Lawrence.com

As all ya'll college freshmen will soon discover, there's more to Lawrence than basketball, big-box retail, and three strip clubs. For our pennies, the local music scene is where it's at. We've seen a lot of great bands come and go since we started publishing five years ago-fortunately, a lot of the best ones tend to stick around. But there's always a new crop of face-melting rockers and body-shockers that we're delighted to stumble upon in a shitfaced daze, and we try to keep up as best we can. In the spirit of a continually viable Lawrence music scene, we present to you an introductory survey of local bands that totally rock.

Rock

Ad Astra Per Aspera Anyone who has heard Ad Astra Per Aspera recognizes the sound immediately: a frantic demonstration of noise and melody clashing wholeheartedly. Points of reference include Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead, but Ad Astra's best attribute is its ability to sound more and more like itself.

The Dactyls After three years of lineup changes and hiatuses, The Dactyls have been mad busy lately. The foursome channels the glory days of Pavement and Archers of Loaf with guitar-heavy material geared for kickass live shows.

The Noise FM This trio's heavy yet melodic tunes take inspiration from top-shelf woodshedders like Muse and Queens of the Stone Age. Their recent self-produced album "Night of the Sentinels" foreshadows even better things ahead.

The Spook Lights Heavily influenced by vintage surf music and acts like the Cramps, this foursome puts on one the most entertaining shows in town, thanks in part to one of Lawrence's most frenetic and captivating performers in Rob "Scary Manilow" Gillaspie (who also blogs here) and his mate Kelly "Curvacia VaVoom" Nightengale.

Also: Dead Girls Ruin Everything, The Jen Say Kwahs, The Kinetiks, Big Surrender, Log Lady, Fourth of July, Bandit Teeth, The Appleseed Cast, Minus Story, The Vols (aka Volunteers), Another Holiday

Metal / Hardcore

The Cast Pattern With song titles like "She's Not Pregnant, She's Just Fat," one might think The Cast Pattern is the house band for "Jackass." They'd probably be all about that, but for now they'll have to just keep terrorizing local house parties and Mass. Street dives with their earsplitting brand of psychotic tech-metal.

Hammerlord Hammerlord is a new metal band featuring former Esoteric singer Stevie Cruz, bassist Terry Taylor, monster drummer Adam Mitchell and dual shredders Ty Scott and J.P. Gaughan. The group's blast-beat rhythms and loin-soiling guitar leads are at least as fierce as the Esoteric and/or any of the other members' former projects, with the added bonus of paying tribute to Bay Area thrash beasts like Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer.

Also: Flee the Seen, Lethe, Censura

Hip-hop / Electronic

Stik Figa Charisma and ingenuity have been Stik Figa's ace-in-the-hole since his days battle-rapping in the Topeka High cafeteria. His no-coast style is equally enamored with the crescent-fresh mainstream (Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, T.I.) and the booty-shaking fringe (Cool Kids, Santogold). As Stik puts it: "I'm very well-rounded for being a square."

Archetype Archetype is still sitting tight on the release of its anticipated third album, which integrates live guitar, drums, bass and trumpet into the soulful pastiche of producer Jeremy Nesbitt (a.k.a. Nezbeat) and the cerebral rhymes of Isaac Diehl (a.k.a iD).

Dri Singer Adrianne Verhoeven has a brand-new band that recently tracked a session for Daytrotter and toured with Conor Oberst. Each performance casts new hues on her "Smoke Rings" tracks, many of which wouldn't sound out of place on a Sade record if not for the modern electronica and hip-hop inflections. But there's so much more crammed between the cracks of Dri's breezy vocals: soulful 6/8 torch songs, Feist-y summer jams and even a bit of that Fleetwood Mac song-and-dance that her old band The Anniversary did so well.

Also: Adru the Misphit, DJ Spence, Johnny Quest

Americana

Truckstop Honeymoon Since they relocated to Lawrence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Mike West and Katie Euliss have continued doing what they've always done best: writing, recording and performing music like their lives depended on it (which, as full-time musicians, is exactly the case). The duo's fifth LP "Great Big Family" (due out this summer) boldly reflects on the loss of their former life in New Orleans and the start of a new one in Kansas.

