Cowbell Q's - Dave Wisbon: Future Mayor of Fort Collins

In the first edition of Cowbell Qs, Dave Wisbon traces the winding path from Muppets and road-trip tapes to jazz band, Celtic tunes, blues rock, and bar gigs that shaped a Fort Collins kid into a working musician.

I sat down with Dave Wisbon to talk about where it all started. I have called him the "Future Mayor of Fort Collins" for well over a decade, during which time I have regularly said the phrase, "Hashtag LifeOfWisbon" in response to his stories. His very recognizable laugh can be heard for city blocks, and like the Pied Piper's flute, that laugh tends to draw-in the tens of thousands who know the man behind it. I love this fun-loving mother-lover; my life would be way less interesting without him and writing this has been awesome. Thanks for sharing, Wisbo!

Opening Years

Jeremy: Let's start at the beginning. What was music like in your house when you were growing up?

Wisbo: I grew up in a family that always appreciated music. My dad was in a couple rock bands in high school, and met some bluegrass friends at art school, so he always had a good stereo system and music was a constant. Records, and then stacks and stacks of CDs when they came out.

I remember playing The Muppet Show Album and John Denver and the Muppets, A Christmas Together so often, we had to buy them again when they got worn out. "Mahna Mahna" and "Mr. Bassman" were my favorite from the soundtrack, and I still can hear Rowlf the Dog singing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" in my head.

My dad was definitely a rocker, and so the early albums I remember being played in our house the most were Dark Side of the Moon, Live at Fillmore East, and Led Zeppelin IV.

Jeremy: What do you remember of your "road trip soundtrack" growing up?

Wisbo: Our closest relatives lived in Omaha, Nebraska, an eight-hour car ride from Fort Collins, and we would go back every Christmas, and at least once every summer, so the Jeep's tape deck got a lot of use.

I remember one song sticks out more than the rest that reminds me of those early trips back and forth on I-80, "Amie" by Pure Prairie League.

And then once we got to Omaha, my dad's side of the family never missed an opportunity to gather together around my great-uncle Jack and his guitar and have sing-alongs together.

Whether it was after opening presents at Christmas, or while dinner was getting ready on a random summer trip, or gathered in a park for a family reunion, Jack, his sister Linda, and my grandma Patti, collectively the Jack Evans Trio, would lead songs and take requests from all the cousins and everyone would sing along.

The song "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was a favorite of my cousin Cindy and would always be requested. Then Jack would sing the old folk song "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea" and everyone would try and keep up as it got faster and faster, but no one could sing it as fast as Jack.

And the sing-alongs would always end with the song "Omaha," which I'm pretty sure now was an original of the Jack Evans Trio, because I can't find it anywhere, but I remember the chorus line: "Omaha, Omaha, I left a lot of fond memories, way back in Omaha."

The Spark

Jeremy: When did it stop being just the music around you and start becoming something you were drawn to yourself?

Wisbo: I always had music on the brain. As a five-year-old there's pictures of me behind a drum set at the bar and restaurant my grandma and her husband owned back in Omaha, MR Ducks. The Jack Evans Trio would play there all the time, and the regulars were like family.

Piano though, that was the thing. My favorite Muppets were Rowlf the Dog, and Dr. Teeth. I loved the musical guests on The Muppet Show that played music with the band, or sang along with just Rowlf on piano.

And I remember being more interested in picking out the piano riffs and fills in the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Stevie Ray Vaughan than the smoking guitar riffs. The Allman Brothers' "Jessica" was incredible, but playing that kind of rock would take me a few years.

Jeremy: Before we move on, any last thoughts about the music that filled your house growing up? And when did you start finding music that wasn't coming from your parents?

Wisbo: Our house was filled with Steve Winwood, Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Chick Corea, Eagles, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Blues Brothers, Buddy Guy, B.B. King. I definitely got a good education on rock and blues.

But it was through my first friends in junior high that I started reaching out and getting new music from outside of my parents' purview. My closest friend in elementary and middle school was raised in a house that loved folk and bluegrass and he listened to a lot of radio and radio shows.

