Now Playing, a multi-media collaboration between Denver Film Company, Black Shirt Brewing and several Denver musicians, premiered Saturday, Feb. 21 on CPTV 12.
The debut show will be thirty minutes long and feature Denver band Covenhoven. Future episodes will feature Sawmill Joe, R.L. Cole, Haunted Wind Chimes, Glowing House, The Centennial, Strange Americans, Champagne Charlie and more.
“We want to use the avenue of music to show how creative businesses can come together to transform people, cities, and whole states,” Denver Film Company’s Gabriel Dohrn says. “Our project brings together coffee, cuisine, beer, visual art, architecture, wine, music, lighting, venues, and city planning. We see how all these are interconnected and how they can lift each other up. Creating a project that can document this transition in such an intimate and and interesting way will not only help continue this progress, but it will help other cities and other states transition to an economy and a way of life that supports your neighbors and the unique identity of your city.”
Dohrn, a Denver transplant, came up with the idea for Now Playing, along with Branden Miller, owner and head brewer at Black Shirt Brewery. Dohrn said it was out of a out of a need to do something creative and to give back to the community.
“I think I first fell in love with the Denver music scene at a backyard stage at Underground Music Showcase. The Meese brothers had built a stage at their house and invited some of Colorado’s finest to perform. Sometimes the music howled, sometimes it whispered, but the message was the same. These are the most authentic people, playing the most heartfelt music you will ever find. It was an intimate and inspiring moment. We hope to capture moments like that, for years to come.”
The live shows are filmed at a myriad of different venues, from the Walnut Room to Devotchka’s recent show at the Fillmore Auditorium. They are later mixed at Evergroove Studios in Evergreen [a COMBO Business Member] and will be broadcast twice in CPTV’s Saturday night 10 PM slot, then rebroadcast at other time slots during the season. The current season will be 12 episodes long and will feature exclusively Colorado acts.
For Dohrn, who graduated from University of Iowa with a music major, Colorado is the perfect state to have its music showcased this way.
“We live in such a unique and beautiful place, with our own way of doing things, so why try to be like somewhere else?” he says “Why try to be New York or LA? Why not be Denver, be Colorado.”
By Andy Thomas
[Editor’s note: Mr. Dohrn and Mr. Matt Need are scheduled to speak at the May 17th General Meeting of COMBO at the Breckenridge Brewery regarding “Now Playing”. If you are interested in having your band appear on this show, please come and bring a promo kit with you, including a decent video of your band performing. (This topic was postponed from January).]