Being a long jaded follower of many musical genres, it’s hard for me to be leveled by a new live band; rare is the evil smile on my face or the slow climb of a shiver up my crooked spinal column. Since I’ve become a “professional” music critic as opposed to just another wiseass amateur arguing about music with anyone within earshot, few acts have issued a response in my mind higher than “they’re ok.”

Within the first seconds of The Factory Workers opening slot for two bands that are now erased from my memory, the long absent grin glued itself to my face and the warm electric shock of a supercharged amp rattling across the concrete floor straight through the top of my skull…. Holy Skipping Moses! “Yes Virginia, rock ‘n’ roll does exist!”

The Factory Workers (Al Amador and Justin Brooks) were something explosive. Prior to our interview an hour before the show at Lawrence, Kansas’ The Replay Lounge, I honestly knew very little to nothing about them; just the home recorded songs on their MySpace page and a shared appreciation on the blues. Even in those songs I could hear the lingering beast, a wicked two headed monster ready to fry amplifiers and devour drum kits. During the course of their all too short thirty minute vaporizing set, I became thoroughly convinced that I, along with a decent size Friday night crowd at The Replay Lounge, had just witnessed a giant step forward in Blues Evolutionary Theory.

But the blues rock duo from Kansas City, Missouri are more than just a blues band; they incorporate the sounds of The Black Keys, Son House, the punk rock brutality of Mudhoney and sprinkle in the laid back slyness of Lightnin’ Hopkins. On top of that they add in moments of electric blues like those made famous by 1960’s groups Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer to create a rattle both wholly familiar and entirely their own. It is a music in lock step with their working class name. “I would drive by this factory everyday on my way to work or class and think, I bet those people are working really hard,” lead singer and guitarist Alheim “Al” Amador told me. “I want to work as hard at my music as those people in the factory are working at their job. I wanted to be respected like I respect them.”

The blues have been a part of American music culture for generations. Long before Robert Johnson had hellhounds on his trail, before Willie Dixon was your “Backdoor Man”, years before Leadbelly was singing of murder in the pines, hell, even before there was an America there was the blues. The blues are a human reaction to the hardships of life not a exclusively American reaction. The Factory Workers prove that.

What makes the band’s cohesiveness and blistering live set even more astonishing is the fact that they’ve only been playing for two years and this was to be their first show ever in a proper venue. As Amador tells it, “We started playing in the garage and the basement just having fun. We thought it sounded pretty solid for a two-piece, so we decided to play some shows just to try it out,” A exchange student from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Amador came to the states at 17. Justin Brooks, the group’s drummer is squarely Midwestern. “I was born in Springfield, Missouri, moved to St. Joseph, Missouri, graduated high school there, went to Kansas City for college, met Al and there you have The Factory Workers.”

I spoke to the duo shortly after they finished setting up their gear. It was the perfect Lawrence spring night for a show; nice temperature, nicer looking college girls in shorts strolling by, a Lyle Lovett-fashion-obsessed street musician playing for money nearby and pizza furnished by one of the guys’ girlfriends… It was the calm before the proverbial storm.

People usually work their way up to the blues. What did you listen to on your way there?
Al: When I was younger I listened to a lot of Credence, stuff like that; my dad was a big fan of rock music.

Justin: For me, it was Nirvana.

A: Yeah, Nirvana definitely. As I got older I started playing guitar to Nirvana, but that was back home in Mexico. When I came to the States, I started digging into different stuff; Junior Kimborough, Robert Lee Burnside… You know, all the people that were doing the rawer, Memphis style stuff. I just picked it up from there. I just try to make a collage of everything.

What about you? You’re being awfully quiet.
J: Oh, sorry. [laughs] I’d say some of my big inspirations as a drummer are probably Buddy Mills from Band of Gypsys, I kinda started listening to him when I started playing music with Al and really got into it. I really like Abe Cuddingham of the deftones a lot and Dave Grohl.

Al, Who’s your all-time favor guitar player? Remember, I’m looking for a “right answer.”
J: Steve Vai!

A: Yeah, right! [laughs] I couldn’t really tell. I don’t focus on one player, ya know.

J: Al, I’d probably say Burnside.

A: Yeah, Burnside is pretty awesome. I guess I’d have to go with that.

So, how do you feel about your first record? Is it an EP?
A: Yeah, it’s pretty much an EP.

