motm

Molly McGuire to Reunite at Middle of the Map

This won’t be news to anyone who already follows the local music announcements that have been building in anticipation of this year’s Middle of the Map festival, but Kansas City’s own Molly McGuire will be reuniting for what is currently being billed as a one-off show. The band’s recently successful kickstarter campaign also means we can expect a new album from them in the near future, and on vinyl to boot. Joining Molly onstage will be a Men Are Monkeys, Robots Win era Season to Risk (meaning they will have Shiner‘s Josh Newton in tow), a reunion from The Esoteric (no word on whether this will be career-spanning, or focus on their earlier, more experimental sounds), and an opening slot from the never-quite-broken-up Cher UK.

Molly McGuire has not played live in over a decade, and were a mainstay at venues like The Hurricane (now Riot Room). As the band ran its natural course, the members’ musical interests began to skew in varying directions. The band Gunfighter was started as a side-project, but after the Epic Records-released (and Ken Andrews-produced) Molly album Lime, what was once a hobby band gradually pulled in all of front man Jason Blackmore’s focus. Upon Gunfighter becoming his primary concern, Blackmore moved to California to begin anew, with a fresh take on his songwriting. The band, like any other, ran its natural course through various lineup changes and eventually sputtered out quietly with a death rattle few were paying attention to at that point.

Blackmore then experimented with the mercifully short-lived Kingdom of Snakes, a quartet which garnered Molly, S2R and Shiner drummer Jason Gerken, and featured two members from the nu-metal band Nothingface. Let us all take a moment of silence to appreciate the quickness with which that project ended. Blackmore still resides in California to this day, and began talking with his former band mates about an album which they were never able to record and release, and what the chances would be anyone would still care. If the kickstarter is any indication (pulling in almost $6,500 with a $5,000 goal), the people are anxiously awaiting the new material.

The show is scheduled for April 5th at the RecordBar, and is slated to be a kickoff, of sorts, for the festival. The first 500 MOTM ticket purchasers are guaranteed entry (not that the venue holds that many) and it is first come, first served after that.