June 26, 2026: Megan Falley reflects on the afterlife in 'Searching for Jobie;' What's on rural voters' minds?

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Days away from a primary that I'm not. help decide Colorado's future, we hear from rural voters. You know, a lot of my friends call me a libtard. You know, being one of the handful of Democrats in Morgan County, that's pretty easy to do. The temptation is your life is surrounded by beauty and animals and good neighbors that everyone says, just don't be so informed. Don't let your head explode. Then we continue searching for Jobi, Andrea Dukakis' series about the afterlife, sparked by the death of her own daughter.

This time, the widow of Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson reflects on questions she wishes she could have asked. I just wanted to know where I would find them, how they would come back to me. I wanted to have that conversation.

It's Colorado Matters from CPR News and KRCC. I'm Ryan Warner. In mountain towns and in plains communities, voters are, approach Tuesday's primary with a unique agenda. CPR has been traveling the state to hear what's on their minds. Bent to Berkland and Ray Solomon are our road warriors on this one. Hello, you too. Hi, Ryan. Hey, Ryan. How many of the voters you talk to are paying attention to the primary, and what would you say are their top issues? This is a little skewed because I think the people who agreed to talk to me are following politics, and it makes sense that they were willing to

chat. I spoke with Kevin Warsh. He's retired and he lives in snowmast. This is in Pitkin County near Aspen. He said he's a Bernie Sanders supporter, considers himself progressive. And he said he has to actively choose to pay attention to the news because he lives in such a scenic area he could easily ignore it all. I'm an expat. I grew up in Iran. And you don't want to be blissfully ignorant, but every headline you read makes your head explode. So in the city, that's every day. Here you can have a few days where you just listen to the birds, take a hike, look at how beautiful the world is and go, you know, humans will be here for a while,

but eventually we're going to leave the earth alone, and it'll be fine. Certainly a view longer than an election cycle there. Yes, definitely. I'd add that he's focused on national politics, and he said he wants the Democratic Party to have more of a backbone and stand up to Trump. The Democratic Party needs to be just completely cleared out of everybody who's not a progressive. Like Chuck Schumer, I went to college, he was Chuck Schumer. He was a putts then and he's a putts now. They're rolling over and abetting fascism. You noted that he is from Pitkin County, and that's where two prominent Democratic candidates hope to unseat the sitting congressman. So Alex Kelloff and Dwayne Romero are both from the Roaring Fork Valley and are running to oppose.

Jeff Hurd, the Republican in the general. Ray, what did you hear? Yeah, you know, in terms of engagement, I would agree with Bentham. Most of the rural voters who agreed to talk to me are pretty engaged in the primary, though, you know, I did chat with. a few people who didn't want to go on the record but told me they moved to a rural area specifically because they were tired of engaging with the world. So there's that. But the ones who are interested in political going on seemed really more driven by the issues than the candidates. And honestly, their issues are not that different from the ones urban voters are

when you're buying farm equipment. So, no, you know, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of the things that they did. I'm a bit of a fan of some of things he said he was going to do, but I'm not sure he's actually pulled a lot of that off. I just went grocery shopping. I could tell you firsthand, inflation's not doing much better. Ray, what do you think makes voters outside Metro, Denver? Maybe the front range unique then?

You know, the rural political worldview is obviously pretty different, and that makes sense. It's shaped by completely different life experiences that you get in rural areas where and how you live, maybe with more land and with fewer resources. You just have to be a little more self-reliant than city dwellers. So, of course, rural economies are also completely different. So how you earn your living looks pretty different on the Eastern Plains, for instance, than the front range. And, you know, I met Rob Carruth, an insurance agent in Fort Morgan, and he told me that all those things tend to make rural folks a little more conservative.

