popwreckoning

At a recent show in their hometown, It’s True announced they would soon be breaking up.

The band was playing Slowdown Jr. in Omaha, Neb. when they announced that was their third to last show. Their last show will be July 24 at the Maha Festival alongside The Faint and Spoon.

The band made a stunning debut into the music scene just barely a year ago. In the late Spring/early Summer, they released a 7″ Split with Lawrence’s Cowboy Indian Bear.

PopWreckoning got to see them in action a few times and while the smooth vocal harmonies and the walls of guitar fuzz impressed us, the band’s excessive drinking habits were less than exhilarating (You might recall the Sailor Sequence fiasco). That being said, the early break up is sad, but not too surprising.

Dear Internet,

Why must good things always come to an end and why is that when it rains it pours?

The same week that late night TV fans had to bid adieu to CoCo, Kansas City was bidding farewell to JoCo.

The Beaumont Club Saturday night was as packed with people as the line up for the final Josephine Collective show was as packed with bands. In what might be a Kansas City first, people actually showed up early to see all openers, which might have been in part to most of the openers being the new projects of Josephine members.

Though all information listed 5 p.m. for the show, the first band actually started at 4:45 p.m., so showing up at 5:10 meant I missed Holy Mountain, but based on the size of the crowd and hum of kind words about the act when I arrived, it seems like it would have been a great set. They’re local to KC, so I’m sure I’ll get another chance to review them.

The first act I did catch was amazing and set the bar high for the rest of the groups. I had no idea this sort of group-this sort of music-existed in Kansas City. The group seemed to have the recipe for awesomeness down. They had the basics: drums and guitar.  Then, they made it a little unusual by rounding the foursome out with a violinist and a cellist. But what really made them unique was what the drummer, Jared Bond did on the first song.

Jared already had me excited when he came out on stage because he is also the drummer for Josephine Collective and his group was the first of the offshoots that I was seeing. I guess he was inspired by the string players in his new group and he thought, ‘Hey, why not bow the drums.’ Can you imagine the shock of seeing someone whip at a bow to run along the cymbals? That’s something you don’t see every day.

The group’s sound, abetted by the Americana folk-style vocals and the driving riffs on the cello, was reminiscent of Murder by Death. They were all very skilled, but perhaps too much so — Chaski Zapata: loosen up. This isn’t a school orchestra concert. Granted, the group has only been together since fall 2009, so stage presence has room to grow, especially when the musical talent is already there.

The only real problem with this act is that they’re a little difficult to track down on the webs. At this show, all the promotional material billed them as Dolphin Lounge, but on stage it sounded like they kept introducing themselves as Root & Stem and then when I tried to track them online, they appeared to be known as Casa Real. I could understand being confusing and hiding if you are a shitty group, but these guys are good and I’m trying to shout about them from the mountaintops…well shout about them from the laptops at least. I’ve tried to contact them about their real name, so hopefully I’ll be able to update soon.

The indie pop trio Sailor Sequence followed the mystery band name group. I’ve talked about these guys before, but that show was colored by a drunken interference. It was kind of exciting to go from the folk rock into their cool piano melodies with crashing cymbals. They played five songs with each song better than the last. They’re like Explosions in the Sky meets Postal Service meets Twilight Sad.

They group glided through their five songs, taking just a few brief moments for singer Noffy to thank the crowd and sadly say that this would be the last in Kansas City, for awhile at least, while they adjust as some members move to Nashville. This group is fairly new to the scene, and already one of its greatest rising acts, so I’m sad to see them go. I look forward to seeing where the future brings them though.

The show was about midway through and it was time for two of the most anticipated openers. Ninety-Four and Black Oxygen. These two groups are the side projects of Josephine’s two lead singers, Alexander Sandate and Dillon Devoe, with Alex leading the Atlanta-based Ninety-Four and Dillon helming the Kansas City-based Black Oxygen.

Watching both groups, it was pretty obvious that the Josephine spirit would at least live on. Heck Ninety-Four practically looked like they were Josephine with six members swarming the stage. The same sort of energy and crazy intense rock was present in the acts. Ninety-Four leaned a little toward the harder metal with screaming more prevalent in the band’s first few numbers. Black Oxygen has been around for awhile, but they’ve gone through a minor rehaul since Dillon has joined. Regardless of their changes, I think they’ll still leave metal fans gasping for more. I felt Black Oxygen had a bit more consistency and control than Ninety-Four, but I think any Josephine fan will easily be pleased with what will come out of either band’s camp in the near future. At least the audience at this particular show seemed equally pleased with both bands and responded with appropriate fist pumps, moshing and claps to the beat.

After the taste of Josephine given by the side projects, the audience was geared and ready for JoCo, but while the singer’s got a rest before their final performance (and time to change their shirts), a final opener took to the stage: Kansas City’s popular alternative rock group Queen’s Club.

This is about the third or fourth time I’ve seen these guys and I just didn’t get it. To me they’re like the KC Nickelback if Nickelback added a dance beat to all their tunes. What I mean by this is that I just don’t get why the music is popular and yet it inexplicably is. The kids just ate that shit up. They danced, body surfed and I was in disbelief over the amount of fists pumping the air. Seriously? I want to like these guys. My friends say I should, but I just don’t get it and this is one club I won’t be joining.

I love getting more bang for my buck and at $5 a ticket, this show easily gave buyers their money’s worth, but all these bands later and I was getting extremely anxious for the headliners. When the full Josephine Collective (including Bond) finally came out, it was complete chaos, but in a good way. The band already has a bajillion members, but their close friends and the other bands surrounded the group as well serving as cheering sections. If you’ve ever had the privilege, it was like being at Girl Talk show minus the toilet paper and instead of electronic remixes, it was heavy rock tunes in the vain of The Used, Say Anything and Taking Back Sunday that got the bodies moving. Even during some of the band’s few slower numbers, moshing and crowd-surfing ran rampant.

