Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers Concert @ Gothic Denver ~ Awesome Setlist But Weak Sound 02Oct26

Arrive & Dine... Matt, Jim, & I headed to dinner at The Barn South Broadway on our way to the Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers concert at the Gothic Theater in that 'hood. It was fine for pre-game beers and some bar food. We rolled the Porsches on a clear night and parked close to everything for walking. The queue wasn't too big at 7:15pm but was full of fans. Roger Clyne again provided a great show of southwest tunes to an educated and appreciative crowd. We found our way to a good rail spot near center above the mosh pit (or was it good?).

Chris Day Band... Chris Day opened the show with a 45 min set of stuff I'd not heard; he was not dissimilar from Clyne but the sound sucked from the Gothic floor frankly. Boomy and devoid of mid-range, we couldn't understand his songs. We agreed we'd give Roger two songs and move up to the balconies if the situation continued... it did.

Gothic Sound Issues... The Gothic sound has never been my favorite in town and tonight again produced concern. Sure it was loud, my watch said it was a "loud environment" and I was in danger of hearing loss with 10 minutes of exposure. I used my keen  titanium ear plugs (supposedly just reduces dBs but are flat across the spectrum) for much of the Chris Day set. The issue is that the mids are just not sufficient in the mix and the bass and the low-end dominates and make it boomy and unintelligible. I might be resonances as well. Whatever, we moved the the 3rd balcony and stood behind and between the balcony rail folks. They knew something as I could withstand the errors more readily up there. I cuffed my ears to hear the vocals but it was passable and didn't require too much attenuation. Don't get me wrong, it's a gorgeous and pretty intimate place for music ~ but it needs work.

Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers... This band and its predecessors with Roger (The Refreshments) are and have been for 30 years a favorite of mine. Jim has now absorbed some of that enthusiasm and Matt is a flat out fan. Matt & I sang a ton of songs ~ he was 2 yrs old when "Fizzy Fuzzy Big & Bouncy" dropped, but he knew them all; good exposure from dad I suppose, but he did need to adopt it for his own. The show tonight was bookends with some splash. They played a number of cuts from the "original album" FFB&B along with cuts from the latest album "Hell For Breakfast." Roger Clyne is a fine vocalist and decent guitar player, but we come for the decades of southwestern-inspired irreverent song-writing and some searing guitar licks from his lead. The crowd was amazing tonight; at least ~50% of the folks knew most of Clyne's songs and sang and bounced and drove fists in the air with enthusiasm. This was good and our new spot in the balcony was serviceable for audio. So ultimately the setlist was great, and the band's playing was likely excellent, but the sound left us wanting for clarity. Fine night with fam and friends though.

Smalltown Gathering Concert @ Riverside Park Salida ~ Fab Friday Lineup Heard Between The Raindrops 26Sep26

Smalltown Gathering @ Riverside Amp... I headed out the Ark to Salida to catch a late season "music" festival.  I'd not been to the Riverpark Amp in Salida ~ It is a completely awesome venue right on the headwaters of the Arkansas River and right in town. So, the location is sweet, and more astounding is that the sound is very solid halfway up a modestly inclined patch of grass. Highly recommended. I was a skosh late (due to BC20X drop off at Salida RV Resort when the check-in office was closed) to grab my bracelet for the WE. Undeterred I contacted a golf cart attendee, parked the RodFthr, and jetted to Riverpark.

Lindsay Lou... Was first on the schedule for the fest' and delivered as always: strong and fun. She's a Berklee kid with great pipes, good writing peppered now with personal insights, and a kid, and a pile of close friends in Nashville and further. I've heard her live to my grin on several occasions and I got there to hear the last 20 min of her set, which was delivered with the awesome Mimi Naja as collaborator... she's a co-leader of Fruition and smokes on strings like the mandolin, and has pretty adjacent vocals to Lindsay, but was harmonically deferential here. The set was stellar and a great Fri kickoff... I didn't go to yoga. I will "always" seek out Lindsay sets, and Naja sets (she's back later this eve).

Slap Dragon... I've heard this killer Nashville alt-jazz group on YT and elsewhere, pretty recently. They call it jazz-grass or groove-grass but they're more of the former and less of the later. Still, completely amazing sound. The jazz-inspired lead contralto Laura Berens (nasty and powerful) and Scott Mulvahill, who brings the groove, met recently ~ results are whack. For the Salida show special lead guitar guest from CO Alex was stellar. This was their CO debut, following their 1st album drop, Mission Statement. Easy to compare Laura with some of my favorite female leads like Anna Moss, Rachel Price, and Sammy Rae... just an amazing vocal instrument on board here. 

