FoCoMX 2025: Standout Performances, Discoveries and Memorable Musical Moments

"The streets are alive with the sounds of local music ..."  I was so excited to attend and write about this event for the second year in a row. Life is good in FoCo -- literally dancing in the streets

Every April, the streets of Old Town Fort Collins are filled with the sounds of live music. FoCoMX took center stage once again April 18-19, amidst cold, snowy weather that earned the event the nickname SnoCoMX. Its official nickname is "America's biggest little music festival," and this year's edition featured 400 acts representing every imaginable genre performing at thirty-plus venues across town.

My wife and I joined the annual celebration for the second year in a row, starting on the crowded, slightly snowy patio of Equinox Brewing, where singer-songwriter Michael Kirkpatrick kicked off the festivities with a solo set. The musician whose voice was once described as "an anthropomorphic brontosaurus that has popped out of a children's book to teach kids about the danger of playing with matches" set a warm, welcoming tone with folksy narratives about life, love, community and spirit.

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Thoreauvian Punk Philosophy

Henry Thoreau is widely cited as an inspiration and patron saint by many diverse groups and varied ways of thinking. Far from simply an environmentalist or an abolitionist or an activist, Thoreau is a significant American philosopher. And the scope of my ongoing work "The Punk on Walden Pond" is specifically about viewing Thoreau and punk as belief systems. They offer distinct but common thoughts on "how to live."

The connection runs through themes of American history, specifically in writing and literature. For, Thoreau's essays, Whitman's poems, and Huck's narrative all can be considered precursors to punk philosophy. As punk scholar and curator of the St. Louis Punk Archive has noted, "It's a matter of intent," as opposed to rigid guidelines about the sound of the music or the style of clothing or the demeanor of the audience.

One need only look to the earliest underpinnings of punk culture in the late 1970s on the Lower East Side and a music venue/bar called CBGB's. With the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Patti Smith, and Blondie all playing at the same time, in the same venue, among the same scene, you have to see punk rock, especially American punk, as diverse and absolutely inclusive, and not just about a three-chord downstroke.

Kick off the Summer Music Season at FoCoMX in Fort Collins, Colorado

I was so excited to write this preview for FoCoMX, the "biggest little music festival in the country."

As the weather warms in Colorado, we can't help but think of music festivals. One of the largest and earliest festivals to kick off the season happens in downtown Fort Collins each April with FoCoMX, or the Fort Collins Music Experiment, which was created by the Fort Collins Musicians Association in 2008. Taking place across Old Town from Friday, April 18, to Saturday, April 19, this event features more than 400 bands at thirty-plus venues, and we have the lowdown on everything you need to "FoCoMX in style."

The festival kicks off at 3 p.m. on Friday, April 18, on the patio of Equinox Brewing with a solo set from the rich baritone voice of renowned Colorado singer-songwriter Michael Kirkpatrick, FoCoMA's 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree. After a brief proclamation from the mayor's office acknowledging April as Music Appreciation Month, Kirkpatrick will croon his soulfully whimsical folk narratives, and the festivities are off and running.

The key to a successful downtown music festival is a collaborative relationship with the community and businesses that support a nearly all-volunteer effort to spotlight Colorado music. "FoCoMX has become the quintessential Fort Collins weekend," says Karla Baise of Odell Brewing, a longtime festival sponsor. "The vibe runs high from the center of the floor at Washington's, our largest venue, to the sidewalks as people stop to hug each other, crossing paths on their way to see bands and friends play across town."

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How Fort Collins Music Association Built a Thriving Scene

In my latest piece for Westword Magazine, I explore a unique music organization which cultivates the thriving indie music scene in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Fort Collins is a hotbed for live music with a diverse collection of venues that host national touring acts and local bands. And the key to FoCo's thriving music scene is a unique grassroots music nonprofit that feeds and cultivates the area's love of music: the Fort Collins Musicians Association, or FoCoMA.
The organization officially launched in 2007. It was simply a means of “the right people at the right time,” according to co-founding member and board president Greta Cornett, who is considered the driving force, glue and spirit of FoCoMA. Cornett, a CSU graduate, has been heavily embedded in Fort Collins local music scene since the mid-90s, playing trumpet in the band 12 Cents for Marvin and volunteering as a host of KRFC's Live at Lunch show.

