Greg

The Embarrassment’s Sex Drive 7 inch gets re-issue

While actually from Wichita, The Embarrassment is no less influential to many punk bands to come out of this region in the last 25 years. The band announced via their surprisingly up to date Facebook page late last month that their debut 7 inch will be re-issued very soon through Last Laugh Records, an American label that specializes in re-issues of old punk EPs. The label has previously re-issued The Eat’s “Communist Radio” and The Zeros’ “Main Street Brat.”

This alone is great news, but to find out it is being pressed from the original masters makes the deal even sweeter. Now even the cheapest bastard (read: me) can get his hands on a vinyl copy of the original “Sex Drive” (the shorter version from 1990’s God Help Us is great as well) with the original b-side of “Patio Set” to boot. Check out the video below to hear what you are in store for.

Golden Sound gives new Baby Teardrops the vinyl treatment

Kansas City upstart label Golden Sound Records has been building a steady reputation recently with some fantastic releases from Everyday/Everynight, The Empty Spaces, the Fullbloods, and ED/EN & TES frontman Mat Shoare. The label recently announced plans to release the debut vinyl full-length from Matt Dunehoo (Proudentall)’s NYC-based Baby Teardrops. X is For Love can be expected to be available for purchase on vinyl, CD or in digital form by November 15th. In the meantime, the album in its entirety can be found for free on their bandcamp page here.

Matt Dunehoo fronted Kansas City’s Doris Henson, a band once poised for greatness according to anyone who was aware of their existence. Dunehoo formed DH with Giants Chair bassist Byron Collum, multi-instrumentalist Michael Walker (Olympic Size, so many others), Jamie Zoeller from Chicago’s Nymb, and drummer Wes Gartner. The band was well received across nationwide tours, not the least of which was an opening spot on a 2005 Smashing Pumpkins tour. After the band dissolved, Dunehoo packed up and moved to NYC, where he formed the still up-and-coming Baby Teardrops, though the band has already received various online praise.

I leave you with this, a taste of some of Dunehoo’s genre-bending vocal and composition work:

New album from The Casket Lottery on the way

The Casket Lottery, invigorated lineup in tow, is heading in to the studio to record a new album, making them a legitimately active band for the first time in more than five years, though their last release was 2004’s Smoke and Mirrors. The band has previously raised eyebrows by playing a few shows across the region opening for Small Brown Bike (members of whom were in Nathan Ellis’ Able Baker Fox project), but not before playing a full house at the Riot Room during Middle of the Map Fest back in April.

Second Nature Recordings has been mostly quiet these days, so the probability of the band going in another direction entirely is very possible.

Now, who do I have to talk to about a new Jackie Carol album?

The Dead Girls detail new 7 inch release, create kickstarter

Lawrence power-pop sweet hearts The Dead Girls have created a Kickstarter project through label Rocket Heart Records for the release of their new 2-song 7 inch, “She Laughed a Little” b/w “It’s All Happening.” The record will be available on two different colors (400 black, 100 swirl), the b-side of which was recorded about 18 months ago when Justin Pierre from Motion City Soundtrack was in town to lend himself to the recording, along with Blackpool Lights, Creature Comforts and (the often overlooked fourth member of) Ultimate Fakebook, J.D. Warnock.

The band, or more so label, took a very realist approach to the project, and have some extremely reasonable pledge rewards available to those who are able to participate. These range from mp3s of the EP for only $2, mp3s plus the record on black vinyl for $7, and all of the previously mentioned, plus two bonus mp3s and an autographed poster for only $15. The list tops out at the $50 level, which gets the purchaser the aforementioned, the record on the more limited color, a 12 inch of the band’s debut full length Out of Earshot + accompanying mp3s, and a test pressing of the new EP, limited to 7 copies. This tier sold out quickly.

The project has a $2,000 goal and will run until October 1st. Get further information here.