J: It was our first time working with real recording equipment and not just a laptop.

What was the studio experience like for you guys?
J: It was good. We got to play at the same time together instead of laying down our parts at different times, which was great. Since it’s blues and pretty raw we just laid it down together; it turned out really well, Josh (Thomas, of High Diving Ponies) recorded and mixed it.

What was it like working with Josh?
J: Oh, it was great man.

A: He’s very relaxed and will tell you like it is; he’s straight forward but cool about it, ya know? No BS, really an awesome guy to work with. Josh has been around the scene for a long time so he knows what’s going on.

What’s the scene in K.C. like for a band like The Factory Workers? Are they on board or do you not really give a shit?
A: I don’t really care, I just really like playing live, we haven’t been doing it for too long but it’s definitely a lot of fun.

How long have you been playing together? Do you know the exact date?
J: It was April 16, two years ago.

How did you discover each other as musicians? Did you know some of the same people?
A: I would see Justin hanging with the hipsters at school and I thought “Man, I just wanna punch that guy.”

J: It’s true, He really did hate me.

A: But then we meet through a common friend at a birthday party and we hit it off from there. I was like, “Hey, you play drums? You wanna hang out and play music?”

J: Once we started jamming it just clicked. I had never played drums before but he stuck it out for 6 months or a year for me to pick it up. Now I think we have something really solid. I don’t have any formal training but I’d like to get some someday.

Who is the main songwriter in the band or do you share the work?
J: No, he writes them all. I don’t write a single thing. [laughs]

A: The songs are old ones I’ve had for a long time and some come on the spot. But yeah, I do most of the songwriting. He just beats the shit out of it.

What’s the EP going to be called?
A: I think we’re just going with The Factory Workers.

When is the album going to be “officially” released?
J: We just finished the final edit so it’s out now.

A: With some more time and a few more songs maybe we can add to it and release a full album.

How long have you two been playing together?
A: A couple years; We started to get some momentum going, had shows booked than I fell and broke my collarbone and we had to sit for like three months so that slowed us way down. It’s hard to play guitar with a broken collarbone, ya know.

Last question, you both play in High Diving Ponies with Josh Thomas. What’s it like splitting time between HDP and The Factory Workers?
J: It’s cool but it’s two completely different style.

A: I play bass in HDP. It’s taught me a lot because I do bass a lot when I’m strumming cords with The Factory Workers.

J: I’d say we’ve seen a lot of improvement in each others playing since we started doing both. There’s a bit more aggression in Josh’s songs so it give me an excuse to go crazy on the drums.

A: I’m pretty mellow when I play the bass, I stick to one bass line. With The Factory Workers it’s more freestyle. The main part of the song always remains the same but there is room to dance up and down the song.

Discussing music with Al and Justin and witnessing their annihilating set at The Replay Lounge further cemented in me the feeling that the blues, and rock for that matter, are part of the same universal language. It is not English, Spanish, Arabic or Pig Latin. It is language with no barrier. It’s words and an alphabet that we all can understand.

With the closing notes still bouncing off of the pinball machines, I gladly gave the guys $5 to replenish their thirsty gas tank. As I headed out the door, the smile returned to my face and a thought popped into my ringing head:

“If they are this great live after just a few shows, then how killer are they going to be a year from now?”

Like many of you out there, we’re totally excited to see Silversun Pickups back in the news for their highly anticipated April 14 release of Swoon on Dangerbird Records. It’s already getting a lot of love for the debut single “Panic Switch”, which is currently the number one most added single at modern rock radio this week (note: not college). But why are they overlooking their real first show of 2009?

We’re not serious about this in case you were wondering, we’re just curious as to why we received a press release stating the Pickups will make their ‘09 live debut at SxSW accompanied with tour dates that lists their first show in Kansas City the Tuesday before SxSW? Our Notes From Middle America columnist Danny Phillips is waving his Missouri flag as we speak.

Either way, we’re excited to see the return of the Silversun Pickups to stages wherever they may be. Aside from Kansas City and SxSW, the quartet will play a pre-Coachella warm-up show before helping to usher in the 10th annual Music and Arts Festival. They’ll also be performing at The Sasquatch Festival on May 25.

