upland breakdown

Sat. 25, Beartree Tavern, Centennial, Wyoming
Souled American, Michael Hurley, Stop & Listen Boys, Ralph White, Birgit Burke

Sun. 26, Swing Station, LaPorte, Colorado
Souled American, Michael Hurley, Stop & Listen Boys, Spot, The Places

curated by Joe Carducci and David Lightbourne

from the Rocky Mountain News:

“I formed my first band in the mid- to late-seventies, ’78 for the sake of argument,” [David Lightbourne] says. “And in 1978, the only venues available to you were NHL arenas. There were no bands that didn’t have a stack of 27 Marshalls on top of each other for every instrument.

“They were putting drummers in cages. And I said, ‘No. Give me an acoustic guitar, one microphone, a washboard and a mandolin, and I’ll show you what rock ’n’ roll is supposed to sound like.’ And it’s just my reaction against the arena-rock era. I tried to take it all the way down to Elvis and Sun Records in ’53 with just a Martin acoustic bluegrass guitar. He didn’t have a synthesizer. They couldn’t punch in and punch out bad notes. That’s rock ’n’ roll. Not Sting saving the hummingbirds.”