The Mountain-Ear Podcast

Check out this episode to hear the poem in the "Some words for the week" series written by Alexander Shalom Joseph for the June 19th, 2025 edition of The Mountain-Ear! Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak!...

in today's Audio Library segment, the host reads four columns from the most recent edition of The Mountain-Ear! Columns read: "Discovery of the first gold lode in Colorado" by Brian Algers "Life in Nature: The stash" by James Dewalt "Mountain Spirit Astrology: Summer Solstice" by Karen Anderson "The Alphas are coming" by Amy Skinner Our theme song is co...

Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below. If you want to be involved in the podcast or paper, contact: Barbara Hardt, our editor-in-chief, at info@themountainear.com Tyler Hickman, mul...

In this week's segment of Some Words for the Week, the host reads multiple recent entries from the series.   Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below. If you want to be involved i...

As a late celebration of Father's Day 2025, the host reads all of the Father's Day themed writings from the June 12, 2025 edition of The Mountain-Ear! Articles Read: "Peak perspectives" by Barbara Hardt "A Place to Be" by Christopher Kelley "My dad" by S. Naomi "Bonne fête des pères" by "The Kid" "A Corny Poem Honoring My Dad" b...

Brothers Luke and Heath Weaver founded the Christian metalcore band Finding Neverland in 2012, with Luke on guitar and Heath on vocals. Luke was previously involved with the band Gentlemen Speak Up, which he played in during his time at Georgia Southern. After moving to Colorado Springs in 2011, Luke and Heath formed the new band. Heath and another member ultimately decided to step away from music...

In celebration of the upcoming Madam Lou Bunch Day 2025, Maryann Rosen highlights Lou Bunch and other famous female figures of the Colorado gold rush! Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linke...

In today's short segment, the host reads the poem written by Alexander Shalom Joseph for the June 5, 2025, edition of "Some Words for the Week." Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages...

In this segment of our Top Story segment, Brittney Wagner gives us more updates from the issue of The Mountain-Ear from June 5, 2025.  Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below. If you...

In the first edition of a new segment, Brittney Wagner brings you the top stories covered by The Mountain-Ear during the week of June 5, 2025. Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked below....

In this special segment of The Mountain-Ear Podcast, hear from our regular correspondent Maryann Rosen about the incredible history of the Central City Opera and the Central City Opera House!  Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture fro...

Many of Matthew Earle Schexnyder’s musical influences come from his home state, Louisiana. He is particularly inspired by country-folk, singer-songwriter stylings, with Merle Haggard, Jason Isbell, Alan Jackson, Neil Young, and Willie Nelson among his influences. Earle, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, flew Air Force helicopters as a long-time career, traveling around the country to states suc...

Eddie Hochman, Bennett Shapiro, Michael Schodin, and Mitchell Wisniewski all met during their time at the University of Iowa. They started informally jamming and playing shows together throughout college, but by graduation, they started going their separate ways. While Hochman and Schodin stayed in Iowa City, Mitch moved to Michigan, and Bennett moved to Denver, where he still lives today. However...

The month of May celebrates both Jewish and Asian-American heritage, so regular correspondent Maryann Rosen brings us local history and information about both! Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages...

Evan Cantor, Burt Rashbaum, and Roland LaForge have always been musicians. They’ve all worked to become professional musicians, but ultimately, they couldn’t find a way to make a living through music. They never stopped playing, though. The three joined forces for the first time in the 2000s. Cantor and Rashbaum worked in the same building at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Cantor jumped i...

Eric Richard Stone has been writing songs for five decades and performing for four. It wasn’t until 2014, however, when he moved to a home near Nederland and started pursuing music full-time. Stone found himself inspired by the mountain community, its nature, and its people. He feels that the environment has motivated his best work as a songwriter. Now, he's released a new album called Living...

[Todd] Smallie [of The Other Brothers] has frequently collaborated with Colorado pianist Ryan Benthall, who has played with various Colorado groups. One of Benthall’s groups is Phoebe Nix, formed in 2014 in New Jersey by songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Christopher Clauss. Combining funk and jazz sensibilities, the group serves as Clauss’s primary vehicle for his original songs. In this episod...

In 2017, Colorado guitarist and singer/songwriter James Dumm came up with an idea for a supergroup. He had played songs from The Allman Brothers Band with his Denver jam tribute, Mountain Jam, and he wanted to create another tribute band featuring an all-star lineup. Thus, The Other Brothers came to be. The core lineup consists of Dumm on electric and slide guitar, Rob Eaton Jr. (also from Mountai...

Leaf Running-rabbit has lived in a completely off-grid property in Ward for 34 years, moving in when he discovered a squatter’s shack, a cabin built as a temporary camp for miners. He ultimately lived with his family in the cabin for 17 years before being required to build a house to legal code, receiving his certificate of occupancy of the new house in 2009. In the late 1990s, he attended the Uni...

Click here to read the column written from this interview! Christine Weeber has felt a connection to the mountains like no other place she’s lived before. She grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, before pursuing degrees at Colorado State University (CSU). During her time there, she moved into a home filled with toxic mold, which made her ill. She moved into a rental with deodorizers in every room, b...

Burt Rashbaum has been writing since he was around 10 years old, first writing short stories in fourth grade. He cites his middle school English teacher, who exposed him to e.e. cummings, as the person who first sparked his interest in poetry. He moved to Boulder in 1976, subscribing to a writers’ magazine to learn tips and publishing his first poem in the yearly catalog from the Free School. He f...

This episode includes readings from Celia Wilson of articles published in the April 17, 2025, edition of The Mountain-Ear. The online editions of the articles are linked below. Thrills and spills at Nor-Alp Schralp by Dave Gibson Springing into Easter by Mindy Leary Gilpin girls squeak past Nederland by Dave Gibson Music of the Mountains: d'Lovelies by Jamie Lammers CCSO makes second arrest i...

It's time to transition into May, and to start that transition, correspondent Maryann Rosen brings us a special segment on Mother's Day! Our theme song is courtesy of singer-songwriter Brittney Wagner. Stream her record  Better off Dead  here. Support the show Thank you for listening to The Mountain-Ear Podcast, featuring news and culture from peak to peak! Additional pages are linked be...

Cristina Vane has sung for as long as she can remember. Her parents even heard her sing in her crib over their baby monitor. She started playing piano in first grade, sang in choir, and started writing songs in high school to combine her love of playing the guitar and writing poetry. By the time she graduated from Princeton University, Vane knew she wanted to pursue a music career. Her performing...

At its largest, d’Lovelies performs as a seven-piece group: Rob Pate on guitar and vocals, Erin Gael Friedman on vocals, Duane Webster on bass and vocals, Ryan McCurry on keys, Mike McCloskey on saxophone, Nate Bitter on trombone, and Colin Mahoney on drums. Often, the band plays in venues that aren’t big enough for the entire seven-piece to fit. To work around this, they rehearse and even perform...