap. Most recently, cutting-edge studies in neuroscience have been further developing our understanding of how arts strategies support crucial brain development in learning.”

The sociologists may be doing their work, but the

conclusion is nothing new to Pitcher. “Greeley has so much rich art, music, and talent, but it has been hidden under a bushel basket. It is time to lift the basket to let our light shine.”

And shine by example she does. With colorful and captivating watercolor paintings, and substantial sculptures, Colette is a fixture at the Greeley Arts Picnic and several shows around town all year long. She also curates the gallery in Michener library and has her fingers in a dozen other pies. One of the recent group efforts Pitcher has helped promote has been The Greeley Art Association’s miniature exhibit in November. “It was so wonderful that I am asking them to continue through the holidays. These little gems are great prices, mostly under $100 and fit any where, so it is a great way to collect local artist’s work.”

You can see Collette’s work, buy art supplies, learn about the Greeley Arts Alliance, take classes from her or half a dozen colleagues or just enjoy the current exhibit on 1335 8th Ave. at the Showcase Art Center, or at colletpitcher.com

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

ALBUM REVIEWS David Lynch

Crazy Clown Time Jed Murphy BandWagon Magazine David Lynch… The name conjures up certain dark and twisted images of sleepy Americana and the disturbing undertones that drip from every seam. Those of us who love film know David Lynch’s work as a director, writer, and all-around weird dude. He is the master of the off-putting and disorienting with a finger on the pulse of the surreal things we find in our dreams. To call his films creepy would be an extreme understatement.

Lynch has always had his hands in the musical side of his work composing a good amount of the music for his movies, and even penned a few lyrics for recording artists here and there.

Never, though, has the public seen a complete album performed and

written by our Candy Colored Clown They Call the Sandman, until now.

Crazy Clown Time is a good name for this album; although, for a brief moment I figured it for an ICP record. As for the songs themselves, musically the tracks aren’t much to listen to, but that’s if you’re holding it up to the standards of the stuff we listen to on a day-today basis. Lynch’s strengths lie (just like in his movies) in the imagery he creates with a few words and a tense, melodic soundscape. “Pinky’s Dream,” is a perfect example of this because it is not only the best song on the album, but with the help of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, it represents many of the things that David Lynch has come to display in some of his films. It has the subjugated female lead riding in a car with a deranged Pinky, whose madness over his dream could at any moment kill the both of them.

Karen O’s airy voice creates a sexual longing that Lynch has often used to move his stories forward.

D e e p ly rooted in the repressed sexual nature of the 1950s, the songs on Crazy Clown Time follow his style of down beat Roy Orbisonesque blues, saturated in big, reverb

and delay ridden guitar chords, creating that sense of driving down a long road at night outside a small town with a nitrosed-out Dennis Hopper at the wheel. Lynch’s films almost always have an innocent and “normal” protagonist who gets caught up in some kind of insane subculture that reflects the mind of its creator. Although this album is hardly ground breaking in any way, Lynchian fans will get a kick out of how he puts the listener in the position of that “normal” main character. The songs themselves are the disturbing reality we vicariously live (and often barely survive) through.

David Lynch has been known for his bizarre projects and many celebrities at his level of fame often produce vanity projects where they break into a new medium in an attempt to show the world how awesome they are. Actors produce art galleries, musicians star in movies, film makers launch music careers… But for Lynch, it is different because this album is not an attempt to reinvent his career. It is more of a continuation of the things he’s been doing since he made his first movie. Sooner or later he will make another film, but until then, Eraserhead’s will have to be satisfied with a series of shorts and one, strange full-length album.

Childish Gambino Camp

Dan Barton BandWagon Magazine If you knew the music of Childish Gambino 6 months ago, it was most likely a guilty pleasure you shared with your bookish friends and mutual fans of NBC’s “Community.” Get ready to have to share him with people you don’t find personally appealing, because Camp is about to drag Gambino out of the underground. Over the last year, we’ve watched Donald grow up right in front of our eyes.

After 2010’s endearing but mediocre Culdesac, and this March’s heavy-handed EP, Gambino summed up what everyone was thinking on breakout hit “Freaks and Geeks”: I guess he’s good for a rapper who on a TV show. But his accelerated maturation hasn’t gone unnoticed and Camp has been released under indie megalabel Glassnote (Two Door Cinema Club, Phoenix, Mumford & Sons).

“While they be sleeping, I be onto that new shit,” sings Glover with his band of choristers on “Sunrise.” But if you got to this twelth track, you

probably didn’t need convincing of that.

Camp is chocked-full of stripped down production and singable hooks. Its mono-thematic and focused in a time when so much hip hop is a contest to see how many samples you can stuff into four minutes. Lyrically, Gambino stays loyal to his message and exhaustively documents his struggles: being bullied for not being “black” enough, being the comedian who isn’t taken seriously for his art, and never getting quite enough Asian women in his (clearly healthy) sexual diet. Listening to Camp can even be an uncomfortable experience in its brutal honesty, with an intimate look into Glover’s upbringing.

Right off the bat in “Outside,” lines like “we (his cousin) used to say ‘I love you.’ Now we only think that shit. It feels weird that you’re the person I took sink baths with” quickly inform the listener what they’re in for. Nerdy references to Invader Zim, Rugrats, Ninja Turtles, Sufjan Stevens and more will win over a sub-culture of listeners on

their own. Other standout tracks include post-dubstep powerhouse “Heartbeat,” Odd Future soundalike “Backpackers,” as well as “All The Shine,” and “Fire Fly.” Gambino’s choice of making the confrontational, expletiveheavy “Bonfire” the first single (accompanied by its uber-graphic music video) may confirm Glover’s psychological push-back against mainstream success.

But if Glassnote Records can repeat its Mumford & Sons magic, he may not have a choice in the matter, and future CG may be filled with the existential crisis that comes with overwhelming popularity.

Hopefully he’s been listening lots of Drake, the undisputed expert on the matter.

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011 Drake

Take Care Dan Barton BandWagon Magazine “I think I killed everybody in the game last year. Man, fuck it, I was on though.” These are the first words we hear out of Drake’s mouth on Take Care opener “Over My Dead Body,” and it’s basically a standalone recipe for all things Drizzy: asserting his dominance, coated in apology, with a dash of bashfulness. It’s a formula of his “humble-brag” that we’ve come to know and love. 2010’s Thank Me Later was basically a comprehensive textbook on overnight success, as

well as the drama and the trauma it brings. He’s had a year to ruminate on the subject, and Take Care basically picks up where we left off. But Drake certainly hasn’t run out of things to say. In fact, of the eighty minutes one has available on a compact audio disc, Drake uses 79:49 to tell us how he feels. I’m not even sure your iTunes would let you push that limit in trying to burn a copy (brilliant marketing tactic?).

“Brevity is the soul of wit,” maybe, but Take Care sold nearly 700,000 copies in its first week, so who’s to say if Shakespeare or Drizzy knows best?

Besides the pre-release chart-

The Weeknd Thursday

Mikey Unruh BandWagon Magazine

If you don’t know anything about The Weeknd, you’re not alone. The mysterious Toronto based indie R&B musician, Abel Tesfaye, has solely promoted his material online, keeping information about himself extremely limited and rarely playing shows. However, his music has been creating a buzz around the Internet since tracks from his first mixtape, House of Balloons leaked in late 2010. In March, he released House of Balloons for free from his website, the-weeknd.com, and announced that it was the first

part of a trilogy of mixtapes that would be released throughout the year, without giving any solid dates.

In mid July, several tracks from his second mixtape, Thursday, were leaked via The Weeknd’s Youtube account, presumably to further build anticipation for the tape. Finally on August 18th (a Thursday), the album was released, without any prior notice, also free from his website.

Lyrical content of Thursday is as heavy as its predecessor, filled with stories of lost loves, drugs and sex, but in a beautiful croon that almost contradicts the message.

However, the tales become much

ASAP Rocky

LIVELOVEA$AP creativity that came from the early New York scene and the likes of Biggie or the Beastie Boys. Enter ASAP Rocky, a young rapper out New York hip-hop has become of Harlem, whose music almost stagnant in its content, focusing exclusively strays away from almost exclusively on a “money, typical, Big Apple rap. cars and bitches” lifestyle and the After an EP and a few leaked glamour that accompanies it. New tracks hit the Internet earlier this rappers tend to embrace that same year, Rakim Mayers, AKA ASAP aesthetic over the originality and Rocky, became one of the most

Mikey Unruh BandWagon Magazine

toppers “Headlines,” “Make Me Proud,” and “Marvin’s Room,” there are a handful of radio-ready tracks in the pipeline. Drake and Rihanna revisit their palpable chemistry on title track “Take Care.” “Over My Dead Body,” “Under Ground Kings” and “HYFR” also bring the heavy backbeats and Drake’s throaty delivery that command respect.

