The Haunted Windchimes on "A Prairie Home Companion"
The debut of the SLV Roots Festival takes place this June 15 & 16 in Cole Park. Featuring the Haunted Windchimes, Don Conoscenti, Sol Fire, Pedro and the Pistons, Mariachi Encantadoras, Crestone Kaminari Taiko, and more!
Sol Fire
Here’s a complete schedule of performers at the fest. Of course, all times are approximate and may change due to circumstances.
Friday, June 15:
7pm: Sol Fire
Saturday, June 16:
12pm: Crestone Kaminari Taiko Drummers
1:15pm: Marc Albion
3:15pm: Los Cancioneros del Valle, Rose Vialpando & Salomon Lopez
5:15pm: Rhonda Mouser
6pm: Don Conoscenti Band
7:15pm Antonio A. Lopez
8pm: Haunted Windchimes
Bring low-backed chairs and blankets to rest on while you enjoy the tunes.
Parking will be available in the Alamosa City Hall and Alamosa Senior center lots as well as neighborhood streets. We ask that you respect residents and regulations when parking. Thank you!
As far as vendors go: on Friday night we will have Tasties’ Hot Dogs and Mary Sue Morgan’s Morsels
On Saturday we will have: the San Luis Valley Brew Pub, Jezebel’s Cupcakes, Mary Sue’s Morsels, a fabulous coffee and smoothie cart and Tasties Hot Dogs.
For art we will have: Tracy Kane Doyle-Jewelry, Evelyn Sprouse Rowe -Jewelry, Luette Frost-Jewelry, Nancy Onizuka-Leather work, : Leann Cisneros-soaps and candles, Richard Martinez, Jewelry and Peace of Fleece, artists Terri Hance and Amber Vitale will share their beautiful fiber art!
Tickets for children 12 years old and younger will be available at the gate for $5.
Don Conoscenti
As of 10:45am, Saturday, June 16, on-line ticket sales are over. Please purchase your admission at the gate, at the southeast corner of the baseball field at Cole Park.
Music ranging from Latin rock to vintage-sounding Americana and folk to Mariachi to Taiko to classic rock and more will fill the air around Cole Park in Alamosa, Col., June 15 and June 16 as the Alamosa Live Music Association (ALMA) presents the inaugural San Luis Valley Roots Festival.
“It is time we bring together our incredible diversity in a celebration,” ALMA board president Julie Mordecai said. “We are lucky to live where the Southwest meets the Rocky Mountains, where western music is woven into the lives of the cowboys, and an incredible diversity of Spanish language music is sung,” she added. The festival is also scheduled to coordinate with the Rollin’ Deep Car Show, on Fathers’ Day, Sun., June 17, to give visitors a full weekend of events, according to Mordecai.
Sol Fire, led by brothers Amado and Buddy Abeyta, will kick off the festival at 7pm on Fri., June 15. They are known for a unique sound that merges rock with pop, r&b and Latin influences. Since their founding in 2002, Sol Fire has become a household name in Santa Fe and New Mexico. They have shared the stage with a wide variety of folks, including Ozomatli, the English Beat, Yerba Buena, the Iguanas, Groupo Fantasma, Quetzal, Los Lobos, Everclear, Blues Traveler, War, comedians George Lopez and Paul Rodriquez, President Clinton and then-candidate Barack Obama.
The Japanese style drums of Crestone’s Kaminari Taiko will thunder and whisper to kick off Saturday’s festivities at noon. Mariachi Encantadoras is a highly regarded group of young female musicians from northern New Mexico that plays everything from traditional sones to classical works and popurrís, and they are on the schedule at 2pm.
Pedro and the Pistons are not only a classic rock cover band, but they have begun performing their own music, a mix of country, rock, reggae, funk, and some Latin fills, and they take the stage at 4pm. The Don Conoscenti Band brings their soulful fusion of rock, jazz, blues, folk, funk, and country from Taos at 6 pm.
The Haunted Windchimes‘ sound draws from traditional folk and American roots music, and they will close out the festival starting at 8pm. Desirae Garcia, Chela Lujan and Inaiah Lujan of the Windchimes have SLV connections, and their honeyed harmonies and spirited pickin’ lie between bluegrass, blues, and country, and bring those styles together to create something new, yet vintage-sounding. Multi-instrumentalist Mike Clark and standup bassist Sean Fanning round out the group.
Special “tweeners,” who will be playing while bands set up and tear down throughout the day, include Marc Albion, Antonio A. Lopez, los Cancioneros del Valle, and Rhonda Mouser. Tickets for Fri. night only are $8 for ALMA members, $10 general public. For Sat. only, tickets are $18 for ALMA members, $20 general public, and for Fri. and Sat., tickets are $24 for ALMA Members, $28 for non members.
The Haunted Windchimes’ sound draws from traditional folk and American roots music. The Windchimes headline the inaugural San Luis Valley Roots Festival, this Sat., June 16, at 7pm in the baseball field at Alamosa’s Cole Park..Their songs have a vintage quality, as if they might have been written yesterday or 75 years ago. Grounded in honeyed harmonies and spirited pickin’, they lie in a nowhere land between distinct styles: They’re not quite bluegrass or blues or country. Still, there are elements of all those in this music that paints pictures of empty train stations and nights of passing a jug of moonshine around.