In the early 2000s, numerous Fort Collins music venues had closed for a variety of reasons, and local musicians were struggling for places to play. Many bands were displaced, with national acts often bumping them from the few spots at bars and theaters.

So Cornett, Peggy Lyle, Dennis Bigalow and numerous other local musicians began meeting to discuss how to support each other and the music community. Lyle, who is now FoCoMA’s executive director, was working as the event director for the Fort Collins Downtown Business Association. Bigalow, another co-founder and current board secretary, was the music director at Fort Collins indie radio station KRFC, which is where he met Cornett.

The musicians would have Sunday afternoon hangs at Route 34, a local bar and bike shop founded by two CSU grads. What began as simple conversations sharing knowledge about the industry eventually became more formal education panels, professional development programs that the association continues to this day. At Cornett’s suggestion, the spot added live music to its offerings, becoming a new venue for musicians to gather. Those Sunday afternoons discussing goals for FoCoMA "opened our eyes to so many different scenes,” Cornett reflects. “We have great music up here, but no one knew about it."

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The Wild: from Thoreau to Punk

In a 1972 essay titled “In Wildness is Thoreau,” delivered at an annual literary conference, scholar Lewis Leary opines to have “us think briefly about the Thoreau who was a wild man, who let his hair grow long, … who dressed as he wished, and did exactly as he wished.” That wild spirit of resolute and uncompromising individuality is foundational to both Thoreau's thinking and the philosophy and motivation for punk rock and punk culture. 

Musician and rock journalist John Robb describes punk rock and punk philosophy as “the wild spirit, that outsider cry.” A key component for understanding that spirit is to separate it from the term "wilderness," which people often mistakenly believe Thoreau was referencing. It wasn't the wilderness, which is outside of us; it was the wild, which is within.

In the critical analysis America’s Bachelor Uncle: Thoreau and the American Polity, scholar Bob Pepperman Taylor asserts “... the heart of Thoreau’s revolt was his continual assertion that the only true America is that country where you are able to pursue life without encumbrance” (3) And “Thoreau exhibits a young person’s rebelliousness,” an insight with which Emerson would wholeheartedly agree. And similarly, nowhere and at no time is rebellion more about a youth than it is in punk rock culture. For Thoreau was attacking the complacency of the emerging American middle class, just as second wave punk Bands Bad Religion and Black Flag did in the 1980s Reagan America.

Albert Camus famously asserted "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." And like Thoreau in his experiment living in society but simultaneously outside of it, Dicki Hebdige said of punk in his book on subcultures, “No subculture has sought with more grim determination than the punks to detach itself from the taken-for-granted landscape of normalized forms …”

Jack Kerouac's Birthday

I came to Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation via Jim Morrison of the Doors.

It was during my middle school years that The Doors Greatest Hits was released, and I picked up the book No One Here Gets Out Alive, Danny Sugarman's rich biography of the Lizard King. That book became my reading list source, as the story of Jim's youth recounted his reading of Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and other philosophers, as well as a vast list of other books. One passage in particular I can still recall mentioned how young Jim closed the book that had a profound impact on him, the story of Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarity.

I'd never heard of the book or its author Jack Kerouac, and I knew nothing of the Beat Generation. But I knew that if that book was a life changing experience for Jim Morrison, I was going to read it, too. Honestly, I'm not sure I really understood what I was reading after buy the classic paperback copy at Barnes & Noble, but I knew it was unlike anything I'd ever read, and I would be intrigued for many years to come by the works and life of Jack Kerouac.