Countless other tracks turn the tempo down, turn the piano up and Drake gets to croon. A gifted singer already, no doubt he’s upped his chops in the last year, and he has a tasteful sense of where a ballad belongs.

“Crew Love” and “The Ride” are standouts here. There’s not necessarily a weak track on Take Care, but many songs blend into one another. What else could you expect from an eighteen track more personal and less relatable, though not a bit less listenable.

The opening track, “Lonely Star,” addresses a girl that he is involved with that doesn’t need him, but he attempts to hang onto her, begging for just Thursdays with her. Similar heavily troubled relationship tracks follow throughout the record, though they begin to mix with accounts of heavy drug use, like on the song “Life of the Party,” a description of coke use and ambiguous lust for either a girl or the coke itself.

In “The Zone,” Abel expresses his vicarious desires for a particular woman through sex with someone else. The track also features a verse from the rapper Drake, to whom The Weeknd is often compared, for both having come from the same city and similar aesthetic, though the latter uses a much darker take hyped and sought after rappers, which led to him eventually sign to Sony/RCA imprint label, Polo Grounds. His three million dollar advance, ($1.7 for recording his debut album and $1.3 to start up his group label, A$AP Worldwide), is staggering, even when compared to superstar, Drake, who only received two million dollars for his album.

Despite his massive advance, Rocky still released a free mixtape in early November, titled LIVELOVEA$AP, sporting sixteen

album? This brings me to my only large complaint. eighteen tracks is standard mixtape practice, but a major release begs a little more quality control. One great thing the rebirth of the vinyl era has given us is the chance to revisit the album experience; a record between thirty-five and fifty minutes that can be consumed in a daily commute.

But eighty minutes demands quite a bit of undivided attention to a single artist. Additionally, Take Care gives us a clear look at label politics, as a slew of Young Money/ Cash Money artists all but ruin everything they touch. Lil Wayne gets two mediocre verses, Nicki Minaj’s gimmicks are tired (“I’m a star: sheriff’s badge”). Birdman is too stupid to craft a single rhyme so instead he mumbles for sixty seconds, giving props to Drake’s

on the emotional hip-hop/R&B style that has made Drake such a superstar.

“The Birds (Part 1)” is the most relatable track on the record, accessible through both the lighter, more anthem-esque production and the less gritty lyrical content.

Also featuring a more accessible sound is “Rolling Stone,” a track that has minimalist production, including only a single drum, a looped, picked guitar sample and what sounds like a mouse clicking, until the very end. This allows for The Weeknd to truly show of his gorgeous voice without the dense production swirling around it.

Noting only a few tracks by name hardly does the mixtape justice, as every track has its appeal. As a whole, the disc seems less like a mixtape and more like a proper release, like every

tracks of tripped out, drug and sex stories, and overconfident self-promotion. While not at all a unique concept to hip-hop, its something rarely heard from New York rappers, but that’s definitely not the most absorbing element of the record.

Indie producer, Clams Casino lends his talents on a number of tracks on the record with a strange sense of ambiance and obscure sampling that provide sounds that are entirely unheard in the rap scene. Stand out tracks produced by Clams Casino include the album opener, “Palace,” a bass heavy jam, aptly titled “Bass,” and “Wassup,” a hood repping track that is possibly the most catchy song on the album.

While Clams is probably the biggest name on the record, gaining recognition for both his production for various hip-hop artists and his solo work from indie music websites, including Pitchfork.com, the production is equally engaging from the rest of the beat masters. Fellow A$AP crew-mate Ty Beats offers up two beats for the record, both for tracks that leaked early and have had videos made for them. “Peso”

gangsta cred (Half Jewish. Canadian.

Degrassi). Outside YMCM, Rick Ross also delivers an uninspired verse, and Andre 3000 is lovable as ever but doesn’t fit the tone. Take Care is great, but impossible to consume in a single sitting, and that’s where it falls short as an experience.

track was specifically crafted to fill a particular place and not just recorded at various times and collected together for the release.

Thursday leaves you anticipating the next set of songs, Echoes of Silence, and fortunately it is in the works and set for a release sometime this fall, though the specific details remain a mystery, like the man behind the music.

is a swirling anthem, focusing on the reality of life as a rapper trying to make it, before the fame and riches. The accompanying video is as mesmerizing as the track itself.

Though the production is a very strong and the content fairly trivial, it’s the delivery of the raps and Rocky’s flow that make every track interesting to listen to. He rhymes in ways that make the kings of hip-hop seem old hat.

He flows fast when a track seems to need some energy and flows slow when things are relaxed, but always keeps interesting rhythm.

Whether he can maintain his unique vibe will definitely become obvious on his debut commercial release, due out sometime next year.

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

Book REVIEWS Sartre and Camus Zach Martinez BandWagon Magazine One of the great debates in literature is between the readers of Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Who was the better novelist, philosopher, and public intellectual? Volumes have been written on the subject, people have gone to fists in defense of their favorite dead Frenchmen, so I don’t hope to reach a conclusion here, or persuade the reader in either direction. What I do want to do is make a brief comparison of two of the most famous existential novels of all time, Camus’ The Stranger and Sartre’s Nausea. I will ask two questions of the novels: what is the main point and, within the existentialist project, does it serve its purpose?

The French philosopher JeanPaul Sartre is well known for having been one of the few people on earth to prolong teenage angst all the way to his death bed. Sad and alone, deprived of all his Marxist dreams and existential universe in which nothing came true, he died in 1980.

His first novel was Nausea, published in 1938. Antoine Roquentin acts has the

protagonist, if the book can be said to really have a protagonist.

The book is a collection of Roquentin’s diary entries. The pages are filled with a man trying to come to grips with a sickness that is continually overtaking him. The “sickness” is an allusion to the feeling of despair, anxiety, and forlornness one feels when faced with the reality of existence.

In Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre says that we must come to the realization that there is no God and we are left to create man in our own image. The book culminates in Roquentin’s realizing that existence is absurd, and with this realization, his sickness subsides.

As an existential novel, Nausea does some interesting things; namely, Sartre’s use of a physical sickness to explain the mental, theoretical, and perhaps even metaphysical idea of anxiety.

It is an attempt to bridge the gap between metaphysical and physical, thus getting rid of the dualisms that have embarrassed philosophy hitherto. In the book’s ability to make existentialism a very materialist philosophy, I think it does its duty. But what Sartre fails to do is give a depiction

of the existentialist project after one comes to grips with reality.

Albert Camus was born in Algeria almost ten years after Sartre. He is famous for his work in Combat, a French resistance and later political journal, but he is most famous for The Stranger, an existential novel that many a college freshman have read.

Meursault, the story’s protagonist, is an ordinary French–Algerian living in Algiers, the capital of Algeria. He is quiet, disconnected, and apathetic.

Nothing seems to hold any value to the young man. He is even disconnected from his lover.

When his mother dies, he doesn’t shed a tear.

The story comes to a head when Meursault kills an Arab on at the beach for no explicable reason except, maybe, the sun was so hot that it drove him crazy.

In the end, Meursault realizes that the world is as indifferent to him as he is to it. It doesn’t matter if he does one thing or its opposite. It is an absurd struggle that has no end except in death. This is why, in The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus makes Sisyphus, the man condemned to an eternity of rolling a stone up a hill only to have it roll back down, the absurd hero. His freedom in death will never come, and

Simon Pegg: Nerd Do Well Jay Wallace BandWagon Magazine

Celebrity autobiographies, in general, serve little to no purpose other than to draw attention to the celebrity in question. They’re usually corny, often egotistical, sometimes apologetic, and never really bring to light anything that the reader didn’t already know or care to know. Everyone notable has written or will write one, if not hire someone to write it for them. The Kardashian sisters have one out – take from that what you will.

Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg was well aware of this when he was pushed into writing Nerd Do Well, his autobiography. It’s quite possibly the most self-aware, ego-less autobiography ever written and it’s only close rival being Bruce Campbell’s If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor.

The self awareness and lack of pretentiousness gives Pegg’s book a lightness that’s missing from most autobiographies, but it also shows the darker and sadder aspects of Pegg’s upbringing more for an more emotional impact.

Instead of focusing on behindthe-scenes gossip or scandals, Pegg decided to elaborate on what lead him toward acting and how he cultivated his love of zombies, Star Wars, and all

things nerdy. Most of the book dives into Pegg’s years as a child, when he was known as Simon Beckingham, (then Pegg, following the divorce of his parents) and what lead to his love of stand-up and theater acting. This dovetails into what would lead him to London to pursue his passions and meet future Shaun director Edgar Wright, and Pegg’s longtime cohort, Nick Frost.

Pegg at one point reveals his past as a film student, particularly when he launches into a breakdown of Star Wars and why it was so successful. (Long story short: It was American’s way of licking our wounds following the Vietnam War, a fantasy where the good guys, i.e. the US, win.) It’s clear Pegg does what he does because he loves film, giving impromptu histories on horror films and reveling in how his extensive knowledge of film theory helped during the writing processes of Shaun and Hot Fuzz.