Because of the, you know, agriculture and, you know, dirty hands and work boots and that type of thing. Interestingly, though, Carruth himself is a longtime Democrat. Okay. He says living in a deep red area means he takes a lot of ribbing about his politics. But ultimately, the rural penchant for, you know, neighborliness. wins out over political tribalism. So in a weird way, political discourse can sometimes be more nuanced, he said. What's interesting is typically you can have very civil discussions on stuff.

You know, one of my very good friends is a very staunch Republican, right? I enjoy debating him on policy issues. I mean, it's kind of fun, right? You know, you can somebody says, this is what I think and this is why. You know, then you can say, well, okay, I don't agree with that, but I can see, you know, where you're at. You know, it just broadens your perspective a little bit. And one of the rural voters I talked to, Tom Dunlop from Garfield County, is also unaffiliated, but he votes for Democrats.

And he told me he's pretty focused on climate and the environment. And he said even if rural, western Colorado is different from, you know, the eastern plains, Denver, it is all one state and all connected. The water issue, front range versus west slope use and distribution of the water that we have. I was on the Colorado River District Board for four years. and follow all the details about what's going on with the Shoshone water and the drought that we're facing currently and how we're going to manage that. And I think if we're not in it completely statewide, we're going to be fighting each other,

and that's not going to gain a good solution for us. The notion that water unites or the lack of it sometimes. Did you hear any overarching themes, Bento? I did hear a lot of people just wanting change, and, of course, concerns about the cost of living. Caleb Measner is a conservative voter, and I'll call him rural adjacent. He's from Evans, which is near Greeley. He voted for President Trump twice, but he doesn't like the direction the country's heading.

He's 27 and works in construction. Seems like we have kind of a ruling class that doesn't have to follow any of the rules anymore, and we just all kind of face the brunt of it. And I just don't think that's any way we're supposed to live. That's not the values our country was created on. He sees Democratic and Republican politicians as the same side of the coin, preaching opposing messages but beholden to the class above them. He said he has conservative family views,

and he told me not to be confused with modern day Republicans. Just small family, small government, anti-corruption. I like guys like Thomas Massie and stuff like that. But I did vote for Trump, but I just feel like he's kind of, have gone back on all the things he campaigned on and just not really followed through on anything. Now, he doesn't plan to vote in the primary, but he will vote in the fall for the midterm elections. Another conservative voter, Megan Agnew of Westcliffe, is also worried about high costs for things like fuel, groceries. And she said it's especially expensive in a rural area, but just because of

how far apart things are and how much driving people have to do. She said she voted for Trump to solve problems like cost of living, fixing issues within the country. And her top issue is enforcing immigration laws. We have to have law and order. Otherwise, we're a third world country. We have to enforce our policies. Otherwise, what is the point of having them? And we need to put our citizens first, having veterans on the street, having citizens on the street who can't afford housing, can't afford to live. That needs to be our priority. We have so many problems. And if your house isn't in order, you can't be worried about other people's houses. Agnew, she's a farmer, and she does plan to vote in the primary, but when CPR talked to her,

she was still going through the ballot and sifting through all candidates. We heard there from CPR's Public Affairs reporter has been to Berkland and Ray Solomon, and a fair number of rural voices as well. Still deciding yourself, our voter guide, is it's CPR.org. Coming up, the latest installment of Searching for Jobi, our series about Life After Death. This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. It's Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. Dying is the opposite of leaving.

Words by Colorado's late poet laureate Andrea Gibson. They died of ovarian cancer last year, and that line comes from the poem, Love Letter from the afterlife. Gibson is featured in the acclaimed. documentary, come see me in the good light about their cancer diagnosis. This is the beginning of a nightmare, I thought. But stay with me all. Because my story is one about happiness, being easier to find. Once we realize we do not have forever to find it.

Gibson's widow, Megan Fally, also a poet, is integral to this film as they both come to terms. with Gibson's illness. Why don't we just root for me being alive, and if I'm not, I will not feel bad about not being there. We're almost there. Fally sees signs of her late spouse everywhere. CPR's Andrea Dukakis speaks with Fally for our series Searching for Joby, about what, if anything, comes after death.