Ultimate Fakebook Halloween show planned for The Bottleneck

Ultimate Fakebook will be playing their only show (they really can’t be called reunions at this point) of the year at The Bottleneck on October 29th, and various parties involved have been working hard to make sure it is a must-see event. The stars aligned, and both Podstar and The Touchdowns will be playing long-awaited reunions, The ACB’s being the only currently active band on the bill. That is, unless you count the tribute band Pyromaniac.

For the uninformed, Podstar was a Lawrence power-punk sensation earlier last decade, and the quartet’s disbanding more or less coincided with Fakebook deciding to call it quits, and thus The Dead Girls was formed out of the ashes of both. Podstar’s Cameron Hawk (bass in Podstar, guitar in TDG), JoJo Longbottom (guitar) and UFB’s Nick Colby (bass) and Eric Melin (drums) came together and are still very active to this day. The Touchdowns formed in Iola, KS, and were close friends with Podstar, to the point that drummer Ryan Magnuson moved behind the kit at the Podstar camp, replacing JP Redmon prior to the release of the band’s sophomore and final album, 2002’s Lovely 32.

The ACB’s released Stona Rosa, one of the best local albums of the entire year in early 2011, and have been playing local shows and touring when possible. The band recorded a Daytrotter session earlier in the summer that is expected to go live any day now. Pyromaniac is from Manhattan, KS, and will be playing a raucous set paying homage to what is sure to be some of the more scandalous and drug-fueled hair metal that was popular in the ’80s. This is an ’80s themed evening, after all.

This is all just the beginning of what has been dubbed the Revenge of the Nerds Halloween Ball, sponsored in part by KJHK. Other things to be expected include air guitar performances, UFB karaoke and an acoustic set, a costume contest and some yet to be announced special guests. Get more info here. The doors open at 5PM, and tickets are only $13, so make sure you pace yourself with the drinking. I know I won’t.

Return of The Only Children; White Flight kickstarter

September 15th will mark the unexpected return of Lawrence’s The Only Children to Kansas City’s Riot Room. The group quietly went on hiatus shortly after the release of their sophomore release, 2007’s Keeper of Youth, and even frontman and Anniversary co-creator Josh Berwanger has kept mostly low-key in that time, unassumingly working in his career as a high school basketball coach. The band has plans to head in to the studio soon to record their third full-length, likely with another revolving cast of musicians.

Opening for the band will be Casey Prestwood & the Burning Angels, the eponymous leader of which once played drums for Hot Rod Circuit and contributes to The Only Children. Also playing is Major Games, a trio best described as a grown-up mix of Lawrence’s Zoom and Panel Donor, and while it would be a stretch to lump the band in with the resurgence of twinkly riffed or reverb heavy shoegaze present in a variety of sounds these days, the members play a spaced out and prog-heavy sound of rock just begging for a conceptual full-length.

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http://vimeo.com/18422993

On the inverse, and decidedly not staying low-key is Anniversary co-creator Justin Roelofs, a man who has seemingly gone from being a mere mortal human to some kind of sentient, dimension-traversing being traveling the known realms of time and space. At least that is what the man would have you believe. Roelofs’ White Flight project is mid-way through a Kickstarter project for his new album, Pyramid of Light. I know not if he truly has the audacity to believe his project can get the over $12,000 in pledges required to succeed, or he created the entire project as a scheme to get people talking about his upcoming album. If he chose the latter, then he is without a doubt succeeding.

The project still has nearly a month left, but one who pledges can expect to get things such as “a 40 min. long sonic collage MIXTAPE made by White Flight in 2011, via mp3 download” for the lowest tier, or an “Amazing Crystal Quartz Necklace made by my partner Daughter of the Sun” for $111. Hell, for a meager $1,111, you can be so lucky as to receive “a CUSTOM larger scale sacred geometry painting, we can determine the image, color, etc. together via a phone conversation or skype session. Also I will share teaching on the I-Ching oracle in this conversation and teach you how to use it to make positive decisions in your life, if you aren’t already familiar with this system.” Sounds like quite a steal, that. Read the rest of the details from the project here.

