Roe: 93.3's 2008 Hometown for the Holidays winners!

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, December 2008

Backstage at the Aggie Theatre, hours before the release show for Roe’s new album Letters and Lights, bassist Nick Daniluk drops a bit of a bombshell: “This album saved the band. It got to a point about a year ago,” he says, “where we all kind of sat around and were like, ‘Well, we’re kind of ready to go our own ways, or start playing something we all want to play.’”

The end seemed inevitable. Back then, the group’s original four members – vocalist/keyboardist Jake Espy, vocalist/guitarist David Anderson, drummer John Breeding, and Daniluk – considered each other associates rather than friends. The four had struggled to find their desired fifth, a lead guitarist in touch with Roe’s sound and approach. Playing tracks off their 2006 release, Frame By Frame, had gotten tiresome.

Something had to be done, so last winter, the Pop/Rock outfit disappeared from the scene and buckled down in the studio. It was time well spent. The group finally found their missing guitarist in Jake Breeding, John’s brother. The band also took time to revise their songwriting process, using a group-based effort when working out new tracks (Espy had written six of Frame By Frame’s seven tracks.)

The five mapped out nearly 30 tunes using their new method, but they won’t deny that some painstaking breakups along the way helped get the creative juices flowing. “It’s so interesting how you can be so much more in touch with your emotion when you’re sad and depressed then when you’re happy,” says Anderson. “That’s when, I think, true writing comes out.”

“Some of the songs on this record did span outside of relationships,” Espy adds. “’Coming Down,’ the first song on (Letters and Lights,) I wrote about how I struggled with certain aspects of my religion. David wrote ‘Excuses’ about friends, and one of David’s songs is about his uncle, who was going through a really hard time. Outside of the first layer, it seems like a lot of our songs are about relationships, but that’s not necessarily what it’s all about.”

It’s easy to make that impression with Letters and Lights, an album of crooner Rock n’ Roll that swings between autumnal acoustic offerings and bold carnival rides of rhythm and guitar. Just be careful when tossing out comparisons to The Fray. “We get that cause we’re a Colorado piano band,” says Daniluk. Espy adds, “They really thrive on that smooth sound. We’re more raucous.”

http://www.myspace.com/roerock

CD Review: 10-4 Eleanor

Originally published in Scene Magazine, December 2008

There a couple of reasons I enjoy 10-4 Eleanor’s latest recording.
I’d like to reflect on the nostalgia sparked by its floppy disk jacket boasting the Galaga fighter ship or write out pretentious musings on the meanings of the track titles, but the music of Words is deserving of all attention.

Try as I might to keep from stuffing underground darlings like 10-4 Eleanor into a genre, Words is a smattering of subgenres: here a little surf punk, there a little skate punk. The difference is in the riffs.

There’s no mistaking a West Coast influence in “Celebrity Taxidermy!” which wields Offspring-styled, boogie board guitar. But then there’s the loosey-goosey grime of standout “Dressed To Impresstevez,” aggressive in the way your average skate punk track ought to be. Its barreling riffs are rough, but not to the point where its delicious melody gets buried; 10-4 Eleanor prevents that happening on any of the tracks.

No, these gutter punks have a superb understanding of fun, never really seeking to make a point but rather to get asses moving. “Massive” is a catchy bundle of hooks that doesn’t thrash like the tracks that come before it, opting instead into a merry dish of dance. The closer, “Midwestern Hearts,” is a bit of a downer though, its midtempo acoustics underlining the misery-able vocals.

The rad CD jacket might scream gimmick band, but the 17 minutes of homely punk goodness within will convince you otherwise.

His Name is Magic Cyclops

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian, November 13, 2008

The man isn't interested in talking.

"You don't see me," he mumbles, scurrying past the Collegian reporter, a duffel bag under arm. "Not here."

He, a lanky pale figure who could pass as the Unabomber's protégé in his black hoodie and baseball cap, makes his way to the tiny stage in the corner of the room. Out of the duffel bag comes a mic stand, a vocal effects processor with built-in pedal and a MacBook with a "Regular Joes for McCain-Palin" sticker slapped on the monitor's back.

The sticker is somewhat ironic in a dive bar like Surfside 7, the only joint in town that proudly blasts the likes of Slayer and Turbonegro over its speakers and where piercings hang from bartenders' every appendage.