He introduced me to Ray Stevens and Weird Al. I remember he and I playing Ray Stevens' "The Mississippi Squirrel Revival" on the tape deck over and over, and when we got tired we'd put in Weird Al, and go through all the tapes he had. "Livin' in the Fridge" was definitely a favorite back then.

Jeremy: What was the first record that really felt like yours?

Wisbo: Later in high school I started listening to a lot of KBCO, and had some friends who had a more mainstream music taste, and Dave Matthews Band's Under the Table and Dreaming had just come out. Besides Weird Al CDs, that was the first CD I had bought for my own. It was probably like $12.99 at The Finest over in Campus West. "Ants Marching" was so good. That snare start, the fiddle and sax through the song, the scatting vocals of Dave, it was awesome.

Got me hooked on that band, and from '95 to 2000 I never missed a show when they came to Colorado, even driving down to Albuquerque when they didn't make it to Denver.

Dave was my gateway to my music.

Finding Your Way

Jeremy: Who were the teachers or people that really pushed you musically at that point?

Wisbo: I got lucky enough to have a jazz program in both junior high and high school with a couple of teachers that pushed and inspired me and helped me feel like what a band could be.

Wylie Smith at CLP Junior High and Cory Peterson at Poudre High School definitely helped to push me to do more with the piano, as I was really just starting out after the classical training that I had quit, because I just wasn't interested in it.

When I got to Poudre, I did the big band jazz band, the jazz combo, and the dixie band, and Cory helped push us with harder music and taught us how to improv on solos, and even got us a few gigs a year.

I remember a show in '98 that the Dixieland band had for the Horsetooth Half Marathon. We played at the top of Bingham Hill, and had to be there at 6 a.m., and it was probably 32.1 degrees out. But we had fun, and got paid.

Jeremy: What were your first real bands outside of school?

Wisbo: In high school I met a few musician friends that would stick with me forever, and we formed The Innocent Bystanders, a Celtic group and my first actual band outside of school.

We played traditional Irish, Celtic, and Newfoundland tunes. Piano, guitar, bass, fiddle, flute, and bagpipes.

That's the band that got me hooked on playing live music and being up on stage.

We were lucky. Being one of the only Celtic bands in town, we got to open for a lot of touring acts. As a 19 or 20 year old, I got to open up sold out shows at the Aggie and Mishawaka for Seven Nations and Young Dubliners.

I ran into Kirk McLeod from Seven Nations a few years ago, they played before the Wendy Woo Band at the Autumn Gold Fest in Estes Park, and he still remembered me and our band from all those years ago. "The Factory Song" and "All You People" are still favorite songs from those guys.

I remember for one of the Young Dubliners shows at Mishawaka we played "The Foggy Dew", a traditional Irish tune, and one of the few songs that we played that actually had vocals. Later we were in the front row dancing to their set and they sang the same song, but their more punk rock version.

We felt a little embarrassed and brought it up to the guys after the show, but Keith, the lead singer, told us he loved our version and really liked our set and how it was cool to give the crowd two different versions of the song.

That stuck with me.

CSU, Second Wind, and Learning Your Voice

Jeremy: What about post-high-school when everyone started going different directions, what did music look like for you?

Wisbo: I started CSU in mechanical engineering in the fall of 2000, and with the class load, I didn't have time to do any music classes, and the guys in the Irish band were heading to different schools, so we only got together during the summers.

But my dad had started jamming with some guys in a blues rock band called Second Wind and they needed a keyboard player, so I started jamming with them.

We played around town for a good six years, playing the Lagoon Concert Series, Old Town Square for Thursday nights, Water Valley Golf Course, Easy Street Half Marathons, bike nights at Budweiser Event Center, and a bunch of random fun parties.

I got to play a lot of great rock tunes, and started to develop my voice, both vocally and on the piano. "Soulshine" was the first song that I sang lead on in band, and I liked Warren Haynes' gruff growl, which I still use for some punch today.

The Waido Years Begin

Jeremy: When did you first start playing with Michael Waido?

