BandWagon Magazine - May 2022 - Son Lux by BandWagon Magazine

MUSIC reviews

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anthony ruptak. PG. 4 elektric animals PG. 6 Ronan Andrews pG. 8

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FEATURED ARTIST

ALYSIA KRAFT

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CONTRIBUTORS GABE ALLEN DAN ENGLAND VALERIE VAMPOLA BEAU BAKER

HORSE FEATHERS

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Son Lux Scores Everything and Frees up their Tomorrows

Anthony Ruptak Backrooms

Gabe Allen

BandWagon Magazine

alcohol behind. Backrooms is both a product of and tribute to change. Half of it was written before he got sober; the other half during this past winter. Along with producer Matt Tanner, Ruptak recorded it over just four days in a remote cabin in Jefferson. Like his earlier work, Backrooms is emotionally charged, but themes of anger, regret and despair are balanced by love and connection. “The overall arc is one of evolution and healing,” he explained.

Throughout Anthony Ruptak’s 20's, he had two constant companions: music and alcohol. A year-and-a-half ago, he left both behind. He got sober, got married and shirked dreams of singersongwriter stardom for an EMT job on a Denver-area ambulance. “I thought I would have this artistic awakening when I got sober, but I didn’t touch my guitar for more than a year,” he tells BandWagon. He has rebuilt his relationship with music now, though he has left

“Clementines” and “Don’t Let the Bastards Win” wrestle with the existential dread pervading the news the past few years. But the album truly shines in its most intimate, personal moments. Scenes that play out over fragile, haunting melodies include a funeral for a well-loved dog, an ambulance ride to a hospice center and a white-knuckle drive to the house of a suicidal family member. On “Angie,” Ruptak proposes to his wife. Literally. Ruptak revealed the song to her during a raft trip down the Grand

Canyon in 2019. “I didn’t realize there would be so much intense happy weeping when I got to the proposal part,” he said. “There was still a minuteand-a-half of the song left. I had to cry and sing my way through it.” Three of the most heartbreaking songs Ruptak has ever written: “Backrooms,” “Turning Against the Self” and “Cataracts” are about his brother Matt. For years, the two were inseparable. They lived together, drank together and Matt played on all the previous albums. But, as Ruptak underwent a sea change, his brother was a piece of his former life that he had to leave behind. “It was the hardest ten months of my life,” he told BandWagon.

Recently, Ruptak and his brother have reconnected. But these songs remain deeply-seated in the pain that can only be inflicted by the ones you love most. Unlike 2018’s A Place that Never Changes, Backrooms is understated, trading layers of instrumentation for a strippeddown ensemble. The music is driving and hooky. Importantly, it leaves plenty of room for Ruptak’s voice and stories to take centerstage. Catch Anthony Ruptak live on May 6 at LuLu’s Downstairs in Manitou Springs and May 28 in Denver at the Ubisububi Room. Get Backrooms directly from the artist at anthonyruptak. bandcamp.com

Elektric Animals Channels

Valerie Vampola

BandWagon Magazine

Denver’s Elektric Animals ring in the summer via the upbeat rock sound of their new EP Channels. They guarantee that every song, no matter how few, is a bop you will dance to as the weather warms up. The opening track on Channels is not only a banger, it’s a surefire hit. “Come Clean” pulls listeners right in with a fast, dancy drum groove and rhythmic guitar. Nick Sanders' gritty vocal delivery compliments the grungy instrumentation, creating a nice contrast to the catchy “oohs” heard throughout the chorus. The lyrics reflect frustrations toward a person who is deceptive in how they portray themselves, demanding that their subject “comes clean” with their wrongdoing. The pop angst heats up to the point

where Sanders is sent boiling into a fevered scream. If they haven’t already, 93.3 needs to put this track in their rotation now. “Head in the Ground” continues Elektric Animals' synth-rich, upbeat tendencies, but has more of a side-to-side sway, pairing perfectly with a red solo cup in hand. Catchy melodies dominate this song, whether they’re played by the guitarist, or sung by Sanders in the chorus. The last track, “Falling,” kicks the groove back into an aggressive rock feel, putting extra emphasis on the beat rather than melodic lines, with distorted bass and guitar grooves that thump heavily, pushing the song to hardcore limits. Elektric Animals continue to do what they do best - write catchy, singable melodies that are fun to jam to, even when their lyrics are angry and arrangements heavy. They deliver radio-quality music, channeling the goods on an electric, indie level.