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…”

   

Thoreau, Punk, & Music as Culture

The merging of a musical style and a philosophical movement is not unprecedented, and the connection between the concepts is actually a fairly obvious and significant part of cultural scholarship. In the book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock-n-Roll, esteemed writer, critic, and music historian Greil Marcus explores American culture through its music, a distinction which is integral to understanding the uniquely American voice and the genre of music that grew from that foundation. In explaining his goal of writing the book, Marcus notes, “It is an attempt to broaden the context in which the music is heard; to deal with rock-n-roll not as youth culture or counterculture but simply as American culture.” 

The symmetry between those ideas and cultural markers is integral to understanding the connection between an early nineteenth century philosopher and a late twentieth century music scene. Art is never created in a vacuum, and few critics or scholars would deny that environmental factors play a role in the development of music, paintings, books, and other cultural artifacts. Art is of the zeitgeist, and in this case, as Kevin Dunn asserts in the book Global Punk: Resistance & Rebellion in Everyday Life, “Punk sprang from a … social context [of] … alienation from social, economic, and political forces around them.” 

Clearly, similarities in both social influences and artistic reaction can be seen in the writings of Henry David Thoreau and the songs, styles, and scenes of punk.

The Philosophy of Thoreauvian Punk

While the life of Henry David Thoreau is extensively documented with generally broad agreement of his identity and legacy, the task of narrowing down a commonly accepted definition of punk is far more complicated. Punk by its very nature is resistant to codification, and because so much of punk history is scene and time specific, it can be difficult to agree on common elements. It is seemingly more difficultu to imagine and articulate a unifying "philosophy of punk."

Of course, that does not mean there has not been an extensive amount of research and writing that attempts to clarify and articulate the punk ethos. In fact, punk is one of the most well-researched and written about subcultures in American history. Almost from its earliest incarnations, writers and critics documented the scenes with commentary that went far beyond reviews of bands, songs, and shows. Thus, it’s not surprising that when Greg Graffin sat down to articulate a common vision and set of beliefs, punk would be discussed as not simply a musical style but “a way of seeing and experiencing the world.” 

Two noteworthy studies of punk which share Graffin’s view of punk as more than just a style of music are Craig O’Hara’s The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise!! initially published in 1999 at roughly the same time as Graffin’s manifesto, and the academic collaboration Screaming for Change: Articulating a Unifying Philosophy of Punk by Lars Kristiansen et al, published ten years later. Whatever the origin of punk, and the claims and theories are vast, the music scene and the movement that followed are a significant merging of numerous factors which all played a role in creating something unique, impactful, timely, and ultimately timeless. 

Putting punk then in a historical context is generally “launched down one of three distinctly separate trajectories: 1. Punk is a subculture; 2. Punk is a musical genre; 3. Punk is an authentic cultural expression.” These three angles are all significant components of punk, and establishing a connection back one hundred and thirty years requires synthesis of all. Though deceptively simple and obvious on the surface or to the uninitiated, punk has a long story to tell, one whose roots trace back to the fringe of Concord, Massachusetts in the early 1800s.

Patti Smith: Transcendentalist Punk

Patti Smith is a transitional moment and figure in the development of punk, and a closer look at her career reveals her as also a manifestation of the Thoreauvian influence on the punk genre and movement. As a multifaceted artist, Patti Smith, like Thoreau before her, is appreciated by multiple communities, making her a perfect synthesis of transcendentalism and punk. 

Music scholar/writer Simon Warner describes her as “a woman who carries Beat credentials,” and Smith has been connected to a wide swath of musicians ranging from Bob Dylan to Iggy Pop. Her style, presence, and status in the punk community from its very beginning in the Bowery on Manhattan's Lower East Side also serve as a testament to the idea that punk does not simply refer to the stripped down, amped up musical style associated with the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and the entire hardcore scene. 