If Pegg were a superhero, he’d be known as “Film Maven.”

Speaking of superheroes, tied into his life story is an adventure tale featuring Pegg as a self-absorbed super-spy who travels with his robot butler Canterbury, his main mission – writing his autobiography – interrupted by the theft of the Star of Nefertiti. He reunites with

old flame Murielle (in real life, a French school girl Pegg had a crush on) to track down the lost artifact from the villainous Lord Black. It may seem pointless and masturbatory for Pegg to include this, but not considering the first chapter of the book where Pegg talks about loathing celebrity memoirs. The story is funny, just like the rest of the book.

The Pegg-as-daft-superspy story wasn’t the only non sequitur entry in the book. Pegg also tacked on an appendix featuring his own Star Wars fan fiction. Taking place between Episodes III and IV, the remaining Jedi discover that Anakin Skywalker (nee Darth Vader) is alive, and a wry, patronizing Obi-Wan Kenobi is forced to stay on Tatooine against his wishes. (“What about the sand-people?”

Pegg’s Kenobi whines. “You have to make that funny noise to scare them off and I can’t do it because I’ve got a deviated septum.”)

Pegg’s autobiography is wishfulfillment for nerds everywhere.

There is far too much stuff to go into regarding the book; the details noted here are only the tip of the iceberg. Track down a copy, read it, enjoy it. Unlike the Kardashian sisters’ book, Simon Pegg’s isn’t a waste of time.

Grade: A.

if there is any hope for man in this life to be happy, we have “to imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Meursault becomes an existential hero because he refuses to admit his guilt, in the sense of moral guilt. He doesn’t feel bad about killing the man on the beach because nothing has value, unless one creates it himself. To submit oneself to another’s value judgment would be to deny one’s own subjectivity.

So Camus uses an extreme case to make his point clear.

The Stranger as an existential novel, picks up where Nausea left off. Camus’ novel does nothing to explain why Meursault and the world are so indifferent to each other, nor does Sartre’s novel explain how to live existentially.

As stated earlier, the question as to whom is the better novelist shouldn’t be answered here, but the question of whether or not each novel plays an active roll in the existentialist project should.

Interestingly, at the point in their careers when Nausea and The Stranger where written, Camus and Sartre had not had their major falling out, which took place in 1952. Perhaps there is something to be said about that and why their novels go together so well.

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

MOVIE REVIEWS J. Edgar Jed Murphy BandWagon Magazine

Historical figures are sometimes hard to make movies about. Audiences want to see the people from our textbooks doing extraordinary things but pretty much always find themselves disappointed. They want to see Alexander the Great conquer the world, and instead they get Colin Ferrell doing whatever for three hours. They wanted a look at a Roman emperor, and they got Caligula. Want a movie about the Japanese leadership during the Meiji Restoration? Nope. You get The Last Samurai.

There have been some good ones though. The King’s Speech was a beautiful look into the mortality of a king during world war, and Downfall is by far the best film about Hitler there has been or will ever be. J. Edgar is a film that doesn’t land in either spectrum of the Shitty Historical Figure Movie Scale. Instead, it sits right there in the middle, teetering in the shallow part of interesting.

There’s a reason for this though, and that is because Clint Eastwood attempts to make an honest movie about the real J. Edgar Hoover. Unfortunately, the real people from our history books rarely meet the standards we look for in our entertainment and Mr. Hoover is almost one of them. The movie is told through the process of Hoover dictating him memoir to a series of FBI

underlings, creating a halfflashback, half-present tense film that near the end muddles together. But it’s his deeds that put him in the history books no matter what side of the isle you view it. Eastwood, as a director, shows this well although there are moments where the continuity is hard to follow, and major historical events are obviously happening on screen but there is little explanation of its significance or background to the event except a few shouts from Hoover at the beginning of the scene.

The driving point of the film is by far Leonardo DeCaprio’s acting and the relationship between Hoover and his Associate Director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) in what was a relatively open homosexual relationship that lasted a good majority of their professional lives together, all the way up to Hoover’s death in 1972. This is something widely debated but makes for good character development and seems to make sense when you look at Hoover and Tolson’s relationship (Tolson inherited Hoover’s estate and received the flag at the funeral). But this is not the only speculation Eastwood takes a stance on in this film, as it dives into the very strange and sometimes obsessive relationship with his mother. I personally wanted to see more of the time he spent during the Kennedy years working under Attorney General Robert Kennedy who was almost half Hoover’s age.

J. Edgar Hoover revolutionized the federal government, taking a

toothless organization turning it into the most powerful, efficient, and often-ruthless criminal investigation force the country had ever known. And for hoots, he put together the Library of Congress card catalogue when he was in his early twenties.

This movie gives the audience good insight into these things, but most all, it shows Hoover as a man believed himself a true patriot, and was willing to whatever was necessary to keep it safe from her enemies. He was an absolute political realist who thought that the best way to keep power and security is to break the rules others aren’t willing to break. His actions during the Red Scare in the 30’s showed that you can create an enemy of the people using the right information, and his development of the forensic sciences gave him the ability to display that knowledge in any way he wanted. Another good film in this similar vein is George Clooney’s Good Luck and Good Night, about McCarthyism and the influence it had on the media.

All in all, J. Edgar is a good look into the man, but just an okay movie. Absolutely worth RedBoxin’ it.

Akira

Jay Wallace BandWagon Magazine The definitive shark movie?

Jaws. The definitive zombie movie? Night of the Living Dead.

The definitive action movie? Die Hard. These films may not have been the first or the best of their kind, but they have become the touchstone of their respective sub-genres. These are films that their successors measure themselves by, but often never trump. The same idea can be applied to the 1988 anime feature Akira, simply because it is wicked good.

First off, I will confess that I am in no way an expert on anime.

My exposure to anime was via kids’ shows of my childhood like Pokemon, Digimon, Yu-gioh, a couple episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, the last two of which I saw in high school. I went into Akira knowing that it’s considered amongst critics a landmark film for anime and the success of the genre in America, but I was also expecting the type of weirdness that has given anime an infamous reputation in pop culture. Don’t know what I’m talking about? Google “hentai.” …Actually, no, don’t do that. Seriously. Don’t fucking do that. What has been seen cannot be unseen.

So what’s Akira about? The film, adapted from a graphic novel of the same name, takes place in 2019 in Neo-Tokyo.

It mainly focuses on Kaneda, a motorcycle gang leader, and his childhood friend Tetsuo.

After a run-in with a rival motorcycle gang in a abandoned part of Tokyo, Tetsuo crashes after almost hitting Takashi, a government test subject with psychic abilities who had escaped earlier that evening.

Government forces, lead by Colonel Shikishima, appear immediately to apprehend Takashi, and also take Tetsuo to a hospital and arrest the motorcycle gang.

While being treated for his injuries, Doctor Onishi and The Colonel – both in charge of a secret experimental ESP project – discover that Tetsuo has psychic abilities similar to Akira. Who is Akira? He’s the young boy responsible for annihilating Tokyo in 1988 after losing control of his psychic powers. The government – and a terrorist group fighting the government – are keen to get Tetsuo under control and/ or killed for obvious reasons.

They’re unsuccessful, and Tetsuo unleashes his pent-up rage and aggression on NeoTokyo.

The first thing that stood out about Akira was the quality of the animation. One of the selling points of the film was that the original (Japanese) dialog was recorded before the animation was started, a practice not often done in anime. Surprisingly, this quality isn’t lost in the English dub; the dialog scenes look very realistic compared to cheapo anime productions, even though

the English sometimes doesn’t sync up properly.

The animation quality also shines during the action scenes, namely the motorcycle chase in the beginning and Tetsuo’s fall in the end. Never was I under the impression that the filmmakers got cheap. It’s not Disney quality, but it’s miles better than the “normal” anime I’ve seen.

The story, while it sounds convoluted, is a damn good story with well-written characters and multiple plots laid out in a clear manner. The Colonel, for instance, could have very well been an angry, barking government henchman, but is portrayed as the only man of principle within the government and an empathic caregiver for the psychics he looks after. Kaneda, the hero of the film, comes across as a cocky delinquent who treats Tetsuo like a kid, but as the film progresses shows that he legitimately cares and looks out for his friend. It’s an oddly heartwarming film.

Any gripes? Personally, I wanted to see more happen between Kaneda and his love interest Kei, a revolutionary that he bails out of a detention center, saves again from police, and teams up with when the terrorist group she’s involved with plans to kill Tetsuo – nothing really significant seems to happen between them.

Overall though, Akira is a great film, and arguable, the definitive anime movie.

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

Colorado Cougars: Fast, Affordable, and Fun Pro-Basketball, Greeley Style!

Joe Lee Parker BandWagon Magazine

heated and highly competitive.

