Photos by Forester Michael/Special to Ink (For a slideshow, go here.)
Day 3 of Ink's Middle of the Map Fest started shortly after noon -- barely nine hours after the joy and debauchery of Day 2 had ended. The afternoon shows at the Riot Room and RecordBar were well-attended, yet another sign of just how voracious the appetite for music can get in this town. Sports seasons come and go, but music is year-round. I caught the Billions' dandy set at the RecordBar -- one of several local bands that reunited just for this festival. Let's hope that tradition continues. Saturday night, we covered three venues. Here are the highlights.
Enrique Javier Chi of Making Movies
A line outside the club started forming in the early afternoon. Before local boys Making Movies took the stage at 6:30 p.m., about 500 people were in the club, many of them pre-teens, there to see Fun, the headliner. The crowd gave MM and its blend of rock and Afro-Cuban music a warm welcome, responding boisterously to a sing-along choreographed by lead singer/guitarist Enrique Javier Chi and percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand. You can't teach charisma, and this band has loads of it.
Sleeper Agent: The second band on the bill is a six-piece, hair-flopping joy-pop band from Bowling Green, Ky. Alex Kandel is the lead singer, and she's a dynamo, but she gets plenty of vocal help from her mates. Their music is a invigorating and appealing: crunchy, melodic anthems with big, fruity choruses. Recommended if you liked that Grouplove set at the Midland recently.
Friends: The sound was as bad as I've ever heard. Not only couldn't you hear lyrics, at times you could barely discern the melody or groove. It all got lost in a wash of percussion and bass. It seemed to improve, gradually. Or maybe we adjusted to it. Friends is a six-piece dance-pop band From New York. Samantha Urbani is its lead singer and focal point, and she tries hard to evoke some kind of punk/new wave personae. "Josie Cotton lives," a friend texted. Maybe it was our 50-yard distance from the stage combined with the harsh sound, but very little of it translated for me.
Neon Indian: Again, the sound was an issue. The mix was very bright and high-end. During one song, a flurry of percussion and keyboards sounded like 10,000 aluminum nails raining on a tin roof. Neon Indian is an electronic act led by Alan Palomo, backed by a live band. For most of the night, his lyrics were indiscernible, but you could still get the gist of the music: heavy dance grooves and catchy pop melodies -- even funky once in a while, in a Prince/The Time way.
Fun: By the time they came on, the show was running about 30 minutes late, so the crowd was over-stoked -- and the Beaumont was as full as I've ever seen it. But the good news: The sound was fine.
For most of the 70-minute set nearly everyone responded with evangelic fervor to the band’s introspective and emotive pop anthems: They sang, they danced, they raised arms and waved hands, they hopped with joy, and many of them obliged a request from the band and picked out a stranger to hug.
The band is a trio -- Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost and Jack Antonoff -- but it tours as a six-piece, including Lawrence native Nate Harold on bass. Its theatric style isn’t for everyone -- there’s an element of camp in much of the presentation -- but its contagious energy and unrepentant sense of glee are to be appreciated. They performed before a stage set that beamed the band's name amid bright, day-glow colors.
The crowd was hyper-engaged all night, especially the smitten mob upfront, which was geeked-up to the point of rudeness, I was told. During “One Foot” they discharged the “uh-uh-ohs” loudly and in time. But the mood detonated towards the end. During “We Are Young” the room erupted into one of the loudest sing-alongs I’ve ever heard and turned into a constellation of cell phones, raised high and on “record.” For the encore, they followed that with two-more uplifting sing-along anthems: “All Alright” and then “Take Your Time (Coming Home).” By then Saturday night had turned into Easter Sunday, appropriately, I suppose. Lots of folks left with spirits high, if not resurrected.
T.F.
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The Record Bar: Bill Brownlee/Special to The Star
Billy Smith and Kirsten Paludan of Olympic Size
As the fertile breeding ground for much of the most compelling popular music of the past few decades, the underground rock and dance music scenes continue to birth spectacular sonic innovations. Events like the second annual Middle of the Map festival provide crucial opportunities for many otherwise obscure acts to showcase their inventive sounds for audiences that aren't already immersed in the nuances of various esoteric scenes.
The common denominator of most of the seven bands that performed at the RecordBar on Saturday evening is a shared attempt expand the range of rock-based dance music. While the sounds exploded in dozens of intriguing directions, not every experiment worked. As might be expected at a festival focused on presenting fresh sounds, some acts fizzled while others offered exciting new concepts.
Attendance never approached the one-in-one-out capacity attained during Mission of Burma's set at the RecordBar during the previous night. It bottomed out during Motorboater's set at 9 p.m. and peaked as El Ten Eleven began performing around 12:20 a.m. As is usually the case at the RecordBar, the sound quality was superb.
El Ten Eleven
The night's headlining act is an updated version of the Ventures for a generation weaned on Fugazi. A few of the California-based instrumental duo's songs seem designed to inspire automatons toiling on industrial assemble lines. Other material sounded like a bleached interpretation of hip hop from which any semblance of funk had been rigorously strained.
The multitude of sounds produced by the duo is staggering. The pair's undeniable power was rendered even more potent by bone-rattling bass effects. "Everything you're hearing is being done live," explained guitarist/bassist Kristian Dunn. "There's no click tracks. There's no laptops." He and drummer Tim Fogarty are impressive technicians, but their 55-set was emotionally hollow. El Ten Eleven is the post-punk equivalent of guitar wizard Joe Satriani.
Keep Shelly In Athens
Anchored by a live drummer and fronted by a diminutive vocalist who yipped, squealed and sighed, the Goth-tinged Keep Shelly In Athens managed to tease an occasional ecstatic thread out of its fabricated gloom. Yet much of the Greek band's sample-laden set was too ethereal to leave much of an impression. An inventive rendition of The Jesus and Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey" closed the band's set on a high note.
