Kristen Sublette

My life through my musical experiences.

Hey, I’m Kristen Sublette and I’m a senior at Colorado State University. My major is Journalism and Media Communications with a minor in Agriculture Education. I have had a passion for music since I was a child, whether it was belting Shania Twain at the top of my lungs or rocking out to Blink-182, I have always been devouring music.

I fell in love with The Devil Went Down to Georgia by Charlie Daniels and I decided I HAD to learn to play violin. The sound of the bow sliding across the strings, the fast pace of the fiddle to the slow drawls of a love song, playing the violin was everything my heart desired.

My mother on the other hand was not so apt to fork over the cash, rent a violin, and drive me all over town to violin lessons. She wanted me to play piano and to be fair, we did have a piano gathering dust in the dining room of our home. She agreed if I learned to play piano, she would let me play violin. The deal was sealed and I embarked on two years of piano lessons.

What I didn’t know when I started playing piano was piano is the gateway to learning all other instruments. Learning the piano taught me how to read treble and bass clef, time signatures, music symbols, minor and major scales. This knowledge made picking up the violin in my sixth grade orchestra class way easier. I ended up playing violin in my schools orchestra through middle school and high school.

During this time my parents started allowing me to go to concerts at the local music venue, a place called Lifespot, a church run venue in Littleton, Colorado. Lifespot had a tremendous impact on my life. The venue mainly hosted alternative genres of rock like hardcore, screamo, and metal. I was able to deep dive into alternative music, get to know my local music scene, and meet tons of people involved in that scene.

I saw Breathe Carolina play their first show at Lifespot in 2004. I stood in a tiny crowd to watch bands like 3OH!3, Four Letter Lie, and Mayday Parade play in a tiny intimate venue before they were hitting the main stages of Warped Tour and headlining shows at major venues.

This is where my passion for music really took off. Throughout middle and high school I frequented the Denver music venues like The Ogden, The Gothic, The Fillmore, and The Marquis. I expanded my inventory of live artists by going to as many concerts as I could purchase tickets for.

It wasn’t until after high school that I was able to go to the historic Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado. This created another shift in musical endeavors. My first red rocks show was The Dead which were the remaining members of The Grateful Dead, respectfully renamed after Jerry Garcia’s death. I fell hard for the smell of pachouli, bare feet, the taste of weed in my mouth, and the endless ramblings of jam band music.

Bluegrass and electronic music played also accompanied my new found love for jam bands. If Yonder Mountain String Band, Sound Tribe Sector 9, or The String Cheese Incident were in town you could bet your bottom I was there to dance and sing the night away.

I had largely turned away from country music during this time of my life. A huge reason I had was because it all sounded the same. I didn’t want to hear auto-tuned voices singing about chewing tobacco, what was on the radio was all crap to me. Plus it wasn’t cool. I was a kid from the burbs of Denver, Colorado. It wasn’t cool to be country and I made damn sure I wasn’t.

Late one night in 2016 I was laying in my bed scrolling obsessively through Facebook before bed. I stopped on a video a friend has posted. As it played the song, the video, the story, it all drew me in. I had to hear more from this artist. I hadn’t heard country music sound so authentic in years. The song was Cody Johnson’s, “With You I am.”

Again I shifted into music I had long forgotten, country music. But this time, make it Texas.

Artists like Cody Johnson, Aaron Watson, and Casey Donahew filled my speakers. They played songs that felt more close to my heart and soul than I had heard in a long time.

Fast forward five years and a couple trips to Texas, I’m still as in love with Texas country music as the day I found that Cody Johnson song. Thus Punchin’ Play is born, a Texas country music blog dedicated to that outlaw style that Texas is packing in hot and heavy.

Check back weekly or follow me on Instagram for the latest blogs.

Cheers!