Page 10A
Wednesday, September 25,1996
Bird's EyeView
Chasin' away the blues with BLUEGRA
By Ian Ritter
Kansan staff writer
Sandra Snyder (left) and Bruce Henriksen listen to Mike Cross.
WINFIELD — The 26th annual Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival had plenty of people, great music and lots of craziness. It was also a mud pit this year.
Travis Dietrich, a 14-year-old resident of Winfield, and his father were affected by the muck. Their truck got stuck late Saturday evening.
of people, great houses and jobs of the region. The festival, which takes place every third week of September in Winfield, a town about 35 miles southeast of Wichita, was plagued by heavy rains that poured on the festival's campground early last week.
After nearly an hour of collective campground effort, the Dietrichs' pick-up wasn't budging. Other participants faced the same mess during the four-day festival. But most people fared well at Walnut Valley — among them many KU students.
Katie Jensen, Topeka freshman, enjoyed her third consecutive year at the festival, though the immense amounts of mud spurred her to go without shoes from her arrival last Thursday until the festival ended on Sunday, leaving her with a pair of mud-caked feet. Her car got stuck in the mud, too.
"Its nice to hear the same people jamming when you fall asleep as when you wake up," she said. "I really have enjoyed my camping spot right by the river."
Jensen was referring to the main attraction for most people at Walnut Valley. Inside the festival area there was a unique cultural experience. Four stages featured bluegrass and Celtic music acts, which played until midnight. Handmade acoustic instruments and food ranging from crawfish etouffe to Indian tacos were for sale. But the real show was in the campground after the sun went down.
Edmée Rodriguez/KANSAN
Edmée Rodriguez/KANSAN Mike Cross plays his guitar and sings for a crowd on the second stage Saturday night in Winfield.
ground after the sun went down.
The camping area, called Pecan Grove, is a wooded, hilly site surrounding the festival grounds that partially trails down the Walnut River, and it explodes at night. Crowds gather around the dense collection of hundreds of tents and watch musicians jamming on everything from guitars to washub basses. There even a smaller fifth stage in the camping area where some Lawrence-area bands played, such as Scroat Belly and Louis Revenge.
To Jensen, this part of the festival brings a strong sense of community to the campground.
"It's just a really good place in Kansas to meet a lot of nice people and hear some good music. And it never stops wherever it is," she said.
Jensen noticed that the festival had grown since the first time she attended Walnut Valley, but the bigger crowds didn't bother her.
Walmit valley, but the bigger crowds didn't bother her.
"This has become the most happening spot," she said. "I've had a really good time this year so I guess the bigger the better."
Among the huge crowds of camping areas, one couldn't miss the area that sported a huge banner that read "Lawrence," and was hanging between a Kansas and an American flag.
"They're all drunks in the Lawrence camp," said Rebecca Merz, Lawrence resident and KU alumna.
resident and KU admiral. Merz was one of the many beer swillers from Lawrence, enjoying the weekend at the festival, although alcohol is banned from the Walnut Valley area. But she was unique from many people in Winfield. She said she wasn't a fan of bluegrass music because the acoustic jamming lacked drums. Instead, Merz was drawn to Walnut Valley for different reasons.
"I'm organizing a festival for the first time, and I wanted to see how this is run because it's one of the biggest and best," she said. "I think it's cool even though I don't like bluegrass."
Merz, who is organizing the Harvest of the Arts Festival, which will take place during the first week of October in Lawrence, said that Walnut Valley was too huge of a model for her to base her festival on. Overall, Merz was impressed with the festival — with one exception.
She didn't like paying $55 for her 24-hour stay. However, her brain was reeling with alternative ways of entering the grounds for free.
reeing with alternative ways of entering the cave," For a cheap student thing, they should raft into the Pecan Grove," Merz said, suggesting that the Walnut River was a better entrance than the parking lot. "That way you could bring in all the booze you wanted."
lof — "the Only," Olathe freshman, was brought to Winfield by the music. Robie, a Walnut Valley veteran, took her first trip to the festival when she was only 1 year old — she couldn't remember how many times she had gone to the event.
to the event.
She said that times have changed at Walnut Valley.
She said that times have changed at Winnifth Valley. "When I was a little girl, we used to come here and there wouldn't be any one here." Robie said.
In the '70s, the festival was mainly a hippie and biker event, she said.
in the 70s, the best way to say "The hippies have kind of grown up and their kids are coming." Robie said. "I think it's good that the youth are getting into it because it's the oldest type of American music we have."
Robie, who prefers the Celtic music featured at Walnut Valley, said it was important for people to realize that the primary reason for going to the festival should be for the music.
'It's great as long as everyone's here to hear the music and not just get wasted and harass people,' she said.