It's named for her 22-year-old daughter, died of a brain tumor. Megan, thanks so much for being here. Really thank you for inviting me. First, I just want to note that your wife identified as they, them. And I want to play a few lines of Andrea reading from their poem, Love Letter from the afterlife, which they wrote when they knew they were going to die. My love, I was so wrong.

Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. that portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere but a portal to here i am more here than i ever was before i am more with you than i ever could have imagined so close you look past me when wondering where i am that was recorded in 2023 for the film come see me in the good light and i want to say so many people have been moved by that film including myself. But Andrea was clearly thinking about life after death. Before losing your wife, what was your take on the afterlife?

I honestly didn't think about it much. Andrea would have classified themselves as the more spiritual, the more woo-woo between us and maybe me as a person who was just very much of this plane. And when they wrote that poem, I was deeply impacted by it and found it just so, so beautiful and stunning. And especially there's this line that it was like, it was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. And I just, I found it incredible, but I don't know that I knew then listening to it how much I would one day. lean on the poem to be a comfort and often a lullaby for me now. Yeah, and I think having experienced Andrea's death and what I've interpreted as signs and

messages from them after, I have a much fiercer belief in something continuing. Tell me about the first time you felt Andrea reach out to you. The first time, I'm not even positive if this was the first time, but right after Andrea died, I wrote a line of poetry. I hadn't written poetry in years really. And the poem was all about the different ways I wanted Andrea to come back to me. And the first line was just come back to me as lightning. Andrea had written a book called You Better Be Lightning, and there was lightning storms the day that they died. And I just, it turned out I wanted Andrea to come back to me and basically the poem was like every single way possible. But that was the first line. And I have these

televisions in my house. They're these frame TVs so they look like artwork. So you don't have a big clunky black box. I promise I'm not sponsored. But I really do love them. And I love them because you can kind of change the art that's in your house. But it takes sort of a A lot of effort. You have to press a lot of buttons to change the art. You have to be an IT person. A little bit. You know, you have to be of a certain generation probably to do it. And Andrea and I had a 13 year age difference. And Andrea couldn't change it. And so I was in my house one day. My mom was actually in town from New York, just helping, supporting me through Andrea's death. And I went upstairs and there was this picture on the TV that I would never in a million. years put on the TV. It was very masculine. It was like sailboats and it was dark and just, it just looked like something that would be in some fisherman's man cave. It was not my vibe. And I was saying, I was like, mom, did you do this? She was like, I don't know how the hell to use that

remote. Like, what are you talking about? And I was like, how did this end up here? And then I'm doing this research because I'm committed to seeing it as a sign. I'm like, well, maybe it was painted on Andrea's birthday. Like I'm trying to look and figure it and nothing. There's nothing remarkable about this painting. There's a little dog in it. I'm like, does that dog look like our dog? I'm just, I'm desperate. I'm a desperate detective. And I'm like, no, you know what, it's nothing. And then I walk out of the room and then in the corner of my eye, before I'm through the threshold, I see painted in the corner is the faintest bolt of lightning in the piece. And, It felt so perfectly Andrea and I to have our communication be like, I've asked for something through poetry and they've answered through artwork.

Like we weren't like playing card deck people or something. Like that wouldn't be the sign or a quarter with a year or something. It would, if the two of us were to communicate, it would be through art. So I'm always questioning whether these signs are my imagination. in my own case or real messages from some other realm. And many of my daughter's friends think she shows up as ladybugs. My son had a ladybug just hang out in his apartment until it eventually died. I had one that stayed in my bathroom for several days.

And you think, is that Jobie? Or do ladybugs just show up for everyone? I wonder how convinced you are that some form of Andrea was in that lightning. I think a quality that I find kind of repellent is absolute certainty in anything, like is in no questioning, no wonder, no belief, you know, could I be wrong, could I not know something? Andrea, recently I just found a poem that they wrote, and it was about Pythagoras realizing that the world wasn't flat and that how all of Pythagoras's friends, would have thought he was crazy. And it's not that his friends were stupid. It's just that our, that was all the information we had and we thought, or people thought they knew what was right.