Wisbo: In 2003, Waido was a friend who was doing the singer-songwriter solo-act thing. He had booked a gig at the Greeley Summer Concert Series and needed a bigger band than just a solo act, so he called me up, and our drummer friend Pete Carlson.

We got together in our buddy's basement and worked up some songs, a few originals that Waido had and a bunch of "wuss rock" covers. Matchbox 20's "3AM" was one of the first songs we ever covered, and we're still playing it today.

Pete famously thought we wrote it, until he heard it years later on the radio.

2009, New Directions

Jeremy: You play with a bajillion bands. What were the next bands that came along after that?

Wisbo: In 2009, Second Wind had broken up, and I started playing with two new bands, The Poudre River Band, and The Key of Joy.

Tom Barbor from The Poudre River Band knew my dad, and wanted to start a kind of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris type country band, and needed a bass and a keyboard. My dad and I stepped in, and all of a sudden I'm learning Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, Hank Williams, and Johnny Cash.

I knew Dwight Yoakam as an actor, but now I get to learn that screaming organ part to "Fast As You".

That same year I went to see my buddy play at the Alley Cat for the very first FoCoMX. I stayed to watch the next set, by a band called like Jelly Jam, or something, but they had a great groove and a bad-ass female lead singer.

I talked with them after the set, and jammed with them a few weeks later, and then was in the band.

The band settled into a three piece, keys, guitar, drums, and focused on a fun jazz-pop sound pretty unique in Fort Collins. Lauren Joy wrote some great originals and picked some really cool B-side covers to learn.

I got to play a three keyboard stack. It was my first band where I was playing piano, organ, and synthesizer, and singing, and it really stretched me as a musician.

"We Are More" by Erin McKeown, and "Find My Way" by Gabe Dixon Band were two of my favorite covers we did.

Both of those bands only lasted a few years, but we played a lot and helped me make some connections that were vital in my musicianship going forward.

Wendy Woo and Switchman Sleepin'

Jeremy: How did the Wendy Woo Band come into the picture?

Wisbo: In 2011, after The Key of Joy broke up, I was looking to fill a lot of space. Both Key and Poudre River Band practiced and gigged a lot, so I had a lot of time to fill.

I went to FoCoMX 3 and saw Wendy Woo and Robin Hoch playing an acoustic set at Equinox Brewing. I stayed for the set and after went to say hi to Wendy. She had opened for The Key of Joy for one of our Aggie shows.

I told her that Key of Joy had broken up and I was looking for a new band to join. She turned around, grabbed a stack of CDs and handed them to me, and said, "Learn these, I'll call you."

Later that spring, I was at a friend's thesis defense, and she introduced me to another guy that was there. "Hey, you both play music." Two weeks later I was sitting in on keys at a backyard barbecue with a bunch of guys playing Grateful Dead, and all of a sudden, Switchman Sleepin' was formed.

If I thought that The Key of Joy expanded me musically, that was nothing when it came to the Wendy Woo Band and Switchman Sleepin'.

With Wendy, she had an established sound that she wanted to keep, but also wanted to keep it fresh with new players. I had to do justice to her sound that people expected to hear, and bring my own style to keep it interesting.

I got to play a lot of harmonica, and honed in on my soloing on that instrument, and got to have my keyboard solos backed up by a freaking tight rhythm section who I got to know really well and we had some great times playing off each other. I think we all leveled each other up as musicians, which felt great up on stage.

Switchman Sleepin' was a total different kind of playing. I was fresh to the Grateful Dead. I didn't have a lot to go on, so everything was new. I got to come up with my own style, and the jams were so free form it let me experiment in a lot of different ways.

You really had to listen to the entire band to see where the song was going and not overplay or muddy up the song.

I have a few favorite Wendy Woo songs. "Walk Along the Water" let me play a couple great harmonica and piano parts. "Down and Dirty" let me totally rock out on the piano, and Stevie Wonder's "I Wish" was always a fun high energy cover to wrap up the show.

