52nd City

Show-Me Blowout @ Off Broadway; Q/A with Kopper

The Show-Me Blowout is taking place this weekend at Off Broadway and we asked the organizer, Jeff "Kopper" Kopp, a couple questions about the event. What we got back is a fairly comprehensive set of answers on the project. Enjoy.

How'd this whole event come together? What was the genesis of it?

Wow, that's quite a story. OK, here goes:

I suspected there were some bands around the region that I was missing out on, and so I went on Myspace one day and clicked on the "Music" tab... from there you can do a search for bands by musical style. This was the first time I'd seen or tried out this feature, so I thought, what the hell, I'll see what kinds of bands are calling themselves "garage" around St. Louis and beyond. So I first searched for St. Louis. There were many that I'd never heard of before, and most of them were probably using the term "garage" as in "garage band" rather than "garage rock" (relating to the style of music descended from '60s rock'n'roll), as they didn't really have that raw, primitive, fuzzy sound that I've grown accustomed to. Subsequent searches around the state revealed similar results, although I surprisingly found several that not only matched my tastes in style (either "garage rock," "garage punk," or more or less just great, groovin' punk/rock'n'roll).

A couple of those bands are thus included in this fest: The Rich Boys (who were originally the TV Eyes when I found them), and The Modern Primitives (who were going by the name of The Secondhands at the time). I was already familiar with bands in Springfield and Columbia (Thee Fine Lines and Monte Carlos) from seeing them at previous shows, and knew of Jeremiah Kidwell's new band in Kansas City (Pink Socks), as well as another band I found via the GaragePunk Forums message board, The Bleeding Hands. Another band I found by doing those Myspace Music searches was a band from Warrensburg called T.C Banks and the Hatchetmen. I suddenly had a pretty good list of garage (or similar) bands from all over Missouri, so I thought, what the hell, I'll try to
put together a festival and see if I can get some of the bigger-name garage rock bands from the state (thinking at the time of The Untamed Youth from Columbia - Deke Dickerson's old college garage/surf band, and The Royal Nonesuch from Springfield, part of the '80s garage/psych revival that toured extensively throughout the Midwest). I talked to my friend Bill Streeter about it and he loved the idea and encouraged me to move forward with it. So I called Steve Pohlman at Off Broadway, and he, too, thought it was a great idea, so we picked an open weekend on his schedule and I started contacting the bands to see if they wanted to play.

As it turned out, The Bleeding Hands could not do it. One of the guys in the band is a teacher or something and was going to be in Southeast Asia for the school year. That was kind of a letdown, because they were one of the bands that I was really excited about. So with them out, I had to find a replacement, and that's when I remembered a surf band from Kansas City called the Von Hodads, so I asked them if they were interested, and they were. I never could reach The Royal Nonesuch. My previous email for the band wasn't getting any response, so I gave up on them, thinking I'd just try to find someone else to headline one of the two nights... my idea then was to get The
Honkeys, since they'd just played the Rock'n'Roll Prom at the Way Out Club and have a pretty strong local following. The Untamed Youth proved to be too expensive, since only one of the band member still lives in Columbia, with Deke in L.A. now and the others elsewhere. Their guarantee was pretty steep as it would cover all of their travel expenses to come to St. Louis. I regretfully scratched them from the list and began looking for another headliner. That's when I thought of The Cripplers, who I knew never really broke up because the last I'd heard, they had stopped playing because they didn't have a practice
space anymore (this was over two years ago). I emailed Jeff Sigmon (guitar/vocals) and asked him if he could bring the band back together to play this, and he agreed so long as we didn't dub it a Cripplers "reunion" show. The Honkeys also agreed to play, but there was an issue with Jeff Positive (the guitarist, now living in Chicaco) who may or may not have to tour with some other band during October, so they couldn't get me a confirmation until August. So I waited, and in the meantime got all of my ducks in a row (picked the ten bands to play, five each night). August came and Jeff agreed to play the show,
so The Honkeys were in! But that only lasted a week. Not five or six days after telling me this, he was offered a touring gig with another Chicago band that needed a fill-in guitarist for some shows in the U.K. I guess this was an offer that he couldn't refuse, because he took it, thereby cancelling The Honkeys' appearance at the Blowout.

