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More About

• Michelle Caponigro
• Grand Junction
• Fort Collins

While perhaps not breaking a whole lot of new musical ground, these local jam bozos are dedicated to playing as much psychedelic-inspired fare as humanly possible, which is laudable for a bunch of aging working stiffs trying to make good -- or at the very least trying to forget about their day jobs. Roaming the scrabbly roads of Colorado and finding eager weekend audiences from Grand Junction to Tiny Town, Purple Buddha strives to keep the flame of jam music burning in them thar hills. Among other gigs, the band (with the help of a power generator or two) provided late-night listening this summer at the Chief Hosa campground near Golden for bivouacs of unwashed Earth freaks and road gypsies when the dreaded dinosaurs of jam, the Dead, moved into Red Rocks for a week. More recently, members of the Buddha also suitably donned clown wigs and took part in the closing of Quixote's True Blue at 7 South Broadway. Among the group's selling points: a female vocalist, Michelle Caponigro, who can more than carry a tune, and a bass player, Michael "Stork" Caprara, who at any given live musical moment might siphon the sonic ramen away from such treacly hippie favorites as "Sugaree" or "Bird Song" and pour it into a roiling version of (gulp) Sabbath's ode to armed conflict, "War Pigs." The act stands on its own sandal-clad feet with original material, including the effects-tinged "Bitches Dust" jam, which can be found on its recently released eponymous disc. Wigs, pigs and organs (sorry, you'll have to bring your own banjos) might be found when Purple Buddha plays the Starlight in Fort Collins on Wednesday, November 26.