• 
  • Today's events
  • Advanced search
  • Best Bets
  • Venues
  • Galleries
  • Theaters
  • Movies
  • Bars & drinks
  • Submit event
• 
  • Local music stories
  • All local bands
  • Bands by genre
  • Reviews
  • Turnpike
  • Music videos
  • mp3 downloads
  • lcom radio
  • User mp3 playlists
• 
  • Arts
  • Blogs
  • Community
  • Entertainment
  • Lists
  • Movie reviews
  • Music
  • Odd jobs
  • Video games
  • Volunteer
  • Archive search
• 
  • lcom radio
  • User playlists
  • mp3 downloads
  • Podcasts
  • Audio interviews
• 
  • Turnpike
  • Music videos
  • Indie films
  • News Video
  • Q'time w/ Randy
  • Movie listings
• 
  • Listings
  • Reviews
  • Scene stealers
  • Theaters
• 
  • Search restaurants
  • Restaurants open now
  • Delivery
  • Best of Lawrence
  • Featured restaurants
  • Stories
• 
  • Calendar
  • Drink specials
  • Bars
  • Party pix
• 
  • E pluribus internets
  • Peruse our users
  • Party pix
  • Sudoku
  • Crossword
  • Comics
  • Lists
  • Fun-time masks
  • 'Fear' memorial ribbon
  • Webcams

Collage by Zach Hangauer

• E-mail story
• Printer-friendly
• E-mail editor

By Tom King (Contact)

Thursday, April 20, 2006

"When you feel in your gut what you are, then dynamically pursue it—don't back down and don't give up—then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks." — Bob Dylan

Justin Roelofs is sitting on a pyramid in Mexico.

In the Mayan ruins at Palenque, the past is irretrievable, the future irrelevant. The Mayans are gone. All that matters is now: birds call in the jungle; lizards skitter across ancient stone; the sun moves across the sky. The tourists arrive, with their guidebooks and iPods; they snap photos with cellphones and send postcards. Tourists come to collect memories and mementos; Roelofs came to download vibrations.

"Right now, I understand that my whole progression as a musician has merely been to learn how to unlock sound vibration using my voice. This is what I've been moving towards all along," said Roelofs on the eve of his December departure to Mexico.

Rat Race

A Google of “Justin Roelofs” yields 500-plus items. There are a couple accounts of his acting in the Wamego-based film "Firecracker." There are a few articles about a Lawrence performance troupe whose flamboyant protest of the temporary closure of a local McDonald's, including photographs of an outraged Roelofs.

Most everything else is about The Anniversary.

The band that Roelofs once referred to as "magical dwarves," The Anniversary — Josh Berwanger, Adrianne Verhoeven, James David, Chris Jankowsi and Roelofs — released two widely acclaimed (and, of course, panned) albums of high pitched vocals and trippy lyrics, skewed classic rock styling, layered synths and keys. The band toured the United States, Britain, Europe and Japan with Vagrant label-mates The Get Up Kids.

After his band broke up in January of 2004, Roelofs spent a month in South America, visiting Peru and Brazil. Charged by his experiences, Roelofs set to work releasing dramatically different music than that of his former band — funky beats and irresistible grooves permeate several tracks that he released individually online.

This week Roelofs releases his first post-Anniversary proper album — "White Flight," a solo project tracing 13 months of recording that marks the debut release of Lawrence label Rangelife Records.

This Is It

"Here is some fire, here is some water.

There is no other time but now.

I see the way you love each other;

I see the way you bring your brother down."— "Now"; Roelofs 2005

"I would always get trapped up in… thinking about the future of the band and where I’ll be a few years from now," said Roelofs in a 2004 lawrence.com interview (full-length recording available here), a few months prior to the breakup of The Anniversary.

Roelofs' brush with fame in The Anniversary days, and fame's abrupt departure, precipitated new perceptions of life — a spiritual lens which called for an eschewal of materialism and an invigorated interest in mindfulness, yoga, meditation and clean eating, and topics such as holograms, the Mayan calendar, sonic power and the illusion of time.

That sound vibrations can be a source of great power is an ancient concept. Learned theorists have proposed that the Mayans used sound to move the massive stones of their pyramids; Gregorian monks chanted to feel God; the jazz artist Sun Ra believed that sound vibrations could melt all the nuclear weapons on Earth.

"To manipulate sound vibrations in specific ways, especially with the voice, can cause a torrent of positive energy to be released to the world," said Roelofs. "It brings peace and harmony, and a connection to now and everything. The inherent obligation of the artist, I believe, is the transmission of pure energy. That’s what matters. That’s what I’m trying to achieve."

Roelofs’ take on fame, however, remains unchanged: "It seems like a lot of bands now are interested more in their images and their careers than making pure and powerful music. I used to be in a band like this — we took press photos and we thought about the future," said Roelofs.

"What I have come to realize is that there is no past and no future. There really is no time but the present. The process of "White Flight" was liberating, and resulted in a pure expression, because it was all done in the moment. Each take had its own life. Everything I needed was there…now; I just had to tune in. Now is everything we need."

White Flight

"White Flight" is mostly the spirit being captured… in my computer, in this case, ‘cause it’s easy to move around. It's electric, holographic, mysterious, rhythmic… a recording of the spirit." — Justin Roelofs, 2005.

True to Roelofs’s mode, the album is difficult to describe. "Kind of like jazz," was one listener’s description, "and kind of like Beck." "Like freak folk" said another. Metal bass, circus music, dancehall, koto samples — all figure into "White Flight’s" beat-heavy stew.

Roelofs uses his influences as a chef uses herbs: never gratuitously, always with a careful hand.

In terms of scope, "White Flight" ranks up there with (Gabriel) Genesis' "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and Outkast’s "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below" — an epic and exhilarating journey that is, at its conclusion, still strangely inexplicable.

Kallipalooza III :: The third annual benefit thrown by Lawrence pancreatitis survivor Kalli Sanders, who vowed that if she survived her illness, she would keep the event going to assist others in similar situations ... More info

• "The Girl, the Grouch and the Goat: A Modern Fable"
• Nervous Turkey (featuring Ernie Locke of Tenderloin) / Red Kate
• Fourth of July / Our Fox

• More of today's events

< Previous month | Next month >

• See all ads
• See KUdeals.com coupons