And Andrea invited us to imagine that there's something we think now as simple as like the earth is flat that we could be wrong about that could change with some new information. And so I think I live in that place, which is what don't I know? And I like to live in wonder and in the belief that, of course, I have no. How could any of us claim to know? And neither thing have been proven, as I've heard you say. And I guess maybe as a storyteller and a poet, the stories we tell ourselves are, have always been deeply fascinating to me since I was a child.

And I, as a creator of stories, the ones that I choose to create or the reality I choose to live in, And so I don't know if I would say certainty, but it all feels really real to me. It really does. You tried to encourage Andrea to visit you in your dreams using a technique that a medium suggested. It didn't work. I wonder how you feel about mediums. Do you think it's possible for a person to help others communicate with people who've died? I, yeah, I saw something on social media. Of course, the algorithm was targeting me and it was like, write the person's name on a piece of paper and place it at a top a glass of water. And that person will come to you in your dreams. And I dreamt that night just like almost exclusively of an overflowing toilet. And then I was like, what is the message here? Oh, perhaps the social media medium was full of crap. That was all I all.

I could come away with. But Andrea's sister said to me, you know, maybe you're not dreaming of Andrea because they know that if you were dreaming of them, you wouldn't want to wake up, which I thought was really beautiful. But mediums, I have had mediums contact me who, I have this one woman who's reached out to me that I don't know. And she says basically, Andrea is a very persistent and annoying ghost and has these communications for you. And she's said some things. And that, that tracks. Like Andrea was a really good sort of just getting attention and getting what they wanted with that attention. And I think what I really probably believe about mediums is that they are accessing something that we all perhaps have access to, but are shutting down for

whatever reasons. Andrea also in their poems had had a line that said, you know, Humans build bomb shelters to keep the universe from blowing our minds. And I believe that if we're not maybe communicating with something beyond us, it's because we have to put on some kind of filter of the human experience to not just be totally rolling over at the awe of what we are actually witnessing right now. When I saw that line, it made me think that our brains are just too limited to really understand what's beyond if there's something beyond. I want to ask you a question about death and guilt based on my own experience. I've come to believe that a level of guilt comes with death. Or at least, I should say it has for me. Since Jobi died, I've had so many. guilty, regretful moments. Why didn't I sit with her every minute of every day when she was sick? Why didn't I have the courage to talk more directly with her about her impending death?

Why did I let people from the mortuary take her body away from me? And why am I even here? Well, she's not. So, long story short, a year ago, a friend of mine sent me Andrea's poem. I was touched for so many reasons. In particular, there was this one part that spoke directly to me about that guilt and regret that I felt. In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you'd said. At night, I sit a static at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day, I listened to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me.

and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. Okay, so I've had the chills all through listening to that just now. Megan, I wonder what these lines in the poem mean to you, and whether you have any guilt or regrets in regards to Andrea. You know, my mother is in town from New York right now, and my uncle, her baby brother, died just about a week ago. ago. And we've been talking about guilt and regret a lot. And I really, I was Andrea's caregiver for four years. In the last two years of that, I quit work, sort of put my own career on hold to

be with them. And I think from the outside, by anyone's measure, they would say that I had done everything. And I still have those moments of like, well, I know Andrea loved to go on a ride to get coffee. That was their favorite thing to do. I didn't always want to do that in the morning, so I didn't always do it. And there were other ways. And I will sit with that guilt and regret sometimes. Not all the time. I don't live there. But it comes up. And I do think that it's probably a part of it. And I think it's maybe this precious part of the human psyche that believes, oh, if I'd done one more thing, I could have staved off death. I could have pushed it away, or it would have been better or easier. I think it's actually a tender part of the human