He turns on the microphone: "Test, test, hello, hello."

He toys with the processor, suddenly sounding like Alvin the Chipmunk: "W-w-whoa dude. I'm high on drugs."The bored female bartenders laugh. A small tweak in the controls and his voice drops into the hulking tone of a "60 Minutes" anonymous source: "I sound like a sexual predator."

Eyeing the bartenders, he adds a flirty purr to his monstrous baritone: "Hey there little boy. You like candy?" Pleased with this pitch and the responding laughter, he disappears into the kitchen behind the pizza counter.

Fifteen minutes later, a strange character swaggers out, bearing a black muscle shirt. His eyes are tucked away behind dark tea shades, while his long black hair is held to the sides of his face by a neon purple and blue bandana baring a single word: "MAGIC." He introduces himself: "It's legally Magic Cyclops. Legally."

One eye, one dream
Consider Cyclops to be many things.

"Magic Cyclops is the ultimate performance artist," says Nate Clark, sound engineer and production manager at the Aggie Theatre, who claims to have been a Cyclops fan since his earliest performances. "He's a musician, a character, an actor, a hero and a villain."

In less esoteric terms, Cyclops is the "Weird Al" Yankovic of Fort Collins, minus the direct parodies and PG rating -- he once told a heckler, "If I wanted any lip from you, I'd unzip my pants." He alternates between musician, with a berth of original songs, and professional disc jockey, never straying from an 80s sound.

"I've just always kind of been into music. Ya know, your Def Leppards, your Journeys," Cyclops says. "New music is crap. I enjoy what most people would call bad music nowadays."Then there were the heroes of the decade -- Hulk Hogan and other professional wrestlers -- who had a considerable impact on his life as well. Cyclops had sported a "HOGAN" headband up until this year, realizing that his idol "was the biggest douchebag on the planet."

But when pressed for details on his newfound hate, Cyclops ponders, retracts.

"I have been watching his celebrity wrestling lately, which is making him seem a little less douchey. I still think he wants to date his daughter and I kind of find that a little 'insane in the membrane,'" Cyclops says, drawing the classic "coo-coo crazy" signal with his finger. "Although if I had a hot daughter, I'd probably want to date her. Can I really condemn that? I dunno."

Sipping incessantly from a mixed drink, Cyclops says his hometown of Davenport, Iowa had a bad habit of inbreeding. He admits the possibility that his own mother and father might have been a little too close on the family tree.Cyclops often uses the words "unfortunate" and "sadly" in describing his early years.His impoverished upbringing, for example, left a permanent mark. BBC programming on PBS was the only entertainment he had access to as a child, manifesting in the British accent that he has never shed. The peer torment that followed never entirely faded either.

But escape was found in the music and icons of the times, the very subjects Cyclops clings to today. He recalls various babysitters taking him to concerts around Iowa and lesser-known acts like Mr. Mister and Centro-matic inspiring his decision to pursue a music-making career.

His arrival in Fort Collins was, at first, nothing more than another stop in Cyclops' 2000 nationwide tour. But when his car broke down, he says he decided to make Fort Collins his new home. There wasn't much back in Davenport, except some serious gambling debts.

Hot hits
Tonight at Surfside, Cyclops is doing the DJ thing.He greets the pooling crowd: "Time to get wicked. But first, I'm gonna play my theme song."

He turns to his MacBook and unleashes it, a startling 20-second blast of high-pitched wailing on the crowd. Just another Cyclops "hot hit."

"You know, a lot of people are just astounded and amazed, so much so that it causes them to get very angry," Cyclops says of his music's reception. "I could only imagine it's what, you know, your Stones, your Beatles, your Michael Jacksons had to go through in the early days."

Ben Prytherch, bassist with local band Motorhome, recalls an early Cyclops performance at Surfside that sparked such anger in one patron that he wrote a letter to the bar declaring he'd never come back.

"It used to be Magic Cyclops versus the audience," Prytherch says. "It was really fun watching a lot of people getting really angry."

Most Cyclops fans are of the "love-to-hate" variety, taking delight in the camp and comedic edge of his music, regardless of the artist's original intention. But it's hard to believe he meant anything else, considering song titles such as "Rainbow of Pain" and "Wrath of (Chaka) Kahn." There's also his most popular release, "Teen Pregnancy Don't Do It," a Casio keyboard ballad that's part song, part public service announcement. When asked about the inspiration behind the song, Cyclops refers to "growing up in Iowa, hoping that I didn't get the ladies pregnant."