Elektric Animals celebrate the release of Channels on Friday, May 13 at Lost Lake in Denver. Tickets and more at instabio.cc/ElektricAnimals

Ronan Andrews Quarter Life Crisis

Valerie Vampola

BandWagon Magazine

tune. The swaying, dreamy feel fits the theme of going along with life’s flow through all its hardships and heartbreaks. Midway through the album, Andrews shifts to singersongwriter mode, featuring more piano-heavy ballads. The slinky “Jealous and Insecure” matches those jazz chords and rich vocal harmonies with a pop-r&b groove that pushes it in a yacht-rock direction (this is a good thing), with a light hint of a Mayor Hawthorne or Bruno Mars/Silk Sonic influence.

Ronan Andrews’ new solo EP Quarter Life Crisis features upbeat and bright pop with some groovy jazz and soul undertones that should please fans of his group Fresh Fruit! There’s a happy, feel-good air about his songs, like the upbeat opening track “Dancing Like a Fool,” featuring a bouncing piano groove, full vocal harmonies and cool guitar licks. It gives “Sunday Morning” by Maroon 5 feelings, especially when the piano plays lush, jazz-influenced chord changes. Andrews continues that lightjazz sound with a bossa-nova, “The La La La Song,” featuring an easy-going groove, more complimentary vocal harmonies, and chord changes you might hear in an Antônio Carlos Jobim

For better or worse, some of Dowling’s character and originality gets lost in the more commercially-focused piano ballads. The last track, “Solitude,” could play over the heartbreak chapter of a teen movie. If it got into the right hands, it just might, though it begs for more of that personality and sonic identity that he strongly establishes earlier in the album. Dowling is off to a good start in Quarter Life Crisis, making a case for a strong identity in his bright soulful sound. It seems he’s on the other side of that crisis and here to sing all about it.

Quarter Life Crisis was released April 29 via a BandWagon Presents event at Black Buzzard in Denver. Links to the record and more at ronanandrewsmusic.com

e h t s e k i r t s s y alwa r ight not es

CHECK OUT THE FULL CALENDAR OF MUSIC EVENTS AT MYGREELEY.COM

Music lovers will find plenty of chances to tap their toes in Greeley this summer, beginning with the Friday Fests, every Friday starting May 27 - September 16. The party kicks into another gear on Saturday, June 4 with the Greeley Blues Jam 2022. Classical lovers can look forward to a new season from the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra. And local venues like the Moxi Theater have a full calendar of acts to get out and see. No matter your musical sensibilities, Greeley has every reason for you to keep tuning in throughout the summer and beyond.

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Featured ARTIST

OF THE MONTH

BY KEVIN JOHNSTON

lysia Kraft can keenly use nature as a metaphor in her music. But in the case of “Little River,” a song with rich layers of meaning and potential interpretations, the inspiration was frighteningly literal.

ALYSIA KRAFT

“I almost drowned in the river by my parent’s ranch in the summer of 2020,” Kraft tells BandWagon. “It was a freak accident. The railing snapped on a bridge I was standing on and I was instantly tossed into a very high, very debris-choked river raging with freshly thawed spring snow. I got trapped beneath a debris pile for what felt like forever and then pushed beneath it by the current, right as I was about to lose consciousness.” She lived to tell the tale. And in turn, make some of this year’s most resonant music. A Wyoming native, Kraft’s is known in Colorado as one third of folk-rock favorites Whippoorwill and the voice of The Patti Fiasco. With therapeutic guidance, she came to an epiphany following the river trauma. She realized she could choose to leave her life’s emotional baggage in that riverbed, sunken beneath the flotsam and jetsam. Here, essentially, the song and a solo path was born. Kraft says the event was the catalyst for a lot of self-work. “I needed to change,” she said, “to let myself become something new rather than being defined by everything I had been and done. The river changes every minute – it’s never the same river - this song is about the personal liberation that comes with staying inside the stream . . . experiencing change and reinvention.” Kraft’s reinvention includes the forthcoming release of First Light, her debut solo record, and scripting the gorgeous video for “Little River” - each markers of uncharted waters for Kraft as an artist. “I love bands. I love teams,” Kraft says, admitting that learning to steer the ship was a

