When I saw the announcement in spring 2024 for the second annual Battle of the Bands at my Colorado prison, I thought two things would happen: The sounds coming from the band room would get better. And I would see some prison fights.
Boy, was I wrong.
For the last four years, I’ve lived in a cell that is situated over the corner of the gym housing the band practice room. Because of this, I never sleep past 7:15 a.m. Shortly after the gym opens, there’s a cacophony of unearthly, discordant sounds, reminiscent of a child learning an instrument.
In the weeks leading up to 2023’s inaugural competition at Fremont Correctional Facility, about two hours south of Denver, I stayed in my room on Saturday mornings to listen. I heard bands either step up or break up. For some, practice sessions turned into fine-tuning sessions. For others, musical disagreements turned into chow hall arguments. I saw longtime friendships collapse just like in real bands. Everyone had a competition mindset.
After the middling success of the first year, the recreation department decided to permit two extra one-hour sessions per day, specifically for competition practice, ahead of the 2024 Battle of the Bands. This allowed new musicians to join the fray.
With expanded access, I expected prison machismo to take over. But that didn’t happen. People figured out their priorities after the first competition. They learned cooperation. They learned resilience. They learned what the audience wanted. But, they didn’t learn volume control.
People packed the gym tighter for the second iteration, but only one of the previous year’s judges returned. The veteran told the new judges that the prison acoustics — with frequent echoes —— weren’t the best. Another judge from the prison administration expected a vibe “like the shows in college dive bars.” She would later discover that dive bars have better equipment.
The show kicked off with the first year’s winner, a band called The Rainmakers, who covered songs from various genres and decades. It didn’t take long for problems to arise. The lead singer, resident Anthony Smith, said the microphone kept cutting out and that he couldn’t hear himself in the stage monitors. As it turned out, none of the vocalists would. Instead, they relied on the audience singing along to verify the microphone worked.
A band called Almost There had the fifth slot. About halfway through the opening song, one of the strings on Travis Lujan’s guitar lost its tune. The time limit for each band meant he had no opportunity to fix it. When his solo came up, his fingers did just what they had practiced.
Resident Carlton Tuttle, a guitarist in another band, cringed. “I can’t tell if he’s bad or the guitar’s bad,” he said, as he watched Lujan drop to his knees and continue shredding the guitar and our ears.
Lujan finished his solo and people gave the requisite pity applause. But then, Lujan stood up. The polite applause moved to a standing ovation.
The audience realized that not only was the guitar bad, but the strap had come off too. That’s why Lujan had dropped to his knees. This solo, a shining moment Lujan had anticipated for months, had come with a side of Murphy’s Law. But he buckled down, and the crowd responded positively.
Equipment malfunctions happen frequently. Bad chords, failed mixer channels and a dwindling number of guitars presented routine challenges for the roughly 60 musicians who participated.
“Ninety percent of the equipment is 15 to 20 years old,” resident Garry Patterson said. “It gets used every day for 12 hours a day.”
Strings get replaced, but guitars don’t; the budget doesn’t allow for it.
Resident William Sandoval said Crowley County Correctional Facility is a good place to record, but added that playing at Fremont Correctional Facility “builds chops.” At our prison, guitarists have to make their own picks. Tuttle, the other guitarist, fashions his out of the plastic lids of Folgers jars. They seem to hold up the longest.
From early on in the event, the audience recognized the poor equipment would torture the music. So when the second to last band took the stage and began with just a cowbell, the room erupted. Finally, a sound that couldn’t go wrong. But that band didn’t win the competition.
Instead, a Spanish-speaking band won the crowd over, even los gringos.
After the competition, one judge from prison administration said she saw plenty of talent. Another judge, from the prison’s policy department, said the winning band displayed great showmanship and cohesiveness.