Called the punk rock poet laureate and even the Godmother of Punk, Smith is an arguably atypical punk in terms of her music, and she has been known to say she never considered herself punk at all. Simply by nature of proximity to the music scene that emerged in the Lower East Side around CBGBs, she became associated with punk. Performing at the same time and in the same place as bands like the Ramones and Television, the punk label was inevitably applied, and Smith was certainly part of the community of bands and artists supporting each other. But more importantly, Smith’s presence and association simply broadened the definition of punk, assuring it was more about originality and authenticity than it was about speed and volume. 

Truly, one of the earliest and most significant qualities of punk emerged from the one sacrosanct rule for performing at CBGBs – no covers. The only requirement owner Hilly Krystal had in the early days was that bands play their own music. Just like Thoreau, they heard a call to march to their own drum beat, and that spirit of originality has been the punk rock ethos, and that ethos is Thoreauvian Punk. As far as originals go, Patti Smith is in rarified air, and her place in the punk ecosystem is a testament to the idea that punk rock is more about intent than a specific chord progression, drum beat, or sound.

Beat Punks -- the Beats are the Bridge

The transcendental tone of the Beat Generation represents a lineage backward and forward in the American arts, and the influence of the Beats is vast. In fact, the connections and shared influences between the Beats and rock music represents a pivotal time in American cultural history with the merging of genres, and Simon Warner’s work Text, Drugs, & Rock-n-Roll suggests the Beat Generation could be the bridge between the philosophical movement of transcendentalism and Thoreau in the early nineteenth century and the emergence of punk in the late twentieth.

The Beat Generation is another movement and sub-culture that has been researched and written about extensively, and in some ways its connections to the hippies and classic rock music of the 1960s would seem to defy a connection to punk. It’s well acknowledged and documented that the early punk musicians were quite literally reacting against what they believed had become a stale and unoriginal music industry that was more interested in status and money than in music. However, the Beats' connection to Thoreau and transcendentalism as well as their relationship with and influence on the rock music scene cannot be denied. With that in mind, the connection of the Beats as a transition for Thoreauvian ideas to work their way into contemporary music and, yes, later the punk music scene, is worthy of investigation and discussion. 

The Beats were most definitely a counterculture movement, perhaps one of the firsts to significantly impact a broader American history and definitely music culture. Warner does not miss the connection, and he explores the Beat influence on punk rock and punk culture in numerous ways. An important contribution is the discussion of Beat writer William S. Burroughs who was referenced as the Godfather of Punk before the term was later applied to Iggy Pop. Early punk musicians such as Patti Smith and Richard Hell certainly exhibit and acknowledge a connection to the Beats and to Burroughs. Of course, Allen Ginsberg is a more prominent connection to the punks, actually appearing on stage with Joe Strummer and The Clash in 1981. Ginsberg would later connect with bands such as Sonic Youth, and countless punk and post-punk or punk-adjacent musicians have mentioned an appreciation for Kerouac’s On The Road. 

Allen Ginsburg’s Howl is an iconic piece of American art that could be considered a perfect example of transcendental punk. The very title of Jonah Raskin’s book American Scream: Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’ and the Making of the Beat Generation sounds like a punk story. And descriptions of that first reading by Ginsberg at Six Gallery in San Francisco in the fall of 1955 portray the emotionally charged and almost cathartic moment in the same way many people would describe a punk show. Considering the later emergence of the punk poet Patti Smith, and the post-punk careers of the Dead Kennedys Jello Biafra and Black Flag’s Henry Rollins on the spoken word circuit, the connection between transcendentalism, the Beats, and punk is almost poetic. 

Finally, the connection between the Beats and punk is a topic which has been explored before, notably by classic rock biographer Victor Bockris in his work Beat Punks: New York’s Underground Culture from the Beat Generation to the Punk Explosion. Through extensive interviews with artists such as William Burroughs and Patti Smith, Bockris draws a clear connection in how the punks drew from and were inspired by the Beats at the same time the Beats were drawn to the punk phenomenon. With a clear connection to transcendentalism in the Beat Generation literature, it’s clear that Thoreau can be seen as a godfather to both movements. Thoreau’s connection to and influence on the Beats is fairly well acknowledged, but the relationship with punk remains to be adequately researched.

