Spencer Raymond & Ricky Roosevelt, Ok O’Clock, Tech N9ne, and more of this month’s finest local music videos

The holidays are over, we’re all crawling out of our booze and food cocoons, and arguably telling ourselves that this is the year we get our shit together. While you make your lackluster, half-hearted attempts to keep those New Year’s resolutions, take a look at the latest roundup of local music videos. With new music from Spencer Raymond & Ricky Roosevelt, Ok O’Clock, and Tech N9ne, along with live vids from the Mad Kings and Warm Bodies—to say nothing of a classic from Banshee—you’ve got at least one elliptical workout set.

Spencer Raymond & Ricky Roosevelt, “High Motivation” 

This is a chill-as-fuck track from the Holy Trinity EP, a collaboration from Spencer Raymond, Ricky Roosevelt, and producer Alccalh. The video is as laid-back as the song itself, and seems as though it was all shot in one afternoon about five minutes’ walk from my house, in and around the Lawrence riverfront. It’s oversaturated with light, but unburdened by any sense of trying too hard.

You can snag Holy Trinity from any of the major online streaming services.

The Mad Kings, “Lil Miss” (live)

It’s a damned shame that Lawrence blue sensations the Mad Kings have never recorded anything, but given that their live shows are so electric, it’s doubtful that any producer could figure out a way to capture that lightning in a bottle. Thankfully, they play out nearly every week, and you’d do well to take the highway down to Larryville to catch them sometime.

Ok O’Clock, “Placing Bets”

The return of ’90s heavy rock has been a slow one, but it seems like the acts who embrace the grinding guitars and impassioned vocals have learned a lot from the Creeds and Candleboxes of the world. Namely, bands like Grandview’s Ok O’Clock, who take everything that worked for the likes of Nirvana, Helmet, and the Melvins, and run it through a meat grinder with the careless freedom of two and a half decades of hindsight. This is the lead track off the band’s What Shall We Do album, due out January 10 from Ivy League DIY.

Banshee, “Shoot Down The Night”

In October, KC hair metal legends Banshee released their fifth album, The Madness, via Visonary Noise. It was the long-running act’s first release since 2012’s Mindslave. There’s no official video for anything off of it, unfortunately. However, some wonderful human being fixed the audio for this classic video for the first track off Banshee’s Atlantic Records release, Race Against Time, just in time for the record’s 30th anniversary.

You can snag The Madness via Visionary Noise.

Warm Bodies live at Ground Zero

One of the things I love about Warm Bodies is that they have exactly next to no internet presence aside from a Bandcamp page, and the only way to get physical copies of most of their releases is to see the band live. Despite all that, every few months, a new set of theirs pops up on YouTube, and the punks kill it each and every time. This set from October, at Milwaukee’s Ground Zero, is no different.

Tech N9ne, “Yeah No!” feat. Mackenzie Nicole

To announce his upcoming 2020 tour, rap impressario Tech N9ne dropped this new video for “Yeah No!” The track is the first cut on November’s EnterFear Level 1 EP, which is a preview of the forthcoming EnterFear full-length, due later this year on Strange Music. “Yeah No!” features a hook from singer Mackenzie Nicole, whose own next full-length, Mystic, comes out February 14 on Strange Main.

The singer’s also set to speak at the TEDx conference at the University of Nevada on February 29. Details on that event here.

Hanz Bronze, “Taylor Park”

It’s been nearly five years since the name Hanz Bronze popped up around these parts. 2015 is when the musician released their self-titled debut on Range Life Records, after a few years of playing releases like Suzannah Johannes’ first album and the Justin Roelofs post-Anniversary White Flight project. However, it was like an early ’00s reunion at Henry’s Upstairs in early December when Bronze played alongside Johannes and Empty Moon as part of Colin Halliburton’s monthly 5×5 series.

The Calamity Cubes, “Ivan” (live)

On Sunday, December 22, hard-driving bluegrass act the Calamity Cubes—including original members Patrick Herd and JJ Hanson—got together to play one last show in the Wichita warehouse where the band first got started. That is to say, the band is still around, but the warehouse will be no more. Here’s the original trio playing “Ivan,” off their 2007 self-titled debut.

DVS Mindz, “DVS Minded” (live)

For Christmas this year, Topeka hip-hop collective DVS Mindz dropped a trove of live footage from their early ’00s heyday, including this ace performance of “DVS Minded,” a track which never saw official release.

Are you a local musician with a new video to share? Email nicholas.spacek@gmail.com