Here we are… it’s the biggest shopping day of the year! Black Friday is that day we all wait for - waiting in line for hours (in past years) to snag a deal on a big screen TV, Apple Watch, new kitchen appliances, or clothes galore. Black Friday is also traditionally the day to get your Christmas shopping knocked out. Consider this: Though many aren’t having sales, you can spend less money to support your local Colorado music scene on Black Friday and still knock out your gift shopping and a little shopping for yourself. Here are seven ways how:

The upcoming new year means a lot more than usual this time around, at least to me. With 2021 on the horizon, a Covid vaccine in the works, and the promise of warm weather and the possibility of gathering with friends in the future, I’m cautiously seeing a light at the end of the tunnel - and it makes my heart swell with hope. The new year is also a tried-and-true time for reflection - and we have much to reflect on this year. In 2020, we faced countless obstacles as a human species. We came up against a foe not as nation against nation, religion vs. religion, or any other man-made construct of confrontation, but as humans with the need to band together to get through a year so rough that it sometimes seemed as though we were living in the matrix. What will we learn from this? How will we grow from it, as individuals and as a group? Will we take the lessons learned to heart, or throw them out as soon as things return to normal? While we walk this line between hope and reflection, Graham Good and The Painters will give us the perfect soundtrack for both. The feel-good kings of NoCo are set to release their debut full-length self-titled album early next year. They haven’t set an exact release date yet, but you can look for the album in the first few months of 2021. I got the chance to hear the new record ahead of time, and I’m so excited to give you a preview of the good things that are coming.

When the now very popular Open Mic Night was established at The Alley in Historic Downtown Littleton a few years ago, Hannah Diones was one of the first consistent performers. It wasn’t long before people started coming to Open Mic just to hear Hannah sing. She wrote incredibly compelling, beautiful, and relatable songs and delivered them with a voice that’s one-in-a-million. Despite her young age, Hannah was already writing beautifully haunting and mature material, and everyone who knew her, myself included, considered her a friend and an inspiration. She’s an old soul, and so easy to connect with.