Silversun Pickups tour dates
03.17.09 – Kansas City, MO (KC Power & Light District)
03.20.09 – Austin, TX (SXSW/ Stubb’s)
03.21.09 – Austin, TX (SXSW/ Antone’s)
04.12.09 – Pomona, CA (Glass House)
04.17.09 – Indio, CA (Coachella)
05.25.09 – George, WA (Sasquatch Festival)

In light of Touch and Go’s recent decision to shut its doors, Bloodshot Records may not be Chicago Illinois’ longest standing label, but at 15 years old, it might now be the “new” reference point for venerable Chicago indies for years to come. Founded in June of 1994 by Rob Miller and Nan Warshaw, the label is home to many acts and genres; whether it be surf lounge (The Dex Romweber Duo), rock (The Detroit Cobras, Firewater), Latin (Cordero), country (Justin Townes Earle) and nearly every other music type you can think of. But while Bloodshot could be called many things, there’s one tag in particular that seems to bother Miller.

“When we got going, someone called Bloodshot an alt-country label and that really made my head hurt. It’s more than that, we’ve tried to cover the entire spectrum of music as well as we could.”

Mr. Miller, talking to me from Bloodshot’s Chicago office, said that a combination of boredom, naiveté, a healthy love of music and not knowing any better, were the reasons behind starting the label. Here is how the rest of our conversation played out.

TW: When the label started how many employees did you have?
Rob: When we started it was myself and two other partners, one of which left pretty quickly after it started. Our first paid employee was Kelly Hogan (she went on to record for the label), that was a solid three years into it and we didn’t start paying ourselves for another year after that. It was a very time consuming, bank account draining hobby.

So, for the first three or four years you were doing it for the love?
Sure, but that why we’re still doing it. It’s the only reason to do it. That’s the only reason we’re still putting up with all we have to put up with. The money is icing. And at this point I’m practically unemployable in the real world.

Have you always been based in Chicago?
Yes we have.

Why not put out a label on the East or West Coast?
We didn’t live there. [laughs] Plus, I don’t think we would have thrived in any other city. Chicago has been incredibly supportive; there’s an unbelievable supportive organic underground community that exists here between all the labels that exists non-competitively, intelligent writers that work for the major newspapers as well as the fanzines. You know, there’s a reason why things like Pitchfork, Touch and Go and Thrill Jockey came out of Chicago. Because of great clubs willing to take chances, the bands aren’t clique-ish, musicians are anxious to move here. Chicago doesn’t have that pressure to succeed, there is a freedom and openness, people help each other’s labels, a lot of playing on each others records, a lot of honest handshake deals. It’s not to make it big, it’s to create art.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I wanted to do this Midwest column is the number of great bands looking for exposure. I’m not running out of material any time soon.
Exactly. Back in the cave days before the internet, bands came through here on tour. If you wanted to hear a new band you had to go see them and the best part about that was there was exposure to an eclectic mix of music and your mind would be blown. And shows are very affordable here. You can see good bands on any given night for very little money.

Name one band you had a chance to sign, you wish you did, but didn’t.
I’d rather not say. [laughs] There are some that in my dark moments I sit alone and say, ‘What was I thinking?’

Nothing you want to state for the record?
Exactly. There’s been a couple of them that have gone on to make really poor decisions and implode and there’s some that quite frankly wound up in a better place. So, I don’t hold any ill will against anyone. It’s no one’s business but my own.

That’s a very diplomatic answer.
Well if nothing else, in this business you become a good diplomat.

[Rob Miller in the Bloodshot offices]

What was the first band that you signed to Bloodshot?
The first band we signed to a contract was The Waco Brothers featuring John Langford and that was a handshake deal. The Old 97’s was the first one we had that really exploded on us.

You seem to have a very diverse mix of talent on your label. When you started out did you intend on having such a broad roster?
Well, there is a thread of appreciation for American roots music in one form or another. It’s kind of the gravitational pull that holds it all together. I can see how all the bands relate to one another, but I think the diversity is greater that what people give us credit for. We were lumped in quite early with the whole alt-country thing. It kind of makes my head hurt. So we decided to sign Robbie Fulks and people said ‘That doesn’t sound like Bloodshot.’ Then came Neko Case and people were like, ‘hey, that doesn’t sound like Bloodshot.’ We’ll what in the fuck do we sound like? I see the diversity, but sometimes I forget that not everyone likes the broad range of music that I do. Like, I go through life thinking everyone likes The Misfits as much as they like Howlin’ Wolf as much as they like Peggy Lee.