Lowdown Brass Band... From Chicago this larger horn band was short at least 1/2 the team due to a traffic accident on 285. Maybe next time boys. Rap & horns were good but... I listened and departed for the keen local fare, rather than the food truck and "bar" at the festival. Tres Litros Clarity of Mind hazy IPA was tasty (later confirmed by local GL as "the choice") and Amicas was, as always, tasty. I said I wanted a beer an a margarita with green chilies and she said they made jalapeño margs; I had to clarify, I wanted pizza with chilies and a beer.

Magoo... - This is a stellar 4 pc acid-grass band from Colorado. Dobro played a “Beard” guitar - I’ve not seen black steel on dobros but Pippus assured me it’s nouveau-nouveau. I've heard Magoo before, notably at the Dillon Amp and howdy what a sound. They crushed us at Smalltown... so good that Joe wanted to share 'shrooms but nah... I gotta drive back to the Salida RV Pk (aka, the 4 Seasons), and maybe elsewhere. Joe was a neighbor center stage 7 rows up; he's a 10x sound engineer for the Grammys and so we knew some shit. Show was astounding with Dead covers and so much more tight to me. Plenty of weed was revealed and gummies seemed out like candy... I had to drive.

Fruition... Now they are something more to stand for here. This is an amazing dark writing ill-definable alt-country, alt-emo, hard-rock band with an amazing front trio throwing best harmonies on lyrics that rip at the heart. They acknowledged this was their "last fest show in CO," despite being a staple for many here, the show was important, and very good. The vocals were clearer here on the upper Ark than even in Dillon, I cupped my ears to delineate the 3 but yeah, so very good on every song. This is a band with remarkable edges 3 ways defined by the songwriters... all are amazing. The show was a stunner.. glad I was here.

Da Boyz & Da Rig... Moontricks are another psychedelic bluegrass band. They too were delayed due to the traffic on 285; it was late and I didn't wait around ~ so I could go see Greg. Here's the BC20X rig I took out to Salida and I stayed at the Salida RV Park (the Four Seasons!); I did not ride but the hitch and rack worked well. After the show I gathered with Greg and Rick at the Poncha Palace and had a beer around the fire ring ~ it got pretty cold for the first time this fall.

Lawrence With Colorado Symphony Concert @ Boetscher Hall ~ Great Band And Awesome 7th Row 18Sep26

Traffic & Nickel Dining... Jim and I headed to downtown DEN in hellish traffic all the way (2:20 door to door). We parked close to the music hall at DPAC and dined before the show at The Nickel. It was a short menu but the food was good ~ we did debate what "compressed" watermelon is after enjoying it.

Lawrence With CO Symphony... I'm a fan of Lawrence and have seen them live before but this was a whole new vibe and format. It was awesome having great center up front reserved seats @ Boetscher, as we didn't have to queue early or wait at the gate. There were no opening acts just the entire Lawrence band with Clyde (vocals & keys) & Gracie (vocals) up front, and 2 saxes, a trumpet, drums, lead guitar, and bass guitar behind, plus the entire Colorado Symphony on stage! They opened playing the entire debut album, Breakfast, in track order, backed by the orchestra... it was excellent. Though, I did have to cup my ears to amplify the vocals some - Boetscher's main speakers suspended high above shot right over my head; we were too close. They took an brief intermission after Breakfast, and returned with some more recent stuff. 

Closing & Setlist... They closed with Clyde asking parts of the audience to join singing the melody & harmony of "Don't Lose Sight" with the parts of the symphony ~ eldest siblings went first with melody with the strings; youngest went next with harmony and the horns; middle kids & only kids went with percussion on 2nd harmony. Cool. After the show I asked Gracie to give me her setlist, which was hard-taped to the stage, and she did. I didn't have a Sharpie for the autograph but still, that was cool.

New USB Keyboard & Mouse ~ For Linux Spinups 18Sep26

I was always dredging up very old keyboard or mouse gear from the basement, even PS2 interfaces, for use in bringing up new microPC Linux boxes for some use like streaming media or split tunneling, etc. Or for when wireless fails. For just $30 I was able to get a mechanical USB KB & mouse... Cherry MX Red keys are fine; optical mouse is good; white is nice, as is backlighting.

Summit Doin's With Mary & Jim ~ Vail Oktoberfest & More 11Sep26-12Sep26

Fri - Arrival... We headed out to Summit for a planned 3 couple weekend at the Nest. Unfortunately one team got waylayed, but Yohos made it Fri PM and we enjoyed MY's charcuterie and all our good wines. That evening we also played a tight game of Joker-Jumper where the ladies won (again).

Sat - F1 & Vail Oktoberfest... We all slept well in the cooler temps at 9800ft elevation. We arose early to catch the qualification at the Spanish Grand Prix of F1. It was exciting with Lando taking pole very late in Q3! We made breakfast, including "the best Colorado Quiche ever" according to Kala.

