Denver Day Of Rock: Denver Writes For The Cause

Photo by Bryan Grant

On May 23^rd the urban arroyos of downtown Denver will once again echo with the sounds of booming bass and gritty guitars for the 7^th annual Denver Day of Rock, presented by the non-profit organization Amp The Cause to raise funds and awareness for like minded local non-profits. While Amp The Cause (formerly Concerts For Kids) has always put an emphasis on children, this year’s event birthed a unique opportunity for the young, intrepid writers of Denver Writes to interview Day of Rock artists and review their performances. Listen Up Denver! was honored to be able to help out, not only as an event partner for Day of Rock, but also to provide a publishing platform for these young writers’ work. Recently, LUD! had the chance to talk with members of each organization and to sit in on Denver Writes’ workshop, Unplugged: Music, Interviews and Reviews, to tell the story of how this amazing project came about.

Denver Day of Rock’s success was immediate and it’s popularity has gained momentum exponentially. Amp The Cause, then Concerts For Kids, held the inaugural Denver Day of Rock in 2009, with two free stages and a ticketed evening event at The Fillmore where The Flobots played to over 1,500 people. The next year the event was held in downtown Denver featuring 20 bands. In only it’s second year Day of Rock drew in nearly 100,000 people. Since 2010, Day of Rock has seen former Mayor Hickenlooper as honorary event chair as well as an eclectic mix of buzz worthy local and national artists.

“Denver Day of Rock is our biggest annual fundraiser,” said Rachel Hijar, event coordinator for Amp The Cause. As an event coordinator Hijar’s responsibilities for Day of Rock include booking talent, working with musicians and mangers, and coordinating travel and hospitality. She is a busy young woman. But here at LUD! we were curious as to how Amp The Cause selected such a diverse group of artists that this year includes St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Mat Kearney, Shook Twins, Orgone and more, alongside local favorites including Fox Street, The Railbenders, Austin Young, and Rose Quartz. “We are proud of our eclectic mix. Our goal is to have something for everybody. No matter who you are or what kind of music you like, if you happen to be walking down 16^th Street Mall that day, whether you planned to be there or not, you’re going to come across something that you like. We definitely like to keep the lineup fresh and don’t like to get stuck in any preconceived expectations. That said, we do have a handful of artists that are return acts just because they are fan favorites. For example, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers; they always draw a great crowd and we have a hard time imagining the event without them.” Of course Day of Rock features a great lineup (click here to see the full lineup), but it is a charity event after all. One of the fundraising activities will be a raffle where participants can purchase a ticket for $10 and the proceeds will go to a children’s charity of their choosing, with a chance to win a brand new Ford Escape. But this year Day of Rock will also benefit kids in a different way.

A serendipitous meeting last summer served as the catalyst for what would become Denver Writes Unplugged: Music, Interviews And Reviews. When Denver Writes’ Jeanette Barrow (a former editor at Listen Up Denver!) ran into Rachel Hijar at the grand reopening of Union Station the ideas started flowing. “Jeanette Barrow bumped into me when she was volunteering for the event and we got to chatting. I found out about some of the work she does; she was asking about our organization, and we just kind of made a connection. Later, she emailed me and told me about some of the events she was involved with at Denver Writes. Because it was after Denver Day of Rock last year, nothing really happened until now. The opportunity came up, it worked out, and it just seemed like a good time,” Hijar said. Barrow’s previous connection with LUD! fostered a perfect trifecta, where Denver Writes would provide the workshop, Amp The Cause would provide the artists and concert, and Listen Up Denver! would provide a publishing platform. All that said, the importance of what Denver Writes does goes beyond this single event.

Denver Writes is a non-profit writing center that provides kids with creative opportunities to write through workshops, camps, and tutoring. While schools may give kids a solid base in writing, sometimes there just isn’t enough time or faculty to provide kids who truly want to write creatively with an outlet for their passion. Hence the need for organizations like Denver Writes. It was emphasis on the creative, fun part of writing that drew teacher Jenny Hekkers to Denver Writes. “My background is in teaching. I’m a teacher. And my frustration was always that kids seemed so upset about writing. It seemed they felt like they couldn’t do it or that they had already failed at it before they had even tried. They just did not want to write. It bummed me out because writing is so important. Not just for school; it’s such a powerful tool.” Like Amp The Cause, Denver Writes has recently rebranded from their previously academic, but wordy, moniker. “We used to be called Metro Denver Promotion of Letters, which sounds really nice but is really hard to say! They started seven years ago and I have been with them for five. Denver Writes created this whole thing because they saw the same thing I did. They wanted kids to have an opportunity to write outside of the classroom and support them one-on-one or in small groups, just to have a different experience than they might have in school.” LUD! was fortunate enough to sit in on the “Unplugged” workshop to really get a feel for what the kids were learning.

Up on the dry erase board in the basement of Metropolis Coffee—where Denver Writes keeps their workshop area called Back Space—was written, “Objectivity Is Awesome.” The writers, ranging in age from 5-15, along with the instructors and volunteers sat around circle of tables with their notes and phones in front of them, casually eating Cuties and crackers, discussing their craft. The basic format of the Unplugged workshop, lead by Jeanette Barrow, was for the kids to come up with 10 questions for their interviewee. An important part of interviewing, especially when interviewing musicians, is to be able to come up with follow-up questions, sometimes off the cuff. The kids had some great insight on follow-ups and demonstrated their ability by posing some follow-up questions of their own to Jeanette. The kids then watched a performance and afterward had a discussion. Statements like “the stage presence was electrifying” and “the lights were dazzling” showed that these kids were well on their way to becoming music journalists.

So stay tuned to Listen Up Denver! over the coming days leading up to the Festival for interviews profiling several of the artists scheduled to perform on May 23rd and then check in the week after the festival for a review of the Day of Rock from these great young minds. Most importantly, be sure to head down to Denver Day of Rock on May 23rd, be generous with your money, and maybe you will be able to compare notes with some of Denver’s best young writers!

Denver Day of Rock
Saturday, May 23rd 2015
16th St Mall, Downtown Denver
FREE EVENT