You never know who you’ll find living in Boulder. Your neighbor might be a Nobel laureate. Your dog’s vet probably moonlights in a bluegrass band. And the guy who coordinates local singer-songwriter showcases at Boulder’s DIY nonprofit music hub? Turns out he was recently a contestant on Netflix’s reality competition show, “Squid Game: The Challenge.”
That guy is Jesse Ogle: a musician, community organizer and the director of development at Roots Music Project, 4747 Pearl St., Suite V3A, the warehouse-turned-venue off of Pearl Street in East Boulder, where many local musicians orbit. On Saturday, he’s hosting a community watch party at Roots to screen the first two episodes of “Squid Game” and share behind-the-scenes stories from his time in the show that pits 456 contestants against each other for $4.56 million.
Ogle is a familiar figure in Boulder’s creative ecosystem, one that you can typically find either on stage, backstage, or somewhere in between, holding a clipboard and a bass guitar. At Roots, he curates local showcases, mentors up-and-coming performers and helps steer the venue’s nonprofit mission to give musicians a place to play that isn’t a bar or a backyard. Roots Music Project was the nonprofit behind the inaugural Roots Music Festival in Boulder last month that featured Yonder Mountain String Band, Andy Frasco & The U.N., Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe and 180 other musicians across various venues on and around Pearl Street.
Ogle is one half of the funk-forward band Nu Bass Theory, which morphs jazz, groove and live improvisation into one funky earworm. Before that, Ogle was the founder of a music nonprofit in Durango, where he spent years connecting artists and teaching students how to turn ideas into sound…