"I saw most of my high school class had sons and daughters that are almost as old as I am now," Cyclops says.

There are very few specifics when it comes to the song-writing process for Cyclops.

"Like every musician, I just write about stuff," he says. "Stuff inspires me. Some days I'm over there at the Wal-Mart, and I'll see something like a muffin top. That inspires me. And then I'm like, going to get milk or something, and then a minute later, I'm like 'Oh, that'd be a hot hit, Muffin Top.'"

Most would argue Cyclops' talents are more concentrated in his stagemanship, particularly his air guitar antics. Earlier this year, Cyclops won the Denver Regional Air Guitar Championship, earning a trip to San Francisco to compete in the U.S. Air Guitar Championship in August.

"I picked the death sentence spot of going first," Cyclops says. "No one's ever advanced to the second round going first."

There's always next year. Cyclops says his steady performance schedule has kept him conditioned, and he eagerly anticipates the chance to redeem this year's mistake.

"I'm not like your average DJ; I lip-synch, I air-guitar, air-drum, it keeps me in the realm. It's like practice," he says. "And sometimes, late at night in my room, I'll kick on some Colt, put on my BVD's and rock it on out."

Expect a sizable showing of talent on Nov. 22, when Cyclops opens for 12 Cents for Marvin at the Aggie Theatre.

The man behind the Magic
Cyclops declined to give or confirm his supposed "real" identity for this article. While Cyclops will insist he is who he is, there is another personality behind the one-man show.

"He's not like Magic Cyclops at all," Clark says. "He's just a guy, a guy that loves punk rock, indie rock and music in general... nothing like Cyclops. Cyclops is an asshole, a prima donna."

"I see him around town," says Dayton Hicks, bassist with local band Arliss Nancy. "He's a nice guy -- kind of an introvert, I guess. He does his own thing."

"A lot of people, I think, mistake him for a complete goof-off," says Darren Radach, instrumentalist with Motorhome and Glove Trucker. "But he's one of those guys who, if he continues to take it as seriously as he does, could end up being on Comedy Central, Saturday Night Live. He's got that kind of talent and that kind of conviction in his comedy."

Special Local Edition Music Video review: The Black Apples

BAND: The Black Apples
SONG: "20 Years At Sea"

RATING: B+

The audio quality isn't perfect and this is, in fact, a video made by a good friend who has gone off to LA in pursuit of a career that won't ebb away at his soul. But most importantly, this was a Fort Collins band that I got the opportunity to interview earlier this year. They dropped their new album earlier this fall- "Enjoy!"- only made 100 copies and I couldn't make it to their farewell show (they too have flocked to LA for similar reasons, the idea being a record deal) and my sister somehow screwed up and got me a copy of another band that is good in their own rights, but The Black Apples are something special mark my words.

This video is fun, and actually quality for being filmed by a college student. Can't give it a perfect grade, because of the audio, but I will say this song is aural magic. The main reason I'm posting it is because I'm immediately taking advantage of their "super up-and-coming" status. Four years from now, when their first national release takes college radio (followed by commercial radio by at least the second album) by storm, I'm going to get the claim to major cool status and boost this blog by three more readers. Also, check out their other catchy-and-cool-as-hell songs.

Sit Outside and Dream review

Originally published in Scene Magazine, September 2008

CD: Sit Outside and Dream
Artist: WoolEye

Ever since Hendrix rocked 20 arms on the cover of Axis: Bold As Love, Hindu imagery has been psychedelic rock’s colorful totem. But don’t let the Tridevi on the cover of WoolEye’s latest effort fool you; the trippiness comes in bits and pieces.

While the far-off space guitar is present in a handful of tracks, Sit Outside and Dream is dominated by a boppy jazz rock sound, heard across the synth landscapes and hooky keyboard. What lifts WoolEye above the archetypal fusion four-piece is a willingness to dabble in genres far outside their range without compromising their jazz-based approach. Most of the time, it works.

Try the neon bluegrass sound of “Cherokee Bill” – though the lyrics feel uninspired, there’s something surprisingly fun about the rocking electric piano and guitar bridges.

