You know that annually infamous back-to-school task of writing the story of your summer? Well, with the launch of the brand new ruKusradio.net, we’re back in session, and we’ll certainly be handing our first assignment in on time. The story of this summer is seriously the stuff of legend. It could not have been written any more craftily, or imaginatively, by Hunter S. himself. Swear.
As a gray and dreary Ohio winter was coming to a close and green was sprouting all over the place, the ruKus radio crew was blasting forth all over town. We were hosting open mic nights at The Royal Oaks, and taking Gonzo Radio to a whole new level by recording and broadcasting live shows from anywhere we could secure a power source. As temperatures and gas prices climbed even higher, summer music festivals brought forth all kinds of craziness (and not just with the weather)!
June brought the landing of the FurtherMind Music Festival, along with what could easily be considered a typhoon in many respects. It was such an amazing day of togetherness, and was the embodiment of people coming together to accomplish a common goal. Many lessons could have been learned that day by watching troupes of people collapse tents to cover the soundboard, only to raise them again and go mobile, moving the soundboard to safety. Or how about watching 6 guys hoist extremely heavy speakers and stands 5 feet up onto stage as Tweaktronic invited the storm with one precisely thunderous power chord. Or maybe watching ten people move a massive tent to cover the front-of-stage area so the crowd could sway to Fourth River and be dry at the same time. We’re not quite sure exactly which of these events caused that energy to bleed from the grounds of FurtherMind, but either way, Dave would’ve sure been proud. Oh, and it brought the first installment of ruKus – the camp, where the post-show nuttiness commenced. It’s no wonder, with a launch pad like this, that the summer of 2008 became so legendary, so quickly.
July invited two very heavy events to “ruKuscast Awesomeland,” as some like to call it, as The Mothership dropped onto Nelson Ledges Quarry Park and Warped Tour rolled through town! First let’s chat about The Godfather of Funk. Holy shit was that a crazy evening. Let’s drop back a couple of months, though, to when George Clinton’s P-funk Allstars played Youngstown’s Chevy Center in May. Somehow [ ;) ] we weasled our way back stage, and eventually met and hung out with Alan, Parliament’s monitor technician. Alan is a world-class guy, and we walked through the hazy innards of the Chevy Center talking about all kinds of things, until it was time for him to hit the bus. As much as it broke our funked out hearts, we had to turn it down to hit up the Dox’s Wounded World release party. It was a sad, rainy walk back to Barley’s, but the celebration of the gap-bridging made it all ok.
When we found out the Mothership was circling back to Ohio in July, we gave Alan a call to line up some sort of meeting, interview, etc. Well, we had to take it through all of the proper channels first, and needless to say, that’s not the quickest process… in any organization. So on the day of the show, we still had no official word of an interview, or permission to record. We got into the show, found Alan and talked for a while, and figured out that we had to get approval before anything could happen. So we decided to enjoy ourselves! And that, we did. After the show, we wanted to talk to Alan to find out where they were headed next, and to scope out the possibilities of an interview, but he was nowhere to be found. And we didn’t have proper backstage clearance. After moments of debate, the gate-crashing began, and we ended up hanging out on Parliament’s tour bus getting down a little with some of the guys. We found out they were playing in Detroit at 9pm the next day, and all we had to do was get the interview greenlight. So, we kicked it for a little longer, headed back to camp, and readied ourselves for a run to Detroit. When morning came, we were more than ready to go. A few important phone calls were made, and the greenlight was given for ruKus radio to interview George Clinton. It was on. So we dash home to get to the internet for trusty old mapquest, and as many details as we can find on the show. When we found the most important one, it was like the worlds largest 45” came to a brain-splittingly screeching halt. P-funk’s set was at 5pm, and there was no possible way we would make it there in time. So in the end, we did some internet sleuthing, and found the most excellent, Kim Manning, P-Funk Allstar. Kim had just released an album,
The Love and Light Activation, and was happy to spend some time chatting us up in a phone interview and giving us some tracks to spin! Be sure to catch it all in some of the
ruKus – the interviews replays!
The 2008 Vans Warped Tour was absolutely amazing. ruKus radio got press access to cover the event, and met up with some truly amazing bands to talk about everything from puking from stage to the music industry in England; from giant computing computers to promo guys answering the door in their underwear. Seeing such an amazing operation from behind the scenes, and getting to talk to the likes of Reel Big Fish, The Aggrolites, Beat Union and Drmanhattan, and meeting up with Gil Mantera’s Party Dream on their first-ever Warped Tour made for an extremely entertaining episode! ruKus – the Warpisode will certainly go down in history as a catalytic event in the evolution of ruKus radio.
One week later, RX Bandits were rolling into Cleveland on their summer tour with Portugal the Man and Maps & Atlases. We’d had a bit of history with the RX guys. First, we’ve been enjoying their music for years, and when ruKus radio first blasted forth, they were one of the first upper echelon bands that we contacted. They were extremely grateful, and gave us the ok to play anything from their library. We attempted to catch up with them at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania earlier in the summer, but it fell through. So when we saw they were coming to Cleveland, we got in touch with them again to try to arrange an interview. In true RX coolness, they put us in touch with the powers at be, and everything came together for the August 5 show at The Grog Shop. Well, as we were leaving town, we made a quick call to Joe to touch base, and found out that they were in dire need of a kick drum. So we were assigned the task of picking up a highly specific drum head, and delivering it to RX Bandits. Pretty sweet, huh? We completed our task, and had an amazing night. We broadcasted and captured the entire show, and some great interviews, but we’ve been sitting on it. We’re saving it for the big ruKus relaunch. So stay tuned for some more details on the upcoming airing of this wonderful little audio nugget.
The end of August saw The Kellys’ infamous ruKus – the festival (… the sequel), a killer independent music and arts festival that blasted forth from the most amazing venue in the Youngstown/Warren area. The Warren Amphitheatre saw an increase in size from the second annual festival, with the addition of more artists and vendors, and a completely open-mic second stage. With an array of bands like The Zou, Jason and the Punknecks, Jets to Red, and Winslow, how could it ever go bad?! It was truly an amazing day filled with music and art, and saw quite a decent crowd roll through all day. The second stage was packed with some brilliantly talented, unscheduled performers! There is all kinds of documentation of the day, in audio and video, and that will all be released soon as well. So as the pattern is showing, you’re just going to have to keep checking back!
And that, as they say, is that. Those are the highlights of ruKus – the summer. We’ve had some amazing times, and can’t wait to keep them rolling. Stay tuned for more coverage of ruKus – the camp. Going live October 17, 18, 19, and sure to have a replay and podcast to follow. Only on the ALL NEW ruKusradio.net!
