The Kontroversy was born in 1981 out of the ashes of Kansas City’s acclaimed The Leopards, a group which released three singles and a legendary LP (on their own Moon Records label and re-issued by Sing Sing in 2011), and opened for the Talking Heads Kansas City concert in 1979. 

In January of 1981, Fred Prellberg approached Kevin Sanders with the idea of forming a band shortly after Kevin’s stint in The Leopards ended, after the band transplanted in California. With Kevin playing rhythm guitar and Fred on bass, they enlisted Kevin’s brother, Tim Sanders, to man the drums, and Barry Johnson to handle lead guitar duties. The completed line-up devotedly mined the then-rarefied repertoire of the British Invasion and American garage rock, immediately setting to work gigging and recording on Kevin’s 8-track in his basement.

Tossing the boys a bone, Kansas City’s legendary Titan Records agreed to release the EP This, Then, Is…The Kontroversy, (Titan 8465). Released in 1984, the EP featured Johnson’s successor on lead, Ken Carey. The blog BeatFor65 described the five-song EP as “a mixture of pop, surf and rock and roll, great guitars, and great tunes.” After the release of the EP, the band recorded several additional originals intended – at the time, for release, which were subsequently shelved - and seemingly forgotten.   

The 30th anniversary of the release of the Titan EP inspired Kevin and Tim to reach out to their long-since relocated bass player to gauge his interest in re-forming the band for the purpose of recording a new album. Bolstered by several new Kevin Sanders originals and those previously unreleased tracks, the resultant album, Reprise (Ragged but Right RBR303), found the boys mining the same vein of 60s-era Rock ‘N’ Roll that inspired them to get together over 30 years ago. Indeed, all the elements that defined their sound back then were still intact, making it a Reprise that was quite aptly named. 

The Kontroversy’s second album, released in August 2016, is a collection of songs from a musical written by Kevin. The musical, Armourdale, is based on tales of events that occurred in the Armourdale district of Kansas City, Kansas, as told to Kevin by his parents, who grew up living across the street from each other. The story takes place from the height of the depression in the 1930s through 1951, when the worst flood in Kansas City's history devastated the district.

With their strong melodies, unique chord progressions, and clever lyrics,  The Kontroversy’s original songs, written by Kevin Sanders and Fred Prellberg, are influenced by the best of the 60s British Invasion, blues, and American rock bands, as well as Kevin’s interest in early 20th century American music. Their new Armourdale album is a big leap forward, moving beyond the garage band sound of their earlier recordings. 

The Kontroversy’s albums can be purchased from their website www.thekontroversy.com, or from CD Baby.

The American West is releasing their debut album, The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again, on March 17th, 2017. The record built upon grit and heartbreak, desolation and soul. The bulk of the album was recorded live to two-inch tape in three days at The Hallowed Halls in Portland, with the help of engineer Jordan Richter (Band Of Horses, Legendary Shack Shakers, Plastic Ono Band). The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again is flecked with pedal steel and longing harmonies as the album drifts between finger-picked folk songs and raucous country-rockers, all while the focus remains on songwriter, Matthew Zeltzer’s ragged poetry.
 
Matthew Zeltzer, who performs as The American West, hails from Steinbeck’s California - a land of farms and working-class beach towns, where a historic drought is not just a news story, but a threat to one’s livelihood. These bleak landscapes serve as fitting backdrops for Zeltzer’s songs of love and heartbreak, staged on the brink of an environmental apocalypse. 
 
Zeltzer wrote the bulk of the album in his late 20’s, while living in an Airstream trailer on an organic farm in Half Moon Bay. Flax farming in World War II left the foothills barren, and the farmers used livestock to reclaim the land. These songs echo the isolation of his experience, from “Ghost Town’s” gentle loneliness, to the grim narrative of “Patience, Young Conquistador.” Zeltzer carried his vision with him when he returned to Portland in 2015, bringing the timeless pastoral elements into an uncertain present with “Let Me Love You Like a Pauper Does”, a folk ballad equally indebted to Townes Van Zandt and Leonard Cohen in which a rancher looks on as his land is consumed by wildfire. Similarly, “Goddamn the Westward Man,” as catchy and vibey as a mid-70s Neil Young single, explores the mythos of westward expansion and the endless growth central to the American psyche.
 
These are songs about the human experience, but they are also about America - its history, its land, and anxiety about its future.  Listening to The Soot Will Bring Us Back Again, you can almost feel yourself being transported - nursing a heartbreak in an Airstream trailer in a barren field atop a mountain, a modern-day Tom Joad wondering how much time we have left.

Chicago-based noise-pop band Forgotten Species wouldn’t be a band without modern-day bootlegging, a classical metal band and a Ouija board.

 Forgotten Species started, as most bands do, as bar talk. Drummer Matt Zemburski and bassist Lizz Kannenberg were bartending at the bar owned by keyboardist Chris Nixon when they met singer and guitarist Blake Smith, who frequented the bar for its “house” beer, an unnamed farmhouse ale smuggled over the border from Wisconsin and served from a conspicuous antler tap handle. In addition to good beer the foursome soon discovered a shared history playing music – Smith in major label acts Fig Dish and Caviar, Nixon in Sono, Zemburski in quirky Chicago trio Eiffel Tower and Kannenberg in bedroom pop group Grammar.