The Technicolor techno-pop of “New York Spinnit” is aural deliciousness. The succulent synth keys bubble when mixed with vocalist Michael Rouse’s rock n’ roll drawl. It’s speedy and clever and catchy as hell. “Tune For The Sun” is another überfun stretch with vocals and piano embracing an Elton John elegance.

Occasionally, the genre-bending polish wears off and leaves the listener with a failed experiment - the stiff dub rock of “Snapback Fission” - or peculiar contemporary rock that takes way too long to pay off - the itchy “New Dawn Plowing”, which takes off about four minutes in, when the instrumentation picks up on that psychedelic flavoring mentioned earlier.

But you gotta give it to them; Sit Outside and Dream proves that as long as it fits, it doesn’t have to belong.

Common Anomaly

Originally published in Colorado Music Buzz, September 2008

It’s hard to tell if Nick LoFaro is joking when he lays out the pre-show ritual for his band, Common Anomaly.

The others laugh, but no one attempts to refute, so I let my guard down. “We don’t really try to drink any substances or drink or anything like that, but we all slap each other in the face before we go on stage,” LoFaro says, laughing.

This, they tell me, lounging in the parking lot behind the Aggie Theater, is just the typical brotherly love of the Common Anomaly family: Vocalist/guitarist LoFaro, synth keyboardist Ian Walsh, bassist Sean Joyce, and the true brothers of the pack, vocalist/guitarist/occasional violinist Paul Simmons and drummer Adam Simmons.

Listening to their style of catchy cruising garage rock, it’s not hard to imagine these five pelting one another till the energy is right.

But this isn’t screaming-mad music. The roots of Common Anomaly are actually set in the acoustics, beginning a year ago when LoFaro and the Simmons brothers first took their act to the stage.

“It was basically tailored to fit a small acoustic venue,” Adam noted. “A drum set would be a little too overpowering for that, so we did everything on a Jambe and acoustic guitars.”

The addition of Walsh “plugged our asses in”, as LoFaro describes, “to a huge sound scheme” and “a huge attitude and a lot more depth to a lot of our songs, which were originally very earthy at first”, while Joyce, who moved from Chicago to join the band in July, rounds it all out. While keeping a regular routine of shows in FoCo and Denver, these up-and-comers plan to start recording immediately at The Farm, a barn studio owned by FoCo musician Jonathan Alonzo.

The band says “family” is the term to describe the group’s chemistry, and expect it to be essential to churning out their debut album.

“(Family) gives you the opportunity to tell each other when we’re off or when we suck, or when we’re doing really well,” LoFaro says. “It’s flat honesty, hard love and good s#!t.”

Iowa-based Euforquestra sets up camp in Fort Collins

Originally published in Scene Magazine, August 2008

The men of Euforquestra are Colorado boys at heart.

Guitarist Mike Tallman takes on the tone of a giddy 80-year-old when he looks back at the summer vacations at his father’s cabin in Routt National Park.

“I spent pretty much every vacation as a child going up to that area and just spending a couple of weeks every summer getting away from everything,” Tallman recalls. “People tend to enjoy life to the fullest in the mountains.”

Among other reasons, a longing for purple mountain majesties inspired the Afrobeat ensemble to leave their home state of Iowa and settle down in Fort Collins, where the living is cheaper than Boulder and life functions without the big-city frenetic of Denver.

Despite the apparent excitement, the decision to move didn’t come easy to the seven twentysomethings who have spent the past five years carving their worldly beats in Iowa City.

Tallman spent his high school days in Des Moines, alongside keyboardist Eric Quiner and drummer Josten Foley. The three teamed with another buddy on bass to form Euforia, the funky rock predecessor to Euforquestra. Following graduation, the group took to Iowa City, where they crossed paths with percussionist Matt Grundstad and tenor saxophonist Ryan Jeter.

Other members would come and go as the years rolled by, but latching on for the long haul was alto saxophonist Austin Zalatel and bassist Adam Grosso. When the lineup began to resemble what Tallman describes as a “rock-band-orchestra kind of thing,” Euforia became Euforquestra.

The group has established a sizeable following in Iowa City’s community, largely attributable to Camp Euphoria, an annual musical festival on the edge of Iowa City that Tallman and the boys have been putting on since the summer of 2003.