Josephine Collective know how to throw a going away party. As they blasted through songs from their Living EP and We Are The Air, crowd-surfers ran rampant causing security to sweat, but Josephine to smile as Alex and Dillon hardly missed a beat as they dished out hugs and high-fives to the kids landing on stage.

One of the highlights of the set came early with the popular single, “Living.” When the guys sang, “It just stops,” the entire mass of bodies intensely moshing, surfing and singing froze before jumping back into the chorus as raucous as ever. Other great moments included an impromptu and jokingly sung tune about this being the band’s final shows that included mentionings of mustaches and other things. I also loved when one of the Sailor Sequence guys joined for a tune, and of course, I loved the colouration that the softer “Lye,” brought to the set.

“Josephine, Josephine, get back together,” Alex and Dillon quipped back and forth. But then they pointed at that much like an ex-girlfriend, you can get back together and, “Yeah, the sex is great, but then you start dating and you remember why you broke up.” Sad, but understandable.

We wanted the show to keep going, but with their entire catalog pretty much done, the boys had to let the final tune fly.

“Freebird.”

Yes, the group began to play “Freebird,” but sans special appearances of Will Ferrell and co. It was all in good fun before they began their final song of the evening and of their band’s lifetime: “Pray for Rain.”

January 23, 2010 – Josephine Collective reunited and ended it the way it should have ended. They will be missed, but with Dolphin Lounge/Casa Real/Root&Stem, Fire for Effect, Ninety-Four, Sensational News Commentary Groove and Black Oxygen, we can all still continue the JoCo love for years to come.

Speechless. That’s what I was after the local show I caught recently  at Kansas City’s Davey’s Uptown. I wish I could say that the performance was so spectacular that the music left me speechless. Unfortunately, it was a weird chain of events that led to my loss for words.

Before I explain the strange events, I must say that the music was in fact, quite good. The more local shows I go to, the more respect I have for Kansas City’s local scene (There’s a lot more here than the Get Up Kids!)

The young O’Giant Man opened. These guys have shifted their line up around recently, so this was one of the first (if not the first) performance for the latest and hopefully final lineup. The group has a lot of potential if they can stay solid and practice defining their sound. They do some great harmonies and nice instrumental solos, but they had a tendency to test out too many ideas in a single song. This is a problem that many young and eager bands have, but it is something easy to grow out of it. I look forward to seeing them again when they’ve had a chance to refine their sound.

The lone out of town band It’s True was next on the bill. They easily could have been remembered as the best band there had the singer non-gone and fucked things up later in the show. The Omaha indie pop group had a solid sound and harmonies to rival the Fleet Foxes. Considering they’re an Omaha group where warbly vocals are popular (Conor Oberst, Tim Kasher), they’re a refreshing sound for that scene. Graceful keys provided the perfect compliment to their tunes. Aside from the incident that happens later (I’m getting there! Just wait), my only other criticism is that they got to be a little predictable. Sing, then keys, then instrumental breakdown where the singer sits in plays into the monitor. It was cool the first time, but come up with a new movement or song structure. It loses its charm with time.

Lawrence three-piece Cowboy Indian Bear continued the impressive with their full sound (hard to believe there were only three of them!).  All three contributed to vocals and percussion. A recent trend in Kansas City area music is filling out your sound with some pre-recorded electronic beats and effects (see Republic Tigers), which CIB has embraced. I’ve noticed many groups tend to over-endulge in their use of the computer, but CIB was tasteful. They were joined by a friend for their final number titled “Colour Music,” I think, but not to be confused with their “Mathematicians/Colours” played directly before it. They said was this their largest KC audience, which kind of surprised me. With their Postal Service instrumental vibe and smooth vocals, I feel it won’t be long before they gain a large following. They just released an EP. Go check them out.

Sailor Sequence has been described to me as the best band in Kansas City on more than occasion. The trio reminded me a lot of Snow Patrol from the Final Straw era. Perhaps a cover of “Run” is in their future. The difference between them and Snow Patrol is that the Snow Patrol guys have a more pop tendency, while Sailor Sequence leans toward shoegaze without fully embracing that sound.

Now while I’m not sthe full Sailor Sequence converts that my friends are, I do agree that they are quite good. They just lacked in the stage presence category, which might hurt them getting bigger past KC. It just felt distant.

Now I told you that this show left me speechless and I’m finally ready to explain why.

Toward the end of the Sailor Sequence’s set, a guy in a hat walked up to the front of a stage and started drinking a random beer pitcher left on the edge. Weird, but just the sort of weird that you chuckle and roll your eyes at and forget about. But when he put the pitcher down, he proceeded to climb on the stage, stumble over to the microphone by the keyboard and then sang an “Oooh” bit into the microphone when the band was in a big instrumental breakdown.

“Omaha!” yelled someone from the back. I looked again. Sure enough, this was the Omaha band’s lead singer Adam Hawkins.

The audience was confused. Was this part of the act?

The answer: no. Sailor Sequence tried to laugh it off, but when they started another song and Hawkins tried adding notes on the keyboard, the guys in Sailor Sequence just quit and stormed off the stage, incredulous that some drunk opener would ruin your set.

Hawkins wasn’t done there. He fell on the floor in the room by the main bar and attempted getting in a fight. A strange ending to what could have been a perfect night.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say he ruined the Sailor Sequence’s set. For what they did play, they sounded great. But Hawkins did ruin my opinion of his band. Like I said, they could have been remembered as the best band of that night, but that bit at the end was just rude.

O’Giant Man: myspace
It’s True: myspace
Cowboy Indian Bear: myspace
Sailor Sequence: myspace