FIRST LIGHT BY ALYSIA KRAFT IS OUT JUNE 17. HEAR “LITTLE RIVER” ON THE AIR AT 105.5 THE COLORADO SOUND AND WORLDWIDE AT COLORADOSOUND.ORG MORE AT HELLOIAMALYSIAKRAFT.COM tough lesson to learn and a challenging role to accept. “It took me time and experience and a lot of music-making to realize I could drive the creative vision and still collaborate with others,” she says. “I think Patti Fiasco will be a band forever, and I hope Whippoorwill will be able to make some music together again someday. I feel incredibly inspired and prolific right now and excited about making more music under my own name.” Owning it, all of it, is the current flowing through First Light. Kraft says she wrote about the big moments in her life: the first time she kissed a girl, celebrated a full year sober and accepted the possibility of being a

new person. But inspiration also came from back home in Wyoming, a landscape she loves but which she says “didn’t always love back.” “I think I do draw inspiration from challenging environments,” Kraft said. “The feelings I associate with growing up in Wyoming are longing and struggle. The longing for a life that felt true to myself and truly connected to others, has always been just strong enough to defeat the struggle. Longing connected me to a loving, supportive queer community; it eventually pulled me into sobriety and recovery, and I think it will continue to pull me in the direction of whatever I'm supposed to be doing in the world.”

REASONS TO LISTEN TO THE COLORADO SOUND • MORE COLORADO ARTISTS • KNOWLEDGEABLE DJS WHO LIVE HERE • NO COMMERCIALS • • UNIQUE PROGRAMMING YOU DON’T GET ANYWHERE ELSE FROM BEASTIE BOYS TO BILLIE HOLIDAY •

105.5FM & ONLINE AT COLORADOSOUND.ORG 11

BANDWAGON PHOTO OF THE MONTH THE VELVETEERS BY SHELBY TAYLOR-THORN | APRIL 16 AT AGGIE THEATER - FORT COLLINS, CO

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Son Lux Scores Everything and Frees up their Tomorrows BY KEVIN JOHNSTON

f André 3000 playing a Mayan double flute for your band’s movie score isn’t proof that the multiverse exists, we don’t know what is. But it exists. And there’s so much more. André, Moses Sumney, Randy Newman, Mitski, and David Byrne are among the guest artists Son Lux acquired for what became a 49-track film score with more musical ideas than one universe can hold.

Son Lux (Ryan Lott, Ian Chang and Rafiq Bhatia) have been making music from their own universes for years. In 2019, they were contacted by film directing team Daniels to score their mind bending, multiverse movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. It was a match made in multi-heaven. Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) started making effects-based short films a decade ago, rising to fame with their odd, groundbreaking videos for The Shins, Tenacious-D, Chromeo and 2016’s feature

film Swiss Army Man with Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe.

“We were lucky,” drummer / sensory percussionist / composer Ian Chang tells BandWagon. “Daniels reached out to us, earlier than what is typical. Nothing had been shot yet. They sent us the script and all of us were equal parts in love and baffled, wondering how this film would possibly get made.” Chang, Bhatia and Lott are each producers and composers, employing a breadth of musical languages. So choosing Son Lux to score a multiverse movie makes sense – if anything in a multiverse movie makes sense – and they collaborated with the directors in an inverse way. Usually, Daniels create a vi-

sual world on top of a song. With Everything Everywhere All at Once, Son Lux had the chance to create a musical story on top of an existing visual. “How it actually iterates is something that would only come from [Daniels’] brains,” vocalist / composer Ryan Lott says, “and certainly nothing that would come from ours. It was an opportunity to respond to something that we ourselves would never have dreamt. And that's one of the key differences between scoring and making your own album: the opportunity to benefit from forces which catalyze things within you – that you didn't know existed.” Son Lux had to approach the score by trying new things inwardly. Weirdly, that sometimes actually meant doing the expected. “While [Daniels] were interested in the way we reconcile disparate musical precepts into something coherent with emotional weight,” guitarist / composer Rafiq