It’s with the same eager nostalgia he expresses towards the mountains that Tallman talks about the music and arts of Iowa City: “I see it as a kind of an oasis among the cornfields out here.”

He describes the music scene as a tight-knit community, where competition takes a backseat to companionship. Each bar serves a specific set of genres. Then there’s the University of Iowa, a sizeable school that is always pumping in fresh faces and new listeners.

It’s the kind of environment that every band looking to break big would desire as a starting point. So why would these guys leave it all behind to start anew in the average-sized Fort Collins?

“Fort Collins has a very similar feel to Iowa City; it feels like it moves at the same speed, a really laid back place.” Tallman says.

Tallman adds that the group feels there’s a better market for their funked-up sound in the Western region, particularly in the jam band haven that is the West Coast. But don’t stick them with the label; Euforquestra is a rhythm-heavy flash pan of world music, seasoned with vocals from all seven members, and as a result, the music pulls from a wide variety of genres: jazz, bluegrass and rock, to name a few.

But there is always a familiar Afrobeat sound; their top influences include Fela and Femi Kuti, Steel Pulse and Burning Spear. And the one disc that never strays far from the tour van’s CD player? Sierra Leone Refugee All-Stars’ definitive Living Like A Refugee.

“I can’t even count how many times we’ve listened to that entire album in our van,” Tallman laughs. “Over the course of one tour, we’ll listen to that album like twenty times.”

While Euforquestra has performed in Fort Collins in the past, their residential debut will be a cannonball entrance. Besides several August shows, including a Bohemian Nights performance at NewWestFest on August 16, Tallman expects the group to begin laying down tracks for a second album by October. So much for a transition period...

“It’s gonna be hard to leave,” Tallman said. “But just like anything, it’s turning over a new leaf. When one thing ends, something else begins.”

Otem Rellik puts on a show

During her opening act at a small gathering in a middle-of-nowhere house in Fort Collins, singer-songwriter Danielle Ate a Sandwich interrupts her own show.


Without stopping her sandy ukulele solo, her voice acquires pronounced perk: “Hey, its Otem Rellik!”


Her listeners follow her gaze to peer over their shoulders at the rapper, one Toby Hendricks, a husky 25-year-old who sports an unkempt chinstrap beard that dribbles out of his trucker hat with redneck finesse. Faced with a room of eyes, he shoots a smile and a wave before taking a seat near the back of the room. Attention then returns to Danielle, whose performance continues as if nothing’s happened.


But something has happened; Otem Rellik, the white guy whose experimental brand of electronic hip-hop has put him among Colorado’s “best kept secrets”, has just walked into the building. He’s the biggest name playing tonight. This is the guy whose gone on tour in Europe when the other acts still dream of booking a bar gig in Denver.


Despite this, the expected Kanye-bravado is absent; Hendricks looks like he’d rather go unnoticed, at least until he is safely behind a mic.


“He’s a quiet kid,” says Braden Smith, who signed Hendricks to his label, Denver-based Ponowai Flora Records, in 2006. “I wanted to get (his music) out there more than himself.”


“Toby is probably the most harmless guy I know,” adds friend Jonathan Alonzo. “He’s one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met, and I think it was kind of surprising, because it was like ‘Oh, he’s the hip-hop guy, he’s probably got an ego.’”





True to the quiet nature that his friends and associates speak of him, the soft-spoken Hendricks has few comments to offer about his upbringings, unless music is somehow involved.



He says he has enjoyed growing up in Fort Collins, the city where his love for music was cultivated.

“Back in the day, it was mostly Public Enemy and N.W.A.,” Hendricks says. “I grew up listening to whatever my brother and my older brother listened to.”

A decade later — after a “ska and punk phase” in middle and high school — Hendricks said a friend introduced him to the synth-stocked sounds of Anticon, a San Francisco hip-hop label.

“It was so much different than the hip-hop I was currently listening to,” Hendricks said. “It turned me on to a lot more experimental stuff, not just in hip-hop but in indie rock and electronica and everything.”

Hendricks lists the entire Anticon lineup as his influences, specifically citing Doseone and Sole as artists who sparked his interest in using cold, crunching electronics as a backdrop to fast-paced rhymes. Discovering Anticon “opened the doors” for Hendricks.