The rules are a bit different too. But like many parallel leagues, they’re all about making the game The American Basketball more fun to watch and play. Here Association is all about community again I’ve had to do some research and inexpensive entertainment to find out what the heck was for the entire family. Tickets are going on. Not to worry though, $10 or less, the seating is general once I developed even a cursory admission, the players and owners understanding, I was off my seat are local, and the fun is off the yet again cheering for the fast charts! The Colorado Cougars action. Here too, the league goes play many of their games at Butler out of its way to bring their fans Hancock Sports Pavilion right here along for the ride. We’re all kind of on campus just a stones throw breaking new ground together. The from downtown. What’s not to owners, the players, the coaches, like? the fans, the home-team markets, Admittedly, I’m a basketball fan the whole experience is about from way back, so this was a no- having a great time. brainer. I had to do some homework Fortunately, everything is though. I spoke to Cougar’s owner, designed to succeed over the long Patrick Kelly, and he says he had a hall as well. This is not just some choice to locate the team just about flash in the pan organization that’s anywhere in Northern Colorado. here today and gone tomorrow. I He chose Greeley because it’s close left my interview with Mr. Kelly to home (he lives here), and he having a very strong sense that knew the community would grow even though it’s all brand new to to support them. My first hand everyone, there’s a very solid longexperience is that the attendance, term vision in place. while not burgeoning yet, is So check out ABA’s Colorado extremely supportive. Everyone Cougars, based right here in I’ve seen at the games is having a Greeley, Colorado. If ever there blast. We cheer the team on and are was a local team or business that rewarded by up close and personal deserve the communities’ support, access in addition to hard, fast it’s this one. Learn about the team, professional-level basketball. the players, the rules, and the Don’t take my word for it history. Or not! Just show up, buy a though. If you’re a sports fan, check ticket; and prepare for a thrill ride them out. If you like to support that leaves you wanting more. local businesses, check ‘em out. If Find them and “like” them you want to try something a little on Facebook or visit http:// different on a small budget, check www.abacougars.com for more ‘em out. I’m glad I did! I was an information. immediate convert from the first tip-off.

First off, the general admission set up let me choose a great seat.

I felt a bit like Jack Nicholson cheering on his LA Lakers. The talent level of the Cougars’ players blew me away. In reading the available player profiles, I see it’s a veritable who’s who of regional stars, college and otherwise.

Freddie Robinson, Levi Dyer, Arin Dunn, Dallas Elmore, Isiah Martinez, the list goes on.

The league itself promotes team play so you have all-star players working together as a team and having great fun, while getting paid to play. It’s a powerful combination, but that’s not to say things don’t get occasionally

Pictured Above: Local hero Isiah Martinez Pictured Middle: Dallas Elmore and Levi Dyer Pictured Bottom: The Colorado Cougars

Photos courtesy of Fotodrama Creative Photography and The Colorado Cougars.

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

11

Blue Mug Coffee Bar Kelly Cook BandWagon Magazine When David beats Goliath, even the Goliath’s cousins tend to cheer. That’s exactly the feeling I got when the Blue Mug Coffee House took over the building that had been vacated by Starbucks on 20th St. Blue Mug Coffee is the newest edition to the Westlake shopping center. Owners Karla and Art transplanted here from Southern Colorado because they could not ignore the community and family that kept calling them back to town.

When they lived here eighteen years ago, they made many good friends. Their daughter performs at dinner theaters in Northern Colorado and their oldest child will graduate next year. Opening a community hang-out in Greeley just made sense.

Besides the camaraderie, Blue Mug opened because, as Art says:

“We love coffee. Not just the taste itself but also what it brings to people. People love to hang out at coffee houses drinking a cup of coffee or tea and hanging out either by themselves or with a friend. It’s a great ritual for people to be social as well as getting some great time alone. We couldn’t think of a more enjoyable business to be a part of.”

Blue Mug plans to join the growing group of local businesses that champion fine arts. In the next year they will go all-out with open mic nights, local artists, live jazz and student performances. “We didn’t want to be just an ordinary coffee house with a normal name and normal coffee stuff. It’s a chance for us to be creative and do something different. However, I think what really sets us apart is that we roast our own coffee, and we are determined to always serve the best.”

As a resident coffee snob, I have been really delighted with my morning joe paired with their fresh baked goods. A dark roast deserves a great pastry, and Blue Mug delivers with their in-house baking. Making the meal even more filling is their super friendly staff consisting of the hard working owners and students from UNC. Blue Mug is living up to the dreams Art and Karla have of an inviting place to sit and unwind. “We hope to bring to Greeley a great community feel. We will continue to feature local artists and talent. We’ll have movie nights soon. We designed the layout with the intention of making people feel welcome to stay and hang out.”

You can visit Blue Mug and see for yourself. They are open at 2030 35th Ave. seven days a week from 6:00 am – 6:00 pm.

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Photos By: Kelly Cook

LOCATED BELOW THE PENALTY BOX

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

ALL PHOTOS By: G. Mark Lewis

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

ON THE KILL FLOOR

P

revious to attending a recent bout at the Slaughterhouse, my only experience with roller derby was the 2009 Drew Barrymore film Whip It, which was dismal, but succeeded in piquing my interest in this fascinating punk rock world of babes in skates, even if the plot kept my full attention from actually learning anything about the game. For months I kept meaning to get to a bout, and thus kept putting it off (I had things to do), until thankfully this assignment forced me to see real roller derby in all its glory.

I attended a double header November 19th at the affectionately named Slaughterhouse Kill Floor, which was exceptionally difficult to find, just before the highway at 22nd St and 2nd Ave. After driving twice around the block I would have given up had I not noticed a small yard sign ensuring that there indeed was roller derby to be had that night.

Before me was a warehouse turned roller rink. The basic white-walled, concrete-floored space was packed with all kinds: the contenders, their parents, siblings, grandparents, and friends from middle school to college. Beside me on the bleachers were four grade school boys, all with matching red and black mohawks accompanied by their similarly styled guardian. Near the entrance were several tables set up with all kinds of merchandise of the various teams, and next to that, concessions, including all of your basic alcohols and beers.

Pre-game, every team warmed up separately, circling the floor, running drills of bumping into each other on the turns, weaving in and out of teammates, propelling themselves forward by grabbing the hips of the girl in front.

The first bout of the night was between

By: JaCob Bernard

Greeley’s Bone Saw Bruisers versus the High City Divas out of Aurora. As the refs checked every team member’s equipment (the necessary gear requires a helmet, mouthpiece, and elbow and knee guards; fishnets appear to also be compulsory), the emcee took over the floor, explaining the game for newbies like me: the Jammer, who wears a star on her helmet, is the only skater who can earn points. The Lead Jammer is the first to make it through the pack of defenders (or jam) cleanly and the only skater that can stop the jam. Pivots, identified by a stripe on the helmet, lead the pack and control speed, and are the last chance to keep the Jammers from passing through.

Most of the finer aspects of the game were lost on me, but that didn’t keep me from enjoying it.

Each team member is introduced by their derby name, which are often delightfully destructive puns (Tootsie Poppin’, Destroying Miss Daisy), and then the referees, who carefully watch every move to ensure the safety of all players (The best of their names? Alotta Payne).

After a traditional acappella rendition of the national anthem, without which any American sport would be incomplete, we were thrown into the game. Even if I got lost in what was happening in the action, it was mesmerizing. Before I knew it, the Bone Saw Bruisers had claimed four points. Within minutes, the High City Divas were up 28 to 20. Girls were literally bumping their rivals out of the track with their butts. As points added up, the girls became increasingly rough with someone going down every minute and various fouls being called.

The whole bout, normally taking an hour and reduced under the conditions of the double header, took only 40 minutes with

a brief break in between.

The second half seemed to go by much quicker, as the Divas racked up point after point, leaving the Bruisers in the dust. The final score was 108 to 51.

It was hard not to notice that girls from every background and in every shape and size played with equal fierceness, smashing preconceived images of solely big boned girls. These girls were serious, and the Divas certainly had to earn that win. Everyone, while very competitive, showed immense sportsmanship as they did the typical high five down the line, and disappeared to tend to their accumulated battle wounds. It was announced that this night was one player’s last game for a while in order to have knee surgery. I spoke to another girl who was off this season due to a back injury sustained in derby. No different from any other high-contact sport (which, by the way, is regulated by the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association).

The Slaughterhouse’s Prime Cuts didn’t win the second match of the night against the FoCo Microbruisers either, but fought hard for a close 119 to 124. The athletes are all excited and dedicated and parents are wonderfully supportive. I had never seen such an exciting, distinctive game or had more fun at any sport, even if I was merely reporting. I’d recommend that schools start their own leagues, but they’d probably ruin it. And there wouldn’t be any more alcohol. There’s no need to fix such an awesome system.

The next bout is the Fourth Annual Snow Brawl, on December 10th.

For more information, go to www. slaughterhousederbygirls.com or their Facebook page.