Bhatia says, “they wanted each universe to have its own distinct musical identity, like switching channels. And then for things to cohere into something more. Understanding the musical syntax that accompanies that was really important.” “[Daniels] are really good at leveraging expectations,” Bhatia continues, “and

then you're not ready when they turn left.” For makers of surprising, angular music, hitting those expectations and still sounding like Son Lux was challenging. “That was one of the biggest tricks,” Lott says. “This movie gave us permission to do things we wouldn't have af-

on Lux started releasing music about the same time Daniels started making videos. They’ve released 24 music videos of their own and over a dozen records, the most recent of which form a triple album: Tomorrows I, II and III. They can’t wait to bring this music to the stage for the first time since the pandemic struck. It’s been a long time, but distance is actually a part of their creative process. Everything Everywhere All at Once was scored remotely via Zoom and Dropbox over the course of the pandemic, and that's a process they’ve been honing for several years.

forded ourselves. That was a big part of the philosophy: constantly looking for new ways to be ourselves. Finding ways in which we can express who we are – in service of this amazing movie – and let this story, with its big, giant heart, be the doorway to discovering all sorts of things about ourselves."

be new and different. “We're really excited about giving ourselves more room to experiment and to be spontaneous,” Chang says. This approach is an outgrowth of the way they wrote Tomorrows, and there’s a certain irony, coming on the heels of making the craziest film score ever.

“We're trying to be more minimal and give more space,” Chang says. “So with this new show, there's not necessarily that many “A lot of the work is sort of done privately,” things happening at once.” Everything all at once, so to speak, is an aesthetic the Lott says. “And then we have these really band used to pursue, layering a ton of sounds. But for catalyzing moments together.” this tour, they announce the absence of backing tracks,

The tour in support of Tomorrows hits Boulder on Friday, May 20 and Fort Collins Saturday, May 21. Though Lott is a Denver native, Son Lux appearances in the state are rare and not-to-be-missed, especially as they are presenting these particular songs in new ways. “We've had a bit of distance from [the triple album] now,” Chang says. “Typically, you finish an album and immediately work on the songs to bring to the road. The fact that we finished this film in between, to come back to [Tomorrows] now, it's actually really nice. We've always had fun finding new ways to play live than on the record. But it's been especially nice to have that space.” Space seems to be the key, and the shows promise to

making all the sounds live. For a project rooted in sound design, this is big. “We are freeing ourselves from tracks,” Chang says excitedly. “We've always had to negotiate translating the record but also reinventing it. This time we're freeing ourselves from these built in structures so that each of us is doing more. It’s been liberating. Moving from verse to chorus, we might want to hang on one idea for longer … and we just kind of look at each other. It's freeing and more organic. It gives us the ability to respond in the moment to the room and improvise a lot more. I'm very excited about that. I think we've grown a lot. It's a much better show than we've ever had.”

The Everything Everywhere All At Once film and soundtrack are out now. See Son Lux in concert Friday, May 20 at The Fox Theater in Boulder and Saturday, May 21 at The Aggie Theater in Fort Collins. Tickets, nation-wide tour dates and more at sonluxmusic.com 17

With a Vengence E

ven with a name like Goatwhore, there’s room for subtlety.

Yes, there are Satanic overtones in Goatwhore’s lyrics — duh — and their music reflects it, with the kind of hardcore black metal crunch you’d expect in the drums, guitars and, of course, the vocals (also duh). But the last record’s lyrics come from a concept album, Vengeful Ascension, which portray Lucifer as an underdog slighted by a God who was equally oppressive. L. Ben Falgoust II, the band’s singer (and keeper of one of the best metal monikers in history), uses historical references to color the themes, but Zack Simmons, the drummer, likes to apply the lyrics to real life. At some point we’ve all felt oppressed by a higher power, metaphorically or otherwise. Maybe this is a little deeper than you’d

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expect from a band named Goatwhore, but Simmons is used to those expectations selling the band a little short.