 “What we first noticed about Blake was that he loved our house beer and hated every DJ we had in the bar,” says Zemburski. “He would start sending shots to the DJ until the poor dude was too drunk to operate the turntables. Then he’d hide the guy’s box of chillwave 7”s and put on the copy of The Jesus & Mary Chain’s Darklands he carried everywhere. I can’t say we didn’t appreciate it from time to time.”

 Five years later the band is set to release Hades Fades, their debut EP of noisey, guitar-driven power-pop. The five-track EP will be released digitally on November 18th via Long Nights Impossible Odds and on limited edition 12" vinyl in January 2015.

But it took a few exceptional instances to get to this point. Bar talk about starting a band didn’t actually become Forgotten Species until a classical black metal outfit they sometimes drank with asked if they wanted to share a practice space. Despite the illustrations of dark rituals and incantations scrawled on the walls, they wiped the years of filth from their gear and moved in. 

“The bar stopped serving the house beer and the DJs started playing Dinosaur Jr.’s You’re Living All Over Me more often, so we took it as a sign that it was time to occupy ourselves a little differently,” says Smith. “We took went to look at the practice space and found a 4-foot-high pentagram with “PORK: LA OTRA CARNE BLANCA” scribbled above it, and we knew we’d found our home.”

 The prevailing styles of sparkling electro-pop and the "hey! ho!" folk-rock of art school students dressed like civil war buffs felt rather wan and gutless to this foursome, so instead they busied themselves with seeing how many fuzz and delay pedals they could string together without blowing their amps. They molded and formed in this shared, strange preference for sophomore albums over seminal debuts and mutual abhorrence of bands that whistle.

 From the riot of cables and tortured signal chains, melodies bloomed in the gloom. From squawk and clang came ragged pop. Before their first show, they set up a wax splattered Ouija Board they found behind the beer fridge in the practice space and implored those from the other realm to name them. Those from the other realm ignored them, so they decided to call themselves Forgotten Species.

Hailing from the long gone lonesome plains of East Anglia, The Malingerers’ music evokes a sound sometimes more at home in the south western states of America than the UK folk scene. However, whilst clearly influenced from a melting pot of traditional country, blues, folk and jazz (Hank Williams, Merle Travis, Leadbelly, Woodie Guthrie, Bob Wills etc.) their music somehow manages to combine these influences with typically British and Irish flavours, cynicism and warped sense of humour and history! 

The Malingerers were formed around 2009 from the ashes of twisted country blues noise mongers; The Surgens. Whilst clearly sharing similar DNA due to the same songwriters and three of the original Surgens members, The Malingerers are an entirely different animal drawing on more traditional acoustic folk, blues and country influences.

After a couple of years of writing and arranging new material (and a few personnel changes!) The Malingerers finally settled on the current lineup in 2012 with Tim Palmer joining on fiddle. 

The bands’ first album, “Lonely Years” which received some excellent reviews by the music press, was released in 2013 containing all original material recorded at Gizzard’s analogue studio in London. By recording everything live (including vocals) straight to 2” tape like they used to do in the good old days, the bands’ recordings retain the sound and feel of the live band whilst giving a raw and punchy traditional sounding album.

The Malingerers’ second album 'Wine & Lies' will be released on 4th March 2016. The seven-track LP continues to somehow blend vintage, dust bowl era Americana seamlessly with British Folk and as usual taking in more than a sprinkling of early Jazz and Blues influences.

Here’s what’s being said about The Malingerers:

“The latest in a seemingly never-ending line of British bands who do American music as well, if not better, then the natives. This Peterborough-based band major in old-time and acoustic country-blues.
Americana UK – 7/10

“Taking their lead from The Band, via folk/blues influences like Leadbelly an Woody Guthrie, brothers Kevin and Craig Murphy peddle tales of financial hardship (“The Optimist”) and sleepless nights (“Drunken Angel”), the former’s vocal growl underpinned by the latter’s plaintive harmonica. The musical tones may be informed by the wide open spaces of the Southern US, but the lyrics offer a liberal helping of good old British cynicism.”
Uncut Magazine – 7/10

“Still blazin’ a trail for Rockabilly and old time country blues”
Maverick – 4 Stars

“Squawking harmonica, dusty strumming and a ragged feel scoops us up and plonks us in the Americana-flecked house of UK folk outfit The Malingerers. They’ve been shaking things up on the airwaves, and for sound reason; the down trodden slur of The Optimist is irresistible melancholy, Hell Child delivers a breezy, upbeat shanty, and the boxy stomp of Down By the Sea is pure unadulterated campfire bliss.”
The Guitar Magazine – 4 Stars

“If these reviews were based on an album’s first three tracks then The Lonely Years would be getting a full five stars. ‘House of Mine’ is a stirring opener, the kind of up-tempo blues that lends itself to Kev Murphy’s gravelly voice, with strong support from brother Craig’s harmonica and Tim Palmer’s fiddle.

It’s followed by ‘The Lonely Years’, where the enthusiasm of the playing contrasts with the sadness of the lyric. While these songs are good what comes next is exceptional. ‘The Optimist’ is quite simply one of the best songs I’ve heard all year. The poignant lyric, a journey from tragedy to hope, is brought to life by Murphy’s soulful vocal and beautiful playing from the band, subtle touches of mandolin and harmonica contributing to the song’s melancholy feel.”
R2 Rock n Reel Magazine – 3 Stars

“Great new stuff, The Malingerers ‘House of Mine’, Mark Lamarr recommended them and he’s usually right.”  
Bob Harris – Radio 2

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