Von Saxon
Undone Side A and Side B
Von Saxon has a sound not held down by the rules of music making.
Unpacking Von Saxon’s sound and everything that takes place on their latest double album, Undone Side A and Side B, is an exploration of the potential of a single artist and a home studio. Massive in its scope, Von Saxon goes on a journey challenging the conventions of modern music. Soulful, heart-breaking, fun, intense, hilarious, offensive; Saxon uses hip hop to explore the human condition across multiple genres and languages.
At a staggering 36 tracks between Side A and Side B, there is a lot to take in, but there are gems abound from this Ft. Collins based artist. Side A has Von Saxon unable to sit still, moving between ideas almost on a whim. Going from hip hop to punk to synth pop to folk to rock ballads like it’s a sample platter, giving the listener a taste of each but never settling in. Album opener “Monet” is almost a red herring, showcasing Saxon’s exceptional lyricism and depth of flow, only to immediately switch to pop rock with “Belong” followed by the in-your-face punk anthem “Junck”.
Side A moves in this manner throughout its entirety, always zigging when you expect a zag, and delivering some truly incredible songs in the process. Songs like “Might be the move (feat. KID ANON & Jokah)” feel ready-made for mainstream hip hop radio, only for an inspirational ‘80s ballad like “Cash Money” to come out of left field.
One of the biggest surprises from the album is “Pope For a Day,” a hilarious and triumphant story about a genie granting Von Saxon’s wish to be Pope for a
single day. With lyrics like, ‘Who’s big daddy is the pope tonight,’ and ‘Manicotti colored linen got me doing back flips,’ good times aren’t far away.
A quick flyover of both sides will show a hip hop album but there is so much more. Side A on the whole feels more lighthearted, jovial at times and soulful at others. Side B is explosive in its energy, hard-hitting and divisive.
Chaos reigns supreme on Side B. Much more hip hop forward than Side A, Von Saxon taps into something dark and experimental. “found footage” sets the stage and the rest of Side B doesn’t let up. “Was du gehen?” has Von Saxon rapping in German and “MILLBURRY(feat. Changeline)” is a powerhouse of a track.
The second half of Side B doesn’t let up. Shocking on an almost juggelo level, there are a string of songs that you probably get caught listening to in public. And they are amazing. “There are bugs in your skin” has Saxon making threats against heads of state and committing tax fraud.
For “Ave Maria,” Saxon audaciously turns Schubert’s classic prayer into a metal track which fades into the satirical “God save the troops”, a song one could safely say, is offensive. Yet somehow, against the odds of the modern outrage machine, Saxon not only pulls it off but delivers one of the best tracks of the project.
As expansive and sprawling as this double album is, it only scratches the surface of Saxon’s catalogue. Those discovering this prolific artist for the first time will find an incredible back log of albums and singles just as interesting and almost as wild as Undone Side A and B. Almost.
Jed Murphy BandWagon Magazine
TOPHOUSE AWASH IN THAT MOUNTAIN GLOW, TOPHOUSE BRINGS MONTANA TO NASHVILLE
BY JED MURPHY
The jovial, high-spirited, mountain river vibe of folk band Tophouse cannot be understated. The Montana-turned-Nashville based outfit has a sound basking in sunlight with a positive afterglow that is almost hedonistic in its accessibility. For the month of February, Tophouse released a song each week to preview a full-length album to be released in the summer. Songs like “Deathbed,” and “Morning Cup of Coffee,” has Tophouse serving up their brand of high-spirited folk hot, and bottling up that special something fans have come to love.
Originally from Montana but now residing in Nashville, Tophouse has unintentionally but not-so-subtly created a sound that, from the outside, embodies the big skies and mountainous landscapes of their home state. Speaking with guitarist/mandolinist Jesse Davis, channeling the natural soundings of their home was rarely top of mind, but ever present. “It feels like there’s got to be some level of that feeling where you grow up kind of surrounded by mountains, and then one day the light's hitting them just right, and you have your favorite beverage,” muses Davis. “It's a perfect day and you're like, ‘damn, I got to get my guitar,’ and that sort of becomes the muse.”
Tophouse formed in 2015 as a duo between Davis and violinist William Cook when the pair attended the University of Montana in Missou-
la. As the pair began exploring their folk sound, they were joined by frontman and banjo player Joseph Larson then pianist Andy LaFave. Larson’s airy, salt of the earth vocals and LaFave’s melody driven piano style were a natural fit alongside Davis and Cook. And the spark was lit.