“Ben doesn’t like writing those juvenile, rebellious teenager sorts of things for shock value,” Simmons said in a phone interview with BandWagon. “You won’t hear ‘Hail Satan’ on our records.” Still, you will likely hear material that dwells on witchcraft, the occult and Satanic themes, and that’s true of the latest record, slated to be released this fall. Fans thirsty for some new material — Vengeful Ascension was released in 2017 — won’t be disappointed, Simmons said.

BY DAN ENGLAND

“It’s pretty much anything you would expect from a Goatwhore record,” he said. “Conceptually we wouldn’t stray too far from the usual subject matter. But as far as the music goes, it’s twists and turns.” If you’re a fan, don’t worry, there’s plenty of crunch (it will be released on Metal Blade Records, after all). But the songs are more varied. There’s faster stuff, and then there’s a song that Simmons said “definitely pushes the boundaries for us.” Simmons compares that song, in 6/8 time, to Metallica’s “The Call of Ktulu.” The song isn’t an instrumental, but it is slow, epic and maybe a tiny bit pretty. Simmons said the band has had the newest record finished for nearly six months. They would have re-

leased it sooner, but, you know, the pandemic. They recorded it more than a year ago. “We’ve been living with it for so long, it almost doesn’t feel new to us,” Simmons said. “I almost got burned out on it. I had to set it aside. I know eventually we will start playing the new stuff and I don’t want to be sick of the songs by the time we do that.” Simmons is self-aware of the band’s name. He’s so used to it by now he’s a little detached from it, but he always feels a little strange telling “a normal person” the origins of it. There are two stories associated: One of them involves a stripper with “the face of a goat,” he said, and the other involves the English religion founder Aleister Crowley, a favorite subject among occultists, and a certain sex ceremony that’s best left unstated. It’s a goofy name, but it carries enough grit to be a good metal name in a genre known for bizarre band names that call upon the extremes of society (for context, three other well known active metal bands are named Death, Angel Witch and Holocaust). The band has not toured since 2019 and is ready to carry their personal brand of musical extremes to the stage. They will play at the Moxi Theater in downtown Greeley on May 18. You won’t hear much, if any, new stuff live until this fall, when Goatwhore will kick off a monster tour in support of the new record. But yet another new album may be coming sooner than you think, or at least sooner than in another five years. “We’re pretty stoked about the new record,” Simmons said, “but ideas are always flowing.”

BandWagon Presents Goatwhore at The Moxi Theater in Greeley on Wednesday, May 18. Tickets at BandWagonPresents.com – More on Goatwhore at metalblade.com

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HORSE FEATHERS

THE ENDEARING NATURE OF JUSTIN RINGLE’S EARNEST SOUND BY BEAU BAKER

imelessness is a rare bird in music. A particular era or sonic aesthetic can easily peg an artist or band to a passing fad. Or worse, the music comes off as pandering to critical praise or a cultural moment. Over eighteen years and six albums, Astoria-based Horse Feathers has built a body of work that does not betray such conceits. The music exists on a certain plane - not without its influences, but distinct. And there’s an honest-to-goodness feeling

behind it that makes it impervious to the passing days. Anchored by singer/songwriter Justin Ringle’s tender vocals and adorned with elemental ensemble work, Horse Feathers’ spin on traditional folk and Americana spans barn dance to backyard reverie, airy ballads to full-blooded country jigs. A song like “Finch on

