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Voodoo Glow Skulls will deliver funk, ska

The annual concert hosted by Fort Lewis College’s Student Union Productions is growing into one of the college’s premier student music events.

According to a survey of all students asking who they’d most like to see at their annual concert, an eager few hoped to see Kanye West. Despite his Grammy gaffe, that request is ridiculous among many reasonable wishes.

This year, the performers are all bands – there’s not a musical master of the laptop on the bill.

Before the latest snowstorm forced organizers to reschedule, Skyfest was slated to go off Saturday on campus at Whalen Gymnasium, featuring local bands The Wild 100’s, Liver Down the River and Consensual Sax, with headliners Voodoo Glow Skulls and The Motet. (See The Weekender for more.)

The Motet are no strangers to Durango, having been regulars at local venues for years. The funk and jam band led by Dave Watts has crossed genres, putting out a straight-ahead funk record in 2014 that made many year-end best-of lists.

The Voodoo Glow Skulls are a punk and ska band that was formed by the Casillas brothers 25 years ago in Riverside, California. They are Frank Casillas on vocals, Eddie Casillas on guitar, Jorge Casillas on bass, A.J. Condosta on drums, Mark Bush on trumpet and Dan Albert on trombone.

The year they formed is unclear. What is clear is that they are direct products of the fertile punk and ska music scene that existed around Southern California in the ’80s and early ’90s.

“We were a little neighborhood band; it’s debatable when we actually started, but it’s around 1988 or ’89,” said oldest Casillas brother Frank last week over the phone. “We started playing music out of a bedroom listening to our favorite punk and heavy metal and ska music. That transformed us into being the local high-school, backyard party band.”

Their first break came after they opened up for The Mighty Mighty Bosstones in Riverside, after which they became their supporting act on a national tour. Record shops will categorize then in the ska section, yet they lean more into American hard core than any wave of traditional ska music, favoring crunchier guitars over horns, although all are present in what remains a unique sound.

“We like to tend to think that we’re more of a ska-influenced, punk hard-core band,” Frank Casillas said.

“We’ve always been pretty open-minded as far as the musical styles we listened to. We listened to ’80s punk, two-tone ska, and then there was new-wave and ’80s heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and the Scorpions. We’ve always had an open mind and never really put a template for our music or any sort of particular format. We always went with whatever we felt was right and what we enjoyed.”

Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.

Bryant’s best

Saturday: Crags CD Release party, with Farmington Hill and The Moetones, 9 p.m., no cover, the Balcony Backstage, 600 Main Ave. upstairs, 764-4083.



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