Blue Genes
Brody Buster has the blues in his blood, but that doesn’t mean he has to play it
Most kids would kill for the kind of whirlwind notoriety Brody Buster experienced between the ages of 8 and 12. From Beale Street to Jay Leno to befriending B.B. King, Buster lived the dream before he was old enough to know it...
L.A. woman
Lawrence native Lisa Donnelly perfects her music ‘Thing’ in Hollywood
Having moved to the West Coast in 2002 as a 22-year-old aspiring singer, Donnelly is finally seeing the toils of her battle against the L.A. music machine paying off...
Great Scott
Rusty Scott pulls record "out of his ass," polishes it up into quite a dandy
Scott’s down-home songs toe the line between folk, rock, and bluegrass, working their way into your subconscious with easygoing melodies and old-fashioned instrumentation...
Cast and Present
The Appleseed Cast embarks on new sonic expedition
In a one-handed count of Lawrence bands whose last two records have each sold over 25,000 copies, you’d likely have fingers left over. Tom King interviews The Appleseed Cast about its new album "Sagarmatha" and mountains to climb in 2009.
Buncha F Holes
Meet Lawrence's finest PBR-swillin', mushroom-huntin' punk-a-billy trio
The F Holes' big-buckin' blend of rockabilly, punk and southern-fried rock would be a hoot even without the sampled truck horns that replace naughty words ...
Dead Hair Day
The Dead Girls gear up for a big year with new EP, roast beef sandwiches
By the end of 2009, The Dead Girls will have released two EPs, an album and a whole lot of Arby's sauce. The band is also firing up “The Dead Girls Project” – an interactive website wherein fans can remix new material.
Atlas Chugged
Rooftop Vigilantes sober up, make record
Zach Campbell, Oscar Allen Guinn, Hannah Hyde and Seth Weise join us to toast the release of “Carrot Atlas” and use our bathrooms.
The Year in Lawrence Music 2008: Not bad. Not bad at all.
A look back at the year in local music, including a podcast of the year's 10 best releases and downloads from many more...
Hark! The Local Musicians Sing!
Two new Christmas albums FREE exclusively on lawrence.com
Sick of being hit over the head with Mannheim Steamroller and all the other crappy Christmas music out there? Download two new Christmas albums by Lawrence musicians Sam Billen and Josh Atkinson—and rediscover the true meaning of decent Christmas music.
Tiger Beat
The Republic Tigers continue their torrid march up the charts
Hate if you wanna, but The Republic Tigers are still the best band in Kansas City. With the excitement of that whole “we have a lot of fountains” thing quickly rubbing off, it’s high time our sister city put that Puddle of Mudd thing to rest. Enter the Tigers: a brilliant and strikingly individualistic band that offers a beacon of hope to all Midwestern music-makers who don’t yarl.
'Attack' mode
The Noise FM releases debut album; joggers and weightlifters rejoice
It's difficult to imagine a local release in recent years that comes out of the gate stronger than The Noise FM's "Dream of the Attack." Beginning with the taut, magnetic riffs of "Simple Simon" and continuing through the gaping-mouth hooks of "Circles," the album strikes a perfect balance between musicianship and songcraft-two things that don't always come as a package.
The Lord Speaketh
Hammerlord lays down the metal/not-metal gauntlet
Tt takes about two hellraising seconds to figure out that Hammerlord is most definitely metal. Earth-scorching guitar leads, double-bass-drum blasts, guttural vocals, lyrics about spilt blood and the "Throne of Azathoth" metal like the wolf. It's even got a drum solo on it how metal is that?!!! Plenty of bands would give their first Anthrax tape to be this metal, but few succeed so quickly and convincingly.
Back in the Day
Billy Spears Band-legendary local act of the '70s-reunites for one more show
There was a time when Billy Spears was king. A food service worker at the Kansas Union with curly hair and, judging by the old pictures, an inscrutable and wild look to his eyes and all about him-when Billy Spears was playing his fiddle, people would not miss it. "He was a legend around town," says Chuck Mead of BR549.
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