If someone held a gun to your head and said, ‘Ok, this is Bloodshot’s fifteenth Anniversary, put together a compilation of your favorite artist you’ve worked with, who would be on it?
Not only can’t I answer that, I won’t answer it. Because over the 160+ releases, there are maybe four that are unbearable and I’m not gonna tell you which ones those are. Look, there are two partners in Bloodshot (Miller and Nan Warshaw) some of the records are hers and some are mine. The label is a music geeks dream come true, I get to produce my own record collection so there is something I love about each and every one of these bands. It’s hard to say which one of these bands is my favorite because some of the best ones in my opinion are the really weirdo niche records that may only sell a couple thousand copies and I’ll go back to those more then some that have sold fifty thousand copies. For our tenth anniversary, we did a comp called A Decade of Sin: Eleven Years of Bloodshot. That’s how on top of these things we are around here. There are just so many variables that go into something like that.

How has the economy affected your business?
It’s affected us like it has everyone else. If somebody can’t make their rent the last thing they’re thinking about doing is going out and buying records; people prioritize. It’s harder to buy new music, it’s harder to go out to shows. It’s tougher for bands to take time off of work to tour, to pay for gas, for hotels. It’s never been an easy business, but it’s even more difficult now.

What’s a typical day at Bloodshot like for you?
God knows it’s not glamorous. Order filling, website maintenance, lots of spreadsheets, time on the phone. I handle all the statistics for production and manufacturing; Very rarely does it involve being in the studio helping with the creation of a record. There is a lot of desk time.

What do you think about the so-called “vinyl resurgence” that going on right now?
Anyone that says that they can’t hear the difference between an MP3 and vinyl just doesn’t listen to music. I can stand on a street corner on my soap box all day long and tell people LPs sound better, but you can’t argue with the convenience of a download. Around 30% of our business comes from downloads. But with the so-called resurgence — it’s not even so-called — it’s a fact that records are coming back, which is great. I think some people just got sick of have 9 million songs on there hard drive. The format has no soul. When you take a record home and play it, you make more of an instant connection with the artist that you perhaps don’t form through an MP3. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that vinyl will be a dominate form of media, because it won’t, but Bloodshot is pressing more vinyl, I like to take records home and play them. They look great and they sound great.

Where do you think Bloodshot will be in the next fifteen years?
Hell, I don’t know. People couldn’t believe it when we made it to a year, then five, then ten, let alone fifteen. I’m not even going to try and predict where we’ll be in the next fifteen years. We’ll just have to wait and see.

St. Joseph, Missouri. Good God, there just doesn’t seem to be much worthwhile in this poor, forgotten north-central Missouri river town. Our town (eighth largest in the state) began life as a trading post, the Black Snake Trade Post to be exact, by the trapper and trader extraordinaire Joseph Robidoux.

Since its founding in the late 1800s, St. Joe has grown to be both famous and infamous, joyfully remembered and sadly forgotten. She has been a hometown for the famous: Walter Cronkite, soap opera legend Ruth Warrick, The Pony Express, Aunt Jemima, Goetz Beer, Seitz Hot Dogs and jazz great Coleman Hawkins. It has also been a place of famous final breaths, most notably that of legendary Old West outlaw Jesse James.

But I digress. This is a column about music, not a history lesson, so perhaps I should step away from the blackboard, turn off my overhead projector and get down to discussing the music that is rising up from Old Man Robidoux’s bosom.

St. Joe does not stand prominently on the musical landscape; besides the late great Mr. Hawkins, the only other musicians of note are Steve Walsh and Jeff Lux of 70s rock(?) band Kansas. Fucking Kansas? Holy Moses, the prospects of this being a decent article are slipping away. The interesting facts are falling through my fingers like sand.

But wait, there are the new ones, the young pups, the voices with giant amps playing the local bars every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, the saving grace of St. Joe’s music scene. If there is anything you can say about the “scene” here, it’s that it is at the very least diverse. We have jam bands, noise punks, ska types, country acts, metal, Christian, screamo, cover bands out the wazoo, rap, alterna-rockers, neo-country, etc.

