Scene hero Britt Adair’s sudden passing leaves KC music community in shock

Britt in The Bad Ideas. // Photo by Nick Spacek

The Kansas City punk—and extended musical—community mourns the loss of one of its prized acolytes: Britt Adair.

On May 1, Adair passed suddenly from what doctors believe was a pulmonary embolism. As a constant at Josey Records, and a co-founding member of the band The Bad Ideas, Adair’s life touched the entire city’s music/punk scene, and her loss is felt across the metro and elsewhere today, as tributes on social media pour in.

“There aren’t a ton of women in the punk scene,” Adair told The Pitch in 2014. “We have a lot of younger girls coming up to us, and that’s the coolest thing ever. They want a T-shirt. They want to start playing. They see us and they think they can do it.”

As she noted in a 2015 article with The Pitch, another one of her goals for booking shows was to “put women in the front.” Her work was inclusive and encouraging of women, queer artists and artists of color, introducing them to wider audiences across the city.

Funeral and memorial services are still being planned. Josey Records, where Adair worked, closed after Adair’s death but has reopened May 4 and set up a memory wall in the store in her honor. A GoFundMe has been started by the Josey Records staff and The Bad Ideas to help Adair’s husband, Christian LaBeau, with expenses he’s facing after her death.