Since forming, the band has toured extensively and released a consistent flow of recording projects. This has garnered a dedicated and loyal fan base due in no small part to their unabashedly positive energy and infectious song writing. In 2019, the band relocated to Nashville where despite the Covid pandemic, they found a way to thrive. “We moved here, we lived in one of those longer-term Airbnbs for, like, 6 months. Then the pandemic hit, so then we were kind of just indoors for a while. And then after that, we got a little residency at a brewery in town.”
After making their rounds gigging the usual shows bands fresh to Nashville play, in a mixture of luck and diligence, Tophouse’s magnetic live show attracted a management team. After this, Tophouse continued to hit the road, taking their fun-loving sound to a wider audience and found people were responding.
Part of what makes Tophouse so attractive to their fans is their authenticity, and nowhere is that more clear than their YouTube channel. While it does have the usual band content of music videos and live performances, they also
have clips from their podcast discussing things like “Taking Fictional Characters on a Date,” and “Defeating the Immortal Snail,” as well as discussing the big issues like, “Ranking 44 Halloween Candies,” and “We Drafted Star Wars Teams Using Only Side Characters”. While bordering on brain rot, it also gives such a unique and fun glimpse into the band, showing them as the regular, pop culture loving guys that they are.
As fun as the podcast is, what it also highlights is how in an age of solo projects and hired gun musicians, Tophouse is in it together. “We kind of divide and conquer. I’m in the middle of mixing,” states Davis. “Joe does a lot of the administrative marketing-type things, and then Andy does social media. William and Levy are kind of like our video people. William does a Minecraft livestream monthly for our fan club.”
So much of music today leans towards the belief that just because a single artist can handle it all, from the art itself to management and social media, they should. But by following the tried and true all-for-one and one-for-all method, Tophouse cuts through the pretense of making it in Nashville and stay themselves along the way. “I don't envy people who are moving here solo,” says Davis. “Props to them for just the courage and being able to try that. Just the amount of emails must be tough to get through.”
BY NATE WILDE
Since 1969, ZZ Top has been bringing their unique brand of blues-tinged southern rock around the world. Despite losing founding bassist Dusty Hill in 2021, Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and new bearded bassist Elwood Francis show no signs of slowing down.
ZZ Top has also certainly made their presence known in Colorado. From early shows at a now-defunct restaurant called Pinocchio's in Pueblo, to a notoriously rainy performance at Fiddler’s Green in 2013 resembling a memorable scene from The Perfect Storm, the power trio has graced the Centennial State with numerous memorable concerts over the years.
The band will once again be heading to Colorado for a show at the Union Colony Civic Center in Greeley on March 24. In preparation for the show, we were fortunate enough to pick the brain of bandleader Billy Gibbons about the past, present, and future of the unstoppable force that is ZZ Top.
BILLY
GIBBONS AND THE PRE-ZZ TOP YEARS
Prior to forming ZZ Top, lead guitarist and vocalist Billy Gibbons was in a band called the Moving Sidewalks, a group highly influenced by his would-be friend Roky Erickson’s 13th Floor Elevators. Regarding the band’s name, Gibbons puts it simply: Elevators go up, sidewalks go forward. He elaborated, stating that the 13th Floor Elevators “in a flash, showed the path to rhythmic weirdness.”
It was also in the Moving Sidewalks that Gibbons would befriend Jimi Hendrix, who once called the Texan his favorite guitarist. Gibbons said of the friendship, “Jimi Hendrix was a huge inspiration showing off what could be done with a guitar.” He noted that offstage, Hendrix was kind and shy, but “a wild man took over when the lights went on,” calling the
contrast “the inherent duality of rock ‘n’ roll.”
The Moving Sidewalks would eventually split up, but it wouldn’t be long before Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard, and bassist Dusty Hill would form the legendary power trio that we now revere as the unmistakable ZZ Top.
THAT LITTLE OL’ BAND FROM TEXAS BRINGS THE LONE STAR STATE ON TOUR
While ZZ Top’s first two albums would see the band experience moderate success, it would be their 1973 release Tres Hombres that would introduce the world to the little ol’ band from Texas with classics including, “La Grange,” and “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers”. The band would follow this record with 1975’s Fandango!, led by the single “Tush.” Then another record called Tejas, before embarking on the notorious Worldwide Texas Tour.
On ZZ Top’s Worldwide Texas Tour, the band didn’t just pack guitars, drums, and amps, but also a menagerie of wild, often dangerous animals, including buzzards, rattlesnakes, and buffalo, a spectacle Gibbons called “wild and wooly from day one,” adding that calling it “over the top” would be an understatement.
Following the quite literally wild Worldwide Texas Tour, ZZ Top took a break and Gibbons would find himself enthralled with a new type of music that would mark a significant shift in the band’s sound.