Now, I’m not saying that all the bands are good; far from it, and in reality, no city’s scene is 100 percent good bands. But we won’t let a few bad apples spoil the bunch, will we? There are many bands in St. Joe that fall into the bad/terrible category, but I will not give out their names here for fear of reprisals down the road. Let’s just say for a galaxy this small, the scene has quite a few self-perceived “stars.” There is a very thin line between confidence and a massive ego. Now, let’s get this show on the road, shall we?

The genre of the jam band is not typically music that I listen to or even vaguely enjoy. Phish is a mess of a noodling band that I wish would’ve stayed retired to some hippie’s dreams; though they do have a couple good tunes, The Dead are one of the most overrated bands in all of recorded history. That said, St. Joe is home to The Waystation, a jam band in the traditional sense but not in the truest sense. Sure, they draw from the hippie gene pool (The Allmans, Widespread Panic, The Dead) but they’ve turned their backs on the long, meandering solos in exchange for tight, multi-instrumental quality rock tunes. Think Nick Cave fronting a bastard child of Midnight Oil, Santana and Gang of Four. Todd Long and Co. are breaking new ground for the Bonnaroo set; they’re definitely worth seeing even if you don’t wear tye-dye and live for 20-minute versions of a four-minute song.

[The Waystation]

The Waystation – “Fox Trot” live at The Studio, Kansas City, Mo.

Next come the noise-punks. There is only one band that falls under this heading that is worth the energy it takes to type this: Holy Mother Exhaust (points for uniqueness of name) unapologetically hump the ghosts of Nirvana, The Pixies and Fugazi to create a racket that is unlike anything this frontier town has ever seen. Containing members of two area bands, Alice and The Rogers, Bobby Floyd, Marc Darnell and Keith Jensen have a manic energy that project HME bigger than a trio. In due time, the crash they make together should and will get them noticed outside of the great Midwest.

[Holy Mother Exhaust]

Holy Mother Exhaust – Live at The Rendezvous

There are many bands here in St. Joe that love the sound of my early nineties college days but I am keeping the list to a mere three.

The Rogers. They are the top dogs when it comes to Alterna-rock here. The Rogers blend originality with the sacred sounds of Television, Smashing Pumpkins, The Talking Heads and The Breeders to forge a music that is completely their own. As the band plays expertly written originals, front man Marc Darnell works the stage like David Byrne having a Grand Maul Seizure. Their live shows are wildly entertaining and bring out the sometime lazy St. Joe populous in droves when the band sees fit to come out of their self-imposed hiding. Craziness for all.

[The Rogers]

The Belt Highway. Named for the main thoroughfare through St. Joe, this band is made up of Peter Shapiro, Luis Farias, Bryan Corbin and Kyle Lohman (Kyle is a hold over from Peter’s band from The Great Northern). The Belt Highway’s music borrows from every single band that came blasting from my dorm room’s Frankenstein stereo set up back in the 90s. The Belt Highway give me basically the same feeling that my favorite old concert T-shirt does: warmth, familiarity, good memories and the wish that I could hear the music again.

[The Belt Highway]

Pompous Pilot. An orgy of sound that falls between the cracks in the Earth left by The Stone Roses, Hum and Uncle Tupelo. This three-piece make a noise that is blistering as well as melodic. A ungodly noise that, for once, is pleasing and complete. Live, they will most likely blow out their amps and your eardrums while sending you home happy that you now have tinnitus.

Now that I’ve gotten all of that out of the way, I’m going to lump country, balladry and singer-songwriter all in one group.

Bigg Hans. A longtime poet (known to his mother as Hans Bremer) has turned troubadour. He’s said, “I tell people that I learned to write a song from William Butler Yeats and write poetry from Neil Young.” Hans’ songs call back the old train songs, the hard-luck Depression era rags, bluegrass roots and classic country. It all comes together well, with every original and cover tune on his album, The Ballad of Ned Hurt, ringing truer than ever in these uncertain times.

[Bigg Hans]

Eyelit. The young husband and wife team of Austin and Dansare Marks create a calming tone that brings peace even to my soul. The ease at which Austin plays the most complicated chords is astounding — he sites influences such as James Taylor, Coldplay and Dave Matthews, and they all show. To be wholly honest though, the true show in Eyelit is Dansare’s voice. The last time I heard a voice this hauntingly beautiful in person was during Sinead O’Connor’s set at Lollapalooza’s Kansas City stop in 1995. Dansare’s vocal ability is otherworldly; it has a grace, control, a peace and power that very few vocalists will ever master, let alone at just 20 years old.

