After the Lamont School of Music program moved into the Newman Center for Performing Arts in 2002, the music program and music scene surrounding DU changed.
The school had previously been located well off-campus in East Denver since 1924. It was originally founded as a private proprietary school, but merged with DU in 1941 and was affiliated with the university.
But after 78 years, the school joined the main university campus. Not too long after, more bands of all genres formed in the dorm rooms of campus. Aspiring performance majors and production majors of all sorts then moved to Denver to join the program and the music community on the main campus flourished.
It’s a testament to what the community is now — on the rise and vibrant. DU bands like Judith Hindle, When The Sun Explodes and Exhaler are routinely playing shows across the metro area.
The KXDU radio station has been back and is thriving in supporting and promoting the community. Last quarter, the club hosted its Spring Sendoff event and five bands with DU students performed their music in front of Nelson and Nagel Halls.
So, for this week’s Into the archives topic, we are diving into how the student newspaper has covered the DU music community.
The Into the archives column was an idea I came up with last quarter, in line with the Clarion’s celebration of its 125th anniversary. I siphoned through the Clarion digitized archives located at the DU Special Collections to help showcase the great history of our newspaper, and I will continue to do so for the rest of this quarter.
February 4, 1993 (vol. 100, no. 13)
It was surprisingly difficult to find coverage of the local DU music community or any news coverage about bands. In this sense, it made it hard to also gauge what the local music scene was like for many eras.
For hours, I filed through the archives for feature articles on bands or students who were in bands, but there wasn’t much success. It was especially difficult to find anything music and band-related in pre-WW2 editions.
But, this article published by a music reporter in 1993 detailed the happenings of the local scene in the Entertainment section. Although the article does not mention any bands with DU students, it does mention three Colorado-based bands.
The article sat beside an advertisement for the Lamont Symphony and a concert they were hosting at the time. This was majorly the news coverage I found throughout the archives and the Clarion loved to give publicity to the official concerts the music school put on.
April 22, 2015 (vol. 122, no. 12)
DJing has always been a prominent hobby for many college students and there’s no shortage of them playing at DU’s local bars. In 2015, a Clarion contributing writer wrote an article about a sophomore who was a DJ and radio host for KXDU.
The article describes Bohdi Cooper’s busy life balancing his music hobbies and his other activities. Cooper DJed gigs at Crimson and Gold Tavern and The Church Nightclub and was a recurring DJ at the now-closed University Boulevard location of South Philly Cheesesteaks.
Cooper was also the host of his own show called “The Shohdi with Bohdi” which aired on the KXDU internet broadcast every Monday. On top of his DJ activities, Cooper was also the president of the improv club, Skintight Outrage.
October 15, 2014 (vol. 121, no. 21)
The year 2014 was important for the KXDU radio station, as their internet broadcast finally made it to air in October of that year.
The Clarion published a story written by the opinions editor at the time on the front page about the new broadcast launch. The article describes the programming of the scheduling and even says that the broadcast included a political talk show alongside the typical DJ playlists.
Ten years after the initial launch, history repeated itself. The club reformed with new founders and relaunched its internet broadcast in March. They are set to bring the broadcast back to air this quarter, starting on Tuesday.
To see KXDU’s broadcast schedule and their promotions of the DU music community, visit their Instagram. Thanks again to the DU Archives and Special Collections for their effort in digitizing many of the past editions of the Clarion. If you want to check out the archives for yourself, visit the Special Collections website.
