Meet JBKB

So...I feel like the next appropriate post would be my introduction to JBKB and how they began to unveil themselves to the public. Given I have the memory of a fruit fly, what this meant was me scrolling back through 80 pages of my Twitter feed to April 13th, 2009 when I saw and retweeted THIS article posted by @metromixdm. Until then, my attitude toward Lazerfest had been tepid, basically a decision as to whether or not I wanted to go & see Korn after traveling back from KC that day.

Incidentally, my brother-in-law had conjectured that it would be in Lazerfest's best interest to book Stone Sour or Slipknot or Corey in some way, shape, or form to really draw in a crowd (we love our native sons), and as soon as I saw this article I sent him an email with the subject "You Called It", and basically said this sealed the deal for Lazerfest for me.

Little did I know at the time that I'd be treated to a beautiful JBKB gem that trumps Lazerfest in almost all aspects...but more on that later.

At any rate, once I saw the MetroMix article, I hit Google hard trying to dig up anything I could on JBKB. Not sure how I bridged the gap between the band name and Tommy Doggett (because I don't know that the article had been updated with the info from him yet), but one way or another eventually found Tommy on MySpace, then Twitter, and this provided me an opportunity to inquire directly to the source. I asked him what to expect out of JBKB and he quickly and graciously replied, saying some new stuff from Corey, some Stone Sour tunes, and some covers. Brilliant.

So at this point we knew the following from the MetroMix article via Tommy:
"The JBKBs formed as a stoner rock disco band (imagine Edgar Winter meets Prince). Over the course of rehearsals, Corey brought in new material that he had been working on that didn't fit Slipknot or Stone Sour... We play Rockfest in Kansas City on Saturday May 30 and then Lazerfest on Sunday. It's going to be a great weekend. As for the set, you'll hear originals and some covers."

Then two days later MetroMix provided us THIS ARTICLE with the following from Corey:
"I had wanted to start the first stoner rock disco funk band- basically a cross between Sabbath, Prince and Zappa- so I assembled a crack squad of aloof yet courageous bastards to do so. We wrote 9 songs in that strain, but then we started jamming my solo material. Sounded great, and I was planning to do some solo shows anyway, so I asked JBKB to back me on the shows.

The members include Fred Missouri and Ryan Berrier of FaceCage, THE Thomas Doggett of One Nite Stand, Tyson Leslie from too many damn bands to count, and Nik Sorak of the Dead Wait. The music is pure Midwest rock- The Replacements, Social Distortion, Foo Fighters, ETC. It is NOT heavy metal. I'm in 2 other bands that play that. This is rock with big chords, huge choruses and a lot of melody. No plans to record yet, but I'm working on it.

Oh, and we do a cover of 'Let's Go Crazy' by Prince. That mixed with some Corey Taylor originals, a couple of Stone Sour songs and a mystery cover... should be an interesting afternoon."

Yeah, soooo...I'm hooked.

It was a few days later when Tommy announced the "secret show" on his Twitter page on the 23rd, to be played the next night @ Peoples Court in Downtown Des Moines. The official debut of The Junk Beer Kidnap Band, and there's no way I'm missing it! It was advertised as "between 10pm & 1am", which was technically during the middle of Tyson Leslie's main band, 90 Minutes' set. Once again I scoured the web to see what kind of buzz this FREE "secret show" was getting and whether we'd have a chance at getting in w/o being there to stand in line with the hoards of Maggots and Corey Taylor worshippers that show up en masse without fail (as I mentioned, we love our native sons). To further complicate things it was Drake Relays weekend here in DM, and they had the whole Court Ave area blocked off for a giant street party, any number of whom could catch word and pile into Peoples. Despite all that, this show wasn't getting a lot of local pub. Looking back, it looks like Blabbermouth, Roadrunner, Slipknot & Stone Sour's Facebooks, and some other popular Slipknot/Stone Sour sites had it publicized as early as the 21st, but I don't know if I ever found anything on it locally. Even still, we showed up at the bar around 6:45 just to see if there was any hint of what kind of crowd to expect, and it turns out it was pretty dead. This allowed us to go back outside and check out the scene, plus a little bit of 90 Minutes outside set, who just so happens to be about the best damn cover band I've ever seen.

But just to be safe, we headed back to Peoples at a very reasonable time to make sure we weren't gonna be on the outside looking in for the JBKB debut. In the end it turned out to be a surprisingly intimate and memorable experience, but it probably deserves a post of its own, a tale which I will return to tell at my earliest possible opportunity. But until then, I bid you adieu. Have a great Thanksgiving.