Saturday” - off their 2006 debut Words Are Dead - is suffused with strings and sounds nearly weightless. Whereas “Without Applause,” from 2018’s Appreciation, is a rollicking stomp with a driving locomotive rhythm. Ringle’s music has evolved, shifting with new lineups and self-awareness. “The ensembles that I played with over the years changed,” Ringle tells BandWagon. “People had different

strengths and that would influence the accompaniment. But in some cases it would be like a more grand decision to switch over to having a rhythm section. Some of it too was just that you paint yourself into a corner artistically over time, so you have to change what you’re doing a little bit. Not like a commercial sensibility or anything like that, but just more to enjoy it.” Idaho-born Ringle launched Horse Feathers shortly after moving to the Pacific Northwest at a time he says “all the cliches from Portlandia were being developed.” Rent was cheap and you just needed a shitty job to keep your creative aspirations afloat. “It was really less preposterous for me to try to become a professional musician than it was to get a job in graphic design at the time,” he said. Though dispelling any romantic notion, Ringle points out, “There was really high unemployment in Portland and it was just kind of tough going. Everything was really close to the bone.” Horse Feathers - an antiquated term for “bullshit” - sprang from songs honed in this bleak, yet inspired backdrop. Ringle took the songs to open mics and eventually laid down a demo. He linked up with multi-instrumentalist Peter Broderick to record the first album, puting it out through a local label. That record - Words Are Dead - got on NPR’s radar and the band’s warm, rustic folk found a wider audience. “That kind of launched us into the next step of getting signed by Kill Rock Stars and putting out the next record in 2008,” Ringle recalled. “I did a number of recordings with a bunch of different Portland-based musicians up until about 2015.” During that span, Horse Feathers released three records including So It Is With Us (2014), recorded in an Oregon barn. Appreciation, his last full length, was made with musicians in Kentucky, but he’s circled back Northwest to settle down in Astoria. Each album has probed the darkness and light, taking new approaches to instrumentation, with Ringle’s clear, relaxed delivery as a comforting throughline. Now, back out on tour for the first time since the spring of 2020, Horse Feath-

ers is revisiting the orchestral sounds of the first few records - coinciding with a reissue of their second album House With No Home. Among the present members are Ringle’s wife Halli Anderson and Nathan Crocket, both playing violin, along with multiinstrumentalist Kati Clayborn and upright bassist Luke Ydstie. Ringle is excited about the prospect of touring again.

“People are just a little more stoked to see live music. You definitely know when you’re playing shows in Colorado, there’s just a different feeling,” Ringle said. “I’ve always looked forward to it – but for years and years and years, it was always on the way home. It felt like we always played Colorado after we’d done the rest of the entire country and we were usually worked.”

“THE THING THAT REVITALIZES ME MORE AND MORE IS JUST THE MOVEMENT AND CHANGE OF SCENERY, KIND OF GOING OUT AND TOUCHING BASE WITH THE REST OF THE COUNTRY AGAIN,” HE REFLECTED, “I ALWAYS FIND THAT TO BE MENTALLY REFRESHING.”

The band plays a handful of Colorado shows at the front end of this tour, including stops in Pueblo, Fort Collins, Denver and Manitou Springs. Ringle hopes he can manage the altitude alright, “coming from Astoria - like, elevation zero.” As for Horse Feathers’ next move, he says he’s just taking it day by day.

Horse Feathers has been through Colorado many times. Ringle talked of past visits defined by spirited receptions, altitude sickness, an Elephant Revival acid trip gone awry, and having a once little-known Gregory Allen Isakov open for them at the Hi-Dive in Denver. He emphasized how Colorado feels like a kind of music capitol.

“I’m pretty far down the road, you know. I’m married now and we’re talking about having kids. You have to make moves with that in mind,” Ringle said. “I’m just kind of letting it ride right now, trying to shake the rest off and get the sea legs back.” Time will tell if Ringle feels the pull to put more music out into the world, but Horse Feathers’ sound is and will remain out of time.

BANDWAGON PRESENTS HORSE FEATHERS LIVE ON SUNDAY, MAY 15 AT THE COAST IN FORT COLLINS WITH MAITA AND MEGAN BURTT. TICKETS AT BANDWAGONPRESENTS. COM – VISIT HORSEFEATHERSTHEBAND.COM FOR MUSIC AND MORE.