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

Christmas with the King

Greeley’s number one personality talks to BandWagon

Joe Lee Parker BandWagon Magazine

He’s the King! Well, Greeley’s King anyway.

Entertainer, artist, performer, actor, and radio personality; whatever label you place him under, the talent and enthusiasm of local celebrity George Gray is undeniable. He’s one of the biggest draws at the Union Colony Civic Center, selling out his first show there in one hour.

He topped that the following year by selling it out a full week in advance. In the last two years, he and his Elvis Experience Band have added a second day’s performance to their Christmas with the King show, giving twice as many folks a chance to rock and bop to Greeley’s King of Rock n’ Roll.

But make no mistake, his portrayal of a world-class icon, is but one of the ways George gets his name and talent out there.

He can also be found co-hosting his own morning radio show, something he’s done one way or another, for close to ten years.

Recently, he changed things up with his move from AM newstalk to Greeley’s independently owned Pirate Radio at 104.7 FM. In his mid-thirties, he wound up doing a few karaoke versions of Elvis songs. He perfected his skills enough to be asked to perform at a local office party.

He knew a friend had an Elvis

jump suit and George remembers asking himself, “What kind of geek would own one of those?”

Little did he know that one day he would elevate that talent into a very lucrative journey that would make him one of the hottest acts in the region.

Along with a 16-member band, made up of local musicians primarily from the Greeley area, complete with six back-up singers, George Gray and the Elvis Experience Band relive the music and mannerisms of the King whenever they play their twoand-a-half hour show. They’ve had such a great response from the audience performing Elvis’ Gospel hits that they dedicated a large portion of the current show to those songs.

He and his band are being booked for the holiday season throughout the area and beyond, and he might have plans to write and sing some of his own material at smaller venues along the way. He’s in talks with the popular High Plains Chitaqua organization to produce and perform a 40-minute spoken monologue, a historic recreation of The King, highlighting Elvis’ life and allowing us a creative and intimate glimpse of the man and his music.

There are few artists that can sell out a 1,700-seat venue, go live on the radio Monday through Friday from 6:00 to 9:00 am, and still look for ways to give back to

the community. You’ll regularly find George, with a few band mates or going solo, playing at retirement homes, communities, and benefit concerts.

In a local poll, he was named Greeley’s favorite personality two years running. His group was named in the favorite band category, and he was named in the favorite radio host category as well. That’s pretty famous!

He’s on a roll and his act is exploding. Taking Christmas with the King onto the Chitaqua stage is a natural progression. There’s no doubt that George’s stock is rising. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see him dabble in the visual arts somewhere along the way.

His Facebook page often exhibits his talents as a photographer so maybe that’s where he’ll step next.

George represents a tangible example of how to master the region as an artist. Because when all is said and done, he’s first and foremost an artist. Whether he’s

Scan the QR Code above to see the full interview of the band.

acting, singing, performing, or entertaining large crowds at highend theaters, he’s found a way to get paid for his art and have a great time doing it. I think we all can take a page from the George Gray playbook when it comes to pushing the envelope. Best of all, it’s clear he’s come to where he is now simply by walking through the doors that have opened to him along the way.

You can find more info on George Gray and his band by going to www.kingrockandroll. com. He’s also on Facebook and has videos on Youtube. Or better yet, catch an upcoming live show to see the man in action. Take your mom, she’ll love it!

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

The Crvsh Room: 915 16th St

Joe Lee Parker BandWagon Magazine The term “Crush Room” dates back to the 19th century and is defined as a large room in a theater, opera house, etc. where the audience may promenade or converse during intermissions.

The Crvsh Room is a concept created by experiences and influences from all over northern Colorado. It’s not just a bar and lounge, or merely a restaurant. The Crvsh Room is more like a scene and definitely unique. Their stated goal is to create a place that serves both food and drinks while not letting that define them. Their primary focus is to provide an atmosphere that is conducive to conversation, collaboration, art, and relaxation. Finally we all have a comfortable, local place to hang out, a place to go before or after anything.

Owned & operated by partners’ Nate Giska, Brandon Jansson, and Pablo Perez, The Crvsh Room is off to a fine start. Granted, there have been challenges so far and will perhaps continue to be for a while, but all of these guys are used to pushing the proverbial envelope and getting things

done. If Blacklist Board Shop and Downtown’s Jager are any indication, it’s okay for us to expect great things from this team of entrepreneurs.

I had the pleasure of attending their opening night gala and it seems they’re already living up to expectations. The event was extremely well attended by a who’s who of Greeley’s young elite and even drew guests in from out of state. Located in the 900-block of 16th Street, and just across the street from old campus, the space has added to a growing arts and entertainment buzz. The galleries, food choices, and smattering of hip shops make the district every thing one might expect in a university neighborhood. Hang a while in the area and you’ll see hipsters, students, skaters and artists.

There’s a vortex of good energy all up and down the boulevard.

This, my friends, is what Greeley’s needed all along.

They are open Monday through Saturday from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm and for Sunday brunch from 11:00 am until 3:00 pm, as well. They serve lunch daily from 11:00 am to

Pictured Above: The store-front window of the Crvsh Room.

Pictured Right: The opening also debuted Armando Silva’s “Icon Series” which was on display throughout November.

3:00 pm and feature happy hour from 3:00 pm to 6:00 pm and all day Saturday. Like them on Facebook or visit their web site at www.thecrvshroom. com.

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

SPOTLIGHTSsee

Upcoming Concerts you need To

I FIGHT DRAGONS

Sat. Dec. 3rd @ A.F. Ray’s What do you get when a Pulitzer Prize WInner, a Nobel Laureate, a Rhodes Scholar, and a Robot all get together and form a band?

This is a question I Fight Dragons would love to know the answer to, along with other important questions like, “what is purple, really?” and “how much brains could a zombiechuck chuck if a zombiechuck could exist a posteriori?”

In the meanwhile, I Fight Dragons content themselves with playing melodic rock-and-roll type music, which they integrate seamlessly with chiptune. For those of you not in the proverbial ‘know,’ ‘chiptune’ is new music created on ‘obsolete’ video game ‘soundcards’ such as the Nintendo Gameboy. Now you’re in the ‘know.’ Welcome. It’s nice

here and the bathrooms are in the back to the left if you need them.

In the biographical sense, all 5 members of I Fight Dragons hail from Chicago. In the spiritual sense, they also hail from Chicago. However, in the metaphorical sense, only 4 of them hail from Chicago, while Packy hails from Outer Space (by way of Chicago).

I Fight Dragons are boldly questing forward on a sonic adventure toward total world domination. If that sounds a little intimidating, then they can scale it back a bit and focus on continental domination, or even just tri-county domination if that’s still a bit much for you.

The new I Fight Dragons album KABOOM! has a lot of capital letters, not to mention an exclamation point, which makes it very exhausting to pronounce, but quite invigorating to listen to. It is a Photo Finish / Atlantic Records release (wha!?!?), and

Courtesy of http://www.ifightdragons.com/about-us

serves as the culmination of their earlier sonic endeavors undertaken with their first two EPs, 2009’s Cool Is Just A Number and 2010’s Welcome To The Breakdown.

All in all, I Fight Dragons are really interesting. I mean, like, REALLY interesting. So go tell your friends about them. Or if you don’t have friends, tell your mom. Say hi to her for me. She’ll know who you mean. Trust me.

Fine, she probably won’t know who you mean. So then maybe you can build a robot and tell the robot. If said robot responds to you then you could probably win a Turing prize or something and I Fight Dragons deserves half the money, so please send it to them with a Self Adressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) and 4 boxtops from Cinnamon Toast Crunch(™) cereal to redeem your prize.

Seriously, go tell someone, quit reading this crap. Dragons OUT.

SUPERVISION

Collins Colorado in 2002 and met Derek Vincent Smith and Michal Sat. Dec. 31st @ Sky Nightclub Menert. After studying production and learning from the best, he When drawing from the right went on to audio engineering pool of inspiration, sometimes the school. He has enjoyed sharing the right mixture of sounds can come stage with such well known acts together and make something as Pretty Lights, Michal Menert, new. Possibly something hard to DJ AM, Jazzy Jeff, Public Enemy, DJ put one name on. Today people Craze, Klever, DJ Skribble, Steve like to jump on the next genre Aoki, Tommie Sunshine, Quest bandwagon, and intentionally Love, Classixx, La Riots, Villains, make music that fits one genre. RJD2, and Ghostland Observatory SuperVision is not about one to name a few. In 2011 SuperVision sound. Instead it is about many has arrived. Available now for free sounds brought together with download is his latest project an approach that delivers a Telescopic. stylistic sound design that isn’t classified with one or two words.

It is a sound that you can count on evolving without departing from what makes it unique.

The sounds created and played

by SuperVision are the works of Richard Blake Hansen. With a DJ career spanning over 12 years and 1000+ gigs, his place in the music industry has been found.