[Eyelit]

Steel Wool Mill. This band takes the old-timey sound made popular by Jimmie Rodgers, Woody Guthrie and the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? movie soundtrack and give it a twist. They update the “mountain music” while keeping it true to the roots. It’s a bare-bones sound that is relaxing and exceptional.

[Steel Wool Mill]

Now, I’ll finish this installment of Notes From Middle America with a couple of St. Joe’s finest cover bands.

First, The Ramey Memo. This band is fuckin’ hilarious. To be fair, Tyson Bottoroff, Raye Lynn and Garner are not technically a true cover band. Though they do play a lot of covers (their interpretations of Nirvana’s “Love Buzz” and Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” are two of the best covers I’ve ever heard), they also rely on their own material to make a statement — though sometimes the statement is more like a punch line. Their 2006 self-released debut, 300 Voices at King Hill Pub, may have not-so-serious subject matter in its original songs (”I Took a Tom Cruise on the Billy Ocean,” “Sonic Radiation Dildo Warfare,” “Brownies in the Key of Death Metal”), The Ramey Memo are seriously musicians; when it comes down to it, their set is always one of the best on the bill.

The Ramey Memo – “Melt Your Face”

Blue Oyster Culture Club. Sadly, this cover band is probably the biggest draw for live music in the city. They play mostly 1980s music and the crowds eat it up. It’s a sad state of affairs in the music world if the band that pulls the most people away from their TVs is a cover band, albeit a very good one.

So, if you’re ever near St. Joe on a Saturday night with nothing to do, go to one of the bars on Felix Street and check out some live music. You could very likely hear a quality rendition of “Come On Eileen” or some blistering original number you can’t quite get out of your head.

You may hate what you hear with every last fiber of your being, but then again, the exact opposite could happen. Such is music. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.

If you happen to be from in or around our fair city, please pay attention to my words: St. Joe could show you how to have a good time, how to appreciate live music again, how to turn off Grey’s Anatomy and get off your God damned couch. Stranger things have happened in this town of ground-breakers, innovators and outlaws.

The Heartland of America has given fully to both respected culture and pop culture. Missouri, the literal “heart” of the Heartland, can lay claim to the old-West Robin Hood Jesse James, writer Mark Twain, painter Thomas Hart Benton, The Pony Express, the world’s greatest barbecue, Brad Pitt, Walter Cronkite and now, a rock band known throughout our land as The Architects.

I will not foolishly attempt to compare a punk-ish rock band from Kansas City with the likes of Twain or Cronkite but judging by the lyrics and attitude spewed onto their most recent Anodyne Records release Vice, it would be totally justifiable to place The Architects in the same headspace as the country’s legendary outlaw.

Kansas City’s scene is thriving like never before with bands like The Architects, Federation of Horsepower, The Republic Tigers, Lights and Siren, In the Pines and Sister Mary Rotten Crotch leading the charge. But Brandon Phillips, singer and guitarist for The Architects doesn’t seem to want to go into great detail about the city’s scene. “The K.C. scene takes pretty good care of it’s own. That said, I almost prefer to avoid ’scene stuff’” he continued, “it can be very political in a smallish town. I came to play and sing not whip votes in a city wide alterna-popularity contest.”

Play and sing they do. I am not basing this opinion solely on what I hear on a disc or some shit ass recording on a MySpace page. I am going by what I’ve experienced first hand. A few years ago, I happened into The Jackpot Saloon, one of my preferred Lawrence, Kansas haunts, while I was in town to cover a Sonic Youth show for another publication that shall remain nameless. After two hours of art rock no wave, all I wanted was a tall glass of Maker’s Mark with Coke. The drink was doable but considering it was a Monday night at 11, the odds of seeing a good band or any band for that matter, were slim to none. But as luck would have it, myself and the thirty other people that happened to be in the bar that night were in for a special treat.

Not only did the Jackpot’s management let all of us in sans cover charge, there was a band and a great one at that. The Architects played like they were the headliners at Reading; “The size of the crowd only matters in my head,” lead singer/guitarist Brandon Phillips recently told me. “There is a certain pride and satisfaction that comes with clobbering a near-empty bar like it’s Wembley Stadium.”

