Here is the 2019 edition of UMS Unplugged. I cut down on bands this year but was still able to capture some amazing musicians. I started this project about three years ago and have been able to take it to a few festivals including SXSW, Austin City Limits Music Festival and Bumbershoot Music Festival. I have always loved capturing bands outside their live element and was lucky enough to capture these this year. Thank you to all the musicians who participated, let’s do it again next year! Bands or musicians interested in working please email Robert Castro at castro@ultra5280.com
Cherub Brings The Funk Back To Denver!
For those of you who don’t know, Cherub is an electronic-indie duo from Nashville. They are most famously known for their song “Doses and Mimosas”… Many would say it’s the perfect song to brunch to. They made a stop in Denver this past weekend on their Free Form Tour and got everyone dancing at The Ogden! Cherub was opened by Maddy O’Neil who is a female electronic artist and showed that her versatility of mixing is one of a kind. Along with her, our good friend GRiZ preformed a surprise DJ set to get the night started!
Photography by: Bridget Burnett (Instagram)
Get To Know Ultra5280: An Interview With Founder/Editor-in-Chief, Robert Castro
Tacos not twins
Curious about how your favorite local publication started? Founder and Editor in Chief, Robert Castro gives us a personal, inside look at how our little music blog turned into the accredited, thriving, local publication it is today.
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Kelly: Can you give the readers an introduction on who we are and what we do?
Castro: We are a music, lifestyle and film, online publication. We write about Denver’s community and other events around the country relating to the specific genres that we cover.
Kelly: What inspired to you establish the publication initially?
Castro: Music has always been a big passion of mine. I was never brave enough to get an instrument and actually play but you can thoroughly enjoy music without being a musician. I was always the guy at parties with my mix CDs getting the party started. As I grew older, I got into photography. I wanted to combine both passions of mine. I started doing freelance for a large magazine out of LA called Filter Magazine. I was basically their Denver rep. I would do promo for touring artists in Denver, go to record stores and put up posters, do giveaways, etc. I had great perks. I would get tickets to these shows. That was great but it didn’t give me a lot of experience with photography. After, I started freelancing for a couple of local publications like The Denver Post and Westword. I did that for about a year and a half to two years. I got to meet a lot of people, network and gain experience. One day I thought it would be cool to do this on my own , have my own deadlines and be my own boss. One year I was down at SXSW and got to see these amazing artists before they blow up. Artists like Bon Iver, Ellie Goulding, Big Sean, Future, etc. SXSW provides an outlet for all of these record industry professionals to gather great artists and see who the next big discovery is. When I came back it really sparked my creativity and the start of Ultra5280. I was very passionate to kick off the company when I came back that year. For about two years I was doing everything myself which was very challenging. I wasn’t able to go to every show myself. I had to strategize and decide what readers would like as well as myself. At first I would have to pay for every show I went to. They don’t start to give you press passes until you’re an accredited publication. I did that for about two years, building Ultra’s reputation. The most important thing was networking and getting to know as many people working in promo, like AEG and Live Nation, as I could. Networking is thankfully a strong quality I have. We started growing and I needed more help. At first it was just freelancers but a lot of the time they turned into staff. We started back in 2011 with just myself and today we have 10 people on staff whether that be photographers or writers. We’re able to post a lot more content and cover a lot more shows. We added our lifestyle section about two years ago. In this great city, music branches into a lot of other things. Everywhere you go whether it be an art show, restaurant opening, or a brewery on a Friday night, there’s always music happening. We started seeing growth from the booming events, not necessarily concerts, and decided to add a lifestyle section. Our traction in the last few years has doubled, almost tripled. There’s always something to do in Denver. You can find us everywhere: wine festivals, The Great American Beer Festival, concerts, music festivals. We’re able to send more of our staff out to cover more ground. I’ve kind of taken a step back and let our staff take over more events. I wanted to give the opportunity for them to do it and have that experience. It’s a labor of love but there are plenty of perks included with being a member of the staff. I want them to network, branch out, and possibly start projects of their own. I want them to take something from their experience at Ultra to showcase their own talent.
Photographer, Texan, Boss-man
Kelly: How do you think the publication has an effect on Denver as a community?