In Switchman Sleepin' I was able to take a lot more lead vocals and really work on my singing, and that was a lot of fun. I love singing "Sugaree", and the combination of the slow backbeat, and the buildup of the solo section lets you do a lot of things with that song.

"Uncle John's Band" and "Sugar Magnolia" remain favorites from the Grateful Dead for me. Growing up, my folks only had one Grateful Dead CD, and it was Skeletons from the Closet. Both those tunes were on it, but definitely studio versions, not live ones. It took me 20 years after first hearing that CD to hear what they could do with those songs live.

The Samples and Almost Red Rocks

Jeremy: Do you have any of those too-good-to-be-true chapters in there?

Wisbo: In 2014 I almost played Red Rocks. Nine months earlier, Wendy Woo had given my name to the manager of The Samples. Their keyboardist was going on sabbatical and Wendy told him to contact me to fill in.

There was no audition. He asked if I could do it, sent me the set list and the keys of the songs, and I worked them all up on my own. I had never practiced with the band, or even met them. Definitely nervous showing up to the gig, but it was great setting up and doing sound check, they were all super cool guys. I showed up at the Boulder Bandshell to a packed lawn, and the first thirty seconds of playing, all the nerves vanished. The drummer, bassist, and acoustic rhythm guitarist were so tight, it was easy to fill in and just felt natural. I knew I could jam with these guys.

I got to play about 10 shows with them and it was so fun. I remembered years ago when Dave Matthews Band was opening up for The Samples. I had The Very Best of The Samples CD and remember hearing "Did You Ever Look So Nice" played all the time on KBCO.

In March of 2014 we played Crested Butte Ski Town Breakdown and opened up for Matisyahu. That was probably the biggest crowd I've ever played to, more than 1,000 people, all rocking out. We opened the show, then DJ Logic did a set before Matisyahu came out to close. I remember rocking out on a solo and seeing DJ Logic side stage, about 15 feet away from me, bobbing his head and grooving to our music. That was freaking cool.

After, we got to hang backstage for Matisyahu and chill with him and his band in the green room. He was super cool, really liked our set, and wasn't in a hurry to leave or anything. He ended his set with "One Day", and being backstage seeing the crowd felt super rockstar.

A few months later we were asked by the estate of Barry Fey, Red Rocks promoter, if we would do a benefit show for his family at Red Rocks. He had just passed away. But unfortunately that was the summer that all the fires were happening in Colorado, and the family didn't want to do a benefit for themselves when so many others were suffering.

Whenever I hear U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday", I always think of almost playing Red Rocks.

Life on Stage

Jeremy: When you think about all the years playing live, what comes to mind as top moments on stage?

Wisbo: It's hard to pin down specific songs, specific moments, just because I've played with so many bands over the last 25 years.

But I've definitely played the most shows with The Waido Experience, and we've been the most consistent band over the last 22 years. We've grown in musicianship, and added some members to the band. Pete took a couple year hiatus when he moved up to Michigan, we had a fiddle in the band for a few years, my dad played with us for several years, and now we're a permanent four piece with the addition of our bassist Nick back in 2022.

Halloween crowds always stand out. The place is packed, everyone's there to have a good time, dressed up in crazy costumes, and the dance floor is full all night. I remember a few times we started the first set at 9

, got back up fifteen minutes later, and didn't stop until 1 a.m.

Jeremy: What songs really define a Waido set?

Wisbo: Waido started off playing solo at Lucky Joe's around 2001. The first night he brought the full band, we got cussed out by Joe. "No one plays drums here." But after backing him up on "Brown Eyed Girl", we were golden.

Those early days were marked with many bar gigs, and we played the tunes you'd expect. "Sweet Caroline", "Livin' on a Prayer", "Jack and Diane", "Sweet Home Alabama", "Friends in Low Places", and of course "Wagon Wheel".

But then as the band grew in musicianship, we started playing a lot of our originals. We could do a full hour show of all originals, or at a bar, we'd do about half and half for a two hour set.