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BLAST N’ SCRAP IS BACK ON TRACK BY GABE ALLEN

MICHAEL GORMLEY’S SCRAPPY NONPROFIT HAS REEMERGED AS THE CENTERPIECE OF FORT COLLINS’ DIY SCENE. Not too late one Saturday night in April, the sales floor of the Fort Collins consignment shop Funktional was transformed into a mosh pit. The young and riotous crowd bounced off each other, limbs flailing. One paternally concerned middle-aged metal show veteran carefully removed a nearby rack of CDs with the help of Funktional’s owner, Stacy Koeckeritz.

“No judging others. This is my serenity,” Zack Whitmer of Fort Collins hardcore straight-edge band xDeadBeatx, screamed into the mic as he dodged an elbow. The 40 people in the room felt like 500. Funktional is the latest in the long list of spots that have hosted Blast N’ Scrap events over the past year. Though the nonprofit has lacked a home base since the local reuse store Who Gives A Scrap shut down early in the pandemic, it hasn’t slowed down. According to founder and executive director Michael Gormely, known to many as Blasti, the organization has hosted 51 pop-up concerts since last June with at least six more as of press time.

“I don’t know – that number seems low to me, but we had to postpone some shows because of Omicron,” Gormley explained nonchalantly. By comparison, Washington’s, a big budget venue in the heart of Old Town Fort Collins, only hosted 42 shows in that same period. Though Blast N’ Scrap events now include established local bands like DEBR4H and Native Station, Gormley adamantly says they will always be there for local bands to “play their first

show.” Almost every Blast N’ Scrap concert features a few low-profile acts. Blast N’ Scrap has become the de facto community hub for underground music in Fort Collins, but the organization does far more than event production. Its projects include a 6-week theater program for school kids, weekly screen printing classes using sustainable and recycled materials and Band Blast Off, a music education program teaching professional skills to aspiring musicians ages 7 to 17.

A SERENDIPITOUS RISE The prolific volume of Blast N’ Scrap initiatives is due, in large part, to the scruffy 38-year old at the helm. Gormley is bursting with ideas and, since he got sober four years ago, he’s been damn good at following through on them. “There’s 15 years of my life that I could have been doing this stuff, but I wasn’t because I was living in a hole,”

PICTURED: CAPE PALS - A BLAST N SCRAP INITIATIVE WHERE KIDS MAKE CAPES FOR GOOD CAUSES Gormley told BandWagon. “I’m an addict. Now I’m just a workaholic.” Mornings, he drives a truck for the Food Bank. Afternoons, he pours himself into Blast N’ Scrap projects. Evenings, he’s either bouncing around a show taking videos, or at home with his wife and dogs. It’s not in his nature to procrastinate. In 2019, Gormley was newly sober and searching for purpose. When his car mechanic’s daughter was diagnosed with Leukemia, he organized a cape-making party at Who Gives a Scrap. A self-made cape once earned him his “Blasti” nickname, and the idea of self-crafted empowerment resonated. It was so successful, that the reuse store greenlighted him to run a series of charity concerts and cape-making workshops which eventually morphed into Blast N’ Scrap. Though the pandemic shut down this first iteration, Gormley refused to let the organization smolder. He was not about to give up on a project that had given him immense purpose and drive for the first time in his adult life. Instead, he enlisted the help of a close friend in the nonprofit world. It was time for Blast N’ Scrap to go legit. While venues and clubs were scrambling to cut costs, Blast N’ Scrap quietly obtained its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, built a website and fostered partnerships with a diverse group of Colorado-based and national organizations. When live music reemerged in the summer of 2021, Gormley was ready.

DIY INCLUSIVITY While most club shows are designed to extract value from an audience, Blast N’ Scrap shows are designed to provide value to the community. Up-charged tickets are replaced with a pay-whatyou-can cover. In lieu of a bar serving shots, volunteers hand out free narcan and fentanyl test strips (which rapidly counteract and help avert opioid overdoses, respectively) and condoms. The merch table is filled with sustainably-sourced Blast N’ Scrap swag. A second table collects clothing and food donations for local humanitarian organizations. And Blast N’ Scrap’s youth programs instill the same values in kids as the ones exemplified at its

shows: unbridled creativity, sustainability and inclusivity. Even through his worst years of listlessness, Gormley turned to music for solace and kinship. Now that he’s living well, he wants to provide that same sense of community and catharsis to people who might have been left out of the music scene in the past – even those who don’t hear music. At the aforementioned 830 North show, an ASL interpreter (below) signed lyrics and played air guitar from a perch on the front corner of the stage. “Music is my home. It’s the only thing that, wherever I go and whatever I do, if it’s not part of the mix I don’t feel settled,” Gormley said.