Early Reflections: Another New KC Supergroup

Earlier this year, local media outlets were beside themselves with the arrival of the new band Minden. The band, composed of members of Kelpie, the Button Band, Buffalo Saints, and other Lawrence acts from the last 5-8 years, was consistently being labeled as a supergroup. I really had no idea why they received this label, but the members have all been a part of musical projects I respect, so I took the term with a grain of salt. I’ve just learned of a new local band that encompasses the term “supergroup” in its truest form.

Christopher Tolle has been active in the Lawrence and Kansas City music scenes for nearly 18 years, from his work in Rise, a high school band that is better off staying in the past (though the lineup also featured a young J.D. Warnock), and Action Man (a band that, if I can remember my history right, started as an offshoot of Five-0 called The Hayseeds, and even had John Harper in the lineup for the earliest days), to the locally seminal Creature Comforts and his primary project for the better part of the last decade, The Belles. Tolle has been a wellspring of great music output for half of his life, and is sure to continue this trend with his newest band, Early Reflections.

Joining Tolle in his newest endeavor is Andrew Sallee of Namelessnumberheadman on guitar, vocals, and wurlitzer. Sallee and the rest of NNHM formed the band when they were living in Shawnee, OK, a small town about 45 minutes east of Oklahoma City, and though the band went through a few different names (Hipster Dufus, The Fauves) before settling on the one that stuck, they essentially found their name when they found a new home in Kansas City a little over a decade ago. NNHM have been dormant for the last few years, but popped up this past winter to play an anniversary show at Recordbar.

Next up in Early Reflections is guitarist/vocalist Bill Latas, best known as one of the founding members of iconic Kansas City grunge/rock band Outhouse. Outhouse played a reunion show at Recordbar earlier this year, but Latas has been staying musically active in a funk/rock and occasional tribute group known as Perpetual Change. Coincidentally, Outhouse co-founders Brad Gaddy and Shawn Poores, as well as Go Kart‘s Larry Groce have been active in their new wave/’80s tribute band called The Zeros.

Brian Everard is the resident bass player in the band. He is currently known as a member of both The Belles and Blackpool Lights, but was in The Creature Comforts as well, meaning all four of his most recognized bands have either been with Tolle, or a member of The Creature Comforts (drummer Billy Brimblecom is in BPL, as well as a range of tribute bands with CC guitarist Warnock).

Rounding out the lineup and further proving the incestuous nature of local music, we have drummer and audio engineer extraordinaire Chris Cosgrove. The list of bands he has been in is dwarfed in comparison to the amount of artists he has worked with in the studio, but the most notable act he was in was the early ’90s math rock quartet Zoom, who themselves played a reunion (or four) earlier this year, one of which was at Recordbar (I see a growing trend here, no?), as part of the previously mentioned NNHM anniversary gig.

Early Reflections will be playing their first official show as a band on June 30th, opening for Meat Puppets at Recordbar. They have been playing unofficially as a more or less “Chris Tolle and Friends” band for a few months, though. One of their public performances worth mentioning is their participation in the recent Replacements tribute show, the lineup only a four piece of Tolle, Everard, Latas, and Shawn Poores. The Dead Girls, Chad Rex, John Velghe & His Prodigal Sons, and a cast of other area musicians appeared on the bill that night as well. Appearing with Early Reflections and Meat Puppets is a Belgian garage revival band called The Black Box Revelation, for fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It will be a night that should not be missed.

The Leopards’ Kansas City Slickers LP Gets July Re-Issue

It doesn’t take much searching to find out that at one time, Kansas City was on the proverbial map as one of the top Midwest cities churning out a revolving cast of quality powerpop and early punk. To get a glimpse of what was happening in the late ’70s, look no further than the iconic Titan! Records, whose catalog contains releases from a handful of Midwestern underground sensations including Gary Charlson, The Boys, J.P. McClain and The Gems, to name but a few. Kansas City Star writer Tim Finn posted an extensive feature on the label that included interviews with former artists and owners on his Back to Rockville blog around the time the label received its due documentation from Chicago’s Numero Group in the form of a two-disc compilation chronicling the label’s entire output. These days, the owners of Titan! can be seen hosting an occasional pop-up record store, a single-day event at which they sell off thousands of records they have accumulated over the years for only a few dollars a piece.

