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Two locals on Red Rocks, bass and the shows every night.

Eleven minutes on a Denver street at night, with two people who had just come out of a friend’s show. The camera belongs to somebody else, the interviewer is in town for a crypto conference, and the first minute goes on getting it pointed at faces.

Duncan and Hannah give their names and the split is immediate. He was born and raised here. She says “I wasn’t born here, but I moved here when I was five.” Asked how they see the city, he answers for both of them: “It’s growing fast, but it’s super fun. I mean, we’re here mostly for the music scene.”

Most of the tape is that scene. Hannah is newly converted: “I’ve been listening to the music for years, but actually going to Denver, going to Red Rocks, like I just did that all in 2025”. The interviewer has not heard of Red Rocks, which turns into the best passage. Duncan: “if you haven’t experienced Red Rocks yet, I envy you.” Then the explanation, geology first: “It’s like this natural amphitheater formed out of the Flatirons over in Morrison.” Two rocks form a perfect acoustic space, somebody built a venue in it, and it went famous. Hannah adds that concerts are only part of it, that “you don’t have to just go there for concerts like they do yoga you can take hikes up there”.

On the shape of the scene, Duncan hedges and then commits: “it seems like EDM is very prominent here”. Heavy bass of any kind fills a room here. “I think at one year I went to 52 shows in a year”, he says, and could have gone to more, so “I had to limit myself.” Hannah’s version of the same point is an app: “if you look up the EDM train app, you can see all the shows that go on”. Her advice to anyone who thinks they do not like the music is to go one level down, because “you have genres, which, and then you have sub-genres so there’s just like a lot of music”.

Asked for his own niche, Duncan names a subgenre called color bass and gives it a real definition: “essentially it’s like turning all of the sort of less melodic bass sounds and giving it melody”, done with computers, sometimes with vocoding. “It’s a little melodic, it’s a little heavy, which is a perfect balance for me”. He DJs under the name Archer, and says “Denver is a great place for me to be able to try and get into DJing because there’s tons of opportunities.” It started with a YouTube intro song and about ten years of rabbit hole, then a first festival, then “my brother and I got into it got some decks and just kind of taught ourselves”. The focus has since moved sideways into “learning more graphic design 3D modeling”, all under one handle: “mine is at archer.dat”.

Hannah has the graphic design degree and has drifted from it. She wants back in through charcoal, “make it like abstract and do some mixed media”. She also runs the art scene down for a visitor: the museum, and the Santa Fe Art District, “a street just full of art galleries”.

The closing question is what they would tell a kid, twenty years out. His answer: “Don’t use AI as much as you want to”, and “make sure you know how to read”. Hers: “Just be happy being a kid take one day at a time and don’t rush to grow up just live in the present”.

What is in it

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Transcript

Who speaks, by their own introduction on the tape: Duncan at 0:30. Transcribed with Whisper from the original audio, so nothing is masked. Names corrected. Published in full, as spoken, so it can be read, searched and quoted. The speaker turns and their times come from a separate AssemblyAI run of the same audio, lined up against these words (speakers.py); the letters are the model's, not names. Search every transcript →

0:00ABut, um, okay, boom. Is recording? Question mark? Is my friend’s camera. I came down for like this crypto conference and now it’s like recording the sky. That’s not what I want. Fascinating. How do I? Oh, I know. Aha. I’m discovering how to work this camera. Sorry. If I push the dial down, it comes down. I’m a little bit high myself. As you should. Yeah, right. I appreciate that. Okay. I’m just going to move forward instead of having this Omega frame. But you two can introduce yourselves. What are your names?

0:30DuncanI’m Duncan.

0:31CAnd I’m Hannah.

0:32AOkay. And you two are from here in Denver, huh?

0:35CYeah.

0:36DuncanBorn and raised.

0:37AYeah, it’s okay. You can say what you want to say.

0:39COkay, I wasn’t born here, but I moved here when I was five.

0:42AOkay, cool.

0:42DuncanI don’t fault you for that.

0:43AYeah, yeah, I don’t think you should. I think that’s dope. As people who are essentially like raised here, I’ll give you raised, right? I don’t have to tell you all. How do you see Denver?

0:53DuncanIt’s growing fast, but it’s super fun. I mean, we’re here mostly for the music scene.

1:17CI just recently got into it, like I’ve been listening to the music for years, but actually going to Denver, going to Red Rocks, like I just did that all in 2025 and that’s one thing that I love about Denver. What’s Red Rocks? Red Rocks? Oh my gosh, it’s a, here, you’re playing Red Rocks.