experience that believes we have maybe more control than we do. So when Andrew went into hospice, the hospice workers, you know, told us we're going to give Andrea a certain amount of medication that's going to make them very sedated. And I suppose I sadly didn't know what that word meant. I thought that meant chill and comfortable. And I did not know it meant that Andrea would lose language and the ability to communicate. And so I always had this image that we would have this final talk. We talked a lot about death, but sort of this final goodbye, and then they were just without language. And that was devastating for me. And I just wanted to know, like, the last moments, what they were thinking, where I would find them, how they would come back to me. Like, I wanted to have that conversation, but they were no longer speaking. And in that devastation, just like maybe an hour into it, realizing that that was my new reality.

our friend, the musician Chris Parika, had sent me a text message and said, you know, Andrea sent me lyrics to the song, a song that they wrote years ago, it's a love song for you, it's about their death and how they'll come back to you. And I turned it into a song and I sang it and I want to send it to you and they sent it to me. And it was all of the questions I had answered. And there's part of me, like even when you were just playing the clip of Andrew reading the poem and I'm hearing it in my ears that their presence was so in the room, even just now. And there's just no part of me, I think, left believing. I can't.

It's experiential. I feel it in my body that they're here saying those words to me right now as I need them and saying them to you and saying them to anyone who's listening who needs them. Faith, young tea, strange you never know. Poet Megan Fally is the widow of Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson, who died of ovarian cancer a year ago. The tour featured in the acclaimed documentary, Come See Me in the Good Light. Falley joined CPR's Andrea Dukakis for our series Searching for Joby

about death and what if anything comes next. After the break, how Falley has connected with Gibson through her own poetry and where she thinks Gibson might be now. You're with Colorado Matters from CPR News and KRCC. You're back with Colorado Matters from CPR News and KRCC. I'm Ryan Warner. Let's return to our series Searching for Joby, an exploration. of the afterlife, if there is one.

It's named for Joby Hereford, daughter of CPR's Andrea Dukakis. Joby died of a brain tumor three years ago, and Andrea has been searching for her ever since. This time, she's speaking with poet, Megan Fally, about the death of her spouse, Colorado's late poet laureate, Andrea Gibson. Before Gibson died of ovarian cancer,

they wrote a poem for Fally, titled Love Letter from the Afterlife. It begins, my love, I was so wrong, dying is the opposite of leaving. Fally told Andrea Dukakis, she used to be skeptical of an afterlife, but now sees signs she believes come from Gibson. Does your own poetry sort of help you access another consciousness that isn't the reality that you live in typically? I don't think I ever would have said that sentence that you just said until just about a couple of months ago where I felt like the signs had stopped and the communication with Andrea had stopped and I just, I was in a yoga post and I just got this feeling like write poems and I'll be there.

It was sort of this voice and it didn't feel like my own because poetry like I don't write a ton of it anymore. It used to be my life. I write very differently now, but I was like, okay. And I started writing poems, and it did feel like Andrea rushed into the room in the process of it. And I actually felt like I had the ability to make Andrea laugh. I felt the ability that I could flirt with Andrea in a way. Like all of those feelings that you have in your body when you're having that moment with your partner. I had them. And through the process of writing, through writing poetry, and I realized that maybe I had been waiting for Andrea to contact me sort of like a, I don't know, 1950s schoolgirl waiting for the phone to ring and that I could actually pick up the phone and reach out to them.

Do you ever have this sense, because I sometimes do, that you're being judged for feeling this connection to Andrea or worry people might be rolling their eyes about it? You know, I think that I don't care if that's true. I think more so what I would feel is a sadness for somebody else of living in the certainty that there's no magic. It's like watching, I don't know, a child grow up too fast. or something, that doesn't bother me. And I don't feel the need to convince anyone of anything because we are all building our realities, you know.