Looking beyond artists that were released by a legitimate label, you may uncover KC’s The Leopards, a band known for self-releasing their own records years before it was ever a preference. The band that released the extent of their discography on their own Moon Records (not to be confused with longtime ska label Moon/Moon Ska), encapsulated a sound that was not only punk, or powerpop, or even new wave, but pulled in influences from an amalgamation of artists that often preceded the band by decades. The Leopards released three singles prior to their debut LP, 1977’s Kansas City Slickers, which is said to have only received a pressing of 1,000 copies, and there is no authority on how many of those have survived. The band went on to try their luck at fame outside of the metro area, further releasing their own Kinks-flavored combination of pop, punk, garage, and psych well into the ’80s, even getting a fair amount of radio play in the larger markets. But likely none of their output will ever match the locally groundbreaking sounds present on Slickers.

Enter NYC-based re-issue label Sing Sing Records, already with a remarkable roster of releases from both the sadly forgotten and those that have experienced their own late-blooming glory with the ever-growing KBD-hungry sea of collectors around the world. The label has plans to re-issue Kansas City Slickers this July, with a cover that has only been slightly retouched and features the Sing Sing catalog number in place of Moon’s. I will attempt to post an update when the pre-orders go live, but unless you are one of the lucky few who can find the original for under $50, you can plan on spending in the lower three digits if you are attempting to track down the Moon-released version. With the re-issue on the horizon, I will not post a link to download the album directly, but you can find it across the many mod, powerpop and early punk blogs that are out there.

05/28/11: Cowboy Indian Bear / Conduits / Reward Tree @ The Brick

In my attempt to turn this page into something of a legitimate source for local music coverage, I attended two mostly local shows at The Brick over the weekend, the first of which was posted late last night. Full disclosure: I am not a photographer, so some of the shots I took over the weekend (with two different, borrowed cameras) may not necessarily be from the most flattering angles or have the most visually appealing lighting possible. What can I say, I am a caveman and your use of portable picture-taking technology both frightens and confuses me.

I arrived at The Brick shortly after 9PM on Saturday, still rubbing sleep from my eyes from a nap cut short only 15 minutes earlier. The event was advertised as having a start time of 9, so I may or may not have been driving the legal speed limit on my way down to the venue. Already there was a very sizable crowd sitting and standing about, and a revolving group of twenty-somethings coming from and going to the outside to smoke, leaving a pile of half-full PBRs and frosty pint glasses near the door on their way out.

Reward Tree took the stage at 10, and played a 20 minute set that circled around the band’s small but varied discography. They opened with a song from last year’s Needy EP, an electronic based indie-pop effort that introduced the band to the Kansas City music scene, though they had been playing shows for a short time before that. Followers of Kansas City indie rock may notice that all four of the gentlemen in Reward Tree made up the core membership of Jump Rope For Heart, a band that called it quits in late 2007, but not before touring Japan for two weeks in 2005. If you search the darkest corners of the used bins (a home away from home for myself), I’m sure you can come up with one of their CDs.

During the band’s electronic songs, guitarist/vocalist Taylor Dunn would remove his guitar and instead don a pair of cheap sunglasses while concentrating on the sampler in front of him, removing the glasses and strapping the guitar back on for the instrument-based songs. This trend continued a few times, until the band began playing songs from their latest release, 2011’s Making Beds, which includes many songs that were reworked and re-recorded from an earlier Jump Rope release. Before starting their final song, Dunn told the story of a time they thought they had been asked to play as part of a Pixies tribute show, and prepared a short set of covers only to find out that they were actually supposed to be opening for a Pixies tribute band. After this, they launched into a cover of “Debaser” that was so true to the original, all it was lacking was Kim Deal.

