Around Hear
Reflector is, or should I say was, one of those few local acts that seemed to draw music fans — from emo-kids to punk rockers — across their genre-specific lines in the sand to gain support. Hell, the band even conned one of the area’s most popular (and recently reclusive) groups, Kill Creek, to open for its last show, on Saturday, July 1, at The Bottleneck.
Actually, Kill Creek staged a sort of coming-back-out party a few weeks ago at The Hurricane, but that doesn’t belittle the band’s role in Reflector’s last waltz. “We are pretty much just fielding offers that don’t suck,” confirms Kill Creek’s central figure, Scott Born. “We don’t have a dying desire to play out for fame or cash or anything, but we are in a position to be easily convinced if it is with folks that are as benign, friendly, and refreshing as Casket Lottery and Reflector. We need to play with kids who can offset our oppressive cynicism.”
That oppressive cynicism resulted in a lengthy hiatus following the release of 1996’s Proving Winter Cruel on Mammoth Records — an album revered by critics as one of that year’s best, but one ultimately back-shelved by said label in favor of projects with a better shot at commercial radio play. Kill Creek knew the record wouldn’t receive the support it deserved and, in the name of artistic freedom, turned down an offer to rework some of the songs to have more commercial appeal. But it wasn’t this typical example of major-label subsidiary double-talk that led to this “oppressive cynicism”; instead it was that same sort of litigious lingo making its way around local circles that sparked the malaise.
“It seemed like there was a time around here when there were always showcases and entertainment lawyers in town, and everyone was worried about getting signed,” says Born. “So after a while, everyone who listened to a song of yours was wondering how the label would like it, or if it would work on radio, and you couldn’t even take a demo over to a friend’s house and get excited about it.”
Fittingly, it is the growing absence of these delusions of grandeur in local politics that marks the return of Kill Creek. “We’ve been paying for a practice space the whole time and writing for ourselves and practicing for ourselves and telling jokes to ourselves,” Born continues. “But it took this new group of excited, young types like Jake (Cardwell, Reflector) to convince us that it could be fun to practice in front of this new group of kids.
“This group of folks (Reflector, Casket Lottery, etc.) has been refreshing; it’s fun to have that feeling of playing your demos to your buddies back when you were in high school and everybody being excited just to hear anything.”
Granted, a lot of these “kids” haven’t had the opportunity to take in all Kill Creek has to offer, and Born has some reservations about that (“It’s like The Who coming back, and people are coming to see us just because we’re old”). But instead of taking its rock opera to Broadway, Kill Creek plans to whet the appetites of young fans with a compilation of material from three different records to be released soon. In addition, there should be a full-length (Colors of Home) out in August on Second Nature Records (www.secondnaturerecordings.com) and a few shows if the offers don’t suck. Reggae and the full effect
Summer is festival season, which, in addition to having multiple opportunities to see amphitheater shows that seem like practical jokes (see Rockfest; Red, White, & Boom; etc.), means that even the most conservative concertgoer can be instantly transformed from mild-mannered workaday accountant to irie man. Nowhere is this transformation more probable and prevalent than at any one of the many reggae-theme festivals that dot this land of ours throughout the sweltering outdoor concert season. So even if the hint of a rastaman vibration is enough to make you ill, the chance to see grown white men doing the loopy reggae strut while wearing an obligatory rasta tam is hard to pass up. Kansas City’s Reggae Fest 2000 will afford attendees this very chance, July 2 through 4 at The Uptown Theater. Speaking of transformations, you also will be able to witness local hip-hop icon Tech N9ne drop the hardcore ethos and get back in touch with his inner Jah, along with all the local reggae regulars, including Blue Riddim, Az-One, Green Card, and The Traditional Music Society. Headlining this year’s Friends of Reggae International-sponsored festival is Jimmy Cliff, whose selection of popular radio-friendly songs should bring out even the most unassuming weekend warriors. But beware, “persons caught smoking (anything) in the Uptown will be kicked out and/or arrested.”Hit me with the pop gun
Gunfighter was never supposed to be taken this seriously. Born out of the ashes of Molly McGuire and undertaken as an effort for guitarist/vocalist Jason Blackmore to let out his pent-up pop leanings, the side project of sorts was not the kind of endeavor where Blackmore and friends expected the same major-label headaches that plagued them in Molly McGuire. But that’s sort of what they got.