By the way, I got the name of this thing from Deke Dickerson's old Missouri rock'n'roll fanzine called "Show-Me Blowout" that he put out back in the late '80s/early '90s. There were only three issues of this 'zine, but they're great. I have scans of the covers of each on my Flickr account if you need them. Deke said it was cool for me to use the name of his 'zine for the name of this fest (I think he was very flattered by that, actually), and I thought it was perfect for what I wanted to do: showcase the best garage/surf/rock'n'roll bands in the state of Missouri. Anyway, once The Honkeys cancelled it left me in
kind of a bind. I didn't know where to go after that... and came really close to calling the whole thing off. Without a strong headliner one of the two nights, I feared there wouldn't be enough "pull" to get people to come out, since St. Louis can be a VERY finicky music community.

On a whim, I asked Jeff Hess about The Geargrinders. From talking to him a few years ago, I knew he was interested in putting together a new lineup for the band, which was always his brainchild, anyway. The original lineup broke up under not-so-happy circumstances, so I knew the possibility of getting all of those guys back together was pretty slim. But Jeff's most recent band (The UnMutuals) had recently split up and I knew he wasn't really doing anything musically, so I figured he might be looking for some excuse to get another band going. He was intrigued by the idea of getting a new lineup for The Geargrinders together and began thinking about who to make up the band with. Since he was already friends with Jason Edge, drummer of The Honkeys (and
Exene Cervenka's husband as well as the guitarist for her band The Original Sinners), I guess the obvious thing to do was to get the other members of The Honkeys to back him up. Cullen (bass) and Micah Edge (Jason's brother and the organ player for The Honkeys) agreed. But Jason wanted to play guitar, not drums, so Jeff had to seek out a drummer. He found one in an old friend of his from another prior band, Hippies in Flames, who originally formed in the '90s in St. Louis but had relocated to Seattle about 10 years ago. This guy's name was Ben Reagan, and he now lived in L.A., had another band going, and had also
recorded and played with classic L.A. punk band the Feederz (famous for their "Jesus Entering From the Rear" song that was included on Jello Biafra's "Let Them Eat Jellybeans" comp. LP on Alternative Tentacles from the early 1980s). Ben Wah (as he calls himself) had always bugged Jeff about wanting to be in The Geargrinders, so he agreed to do it and began flying to St. Louis to practice! So at this point, I had my other headliner. The Geargrinders' name hadn't appeared locally since 2000, after they played their last shows and
three of their songs appeared on my old regional garage/surf/rock'n'roll comp, "Landlocked & Loaded!" (TIRC Records, 2000). And Jeff's popularity locally with his KDHX radio show as well as his involvement with the Arch Rival Roller Girls (he's a Jeerleader) helped me realize that we could probably drum up some good excitement about his old band playing again, especially since they
featured several Honkeys backing him up, with one of them being a direct link to one of the nation's favorite '80s punk bands, X (Jason Edge > Exene Cervenka > X). (By the way, Jason and Exene live in a historic mansion just outside of Jefferson City now.)

Is this the dream list of bands? Did any get away from you?

Yes: As mentioned above, The Untamed Youth (Columbia), The Royal Nonesuch (Springfield), and The Bleeding Hands (Kansas City).

From what you're hearing, are there going to be some outta town folks coming in for this? I take it there will be.

I believe there will be, but it's hard to gauge. Advance ticket sales have been slim, but I'm sure we'll have a small group coming from out of town. Craig Moore (the bassist/vocalist of the '60s garage band GONN is coming in from Keokuk, Iowa for it, and he'll be joining The Nevermores and The Geargrinders on stage for a couple of songs, including The Geargrinders covering the old Gonn classic from the Nuggets box set, "Blackout of Gretely").

Do you get to enjoy the music on nights like this? Or are you consumed with making sure that things needing to get done get done?

No, I wouldn't do it if I didn't get to enjoy the music. But I'm sure I'll be busy with stuff, too. I'm a good multi-tasker, though.