Within a couple of years of DJing he was cutting his teeth in music production. He moved to Fort Courtesy of http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/therecordlabel/supervision.html

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

17

The Rhyme Pro

Greeley Native Rhyme Progression Promotes Debut Full Length Album

Dan Barton BandWagon Magazine

America’s favorite holiday, Black Friday, is winding to a close, and after a few days spent back home in Greeley, MC Rob Fischer is ready to head south, back to his current Denver stomping grounds. Fischer got his start growing up in Greeley, and recently moved to Denver to attend school and become a part of the scene. After a phone call picking his brain about hip hop, independent music and the Northern Colorado arts scene, it’s easy to see why he’s anxious to get back to work.

Rob is the man on the microphone, but Rhyme Progression is completed by the presence of DJ/Producer Black Sheep (Anthony Kunovic) at all live shows, and the fulllength debut All I Have Is Music was released in August. With a handful of music marketing classes under his belt, Fischer has taken his business savvy to the streets, evangelizing his conscious underground hip hop to the ever-growing Denver music scene. Rhyme Progression has played some 20 dates in the last several months, including trips to South Dakota, Montana and a feature performance at UNC’s Open Mic Monday. Feeling they saturated the local market for the time being, Fischer has taken a step back and a much needed breath as he plots his next steps.

Even despite the music

marketing tactics he’s gleaned in academia, Fischer’s emphasis comes down to making a personal connection with his audience, and he thrives on meeting the people who come out to support local hip hop. This personal touch comes across in his postperformance fan interactions, the loads of free merchandise he gives away, and the nearly 1,300 fans Rhyme Progression has garnered on Facebook.

Currently a student at CUDenver, Fischer rounds out his commuter college experience living near the DU campus, trying to soak up the university energy, and he couldn’t be more adamant about his local scene. “Definitely not,” Fischer immediately responds to my wondering if he feels any pressure to pack up and head to a major market such as New York or Austin. He begins listing stats of how Denver ranks among other national music cities, and believes that it has the best possible potential for emerging artists.

One roadblock has been that some venues remain hesitant to book hip hop acts.

“They don’t always realize the conscious message that’s behind my music.” Fortunately, live music culture seems to be continuously opening its doors more and more to hip hop, thanks to acts like Rhyme Progression and the underground kings he’s

inspired by. Fischer notes particular influence of the late Minnesota MC Eyedea, as well as fellow members of the Rhymesayers label.

While taking some time off from the stage, Rhyme Progression has several projects up the pike. Fischer produced the majority of the tracks on All I Have Is Music, and has been spending serious time upping his chops, picking through classic jazz records such as Billie Holiday, becoming more and more comfortable at the producer’s station. He finds the independence of a one man show appealing artistically, logistically and monetarily. A rapper who makes the beats he rhymes over is in total artistic control. On the other hand, he’s quick to admit that could lead to stagnation, as hip hop at its heart is a collaborative art. As such, he’s been working on several features with other rappers, and is crafting a handful of tracks to be released in a series of EP’s entitled “Death by Three’s” through the group Black Mask. Also in the works are a Colorado/Midwest spring tour and a possible dubstep EP. Rhyme Progression hits the stage next on December 9th at the Hi-Dive with Peace Officer, Kid 77 and Ghost in the Machine. An upcoming Greeley date is in the works, but he hesitates to go public with any information just yet. He

promises to hype all upcoming shows and EP releases via his Facebook page (current home of www.rhymeprogression.com), and in the meantime, All I Have Is Music can be downloaded in its entirely through the ‘Free Music’ tab on Facebook. By the new year, Rhyme Progression

will also be part of the Pandora universe. Whatever way you find it, be sure to seek out more of Greeley’s own Rhyme Progression as he navigates the scene, and support local hip hop at a venue near you.

store is living proof.

The weekly Magic the Gathering event begins at 6:30 pm when Craig, the usual judge, announces the first-round matches for the evening. Tonight will be a four-round tournament, with each match decided by best two out of three. Craig finishes the list and the players take their places and set up. From a distance, the action in the room seems to stop. But up close, the room buzzes with quick movements of cards and quiet, efficient chatter between opponents. Before long, some pairs have already set up for their second bout.

Meanwhile, Davis sits behind the register, away from the action, to perform the duties of a store owner. He first got into tabletop gaming in the fifth grade and remained a fan through high school and his twenties. Now, after nearly fifteen years in business at Digital Dungeon, he doesn't have much

time for games. When the store opened in 1997, it was in a smaller building at 16th Street and 9th Avenue. Davis says he moved to the current location, at 1705 9th Street, two years later to double his space.

Originally, the store was set up for multiplayer PC gaming, with titles like Diablo and StarCraft, but the digital half of Digital Dungeon was eventually phased out. “As more people got broadband,” Davis explains, “fewer customers used our computers.” A single computer is available now in the tournament room for customers to rent time on.

The store's Japanese animation arm met a similar fate.

While Davis still carries a few titles, the selection is nothing like it used to be. “Anime got so popular that stores like WalMart and Target started carrying it,” he says. “So, I was left with the games.”

While the store has always

carried tabletop games, the focus on in-store events and tournaments has only been around for two years. Davis says these events have grown steadily since then. Each night hosts a different type of game, representing Digital Dungeon's selection of role-playing games, collectible card games, and miniatures. Though customers have their favorites, Davis notes an overlap in event attendees.

At tonight's event, the focus is clearly on Magic the Gathering, but a few are here to play the World of Warcraft collectible card game.

Fans of the store know that Digital Dungeon is the only public place in Greeley where these tournaments occur. At Friday Night Magic, I watch Alex and Dallas play through their final bout in the first round of the night. Alex has been playing Magic the Gathering for ten years and says that events like tonight's are what keep him

coming back to the store. Dallas, his opponent, just moved to Greeley and is excited to join the community.

Back at the register, Davis deals with computer problems.

He and Craig discuss how to match the remaining rounds while the computer is down.

Craig has come to Digital Dungeon since the beginning and is definitely a fan of the store.

“There's plenty of play room, the events are run well, and Ed works with us,” he praises. “You can't ask for more from a store.”

Whether you're looking for cards, figurines, rule books, or just a new game to play, stop by Digital Dungeon and see what the buzz is all about. They open at noon seven days a week, closing at 9:00 pm Monday through Thursday, 10:00 pm on Fridays and Saturdays, and 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Photo Credit: Stacey Manweiler

Tabletop Gaming is Alive in Greeley

Austin Wulf BandWagon Magazine On an otherwise quiet Friday night, the parking lot at Digital Dungeon is full of cars.

Friday Night Magic is about to begin. Inside, Magic the Gathering players surround a few tables. Some talk excitedly about the game and show off their card collections. Others sit quietly organizing their decks, preparing for the night's tournament.

Friday Night Magic is just one of seven weekly events held at Digital Dungeon for a dedicated crowd of tabletop gamers. The store specializes in the kinds of games that foster social interaction and bring players together. As owner Ed Davis, who grew up with roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons, says, “Retail [tabletop gaming] stores create players,” not collectors. His

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BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

Corpse Fire: Part 1

A Creative Story By: Weston Brownlee You might find yourself tempted to be thinking this is a story about love—some starry eyed romance with flowery prose to pull at the threads of your heart. It ain’t. This is a story about something called corpse fire, which is only like love in the way it burns inside. But while love burns hotter, corpse fire consumes and wastes until there’s just a dim little flicker of a wisp—a soul who’s sorrow or pain is so strong they forever leave it marked here. Once the flame sets in, sometimes corpse fire takes years, even decades to claim a person. Sometimes it doesn’t even happen until after they’re dead and buried.

This story ain’t about love, but it began the day I fell in love with Miss Mary-Louise Lovell.

That was a Saturday morning in August the same year an early frost would destroy most of the wheat fields in Stafford County and the oil men would hit it big.

She was twenty-three and I was eighteen and she was walking to the drug store for a sarsaparilla.

Her long red hair was done up in braids that caught just enough a sheen they glistened. Even from across the street I could see her blue eyes sparkling, framed by the freckles dotting her smooth face and her bare shoulders. She was wearing this fancy flower-print, purple dress she’d got from New York. Fit her tighter than anything you’d see other girls wearing, with a neck cut low enough I’ll just say the older church going ladies would glare anytime Miss Mary-Louise came around in it.

I watched her walking, that dress hugging tight on her creamy skin, the long skirt swishing with every step she took. She went into town to the drug store every Saturday morning before dinner for a sarsaparilla and she liked people watching her every move.

I won’t lie neither, watching her walk by was the highlight of every Saturday at work. My friends always told me I was crazy for taking any work on weekends in town. I never told them she was the real reason I did.

Truth was I’d been working up the guts for a month and a half to go over to that drugstore and sit down with Mary-Louise. I could see the whole thing in my mind, the way it all looked—the way she looked in that dress. There was just one thing stopping me, but that thing was a name, and that name was Lester McAdams.