1:38DuncanI mean, if you haven’t experienced Red Rocks yet, I envy you. You’ll get to see it for the first time soon, hopefully. It’s like this natural amphitheater formed out of the Flatirons over in Morrison. So these two giant Red Rocks basically come up and form this perfect acoustic space and they built a concert venue there and it’s internationally famous. Amazing

2:01Cand you don’t have to just go there for concerts like they do yoga you can take hikes up there They do even like on Good Friday. They’re doing a service for Easter Lots of graduations like they do a shit ton of stuff They do so much up there, and it’s just beautiful like the view and everything But yeah, that’s just how far is it from Denver?

2:24DuncanHalf an hour. Yeah, maybe it’s a little outside the city, but you know absolutely worth it

2:30CThat’s also another thing that’s really nice about Denver, like you can get from point A to point B, like I would say like traffic kind of makes it a little bit annoying, but pretty much like Denver is just compact. Like you can get somewhere super fast.

2:48AYeah, it’s not too big. Like

2:50Cyou’re not far from the action. Like I live in Brighton, which is 30 minutes away. Okay. Why are you laughing?

2:57DuncanI always make her drive forever. That’s all.

2:59CI love it, like I get to come to Denver because I love Denver, but yeah

3:04AYeah, yeah, yeah, it’s cool, you get to be in Denver and yeah, here you are Absolutely How you doing? No, you’re all good, sorry, I don’t want to make you walk on the gravel What’s it called? And so growing up here, I’m curious, like how do you two see the music scene here? Like, yeah, how do you see it? I feel like there’s an underground scene here I’ve heard Are there like different scenes here? Is it like one big scene? Is there like, yeah, how do you see it? It’s

3:24Duncana lot of different music for sure, but I would, I mean, maybe I’m just biased, but it seems like EDM is very prominent here

3:34AI heard tonight Hardstyle is very prominent here

3:36DuncanOh yeah, I mean Hardstyle, pretty much any heavy bass music, Hardstyle, dubstep, stuff like that You’ll find a big crowd for that here, which is awesome I mean, I’ve been, this is the only city I think I could go to I think at one year I went to 52 shows in a year and it was, you know, it’s easy. Like I could have gone to more because Denver just always has something going on like that. You know, I had to limit myself.

4:02CYeah, like we just, we went to our friend’s show tonight. Oh yeah. He DJs EDM. Okay. Wonkier stuff.

4:09AShout out your friend.

4:10DuncanYeah. That’s Noah Earthling. No

4:12CEarthling. Yeah, he just did a show and like it’s a Tuesday and like if you If you look up the EDM train app, you can see all the shows that go on and sometimes they’re on Monday, like any day of the week, you can find a show that’s going on

4:31AOkay, EDM train, huh?

4:32CYeah, EDM train, yeah

4:34AI’ll have to download that

4:35DuncanI mean, definitely depends on whatever you’re into

4:39AYes, exactly I mean, here I am, right? I’m exploring, so I’m an explorer is what I would say

4:42CYeah, and I mean, like, it’s just, there’s so much, like, you have genres, which, and then you have sub-genres so there’s just like a lot of music so if you listen to something I would encourage you to be like oh I don’t like EDM no like listen to other sub genres because you will I feel like you will find something you really like and really enjoy okay yeah so like just keep an open mind about it all you know

5:11AI keep an open mind I like think I keep an open mind are there sub genres that you two are really into like is there like a like is it like yeah what’s your niche what’s like what’s your niche of expertise

5:22DuncanI don’t know if I can do a full history lesson, but I would say for me personally, it’s a subgenre called color bass, which it’s so hard to describe because the way they do it is very technical, but essentially it’s like turning all of the sort of less melodic bass sounds and giving it melody. So, like, they use computers to do something called vocoding sometimes Basically, it just makes it sound very, like, bright, colorful, and it’s,

5:54AI love it

5:55DuncanIt’s a little melodic, it’s a little heavy, which is a perfect balance for me

5:59CHe’s a DJ, too

6:00AOh, yeah?

6:01DuncanA little bit, yeah

6:01CArcher, everybody,

6:03AArcher Yeah, yeah, yeah,

6:05DuncanI appreciate it

6:06CSo, he’s, like, very well educated about music

6:10AI don’t know if I could do a short history Even when people say that, I’m like, this person is underselling himself, and here you come I know,

6:15Cthat’s what I was saying. I was like, yes, go on. I’m learning so much right now.

6:21DuncanOh, perfect.

6:21AHow are you doing?

6:22DuncanI’m glad. I’ll teach that anytime. No, but I mean, Denver is a great place for me to be able to try and get into DJing because there’s tons of opportunities.

