A New West Fest Test(ament)

Nine years ago, many of us had music tastes that gathered around teen-angst and auto tune, if we had music taste at all. Nine years ago also marks the time when The Bohemian Foundation became the title sponsor for the renowned arts festival in Fort Collins, New West Fest.

With eight stages dispersed through historic Old Town, The Bohemian Foundation added a dimension to the weekend-long festival that draws the best of bands and loads of listeners year after year. The headliners on Mountain Stage for the 2013 festival included The Samples, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, and Leon Russel. Drawing in the crowd as headliners seemed an easy task for the previously listed groups. It must be said, though, that there was an equal amount of head bobbing in the crowds during the daylight performances.

Like many festivals, people wandered Old Town with powder sugar mustaches from already eaten funnel cakes. Where New West Fest differed greatly as a music festival was in the varied niches of music lovers lured in by the bands. Two bands that stood in front of very different crowds on stage were Rachel and The Kings, and The Haunted Windchimes. The first was fit for their main stage presence with Rachel’s indie voice and the softer percussion. Some of their most applauded sets were covers, like their jazzier rendition of Florence + the Machine’s “No Light, No Light”. The Haunted Windchimes, on the other hand, had a following of fans who donned overalls and wicker hats. A tribute to the best of backyard bands, this group urges you to sing along to their complex rhythm and simple lyrics.

Whether you came as a wanderer, a member of the press, a music patron, or a lover of greasy foods, the atmosphere was vibrant—a vibrancy that puts Northern Colorado talent as well as the fun-loving Fort Collins, on the map. 

A peek inside of the Artist's tent

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Greater Getaways: Lake Powell

If you’ve wandered so far that your only neighbors are desert sand and the ever-present sun overhead, most cautionary tales would urge you to turn back the way you came. There’s an exception to this rule—perhaps several exceptions—but the journey I’m thinking of leads you to the desert oasis called Lake Powell.

Making the trip to Lake Powell is barren. Yet, if you push on past the heat that makes the distant road look like liquid, you’ll find a body of water kept together by the rough, red sandstone of southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona. John Wesley Powell first discovered the area 144 years ago, and the once meek Colorado River was soon after a mighty Lake Powell.

A bathtub fit for the Gods, this getaway is to be enjoyed with warm weather and a carefree approach. Though Lake Powell is widely known as the best body of water for your boating pleasure, there are some well-kept historic secrets to be uncovered as well. Just a few miles south of the Utah border in Page, Az., the Glen Canyon Dam stands out as the only wall not made of sandstone. The manmade, concrete wall is responsible for the summer sanctuary where people near and far go to enter a world where the sun tells the time and your most prized commodities are blocks of ice.

Further north, in Forgotten Canyon, you can beach your boat at the water’s end near Defiance House. A 20-minute hike through brush and beach, will lead you to these ruins, which date back nearly 700 years.

If someone asked me to describe Lake Powell I’d say that it trumps your tired vacation spot because it’s vast, quiet and unpopulated by waves of tourists. But if someone asked me why I go to Lake Powell I’d tell them it’s because my favorite songs sound better echoing through sandstone walls, because my thoughts have newfound clarity in these canyons, and because I’ve never taken a photograph that gives Lake Powell justice like my own memories do.

Leisure here once, and you’ll make that daring desert drive for many summers to come. 

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Jayme Dee's Broken Record Review

After making you fall in love with your favorite songs all over again for six years on YouTube, Jayme Dee has fled the Internet screen and released her first EP album. This snippet of original music, entitled Broken Record, provides this bubbly artist’s already growing fan base with proof that she can step out from behind her guitar and acoustic covers in order to write contagious lyrics of her own.

Broken Record was released on July 30 and the musical variety serves as the polka dot kiss from the hipster artist herself. For nearly a dollar per song, this sneak-peak to her expected album can add to your summer playlist for $6.84 on iTunes.

A summer album, indeed, Jayme Dee’s premiere EP features songs like, “Broken Record”, which sounds eerily like an orange, setting sun or a drippy, orange Creamsicle—it’s hard to tell which. And don’t try denying that the track “Tip Toes” doesn’t sound like the daughter of a soulful Zooey Deschanel and the ever-smooth Justin Timberlake.

Praised for her blues-like voice and vocal range that knows no bounds, Jayme Dee’s YouTube channel has over 19 billion views. Making viewers forget that blues has been out of the lime light for a number of decades was easy for her in covers such as, Britney Spears', “Toxic” and Foster the People’s, “Pumped Up Kicks”.

There is no avoiding that the six upbeat songs that comprise this EP album stray from the stripped down music Jayme Dee first dropped our jaws with. Despite having to face some harsh criticism from fans who prefer Jayme to be flirting with listeners equipped only with a song and guitar strings, she stands firm in her new, jazzy artistry. “It’s been a long journey,” Jayme Dee tweeted after the release, “…we had so much fun making these records in the studio.”

Be it from our computer or from our radio, this bubblegum blonde from southern California has a common look and a not-so-common sound. For music patrons, Jayme Dee is different. And not fitting the mold is more than enough reason for audiences to hit ‘play’ on any medium.

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Also, here is one of the most viewed videos on Jayme Dee's channels...
just because.