REVIEW – KAITLYN WILLIAMS SURPRISES WITH UNDER THESE LIGHTS

As a talent buyer, I yearn for a solid live representation of an artist or band. As a record “collector” and radio show producer, I LOVE and typically much prefer studio albums.

NOTE to musicians: Most people I chat with also prefer a solid live representation before deciding whether to spend money to see an unknown artist or band live.

Studio albums have detail and nuances not ordinarily evident in live records. Live albums are hard to produce, and often disastrous; without studio overdubs they often show every minute flaw in individual performances. Most live music video performances are often worse, for lack of proper professional video production among other things.

Kaitlyn Williams showed up on Denver’s open mic circuit about 2016. It wasn’t long before Denver’s Wes Watkins “discovered” her and invited her to be a part of his band, The Other Black. Seemingly, that’s all it took for the burgeoning pop/neo-soul songstress to gain the confidence she needed to go it alone with her own band.

Kaitlyn released her debut, Sunset, not long after in 2019. Songs like Rain and the title track Sunset revealed a songwriter and singer many years more polished and mature than the mediocrity that too often flows through my studio monitors.

Enter “Under These Lights,” the new LIVE album from Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn walks a fine line between youthful pop and more sophisticated adult oriented neo-soul. She scores on both counts. Recorded live at the Lodge at Woods Boss Brewing in Denver, the intimate small room was the perfect space for the enthusiastic Kaitlyn and her fans (evidence fully displayed in the title track, the first full song in the show).

It takes some pretty major emotional fortitude to release a live album, especially one with music and performances as sophisticated and intimate as displayed Under These Lights. It may have felt great on stage, but what would the recording sound like? After all it was a live recording, which are often known for glaring deficiencies.

In this case Kaitlyn must have felt exuberant upon hearing it, because Under These Lights is a major league homerun among Colorado releases in 2022.

In a market crowed with potential pop/R&B/soul star power, Kaitlyn has more than earned her place with easily the best live album to come out of Denver in the past sixteen years of the Colorado Playlist.

NOTABLE TRACKS: #6 The Truth, #8 Don’t Blink

REVIEW – BANSHEE TREE, GRAHAM GOOD & THE PAINTERS, BLACK FRET COLORADO, ROOTS MUSIC PROJECT – MAY 06 2022

Saturday Night – May 06 2022 – Roots Music Project, Black Fret Colorado, Graham Good & The Painters, and Banshee Tree were the four main reasons for going out to this event. All four proved to be the right reasons.

Roots Music Project non-profit venue is more like an oversized living room used to hosting listening room style house concerts, than what we’d consider as a normally functioning music venue.

Housed in the industrial area just east of Foothills Parkway in Boulder, in between Valmont Rd and Pearl St, there are breweries and distilleries set up on either side and a softball toss from Swedish Motors (Volvo repair shop I’m intimately familiar with).

BUYER BEWARE — wear hearing protection: Even with mine in, it was loud (the brightness subdued by my earbuds). Overall, a very pleasant place to see a live show. Dave Kennedy and Rick Gabler have done a great job with this place.

Black Fret Colorado is very well worth looking into if you’re not familiar. Since 2013, Black Fret has distributed over $4M into local music communities, including $2.5M directly to musicians in Colorado, Austin, & Seattle.

Graham Good & the Painters

Booking a beach party, or want a lively dance band that has more energy than any one man should reasonably possess? That’s Graham Good & The Painters – full stop. I found out first hand what the street buzz is. My g/f loves to dance. She could barely sit in her seat. I don’t dance (well, with my hands and arms, but my hips are frozen and my feet are lead weights). Graham’s hyperkinetic energy wore my old ass out, sitting – ROFL.

Banshee Tree

Want your face melted and brain tossed into the outer space of virtuosity and lightning fast shredding with elements of Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli along with touches of Frank Zappa, Atomic Fireballs and Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks? All I can say about that is WOW Banshee Tree! …these cats blow hard and FAST! …A little superspeed shredding is more than enough for the average person …but seriously, wow!

#COMUSIC – TOP 30 APRIL 2022

MAY 02, 2022 – Another road trip come and gone. This time we drove through through Utah, Arizona and New Mexico during a seven day trip. I was asked more than once about my license plate COMUSIC. I was happy to tell the story.