ZZ TOP BREAK NEW GROUND WITH ‘ELIMINATOR’
During a short hiatus, Billy Gibbons was introduced to the electronic sounds of new wave via a trip to Europe and a friendship with Chicago industrial pioneers Ministry. This exposure the guitarist compared to Muddy Waters plugging his guitar in for the first time and “discovering” electricity.
This newly discovered sound would highly influence the band’s smash 1983 album Eliminator, which contains the singles, “Gimme All Your Lovin’,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Legs,” and “TV Dinners”.
However, it wouldn’t be just the music that gave Eliminator such a massive level of success, but also a random night of drummer Frank Beard flipping through the channels and discovering a new, eclectic station known as MTV.
MTV would serve as the catalyst that introduced the world to the visuals of the long beards and sunglasses, the red 1933 Ford Coupe, the ZZ Top keychain, and, as Gibbons puts it, “those pretty girls for which we served as kind of sideline supporters.”
The success of Eliminator would help carry the band through nearly four more decades before, on July 28, 2021, the longtime trio of musicians would suffer a massive loss.
THE LOSS OF DUSTY HILL AND A NEW CHAPTER FOR ZZ TOP
On July 28, 2021, ZZ Top’s founding bassist and co-vocalist Dusty Hill would pass away, marking the end of an era for a band that consisted of the same three members, and only the same three members, for over 50 years.
However, it wouldn’t be long before the band’s guitar tech Elwood Francis would step into Hill’s shoes, a transition Gibbons calls “quite rightly nothing short of seamless.”
Today, ZZ Top shows no signs of slowing down with the latest release being the soundtrack from the aptly titled documentary ZZ Top Raw - That Little Ol’ Band From Texas and Gibbons’s solo project, Billy F. Gibbons and the BFG Band, plan to release a new record entitled Brown Paper Bag for Concord Records in the near future.
You can still hear the echo of boots on boardwalks, but now they’re headed downtown for happy hour.
Today in Cheyenne, murals pop, cocktails clink, and makers turn grit into something downright gorgeous.
STAY AWHILE. WE CLEAN UP NICE.
ON REBELLION
PRIVATESCHOOL A LOUD LESSON
BY LANDON UNGERMAN
Los Angeles has never had a shortage of loud bands, but every so often one catapults through the noise with a sound that feels genuinely urgent. Private School is that band.
The three-piece nu-metal crew is rooted in LA, but their story stretches far beyond city limits. Khaki, the band’s electric frontman, cut his teeth in Denver’s rap scene before heading west. Agodd (bass and production) brings the grit of South Florida metal, while Breno (drums) channels his San Diego hardcore roots. Private School is their collision point — rap cadences, metallic bass lines, and hardcore drums detonating beneath it all. It’s chaos, and it’s catching fire.
In just a year, Private School has gone from turning up LA house parties to embarking on their first multi-state run, shutting down cities across California before hitting Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. Their earlier shows in sweat-drenched living rooms, with ceilings shaking and bodies flying, became local legend, and the internet caught on. Clips of those nights went viral, and Private School turned those moments into a movement, emerging as one of the loudest drivers of rebellious youth culture in the scene.
That energy is captured perfectly on their December 2025 EP, “2 WORDS.” Five tracks
of pure, energetic mayhem. The project screams be yourself, forget the rules, embrace the chaos. It plays like a modern revival of California’s 90s and 2000s hardcore-skate takeover, like Beastie Boys reborn. And live? Private School is pure pandemonium.
Non-stop mosh pits. Crowd surfing. Band members abandoning the stage to perform in the middle of it all, rapping face-to-face with fans who know every word. The staple moment hits like clockwork: Khaki screaming, “COULD’VE BEEN A CORPORATE MOTHERF*CKER BUT I’M THIS!” from the song “NO OFFENSE.” It’s anti-establishment. It’s communal. It makes everybody in the room realize that in the crowd at that Private School show is exactly where they’re meant to be.
Private School is just getting started, and already they’re turning rooms upside down. If 2026 belongs to any rising heavy act, it might just be theirs. Next time Private School hits your city, don’t skip class. Homework is optional but havoc is in the syllabus.
Thursday, July 2 2 Jul NATE EyJ J SMITH H with Chase Matthew w
Whether you want all five concerts or there's just one you have to see, we've got you covered! While supplies last, get all five concerts with the SuperStars Series package starting at just $150. Or get an individual concert ticket starting at $47*.
Tickets are available online at greeleystampede.org (additional online fees apply). Or stop by the ticket office Monday–Friday, 10am–4pm at 600 N 14th Ave, Island Grove Park. Prefer the phone? Call 970-356-7787. *Ticket prices increase May 1, 2026.
