Festival season sprouts up
Meltdown, iAM Music Fest bookend jam-packed month of music

Greetings, dear readers! Ahh, breathe it in, baby. Festival season is here! We’ve got a lot of excellent indoor and outdoor events sprouting wings in Durango this April and early May. Here are some of my recommen-dations to help you shake off those winter blues and get your toes back in the grass. See you on the dancefloor!

• Devin Champlin, Toast Records and Bakes, Thur., April 11, 5 p.m. - Northwest-based songwriter Devin Champlin returns to Durango for an intimate in-store appearance at Durango’s beloved Toast Records and Bakes. Known for his work with dream-tonk troubadours The Sons of Rainier, Champlin jumps over genres and expectations while staying rooted in a humble, lo-fi approach to recording and performing.

• Mark Farina, Posh Josh, Spark Madden, Animas City Theatre, Fri., April 12, 8 p.m. - A proper second-wave legend of Chicago house music, Mark Farina returns to the Animas City Theatre. Big win. Maybe, like me, you prefer dancing to a DJ who doesn’t insist on being worshipped for their track selection, who is a true master of their craft, who maybe even actually mixes real records and tracks instead of playing pre-recorded sets. This is your night, dear reader! Farina has been DJing approximately since the time that we were all beating a toy drum around the Christmas tree. This is a huge booking for the Durango dance music community. Expect a sold-out crowd for Farina’s signature blend of Chicago house and trippy, experimental dance music. 

• The Durango Bluegrass Meltdown Fri-Sun., April 19-21 - For more than 28 years, the Durango Bluegrass Meltdown has acted as the clarion call for Southwest Colorado festival culture. Enlisting more than 500 bands and serving more than 15,000 festival go-ers, the Meltdown is an institution. If Snowdown is our town’s dark-night-of-the-soul carnival, the Meltdown is its luminescent counterpart. There’s hope in those high-lonesome bluegrass sounds. Head over to www.durangomeltdown.com to check out this year’s truly phenomenal lineup! And don’t sleep on the Old Time Barn Dance on Saturday night! I heard there’s a halfway decent old-time band with a tall bass player!

• Yikes Ski Presents Baked Boogie Campout, April 20-21, 11 a.m.- 2 a.m. - Any kind of underground music culture at its core is really just a group of friends who are trying to do cool things with others. One of Durango’s most persistent DJs, Squoze, is joining forces with the Yikes Ski family and having all of their DJ friends out to Tico Time for a day and night of dancing in the sand. Check out Red, Young Daniel, BabyDel and many more just south of the border on what is looking like a balmy, beachy Saturday.

• Grieves, Mouse Powell, Influsense, Animas City Theatre, Tues., April 23, 7 p.m. - Two of indie rap’s finest will most definitely sell out the Animas City Theatre for a special Tuesday night cypher. Notably, local MC Influsense will be opening the show with one of Durango’s most unsung DJ heroes, DJ Tones. It’s not often we get such talent in the hip-hop world willing to stop in for a visit, so be sure to get out and show some love for this booking. 

• iAM Music Festival, Animas City Theatre, Thurs. - Sat., May 2-4 - The ever-eclectic iAM Music Festival returns with a stacked lineup of local heavy-hitters like The Stillhouse Junkies, ORA, Desiderata, The Quarks, Carute Roma and many more. As always, expect a cross-pollinated lineup of Denver and Tucson-based indie, jazz and funk to add a little taste of what’s happening in the indie music scene. Spanning three days, this festival is plenty of  bang for your buck and a guaranteed party in the streets and venues of Durango.

• Dandelion Festival, Rotary Park, Sat., May 4, 1-9 p.m. - If you’re looking for a family-friendly event with an excuse to take your shoes off and dance around a May pole, look no further than the Dandelion Festival! The good folks at Turtle Lake Refuge are throwing their annual spring party in Rotary Park with all of the dandelion beer you could hope to sip upon. Six Dollar String Band and The Salamander Collective will be kicking things into high gear later in the night with other music and organic land stewardship offerings throughout the day. Bonus points for walking or riding your bike to this not-to-miss party in the park. ?