Telluride – Page 30 – Chris K's Colorado Playlist

CP S12 EP27 2018

Another week and another weekend of live music in Northern Colorado. The main event this weekend was a benefit for Women In Blues held at the Armory Event Center in Brighton.

Event organizer Kyle Deibler (Memphis West Music) filled me in that W.I.B. is an aspiring national level non-profit (501C3) organization. Colorado women in blues owned the sparsely attended event from the first act on.

Unfortunately, I was not able to stay to see the non-Colorado talent headlining the bill, due to a scheduled show with my own band.

The biggest surprise of the day was a revamped Kerry Pastine & the Crime Scene. Gone are Lance “Romance” Bakermeyer (bass) and Mad Dog Minnick (drums/vocals), who have gone back to the Hillbilly Hellcats with Chuch Hughes.

Lance and Mad Dog provided equal parts of the look, vibe and style to the original Crime Scene lineup – giving the band a unified and uniformed look and sound on stage – matching Kerry AND Pauly Six in performance intensity and style. Wearing beards, caps, dark glasses and black shirts, the matching colorful fashion statement gone, a potentially darker and deadlier groove may be what we’ll get moving forward from the new rhythm section.

KPCS has a new album dropping very soon – I premiered a new track from the album (a Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazelwood cover featuring Jim Dalton of the Railbenders) in the show this week .. it’s below in the MMMM.

Fresh off her album release show at the Walnut Room in Denver, Cass Clayton opened the show. She and her airtight band showed considered homage to her obvious influences, that include Susan Tedeschi and Bonnie Raitt.

The Crime Scene and Cass Clayton Band were not the only ones appearing with new releases in hand. Colorado Blues Society 2018 Band Champion, Mojomama, recently released their latest called Red, White and Blues. Happily for me they included my favorite track on the album, Lazy River. Eef & the Blues Express rounded out the show, showcasing her formidable guitar chops, alongside the Colorado Blues Society 2018 solo/duo Champion Scott Hackler on keys.

The Brighton Armory is an exquisite small venue in our region capable of seating 300, or providing standing room only for 500. They’ve been adding more and more shows there, produced either by the city of Brighton under the management of Gary Montoya or by independent promoters.

The sound system is more than adequate for the room, and stands out as among the best in the region – equaling those at venues such as the Armory in Fort Collins or the Boulder Theater or the Mishawaka Amphitheatre. One criticism from me is that the room clearly needs additional baffling and sound absorption panels to knock down the boominess of a near empty room.

In a city that lacks even ONE non-public venue dedicated to live music, the Armory is a wonderful place to catch upcoming shows from the likes of popular regional acts like FACE Vocal Band, or national country acts like John Anderson (coming Oct 28) … and is EASILY accessible to Denver, Thornton, and other north metro communities.

VIDEO PICK OF THE WEEK

Every once in a while a new artist appears, seemingly out of nowhere. I cannot even begin to say where or how I heard of Jackson Emmer from Carbondale. He’s been getting mad praise from the likes of No Depression, POPMATTERS and Rolling Stone, which wrote “Americana songwriters are a dime a dozen these days, but few are writing songs like Jackson Emmer.”

At Bohemian Foundation, our focus is on building community …by coming together to create and enjoy music.

MONDAY MORNING MUSIC MEETING

What you’ll find below are new songs on the show this week … listen and let me know which ones you think I should keep in the Colorado Playlist, and which I should delete.

NOTE: In order to be included in the MMMM poll, the band/artist must have an embeddable file on Soundcloud, BandCamp, Reverbnation or YouTube.

PLAYLIST S12 EP27

(D) = debut of lp, ep or single
(N) = new cut from previously debuted lp or ep

HOUR 1

The Moonrakers “I’m All Right” from Anthology (2007)
Astronauts “Little Ford Ragtop” from Competition Coupe/Astronauts Orbit Kampus (1964)
(D) Jackson Emmer “Don’t Leave Me Blue” from Jukebox (2018)

Monocle Band “Sad-Eyed Girl” from The Clearing (2017)
Chris Daniels & the Kings “Joy” from Funky To the Bone (2015)
(D) Darren Garvey “First of the Year” from Heart Attack Sleeves EP (2018)

Voodoo Kings “Eyes on You” from Faith & Whiskey (2018)
Churchill “Made a List” from Change EP (2012)
Fierce Bad Rabbit “Time Machine” from Maestro & the Elephant (2013)
The SIR Band “Wading” from So Cold (2018)
(D) Kerry Pastine & the Crime Scene “Summer Wine (feat. Jim Dalton)” from I Make My Own Luck (2018)

Patti Fiasco “Blue Eyed West” from Saved By Rock And Roll (2016)
Big Head Todd & The Monsters “Glow” from New World Arisin’ (2017)
Paa Kow “African lady” from Cookpot (2017)

HOUR 2

Poco “You Better Think Twice” from Deliverin’ (1971)
Rick Roberts “She Made Me Lose My Blues” from Windmills / She is a Song (2010)
(D) Gregory Alan Isakov “Chemicals” from Evening Machines (2018)

Kyle Emerson “Post-Egomania” from Dorothy Alice (2017)
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats “Thank you” from Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats (2015)
(D) Dierks Bentley “The Mountain” from The Mountain (2018)

The Railbenders “Hard Road” from The Medicine Show (2018)
SHEL “The Latest And Greatest Blueberry Rubberband” from SHEL (2012)
Paul Galaxy & the Galatix “White Train” from Slingshot (2004)
Francis and the Wolf “Call of the Wild” from Ladies & Gentlemen (2017)
(N) Blake Brown & American Dust Choir “Up In Arms” from Long Way Home (2018)

Pan Astral “Gulf of Mexico” from Suburban Blues (2016)
Rose Hill Drive “Broken by the Storm” from Mania (2017)
Paul Mullikin Quintet “Minor Profits” from TIME IS NOW (2014)

CP S12 EP26 2018

June, July and August are the three HOTTEST months – musically. There are more outdoor events – ticketed and free – in our region today than is even possible to chronicle, let alone attend.

Saturday night my girlfriend and I attended a sold out Mishawaka show – Trout Steak Revival with Gasoline Lollipops and Canyon Collected. It was the last possible Saturday night I had available this summer to get to the Mishawaka for a show, and the overall experience did not disappoint. A special surprise that night was the acoustic version of Gasoline Lollipops – the first for the band.

It was pretty evident that the sold out audience was there for the two jamgrass bands. The Gas Pops met reserved appreciation from a polite audience until they revved up the tempos, allowing Don to demonstrate his formidable lead guitar skills and Clay to demonstrate his ability to own any audience I’ve ever seen him in front of.

By the end of the set, with Clay raging vocally, the audience was sold. When the band came back on for a quick set of pics by the house photog, the audience thought maybe they were getting an encore …

Lead guitarist Don Ambory broke out a mandolin, the first time I’ve seen that happen – and he played his 1940’s Gibson acoustic for the Gas Pops set. He also sat in on three songs with Trout Steak, and played electric guitar – his solos in the Trout Steak set were fan favorites as were the ukulele solos taken by Canyon Collected’s Tia Martini.

Some of us standing in the “VIP” viewing area commented on the presence of the ukulele in the lineup until Tia demonstrably shredded every jam in the band’s 45 minute crowd pleasing set.

Because of the hour forty minute drive home to the Denver metro we didn’t stay for the entire set by Trout Steak Revival, but based on the overall feel of the night, and the thunderous applause during the first half of their set, I have no doubt that the show didn’t end by midnight. Trout Steak does stand out as one of the best acoustic jamgrass Americana-folk bands in the region today.