Ex-Boulder Weeklyers launch A&E pub Caribou Current

BOULDER — Six months after the high-profile collapse of Boulder Weekly, a group of the alternative newspaper’s former staffers have launched a new publication, the Caribou Current, to cover the arts and entertainment scene in Boulder County and beyond. 

The Caribou Current, with support from the The Mountain-Ear newspaper in Nederland, published its first print edition last week — new editions of the free paper will be available on the first Thursday of each month — and stories about music, theater, food, film, visual art and cultural events in Boulder County, Golden, nearby foothills towns and communities in the Peak to Peak region will published regularly on the Current’s website. 

“Our readers care about this stuff, and so do we,” Caribou Current managing editor Jezy Gray said of local arts-centric news. “So we want to connect people with the arts and culture coverage that we know they’re hungry for. This is a place where all sorts of art forms can thrive, and we want to help give a platform for people to find the next thing that they’re really going to love.”

The new publication’s name is a nod to the Caribou Ranch, a 1,700-acre property in the Rocky Mountain foothills near Nederland that for decades served as a recording retreat for mega-star musicians such as the Beach Boys, Steely Dan, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Chicago and Earth, Wind & Fire.

“The studio itself suffered a horrible fire in the 1980s and is no longer part of our culture in the way that it once was,” Gray told BizWest. “So we wanted to kind of nod to this piece of music history that’s right here in our backyard, and to carry the torch for a new generation.”

While the Caribou Ranch may be long gone, the area’s arts and culture scene remains robust and deserves the type of dedicated coverage that the Current intends to provide, he said. 

“If you think that Boulder’s best days are behind it when it comes to arts and culture, I would say, ‘Pick up our paper,’” Gray added. “Flipping through our stories each month, you’ll find concerts, you’ll find feature stories on local artists and authors and musicians, and you’ll see that we still have a thriving cultural ecosystem here. And that’s not to mention the arrival of the Sundance Film Festival in 2027. So we do see a lot of momentum here, and part of our mission is to help people see it as well.”

Alongside Gray, the Caribou Current, which is published by Mountain Vale Media LLC, is helmed by editor-in-chief Barbara Hardt, who serves in that same role with the Mountain Ear. Associate editor Shay Castle, multimedia reporter and producer Tyler Hickman and marketing and sales coordinator Carter Ferryman — former Boulder Weekly colleagues — have reunited as part of the Current team. 

“When Boulder Weekly imploded over the summer, we were all devastated. We cared deeply about that publication, and we cared about our readers, and we were doing work that felt meaningful to us,” Gray said. “So when that went away, we weren’t really sure what the next step was going to be. But we were approached by Barbara Hart at the Mountain-Ear, and she kind of pitched us this idea. She said they had been wanting to break into the arts and culture space with the Mountain Ear. … And once Boulder Weekly went under, they saw that the time to do it was probably now.”

Boulder Weekly ceased publication last June after 32 years in business after its owner Stewart Sallo abruptly fired its editorial team. At the time, Castle wrote in a text message to BizWest that she was “incredibly sad” about ownership’s decision. “This community deserved better, and so did the employees.”

In the months since, the four former Boulder Weekly staffers who are now key members of the Caribou Current crew have been “putting in a lot of hard work — but it’s been really fun and really fulfilling — trying to figure out what this new thing is going to be, how we’re going to get it in people’s hands,” Gray said, “and how we can continue to be a player in the local scene, helping people find stuff that they love and connect them with reporting that matters to their lives.”

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