Yeah, but no. I'm going to be talking to all sorts of people for this project. Faith leader, scientists, people who work with those who are dying, about their thoughts about what happens after we die. Is there anything poets can teach us about it? I know Andrea has, but what do you think generally? I think poetry is really sort of the direct route to everything. You know, there's not really a lot of establishment of setting or time or place.

It just dives right into the pulse. And that's why it's such a compelling art form. It does so much in such a short period of time. And, yeah, it's really just focuses on sort of burrowing into the most true experience as quickly as it can. My friend Glennon Doyle, the author, calls Andrea the Poet Laureate of Heaven. And I think when you hear the poems like Love Letter from the afterlife or they have another poem when death came to visit, they were writing a lot about this. You think, how does somebody who is not dead write with such clarity of the experience? of somebody from the other side. And, you know, there's lots of thoughts about the consciousness

of ideas and where they come from. And do ideas have their own consciousness? And did those words or those ideas sort of find Andrea as a channel to communicate with us? I don't know, but I think maybe all artists are communicating not just from their human self, but from a deeper or further away or beyond self. In one of your writings after Andrea's death, you wrote, quote, I am less afraid of death now. I believe Andrea will meet me there. Does that mean you're on board with this idea of the afterlife?

I'm totally on board. Yeah. I, you know, even I'm on a lot of airplanes and I just, whenever I think about death now, it doesn't feel scary. It feels like, okay. You know, we all, I think, envisioned different circumstances of how any of that could happen, whether it's in a car, whether, unfortunately, it's in a grocery store or whatever. And there feels to me a bravery and an acceptance within myself of it now. And maybe it's because I've received all of these different signs.

I mean, I've touched on just one really, but it's been an abundance. I think I feel like Andrea can't wait to show me around that they'll wait and wait as long as I need to be here, but that they'll wait too. So bear with me for a quick story. There are some people who say that using psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, can help people connect with loved ones who've died. So I went on this psilocybin retreat, and it's important to say that my daughter Joby loved kids. And she was a counselor at a summer camp. She worked at a preschool. And a lot of strange and interesting things happened to me on that retreat.

But at one point I got this image of Joby up in the sky, and she was sitting in a circle playing some sort of game with a bunch of young kids. One was on her lap. And somehow she sent me this message that she was busy, wherever she was. she was. And she conveyed to me that she was taking care of young people who died early in life like her and missed their parents. And a medium told me a year or so later something almost identical to that. It seemed so much like Joby and it was something I never would have thought of really on my own. And I just wonder if you have a sense of where Andrea is now or what Andrea is doing? I think Andrea is playing basketball. I think Andrea is probably spinning the earth on their

finger like a basketball player. You know, Andrea have had many years of life with a really stressed out nervous system. I would joke that they had the nervous system of six traumatized chihuahuas in one five foot four body. And while Andrea, the last four years of their life with cancer actually were some of the joyful years of their life, they weren't always joyful beforehand. And cancer actually, it's weird to say, but their own awareness of their mortality brought them so much peace and love and aliveness. But I do think Andrea is likely, I hope, just having a ball. Just they were sick a lot of their life too with chronic Lyme disease. And I think I imagine them just zipping around free of pain and so excited to look at everything.

Yeah. Megan Falley, thanks so much for talking to me. I really love talking to you. And I love picturing Jovi with the children. And that's really beautiful. Poet and writer Megan Fally, her late spouse Andrea Gibson, was Colorado's poet laureate. Gibson died of ovarian cancer last year. Fally joined CPR's Andrea Dukakis for her series Searching for Jobie about death and what, if anything, comes after.

The Sundance Film Festival soon premieres Love Letter from the Afterlife, featuring readings by Andrea Gibson. The July 5th screening at Red Rocks will feature Megan Falley and singer Sarah Borellas with the Colorado Symphony. You're with Colorado Matters from CPR News. light years, but I want the dark ones too. Grief is the singer in my band, she's a passenger van, and a shortcut straight to the truth. Learn from the nightshades grow in the darkest places. Had we not been stung so many times would we ever have arrived at this heaven on earth? that I don't want to waste.