The second band of the evening was Conduits, a fairly new sextet with a lot of hometown hype in Omaha, NE. They opened with “Misery Train,” a slowly building minimalistic pop song that crescendos in the latter half, becoming a reverb and bass driven shoegazer opus, and a great start to a set from a band that had only played Kansas City once previously. Front woman Jenna Morrison’s vocal mix was initially too low to hear, but the problem was fixed before the second song began. It was quite easy to become enamored with Morrison’s sultry voice, at times it recalled the smoke-filled piano bars of years past. And yet between songs, the larger than life voice turned meek to give the crowd a quiet “thank you” while she sipped at a cup of hot tea, her eye contact with the audience at a minimum.

Out of the spotlight was a group of the best musicians the Omaha indie rock scene currently has to offer, from drummer Roger Lewis (of The Good Life), to guitarists Nate Mickish and J.J. Idt, and the bass of Mike Overfield that would have otherwise made the band’s sonic sound lack were it not present. Conduits ended their set with a nearly ten-minute-long driving, droning and at times deafening song that again emphasized the sheer size of Morrison’s voice resonating from the walls of The Brick in intervals, the music repeatedly surging into a culmination of distortion in the band’s climax. After they left the stage, I overheard no less than three people exclaim to their friend in excitement that the band was “fucking awesome.” Succinctly put, comrades.

Closing out the evening was Lawrence, KS, trio turned quartet Cowboy Indian Bear, who took the stage and struck the first chord of “Saline” at midnight sharp. A rush then occurred, with a few dozen people clamoring to get a better view of the group. I wish I could say that I was able to hear keyboardist Katlyn Conroy, but her voice was mostly washed out among the harmonization between C.J. Calhoun and Marty Hillard. In fact, at one point during a break to the back of the room, I mistook what I thought to be her voice with a rather impressive falsetto from Hillard. Conroy’s vocals aside, the lot could be seen exchanging glances with each other before key time changes during the newer songs, but the four have undoubtedly found their niche as a group.

Cowboy Indian Bear have played in Kansas City many times over the last two years, and proclaimed proudly from the stage that this would be their first as a headliner in the city. A notable reaction I took away from their performance was a respect for their multi-instrumentation, Calhoun frequently trading back and forth between a guitar and a keyboard within the same song, Calhoun and Hillard trading guitars and basses, and both Calhoun and Conroy playing a small set of toms placed in front of their stations, which in turn created an explosion of sound in unison with drummer Beau Bruns. Their aurally pleasing set ran for the better part of an hour, and included a number of songs from their full length debut, but the group played a few well-received tunes that have not yet been recorded. You will know as soon as I do when those are going to be released.

05/27/11: The Dead Girls / The Chaotic Goods / Deco Auto @ The Brick

There is no better downtown location in which to see a powerpop/rock show than The Brick. With the exception of the dive bar bathrooms, the venue is one of my favorite places to not only see a reasonably priced show but to eat a good meal with cheap drink specials to boot. I am lucky enough to both work and live within blocks of The Brick, and try my damnedest to patronize the location on at least a monthly basis. Although they are not operating within a very large space, I’ve noticed their sound is always exactly as it should be and have rarely encountered a night when I am unable to hear one of the musicians on stage. This past weekend, I attended live shows at the venue two nights in a row, a first for me at any venue in KC since I was a teenager and had the extra money to hang out at all-ages places such as the El Torreon a few nights a week during the summer. My double night attendance was nearly pushed into a triple night, but alas, I missed the tour kick-off of The ACB’s with headliner Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin the night before.

