Pure Energy
A generation before Spencer Goertz-Giffen came of age in the tiny Kansas town of Goessel, dancing was taboo.
But when the floodgates opened and the Mennonite village in which she was raised loosened its proverbial Bible belt, Goertz-Giffen sprinted to the front of the conga line.
“At high school dances, it was just me and my siblings dancing because everyone else was too inhibited,” says Goertz-Giffen, the dynamic front woman of the Lawrence band the Kinetiks.
“There’s a lot of dance repression in our history,” she adds. “But on the other hand, the Mennonite church was very musical. Everyone could sight read and sing four-part harmonies.”
It’s hard to imagine a stand-still crowd at a Kinetiks show. Drummer Jason Kniep and bassist Phil Gratz bash out kinky grooves with body-seizing disco beats, keyboardist and singer Rani Waugh does Ric Ocasek proud with savory New Wave keyboards, and Goertz-Giffen sprightly bobs back and forth while picking out red-hot pentatonic licks.
It’s the sound of a band making Music History — the Kinetiks’ new EP.
“I wasn’t pleased with the name at all,” Waugh says, “until Jason said that when we’re doing interviews we can say, ‘Well, when we were making Music History … ‘”
The EP marks the culmination of two years of writing and performing. Powered by Little Caesars pizzas and Lawrence’s Aciddolphin Studios, the five-song collection is pure fun. It also offers a more well-rounded view of the band than what audiences typically hear — the ’80s.
“At one Jackpot Saloon show, two different people came up to me and said ‘1983,’” Gratz recalls.
“But we’re not,” Goertz-Giffen clarifies. “We rock more. Those bands used more synths and not so much distortion.”
Comparisons to Devo and the B-52’s are tenuous at best, but the Kinetiks do share that era’s preoccupation with mirthful lyrics. The song “Shameless Farce” jests: Fans of Jack Kerouac/Your typewriter is the new iMac/Hitch a ride to San Fran/My goatee makes me a man. Additionally, the band is threatening to cover Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” and change the chorus to In your pants.
Such ribaldry enlightens the Kinetiks’ shows, the most recent of which featured interpretive dancers. The band hopes to harness that vim and vigor and take it on the road to support Music History.
“I think we all feel a little renewed,” Waugh says. “We might actually do a tour for real this time — not like the fake tour we set up last year.”
Then, perhaps, music history can add a chapter titled: The light, the heat/In your pants/I am complete.
