This Sioux City folk band revels to a darker tune. In time for Halloween, the bunch made it to The Journal to record two songs live and chat about their music for a podcast with multimedia producer Sam Burrish.

Songwriter Mike Langley submitted the following as a “bare bones” description of the band. Have fun reading…

“The wandering minstrel is called Medieval Mikey, the Minstrel Mage. Not unlike T. H. White’s Merlyn in The Once And Future King, the Minstrel Mage travels backwards (or is it sideways?) through time, unearthing long-buried musical spells from the space age to the stone age, and ages in-between. Mikey’s band, The Groovediggers, fellow caretakers of the Vault of Ages, join him in a rocking catacomb of undead song. Don’t be afraid of a cobweb or two — come for a stroll through the Grooveyard with The Groovediggers!”

Below is a live performance at The Journal of “Graveyard Wreck.” Check back Thursday afternoon for a video of “Lover’s Lane.”

Podcast interview (play below)

 

 The Groovediggers podcast [20:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Download (MP3) Graveyard Wreck | Lover’s Lane

Live releases preview new EP (Journal exclusive)

MP3: The Wheelers | War Chest | Snuff Film Credits

HQ Video: The Wheelers | Snuff Film Credits

Podcast interview with Billy Yost

 

 Heard Mentality podcast with Sam Burrish [25:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Sam Burrish
Journal multimedia producer

The sirens of big-city fame have seduced many a small-town band.

For indie rock group The Kickback, it was Chicago. The former Vermillion, S.D., four-piece made the leap this summer.

In short time, they’ve had to navigate the unfamiliar currents of a big local scene. But the move so far is all good.

“Everyone was thinking basically the same thing. ‘We want to keep doing this, but we’ve got to find a way to bump it up to the next level,’” frontman Billy Yost said in a recent interview for The Journal’s Heard Mentality online music podcast.

The band’s “underdog” mentality surely didn’t hurt entering the scene, he said.

For several years, playing new venues meant hours on the road, and on a good night, recouping gas money. Now a host of Chicago venues within a few minutes’ drive welcome the band.

The steady schedule of gigs is spring-boarding The Kickback’s profile, in addition to recording sessions, mentions in city publications and a growing fan base — local and online.

Affirmation?

That came straight from the top. Rock ‘n’ Roll bible Rolling Stone also published extolling words for the band.

The magazine said: The Kickback writes “lean, nervy songs that snarl and snap. Guitarist Billy Yost has a marvelously agonized voice and he wrenches notes from his larynx, hurling himself against the songs’ propulsive rhythms.”

The review was published Sept. 17 on Rolling Stone’s Hype Monitor blog, a place up-and-coming bands are spotlighted.

The accolade was a surprise, 22-year-old Yost said.

“My first reaction was that somebody had taken our (band) name,” Yost said after he saw “Kickback” in the headline.

Then came his name. Every letter was there.

“I started freaking out. I think I danced around the apartment sort of yelling,” Yost said. He then left brother and bandmate Danny Yost a voicemail. “You couldn’t really make out anything I was saying. It was just sort of high-pitched squeal sounds.

It was definitely one of the cooler moments of my life.”

Also good? The timing.

The band is recording for its second EP, “The Great Self-Love,” which Yost expects to release later this year.

“The EP is a celebration of the only thing my generation has learned how to do: pat itself on the back and rest assured that no one is as unique and special and perfect as us,” said Yost, who also works as a substitute English teacher.

“The Great Self-Love” release was delayed because of scrapped recording sessions in Sioux Falls, S.D., the Chicago move, and switching guitarist Cody Raterman with Chicago-native Tyler Zee.

Danny Yost and bassist Zach Verdoorn have returned from a touring stint with indie rockers Oh My God, also of Chicago.

The Kickback is now studio recording “The Great Self-Love” using money donated online by fans.

But if they can’t do it killer live, it doesn’t matter what the studio work sounds like, Yost told The Journal this past summer before the move.

By Sam Burrish
Journal multimedia producer

Today The Journal’s Heard Mentality blog publishes two videos of The Kickback performing live, uncut versions of upcoming studio tracks.