Afterward we headed out to Vail @ Lionshead for the Oktoberfest celebrations. We'd all decided to keep the Lederhosen stored and went over casual. It was a cool crowd with many dressed up and we found seats quickly near the main stage. The beer was not outstanding but we tried a Marzen.

After some dancers and oompah bands we went mobile and found the secondary stage where we enjoyed The Blue Ox band with country and keen covers. The ladies found special VIP seating.

We dined pretty early at Mountain Standard and asked for seating along the Blue River. That was nice and we found the food very good. We did not enter barrel rolling or cantilever stein holding. After a good day we came back to the Nest for some Listography and nightcaps.

September 2026 Music Appreciation ~ Best 3 Song Live Studio Sets Ever 09Sep26

Title says it all ~ here are some of my favorite 3 song sets ever. Three song sets are assembled most often from live appearances on radio studio shows. Let's go...

1. Anna Moss - OnBeat Sessions - U of Loyola  School of Music - Sep24... Anna & killer invited accompaniment provide 3 great blues covers. Easy #1.
2. Sammy Rae & The Friends - AudioTree Live - Apr25... Wicked vocalist came to Audiotree so late in her game; what a set (OK, maybe more than 3). Solid #2.
3. Molly Tuttle - Live @ Fraser/WGBH - Jun19... Yeah an older show from her 1st album out of Berklee. So good... wicked skill (flatpicking my dream) backed then by early songwriting knowhow. There are so many more 3 song wonder-sets from her it was tough to choose. Molly's musicality is unmatched but the first two women have "those voices." My fav gets #3.
4. The Wild Reeds - NPR Tiny Desk - 20Nov15... Super cool LA band sounding like female CSN band. Disbanded now but I track solo efforts from my fav writer in the band, Sharon Silva. This is a standout show. Still #4.
5. Cat Clyde - Western AF - Jul24... Unusual NAmerican. Big uke & keen writing. Here all alone as a one woman show is completely stellar. Down the list now we have spectacular songwriters and bandleader. I love her writing and awareness @ #5.
6. Maya de Vitry - WMOT Nashville  - May26... Multi-skill Maya has many instruments, many songs, many views, and the presence to knock 'em out every time. Skills score #6.
7.  Milk Carton Kids - Relix - May26... One of the best duos ever. They are boys, but completely awesome, so #7.
8.  Bella White @ Paste @ Green River Fest - Aug21... Oddest ever voice breaks; stellar writing; c'mon country kid from Canada and Appalachia. Thanks kid #8.
9. The Last Wild Buffalo @ Relix/NYC - Jun26... Fine mountain team ripping original tunes for all.  An unusual pick for a "best of" but emergence is worthy of mention. I really like these guys. Earning #9 this early is stellar.
10. Sierra Ferrel @ The Current 31Mar24... So good. I deflected listening for 2 years, thinking just freak outfits ~ I flipped and won't miss a show. Great show at #10 here but a rising star. 
11. Heavy Weighs The King @ Rick Beato's 13Sep26... Killer new studio exposed, strong interviewer, brilliant fav band on a tear for the 3 song set ~ opens sweet dissonant, 2nd pop superb, and so on. Let's go So Carolina!

I'm sure there are many more worthy of a list like this... these are just mine. 

"Final" New Blodgett Network ~ New Design, Added Mesh, Xfi "OK" As Bridge 02Sep26

Xfi OK Finally ~ Just A Bridge... I segregated COAX plants: terrestrial and Xfi separated directly at the house coax box, no diplexing ~ and then I removed routing from the XB8; it made all the difference. The Xfi "gateway" is just a modem (bridge mode) now. My first attempts to network via Comcast were frustrating as mentioned HERE. This frustration was such that I needed to minimize their admin footprint on my network. Net routing and admin duties are much better now. I also relocated the router near the modem and distributed Cat5e and WiFi from there. Not a great WiFi router location but serviceable.

Blodgett Router Up To The Task ~ WiFi 6e & 1Gbps... Once I got the router and modem assigned their duties and configured I went about the rest of the net. I reviewed the Cat5e run from the router to my main PC, a mac Studio in the study. I discovered an issue and replaced a patch cord. My mac's NIC now negotiates 1Gbps with the router. Wired was my main concern but performance is almost equal on wired and wireless in the study. I'm always checking my latency. While I'm loving the new bandwidth I still note a 50% latency increase from my "previous" ISP Century Link, which was 8msec to DEN. I have not "fired" them yet in COS, but I probably will now that Xfinity is stable and performant and the routing gear is much more manageable and adjustable. 