Live performance video – the Haunted Windchimes do Leadbelly
It’s the vocal harmonies that really set them apart, a three-headed juggernaut of Desirae Garcia, (ukulele), Chela Lujan (banjo) and Inaiah Lujan (guitar). “When their voices blend, it is nothing short of beautiful,” writes Bill Reed of the Colorado Springs Gazette. The sound is often moody and melancholy, but it is always deeply affecting. That sound is embroidered by the instrumental mastery of Mike Clark (harmonica, guitar and mandolin) and the standup bass foundation of Sean Fanning.
Earlier in their career, the Windchimes presented what Denver Post journalist Eryc Eyl called “a beautiful chamber pop sound.” However, with 2010’s “Honey Moonshine,” the band “perfected an old-timey hoedown sound, executed with passion and precision.”
The Lujans have family in the San Luis Valley, and they and the band have often visited the area.
Waitin’ on a Train by the Haunted Windchimes
The Roots Festival features the Latin rock of Sol Fire on Fri. evening, June 15, and various acts starting at noon Sat., June 16.
Once a die-hard rocker, Don Conoscenti is one of the most respected musicians and critically acclaimed songwriters in acoustic music. Conoscenti will perform with his band at 6pm Sat., June 16, as part of the San Luis Valley Roots Festival on the baseball field at Alamosa, Colo.’s Cole Park. Although Conoscenti’s primary love is the landscape of story telling and songwriting, his band’s live performances are a soulful fusion of styles blended from their experiences playing rock, jazz, blues, folk, funk and country.
The band’s performances are never canned. There are no set lists. Expect to go on an improvisational musical journey of unexpected segues, humorous reflections, stories and songs; and hear songs about lovers, outcasts, healing, loss, mystery, spirit, murder and redemption.
Roots Festival tickets are available on-line and at the Narrow Gauge Newsstand in Alamosa.
At 17, Conoscenti set out across America, hitchhiking and traveling by truck, motorcycle, bus and the occasional freight train. He trekked to every one of the forty-eight contiguous states plus Hawaii, Jamaica, South America and Japan. While living in Vermont, scooping ice cream at a homemade shop in Burlington run by two guys named Ben and Jerry, he formed the first of dozens of bands comprised of virtuoso players from the rock and jazz worlds. After bouncing from north to south and coast to coast for several years he settled in Atlanta, rising up through the thriving acoustic music scene based out of Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Ga., a scene which produced hit makers like John Mayer, Sugarland , the Indigo Girls and Shawn Mullins. It was at Eddie’s Attic that he also befriended a young Ellis Paul and they’ve been close friends, collaborators and partners in crime ever since. After leaving Atlanta, Conoscenti spent several years each in Texas, Oklahoma and the San Luis Valley.
Conoscenti commands an array of instruments: acoustic and electric 6 & 12 string guitar, steel guitar, bass, keyboard, drums, percussion, flute, recorder, mandolin, banjo and didgeridoo. The artists that he has collaborated with are renowned in a spectrum of musical genres including folk, rock, jazz, and Native American. Conoscenti has met the direct descendents of native tribal leaders Crazy Horse and Geronimo and has been added to the Library of Congress archives as a Folk Revivalist.
With a unique sound that merges rock with pop, r&b and Latin influences, Sol Fire will open the inaugural San Luis Valley Roots Festival Fri., June 15 at 7pm, at the baseball field in Alamosa’s Cole Park. Sol Fire is a rock group formed in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The band is led by guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Amado Abeyta and his brother, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Buddy Abeyta. Their musical influences include the Beatles, Oasis, Stevie Wonder, Mána, Prince, the English Beat and Terence Trent D’arby.
Beginning their musical careers at an early age, the brothers formed Sol Fire in 2002. Two years later they entered the studio and released their debut album. Since then, Sol Fire has become a house-hold name in Santa Fe and New Mexico. After releasing their second studio album, “Third Floor Serenade,” in the summer 2006, the buzz about the band brought them to new heights in the New Mexico music scene. That year they were chosen to be showcased in New Mexico Lottery Powerball commercials and ad campaigns. In 2007, their original song, “She’s Got,” was chosen for the national compilation album “The After After Party” sponsored by McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Sol Fire also co-wrote and produced a new song for a United Way of Central New Mexico spot, and their song, “I Don’t Like,” was used in a City of Santa Fe water conservation commercial.
Sol Fire has also been honored with many great opportunities, including opening for Ozomatli, the English Beat (who are some of the brother’s personal heroes), Yerba Buena, the Iguanas, Groupo Fantasma, Quetzal and Los Lobos. Ten days before the 2008 election, Sol Fire sang the National Anthem and performed an acoustic set before George Lopez and then Presidential Candidate Barack Obama spoke at a rally in Albuquerque, NM with 45,000 in attendance. They have also opened for President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail. In the summer of 2007, Sol Fire shared the main stage of the Santa Fe Muzik Festival with Everclear, Blues Traveler, Blue October and War. Also that summer, they played the after party for the Fray at the Albuquerque Journal Pavilion.
Being able to share their music with so many different people has been Sol Fire’s greatest honor. Through the success that they have gained in New Mexico, the Abeyta brothers have proven their dedication to their music, and with this drive their music will continue to grow.
Roots Festival tickets for Fri. night only are $8 for ALMA members, $10 general public. For Sat. only, tickets are $18 for Alamosa Live Music Association (ALMA) members, $20 general public, and for Fri. and Sat., tickets are $24 for ALMA Members, $28 for non members. The concerts are scheduled to coordinate with the Rollin’ Deep Car Show, on Fathers’ Day, Sun., June 17, to give visitors a full weekend of events.
[...] tickets and more information at the Alamosa Live Music Association website. Statewide Art News Making elephants, and humans, feel at home at the Denver Zoo [...]