This is Colorado Matters from CPR News. I'm Ryan Warner. It's Pride, and our colleagues at Indy 1023 are proudly spinning music that reps Colorado's queer community. Let's dip into some of it with Indy's local music director, Alicia Sweeney.

We connect monthly for the local 303 lineup, a picture of the arts scene in Colorado. Hi, Alicia. Hi, Ryan. I'm feeling the pride. I am as well. I hope this first song, though, sounds better than it would smell because this is the track Dog Breath. But before we hear it, tell us about the artist, the creator of Dog Breath, Ducky. For the last few years, this has been a buzzed about band out of Fort Susan Collins.

You can kind of describe them as ethereal folk. And they are inspired by groups like Big Thief, Beach House. Alex G. And as you're going to hear in Dog Breath, which my dog, she definitely has that. You know, they evoke feelings of nostalgia in their lyricism. That's really what drew me to their sound at first. Like I love Dreampop, but then listening to their lyrics, they really pull me in. So this is Dog Breath by Duckie.

If you made me feel like you wanted me too, I want to see you. I want to see you.

I want to sing you Despite my cell Oh, I hear the beach house in there. Of course, if they're from Fort Susan Collins, they're landlocked. So it would be like St. Vrain House. Yeah, like horsetooth reservoir. Yeah, exactly. Horse tooth and dog breath.

Okay, from the artist Ducky, that is Dog Breath. why don't we head to your college town, Boulder, Colorado? Yeah, so from my hometown Fort Susan Collins to now curating music out of my college town in Boulder, Troubles Braids. And they're an Americana rock band that just put out a new EP for this Pride Month. It's called Chorantula, and here's a song I keep coming back to from them. Here's Pilot Light. How did I forget that song? The one that started all this trouble

I'm gonna roll the tape back just a little bit Something changed I heard it then the moment I stopped listening I'm a line I'll see if I can fake it On my own My own. Words get mixed up like some game of telephone. Game of telephone.

Their voices together are so lovely. The guy is giving me Nick Drake vibes. Yeah, I can hear that. That's singer Oliver Franklin, along with Emily Pennington. They really have something magical going, and they just started a couple years ago. Troubles, braids. South now to Colorado Springs, and the band, tell me if I'm getting this right, Sclerosha?

Sclerosha. Sclerosia. They are a psychedelic rock outfit from Southern Colorado, and they've been playing a lot of gigs lately since their debut album came out last year. And I want to share something. The band got really vulnerable with. me when they first sent me their music. They shared the journey of their lead singer and main songwriter, Taya Pixley, with me. She's a trans woman, Army veteran, who has continued

to serve in the National Guard until recently. She was discharged due to Trump's executive order, which removed trans soldiers from the armed forces. And while that was really hard for her, she's just been leaning into music, has been incredibly overwhelmed by the community of support that she is receiving with her band. And I want to take some space and share a psychedelic song from this group with you. Here's Sclerotia's, Therego, My Ego. Hey, now, looking in the mirror, I don't think that I can get much clearer. I'm searching for an answer to a question I can even ask.

That's Oh, feels like I'm talking to like I'm falling Through the floor of my own So become justness Oh

Feels like I'm dying Oh Feels like I'm falling Oh Feels like I'm just all we know That's Sclerotia from Colorado Springs And they're going to soon Start recording their second album

and they say it's going to be a cathartic concept album about the effects of generative AI on music and the arts. Alicia, you and other Indy 102-3 staffers will walk once again in Denver's Pride Parade, Sunday, June 28th, handing out goodies and I gather good vibes. Goodies and good vibes. Yeah. So our team has been walking the Pride parade

for the last couple of years, and it's so fun to see just the streets filled, the sidewalks filled with people who come out and support Denver Pride. And last year, while we were handing out Indy 1023 fans to help people cool down. Fan fans. Yep, fans of fans. I was really overcome with emotion just as the parade went on with how many people were shouting our names, how many people love our station. They wanted to share a hug or scream at us while we were walking.