Talks about a final Sioux City media appearance before the move led to a collaboration with the band and The Journal’s multimedia producer.

The idea was simple: An amped-up version of the Heard Mentality blog’s popular performance videos.

The live session highlight burns with “Snuff Film Credits.”

The song presents a vacuous soundscape deep with sonic voices conversing into a growing, undulating cadence that scratches the ceiling.

The song is “not literally about the act. Just a mental reel of things a man is thinking who is completely capable of something that harsh and sadistic,” Yost said. “The charming, terrifying last words he’s thinking he would like to say.

I read that the market for fake snuff films is off the charts in Japan. That was bizarre enough in itself to call for a song.”

The bony keys at first contrast damp, seductive vocals. And bass and kick drum eventually fill in the bottom.

The masterfully-layered song is highlighted by the antagonizing restraint of vocalist, Yost, who, along with old school keys, adds a tense under-wire that arches even the electronic chaos of the song’s robust climaxes and barren lows.

The outdoor summer concert series that has entertained thousands of Siouxlanders this summer is coming to a close Friday night with a performance of Celtic rock by The Young Dubliners.

The Young Dubs have been at it since 1988 when two Dublin natives bumped into each other in Los Angeles and decided to start a band. Eight studio albums later and the five-piece band that blends the hard rock style of the Sunset Strip with distinctly Irish elements like the tin whistle and mandolin are closing Sioux City’s Fridays on the Promenade.

FOTP featuring the Young Dubliners starts at 6 p.m. The two-hour concert costs $2 and patrons are encouraged to bring lawn chairs as seating around the Roth Fountain, Fourth and Virginia streets, is limited.

The ex-Vermillion band The Kickback got some great press (albiet short) today from the bible of rock and roll Rolling Stone.

If you are a fan, or want to know more about the band, who now call Chicago home, the Weekender’s Jesse Claeys talked with the band twice in the past year. Here is an interview with Billy Yost.

 

 Hear an interview with Billy Yost: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We also featured exclusive performances by Billy Yost and the band.

Here is a video featuring Yost.

Here is a performance with the complete band.

FRIDAY

Don’t look now but this year’s Fridays on the Promenade concert series is already on its seventh offering. Up this evening from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Roth Fountain, corner of Fourth & Virginia streets, is Liquid Thin, a four-piece band that is hard to define. With jazz coming from the sax, blues and rock coming from the guitar and everything else streaming from the drummer and keyboardist, fusion may be the best classification. Playing all original songs, this is one band that is serious about music and seriously deserves your support. $2.

_____

How did an Irish/Filipino man become a successful country artist? Heck, I don’t know, but it has to have something to do with Neal McCoy’s voice. The singer brings 20 years experience, 11 albums and 20 charted singles to his 8 p.m. concert at WinnaVegas in Sloan, Iowa. $30.

SATURDAY

Rhonda of Rhonda’s Speakeasy, 212 Cunningham Drive, wants you to party in her parking lot come Saturday. For why, you ask? Because out there is where popular national blues touring artist Randall Zwarte is going to be. Opening the 7 p.m. show will be Sioux City’s own Kelly Quinn Band. $10 at the gate.

____

We all know ArtSplash, the annual art show and sale along the riverfront, is all about art. Did you know it is also all about entertainment? Over eight hours of live performances go down on two stages this year. For example, Sioux City favorite Rockestra takes the main stage at 5 p.m. This 40-piece rock orchestra is fresh off of gigs at the Iowa State Fair. $5 at the gate.

FRIDAY

I know five people who have seen the jazz/blues/rock hybrid band Liquid Thin in concert. These five people subsequently called me and said, “You gotta check these guys out!” While I have yet to, I may tonight when the four-piece takes the stage at 8:30 p.m. at the Skyline Bar & Casino, 103 N Hwy 105. It will be a nice preview to what the band will do when it performs at Fridays on the Promenade next week. FREE.

____

Another recommendation? Let’s see… Local fav’s Top Down get down starting at 9 p.m. at Rhonda’s Speakeasy, 212 Cunningham Drive. ‘Nuff said. FREE.

