When you go to a BoomBox show, there are some things you can expect: danceable music, an awesome lightshow and friendly faces. On Friday night in Fayetteville, that is exactly what I found at George’s Majestic Lounge.

Chris Robinson, front man for The Black Crowes, has been touring around with a band he calls The Chris Robinson Brotherhood. It’s wonderful to see such a prominent figure like Robinson play in intimate venues like the Fox, close up, starting from scratch. The Brotherhood sounds a lot like The Grateful Dead.

There are some songs that put you back into the time a place you first heard them.  The first time I heard Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody was on my father’s turn table when I was in the eighth grade. I can still see the needle spinning in the grooves perplexing me on many levels.

At 18 I moved to the deep south for school. But not until I was tripping over the shoelaces of 20 did I realize that not everyone down there liked me.

Reggae collective Easy Star All-Stars stopped in at the Fox Theater is Boulder on Thursday night on tour behind their latest drop, reggae tribute record, Thrillah.

“Just had that . . . it's weird. Just had that little feeling . . . you ever get that funny little feeling [of] 'vujà dé'? No, not déjà vu. This is vujà dé. This is the strange feeling that, somehow, none of this has ever happened before. And then it’s gone.”

~ George Carlin (RIP George – if anybody deserves some of that RESpecT, you do, too, brother!)

“A life without cause is a life without effect.”

The date and location is unknown, all that is certain is that The Brave Abraham Judah walks the Earth. This six track concept album by Nick Miller & the Hustle Standard follows the fictional Abraham Judah as his spurs spin and his brow furrows. Released on August 14, of this year and peaking at the eight spot on the itunes Blues chart, you need to hear this tale.I was sold on The Brave Abraham Judah from the start.

It’s no secret that Boulder is a hotbed for bluegrass music. The area has spawned popular bands like Leftover Salmon and Yonder Mountain String Band, who might not be considered bluegrass in the traditional sense but certainly share an appreciation and admiration for the genre that undoubtedly influenced them.

So let’s get one thing straight. I am not a 20-something hipster tapping in to live twitter feeds from garage bands in Prague. I am not an old-school rocker with high off-road mileage and a septum tattered by blow. I am, like most of my middle-aged friends, a victim of an embarrassing epidemic that’s sweeping the nation. Musical Impotence.

Music history rarely has happy endings. A band can fall into a drug-induced downward spiral until they’re shadows of their former selves. Groups may rehash their first breakout album to lesser and lesser successes, eventually becoming that group that had “one good idea.” They can end prematurely from a death of a band member or a burning of bridges. Some bands may just never take off, forever forgotten in the sea of obscurity. And there’s the possibility of a combination of all of these failings.