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience & Punk

Clearly, an anti-establishment and authority-defiant approach is fundamental to both Thoreau and the punk aesthetic, and it is perhaps the most obvious connection between the two. In a scholarly book length follow up to his punk manifesto, Greg Graffin expanded on the punk ideal with Anarchy Evolution: Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God. In that work, Graffin explains punk’s challenge to the tyranny of institutional authority warning that “If people unquestionably give in to the massive force exercised by the oppressive institution that is the government, they will enable the people in power.” This criticism clearly mirrors Thoreau’s assertion in Resistance to Civil Government about the relatively few bending the government to their will with the Mexican War. 

Prior to Graffin’s book Anarchy Evolution, Bad Religion’s song You are the Government had decreed “when people bend, the moral fabric dies,” and that concern is the essence of Thoreau’s abolitionist stance and the development of his most significant and enduring political work in the art of “Civil Disobedience.” Thoreau’s original thinking on government and the integrity of the individual who dissents began as his counterargument to William Paly’s “Duty of Submission to Civil Government” from The Principals of Moral and Political Philosophy. While scholars and historians widely acknowledge the lineage of Thoreau’s ideas running through the anti-colonialist revolution led by Mohandas Gandhi and the American civil rights protests led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the defiant beliefs can easily extend through the 1970s and 80s with the rise of punk. 

Granted, no one is aligning the historical struggles for abolition, independence, and civil rights with the kids raging in mosh pits during the early 80s. That doesn’t, however, discount the connection of the punk ethos linking back to the ideas of Thoreau. For, when Graffin “warns against blindly accepting the government directives and blindly conforming to their ideals,” he is clearly channeling the transcendentalist concepts of self-reliance and civil disobedience. Graffin, Bad Religion, and the punks of the Lower East Side would certainly “accept the motto that government is best that governs least” and might even agree that “when men are prepared for it, that is the type of government they shall have.”

Thoreau, Punk, & the Uncompromising Spirit

If there is one significant quality that is synonymous with both Thoreau and punk, it is an uncompromising sensibility. From an early age, Thoreau did not capitulate, did not give in, did not compromise when it came to values and beliefs. Such a firm conviction is what inspired him to quit his first teaching job rather than give in to the expectation, even the requirement, that he implement corporal punishment. He would not hit his students, and so he quit. The same can be for one of his most well-known revolutionary acts – the refusal to pay his taxes in protest of the Mexican-American War and to subsequently go to jail rather than capitulate, rather than compromise. 

Interestingly, just like Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, Johnny Ramone, and pretty much the entire hardcore punk scene, Thoreau was often described as “prickly” and grumpy and not particularly concerned with making others happy. In The Adventures of Henry David Thoreau: a Young Man’s Unlikely Path to Walden Pond, Michael Sims writes how Thoreau “never strove to be popular and seemed not only resigned to not fitting in, but to sometimes revel in it.” For example, in some ways he was even dressing punk in the 1830s – while black was the standard dress for church, Thoreau might show up wearing green. He wore what he wanted, ate what he wanted, did what he wanted, and lived how he wanted, and he did so at a time and in a place that was much more reserved and homogeneous than the society where punk arose a century and a half later. 

So much of contemporary society, especially in terms of music and popular culture has always been about giving in, softening or amplifying an original vision in submission to a more popular and broader one. In fact, the record industry and consumer have so strictly demanded compromise, from song length to haircuts on the album cover, that such rules are a primary reason punk remained outside of the mainstream. For, truly, to become part of the mainstream there has to be compromise. If an uncompromising sense is paramount to punk, then the founder of Civil Disobedience must be the most punk of all. An uncompromising spirit is a key to punk, as it is a key to Thoreau.