As the years went on, we honed our sound, bringing in some more of the red dirt country artists, and our cover list solidified. Staples at a Waido show would always be "16 Days" by Whiskeytown, "Captain Kirk" by Bob Schneider, "Chicken Fried" by Zac Brown Band, "Crazy Eddie's Last Hurrah" by Reckless Kelly, "Dead Flowers" by the Rolling Stones, "Feathered Indians" by Tyler Childers, "Lost in My Mind" by The Head and the Heart, and of course The Rap, which starts with "Just a Friend" by Biz Markie and goes into whatever rap songs Waido wants to do, and ends with "What I Got" by Sublime.

Jeremy: And what are the moments that always get the room?

Wisbo: Everyone loves the piano intro to "Just a Friend". When the band gets to the first chorus on "The Middle" and Waido sings "It just takes some time," everyone in the bar starts jumping.

Everyone always does the "ba ba baa" in "Sweet Caroline".

There's always someone from Alabama in the crowd when you cover "Sweet Home Alabama" and Waido yells out "Roll Tide Roll," and it's pandering at its best when you change "West Virginia" to "Colorado" in "Take Me Home, Country Roads".

But, really, the audience always loves "Captain Kirk" and "3AM". "Captain Kirk" is so simple and has such a great backbeat and groove, and simple hook. It's easy, and bouncy and great. And "3AM," we started doing it years ago as a combo between the acoustic version and the album version, starting off just piano and vocals, and then kicking it with the full band at tempo. I never get tired of that drop.

Uncle Jesse's Blues Skillet and the Songs That Stay Fun

Jeremy: What new projects have you been playing with lately?

Wisbo: I love playing a lot of the tunes we play with Uncle Jesse's Blues Skillet.

In 2022, Lindsey O'Brien gave my name to one of her friends who was looking for a keyboard player for his band, and after giving me the set list, I knew I had to check it out.

Jesse is a beast on guitar, and playing keys next to a guy who can shred Hendrix, Santana, Traffic, Neil Young, Widespread, makes the playing super fun.

I love playing Traffic's "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys" and just being able to go crazy on the solo sections. Who covers that song?

And the piano licks in "Southbound", that's the closest I've come to covering all those Allman Brothers tunes I listened to with my dad years ago.

Jeremy: Do you get tired of playing songs after doing this for so long?

Wisbo: I don't get tired of playing too many songs, because I have a "voice" in the bands I play in, so when I don't want to play something, we usually don't.

One that was kept in the rotation forever with the Wendy Woo Band was Smash Mouth's "All Star". The band did not like playing that song, but we did it, because Wendy liked it, and the kids in the crowd always thought it was fun.

Also, Waido wrote a song a while ago that's great. It's really good. But it's for kids. He wrote it for his daughters, and it sounds like it's for elementary school kids.

And it's fun playing it when there's kids there, but it feels super weird busting out this happy little simple ditty, which makes it so good for what it was written as, at a crowded Lucky Joe's show.

That's live music, though. Sometimes the weird turn is part of the fun.

The Shows You Don't Forget

Jeremy: Beyond the songs, what are the shows that you still carry with you?

Wisbo: A set I'll never forget is when Switchman Sleepin' finally headlined the Aggie. We'd played there before, and played some other big gigs, but we'd never headlined, and it felt like something the band had been working toward since the beginning. We'd gone through a lot of changes and spent a lot of time developing our sound, and it all came together for that show. We had it on the books for a few months and really worked hard in practice crafting a set list, adding some tough new tunes to the catalog. We had a great crowd that night, the sound was awesome, the lights were sweet, and we played really well. We worked especially hard on "Lost Sailor" / "Saint of Circumstance". For me, pulling off that piano-heavy tune felt great. I'll always remember that one.

Another magical night was opening for Dead Floyd at the Mishawaka with Switchman. The weather was great, the sky was clear, the lights were showing on the mountainside, and the crowd was jamming and spinning and singing and dancing and hula hooping. That's a hard scene to beat.

Jeremy: Any train wrecks in there?

Wisbo: Oh yeah. With so many shows and so many bands, there's going to be a few.

