Courtesy of the Otto's Revenge Facebook Page
There are a few things that make Keokuk a unique band, not the least of which is that the group’s got the rarity of a mother/son rhythm section in Andrea Spencer (drums) and Zane Spencer (bass). And the fact that core members Dominic Schaeffer (sax and loops) and Curt Hendricks (guitar and loops) spent years orbiting one another in the local independent rock scene before finally hooking up in a band that’s something of Keokuk’s predecessor, Pyschotronics.
But this band’s very much an entity of its own, with Schaeffer’s prominent sax work an element not heard in your typical rock ’n’ roll band; while Hendricks’ guitar work is definitely a sound that he’s carried with him through underrated acts such as Electric Sheep and Plaid Cattle.
The songs on this one, he says, come from a four-year incubation, “One year of which we were just languishing, trying to figure out what we were gonna be.” Whatever that process may’ve involved, when the group went into the Sawhorse Studios with recording engineer Jason McIntire earlier this year, they certainly had their act together.
At seven songs, Hendricks says, the band’s debut is “kind of a long EP, or short album. We just prepared several songs and felt that if we got lucky, we’d get three, or four of them down. We rehearsed the hell out of them and went in, did them all, took no more than two takes on each song. It went really well.”
The group is satisfied enough with the debut that it’s already thinking about the next release, which could be an entire album of instrumentals.
In fact, the band’s next gig will likely be strong with instrumental cuts. On Saturday, October 8, the group will play the freewheeling arts festival Artica for the second straight year, performing at dusk. Last year, it played the same event, and sounded great. Trains were passing, the bands was powered by portable generators, and attendees scattered throughout the area as the four-piece were able to blend in with the weirdness of all that surrounded them. This year, they’ll be back at the site, near the hulking Cotton Belt building, for the second round at Artica.
If lucky, the whole group will be there, rather than just a trio; Schaeffer had hip surgery on Monday. By Wednesday, though, Hendricks was noting,“He’s doing really, really well. He’s already walking a bit, with a walker, of course. We know he really wants to do the gig.”
For more info on Artica 2016: Supreme Rodeo of Love and Sedition, taking place next Saturday and Sunday, go here. For more info on Keokuk, including some song samples, here’s your link.
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Taking place one week sooner—this weekend—is a combination album release show and documentary screening, both focused on the band Otto’s Revenge, a St. Louis hard rock act that began in 1989 and reformed in 2014, after some years of hiatus. The newly configured group’s third album is Shut Up, I’m Thinking and reflects the same feeling, if an updated sound, by a band that was a constant in STL hard rock circles throughout the ‘90s.
The weekend’s show will take place at South City’s The Heavy Anchor, on Saturday, October 1, with O.R. sharing a stage along with fellow ‘90s alumni Since Hector Was a Pup. At 8 p.m, a 30 minute documentary on Otto’s Revenge, a film by Ashley Seering, will kick off the evening, a unique way to feature the past, present, and future of the group on one bill.
Kurt Hoffman, the band’s co-founder and curator of the dual ‘90s rock compilations The Guide to Fast Living, again heads up the latest version of the group, singing and driving the group’s energy while splitting time between St. Louis and California.
In a fun, ‘zine-style bio shipped along with the album Shut Up I’m Thinking (released on September 16 and available at Euclid Records and Vintage Vinyl), Hoffman sketches out the band’s past.
“First, as fans on the St. Louis punk scene,” he writes, “I saw Black Flag (fronted by Henry Rollins) at a legendary show at a roller rink on Delmar, The Adolescents at Bernards (where Rikki Agnew generously wrote out the lyrics to ‘Kids of the Black Hole’) and other classic punk bands of the era like JFA at Turners. The band was founded in 1989 by Jerry Morgenthaler and me and we were regulars on the St. Louis alternative scene through 1997. The entire band lived together most of that time in three different houses around St. Louis, with the longest being on Bates in South St. Louis.
“We were a typical band of the era,” he continues, “enduring the constant flakiness of fellow musicians, key members quitting right before big shows/record releases, many evenings at Kinko’s making flyers, and the constant challenge of getting shows and drawing an audience. While we didn’t achieve our ultimate dreams, we had the time of our lives making music and being a part of an amazing local music scene and the family that formed around the band.”
For more info on Otto’s Revenge, see the band’s homepage or Facebook page. The group’s event page for Saturday’s show at The Heavy Anchor can be found here.