“The more I listened to it, the more I wanted to make something,” Hendricks says, adding that he was eventually compelled to purchase a Casio keyboard and a TASCAM four-track recorder one afternoon in 2003. “I just tried laying out songs the best way I knew how. I was just like ‘What can I do with this?’ with no expectations whatsoever.”



Where he might have relied on expectations to drive him into furthering his art, Hendricks had his experimentations.



A particularly rousing session on the World Wide Web introduced Hendricks to circuit bending, a practice in which musicians rewire electronic devices to generate new sounds. Inspired, Hendricks began to explore the innards of his Casio, toying with wires and rerouting circuit points. The result: a weird lo-fi piano machine with every key purring displaced pitch. Hendricks says he isn’t entirely satisfied with his first creation.



“It’s kind of hard to work it into music… you’re trying to have a chord progression or something and you have a really weird, out-of-tune Casio,” he says.



Regardless, Hendricks has made a hobby of circuit bending, a pastime that has powered him through three EPs and five albums; he’s manipulated everything from Speak & Spells to talking-string dolls to achieve his musical mischief.



Smith admits that Hendricks’ brouhaha was a little off-putting in his first listen. Smith, who performs under the moniker Ancient Mith, first met Hendricks after a performance at the Larimer Lounge in late 2006. Knowing of Smith’s label, Hendricks handed him Petrified Human Project, his then-latest recording.



“I got like six or seven CDs that night, and seriously, that was the only one that was worth a shit,” Smith says. “I didn’t even like it at first… then I gave it another listen and was like ‘Yeah, I need to get a hold of this kid.’”



Hendricks signed onto Ponowai Flora Records later that year, working closely with Smith to improve his melodies and musical connectedness to produce his most recent album, Chain Reaction Robot, which dropped in March 2008. When asked what appealed to him about the music, Smith points to the lyrics, which Hendricks barely brings above a mumble as he softly pours his words into the mic.


“I don’t think Toby’s music is for everybody, I really don’t,” Smith says. “But I think there’s a realness and a emotional connection. I’ve even learned from watching him in that sense of taking just absolute personal issues and just airing them, whether they be the stupidest smallest thing, or just the biggest thing.”



The critics haven’t entirely agreed.



In his semi-approving review of Chain Reaction Robot, Rocky Mountain Chronicle music critic Elliot Johnson dug at the rhymes of Otem Rellik: “…his subject matter is obsessively confessional (i.e. anyone who uses the word “emo” as derogatory, which is most everyone who uses the term, will run from this album after Track One.)”



Hendricks remains entirely vague about the experiences and situations that inspire his lyrics, even with the curious journalist. His simple answer: “Most of the stuff I write about is generally about bad things.” But he takes offense at being labeled as “emo”, even when it’s directed at him offhandedly.



“There’s so much associated with that word, and a lot of it is negative to a lot of people,” Hendricks said. “Tupac made emo music according to what emo music is. His lyrics are emotional, but he’s making gangster rap, so why would you call that emo?”



It’s about 1:22 a.m. back at the house, and Otem Rellik is making preparations.



Most of the crowd has petered out, but the few who’ve stuck behind watch as Hendricks arranges his magical table of wire-crossed gizmos: two circuit-bent Casios, an iPod, a drum machine, a row of pedals set to distort and echo with the turn of a knob, a Speak & Spell and one disembodied doll head at the bottom of the mic stand.



“I’m not one for hip-hop, but Toby really makes me like it,” says friend and fellow musician Marty Albertz. “It’s his style. He’s not at all musically trained, so everything he’s doing is different.”



As Hendricks introduces himself to the crowd, his fingers hover above the various gadgets, which gleam like fluorescent fairies in the darkened basement of the house. And even now, behind that safe and warm mic, his bashfulness is showing; his eyes keep to his table, directing his fingers with clockwork precision, stabbing and twisting and dialing and flipping as he sings along with the melancholic fuzz he’s creating.

Here, among friends and dedicated friends, including a fawning girlfriend, one has to wonder why Hendricks has such a hard time with eye contact. This is, after all, his place to be.


“At a (concert) venue, you don’t know the people and they don’t know who you are. Half the time it’s just people going there to drink, which generally is a crowd of people who aren’t even into what I’m doing anyway,” Hendricks said. “House shows are definitely more appealing to me: more relatable people there, and they’re more fun, generally a lot more fun than playing at a venue.”