I remember a show years ago when I was playing in Second Wind with my dad. Our guitarist was out for a few months with Tommy John surgery and we got this guy Harley who seemed like all he wanted to do was shred. We played the Windsor Wake Fest down at Pelican Lakes, and this dude brought a wall of amps. On one of the city's show mobiles. And the sound guy kept telling Harley to turn his stage sound down, which seemed insulting to him. When we finally started playing, the dude turned his amps UP, and with all the vibration and jumping on stage, his top amps fell over on the second song, and he was so pissed he grabbed his guitar and left the stage. On the second song. So I got to take a lot more leads that show, but it's tough doing a classic rock cover band set without a lead electric guitar. I remember we covered "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and I just did all the solos on harmonica.

Jeremy: What about the small shows? The ones where hardly anyone's there?

Wisbo: I've absolutely done shows where there are like 10 people there, and 8 of them are family members or significant others of the band. But one tiny show sticks out more than any of them.

It was the Saturday before St. Patrick's Day in 2020. Our Irish band, who still gets together for random gigs over the years, got booked to play at The Forks in Livermore. The new owners were family friends of ours. The Wednesday before, Becki and I saw Billy Strings' project the Phab 4 at Washington's, which turned out to be the last show at a big venue for a long time. The Friday before, all the breweries shut down their taprooms. And that Saturday was the last time a lot of restaurants were open normally.

We drove up to Livermore, to the small barroom of The Forks, and played to a few locals and our family and friends. It was a perfect last musical send-off. My niece and nephew were dancing with our fiddle player's nieces and nephews to some fun Irish reels. Battlefield Band's "Frank's Reel" was a favorite. And everyone was having a good time. I think we all knew it was special.

At one point, our guitarist turned to me and said, "We might be the only band in Colorado that's playing right now."

By Monday, the governor had given the stay-at-home order, and that was that.

On the Road

Jeremy: We talked earlier about road trips to Omaha with your family. What's on the playlist when you're driving now?

Wisbo: I've been building a road trip playlist for years and it's pretty dialed in. Todd Snider's "Play a Train Song" is always first. Always. And then it's a mix of everything. Country, folk, soul, indie, whatever feels right with the windows down.

"Harlem River Blues" by Justin Townes Earle, "Spanish Pipedream" by John Prine, and "Feeling Good Again" by Robert Earl Keen for the country side. "Green Onions" by Booker T and the MGs and "Dust in a Baggie" by Billy Strings when you need energy. "Geronimo" by Sheppard is a fun singalong.

For the mellow stretches, "Another Traveling Song" by Bright Eyes, "Lighthouse" by The Waifs, "We Are the Tide" by Blind Pilot, and "Fifty Miles" by Thomas Csorba. Then "Sound of Sunshine" by Michael Franti & Spearhead, "Good Day" by Luce, and "L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N." by Noah and the Whale pick it back up. "Looking out My Back Door" by CCR is a classic.

And then "Midnight Lorry" by Dispatch, "So Hard to Find My Way" by Jackie Greene, "Breakdown" by Handsome Boy Modeling School, and "Orange Blossoms" by JJ Grey & Mofro round it out.

What's Playing Now

Jeremy: What have you been listening to lately?

Wisbo: A lot of Todd Snider right now. "Ballad of the Devil's Backbone Tavern" is so good. Hayes Carll has been on heavy rotation too, "Any Other Way" with Band of Heathens and "Blues Be Gone". And Josh Ritter's "Showboat".

Joy Oladokun's "If You Got a Problem", Billy Strings' "California Sober", and John Mayer's "Last Train Home" are all on repeat. "Stomp and Holler" by Hardworking Americans, "As We Ran" by The National Parks, and "Let Down" by Michigander have all been in the mix.

And then some stuff I found recently that I can't stop playing. "Mr Cadillac" by Marc Saturn, "Untie My Shoelaces" by Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, and "Harlem River Blues" by Justin Townes Earle, which is also on my road trip playlist because that song just works everywhere.

