THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAHV KANSAN
living room's funiture on the wall CD. While the ie into punk and booked all you've booked a local indie rock
matches the musi-
sists. Posters from a
random artwork —
atchily cover the
at the back of the
real Kitchen —
as it is, the base-
lled dooing Milner
doing DY shows
they know how to
e. When they first
had a short stage
added a merchan-
corner and a slew
astic head hanging
ok. Pillows sit in all
with foam egregors
ne walls to muffle
They say that their
complain about the
noise, and the only time they had any real trouble with the police was when someone accidentally left the back door open, which they now keep locked shut.
The basement holds about 30 people, though when I get there—way too early—there are only a couple of people milling around. Noakes is the first to greet me as I walk inside, offering me a beer and the spot where he'd been sitting on the broken futon against the living room wall. He apologizes for the quality of the beer (Miliwakee's Best) as he presses the warm can into my hand. He frets a little about the lack of people at first, but about 40 more people will show up before the show starts. Though the Kitchen relies entirely on word of mouth and fliers to advertise, their shows tend to draw enough people to fill the basement.
As the night wears on, I find myself talking to an orange-haired girl who is a bit tipsy from pre-partying and a diminutive guy who seems to know everyone in the house. The girl is a freshman at the University of Kansas, and both are veterans of Lawrence DY shows. "I just have to see the Routabouts," the girl gushes, talking about the headling band. She turns to address the other guy, whom she knows from before. "Did you see them last time they came through?" she says.
He laughs. "Uh, sort of, I was on mushrooms at the time," he says, "and I kind of freaked out and had to leave." Eventually the two leave me to go have a smoke on the porch, so I join a couple of others in helping the Roustabouts to carry in their equipment. The guys in the Roustabouts tell me that though they don't play a lot of DIY shows — they're still in high school, which makes touring difficult — they know Noakes and Milner from the old days when the two used to run DIY venues back in Oklahoma City. They have up specifically to see them. Some bands, however, tour the DIY circuit almost exclusively. Milner and Noakes say they've brought in bands from as far away as the Netherlands, which is amazing considering that the bands don't really get paid.
The money issue is a big one for DIY venues. Because it would be illegal for residents of a house to charge money for holding shows in their basements — the houses are in residential, not commercial, zones — the people running DIY venues almost always ask for donations to pay for the bands' gas and such. The line between "donation" and "entry fee" can be a thin one for police officers who want to shut down a continual noise problem or landlords who want to protect their property from the damage that is associated with running aDIY venue. Meredith Vacek, who graduated from the University last May, wants to live at the Pink House and now lives at the Horror House, both DIY venues, and says that a misunderstanding about money was one of the things that got her first venue shut down. She and her former roommates at the Pink House used to run shows in their living room until she says, a couple of articles published in the Lawrence Journal-World reported that, among other things, the Pink House was
charging admission. Pete Berard, who also used to live there, says that he and his roommates did shows only as a "labor of love," but that the landlord shut the venue down shortly after the articles ran.
The Pink House was just one of the DIY venues to pop up in Lawrence during the past five years. Seniors at the University also might remember shows at the Halfway House, the Pirate House, the Horror House and the Kremlin. The residents of these houses formed a network for underground music in Lawrence. They all knew each other; the residents of the Pink House and Halfway House in particular used to hang out together all the time, and sometimes they both used the same guy as the Pirate House to book bands. And almost every member of each house has been involved with KJHK at some point. Despite their closeness, the houses booked a wide variety of music. Vacek says that while the Pirate House focused on punk and crust metal, the Halfway House and Pink House pulled in all kinds of bands: punk, pop, screamo, avant-garde post punk, you name it. Neil Mulka, Kansan staff writer, Leavenworth senior and former resident of the Kremlin, says that his house would take in whoever was willing to play there. With DIY venues, availability of bands often determines a show's content more than the musical tastes of the house's residents.
At about 11 p.m. the opening band, Oroku, goes on. Oroku is the Haunted Kitchen's house band. All five of the members live in the house; Milner is the lead singer and Neakes plays guitar. As soon as they assemble on the stage, the incandescent lights are replaced with red ones, and the collection of long-haired, black-wearing guys rip into a set of crust metal songs for an audience of about 20 people. The environment is as relaxed as the music is loud. Dylan Desmond, a former resident of the Pirate House, happens to be in the crowd that night. Desmond, Overland Park senior, lived at the Pirate House for a year when it was still a DIy venue. He says he still tries to hit DJ shows every now and then. The community was and is tight, so it isn't surprising that the guys from
The only thing the Haunted Kitchen and 1331 Vermont have in common, aside from both being DIY venues, is that they're both yellow houses. While the Kitchen is the embodiment of secrecy and organization, 1331 Vermont has an open, hapazhack feel to it. It doesn't even have a name; it's just "1331 Vermont." And while Milner and Noakes of the Haunted Kitchen have asked me not to publish their address, the residents of the other yellow house are more than happy to see their address in the paper, saying that they hope it will attract more people to their shows. Despite the lack of an address on the outside of the house, I have no problem finding it. Loud music blasts from the door as a swarm of people spill out of it, covering the porch and the lawn. With a crowd of easily 60 people milling about holding plastic cups, it looks more like a house party than anything else, which is roughly what the residents are going for. Patrick Struebing and Kevin Thompson, two of the four people who live at 1331 Vermont, say that the events at their house aren't strictly shows or parties, but more a combination of the two.
1331 Vermont — my next step for the evening — know all about the Haunted Kitchen and had even been to a couple of shows there.
In a tiny living room sandwiched between the kitchen (filled with kegs) and the foyer (filled with people looking for kegs) is like Turner Overdrive and at least 30 cheering people. I elbow my way around, trying to find a good spot, but eventually give up and resign myself to getting bumped into continuously by the stream of keg traffic. As I stand there, mashed in a crowd of people wearing hipster clothes and thick black-rimmed glasses, the lead singer and guitarist of Ike Turner Overdrive rip their shirts off and decide to deafen me with driving, high-energy rock. Thompson says that he and his roommates don't have a specific musical preference for the bands they book. They usually just ask their friends' bands to play their shows. In this case, at least, they seem to have lucked out and been friends with a band that the crowd likes.
Location, location, location
The audience screams and cheers at the end of every song, completely unlike the relaxed, Zen-like enjoyment of Oroku at the Haunted Kitchen. Near the end of like Turner Overdrive's set, the guitarist starts spraying whatever he was drinking at the crowd, nailing us at point-blank range.
Struebing and Thompson say that 1331 Vermont tends to have some crazy parties/shows, which can be expensive for them. The night that I went to see them, Kevin got a $70 ticket from the police because of a noise complaint from an unknown neighbor. While the Haunted Kitchen has homemade soundproofing to prevent problems like that, 1331 Vermont has a broken window that does nothing to stop the music from leaking out. The tenants at 1331 Vermont also got a bathroom door kicked down by a member of the band Vibralux, who claimed he thought there was an orgy going on inside. Add that to the lovely pencil mural of random people's outlined faces that someone left on their wall, and that they'll have to explain to their landlord and all of the personal belongings that always get stolen from any DYI venue, and you can see that they aren't making any money on this deal. But when I asked if they were going to stop having shows because of the expenses, particularly the ticket, I got a laugh and a "fuck that; no," from Thompson. "We're having a party five days after I have to pay the fine," he says. Struebing says that they continue hosting events because, after years of going to great parties in Lawrence, he and his roommates want to give something back to the community. That, and they just really like to have huge parties.
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