As we feel the weather changing around us, and we realize that Thanksgiving is in the air, we also must celebrate a few other traditions, like revisiting the Last Waltz, or listening to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” on Thanksgiving Day. In Colorado, we now have another tradition around this time of year, invented by the minds of J2G Productions. In the spirit of the Last Waltz, we have our own all-star jam called the Dance Party Time Machine. This machine, escorts the audience through a timeless tale of dance music through a sixty year period.

For the uninitiated, The Wild Feathers may be the purest, most energetic descendants of the musical legacy of The Band that are out on the club circuit today. Their eponymous debut album came out a little over a year ago, and they have been touring relentlessly since that time. Their live shows are, simply put, whiskey-soaked, rafter-rattling good times.

The world’s truly finest jam band resides in the Bay Area and generally plays exclusively there only. For years I have wanted to see a David Nelson Band show.

This has been an amazing few months of music for me, but once again, I cannot avoid writing about how music has literally spread its wings to reach out as far as possible with different mixtures of sounds and influences to combine into a genreless gumbo. Elephant Revival’s Facebook pages states, “Where words fail…music speaks,” and as a writer, I could not agree more. I often ask my muse, where do I get the words to describe some of the music that I have been seeing lately? Needless to say, it is difficult.

Last weekend Elephant Revival returned home for a sold-out two night run at the Boulder Theater in Boulder, Colorado. The set of shows was called “Birds of a Feather Autumnal Ball”. The band Horse Feathers from Portland, Oregon kicked things off on Friday and opened for Elephant Revival.

I am not very religious, but I do consider myself very spiritual, and if I were to attend a church, it would be something that included the music of these guys. I do not mean to sound overly dramatic, but I was nearly moved to tears several times by the power that I felt coming from this stage. There were four men, two Malian (Muslim) and two Israeli (Jewish), and the music that they make together is as piano player and singer Idan Raichel calls religious on certain songs especially. It was one of my favorite musical experiences that I have ever had.

They say time heals all wounds.  I believe that music also plays an important role in the process.

Umphrey’s McGee is simply on fire right now. This is a band that is on point every single show and will always bring the best rock show in town. I was able to catch the first show of their tour leading up to the 2,000 show, at the Canopy Club in Urbana, Illinios  November 5^th.

After all of the madness and Halloween tricks and treats that happened less than a week ago, not many people were ready for another costumed dance party. But, for those who were into the mid-week fun, there was a special treat waiting. At the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield, CO, there was a creature filled carnival which featured many talented electronic acts to ignite a fire in one’s soul.

Don’t call it a comeback, they’ve been here for years. Those are the words of rapper/actor, LL Cool J. So what on earth does that have to do with a band from Colorado, that is so unique that they've created their own genre of music they call Rock Nouveau. Who is Meniskus? And what is Rock Nouveau?  Where are they now and where have they been? These are just some of the questions that I will try to unearth about the enigmatic band who as of late have been back on the touring trail once again.