Recommended: NOCO Live Music and Sci-Fi for the Summer

Tim Van Schmidt

Here’s a quick summertime round-up of upcoming live music events in NOCO: 

Bohemian Nights’ Thursday Night Live summer series has moved from the usual spot in Old Town Square to New Belgium Brewing for 2021. The free concert schedule includes Otis Taylor on July 8, Kind Dub and Friends on July 15, and the Liz Barnez Trio on July 22.

The Absolutes play Swing Station in Laporte on July 9. Enjoy daytime family entertainment during the Children’s Summer Series at the Lincoln Center, featuring the Kalama Polynesian Dancers on July 14. Guerilla Fanfare plays the Magic Rat on July 17 and the Aggie Theatre features Float Like a Buffalo w/ House With a Yard on July 23. Also at the Aggie: Cha Wa on July 24.

Up at Mishawaka, check out “Mockn’ at the Mish” featuring HeartByrne (Talking Heads) and Steely Dead (Grateful Dead/Steely Dan) on July 18. On July 23, the 3rd Annual Hip Hop on The Hillside features Chali 2na and The House of Vibe and Murs w/ Kind Dub, Thin Air Crew, and Bad Neighbors.  July 31-August 1 at the Mish: Yonder Mountain String Band.

At Avogadro’s Number, see Mad Dog Blues on July 11. The Church of Beethoven features Mia Theodoratus, solo harp, with author Marcelo Sosa at Avo’s on July 18. The Robert Cline Jr. Band, with special guest Matt Skinner, plays Avo’s on July 23, Cowboys Dead on July 24, and Archie Funker on July 31.

The Lagoon Summer Concert Series at CSU has returned and features The Jakarta Band on July 9 and the Wendy Woo Band on July 31. Enjoy this year’s free music by the New Belgium Beer Garden and stay for CSU’s Movie Night at Canvas Stadium.

Sci-Fi Movies: My favorite summertime popcorn movies are Science Fiction-oriented and recent releases currently streaming are all about time travel.

Things just don’t look good for a polluted earth in the near future in “2067” on Hulu. In fact, it’s so bad, everyone has to pay to get artificial air to survive.

The only solution here seems to be to slingshot somebody into the far future to seek help — after all, if humans have survived four hundred years into the future, then they must have found a way around a very dire situation.

The chosen candidate is supposed to send back word, but what he sends back instead is a surprise that indeed saves the world — and thwarts those trying to escape their responsibilities.

If only it were that simple, right? Invent time travel to fix our environmental crimes?

“Norman” on Amazon Prime is another current time travel yarn and it addresses the danger of the practice itself. A time traveler unnaturally upsets the natural order, causing timeline chaos, so one traveler shuts himself into a house when he gets stuck in the past.

I’ve also been catching up on the Netflix series “Travelers,” which is steeped in time travel lore. Beings from the future are sent back in time to prevent catastrophes that endanger the survival of humanity, adhering to protocols that govern their interactions.

The problem — “travelers” routinely inhabit the bodies of people who are destined to die, but sometimes that isn’t always the case.

My favorite time travel movie, however, is still the 1960 version of HG Wells’ “The Time Machine” featuring Rod Taylor as a Victorian gentleman scientist who has built his own device. It’s a purposefully theoretical and thoughtful production with some charming and engaging effects — and some action.

However, when it comes to Sci-Fi, I prefer futuristic yarns that signal the expansion of humanity into the solar system and beyond, especially deep space adventures — they are a special kind of survival movie and in many ways seem much more likely than time travel.

I’m not talking about something like the 2020 Bruce Willis movie currently on Amazon, “Breach,” which is more or less just a monster/zombie movie set on a spaceship. I’m talking more like the recent Russian release on Amazon, “Stranded on Mars,” which calls into question human understanding when we reach beyond our home.

I guess it all takes the “suspension of disbelief.”

Here’s a shortlist of my top recommendations in the Sci-Fi movie genre, starting with the great Charlton Heston triptych: 

Planet of the Apes

Omega Man

Soylent Green

More — besides “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” movies, that is:

Bladerunner

Forbidden Planet

The Day the Earth Stood Still

Silent Running

Alien/s/3

2001: A Space Odyssey

Mad Max/Road Warrior

Avatar

The Fly

THX-1138

Escape from New York/L.A.

The Fifth Element

Screamers

Waterworld

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

The Thing

Matrix

Reign of Fire

Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick

The Last Man on Earth

I Am Legend

The Wandering Earth

The Quiet Earth

Automata

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Ghost in the Shell

The Man Who Fell to Earth

Logan’s Run

Zardoz

Alien Apocalypse

Barbarella

Recent Series: The Expanse, Altered Carbon.

I particularly enjoy Science Fiction because it is a genre that is full of mind-teasing possibilities — from time travel to space travel. Get out the popcorn!

Tim Van Schmidt is a writer and photographer based in Fort Collins. Check out his YouTube channel at “Time Capsules by Tim Van Schmidt.”