But for a while it seemed as if there would be no more music to enjoy next year. Rumors were floating around the festival that Walnut Valley's 25th year would be its last, or at least its last year in Winfield.
Would betrayest on the owners ended on Saturday evening when the owners of the rights to
Bedford, announced from the main stage that
d, announced from the main stage that Walnut Valley would push on for at least another year.
Edmée Rodriguez/KANSAN
Andrea Repinsky, Olathe sophomore, and Chris Foster, Los Gatos, Ca., graduate student, added their own twist to line dancing. The Walnut Valley Festival featured bluegrass artists in Winfield last weekend.
Critical Volume
Music reviews by Robert Moczydlowsky
In recent issues of the local music magazine The Note and in the Kansas, articles have been written about the decline and decay of the local Lawrence music scene.
Drummer Josh Hoover, singer Justin Davenport, bassist Jim Blanchat and guitarist Chad Novak (not pictured) make up One Inch In The Way.
rmoczudk@falcon.cc.ukans.edu
Sure, it's true that Lawrence is no longer the next big thing in modern rock — but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It takes the pressure off local bands to be instantly successful, and it probably eliminates some of the competitiveness that has dominated the club scene in years past.
CONTRIBUTED ART
Hopefully, this supposed decline will translate into new opportunities for bands that have yet to establish the regular schedule of shows that is so critical to forming a local following.
Both articles lamented the loss of a unified "Lawrence sound," a sound embodied by the early '90s guitar sonics of PAW and Stick.
One such band is One Inch In The Way, a four-member band that typifies the traditional evolution of a garage band into a successful musical unit.
The roots of One Inch In The Way can be traced into Kansas City and the now-defunct band Toe Truck
"Basically, Toe Truck was a big joke originally," guitarist/singer Justin Davenport says. "We didn't take a single thing seriously. There wasn't a whole lot of maturity involved."
involved.
Though Toe Truck did find a small following that included members of then-Warner Bros. artists Billy Goat, the band's smart-alek antics and occasional alcohol abuses started to take their toll. Like many other bands caught up in the hype of the burgeoning Lawrence scene, Toe Truck started finding it more difficult to book shows. In The Who's Hot, Who's Not mentality of local clubs, Toe Truck was getting left out in the cold.
"We started Toe Truck because we had some other band members who we wanted to get rid of," adds bassist Jim Blanchat. "We had a 'we couldn't care less' kind of attitude.
But in the end we realized that we weren't doing things like we should've been. When we were on, we played great, but when we were off, we were really off. I think Toe Truck let a lot of people down."
Early last summer, drummer Jeff Phillips left Toe Truck and joined the local instrumental outfit Sunbowrow. Without a drummer or a scheduled show, Blanchat and Davenport were faced with a decision almost every band encounters: Is it time to quit? Or do we get serious and give music one last shr
music one last shot?
Both agreed that a new band would be worth a second effort, provided they could find talented members who would agree to their commitment. They found their first new member in talented, aggressive drummer Josh Hoover.
Hoover added a straight-ahead rock foundation to Davenport's cla-
shows with Stick and the now-defunct metal band Larry. One inch In The Way recorded a four-song demo at Chapman Studios in Kansas City, Mo. Satisfied with the studio sound they had created, the band decided that the full, two-guitar sound on their tape should become a permanent part of their live sound.
"I wanted to have a band that people would take seriously," Davenport says. "I stopped writing songs from down in my stomach, took out some of the recklessness, and started writing with my head."
Enter new guitarist Chad Novak, a
sical rock guitar riffs, and in early winter of last year One Inch In The Way was formed.
Two songs from the band's demo tape, Trailer Park and Fifteen Minute Break, can be heard by request on the Lazer's Sunday night local music show, and lately the band has been the subject of several Hubie cartoon strips on the Kansan editorial page.
In July, after several successfu
"We don't want to sound cocky, but at the same time we'd like everyone to know that we're confident we can play a good show, a show that people who like rock 'n' roll will enjoy," Davenport says with a laugh. "We play simple, honest rock'n'roll. It's about emotions — humor, love, relationships — the things that human relationships are about. You could call it 'Honky Rock,' but it's just guitars and drums and rock 'n' roll."
long-time acquaintance of Hoover's and the founder of the short-Hived, though talented Kansas City band Fulcrum. With Novak on board, Davenport says that One Inch In The Way is ready to establish a schedule of local shows.
"Our goal is to increase our chances of playing out around Lawrence," Davenport says. "Historically, people have not had to wait in long lines to buy beer at our shows. Hopefully we'll change all that, but right now that's true."
One Inch In The Way is scheduled to play a two-set show starting at 10 p.m. Friday at Johnny's Tavern, 401 N. Second St. The show is for people 21 and older. For more information, call Johnny's Tavern at 842-0377.