The Songs That Carry You

Jeremy: We've talked a lot about the music you play. What about the music that plays you? The songs you turn to when things get hard?

Wisbo: Everyone needs those songs. The ones that find you when you need them.

When I need to get it all out, it starts with Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart". Sometimes when you grieve you just have to let it go, and that song helps. It's in Californication, when one of David Duchovny's musician friends dies, and he's walking through his house remembering the good times. That scene wrecked me.

Simon & Garfunkel's "Only Living Boy in New York" is another one. I always get goosebumps during the "yelling into the void" scene of Garden State, and I think it's not just what's going on in the movie, but the pairing of that song is perfect. Since then it's always been a song I can listen to in grief and just let it all come out.

Todd Snider's "Play a Train Song" is on my road trip playlist too, but it hits different when you're grieving. The way the man in the song dies with a smile in his sleep, and the only thing he wanted in his life was to hear the songs he likes, and the only thing he wants in death is for them to leave his boots on. Still makes me cry, but in a really happy way.

And Joshua James' "Coal War" resonates with me when I face challenges and things are tough. It's used in Sons of Anarchy in a freaking awesome end scene where everything is going to shit, but it's showing all the family and friends together and how they're still facing the challenges together.

Then there are the songs that remind you to keep going. Blitzen Trapper's "Furr" is about the changes and chances you take in life, and how you can leave the past, but it will always stay a part of who you are. The Mountain Goats' "This Year". "I'm going to make it through this year if it kills me." Yep. And the Avett Brothers' "February Seven". I don't think it's a man who found love in another person. I think it's a man going through some shit, who connects with his true soul and finds enlightenment. He's ready to snap out of the monotony and face something more fulfilling. "Now I'm rested and I'm ready to begin."

And then the songs that just pick you up. The Eels' "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues". I mean, come on. "Goddamn right, it's a beautiful day." The Staple Singers' "I'll Take You There". If you can't cheer up to that bassline, there's something really wrong. Josh Ritter's "Getting Ready to Get Down", a great upbeat song about being yourself and forgetting those who try to mold you differently. And Todd Snider's "I Can't Complain". The dude has a way of boiling down problems to just little things that don't really matter, and helps you get over them with a smile. "How the hell you gonna throw a shutout when all you do is bitch."

Some songs just make you feel like everything's going to be OK. Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill". There's just something about that guitar line and shakers. Does it for me every time. "Grab your things, I've come to take you home." Alexi Murdoch's "Orange Sky" is another one I connect with a movie. It's at the end of Away We Go, and it's a song that makes you realize you're in exactly the place you should be.

Tom Petty's "Wildflowers". Even before I met my wife, who has lyrics from that song tattooed on her leg, I got goosebumps listening to that tune. Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" makes me smile every time, a nice slow, continuous smile. The Head and the Heart's "Let's Be Still" is just a great reminder to breathe and look around. Ed Sheeran's "What Do I Know?". "I can change this whole world with a piano." And the Decemberists' "Sons & Daughters". "Hear all the bombs fade away."

Still Playing

Jeremy: So what's next?

Wisbo: I'm probably playing tonight. Head on down to Old Town.

Ha! And honestly? He probably is.

The Future Mayor of Fort Collins doesn't really keep a calendar. Well, he does, and it's always full. The gigs definitely find him. He's been known to create a band for a party. Party on a boat? That's yacht rock with the Colorado Coast Guard. On any given night, you might find him with Waido at Lucky Joe's, with Blues Skillet at Horsetooth Tavern, or somewhere else entirely, playing with Switchman Sleepin', the Grace Kuch Band, or whoever else called him that week. He's a "Captain" for Last Waltz Again, a Cowbell event, and he'll be rocking out with The Laurel Canyon Review at Washington's this June. Once a year, he and I disappear up a mountain for JamSki: a houseful of musicians, a kitchen full of food, and somebody always at the piano.

If you live in Fort Collins long enough, you stop looking for Wisbo. The laugh finds you first.

So yeah. He's probably playing tonight. Head on down to Old Town.

#LifeOfWisbon