SATURDAY

The Sioux City Growth Organization is comprised of young professionals who want to make this river city a better place by getting involved with everything from event organizing to local government. Some of the things the group does, like Sculpt Siouxland, need funding. Enter fundraiser GOFest 2009. Starting at 7:30 p.m. at Jolly Rogers (the bar next to Bev’s On The River), this fest features two band, Electric Junction and the ever-popular Kory and the Fireflies. $10.

____

Evicted hails from Nebraska but has been schooled at the University of Hard Rock. Think a Metallic-influenced garage band with a female lead singer. Want to know more? Then ask this band in person when they take the outdoor stage at the Ickey Nickel, 4700 41st St., at 8 p.m. Not sure if there will be a cover charge or not, but this concert concludes the bar’s “Nickel Meltdown,” a day filled with volleyball, baggo, horseshoe and beer pong tournaments. Did I mention the mud wrestling with the Sioux City Roller Dames?

Gary Allan, a multi-platinum country singer, will perform at the Tyson Events Center on Nov. 6, according to the artist’s web site.

As part of the 25-city “Get Off on the Pain” Tour, Allan will perform in Sioux City in support of the release of his ninth studio album. That record’s first single, “Today,” is currently climbing up charts and earning air play around the nation.

Allan’s impressive career includes 10 singles that have reached the Top Ten on Billboard’s Hot Country charts, including the three number ones “Man to Man,” “Tough Little Boys” and “Nothing On but the Radio.”

According to a press release on Allan’s web site, Jack Ingram and the Eli Young Band will open the Sioux City show.

Tyson Events Center officials could not be reached to confirm this booking. Expect tickets to go on sale in early September.

In the mood for some live tunes this weekend? Here are my picks on where to go and what to hear:

FRIDAY

Warning. Only three Fridays on the Promenade concerts remain this year. Held outside in the pedestrian space surrounding the Roth Fountain, Fourth and Virginia streets, bluegrass will be the music du jour Friday. Pert’ Near Sandstone, a high-octane, gritty, hard-driving string band from the Twin Cities takes the stage from 6 to 8 p.m. Bring a chair. $2 at the gate.

_____

Is that the blues rock band Indigenous you hear? No, it’s just Indigenous minus lead singer/guitar virtuoso Mato Nanji. Mostly because they rock, The Kris Lager Band became the Indigenous rhythm section a few years back. Occasionally they take a break and get back to their roots as a four-piece from Lincoln, Neb. Texas Blues will be on tap when this group takes The Chesterfield, 1225 Fourth St., stage at 9:30 p.m. Unknown cover at the door.

SATURDAY

The cash-strapped can rejoice. Bills Bar, 2110 Court St., is hosting three bands for FREE starting at 9 p.m. Hearing these bands is worth paying some sort of cover. Locals MAN eats BEAR (alt-rock) and Three Dog Knife (a past Battle of the Bands winner) open for Jake Bellows, a folk rock singer/songwriter hailing from Omaha. Bellows is best known as the frontman of Saddle Creek recording artist Neva Dinova and as an occasional member of Conor Oberst’s band Bright Eyes. Again, it’s free.

_____

A few years back this band was inducted into the Iowa Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame. Now Bonesteel is getting back together for a 9:30 p.m. show at The Chesterfield, 1225 Court St. Although Bonesteel officially called it quits in the 1982, a few sell-out reunion shows prompted the group to return to the studio in the 1990s. One track from those sessions, “Big Sioux River” raced up the indie charts and missed Billboard’s by a few points. Mat d. opens. Unknown cover at the door.

Just a friendly reminder that Iowa Public Television coverage of the 19th annual Saturday in the Park festival will be broadcast at 8 p.m. tonight.

Presented in high-def, “Saturday in the Park 2009″ features live performances from Counting Crows, Mike Doughty, Shemekia Copeland, Lenka and more, condensed down to a 60-minute program.

Tune in to your IPTV station to check it out. You never know, one of the crowd pans just might capture you sneaking a beer out of the beer garden.

If you like what you see, make sure to thank program underwriters The Waitt Family Foundation, the City of Sioux City and the Clarion Hotel. This is the third year IPTV has filmed the festival that annually attracts over 25,000 people to Grandview Park.