The enigmatic Buckethead graced the stage at Fort Collins, CO’s Aggie Theatre last night, for a demonstration of some serious guitar shredding skills. The prolific guitarist, born Brian Patrick Carroll, donned a plain white bucket atop his head for the performance, which stayed more to the metal side of the spectrum for the greater part of the show. With only a few amps and backing tracks joining him on stage, Buckethead displayed the virtuosic skills that have hailed him as one of GuitarOne magazine’s “Top 10 Fastest Guitar Shredders of All Time”, and deservedly so.With some straight-forward metal being displayed for a good portion of the show, Buckethead also let things in the room breathe with some very melodic solos that were about as graceful as a guitar solo can get. Halfway through the performance, he took a break from the guitar to show off his robotic dance moves and some pretty impressive nunchaku skills, before handing out some goodies to fans in the front row. As the show continued, Buckethead played a tease of “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, as well as a “Star Wars Medley” that brought many of us over to the Dark Side. Check out video from the show below. read more

Over the past half century the rainforests of Borneo have been logged, strip-mined, burned, and converted for monoculture plantations. The forests that local people primarily relied upon for sustenance are now felled to feed commodities into the global market.But the Dayak Iban of Sungai Utik community in Indonesian Borneo has managed to fend off loggers and land invaders from their forest home.Sungai Utik’s efforts to sustainably manage its community forest in the face of large-scale deforestation and cultural loss across Borneo have won it accolades, including the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Equator Prize last month.During a June 2019 visit, Mongabay spoke with Apay Janggut, or “Bandi”, the head of the Sungai Utik longhouse about his community’s traditional practices, resistance to loggers, and efforts to adapt to issues facing indigenous peoples around the world. read more