Folk meets coffeehouse rock: Guitarist Josh Dillard draws influence from darker days

Originally published in The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Josh Dillard had to laugh.

He stood in his Cleveland apartment one winter morning in 2003, and while brushing his teeth, he began laughing.In an hour or so, he'd be in the post office, and in the next couple of hours, he'd be delivering mail.

By the time he returned to his apartment, some 13 to 14 hours later, exhaustion would bar him from working on the one thing he had come to Cleveland to do: music.The irony of it all hadn't yet driven him entirely insane, but right then, Dillard couldn't help but laugh at his situation, a time he recalls as one of the darkest in his life.

Dillard, today, is a soft-spoken 27-year-old CSU graduate with a degree in social work. These days he serves with Timberline Church and CSU's Campus Navigators, yet finds plenty of time to practice his craft. His weapon of choice is a Gibson 45, and when combined with his feathery-bare vocals, he has produced a coffeehouse acoustic sound that has defined his first album, "The Kate EP."

While he says his sound isn't original, "The Kate EP" has fared successfully for Dillard since its release a full year ago, drawing an audience and recognition from Fort Collins' local music scene. This Saturday, he'll be appearing at Everyday Joe's for a 7:00 p.m. performance. While Dillard has enjoyed the emerging success, he says he owes much of it to those darker times in life.

"Sometimes, we don't seek the things we need when we live comfortable," Dillard said. "We need to be challenged before we realize it, before we look into ourselves."

Running down a dream
Six months prior to his giggling-toothbrush revelation, Dillard had completed an unfulfilling freshman year at CSU.

"I had completely set my mind on leaving school to pursue music," Dillard said. "We were young, na've."

With his best friend Dan Graeve alongside him, Dillard dropped out and took to Cleveland, floating on dreams of bringing together a band and signing with a label. There, he and Graeve conspired with Dillard's cousins, forming Beggars & Thieves. Mere months into existence, Dillard's group quickly fell apart.

"(Graeve) left pretty early. Probably three or four months after we moved out there, he went back to (CSU)," Dillard said.

It was the beginning of darker days for Dillard. Graeve's departure, he says, got him thinking about his own existence, bounded to Cleveland by a year-long lease, taken up with the long hours of various odd jobs which included the role of mailman.

"After three months at the post office, it just got too hard," Dillard said. "I was living by myself, not seeing anybody, working crazy hours … I decided I needed to get out."

In the summer of 2003, Dillard made his way back home to Fort Collins, were he worked for a year and a half before returning to CSU. With a degree in one hand and his Gibson in the other, Dillard said that he has turned his attention to the art of sharing.

"I try to use the small Gibson I have as a vessel to love people, to help people get into the music," Dillard said. "When I'm playing an instrument to just share an experience, I just hope someone could grab onto a little bit of wisdom from a trial I've gone through."

Dillard said he is also focused on his church and the Campus Navigators, sharing his beliefs with others. Cleveland, he says, pushed him closer to God, and he's considering a future as a missionary.

"I've gotten a lot closer to Christ," Dillard said. "I've had a greater passion to know him personally, to share him with others, and I'm continuing to see that grow within me."

And while Dillard says his beliefs have influenced his music, he refers to various life experiences as his music's foundation.

Sharing is caring
His folksy acoustic sound is influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon, while his lyrics are born out of experiences of both light and dark natures. The entirety of "The Kate EP," for example, centers on a previous relationship of Dillard's.

But there's a certain responsibility in writing about oneself, he adds.

"I think a struggle for a lot of musicians is, for a lack of a better term, self-clarification," Dillard says. "It's easy for music and art to be about the artist, when it might have much more value from sharing that experience with someone that might gain from it."

Dillard is currently writing music for a future album, and hopes to start production by the end of winter. As for the future, Dillard has some sense of where he'll be heading with his music. All it took was a year in the heart of rock n' roll.

"The winds have changed since the beginning, my focus has shifted," Dillard said. "Music is no longer a priority of making a label, no longer the end-all-be-all. I've found other things in my life that mean a lot to me, and I always want those things to be a part of my life."

Music of Dillard's album "The Kate EP" can be heard at Dillard's MySpace page and is available for purchase off of iTunes.