Riot on the Plaza
concert calendar
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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYoSbMd7kU
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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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.
Riot on the Plaza 