The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Early next month, KNMC, the radio station broadcasting from MSU-Northern in Havre and dialed in at 90.1 FM on the airwaves, will be staging Rocktober: A KNMC Webstream Rocktacular! The event will take place in the Montana Actors' Theater on the campus of MSU-Northern on Saturday, October 3, beginning at 3:00 p.m.

For the past five years, KNMC has been working to create opportunities for musicians of all skill levels to connect and perform around the Hi-Line. Two of KNMC's annual live music events, Tribute in the spring and Rock Lotto in the fall, resemble intramurals for musicians in that they put teams of players together for one-off performances. A one-off appearance is a concert performed outside the context of a planned tour.

Unable to host these annual intramural music events due to COVID-19, KNMC started a songwriting challenge, Quarantunes, back in May. Participants were given an opportunity to write a song in isolation and to submit it by the end of each month. With social gathering restrictions still in place, KNMC has opted to continue the songwriting challenge until further notice.

September's challenge, due September 30, is to write a song or radio jingle for a favorite local business or entity. Participation in the event permits use, but not ownership, of submitted recordings (audio/video) on KNMC social and broadcast media.

Because not everyone excels at songwriting or desires to be a songwriter, quite a few musicians have been left without opportunities to perform and connect. To address these concerns, KNMC has teamed up with the Montana Actors' Theatre (MAT) to start web streaming concerts. The first of these, Rocktober Rocktacular will take place on October 3. This event will feature some of the Tribute bands that were scheduled to perform at KNMC's traditional May Tribute event, alongside some traveling musicians with ties to Havre and the Hi-Line.

"To celebrate the work of the radio station and to get people to participate actively, we typically have a public event called 'Tribute' in the spring and one called 'Rock Lotto' in the fall, but COVID has robbed us of public fun, so we're making our own fun," event organizer and KNMC radio station manager, Dave Martens said.

Some of the bands and acts already booked for the event include The Lucky Valentines, Izaak Opatz, and Matt Springer and his Steeds.

Izaak Opatz has been writing and performing songs for the last ten years in Nashville, Los Angeles, and several cities and towns in Montana. He has released albums not only as a solo artist but with his band, The Best Westerns.

Opatz has also shared the stage with Jackson Browne, James McMurtry, Jonny Fritz, and Taylor Goldsmith of the band Dawes.

Twice, Opatz has been featured in Rolling Stone magazine-once as an "artist you need to know" in 2018 and again as one of the "2019 AmericanaFest: Twenty Must-See Shows." He played his first show in Havre in 2014 with his band, The Best Westerns, at a retirement party for Dave Martens, Sr.

Another featured group, The Lucky Valentines is a folk/Americana duo out of Fort Benton that has been making music together for the last eleven years. They have released two albums; their most recent, Horses, has been featured regularly on KNMC broadcasts since it was released this summer. They've appeared on Montana Public Radio's Musician's Spotlight and are slated to be guests on PBS's acclaimed 11th and Grant in its upcoming season. The public television program 11th and Grant features performances and conversations with Montana's most accomplished and pioneering musicians.

The Lucky Valentines made their performance debut in Havre at the inaugural Havre Trails Summer Brewfest in 2017. According to Martens, "Their sound could be bottled up as Bruce Springsteen and Patty Griffin meet Mandolin Orange in a gypsy junk shop."

The third band, Steeds, is a relatively new group from Havre. Most recently, they were the featured house skiffle band during the MAT production of "One Man, Two Guvnors." Sometimes referred to as a jug band, a skiffle is a genre of music with influences from blues, jazz, and American folk music, generally performed with a mixture of manufactured and homemade or improvised instruments.

At the Rocktober Rocktacular event, various tribute acts will also perform: SKIS, which is a cold tribute to KISS; Fleetwood Supply, a Fleetwood Mac tribute; and The Jimi Rednex Experience, a tribute to guitar great-Jimi Hendrix, who is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music.

Martens will join his other band members at the Rocktober Rocktacular as SKIS, a tribute to KISS. "We took the second s and moved it to the front of the name to become SKIS. Our face makeup will be snowflakes and other wintry images, rather than stars and bat wings, and instead of platform footwear, we will wear ski boots," explained Martens, who will serve as one of the group's guitarists.

"We won't be a quartet like the original KISS. There are six of us, actually. We have two vocalists, two guitar players, a bassist, and a drummer. All of the music played will be cover songs in a mock tribute to KISS."

For more information on where to stream the performances, interested individuals are encouraged to visit the KNMC 90.1 FM Facebook Page. In addition to the web-stream event, KNMC will also hold an awards ceremony for those who participated in the KNMC Quarantunes songwriting challenge.