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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The door opens a crack immediately after I knock on it. From inside the house, a figure lurking in the shadows peers out at me.
"Hello?" the figure asks.
"Um, this might sound like a weird question, but is this where the Haunted Kitchen is?" I ask. I know full well that it is, but I don't want to alarm my barely visible host by making any accusations.
"Just a second." The figure leaves the cracked doorway to consult someone behind the doo. It is early afternoon on a Wednesday, and I'm hoping to talk to the guys responsible for the Haunted Kitchen, one of Lawrence's underground music venues. The Haunted Kitchen is run out of the house that I'm standing in front of, whose address the owners have asked me not to publish. The guys in charge have a reputation for being secretive, which has helped them avoid the trouble with the law that other similar venues face.
From behind the door I hear a barely
Suddenly, I'm face-to-face with Jeff Milner and Daniel Nokes, the guys who do most of the work for the Haunted Kitchen. When they're not at their day jobs or practicing with their band, the two spend their time booking bands and setting up shows. They've been friends since they were kids together back in Oklahoma City and have been running music venues for the better part of a decade - yet they're both only 22 now.
audible "...wants to know about the Haunted Kitchen," followed by a murmured response. Just as my eyes begin to adjust to the darkness behind the sliver of doorway that I'm peering into, the door swings open, and two guys with long hair and black T-shirts invite me inside.
When we met later for an interview, I discovered that I had stumbled upon a world unto itself, a world I hadn't even imagined existed: DIY. DIY, which stands for Do It Yourself, is an anti-consumerism counterculture that exists not only in music but in film, art and anything else that people have gotten fed up with buying from corporations and want to make for them.
The Haunted Kitchen is really the basement of a decrepit old house near the student ghetto, which is just east of campus. The first thing you notice when you see it
selves. DIY music venues are pieced together by music lovers who build stages in their basements, build or buy their own sound equipment and host their own shows — usually free of charge, as they tend to exist in areas that aren't zoned for commercial activity. On Saturday, Feb. 19, I set out to experience the world of DIY by hitting as many underground shows as I could in one night — starting with one at the Haunted Kitchen.
after the flaking yellow paint — is the porch, which sits precariously like the deck of a sinking ship. Somehow it manages to support a stained couch by the front door, where a half dozen people hang out to smoke during the show. I get there painfully early, so the porch is empty when I arrive. The flier had said that the show began at 8 p.m., which actually meant 11 p.m., as it turns out.
Jayplay 03.31.05
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Inside, old couches held down by silent,
half-wave guys wearing black hoodies
make up the bulk of the living room's furniture, and a hefty stereo system on the wall blasts a hardcore punk CD. While the house's tenants tend to be into punk and metal, they say that they've booked all kinds of bands, including local indie rock groups.
groups.
The Kitchen's decor matches the musical tastes of its occupants. Posters from a couple of bands and random artwork — some of it Noakea" — patchily cover the walls. Beyond the kitchen at the back of the house lies the door to the real Kitchen — the basement. As small as it is, the basement is impressively well laid-out. Milner and Noakes have been doing DIY shows since they were 15, so they know how to set up a basement venue. When they first got the house, it already had a short stage built in the corner. They added a merchandise bar in the adjacent corner and a slew of decorations, like a plastic head hanging from the ceiling by a hook. Pillows sit in all of the window cases with foam encasements scattered around on the walls to muffle sound to the outside. They say that their neighbors never complain about the
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