Author – The Durango Herald

Stillhouse Junkies take home an IBMA award

It’s 2022 and Durango’s bluegrass star is shining a bit brighter. Not that it was dim in the first place, as this town and outlying region hold a firm spot on the bluegrass map. With a stel...

DATE: Jan 6, 2022 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Records of 2021 Part 2: Records 5 through 1

Every year seems to be better than the last for new music and 2021 was no exception. Last week, you got numbers 10 through six of what were my favorites of the year at the time of writing. T...

DATE: Dec 30, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Records of 2021, Part One: Records 10 to 6

Most full-time, professional musicians are always productive. The pandemic and time off the road for full-time touring musicians was great for music fans who are always on the lookout for so...

DATE: Dec 23, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Spend a Winter’s Night with DeVotchKa

The state of Colorado can hang its hat on being purveyors of “the Denver Sound.” An indie-rock subgenre that flies below the radar, it’s a scene obscure enough to remain overlooked and even ...

DATE: Dec 16, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Tone Dog: 'We decided we had something good going’

Bluegrass jams produce bluegrass bands. It’s well known that Durango has a healthy bluegrass music community, a community that supports bluegrass concerts and festivals, a fertile musical sp...

DATE: Dec 9, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Fort Knox Five bringing the funk

Leaving Washington, D.C., was a great thing for Steve Raskin’s musical output. Not that the musician hadn’t been busy since before leaving the D.C. for the Vancouver-British Columbia area. H...

DATE: Dec 2, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Playing with Skunks stays independent

Local rock band Playing with Skunks are a DIY – do it yourself – band in every sense of the term. They’ve never booked studio and engineer time at Scooter’s Place or with Doug Eagle, instea...

DATE: Nov 25, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Magic Beans thrives on supportive musical community

They’re a band that exists in a fertile musical community built out of a fertile musical community. It’s no secret that the Front Range of Colorado has a solid jam-band scene, based around ...

DATE: Nov 18, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

ShadowTrapp keeps it all original

Local band ShadowTrapp doesn’t do covers. Or for those not in the know on the lingo, they don’t play other people’s tunes. No “Highway Star.” No “Free Bird.” No “Proud Mary” and certainly no...

DATE: Nov 11, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

GA-20 plays the blues at ACT

When guitar player Matthew Stubbs found himself with a year off from touring, he wasn’t going to pine away the time doing nothing. It was 2018, and Stubbs’ then full-time job was playing gu...

DATE: Nov 4, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

The indie-folk of Delicate Flower

The Hive has resurrected a bit of Durango’s past. Longtime supporters of Durango’s skateboard community may remember the Shred Shed, the skate shop that existed around the 1100 block of Main...

DATE: Oct 28, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown

Taarka to play iAM MUSIC Fest

Conversations with members of the band Taarka can bounce from topic to topic, just as their style of music will bounce from genre to genre. Music was obviously at the forefront of a recent ...

DATE: Oct 21, 2021 | CATEGORY: Downtown Lowdown