Minneapolis jamgrass outfit Buffalo Galaxy is headed out west this week.
The quartet will kick off a five-show jaunt with a stop in Rapid City, S.D., Wednesday before four shows in as many days in Colorado.
“We have played a lot out there,” banjoist Zach Tauer said of the first stop at Rapid City’s Lost Cabin Beer Co.
Buffalo Galaxy has toured in Colorado twice before, including a gig opening for Tyler Grant and Steely Dead at Cervantes’ Masterpiece Ballroom in Denver and another show at the Gold Hill Inn near Boulder last July.
This week, the band has stops in Golden (April 20), Grand Junction (April 21), Palisade (April 22) and Denver (April 23). For more information on their tour, including tickets, go here.
“It is great to be back at it,” Tauer said. “It’s just fun to be going to Colorado for a third time. It’s always fun to play cool, new venues and towns and meet new people."
Buffalo Galaxy has a big year ahead of them, with a few short tours booked, an album and upcoming music video planned, and festival appearances this June, including at Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wis.
Photo by Ty Helbach.
Buffalo Galaxy then returns to Minneapolis April 28, where they will be opening up for Chicken Wire Empire at the Hook & Ladder Theater & Lounge. Folk/Americana duo Mountain Fern are billed as special guests. Get more information here.
Tauer said the band had the occasion to meet Chicken Wire Empire before a show in Milwaukee with the MilBillies in January.
“Some of the Chicken Wire guys came out and we hung out before the show,” Tauer said.
The band is busy right now on several fronts. They are working on their second album, something they have been doing with the luxury of time at a home studio.
Buffalo Galaxy plans to release its first song off that album, “Paint A Grey Sky Blue,” in the next month, Tauer said.
There is a music video for that song in production, as well, with scenes shot at a handful of Duluth spots, including the Ripple Bar, Park Point and a campfire north of town. Tauer said the footage was taken late last summer.
As for the title of the new album, we’ll have to sit tight. There is a working title for it, but Tauer said the band is not ready to let that be known.
Buffalo Galaxy has another short tour coming up in May, with stops in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, and the band is booked for several festivals in June, including Blue Ox Music Festival in Eau Claire, Wis.
“If you ask anybody in this band what they are most excited about, they will all say something different,” Tauer said.
Of the trek to Colorado, Tauer mentioned a planned trip to Colorado National Monument, near Grand Junction, on the Colorado Plateau, where sheer cliff walls cut out of sandstone and interesting rock formations made it worthy of National Park Service unit status.
Seems like the perfect place to inspire a band rooted in their own special brand of galactic bluegrass.