The night was kicked off at around 10:30 with opener Deco Auto, a powerpop trio who only made their debut as a performing band back in April. I would have been in attendance had it not interfered with my previously scheduled plans to be in Westport for the Middle of the Map Festival. The band played a seemingly short set that turned out to be half an hour and consisted of ten songs with only a few moments between having any kind of banter from guitarist/vocalist Steven Garcia, who later explained to the crowd that he is usually much more friendly. Few and far between were the people who watched the band play without talking to their nearby friends, and the set was only viewed by a sparse two dozen people.

It is easy to judge a young band still trying to get their footing within the music scene, even if the members are veterans of live music themselves. Deco Auto, young and fresh as the entity itself is, really don’t have far to go before they can book time in a studio and get some of the songs I heard recorded to tape. The rough edges seem to still be an ongoing process, but the combination of Garcia’s strong voice for melodic punk-influenced rock and bassist Tracy Flowers supplying an additional level of melody with her vocals, creates a kind of catchy, late ’90s pop-punk/powerpop sound that is best with rough edges intact. The rhythmic backbone from drummer Michelle O’Brien completes the trifecta of Deco Auto, her stripped down playing style taking cues from the earliest days of pop music from seminal acts like The Yardbirds and The Dave Clark Five.

The next to take the stage was another new band called The Chaotic Goods, five guys who hail from Manhattan, KS, and most of which have been active in music for nearly two decades. I was particularly looking forward to seeing this band due to the inclusion of guitarist Marty Robertson, known for his work in Frogpond, Abileen, Onward Crispin Glover and the embarrassingly unspoken of El Fontain. The band began their set strong, touching on a Danger Bob-esque approach to quirky nerd rock/powerpop, vocalist Ralph Reichert at one point exclaiming simply “we write songs about girls,” among other quips between he and a few of the more talkative members of the audience. As the band progressed, there were more and more hit-or-miss songs, some that were an outright throwback to grunge in the worst way, and some that could have been considered for inclusion on an iconic Kansas City Misery type compilation, had the band existed more than 15 years ago when the original was released.

The longer the band played, the more restless the crowd was becoming and the more their talking amongst themselves was increasing. Let it be noted, that had the band played half as long as they actually did, and cut out an equal amount of their set list, they would have been overall well-received by not only myself but the majority of those in attendance that had grown tired of some of the very repetitive songs being played. When they left the stage, I was left a little bitter that they could have been so much better had they not tried to cover so much musical ground in an hour. The vocal harmonization among Reichert, Robertson, and guitarist Ray Kristek was generally in tune and certain songs would have severely suffered had they lacked it, and I was amused with Robertson and bassist Chad Myers frequently trading instruments between songs, but I think the band was just on the wrong lineup on the wrong night.

If there is any band in the metro area that doesn’t get the respect and attention they deserve, it’s chronic room-clearers The Dead Girls. Blame it on their name (someone once told me they expected them to be a metal band) or the fact that, if headlining, they don’t begin playing until some bars and venues are having last call. Blame it on the cringe-worthy banter between guitarists/vocalists Cameron Hawk and JoJo Longbottom, but nobody can say the quartet aren’t all equally talented musicians who put on one hell of a rock show. One could only speculate why the ‘former members of’ hype doesn’t catch up to the powerpop group composed of 2/3 of Ultimate Fakebook and 1/2 of Podstar, but they still manage to play to a small but dedicated built-in audience multiple times a month between Kansas City and their home of Lawrence, KS.

Sitting at a table prior to their performance, and with a cup of hot tea at his side, Hawk explained that he was losing his voice and so their set list that night would largely consist of songs written by Longbottom, Hawk performing the necessary back-up vocals. He seemed rather unfazed upon taking the stage, playing just as hard as he would have otherwise. The band barreled through a set with songs that spanned their discography to date, including the crowd pleaser “You Ignited,” from the 2010 vinyl-only full length Out of Earshot. The band has been gradually unveiling new songs in their recent performances, preparing for the release of a 7″ EP coming out on the same label that released their last effort, as well as the vinyl issue of Ultimate Fakebook’s Electric Kissing Parties. The EP is scheduled for release later in 2011 on Rocketheart Records.