BLAST N SCRAP’S FIRST SHOW AT LAUNCH: COMMUNITY THROUGH SKATEBOARDING IS MAY 21 AT 1 P.M. IN FORT COLLINS FEATURING GONE FULL HEATHEN, PRINCESS DEWCLAW AND WATCHING PEOPLE DROWN. VISIT BLASTNSCRAP.ORG FOR MORE.

CARRY THE HEAVY TORCH

ome kids grow up listening to Barney, Elmo or Little Einsteins. Rory Rummings listened to Dio, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden.

“My Dad raised me on the classics,” Rummings tells BandWagon, and you can hear it in Cloud Catcher, the Denver band he formed nine years ago. Rummings is the frontman and main songwriter, and he loves paying homage to the classic metal of the 1980s as well as the bands that started it all, such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But Rummings insists that Cloud Catcher isn’t just another replica content to copy the sounds (and even the riffs) from the masters in much the way that, ahem, Greta Van Fleet did. “There are SO MANY bands like that,” Rummings said. “I’ve always been against trying to sound like something. All those classic bands are super, super, super influences, but there comes a point when…” At this point Rummings sighs. It IS tough being a hard rock band searching for an original sound, and even as he offers some slight criticism to bands such as Greta, he also fully gets the dilemma.

“If I will play heavy,” Rummings said, “I will play my own form of heavy.”

And Rummings WILL play heavy. On the band’s next album, which should be out this fall or winter at the latest, he has a song that sounds like Slayer. Cloud Catcher won’t cross over into death metal too often otherwise, but he admires the esthetic. The band will play much of that new material on May 13 at the Black Buzzard in Denver.

“The one thing I try to consciously do is try to carry that torch of heaviness,” he said. “It needs to stay heavy. I love that raw sound.” Even so, Rummings also loves psychedelic music, especially the kind made at the genre’s peak in the 1960s. He loves Cream, Hendrix and Blue Cheer. That love also creeps into his music, and perhaps that’s what sets it apart, as Rummings blends the two, he said. He also prefers to use the latest digital technology - he doesn’t need analog to make his music sound raw. “As cocky as this sounds,” he said, “I want the music to be timeless rather than just a flavor of the month.”

BY DAN ENGLAND

His lyrics are psychedelic as well, although Rummings warns you not to put too much weight on what he writes. “I just write words that sound cool,” he said and laughed. “But there are metaphors in there. I like lyrics about growth and growing from dark times.”

Cloud Catcher’s next album will be finished even by the time you read this. The band has their own studio, so booking time isn’t an issue, though getting it pressed to vinyl may be tougher. He’s also searching for a label, but he’s confident he will find one. They’ve come a long way from when his parents helped press his first album, now with a handful of releases under their belts. Their latest, Royal Flush Sessions, Vol I is on Spotify. But supply problems are limiting labels’ ability to make vinyl records. Rummings will have the album out on CDs and in digital form, but when it comes to vinyl, he can’t help but resemble all those old bands that shaped his childhood. That nostalgia is powerful, turning even the heaviest of bandleaders into a sentimental sort. “There’s something romantic about vinyl,” he said.

BANDWAGON PRESENTS CLOUD CATCHER WITH NIGHTWRAITH AND SHEPHERD ON FRIDAY, MAY 13 AT BLACK BUZZARD AT OSKAR BLUES IN DENVER. TICKETS AT BANDWAGONPRESENTS.COM – MORE ON THE BAND AT CLOUD-CATCHER.BANDCAMP.COM

BandWagon Magazine - May 2022 - Son Lux

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