Music of the Mountains: The Tortesians

William Nicholson has passed down the idea of Tortesia for years. The legend began at a previous job, where he frequently talked to “a guy named Cole,” who constantly showed up hungover.

When Nicholson asked Cole where he had been the night before, he said he was down in Tortesia. Nicholson asked where Tortesia was, and Cole pointed in one direction and responded, “It’s down the road about 10 or 12 beers.”

“I just kept it as kind of a funny thing,” Nicholson says. “When someone was acting goofy, I’d be like, ‘You’re just Tortesian. Quit acting Tortesian, bro.’” Now, a lineup of four musicians (with an occasional fifth member on saxophone) has embraced the inside joke by adopting the moniker of The Tortesians.