I will say that we often take Colorado community/public radio stations for granted. I have yet to explore any other region of Western USA from Montana south to the deserts of CA and AZ that meets the standard established here. Much love to all of the stations in CO that support home-grown Colorado music.

Another thing I noticed was the lack of original music venues. Musicians I met along the way said most venues in their area were geared more towards artists doing cover songs because of the tourists, who were overwhelmingly over the age of 60.

While I was on the road I built the LIVE MUSIC VENUES list – check it out. If there’s anything missing let me know please.

Eleven titles stayed in the APRIL TOP 30, crossing over from MARCH: thirteen titles were (D) debuts for the month; ten of which were featured for the month at Indie 102.3. Six titles re-entered the chart.

Spin data pulled from the Colorado Playlist, 105.5 The Colorado Sound, Indie 102.3 and eleven stations that use playlist generator Spinitron, designed to benefit non-commercial community/public and college radio stations and offering advanced search functions for artists and agents.

Besides the spins chart published here, check out the weekly Roots Music Report TOP 50 Colorado Chart. Where I track titles going back a year, RMR charts often reflect titles that are more than a couple of years old. RMR also receives spin counts from a different set of reporters in Colorado, as well as from both terrestrial and Internet based radio around the country and Europe.

Titles are linked to their respective YouTube pages, if available.

TOP 30 SPINS APRIL 2022

(1) 1. THE LUMINEERS – Brightside LP (Oct-21)
(2) 2. NATHANIEL RATELIFF & THE NIGHTSWEATS – The Future LP (Nov-21)
(D) 3. THE ORIGINAL iLLs – Juanita LP (Jan-22)
(17) 4. GEORGE CESSNA – Lucky Rider EP (Jan-22)
(D) 5. MIKE CLARK & THE SUGAR SOUNDS – Moon Rock LP (Mar-22)
(D) 6. PLEASURE PRINCE – Numbers LP (Apr-22)
(D) 7. TINY TOMBOY – Tiny Tomboy LP (Feb-22)
(10) 8. SWEET VIRGINIA – Leaving Again LP (Feb-22)
(–) 9. KING CARDINAL – Runaway SINGLE (Dec-21)
(17) 10. JYEMO CLUB – IssaTing (f. Reminders) SINGLE (Mar-22)
(D) 10. NIC CLARK – Love Your Life: Songs for the Whole Family LP (Jun-21)
(–) 11. WEST SIDE JOE & THE MEN OF SOUL – Keep On Climbin’ LP (Apr-21)
(D) 12. ALYSSA ROBI – Soul Ties SINGLE (Feb-22)
(D) 12. THE NOVA KICKS – Better Than You Could Believe SINGLE (Oct-21)
(D) 13. KERRY PASTINE & THE CRIME SCENE – Red Right Hand SINGLE (Jan-22)
(D) 13. MAD RADIO – Mad Radio EP (Feb-22)
(8) 14. GREENSKY BLUEGRASS – Stress Dreams LP (Jan-22)
(D) 15. EVERYBODY LOVES AN OUTLAW – Still Waiting SINGLE (Feb-22)
(D) 15. JAGUAR STEVENS – Captain von Trapp SINGLE (Mar-22)
(D) 15. LOST PENNY – Dolly Do (What Would Dolly Do) SINGLE (Mar-22)
(–) 16. RENO DIVORCE – Hopeless & Dopeless SINGLE (Jun-21)
(9) 16. THE VELVETEERS – Nightmare Daydream LP (Oct-21)
(12) 17. DAVID STARR – Touchstones LP (Sep-21)
(3) 17. THE INFAMOUS STRINGDUSTERS – Toward the Fray LP (Jan-22)
(16) 18. THE CROOKED RUGS – That! LP (Nov-21)
(14) 19. YONDER MOUNTAIN STRING BAND – Get Yourself Outside LP (Feb-22)
(–) 20. ADIEL MITCHELL – Focus On Me (Unplugged) SINGLE (Dec-21)
(D) 20. BIG RICHARD BAND – Walls of Time SINGLE (Mar-22)
(–) 20. TRASH CAT – The Tide LP (Dec-21)
(–) 20. YASI – Coexist with Chaos EP (Mar-21)

featuring  LiveMusicMegaSearch™