We sent our amazing co-hosts to Grandoozy to capture stories about what music meant to festival goers when they were teens. From stories of redemption and healing, to learning more about the self through lyrics that touched their lives, our guests and hosts shared tales about the human spirit one sunny day in Denver at the largest festival the state of Colorado has ever seen.

Ben Wysocki has been gigging semi-professionally since the sixth grade. His audience, at the time, was his church congregation on Sunday mornings. Ben’s musical pallet expanded when he went from a private Christian school to a public high school, where formed several bands and made music with pals who would later become The Fray. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our good friend Dan Aid stopped by the studio today. Dan is an artistic force - beginning his life as a musician in the 6th grade, and now making his television debut on Showtime’s SMILF. He has a special way of bringing us all into the heart of each story he tells. As he reflects on his early days of punk rock, we get a sense that there’s nothing this artists can’t and won’t accomplish

We’re back with the forever funky, always entertaining Kalyn Herffernan of Wheelchair Sports Camp. We didn’t want our conversation with Kalyn to end, and in part two of our interview we learn about her teenage life, and about how music and activism have worked to heal this Colorado legend.

We spoke with the amazingly rebellious and talented Kalyn Heffernan, frontwoman and creator of the indie political hip-hop jazzy funk ensemble, Wheelchair Sports Camp. Kalyn is a natural comedian, artist, activist, and teacher. An avid storyteller, Kalyn gives us her take on growing up with hip hop, and her early life as a queer rapper. She challenges the able-bodied community to examine their privilege. Just how accessible (or inaccessible) are our schools, our communities, and the music industry? Kalyn knows first hand.

When Ben walks into the room, it’s almost as if his heart is on the outside of his body.

Just by being around him, you feel the depths of his emotions. He’s raw. He’s real.

And truth telling matters to him. This year he’s been sharing his story of his own encounters with sexual abuse in the Catholic church. But as we learned in this interview, he’s been attempting to tell this story through his music since he was a teen. He shares that music with us in today’s episode. In true Ben style, to content of the music is very real and somewhat graphic, and is intended for audiences who have the maturity to hear the story.

It’s no question that Big Gigantic is….well….BIG. The music they make now didn’t exist when they were teens. So, in a sense, they began building the future of music before most of the world caught on. As they shared their earliest song with us, and memories about their early years of learning to use computers, we began to see just how ahead of the curve these two friends really were.

Some of us have high school teachers we never forget for all the right reasons. The Lumineers vocalist, cellist, and pianist - Neyla Pekarek - tells us about that teacher, and how his influence changed her professional course. Tune in also to hear some early work from her Barbershop Quartet “Vogue,” and for a personal account of just how challenging it still is to be a women in the male-dominated music industry. (Neyla lest the Lumineers after this episode was recorded to pursue personal projects).

Today’s episode is like a virtual hug for anyone who proudly, or otherwise, felt like a nerd in high school. The lead emcee of denver-based Flobots takes us deep into his high school “nerdery,” a gives of a inside view of his never-ending quest for artistic improvement.