6:32AYou know what Yoda said? I didn’t watch Star Wars, but I do know that.

6:37DuncanYou hit me with some crazy stuff right there. Okay, so first Red Rocks and then you got to watch Star Wars, that’s a little bit different, but you know, either way.

6:45ABut I get to do both for the first time.

6:46DuncanYeah, yeah, exactly. Great experiences.

6:48CGreat experiences.

6:50DuncanA little different, but yes.

6:51AYeah. Yeah. So wait, what got you into DJing? I feel like that’s like a, this is like, you just pretend that’s not the case.

6:56DuncanI mean, I think the first thing that really got me into it, I used to watch a lot of like video game channels on YouTube and there was a creator back in the day named Ali A. he had this intro song that I heard it and I was like what you know that’s crazy I love that just went in a deep rabbit hole for probably ten years and eventually went to my first music festival and just decided like I need to I need to know how to do this like it’s just sounds so much fun and my brother and I got into it got some decks and just kind of taught ourselves

7:30Aand so is that something that you’re really focused on right now

7:32Duncanactually I’d say right now I’m a little more focused on I’m making like visuals and like I made my friends So I’m learning more graphic design 3D modeling through that, but

7:43Athat’s definitely

7:44Duncana little bit of mixing in there too, but that’s more of the focus right now.

7:47AYeah, okay, that’s sick. And so do you have like a brand for doing that as well? Do you have like an overarching brand? Yeah. If you want to shout yourself out, you should shout yourself out.

7:53DuncanSame, same as before Archer. I have all of my socials are kind of just like a conglomeration of music that I’ll mix or artwork that I’ll make something to that effect. So it’s just all under one name, but who knows might diversify that have some aliases eventually I don’t know oh

8:12Ayeah you want to shout yourselves out like shout out yourself for anything like that

8:16Duncanoh sure I mean mine is at archer.dat that’s d-a-t at the end datdiff.com

8:25Ayou got it

8:26Duncanbut yeah that’s my music and artwork and stuff

8:29Aokay and did you like yeah you do creative stuff um

8:32CI do but I mean I need to get back into it I’ve kind of I kind of lost my little drive for it but I

8:40AWhat kind of creative stuff did you like to do?

8:42CI got my degree in graphic design so same thing like logos and just I don’t know I like to freehand draw and like I’ve been wanting to get back into like charcoal but make it like abstract and do some mixed media because I really enjoyed like the experimentation of it so I want to do that and then yeah we’ll see where that goes

9:06AYeah, it’s like there’s no pressure to share. It’s just me. I don’t care. But it’s cool that people get to know stuff you’re into.

9:11CYeah, I love our art scene here, which, I mean, it’s everywhere if you think about it. But yeah, I love going to the art museum.

9:24AWhat’s the art museum here called?

9:26DuncanDenver Art Museum. Or you can call it the dam, either way.

9:30COkay. That’s sick. and then the Santa Fe Art District has like just like it’s like a street just full of art galleries and just go in there. You can buy some art and some of them are pretty wild and it’s just fascinating. So, yeah, if you want to check out some art, too.

9:51AYeah, yeah, cool. I mean, I’m into art, you know, I got I started doing content. I was like interviewing people that worked in crypto, black people in crypto. and I focused on like the NFT space at first. And so I was like, I like music, I like to rap, but I don’t really like, I haven’t been focused on making music in a long time. But I would say like the arts is like arts and community. If that were like my full-time job, like pay me to do that.

10:14CYeah, no.

10:14ALooks like you’re on your way.

10:16CYeah, yeah, right.

10:16AI feel like I’ve been overcomplicating making videos for a while and I’m like, oh, I can just like go and ask people questions and figure out what there is to know.

10:24DuncanYeah,

10:24Cno, I love it.

10:25DuncanPretty genuine, pretty simple.

10:26AYeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Last thing I want to ask you too, do you have any advice for people under the age of 8 or anything you want to tell them?

10:32CUnder the age of 8? Uh-huh, uh-huh

10:35AFor when they’re in, for 20 years from now 20 years from now

10:39DuncanDon’t use AI as much as you want to

10:42CThat’s a good one

10:43DuncanAnd make sure you know how to read Mm-hmm,

10:47Cyes

10:48AOkay, I like that

10:49CI second that And also, um, have fun Just be happy being a kid take one day at a time and don’t rush to grow up just live in the present

11:05Aoh yeah thanks big facts I like to say booyah in some of my videos so can we say booyah at the end of three two one yeah all right awesome so three two one

Filmed the same day.

3 March 2026

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