My own personal musical journey began at a very young age. Like every musician, I started out as a music lover. I can remember my parents playing bands like the Grateful Dead, the Police, Steppenwolf and many others while as a family we played outside during the hot Texas summers. Eventually, my dad began to show me more and more music (primarily classic rock) as a young kid and then after a couple of years as a failing 7 year old violinist, I started taking guitar lessons.

Guitar lessons allowed me to expand my musical horizons. I started out learning simple 3 chord Grateful Dead and Crosby, Stills and Nash songs until I was able to take a step out of my comfort zone and started learning jazz standards and Jimi Hendrix guitar licks. These lessons allowed me to expand my own personal discography of songs that I knew and loved.

Before I left for college, my brother and I were always known as the polar opposite music siblings. My younger brother, the “stick up his ass” classical pianist and I, the edgy rock n’ roll guitarist. My little brother taught me so much about classical music, and I still don’t even know the half of it. He could pick most instruments and play them, some days he would carry a flute around the house while playing it, other times, it was a clarinet, some days you just didn’t know.

All of these factors contributed to one thing that will always stick with me, and that factor is, my love for all music. I feel like music is one of those things that makes humans- humans. As an anthropology major, I sit through large lectures where my professors relate primates to humans. Which of course, we definitely share similarities, we evolved from them. We have many things in common with them, we both care for our young and we both have various intellectual capabilities that enable us to create tools, to think, to find food, and care for the people or “monkeys” within our lives. Though, there is one main thing that I feel can distinguish ourselves from our primate ancestors, which is, our ability to make music. Music portrays love, and passion, and feelings in a way that no other species can portray them, and in my opinion, music is what makes us human.

I’ve created this blog in order to share feedback on new music whether it be local or national/international music. I’ve also created this blog, Hitchhiking Through the Music Verse, because I am a DJ at Radio 1190 AM/98.9 FM in Boulder, Colorado. Currently I am student at the university, and this blog will serve as a way to share my playlists, which come from my Saturday 12:00 pm Mountain Time shows. Aside from playlists, I will also share my thoughts on new albums, singles, and live shows by the artists that I cover within my radio show.

So, tune in on Saturdays at 12 p.m for, The Hitchhiker’s Hour at 1190 AM/98.9 FM and radio1190.org to hear a wide array of music including artists like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, the Old 97’s, Kurt Vile, Thievery Corporation, Taj Mahal, the Grateful Dead, the String Cheese Incident, and many others.

-Madalyn