In the spring of 2024, my wife and I spent a weekend in Fort Collins, Colorado, where we came for a local musical festival, which I had written a preview about in Westword Magazine. And it was such a great time and cool town that roughly three months later we moved to FoCo, where we have enjoyed the last eighteen months in a hip, eclectic, and close-knit small town in northern Colorado at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.
Fort Collins, or The Fort, or FoCo is a cool, quirky, and quaint college town, home to Colorado State University and the the site of FoCoMX, America's "Biggest Little Music Festival," hosted each year in late April by the Fort Collins Musicians Association. The all-Colorado festival features more than 300 bands at more than 30 different venues over 48 hours, and it is a nearly all volunteer effort to "spotlight local music." It is something special to experience, and even be a part of, which my wife and I did during our first year here, volunteering to man the information booth and work at festival check-in.
Many people -- and music fans -- may not know this, but Colorado has an incredibly vibrant local music scene, one that runs from Fort Collins on the north, down through the incredibly rich and diverse Denver locale, on through the surprisingly hoppin' Colorado Springs environment, and all the way to a emerging scene on the southern border at Trinidad. Now, obviously with the revered venue Red Rocks Amphitheater just outside of Denver in Morrison, music is a big deal in Colorado, and the mountain towns all host a plethora of festivals like the legendary Telluride Bluegrass Festival. But Denver's local scene up and down the historic Colfax and Broadway Avenues offers a huge number of venues, from local spots like The Squire Lounge and The Skylark, partially owned by Colorado music royalty Nathaniel Rateliff.
But just forty-five minutes up I-25 from Denver, the town of Fort Collins is a music lovers dream, and it has stories worth telling, such as the emergence of FoCoMX, which grew organically out of local musicians committed to their scene. FoCo residents truly love their live music and residents go out to see and support musicians seven nights a week. There are so many places to see live music for a generally small town, and locals don't miss a chance to sit and chill with good sounds. And it's not just the local venues and music fest that provide the good vibes.
FoCo also offers a summer's worth of free music through programs such as "Thursday Night Live -- Bohemian Nights," a series of free shows in Old Town Center every Thursday through the summer. It's such a good time, with hundreds of people turning out to hang around the square, support local business, and listen to a diverse lineup of touring acts. The program is sponsored by Bohemian Foundation, the beloved local non-profit founded and fueled by the town's resident billionaire philanthropist Pat Stryker. The organization is committed to supporting music, arts, and education in northern Colorado, and it's so heartwarming to see a person with the means commit to making the world a better place through the power of music. And if that's not enough, one of BoHo in FoCo's coolest contributions to music and the arts is a division called The Music District, which exists to support artists through grants and residencies, offering the simple freedom of time and place to create.
And, if all that isn't enough to impress you with FoCo's music prowess, the town is also home to one of the most legendary music studios in the country. The Blasting Room founded by Bill Stevenson of the Descendents is located right in the heart of town, and it has produced some of the best punk rock albums of the past thirty years.
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