Audio By Carbonatix
Ed. Open Music Sessions is an ongoing collaboration between Open Media Foundation, Greater Than Collective and Westword to create videos based on regular live tapings of exceptional bands from Colorado and beyond.
In our debut Open Music Session, blues-rock band Dragondeer played a sinewy set in the Denver Open Media studios on 7th and Kalamath. We’ve got the highlight song from the set, “Let it Ride” edited into a single video that you can watch below.
See also: With Dragondeer, Eric Halborg Finds New Inspiration in Old Sounds
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As part of this series, we’ve asked the bands to explain some detail about the songs before they play them, to give the background on a single line or tell us who the song was written for or otherwise illuminate the music. There isn’t much of a secret behind “Let it Ride” – the title and matching chorus are, as Halborg puts it, “a mantra to doing what you want…getting yours.”
It’s a simple thing, but it’s at the core of Dragondeer’s ethos. Formed by Halborg as a less regimented outlet for his creativity than his main project, the Swayback, the band comprises some of the city’s best pure musicians in an environment that allows them to experiment, to follow their excellent intuitions.
You can experiment with this music yourself – in addition to the performance videos, we’ve extracted the recording of each instrument by itself. You can listen to the isolated tracks below or download them via our Soundcloud page to create re-mixes.
You can see Dragondeer September 11 and 12 at the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival, where it will play twice. The band is also playing at the Bluebird Theatre on August 29 with the Revivalists.
We’ll have video of our second Open Music Session featuring Kitty Crimes in the next week or so.
And if you’d like to attend the next taping, it will be held on Friday, September 5. The Session will double as a celebration of KGNU‘s tenth anniversary and will feature the band Eef and the Blues Express.