Jonquil
A rhythmically ambitious quintet from Oxford, England, Jonquil seems determined to revive the delectable lightweight pop of bands like Haircut 100 and the Thompson Twins. The urgently piercing vocals of front man Hugo Manuel and his bandmates' exceptional musicianship were exceedingly pleasant.
Chad Valley
Chad Valley is a one-man side project of Jonquil's Manuel. Twirling knobs and pushing buttons, Manuel constructed layers of sound topped by his keening voice. The dance music that resulted was agreeable, but it wasn't terribly compelling to watch. The listless audience responding accordingly. A handful of intrepid souls made halfhearted attempts to dance before quickly resuming stationary poses.
Motorboater
Dan Eaton, the man behind Kansas City's Motorboater, fared better. Realizing there's little visual attraction to laptop-based dance music, he employed only a small strobe light to illuminate the stage. He also enlisted a drummer and guitarist to flesh out his sound. The blend of organic and synthetic elements was more satisfying than Chad Valley's solo outing.
Olympic Size
Many longtime observers of Kansas City's indie-rock scene hailed the appearance of Billy Smith at the Middle of the Map festival. Once a key member of several area bands, Smith moved to New York last year. The welcome reunion of Smith's Olympic Size was not without a few hiccups. "Sorry," Smith quipped during a long pause between songs. "We're not used to playing. Ever." Performing as a sextet, the Olympic Size's wistfully moody set reminded an audience of about 100 of its unique ability to make despondency seem like a desirable frame of mind.
She's a Keeper
The youthful Kansas City-based She's a Keeper traffic in the folk-rock sound originally associated with Bob Dylan and The Byrds and more recently popularized by Mumford & Sons and Fleet Foxes. The fact that the band didn't strike a single note that hasn't been heard countless times before didn't prevent She's a Keeper from captivating its audience. If it's able to work out a few minor kinks, She's a Keeper has a strong shot at becoming one of Kansas City's most popular acts.
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The Riot Room: Joel Francis, Special to The Star
Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham of Fucked Up
The band may be Fucked Up, but they do many things very well. During the inaugural hour of Easter Sunday, 2012, the six-piece hardcore punk band from Toronto abolished the barrier between artist and audience with an enthusiastic set that turned fans into friends.
The hourlong set leaned heavily on last year’s “David Comes to Life,” an ambitious masterpiece that can stand proudly with other genre-redefining, double-LPs like “London Calling,” “Zen Arcade” and “Double Nickels on the Dime.”
The band had barely kicked into opening number “Queen of Hearts” before frontman Damian “Pink Eyes” Abraham was leaning into the crowd, offering his mic to anyone willing to bellow. Over the next hour he walked through the crowd, encouraging hugs, high fives and anything else to encourage fans and make them feel like part of the performance.
Although the themes in its music can be dark, the atmosphere is entirely positive. During “The Other Shoe,” Abraham got the entire room singing the chorus. A room full of people singing the words “dying on the inside” never felt so upbeat and optimistic.
His vocals are screamed, but the delivery is more out of enthusiasm than anger. While hardcore punk can quickly become numbing in the wrong hands, F’ed Up is surprisingly melodic. The backing vocals from bass player Sandy “Mustard Gas” Miranda and guitarist Ben Cook go a long way toward tempering Abraham’s abrasive technique. The band is also unafraid to show it’s classic rock influences. The three-guitar attack during “Under My Nose” recalled Thin Lizzy. Later, drummer Jonah Falco quoted Keith Moon’s drum pattern from “Won’t Get Fooled Again” while Abraham twirled his microphone a la Roger Daltrey.
Anticipation was high for F’ed Up’s set. They were talked up by Mission of Burma on Friday night, and the one-in, one-out policy went into effect hours earlier, generating a line to the door that stretched to the corner. Once inside, from the lip of the stage to the back of the bar, everyone seemed mesermized.
Of the seven bands on the Riot Room’s lineup for Saturday, all but two acts were part of the local music scene. The Chicago-quartet A Lull delivered a set of dreamy, atmospheric music that included the moving “Some Love.” Longtime hardcore/metal mainstays Coalesce were given the final slot before F’ed Up. Singer Sean Ingram successfully cleared a good portion of the crowd from the stage simply by testing his mic.
The band’s intense 40-minute set polarized the room between dedicated fans gathered by the stage, and the rest of the room, politely waiting for the headliner. At one point, guitarist Jes Steineger lept from the stage and played while hanging from the rafter above the crowd.
t.f. Nice mix...nice job.
Posted by: Larry Luper | April 08, 2012 at 07:29 PM
Anyone know the name of the penultimate song Acid Mothers Temple played? I'd love to revisit it.
Posted by: Ian | April 08, 2012 at 10:42 PM
Glad to see the Fucked Up review. "David Comes To Life" is an incredible album. Wish I could have been there.
Posted by: Vandelay | April 09, 2012 at 02:36 AM
Glad to see the Fucked Up review. "David Comes To Life" is an incredible album. Wish I could have been there.
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""-- and the Beaumont was as full as I've ever seen it. ""
Ah darn, sorry I missed this, I love the Beaumont when it is filled to the brim, such a great venue when it is packed as sht... NOT!!
Posted by: Konox | April 09, 2012 at 09:02 AM
Wish I could have been there.
Posted by: New Supra Skytop | April 10, 2012 at 06:19 AM
Anyone know the name of the penultimate song Acid Mothers Temple played? I'd love to revisit it.Ah darn, sorry I missed this
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