Local News
in Boise, ID

X Ambassadors plays The Knitting Factory on Saturday, Nov. 16. Monumental life changes happen to bands just like they happen to people. Just ask X Ambassadors keyboardist Casey Harris, who has seen his band shrink, grow and mature. Those big changes had a heavy influence on the bands 2019 album, Orion. This album really represents where we are now and where we are going in the future, he said, adding that songs like Hey Child resemble a breakup album. Since the release of VHS in 2015, X Ambassadors, which will play at Boises Knitting Factory on Saturday, Nov. 16, has gone through an emotional rollercoaster. Its members parted ways with a bandmate and longtime friend over substance abuse issues, and lead singer and Caseys brother Sam Harris got married. Casey welcomed a baby boy into the world. Just like the new arrangement of the band, the new album is aspirational, and Casey said hed even named his son Orion after the constellation. Thats basically because Im a space nerd, said Harris. Little things like that, he said, contribute to our forward-looking future and perspective. The band tours heavily to stay in front of fans, not relying on album sales to keep up its popularity, and the band has a bevy of quirks and rituals that make life on the road more comfortableincluding a prayer they say before every set. We say the shehecheyanu. Its a Jewish prayer of starting new things, said Casey.

The Boise music fest Treefort announces the first 123 bands of its line-up The first 123 bands of the 2020 Treefort lineup have been announced. The acts hail from 14 countries and 30 states. Notably, Japanese Breakfast will make an appearance, as well as Boise favorite John Craigie, who recently played to a sold out crowd at The Olympic. Included in the announcement were acts at Comedyfort, Kidfort, Storyfort, Hackfort and Yogafort and Foodfort. Festival goers can plan on seeing Irene Tu, hearing stories from Brandon Hobson and eating some tasty bites from Katy Osuna. The festival will run March 25-29, 2020, at venues across downtown Boise. Information on passes is found on the Treefort website. More artist announcements are expected in the months leading up to Treefort. Heres that lineup: AJJ Algiers Alien Boy Ami Dang Amo Amo Amuma Says No And The Kids Andrea Gibson Antonioni Ata Kak Bad Motivator Becca Mancari Blossom Blushh Brother. Cam Calloway Chad VanGaalen Charlie Parr Chong The Nomad Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah Chromatics CMMNWLTH Con Brio Desire Dumbo Gets Mad Ealdor Bealu Ellis Floating Room Garcia Peoples Glue Trip Goon Goth Babe Great Grandpa GRLwood Help Horse Jumper of Love Ice Cream Itchy Kitty James Supercave Jango Japanese Breakfast Jenny Dont and the Spurs John Craigie Joshy Soul Juice Jupiter Holiday Killdeer String Band Kills Birds Kinda Kids King and Queen of the Losers Krakow Loves Adana Larkin Poe Lauren Ruth Ward Lobo Lara Lorelle Meets The Obsolete Louis Prince Magic Sword Mal Blum Mdou Moctar Mikal Cronin Mise en Scene Mo Troper Moldes Monophonics Mtrik Myke Bogan New Myths Nite Jewel Ohmme Olivia Awbrey Omar Apollo Oxeye Daisy Panther Car Peaer Pell Perfect Son Peter Bjorn and John Port Juvee Potty Mouth Prefuse 73 Prism Bitch Psychic Bloom Ratboys Rituals of Mine Rookie Roselit Bone Roses Are Dead SadGirl Sego Shabaka and the Ancestors Sinkane Smokey Brights St. Terrible Strange Ranger Sunny War Swsh Talking To Johnny Tennis The Districts The Felice Brothers The French Tips The Lowest Pair The Lucitones The Mauskovic Dance Band The Ophelias The Orielles The Phets The Seatopians The Seshen The Shivas The Underground Youth The Wandering Hearts The Weary Times Torres Trego Tropa Magica Vanishing Twin Vita and the Wolf Vundabar Warren Dunes Weird Milk Wet Fruit Wild Powwers

Boise gear shop caught in the Backcountry.com copyright strike Tyson Stellrecht opened an outdoor gear shop in Eagle around 2008 called Backcountry Pursuit. He later moved that store to Boise, nestling it on Capitol Boulevard near Julia Davis Park in 2012. Five years later, the company suddenly changed its name to Boise Gear Collective. The public would later learn that the change was motivated by a copyright strike handed down to Stellrecht from Backcountry.com, an outdoor gear behemoth based out of Salt Lake City. Instead of trying to fight the teams of corporate attorneys as a small business, Stellrecht decided to rebrand. Thus, the Boise Gear Collective was born. Certainly I can say that we like our new name and we found a way to turn something that was a negative thing into a very positive thing, he said. So looking at it through the lens of we were going through this massive expansion and changing our entire business model and adding the service and really changing who we are and what we do, still staying focused on used and consignment... but choosing to really embrace this bad thing that happened. Stellrecht said he has come out clean on the other side. In fact, he and the patrons of the Boise Gear Collective like the new name, and as a business, its going better than ever, he said. The former Backcountry Pursuit wasnt the only company called upon to change its name. Shops and retailers across the country bearing the name Backcountry were asked to rebrand. Just like Stellrecht, many complied. We came out on the other side and its a true victory for small business, he said. To Stellrechts mind, the name change has been welcomed by his customers. There has been an outpouring of support from the local outdoor community, which has even been overwhelming at times, but the Boise Gear Collective is charging ahead. With this thing, I didnt have a choice in the matter. I didnt have the money to fight, he said. Stellrecht and others have been able to adapt to the changes, but one shop that chose to fight it landed in federal court: Marquette Backcountry, a small manufacturer based in Michigan that only makes two products, skis and a large water jug. Backcountry.com has since dropped the lawsuit against the small business. However, the online retailer hasnt walked away from its lawsuits against small companies with backcountry in their names unscathed. It

Following the lead of other small Idaho cities such as Ammon and Emmett, McCall is creating a fiber-optic infrastructure, Rapid McCall, to provide up to 1 gigabit per second internet service to homes by next summer. McCall will install, own and manage an open access fiber backbone and fiber connections to homes, while service providers ...

Chris Blanchard has joined indieDwell as the sales and marketing manager. He holds a doctorate degree in urban studies and spent 12 years at Boise State University, most recently as the deputy director of the Environmental Finance Center and an adjunct professor in the Department of Community and Regional Planning. In 2014 he founded Longdrop ...

Jake Timmons has been promoted to a principal position at Riverstone Structural Concepts and will be responsible for the daily operations of the companys structural engineering department. He previously worked for the USDA-Natural Resource Conservation Service, the Idaho Transportation Departments bridge division and the city of Nampa engineering department. Timmons holds a bachelors degree in ...

The late summer scene on the outskirts of Caldwell was, in many ways, the quintessential image of the American West. Riders trained and raced their horses in circles in the Click to Continue

The Boise State football team is 9-1, ranked in the top 25 in both major polls and in the thick of races for a Mountain West Conference championship and a Click to Continue

Final score: Boise State 42, New Mexico 9 Records: Boise State is 9-1 overall, 6-0 Mountain West New Mexico is 2-8, 0-6 Why the Broncos won: Theyre a lot better Click to Continue