Lester was twenty-five and his eye’d been on Mary since she was in school. They’d gone together a few months once, and then stopped. Most folks knew Lester hadn’t wanted to stop and that he was still most crazy for her.

One time he’d walloped a fellow passing through town who’d whistled at her, but a lot of folks said that weren’t true. For my lot, I say that’s why she stopped going with him. Lot of those same folks went on about how Lester was

a good church-going boy and a patriot for his country, and that he was better off not going with Mary because she was brazen as the Whore of Babylon for dressing like she did and acting like she did and saying the things she said.

My family’s farm shared a property line with her family’s, so I knew her well enough to know that while she liked people seeing her, and that wasn’t like folks in Kansas, she wasn’t no Whore of Babylon.

That Saturday morning when I saw her in that dress I made up my mind at last that there was just no other girl for me. I loved her red hair, her freckles, her skin, her smile, the way she laughed, the faint accent she had, and everything I knew about her. I even loved what I didn’t know, and there was something about the not knowing that made the whole prospect all the more exciting to me. I was going over to that drug store. Hang Lester McAdams. I asked for a break from the work I was doing and walked across the street and went inside.

I found Mary sitting at the bar they had behind all the shelves, at the back of the drug store, sipping her sarsaparilla through a straw. She was the only one there, couldn’t have been a more perfect opportunity. But I stopped dead in my tracks, hadn’t really thought of what I’d say or do. Everything I’d seen in my mind was gone and I was left with the nerve-cracking reality. She turned around and looked at me and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.

“You gonna gawk at me or come sit down, Will?”

The sound of her voice was all the invitation I’d needed.

If she’d have told me to go to hell I wouldn’t have known the difference. I went and sat down just as close to her as I could without seeming inappropriate.

She held the cold mug up to me. “They have a new brand. Try it, tastes divine.”

“Never heard anyone call sarsaparilla divine.” I laughed and took a sip and she smiled big again. “That’s real good, Miss Mary.”

She took the mug back and made a face. “Will, please, this isn’t Georgia or some place.” She was quiet a minute, like she was waiting on me to say something. “I can’t recall seeing you around. I’ve looked for you out fishing when I’ve been out riding on the farm.”

“You were looking for me?”

“Surely.”

I sort of shrugged and tried not to look into her eyes. “Things have been real busy. Dad’s had me working here in town. They’ve been casting a lot at the iron shop.

Plus I’ve got my last year of school coming up, so I’ve been trying to save up for college.”

She laughed. “Little Will all grown up and off to join the world of academia. Seems like yesterday I was watching you run around in dirty overalls, stopping you

putting frogs in your mouth.”

“Well, I guess my break’s about over, just thought I’d come say hi.”

As soon as the words were out I could’ve kicked myself in the shins.

Mary blinked a couple times and I don’t know if she looked hurt, mad, or both. Must’ve been none of them because her lush lips curved up into that smile. Her voice sounded incredulous. “You came to say hi? I come in here every Saturday, and the one you finally follow me in here all I get from you is a hi?”

My stomach tied up in knots so heavy it felt like they were falling into my legs. “Oh, well uh—what were you looking to get?”

Her thin red brows rose and those eyes looked about like they wanted to rip me apart, but had me right where they liked all the same. Her voice was sweet though. “My my, aren’t you dense, William.” She stood up, like she was about to leave.

“Don’t go.” I looked and realized my hand had wrapped around her bare arm, so I drew back as if somehow she wouldn’t notice, but of course she did.

I thought I caught a grin on her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, but when she turned around she looked just as serious as could be. “I just recalled—I’ve some errands to finish. You have a nice day at work now.” She winked then reached out with her hand and ran her curled fingers along the side of my cheek, her long nails tickling me as she pulled away. I stood there dumb, not even able to focus on her walking out the door.

Work at the foundry was torture the rest of the afternoon.

Couldn’t pass a second but still feel her fingers against my cheek and pressure in my chest that was so great I could hardly breathe.

Dropped a shell to cast parts for one of the oil rigs and took hell from my boss for an hour. He made me stay late and clean till I was coated with every manner of grime I could be.

When I finally got off, it was already dark. Rode my motorbike back out to the farm. I didn’t hear the gas tank rattling so it broke down just about half way—near the Lovell’s farm house. It was a big black mass in the night, with yellow glowing windows. I could smell food cooking, and was near about chilled through the bone, but figured I’d just keep walking.

Had just over a mile to go. I got a ways past their house before I heard hooves clopping up behind me on the dirt road. When I saw it was Mary-Louise I felt nervous, excited, and annoyed all in one instant.

“What ever are you doing?”

She called out to me.

Hearing her voice took away the annoyed feeling, but still left the other two. “Walking home,” I said. “My bike broke down. I’ll get it tomorrow.”

She laughed, but sounded

sort of hurt. “Will, you could have come to the door. Mother would at least give you a little supper and something hot to drink.”

“Didn’t want to impose.” I was still walking.

Mary-Louise got of her horse and started walking next to me.

“Will, is this because of today?”

“No Miss Lovell.”

She grabbed my shoulder.

Feeling her soft touch again stopped me dead, but I didn’t look at her, not right away. “Will, I’d hate to think I upset you. Come have something to eat at least.”

I didn’t pull away from her, but I looked down at the ground a minute. “Guess your father’d let me borrow a warmer coat.”

She smiled at me and we turned around and headed back to her house.

In the end I was glad I went in for supper. They’d cooked my favorite meal, beans and dumplings with ham and cornbread. It almost seemed like fate my motorbike broke down.

I’d always liked the Lovell’s. My father and Mary-Louise’s would hunt together, and fish together, and do most anything like that together. Our mother’s though had never cared much for the other, but it seemed they each liked the other’s children. At supper Miss Mary Louise sat next to me, and her chair was so close I was nervous I’d bump into her reaching for my cutlery.

Supper went by with small talk mostly. Her parents asking how I’d been, how my family, was, what I was hoping to study when I went off to college. I asked how they’d all been doing, how the livestock was getting along this year, who they’d hired on to work, what they’d planted in which field, and if they were planning on taking a vacation to Charleston for Christmas. We had apple pie for desert and Mary-Louise’s father let me borrow a better coat.

I was getting ready to head out when Mary-Louise said she’d just put some coffee on, and that she’d really enjoy my company a while longer. Her father looked skeptical about the whole thing, but I think her mother must have said something, because he changed his mind. Don’t know what she’d have said. I hadn’t planned to stay, but she fluttered her long red eyelashes at me and I couldn’t say no. Her parents went off to bed and the two of us sat sipping on coffee in the parlor for what seemed like a few minutes, but was really a few hours, talking about most everything that came to mind and laughing a lot.

When I looked at the clock, I realized I was in for it when I got back home and got up to go. Mary-Louise was right on my heels and before I realized it she was putting her coat on too.

When I asked her what was in her head, she had that mischievous smile and glint in her eye. I didn’t know if I liked it or not. Well, truth be told I did, but boy did she

make me nervous. We took out, both of us riding on her horse. I was behind her and that made me feel pretty stupid till she told me to hold on around her waist. Still, I tried to make a joke about how it would have been different if we were on my motorbike.

After a few minutes I realized we weren’t going the direction of my house at all, but off toward a lake that was in both our family’s property.

“What are you doing? We’ll get ourselves skinned alive—I’ll get skinned alive, your father and mine both’ll be on me with a scythe and shotgun apiece.”

She laughed. “Will, you need to learn to live. Didn’t you read in the paper there’s going to be shooting stars all over the sky tonight?”

“I must have missed that.”

“And you say you’re going to go get yourself an education.” After she said that I realized why she’d grabbed so many blankets and didn’t know why that hadn’t been obvious.

We went down by the lake side.

It was a clear night. The moon was glimmering off the ripples from bass jumping, the frogs were all in a chorus, and a mist bloomed up from the surface of the water. I was happy to be there with Mary-Louise Lovell, and the thought of getting in deep with my father, or hers, didn’t matter any then. We spread one blanket out on the ground and then wrapped ourselves up in three more. For a long while we just sat against each other, not saying anything, her trying to catch my eye and mwe trying not to look like I wanted to just sit and look at her as much as I did. Didn’t take long for me to put my arm around her, but it took about all the nerve I could manage. A smile sort of rolled across her lips as she looked away.

“How long have you wanted to do that?”

I didn’t answer, just smiled at her.

We sat an hour before the shooting stars started. I’d seen shooting stars before, but nothing like I saw that night. They streaked across the skies in so many colors it was like a rainbow’d been sheered into strips and each piece lit like a fuse, then tossed across the night sky. We kissed for the first time beneath that dark and colorful sky, and as soon as my lips touched hers I knew without a doubt there was no other girl for me and there never would be. We parted ways little bit before four in the morning, and kissed once more before we did for so long I’d have thought another hour passed.