[Brandon Phillips]

With their combination of classic rock hooks and the occasional punk rock kick to the throat, The Architects are easily one of the best bands Kansas City has to offer but they are far from new to the game.

Like The James Gang of yore, The Architects are a family enterprise. “We three brothers (Brandon, Zach and Adam Phillips; Keenan Nichols rounds out the four-piece) have been doing this since we were wee little tots. I’d say it makes everything a lot simpler; most of the dumb bullshit that other bands fight about was already covered years ago.”

Not only are the Phillips boys family, they’ve already served time together in another iconic Kansas City band, The Gadjits. The brothers played long and hard releasing four albums (Da Gravy on Your Grits, At Ease, Wish We Never Met and Today is My Day) before The Gadjits hung it up five years ago. “We just got fed up with being in that band. There was some perceived dumb baggage that came along with being in The Gadjits.”

Then, the final piece in the Architects creation slid into place: In 2003, The Gadjits were dropped by RCA. “When we were dropped we took a breath, renamed the band, retooled a bit and became The Architects.”

Once The Gadjits were history, local Kansas City record label Andoyne Records, also home to country acid punk legends The Meat Puppets, came calling. “Andoyne wanted to release our first record.” Phillips said. “We’ve been lucky enough to release two more with them.”

But since the release of Vice, some things have changed. “We liked being with Andoyne but we recently moved over to Skeleton Crew, a label owned by Frank Iero of My Chemical Romance. “We’ll be making a new record with Skeleton Crew in January that will likely come out in early Summer 2009.”

While some bands, both big and small, are content with latching on to whatever sound is popular or deemed hip by “cool” local publications (in K.C.’s case that “cool” publication would be The Pitch Weekly), The Architects are unapologetic about their sound and influences.

They are a great rock band with a sound that is fairly easily pinned down: Social Distortion, Johnny Cash, AC/DC and Cheap Trick are front and center depending on the track your listing to at the time. However, Brandon listed a few that I didn’t hear as readily at first. “Yeah, we are definitely into AC/DC and The Who a lot. Those two always seem to come through along with The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers. Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings are influences in the sense that they are damn good with narratives and scenery… and Lucinda Williams gets a big nod as well.”

Sighting bases for their sound such as these, would The Architects classify themselves as a punk band? “Yeah, I’d consider us a punk band only insofar as that is a huge part of where we come from and why we persist in doing this.” However, as Phillips explains, they aren’t punks in the classic public perception. “In order to meet the burden of most people’s common definition of a ‘punk band’ we would need a lot of help with the 1978 period costume.”

Though their sonic forefathers are easily distinguishable, that does not mean they are one of the many run of the mill copycats that flood the music world today. No, they are clearly their own being that is simply not afraid to let the music that shaped them show through their wall of sound.

Yes,The Architects have accomplished much over the last five years. They played on the Vans Warped Tour in 2006 and 2008. Brandon said playing the annual tour was like if you took “parts of John McCain’s book about waking up all sweaty with dysentery in a North Vietnamese prison and the parts of David Lee Roth’s book about waking up all sweaty in a sleeping bag on tour with Van Halen… well you’d have a pretty accurate description of what it’s like to do Warped Tour in a van.”

They’ve recorded three well-received albums (Keys to the Building, Revenge and the aforementioned Vice) and recently opened a show at Kansas City’s Beaumont Club for their old friends, Rancid.

“We’ve know each other for a long time now.” Brandon told me when explaining his band’s good fortune. “ Our old band, The Gadjits, were one of Tim Armstrong’s first signings when he launched ,a href=”http://www.hell-cat.com/” target=”new”>Hellcat Records back in 1997 or ‘98. So, when they came through town on this last tour we were fortunate enough to get the call.” The luck keeps on coming for the boys in The Architects; a new record deal, opening shows for punk heroes like Rancid, a great new record and summers spent seeing the country while playing for larger and larger crowds. Lucky bastards, indeed.

Whatever category you choose to put The Architects in: hard rock, punk, good old straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll, a few things are of absolute certainty; they put on a hell of a show, the band believes 1000% in what they do and (hopefully) they won’t compromise their music or change to please anyone but themselves. I hope against all hope that they’ll stay true to who they are and not forget where they come from. But I’m a bit of a pessimist from Missouri so The Architects are gonna have to Show-Me.