Car Microwave would like to invite you to their Pool Party

Car Microwave. // photo courtesy the artist

Car Microwave’s Pool Party 3, featuring themselves along with Big Fat Cow, LVNDLOCKED, and Schuyler Minor, takes place at Lemonade Park on Saturday, July 25. Details here.

Kansas City indie rockers Car Microwave dropped their sophomore LP, Spirit’s Up, Windows Down, at the end of May.

The five-piece had been working on this album on and off for close to two years, although they put out a split EP with their friends in Shotgun Wedding Singer in January of last year entitled You Can Have It All (If You Want).

You might have heard the first single, “Jack Kerouac,” when it came out in March of 2025, along with the second single, “Ford Crown Victoria,” in September. As the band’s electric guitarist and pianist Parker Mason noted when he reached out via email, “It’s something of a concept record, with all the songs being loosely about cars or traveling in some capacity.”

The eight tracks that comprise the album were contributed by Mason, lead singer Katie Boord, and guitarist Caitlyn Jacobs, and fleshed out with the help of bassist Kirsten Krier and drummer Riley Rexford. The end result is that Spirit’s Up, Windows Down is a summer-perfect record, making their upcoming Pool Party 3 show at Lemonade Park with themselves, Schuyler Minor of Land Lion (with Car Microwave as his backing band), LVNDLOCKED, and Big Fat Cow on Saturday, July 25, exactly what you need to sweat and sing along.

We spoke via email with Parker Mason about Spirit’s Up, Windows Down and its creation, along with all the details you need to know about Pool Party.

The Pitch: Three of you contributed songs to the album. How does the songwriting process work for Car Microwave?

Parker Mason: I would describe the songwriting process as being very democratic. One of us will bring a song to the group more or less fully realized structurally, and then we get to work building it out into a fully fledged Car Microwave song. There is a loose rotation between the three of us (that being our guitarist Caitlyn Jacobs, singer Katie Boord, and myself, other guitarist Parker Mason), though often we just work on whoever has the best song at that moment. It’s handy having three songwriters, as sometimes one of us will go through a period where life gets busy and we don’t write much at all, but the other two will be able to sort of compensate. I can truly say there is no ego involved; we cheer each other on to be the absolute best writer in the group. It makes us all better.

When did you realize the thematic line running through all these songs and at what point did you lean into it?

It came pretty early on, though I forget exactly when it was. So many ideas come about spontaneously as we’re hanging out, driving somewhere, or waiting for a show to start and someone says “Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if…” or “Hear me out…”. We’re not too precious with all of this; if something sounds like it would be fun, we tend to just go for it and see what happens. I think it might have been shortly after Pool Party 2 in July of 2025 that we realized we had a lot of car and traveling themed songs. We covered “Life is a Highway” at that show and it clicked that we seemed to return to the first word in our name as a motif a lot. We decided to make the second record themed after that around then I think. So now we joke that we have to put out a microwave-themed album.

Since you’ve been working on this for two years, with the single dropping back in March 2025, what’s changed in the interim for this album?

We never really stop writing and thinking of ideas of things we want to do. As it relates to this album, there were several things that materialized very late in the process of making it. For example, there is an acoustic hidden track at the end of the final song, “Stopped Clocks.” That was a complete audible that came about as we were recording the track, even though we wrote that song years ago. Another instance of this is the interlude track “3-1”. Originally we had this instrumental as an intro for “Toyota Tacoma” (which itself was a very late inclusion on the record). Caitlyn had the idea to make the intro a separate track, and I suggested adding the audio in the background. We’ve gotten some feedback that it’s some people’s favorite part of the album, and I agree it turned out really nice. You never know what will come together if you leave yourself open to different possibilities.

Where’d you record all these songs?

With the exception of one song, all of the songs on Spirits Up, Windows Down were recorded in our drummer Riley’s parents’ basement. That space has served us well – it’s where we recorded our first record and where we end up rehearsing most of the time. The song “Jack Kerouac” was recorded at Levitate KC in Leavenworth, KS. We loved that place, and it’s also where we recorded the two songs we contributed to the split EP we put out with Shotgun Wedding Singer in January of 2025. They sadly closed their doors shortly after we tracked “Jack Kerouac.” We miss that space and cherish the time we had there.

How did Pool Party come to be, and what makes it an annual affair at this point?

The first Pool Party really came about from an initiative in the band to try and play some new venues. We had set our sights on Lemonade Park in late 2023 after banking some trust playing successful shows at miniBar and recordBar. Steve Tulipana, who has always been really great to work with, took a chance on us and let us play there that following summer. I wanted to make the show really feel like an event. I conspired with Ben Wendt of Land Lion and Jeremy Nathan, who were both appearing on the bill that year, on some ways that we could promote the show.

After some brainstorming, we decided to go all in on the “Pool Party” concept, seeing as it was going to be in the dead of summer. I really owe those two a lot for making that first one happen. After it came and went, and was actually successful (never guaranteed haha), it didn’t occur to me to do another one. It was months later that Ben made an offhand comment about Car Microwave doing a Pool Party 2, and the light bulb went off in my head. We doubled our tickets sold from the previous year at Pool Party 2, so now we’re going for 3!

Why is the Rino such a particular incubator for certain acts such as yourselves? It has this special clubhouse feel to it.

We really owe that place everything. So many of our early experiences playing out (when quite frankly we were not that good) were on that stage. To put it simply, I believe Ben Wendt has intentionally curated a space that is not only welcoming, but encouraging of everyone looking for a place to display their art.

It’s a light in our music community that we’ve been lucky enough to glean enormous benefit from. Someone made the comment to me once that it has a “we’re all family here” vibe, and I personally love that. In 2026, I think we need more of that.

Car Microwave’s Pool Party 3, featuring themselves along with Big Fat Cow, LVNDLOCKED, and Schuyler Minor, takes place at Lemonade Park on Saturday, July 25. Details here.