Listen below to SkiiTour, Maddy O’Neal, Smalltown DJs, The Sponges, N2N and RUMPUS’s interviews on KHOL 89.1 Jackson Hole Community Radio.
The Mangy Moose was packed with enthusiastic partiers for two consecutive Saturdays bookending the Kings & Queens of Corbet’s competition with the SkiiTour Après Thronedown.
Funky, bass-heavy house music pumped from the speakers to delighted crowds captivated by stunning visuals, DJs with dance moves and fake snow machines. Six different acts across two weekends featured Maddy O’Neal, The Sponges and Rumpus on Saturday, Feb. 8, and SkiiTour, Smalltown DJs and N2N on Saturday, Feb. 15.
With Mother Nature bringing bountiful snow, the stoke was high all week. The group took turns spinning tunes at the finish line underneath Corbet’s Couloir near Jackson Hole Mountain Resort’s summit as skiers hucked for the Kings & Queens of Corbet’s crown.
Each artist also came to the KHOL studios to discuss their creative process, play existing and exclusive tracks and share some of their most memorable moments touring the world with their music.
Skiitour
Skiitour’s Tim Livingstone and Dave Rollie (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
SkiiTour is an upbeat DJ/production duo from Whistler, Canada known for their feel-good house music, retro ski aesthetic and ability to rock a party. Their annual après-ski parties at Shambhala Music Festival, featuring snow cones & snow machines, are the stuff of legend. They bring mountains of energy wherever they go.
The duo’s Tim Livingstone and Dave Rollie discussed their love for mountain town crowds and what makes the energy they bring second to none.
“It’s the immediacy of it. When the powder day happens, everyone calls in sick or gets the “snow flu” and then they go and seize the day. I feel like those people are ready to party at a moment’s notice,” Livingstone said.
Maddy O’ Neal
Maddy O’Neal (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
Maddy O’Neal is a Denver-based artist who describes her sound as “dirty funky bass music but make it pretty.” Her soulful melodic overtones, driven basslines, and glitched-out hip-hop grooves have wowed audiences at festivals and venues like Coachella, Lollapalooza, Lost Lands, Electric Forest and Red Rocks. She has toured with major acts like Clozee, Pretty Lights, Griz, and Big Gigantic.
O’Neal was direct support for the first ever all-female electronic dance music lineup as part of REZZ Rocks VI at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in August 2024 and touched on the importance of female representation in the male-dominated world of dance music.
“When I started out making music, I probably knew of five or six female DJs and they weren’t as accessible because they were all on a different level.”
When female producers reach out, O’Neal makes sure to always listen, give advice and be there for those coming up in the scene.
“I feel like I’m paving the way and being a mentor to younger producers and females which I think is really important and something that I’m super proud of,” she said. “It’s a big part of what gives me purpose.”
Smalltown DJs
Smalltown DJ’s Pete Emes and Mike Grimes (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
The Smalltown DJs, Pete Emes and Mike Grimes, arose from hip-hop block parties, DIY punk rock shows and the early days of rave. They make bass-heavy house music, combining the spirit of Canada’s outdoor electronic music festivals like Shambhala and Bass Coast, with the sound they developed running their own now-legendary Hifi Club in Calgary, Alberta.
Grimes explained the importance of music selection when it comes to their live performances and finding the songs that best fit those particular moments.
“We will start thinking of the event far ahead of time. I usually try to imagine what it’s like, you know, what will it be?” Grimes said. “Something like Bass Coast, if they say it’s a 3 p.m. show, I’ll start a folder immediately.”
Emes said song selections are how he delivers joy.
“We’ve been doing it for so long that to me the most memorable [moments] are when you’re with the crowd and you’re enjoying this music together that you’ve selected.” Emes said. “Ever since we’ve both been kids, we’ve been adamant about selecting the music at whatever room or party we’re at.”
The Sponges
The Sponges’s Ryan Slepin and Nik Eaton (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
Denver-based The Sponges, aka Nik Eaton and Ryan Slepin, are known for their unique style of 70s funk and disco samples, deep basslines and infectious house rhythms. Since their last visit to the KHOL studios, the duo have played renowned festivals like Burning Man, Hulaween, and Shambala while putting out more music than ever before.
Eaton and Slepin were excited to recap their first-ever self-curated event in their homebase of Denver, Colorado. The duo spent months planning the details of the Cervantes Ballroom, down to a top-of-the-line Funktion-One sound system and minimal lighting to focus on sound.
“We just had one singular red light and the disco ball,” Eaton said. “We’re so inspired by the psychedelic bass scene [which is] all about high-quality production audio so we wanted to bring some of that into the house music scene [of Denver].”
N2N
N2N aka Nick Kohler (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
Over the last ten years, Brooklyn-based artist N2N, aka Nick Kohler, has become recognized for his versatile, genre-blending sets fueled by infectiously joyous house music which have landed him major label signings as well as support from the world’s biggest DJs, including Fatboy Slim, Chris Lake and David Guetta.
In 2024, Kohler released a track called “Shake That Acid” with Rob Marion via Nervous Records, a label he revered growing up while dreaming of becoming a musician. The full-circle moment allowed Kohler to reflect and remind himself to celebrate life’s wins, big or small.
“If you’re always climbing the mountain and there is no summit to whatever mountain you’re climbing, the higher that you get, the farther ahead that you look, you don’t really often take time to sit with where you’re at and appreciate it,” he said.
RUMPUS
RUMPUS aka Danny Elder (Jack Caitlin / KHOL)
Vancouver Island’s RUMPUS, aka Danny Elder, combines the live drumming of his punk rock roots with the bouncy tech and bass house he loves to produce for a unique style that sets him apart when performing for raucous crowds at world-renowned festivals like Burning Man, Bass Coast, and Lightning in a Bottle.
At the Envision Festival in Costa Rica this past year, Elder played a remix of Rufus du Sol’s popular, “Innerbloom,” made especially for his Saturday night set on the Luna stage. Getting a good response from the performance he sent it out to a few fellow DJs and didn’t think much of it until his phone began pinging like crazy.
“I woke up one morning and someone said, ‘Dom Dolla just played your “Innerbloom” remix at Tomorrowland, and it’s on the festival’s homepage,’” he said, “‘And it’s going absolutely viral!’”
From there the track snowballed, gaining momentum from big-name artists like John Summit, Solumun, Kaskade and Tiesto playing it in their sets.
He thought these DJs would never hear his name, “but now some of those people are reaching out and asking me for more music,” he said.
Listen above to SkiiTour, Maddy O’Neal, Smalltown DJs, The Sponges, N2N and RUMPUS’s interviews on KHOL 89.1 Jackson Hole Community Radio.