Castro: Our number one priority has always been supporting local music which, in turn, for a lot of these bands, they’re not used to getting a lot of press. For us to write about them and cover their shows is a pretty big deal. For one, because they know what kind of traffic we have. Two, they know that they’ll probably reach people that haven’t listened to them before. Again, our number one goal has been to support local music. We do that in a lot of ways: We cover local artists and go to the shows, conduct interviews. One of the biggest things we do is encourage artists to reach out to us if they have a new video, single or album out. We want to promote local musicians. Ultra has a pretty significant fan base that will get to hear new local music before anyone else. We get our most traffic when we write about a local band. It gets shared on social media and it’s like a domino effect.
Kelly: What’s been your favorite part about your job as founder and editor in chief?
Castro: For me it’s been the extension of the photography side of the company. I’ve photographed some amazing artists. We get approved for about 90% of the shows that we apply to, whether it’s a local show or a sold out concert at the Pepsi Center. I’ve photographed artists like Justin Timberlake, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Outkast, Radiohead, The Weekend, LCD Soundsystem. These are the awesome things that present itself when you run a publication. The most amazing experience I’ve had this far is an opportunity I got after shooting Alt-J a few summers ago. I was contacted by their team. They told me they wanted to put out an LP vinyl set based on their Red Rocks performance and asked if I could send a few of my pictures to potentially be included in the set. I sent them about 10-15 photos. They ended up choosing five of them. They paid me for my photos and sent me a free box set. That’s probably been my biggest highlight of my live concert photography.
Kelly: How have you seen the community grow in your time with the publication?
Castro: When I moved to Denver over 10 years ago, I wasn’t really that familiar with the local scene but if I could compare the Denver scene then to what it’s developed into now, it’s grown drastically. People would ask me where I’m from after I told them they would say things like “Oh, Denver! I know The Fray and Flobots." Now it’s amazing there’s so much more hidden talent that doesn’t at all get the same kind of press that the bigger bands do even though they’re just as talented. Nathaniel Rateliff is a good example of growth. He’s been playing music in Denver for 10 years. The first time I saw him perform was in a backyard at the UMS. Now he’s headlining major festivals. It’s interesting to see where that scene is kind of shifting. One of the cool things about Denver compared to other cities is that there’s not a lot of competitiveness in the scene. Everyone supports each other. I just wish they had more means to promote their music outside of Denver. The ones that are doing it are touring and doing it right. Take a band like In The Whale that’s been touring non-stop for the last five years, they just announced their European tour. This is a band that never stops. I’ll use those two guys as an example. They spend more time on the road then they do at home. If you wanna get to where you want to be as a musician, you gotta put in the work.
Kelly: Would you ever consider moving to print? Do you think there’s a market in Denver for print?
Castro: Yeah it’s something we’ve talked about. There is a cliche that print is dead which I can believe. You always hear about these news papers that are closing down. The thing with print is that it’s a huge start up cost, it’s a huge cost to maintain. Everyone’s online now. You can check everything from a mobile source. I’m not gonna walk a few blocks to get a paper if I have access to it on my phone. We’ve talked about doing print kind of quarterly. It would be a recap of everything we have on our website, very eye catching and appealing. I would like to think of it as a coffee table book. It’s still on our agenda down the road. We also have to figure cost, advertising, etc. I don’t want it just to be full of ads, I want it to be content heavy focused on Denver. I’ve been messing around with that idea the last 6 months. We’ll see where it goes.
Kelly: Where do you see the publication going in the next 5 years? What are you overall goals? How do you see the company growing?
Castro: I want to continue what we’re doing now. I don’t anticipate changing a whole lot because it’s working. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But at the same time, how do we get more readers? Like I said, adding lifestyle was huge for us. It doubled our traffic. What else can we cover aside from music and lifestyle? I think there’s a lot of untapped resources out there. I would love to focus more on restaurants, theatre, art, fashion, and definitely one that’s on our website that we really don’t touch, film. I think that’s where we can get more readers. Our staff is always growing. Right now we add about 2-3 people every year which is awesome because we get to cover more events.
Our fearless leader
Music | Ultra5280's Photos of The Year
2015 was a remarkable year for our Ultra5280 shutterbugs. We covered countless amounts of shows, trekked the grounds of several music festivals and came away with some of our best photos of 2015. The task of narrowing down the top photos was no easy task, but we managed to pick our favorites. Big shoutout to the amazing Ultra5280 photographers; Matt Smith, Maddie Casey, Liz Whitman, Andrew Rios and Robert Castro. We present to you our best photos of 2015.