“I think he just sort of got tired of running a label,” Blackmore says of Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, who had signed Gunfighter to his Loose Groove imprint. “He just came in one day and decided that running a label had become a chore he couldn’t commit to, so that was pretty much it.”
That was it for the label and its employees, but that wouldn’t be the end of this just-for-kicks band that had started to take on a life of its own. According to Blackmore, some of Loose Groove’s former employees saw to that. Gunfighter’s record was to have been the label’s flagship rock release this year, and the “buzz” it was generating among industry types indicated that it would be well received. But without a label the band’s future looked bleak.
“But all these people who had basically just been fired from their jobs kept helping us out,” explains Blackmore. “They were making contacts, and we had already been hooked up with this radio guy from McGathy who really liked Molly’s stuff in the past and liked what he heard from Gunfighter. So we’re still getting to work with him, and that’s huge.”
Huge because the radio promotion game plays out like payola in the past, but with the labels coughing up dough to a middle-man who gets the product on the air instead of record companies’ directly paying stations. Thus, an independent band’s showing up to play the radio game with an industry heavy-hitter is akin to bringing Mike Tyson to a schoolyard brawl: Their style is impetuous, their defense impregnable; they will rip the heart out of the competition and eat their children (praise be to Allah). Or something like that.
Anyway, until you hear Gunfighter on your local alternative rock juggernaut (the band has long since shied away from that pop thing and leaned back toward Molly’s stockier roots), there are still a few decent opportunities to go see the boys live. And honestly, Blackmore says, the album’s actual release date is in limbo, and there might be enough material there to release a double-shot of Gunfighter, so seeing the band live is still your best bet for a night of grinding rock. You can see Blackmore’s mom, Trish, at the group’s next local outing, on Thursday, June 29, at Pauly’s on Broadway, where the young lady will celebrate her birthday while Junior rocks the night away.Buddy Lush action doll sold separately
Even though Ernie Locke appears weekly to host his eerily titled Hump ‘N’ Bump matinee series at the Grand Emporium, some people claim that the voluminous frontman hasn’t played out in years. That’s because those folks are thinking of the hard-partyin’, butt-crack-showin’, you-better-watch-your-step-’cause-I-been-drinkin’-all-day Locke we all came to love in local syndicates such as Sin City Disciples and Tenderloin, not the more refined Locke on display in his Wednesday matinee or in Parlay. Luckily, Wayne Carson’s got love for both sides of Locke, and anyone else who played in Sin City, and his label, Rocko Records (www.rockorecords.com), proves it.
“Ernie and I have been friends for years, and I figured it would be a good outlet for his stuff,” says Carson, who got the Rocko ball rolling when he recorded the Sin City reunion concert nearly two years ago. “We just decided to record that show because people are always bitching and moaning that there’s never anything they can get their hands on of a decent quality.”
The quality of both the performances and the recording on that Sin City Live CD far surpass decent, which is why the disc was so well received, a response that prompted Carson to delve further into Sin City for more lost treasures, and it looks like he found one.
“Even when you go back to the Down and Dirty album, it was done when they were young and it was mixed horribly,” Carson says with no offense intended to the producers. “So I went back with (archivist) Chuck Haddix down at UMKC and we brought all the stuff up digitally, remixed it, and brought the vocals back up, so it sounds great now.”
While he’s waiting to release the Down and Dirty CD, Carson still has his hands full with other projects from former Disciples, including the recently recorded Parlay disc and the recently released Buddy Lush Phenomenon album with former Sin City drummer J. Paul taking over on guitar and vocals.
Still, Carson’s mind has more than the one track running into and out of Sin City, and his noble aspirations go along with his upstart label. Ideas such as: “I just want the label to be really eclectic, and I want it to be a label that takes Kansas City and showcases all the types of musicians we have here,” which Carson plans to accomplish by releasing everything from a country record to a compilation of local rockers covering Muddy Waters. Or such esoteric goals as, “It’s not about money, it’s just about creating an outlet for talented people.”
But even if you’re too cynical to concede either of these possibilities to Carson, any follower of independent music will agree with him when he says, “There are a lot of great musicians here who play all types of music. You just have to go digging for them.”
Send local music information to Robert Bishop or J.J. Hensley at thenote@excite.com.