And it really is that power of radio. Radio is so personal with people. So that makes me excited to walk in the Pride parade for that reason, but also to support the cause of Denver Pride and celebrating our community. You know, it's interesting because I heard when you are in the parade, you can't chuck stuff at people. You have to hand it to them now. Yes, you have to hand it to them. And also, it's really cute because there's a lot of little hands. Kids want anything.

They're just like, give me, give me. So most of my fans that I was handing out because I love like, I can't. I can't say no to a little kid. I'm like, here's a fan for you, here's a fan for you, and just to see smiles on people's faces, yes. Just no chucking beads. Just no chucking them. Well, this next act serves up some mile high dream pop.

Gosh, I feel like you're presenting us a lot of dream pop these days. I think maybe people want a dreamy experience amidst conditions that sometimes can feel like a nightmare. Tell us about Look at Fiona. Well, this is a young band. like a young group getting their start barely out of their teens, and their sophomore record came out this year. It's full of shoegays sweetness. And one thing that really endears me about the band is they are self-proclaimed

Denver's most anxious band and also the most grateful. And I just want to comment, it's been really fun seeing them grow their sound since they formed. And, you know, knowing that they did have anxiety on stage made a lot of sense to me as I looked back when they told me that. Look at Fiona. Yeah, let's listen to one of my favorite songs from this new release. This one's called Willow Sun.

There's nothing here. Let's wrap up as we always do, Alicia, with the featured artist for this month's Pride Local 303 meetup. What do you got? Denver's Dylan Novus. Dylan Novus. Dylan Novus. He has long come to our local 303 meetups, and he put out a really banger of a single for Pride Month that I just knew I wanted him to perform at our meetup. So this is, as he describes, 80s-style power ballad and dance floor pop banger about reliving an overly extended breakup.

Oh, okay. And he really is an active collaborator in our queer electropop and R&B scenes. And I'm very excited for him to perform in our meetup, which is Monday, June 29th at Bar 404 in Denver. And a reminder, this monthly event is no ticket, no cover. And it really is going to be a celebratory party to wrap. up Pride Weekend. Dillanovis. I'm strolling down your road drive the memory lane. I pull up real slow then I'll punt the brakes. I never really thought this would happen till it happened. Yeah, it happened. Had to cut it off whole clippers to the vine. In life there's no do-over,

say no prayers rewind. Our friends, they always said it would happen. Then it happened. Then it Yeah, it happened. Oh, oh, I can not get past the truth That I'm no, that I'm no good for you Seems like they always knew I think I'm cursed with deja vu Oh, oh I feel that there is nothing new

That I'm no, that I'm no, that I'm no one to choose That's why I always lose So I guess I'm cursed with deja, deja vu. But your little dog barking when I'm past the door. Gen Z, giving us an 80s style pop ballad, right there. They're longing for a time that they were not a part of. I get that. There's something earnest about him that I really appreciate.

I do too. Yeah. And I just, he's a young artist again, Gen Z coming up. And I'm excited to have him perform at our meetup because he really does put in the time to make his live performances just as special as his recorded music. Oh, neat.

Thanks, Alicia. Yeah, thank you. It seems like they always knew. I think I'm cursed with deja vu. Delicious Sweeney is local music director at Indy 1023. Catch her and the indie staff at Denver's Pride parade. Sunday, then at the Local 303 meet-off Monday at Bar 404. I will be at Pride Fest Sunday afternoon, come by the Colorado Public Radio booth and say hello. That's Colorado Matters for now,

with special thanks to Nell London, Shawna Lewis, and Michael Hughes. This is CPR News and KRCC. Thanks for being with us. No, I'm not. No, I'm not.