Drakkar Sauna Despite being far more stable and far less dead than some of their musical heroes, Drakkar Sauna still manages to produce music just as heartbreakingly pretty as their country-roots forbearers. The group's latest album "Wars & Tornadoes" is a set of Louvin Brothers covers that nails the close harmonies of the Grand Ole Opry duo and feeds them through the Sauna's eclectic instrumental smorgasbord. Songs of old-timey despair and redemption written by a couple of siblings who were torn apart by alcoholism never sounded so toe-tappin'.

The Roseline The Roseline purveys a style of melodic Americana influenced by wide-ranging artists such as Ryan Adams, Tom Petty, Gram Parsons and Josh Ritter.

Also: RedLefty, The Ants, The Calamity Cubes, Tiny Tuxedo

Singer-songwriters

Suzannah Johannes Suzannah Johannes is the newest addition to the Range Life Records roster. Her mellow tunes employ guitar fingerpicking, piano, bass and light drums to convey lovely melodies that could sit comfortably beside a campfire. Currently performing with members of Ghosty, Suzannah's debut EP is slated for a September release.

Arthur Dodge For a quintessential Lawrence experience, head on down to Harbour Lights or any of the other Mass. Street venues that Arthur Dodge frequents. The bearded balladeer has been playing monthly gigs at the chatty downtown watering hole, drawing from the hundreds of folk, rock and country tunes he's penned over the years. Dodge's latest album "The Perfect Face" gracefully captures his mellow muse, though it barely offers a pinhole glimpse of his boundless songwriting gifts.

Matt Pryor For being one of town's best and best-known tunesmiths, Matt Pryor is about as unassuming as they come. Ever since the early days of his breakout band The Get Up Kids, Pryor has been steadily ratcheting down the rock in favor of a more stripped down showcase for his singular voice. His debut solo effort "Confidence Man" is an entirely engaging affair that was self-produced in his garage.

Also: Danny Pound, Rusty Scott, Doby Watson, Lonnie Fisher

Bluegrass

Split Lip Rayfield With the loss of their friend and bandmate Kirk Rundstrom to cancer, Split Lip Rayfield was hardly thinking about music during much of last year. But eventually they came to a resounding conclusion: Kirk would've wanted Split Lip to live on. An emotional return to the stage marked the beginning of the insurgent bluegrass trio's next chapter-one marked by sadness but also by the celebration of Kirk's legacy and the ever-growing tribe that coalesces 'round every SLR hootenanny.

Deadman Flats Guns, whiskey, and bluegrass: three things that are seriously missing in mainstream music. That's about where Lawrence's Deadman Flats comes in with songs about fast trucks, loose women, PBR, LSD, and all that.

DeWayn Brothers The DeWayn Brothers lay claim to a uniquely Kansas string-band sound influenced by bluegrass, old-timey folk and classic rock. Singer Jamie Lee belts out songs of lost loves and bad guys, while her backing boys sing about death and drinking and getting rabies from your own dog.

Also: Free State Revival, MAW, That Damn Sasquatch, Midday Ramblers

Experimental / Unclassifiable

Black Christmas Italian horror-film soundtracks inspired the members of Black Christmas to create haunting soundscapes with instrumental post-rock overtones. Featuring with the intricate guitarsmithery of Dalin Horner and Mark Sanders, the group builds layer upon layer of tension with samples, keyboards and a heavy rhythm section.

White Flight - After Justin Roelofs parted with The Anniversary and re-emerged as White Flight, local fans waited with bated breath for the prodigal musician to return to the stage. After two years of traveling across the world and finding inspiration in UFOs, fruit-picking, telepathy and ancient oracles, Roelofs recently sojourned back to Lawrence and (gasp!) actually performed a show. His upcoming album "White Ark!" builds on the awesomely mashed-up beats and exotic instrumentation of White Flight's 2006 debut.

Waterfowl Habitat You get what you give at a Waterfowl Habitat show. Dance like a banshee and Dylan Hoffman and Tanner Allen will join you; stare blankly at the floor and they will too. But with dirty-bass beats straight outta the Daft Punk camp and gnarly guitar riffs to make Prince proud, dancing is habitual at the clubs Waterfowl inhabits.

This Is My Condition Local musician Craig Comstock set out on his own when he became frustrated trying to find a drummer willing to play improvised hardcore. Now he does exactly that, performing solo with a hefty array of pedals and a pair of sticks to beat simultaneously on drums and guitar. Comstock recently teamed up with freeform saxophonist Dan Kozak to create awesomely manic improv jams.

Also: Ample Branches, Baby Birds Don't Drink Milk, Save the Whales »

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