I walked home without feeling cold once, and without noticing the scratches from the brambles and tears in my clothes from the barbed wire until I climbed up a tree and snuck into my room. Laid awake in bed till the sun started to come up then fell asleep and didn’t get up for work.

Weston Brownlee has his Bachelors degree in Creative Writing from Colorado College. He currently resides in Greeley.

See next month’s BandWagon (Jan. 2012) for Part 2 of Corpse Fire

BandWagon Magazine Greeley’s live music and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

Nutcracker At the UCCC

Marte Samuelstuen BandWagon Magazine In its 18th consecutive year, Colorado Dance Theatre’s (CDT) production of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” has become a highly anticipated holiday staple for Greeley and the greater Northern Colorado area. Performed at the Union Colony Civic Center, the three performances this year will be held Friday, December 9th and Saturday, December 10th at 7:30pm and Sunday, December 11th at 3:00pm.

Annalyn Flores, 20, a Nursing major at UNC is in her ninth performance with CDT’s production of “The Nutcracker.”

This year, Flores is cast in five different roles, with her biggest part being Dew Drop, a lead role.

“Since I was little, I’ve watched dancers fill these roles, and I’ve always admired them and desired to one day be at their level.” Now, after nine years of performing in “The Nutcracker,” she’s there.

Flores has been dancing for over sixteen years with the Northern Colorado Academy of Dance Arts added, “This is the most roles I’ve ever held before, and some of the most challenging dancing I’ve ever done in my life.”

With local youth comprising the bulk of the cast, there are 106 total members in this year’s production with the ages ranging from six to fifty-something.

“This year’s cast has a lot of members who have grown up in the Northern Colorado Academy of Dance Arts and are continuing to mature through our company,” said Flores.

Besides trained dancers, CDT’s production also incorporates l o c a l

community members who might be experiencing this ballet for the first time. A novice to the world of dance, UNC Biology/Chemistry major Aaron Dramann, 23, was recruited to join this year’s Nutcracker cast.

“Since I had never done anything like this before, it seemed like an adventure worth pursuing,” said Dramann. “Luckily, my part isn’t difficult; I’ve been happy that I don’t have to wear tights and a tutu, and the dancing really isn’t as hard as it looks.”

With try-outs in August and practices that began in September, dancers have spent over thirteen weeks rehearsing. What is more, the principal dancers have put in approximately 150 hours of work.

Artistic Director for ten years running, Debie Larsen originally contributed to “The Nutcracker”

as a CDT board member. After choreographing it on her back porch ten years ago, Larsen says she’s still in love with Tchaikovsky’s composition and jokes that she’s probably listened to it about 20,000 times.

“The music is beyond beautiful, and no matter how many times I hear it, I never get tired of it,” said Larsen. “It’s so recognizable; you’ve grown up hearing it all your life.”

Over the ten years that Larsen has directed this twoact ballet, the choreography has remained consistent with a little bit of tweaks made each year. “It’s one of the loves of my life,” said Larsen, “and until the day comes where I don’t get all excited about auditions and the rehearsal process, I’ll keep doing it; it still makes me totally and utterly happy.”

For Flores, who’s been a part of “The Nutcracker” for as long as Larsen has directed it, the overall vision that Larsen provides is essential in upholding the standard that CDT has established for itself. “Debie is a very nurturing director, but paired with her perfectionist aspect, she’s not going to let people get away with sub-par,” said Flores. “She has very high standards, but she’s going to help you get there.”

“The Nutcracker” essentially has something in it for everyone.

“It tells a story like a play would,” said Larsen, “with brilliant music and beautiful costumes that

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change every two minutes as well as a new style of choreography featured in each dance. Plus, there’s a battle scene to interest boys of all ages.”

Flores, agreeing with Larsen’s description, added, “A lot of ballet is largely inaccessible to the broader audience, but because “The Nutcracker” has a storyline that is so easy to follow and Debie’s choreography is so engaging, it’s not only entertaining, but it tells a perfect story. Really, everyone should go!

You might be surprised to find you’ll love it.”

Speaking from experience, if you attend “The Nutcracker” once, it’s likely that it will become a part of your own holiday tradition. Because it’s a local production, you’ll be supporting the arts in Greeley, and compared to other ballet companies, it’s pretty reasonable in price.

Whether you’ve attended “The Nutcracker” for years now or it’s your first time venturing into the world of ballet, make it a priority this season. You won’t regret it.

Adults: $22 Seniors age 60+: $18 Students age 13 - college: $18 Children ages 0-12: $13 To purchase tickets, visit: coloradodancetheatre.org

Photo Credit: Chuck Turner

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HUMORGreeley’s on The Wagon - Slightly - Humor on The Wagon BandWagon Magazine live musicRelevant and entertainment magazine DECEMBER 2011

A Politically Correct Holiday Daniel Mothershed BandWagon Magazine When asked to write a PChappy-holiday greeting, I was worried. PC? We want to do this? Steve Jobs has only been dead for a few months; the idea felt disrespectful. I was then informed that PC did indeed stand for politically correct not personal computer; imagine my relief.

I’d like to start off by wishing you all a merry Christmas. I’d like to but cannot. In an effort to not offend, I must wish you “happy holidays.” Happy holidays, a greeting derived from the original Hebrew, hag sameach. Sure, this is said during Passover, but I can apply it to Christmas since I’m being politically correct. Also, I could say “season’s greetings,” and trust you knew what season greeted you. (Not Spring.)

In the same PC spirit, I can also merge all the December holidays together.... This won’t be as successful as I hoped.

Leaving a Menorah burning for eight days isn’t safe, I like eating too much to enjoy Ramadan, and Kwanza confuses me. I don’t see what the big deal with

“merry Christmas” is? I’m not wishing you a “Saintly JesusMas.” I will not allow myself to say, “have a happy X-Mas.” Are we pirates? Does Black Beard Santa make naughty kids walk a plank? No! (Editor’s Note: X is a Greek symbol meaning Christ, not something which “marks the spot.”)

I suggest a compromise.

There is one reoccurring factor in every culture’s traditions.

Santa Clause; he’s everywhere.

How can Santa travel around the world in one night? Simple, there are a billion of them working out of the North Pole together. Which Santa is the chosen one? Let’s decide. I’ll start with Sweden where at the crack of dawn a little girl be-robes herself in red, ties lit candles in her hair, shakes her parents awake and gives them Lucia buns. Who wouldn’t want that at 3:00 am? Australian Santa shows up on a surf board.

If you’re a land locked Aussie, don’t expect a visit. Czech Santa slides down a golden rope, can you imagine the forearm strength that must take? RopeClimbing-Athlete Santa, really?

Do you want your daughter sitting in that guys lap?

In France, Père Noël runs around filling people’s shoes with fruit and other perishable foods that stay unrefrigerated.

Which is a health code nightmare.

Others believe petit Jesus does this. Do we want Little Jesus to wander the night? (We don’t.) European countries say St. Nicholas tosses gold down chimneys. This is blatantly wasteful, “Hey St. Nick, why don’t you toss some of that money to Greece?”

Last, and I think we agree, best is Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas a majestic, elderly wise figure of Yuletide joy, arriving on a white stallion – encroached in flowing, crimson chasuble, and a golden Mitre perched upon his head.

His hands wielding a long ornate Crosier, his grey beard billowing magically. Before entering into each home, he peruses his gold book of naughty and nice. A tome which unfolds a tale of what children have been proberly behaving and which children have gone astray. Riding along is Sinterklaas’ right hand man, Knecht Ruprecht. A foreboding man, swinging a chimney sweeps broom and clutching a worn bag of ashes. A large mob of men with sooty faces

and ladies clothes accompanies Knecht on his mission. Once discovered, these children are given the option of repenting for their naughty ways. Those who choose to accept are rewarded with sweets and other chincy items (Ceramic pumpkins or decorative balls) while the children who refuse to repent are repeatedly beaten with Knecht’s sack of ashes. Once beaten into submission these children are then taken for further punishment to Spain.

Why do you think the Devil has a goatee? He’s a conquistador!

(Editor’s Note: Spain is actually quite nice. Beaches, art, culture.

It is certainly not a “hell on Earth.”)

To me, this is the ultimate Christmas tradition we can believe in. It shows up in so many different cultures and is completely inclusive and nonreligious. Sinterklaas rides around to show people there

is but one good way that you follow and if you do, there is great reward. Those who chose to deny the fact are taken away

by Knecht Ruprecht for eternal punishment. You see – wait… this is sort of, well… this is the Bible story. Shoot. I guess it’s kind of impossible to find something we can all agree on for Christmas. So what I suggest is this. We accept, like adults, that we have our beliefs and that people have theirs. We come together and respect each other. You can wish me a Merry Christmas and I will gladly wish you a Happy Hanukah. For those of you who cannot accept this we have a plan for you.

You get to celebrate Late-MidWinter-December Solstice. Feel free to dance around a fur tree and enjoy a thick egg flavored beverage on our behalf.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.