AT(FOLK101): What is it that you find appealing about being based here in KC?
BC: I like being here because you can live cheaply as an artist. But also, I think there has been-not a resurgence-but an explosion of a lot of different kinds of music, all of a sudden. I think it still has the Kansas City sound, but I also think that there is just a lot of really interesting things going on right now.
RF: It's kind of an undiscovered little gem.
AD: Kansas City's not a scene like Chicago or New York. Most people I know leave here to go somewhere else, but there is a wonderful scene here. It's just that it's not known enough so that it gets spoiled.
BC: It's like The Last Call Girls. There's just one band like that. It's not like there is an all-girl, hard-country scene. But we have played with The Last Call Girls. So you get a lot of these shows where the bands are nothing alike, and that's what I find really interesting.
AT(FOLK101): How is this different than in the past?
PF: If you look at the history of "the scene" in Kansas City, when we were young we lamented how all of the great artists-the painters, the sculptors, the dancers, the musicians-as soon as they could, left Kansas City. Then, with all the galleries that have opened in the West Bottoms and now at the Crossroads. You have people who are choosing to stay here, rather than go. So now the great minds of each graduating class, a lot of them don't leave.
AD: That's probably the biggest thing that has helped the city. Finally people outside the artists realize that, "oh hey, there's great stuff happening here. I should open a bar that bands can play in or a gallery." Because people realize that "if I open a place, I'm going to make a lot of money because people love the stuff going on here, and they're going to come."
Continue to Part 3... Back to Part 1.
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