HD HomeRun Reception & WiFi 6 Extended... I have two HD HomeRun OTA receivers (2 tuners in each) getting terrestrial HD VHF/UHF from a bow tie array antenna in the attic pointed at Cheyenne Mtn. They convert OTA reception into packet streams over Ethernet. I use these with my Plex DVR capability to get live TV and do recordings of shows on the 6 primary stations (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, CW). The HD HomeRuns are wired Ethernet only and I had to place a WiFi-Ethernet bridge near them where I attached them to "their" coax. No problem, and it acts as a WiFi 6 mesh extender too, which provides better coverage to the back of the house.

Performance Throughout... I measured WIFi 6 reception & performance throughout the house, at mid-day. Pretty decent even at the extreme locations farthest from the router and mesh gear. Between my main server and my mac I get a pretty consistent 1.6-1.8msec ping/latency and 1Gbps throughput... I could get more if I updated some switches to 2.5G or 10G but I'm good  right now.

 

Next Steps... Next I'll work on secure remote access to resources on the Blodgett network. Likely via a Wireguard VPN.

Update 12Sep26 ~ New Arris S34 Modem... After discovering the Xfi XB8 was still using the radios and throwing WiFi SSIDs I did not need or want, despite my having disabled all of that, I bought the latest Arris DOCSIS 3.1 modem. I provisioned the new modem in just 15 min and it delivers fine performance. I even saw improvement in latency! But, I seemingly dropped in upload capacity by 66%! Maybe the channel config negotiated will be better with time ~ I need to look at the ATM/QAM log. I'll return the retired XB8 to Xfinity, else they'd likely charge me something. Speaking of charging me, I looked at my latest Xfi bill and they'd tacked another $100 for the tech call to my house to repair their network and modem. I call and railed, as all the problems were with the Comcast COAX network and Xfi gear, and they reversed the charge. Sheesh.

Update 21Sep26 ~ Cancelled Century Link... I cancelled Century Link's bonded twisted pair service to Blodgett before the next billing period. Xfi stable and offers 10X the bandwidth for the same price, though as noted latency is a bit slower. What a process: on the website, calling service center, receiving call back, etc.

Update 30Sep26 ~ Xfi Dead For 7 Days With No Apparent Reason; It's Back Up Now... On Thu 24Sep26 my viz into Blodgett went down; my new Xfininity ISP service to Blodgett went down hard after affirmed connectivity and performance for about a week. The harmonic convergence of my setting up a split Wireguard gateway from Summit to El Paso, Xfi performing "scheduled maintenance" in my area, and "storms in the area" like Xfi not dealing well @ my house, were too much for me to call a 'cause. I wasn't there so I let it lie. I bought new Starlink services to cover the outage and returned to Blodgett. No terrestrial Internet access - I moved everything to Starlink to cover Xfi's fail... it worked fine but was as latent as Xfi here and access required we be nearer the Starlink WiFi hotspot @ the front of the house ~ and that I keep the 12v system well charged.

Hmmm. I offered my opinion of Xfi performance thus far to their execs. I don't know if that notion landed or not but mail systems said not... hard to believe fully "not." Ultimately, talking to neighbors and weird "bots" from Xfi I determined "it's just me ~ only my service is down" and there are not outages in my area, and since I am @ Blodgett I should fix it or settle on Elon. I made an Xfi service appointment again ~ despite them charging me last time for fixing their own plant (I disputed and was rebated; too much investment for such an obvious contest). Infrastructure management can't be this goofed up can it?

Eric came today... a savvy youngster from Comcast Business. I do not know the source of my failed broadband; he blamed it on his company's own COAX plant. He claimed he replaced a number of terminations and even a splitter at my pedestal and showed me improved ATM/QAM signal levels on a phone supposedly connected to an instrument he attached to his COAX plant. He was methodical on his plant's signal but wanted inside the house for a review of that network ~ which has worked forever. Dang. I brought him inside and showed him my internal COAX net. He claimed the main line from my dmark to my "distribution point" didn't yield ~ however, retesting at the box was still lame as well... he didn't have to re-terminate my internal COAX really, but did on the side he could so do easily. We went back to the Arris S24 and he assessed that it was not activated on my account ~ uhhh; that's hard to believe as it worked well after I activated that same modem 7 days ago. Eric comprehended my confusion and continued to document my internal network with shots of my docsis 3.1 cable modem and my router. I am suspicious the whole event precipitating a call from a savvy tech was not orchestrated to get someone inside my net to document it all. Some call me paranoid; I pose it as secure and private. Eric spent 60 minutes out front of Blodgett and abutting the park documenting findings, closing the ticket and gosh knows what other surveillance items he was assigned. We are back on line.