All photos property of Ultra5280 LLC and their respected photographers.
Music | The Underground Music Showcase | July 23-26 | Review and Photos
STRFKR performing to a packed house. (Photo Credit: Andrew Rios)
We survived this year's UMS with minimal casualties. Despite almost losing an ear and a few bumps and bruises in the mosh pits, we made out like music-loving bandits. We added an astonishing amount of new artists to our Spotify playlists (ahem...we mean Apple Music) and ate one too many Ortega street tacos... UMS you wily minx you've done it again. There is no easy way to review 4 days of complete bliss, but let's start with the music.
SPELLS getting personal. (Photo Credit: Robert Castro)
Crowd participation was a common theme this year at UMS (Photo Credit: Robert Castro)
The lineup this year included a couple surprises and a lot of veteran artists. The veterans of course being our hometown favorites like: CRL CRRLL, In The Whale, Rose Quartz, Gin Doctors, Champagne Charlie, Kitty Crimes, Covenhoven, Rossonian, Povi, Wild High, Bud Bronson, Sun Boy, (not local but still a staple) Residual Kid, Dragondeer, Spells, Inner Oceans, Ned Garth, Slow Caves, Shady Elders and lots more. Amongst the national acts a big surprise was the band Diiv, who has been a recluse since gaining popularity amongst hipsters and experimental-indie-rock addicts. Coming in off the bat with a few pranks (div, dive) and melodramatic tude they played one of the best sets this UMS and left us in anticipation of their next Denver show. But who knows when that will be... I mean we should be happy we got at least one. Another surprise was STRFKR, a popular artist among the old, the young and girls who only want to have fun they rounded out the lineup and made it appeal to the masses. With headliners like Diiv, STRFKR and hometown hero TENNIS coupled with all of our local dive bar dwelling musicians there was no way not to enjoy yourselves.
The lovely Tennis. (Photo Credit: Robert Castro)
Rowdy Shadehouse before the infamous "Tuck of 2015". (Photo Credit: Andrew Rios)
A great compliment to the music of UMS is the people of the UMS... They range from infants in stylish headphones to hobos who found a wristband on the ground and snuck in. The audience is so diverse it makes people watching and band watching an equally entertaining sport. One thing that makes festivals like this so special is that one moment you're watching a band on stage and the next you could be standing in line by them for the port-a-potties or watching another band with the same admiration next door. Everyone's a fan and everyone's an artist. *UMS artists--they're just like us, except they sweat more.
The worst band in Denver In The Whale. (Photo Credit: Maddie Casey)
Cool clouds as we exited another year of UMS (Photo Credit: Maddie Casey)
In summation, we had an amazing 4 days, drank too many beers and took too many photos... Until next year. Oh and we can never unsee what Rowdy Shadehouse did on stage, it will forever be known as the "the great tuck of 2015". Be sure to check the rest of our photos here.
UMS BY THE NUMBERS
- 94 Instagram photos
- 6 Poop Talk stories (http://talkingshitpodcast.com/)
- 14 Ortega Tacos (not sure to feel shame or pride about this)
- 52 Deep Eddy Drinks
- 61 Breckenridge Brewery Beers
- 1 almost lost ear
- 1 Jessie Ware cover from local R&B queen Povi
- 1 stage dive at the Hi Dive
- 1 fall on stage during The Yawpers...cough cough Andrew Rios
- 25 times our UMS app crashed and made us curse relying technology
- 2 late night street dance parties
- 4 the number of times Castro hit on Povi
- 26 mistaken thunderstorms from the lightening at the entrance to the main stage
- 11 Illegal Petes burritos consumed obnoxiously to the tune of heavy metal
- 1 bottle of Gold Bond
- 4,006 number of photos taken
- 13 Red Bulls drank
- 18 "where are you" text messages
- 0 group photos of the staff
- countless memories... *cue the Awwws*
Music | Top 30 Images of SXSW 2015
We take a lot of pride in our photography here at Ultra5280. This year we had three photographers covering the battlefield known as SXSW. With nearly over 4,000 frames shot, it was a daunting task narrowing down some of our favorites. Enjoy.
