Local band The Poppletons have created their own world. “Poppletonia” is that place, a music-heavy land where guitar players Doc and Rock, bass player Rodney Bobby and drummer Chef, all with the last name of Poppleton, play in the house band that fills this place with a brand of rock music that lives somewhere between the genres of pop and jam, pop being upbeat and fun, not flavor of the week; jam being experimental and pseudo psychedelic.
If you go
WHAT: Rock and jam with The Poppletons.
WHEN: 7:15 p.m. Saturday.
WHERE: The iNDIGO ROOM at iAM Music, 1315 Main Ave. #207.
Tickets: $10.
MORE INFORMATION/TICKETS: Visit https://thepoppletons.net/home.
They’ve hosted weekly shows for the last year in “Poppletonia,” now taking that world out into downtown Durango, when The Poppletons play the iNDIGO ROOM at iAM Music on Saturday.
The creation of their own world as well as inviting friends to be part of that world is all part of a DIY effort to extend their listenership while honing their sound.
“This is our first show out downtown, but it’s far from our first show. Having myself been in bands that went out and did the grind and played empty bars, we decided we would throw house concerts until we built a fan base. So we’ve been doing house concerts in ‘Poppletonia,’ that’s the land we inhabit,” Rock Poppleton said. “Through the winter we were practicing every Sunday, and friends would stop by and listen to us play, and we said, ‘why don’t we just open up our Sunday practices to anyone that wants to come over?’ And soon this became a thing where we started streaming them and we’d fill ‘Poppletonia’ week after week with people that wanted to come see us. We really have gotten into this idea like, let’s do it our way and that’s why the iNDIGO ROOM is really appealing as well because they’ll give us the freedom to do this how we want to.”
Call them a pop band that will drift into the jam world when the time fits. The single under their belt heard via their website titled “The Road” is a dreamy pop song with drifting guitar, the kind of song that can easily move into jam territory if the mood fits.
“We do jam, but we’re not quite at like the Phish or Goose level of technicality I would say,” Rock said. “I think of it as more as like how Pink Floyd is sort of a jam band, even though they’re not the Grateful Dead but they would experiment and improvise. We’re an improvisational band live.”
Ask the members of The Poppletons who they love, and you’ll get a long list of musicians from the indie, rock and jam world. Phish, Goose and The Grateful Dead get the mention, but so do The Beatles and Ween, Fat Pat, Sturgill Simpson and Billy Strings. It’s those bands that can influence the sound of The Poppletons, a band who may or may not be a jam band.
“I think a lot of bands are trying to get away from being considered a jam band,” Rock said. “We’d like to be called a jam band, but we’re a pop band that dreams of being a jam band.”
For now, the band just wants to grow and build their show. There’s another single along the way, and The iNDIGO ROOM at iAM Music performance will feature added light visuals from the growing Poppleton crew. It’s all in an effort to extend the Poppleton world, which would include inviting as many Durango music lovers as possible to be a part of that world.
“Eventually, I think we’d like to release a full-length studio album,” Chef Poppleton said. “The priority now is just building ‘Poppletonia,’ just kind of trying to continue to get better at what we love and cultivate a little bit of a fan base in beautiful Durango.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
