Scenester Pick of the Day: Wheels on Fire at Replay / Governor Brownback Destroys Kansas Art

We don't know a lot about Wheels on Fire, who will take the stage at the Replay tonight, but here are several points that suggest the show is scenester-worthy:

1) Larryville's Rooftop Vigilantes are the opener. Our friend King Tosser wrote a piece on them in PopMatters and can explain to you at great length why they are the best band in town (and maybe the country). He hasn't fully convinced us of all his assertions yet, but his lecture on the subject is fascinating. And the Vigilantes certainly get the LC's vote for "unecessarily loudest" local band.

2) Wheels On Fire is on the Fat Possum label and seem to have plenty of important scenester associations:

"...they sing songs about sex, UFOs and the teenage blues. Honing their live shows in support of acts such as King Kahn and the Shrines, Jack-O and The Tennessee Tearjerkers, Rivercity Tanlines and the Reigning Sound, Wheels on Fire has emerged as a razor sharp, blood letting rock'n'roll machine."

More info here


And we also like their album cover, which features a kitty and a cobra:
























3) As hip as they sound, Wheels on Fire is the second act on a three-band bill, which must mean that the headliner, Swimsuit, is even hipper.

Chip: "Swimsuit is a hard band to find through Google searches. But I DID find a lot of delightful swimsuit photos, and soon forgot altogether that I was supposed to be researching a band.


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After being blocked by the stage legislature in his first attempt to destroy the Kansas Arts Commission, Governor Brownback has now decided to go "rogue," defy the legislature, and lay off all the employees of the Commission:

"On Tuesday, Sherriene Jones-Sontag, a spokeswoman for Brownback, said, "Gov. Brownback stands by his budget recommendation as the best way to cause the arts to flourish privately in Kansas while saving taxpayer dollars." (LJ-World)

Chip: "Yes, art is best when it's 'private,' locked safely away in rich folks' houses where the rest of us don't have to accidentally stumble across it."

Let's look at the LJ-World talkback.

KUgrad says: "Brownback is an uncultured dullard."

Liberty275 rants and retorts:

"Actually, your everyman kansan is an uncultured dullard. Cultured people spend money on artwork, making intervention by the representative democracy into the art world unnecessary.

Here's your homework assignment: instead of complaining about the nanny not paying for your art, take out your wallet and buy more original non-schlock works for yourself. You are cultured enough to buy original artwork aren't you?

Note: this post is for all the whiners complaining because the state isn't spending money on art while we close schools."