Season To Risk, 15 Minutes Fast, Traindodge
The Hurricane
09.16.2000

Review by Mark Cuthbertson

This evening of rock began with Oklahoma City’s wondertrio, Traindodge. Touring in support of their new EP, Torch (No Karma), the band focused mostly on new material, only playing “Example at Arm’s Length” and “Return to Exit” from their 1999 full-length release, About Tomorrow’s Mileage, and several unreleased selections. The highlight of their show was the performance of “Sleeper Symptom,” the third track of Torch.

Traindodge is a gritty-sounding math rock band with many tight rhythmic and tonal changes and tangents in each song. Jason Smith is the rare sort of guitarist who seldom, if ever, settles for the easy power chord or simple major/minor standard voicing. Bassist Chris Palmer reinforced the most important notes in the washes, often by playing more than one note at a time while translating the jarring rhythms into tonal sense. Their individual parts combined to build/release tension through the various dynamics and musical directions. Drummer Rob Smith kept all of it together and pulsing smoothly despite twisting and contorting himself in a visual frenzy which closely mirrored the nature of the songs. The vocals weren’t always clearly understandable or completely audible, but the focus of the band and the audience was primarily on the instrumental music.

Fifteen Minutes Fast brought a very opposite sound and approach to music and a very different audience, too (I’d almost swear about half of them came from…the dance party on the patio? Some people actually left the “meet market” atmosphere to hear live music? I don’t remember seeing such a thing, and certainly not to this extent). They all seemed relaxed and happy to be onstage except for the keyboard player. Potentially, she’s a main key to Fifteen Minutes Fast discerning itself from the slew of other pop bands in the area. One of their highlights was a (poppy) cover of Season to Risk’s “Mine Eyes.” They pulled it off well enough to please the S2R fans and replaced the more dissonant parts of the song with sugary ear candy. Bottom line: although I’m not much of a pop fan, I’d pay to see this one again when they return from the studio in the upcoming months.

Season to Risk has been around for ten years. They’ve seen a million faces, rocked them all, and left most of them wondering, “what the Hell was that?” with a strong impression which is surely lasting if nothing else. It’s both a wonder they’ve made it this far and a strange thought to imagine KC without them. After all, music this dissonant doesn’t sit well with most people, and too many other area bands have been influenced by them and/or lured away former members of S2R for most local music fans to not have an opinion about them directly or indirectly. The band has evolved through various stages of hardcore/metal, avante-garde/experimental, and even industrial, electronic-based sub-genres (as various members became involved in other projects). How does such a group represent themselves in about an hour-long live performance? Which band will appear on the upcoming album? Could the essence of each album/stage even be completely represented? This time, they spent most of their time playing the guitar-based stuff.

Steve Tulipana and Duane Trower are the remaining members from the old days, but they show no less enthusiasm or signs of slowing down. Tulipana is still among the most energetic and stage-savvy frontmen in this area or anywhere. Trower offset his serious energy and concentration on his playing with his guitar’s Yugo emblems and occasional sarcastic displays of rock and roll salutes and facial expressions. Likewise, new bassist Billy Smith (formerly of Dirtnap) aggressively grinded out the low end of the intense noise-rock songs, but appeared eclipsed in size by his white Explorer-style axe. Drummer David Smyth tirelessly pounded the rhythmic foundation for the noise orgy and clearly loved every minute of it. So did the mass of noise-crazy Kansas Citians.

--Mark Cuthbertson
mark@thezone.org