By Ryan Woodard  

Are there any Juggalos out there? Rapid City Stevens senior Matt Van Boning has informed me that he is having a gathering of Juggalos at Sioux Park on Saturday starting at 1 p.m. He said it will last until “whenever.” 

For those of you that don’t know, Juggalos are Insane Clown Posse fans, many of whom paint their faces in much the same way as the Michigan based rap duo. Van Boning is holding the gathering in preparation for ICP’s June 6 appearance at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center. 

The gathering will feature a canned food drive for the Cornerstone Rescue Mission, a barbeque, music and “Faygo and facepaint,” according to Van Boning. Faygo is a cheap kind of soda enjoyed by ICP and their fans. 

Van Boning said one of the reasons he and his friends are having the gathering is because Juggalos have gotten a bad reputation in other areas and he wants to improve that reputation prior to ICP’s Rapid City appearance.  

 “In the media there’s so many wrong things Juggalos are doing,” he said. “We just want to show people that all Juggalos are not like that. Juggalos tend to have a horrible reputation.” 

Attendees are asked to bring a can of canned food if they are able. The gathering is for all ages and “just Juggalos, basically,” Van Boning said. 

So, are there some Juggalos out there that might go to this? I’m slightly curious as to what the Juggalo population is like in Rapid City, and what kind of attendance the ICP concert will garner. Anyone? 

Van Boning said he expects “50 or maybe more” to show up at his gathering.   

by Ruth Milne

Earlier this week, Deadwood Tobacco Co. e-mailed me this note regarding a change to this weekend’s What’s Happening calendar: “May 25th & 26th will be Brandon Sprague Blues Band instead of Bonefish.”

Today I found out why.

Vince Stark, bassist for Whitewood cowpunk band Bonefish, was in a serious motorcycle accident last Saturday — 13 broken ribs, punctured lung, two dislocated vertebrae in his neck, and vertebrae 9 and 10 broken. He’s currently being treated at a hospital in Rochester, Minn. Read the details on their blog.

Bonefish’s June 1-2 performances at Deadwood Tobacco Co. will be a benefit for Vince. They’re also planning a huge benefit on Saturday, July 14, in Whitewood.

He’s a great guy from a fun band, and my thoughts will be with him.

By Eric Lochridge 

Pitchfork and NME.com are reporting that the White Stripes will be playing at Rushmore Plaza Civic Center on Sept. 8.

The band’s new album, “Icky Thump,” drops June 19, and word on the street is that it’s quite good.

Who’s camping out for tickets with me?

 

By Ruth Milne

Recently a flyer surfaced announcing a June 2 show at the Imperial featuring a local band called Irate, with the parenthetical note (Ex-Disorderly) underneath.

How fascinating! Was it a side project? Had Disorderly — a punk quartet known more recently as Attentäter — broken up? Who, exactly, was Irate? And why?

I learned yesterday from Darrell, who played guitar in Disorderly, that the old band indeed is no more. He and Matt, percussionist of whiskey-snorting notoriety, have joined a bassist and are doing their own Irate thing, making their Rapid City debut next weekend. They may still be disorderly, but they’re no longer Disorderly.

Meanwhile, guitarist Jason has a project of his own in the works as well.

Darrell said that Irate sounds a lot like Disorderly. Good news, because I like how Disorderly sounded.

When Rapid City rockers the Lost Boys broke up, members formed two new bands — Imaginary Girlfriends and Keyboards and Computers. Where would the scene be without those two groups? And wouldn’t it be a hoot if Irate followed their lead and played ’80s-revival synth-pop too?

Speaking of the Lost Boys, they’re planning another reunion show, this time for a Hurricane Katrina relief fundraiser June 10. Let’s hope they remember their lyrics this time.

Dan Deacon - “Spiderman of the Rings”
Carpark Records

By Andrew Gorder

Picture a middle-aged man wearing goggles and a t-shirt that’s too small for him. He is sweating profusely; gyrating spastically; pausing every so often to hunch over what looks to be a disassembled super computer. He grabs a duck-taped microphone and begins to sing. Low notes and then high notes and then ear-piercing shrieks. You are watching him intently, but he seems oblivious to his audience.

What is this revolting spectacle that I describe, you ask?
Nope, it’s not the crazy man that drinks freon and lives the park; it’s Dan Deacon! The one man nerd-pop/performance artist from Baltimore!

I first heard Dan Deacon when I saw that he was touring with rock geniuses Lightning Bolt, and a video I saw of a live performance peaked my interest. His one man show is more or less like the description above, but the resulting branded synth-pop creations are catchier and more accessible than one would assume.

As musical technology advances, the solo pop act becomes more ubiquitous (Take local dance revolutionary imaginary girlfriends, for example). Creating, mixing and recording your own multi-track melodies is easier than ever. That is not to say that creating this music is easy, far from it. And all the technology in the world won’t give you talent and creativity.

Dan Deacon has almost as much talent as he has energy, but not quite. His latest album “Spiderman of the Rings” is part casio-masterpiece, part dance-pop, part electronica and part noise. The opening track, titled “Woody Woodpecker”, boasts the most musical merit of any track on the album. It’s fun pop music with samples of Woody Woodpecker in it. What more could you ask for! He hits the right note straightaway, and I expected the album to keep pace with the intro. The next track, “The Crystal Cat”, combines similarly catchy synth chords, but things also get a lot weirder. Vocals hit a shrieking falsetto, tempos burn toward a high point, and then it’s over. And then the album follows a hit and miss pattern, and while it never really falters, some of it is a bit hard to stomach.

Which brings me to the conundrum of so called “experimental music”. Is something good because it’s unique, even if it might not be “good” at face value? Or is music changing so much that artists can reach the ad nauseum realm of experimenting that much quicker? It’s a tough one, and I am simply not smart enough to solve this puzzle. What I can say for sure is that this is a fun album to listen to, and Deacon’s live performances are almost as cool as Lightning Bolt’s. Enough said.