FIELD NOTE//Headlight Rivals, The Touchdowns & The Eradicats at Sound Bite Social | Kansas City Live Music
FIELD NOTE // THREE SPECIES OF NOISE AT SOUND BITE SOCIAL
The Eradicats, The Touchdowns, and Headlight Rivals at Sound Bite Social inside Warehouse on Broadway — Kansas City, Missouri
FIELD NOTE // KANSAS CITY LIVE MUSIC
SUBJECT // THE ERADICATS with Headlight Rivals and The Touchdowns.
HABITAT // Sound Bite Social at Warehouse on Broadway.
LOCATION // Kansas City, MO
DATE OBSERVED // August, 21, 2026
SPECIMENS OBSERVED // The Eradicats, The Touchdowns, and Headlight Rivals.
FIELD CONDITIONS // invisible tension, reverence, anticipation, OBVIOUS presence of a sound elf and live music deities,
FIELD OBSERVATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE COLLECTED BY Laverna the Rockin’ Raccoon 🦝
WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY Alethea F. Mehdipour- Slightly Feral Media
PUBLISHED BY My Midlife Crisis Creative Inc.
WRITTEN & PHOTOGRAPHED BY Alethea F. Mehdipour- Slightly Feral Media
PUBLISHED BY My Midlife Crisis Creative Inc.
one world.
On August 21, before VAMPA brought PLUR, lasers, Guardians, and enough bass to apparently interfere with the normal passage of time on the Warehouse side, the raccoon stepped through the other doorway. Sound Bite Social. Different habitat. Different creatures. Different noise.
The Eradicats.
The Touchdowns.
Headlight Rivals.
The raccoon has become very fond of the shows booked in this particular corner of the Warehouse ecosystem. There is a lightness to Sound Bite Social. That does not mean the music is light. The guitars can still be loud. The drums can still hit hard. The humans may still yell into microphones and create noises of varying levels of seriousness. But underneath all of it is something wonderfully unserious. Humans making good noise while very clearly remembering that making noise is supposed to be fun.
Field observations suggest this is healthy.
THE ALTAR // SOUND BITE SOCIAL
The stage was clearly an altar to the live music gods. Amps. Cables. Drums. Lights. Instruments arranged carefully in anticipation of the offerings to come.
The more the raccoon learns about live music, the more questions she has. The live music gods seem to exist everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. There may, in fact, be more gods in live music than there were in Greece. Almost immediately, one particular offering called to the raccoon from across the room.
BADASS BASS.
The practitioners of stagecraft frequently conceal themselves around the edges of the habitat. They appear beside consoles. They emerge near cables. They adjust something incomprehensible to civilians and disappear again. The audience sees a show. The raccoon increasingly sees the humans who built the environment in which the show can exist. Someone prepared the altar.
The raccoon noticed.
THE PRACTIONERS OF STAGECRAFT// MAKE ART NOT CONTENT
MAKE ART NOT CONTENT.
The raccoon saw and heard clearly the sound elf message. So it shall be.
The evidence of the sound elf was clearly seen by the neatly coiled cables. This is how the raccoon always knows when a real sound elf has been present. This sound elf the raccoon has also known since before Warehouse on Broadway. This sound elf the raccoon has also seen in multiple habitats in a variety of city ecosystems. This sound elf is also ENTIRELY CAPABLE.
HEADLIGHT RIVALS // THE WAREHOUSE GODS
The first offering came from Headlight Rivals.
Headlight Rivals come from Manhattan, Kansas, and have been carrying their fuzzy, hook-driven power-pop rock and roll through bars, barns, basements, and other Midwestern habitats since 2014. This is exactly the sort of evolutionary history that teaches a band how rooms work. Some bands perform in a room. Other bands create a habitat. Years of small stages, crowded floors, highways, load-ins, familiar faces, strange venues, and humans standing only a few feet from the band create a particular kind of creature.
Headlight Rivals felt like that creature.
Their roots stretch through Manhattan’s punk and DIY ecosystem, and descriptions of their music place power pop and rock and roll alongside punk and country influences. Which makes considerable sense once you watch them in their natural habitat.The humans gathered. The practitioners of stagecraft prepared the altar. Headlight Rivals approached. And the offering began. Noise was made. Energy was exchanged. The altar appeared satisfied. The raccoon continued observing.
The more she learns, the more she suspects this may be how minor Warehouse gods are created.Further theological investigation is required.
THE TOUCHDOWNS // EXTINCTION WAS APPARENTLY BORING
Next came The Touchdowns. Advance intelligence concerning this species had not been particularly useful. The promotional materials suggested approximately twenty to thirty minutes of football discussion. The raccoon was prepared to document this unusual development.
There was THANKFULLY little football analysis.
Instead, The Touchdowns made music. Further research revealed that this particular species has been wandering the Kansas ecosystem for considerably longer than the raccoon initially suspected.The Touchdowns originated in Iola, Kansas in the late 1990s around singer and drummer Ryan Magnuson.
This is not merely retrospective mythology.
I
n June 1999, the Iola Register was already documenting local teenagers Ryan Magnuson, Chris Porter, and Dillon Boren playing around the Kansas City and Lawrence music scenes as The Touchdowns.
Their first full-length, My Wonderful High School Life, was recorded in 1999 at Red House Recording in Eudora, Kansas and produced by Ed Rose.
Their first full-length, My Wonderful High School Life, was recorded in 1999 at Red House Recording in Eudora, Kansas and produced by Ed Rose.
Rose is one of those names that appears repeatedly when the raccoon digs through the archaeology of 
Midwest alternative music, with a recording history that includes The Get Up Kids and The Appleseed Cast. The Touchdowns followed with The Al Green Record in 2001.
Midwest alternative music, with a recording history that includes The Get Up Kids and The Appleseed Cast. The Touchdowns followed with The Al Green Record in 2001.
Then the species largely disappeared. For roughly two decades. Apparently extinction became boring. Eventually, The Touchdowns resurfaced.
The current incarnation grew into something resembling a small Midwest rock family tree, with Magnuson joined by Ultimate Fakebook bassist Nick Colby and guitarist Aaron Swenson, whose history includes Podstar and Stiff Middle Fingers. In September 2025 they released The Movie The Ride, an eight-song collection of power-pop songs that formally announced that the creature was, indeed, alive again.
This history explains something about what the raccoon encountered at Sound Bite Social. The Touchdowns carry decades of history without behaving as though they have been assigned to guard it in a museum. There is experience there. There are roots stretching through Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas City, Eudora, and the interconnected ecosystem of Midwest alternative rock, pop punk, and power pop.
And yet the entire thing still feels like humans getting together because making loud guitar music remains an excellent use of an evening.
No drama required.
The raccoon expected football. She received Midwestern rock archaeology. An acceptable substitution.
THE ERADICATS // THE CATS HAVE BECOME ORGANIZED
By the time The Eradicats approached the altar, the raccoon had already received warnings. Promotional materials created by Joshua Carr described them as actual cats performing some strange mixture of heavy metal and polka while attempting to open a can of tuna.
The flyer was also very clear about its credentials: APPROVED BY NO ONE.
Naturally, this made it an exceptionally trustworthy field document. The raccoon had questions. Then the cats became organized.The Eradicats are a Kansas City band who officially classify their particular species of noise as:
SKUNK-ROCK. Their own explanation poses a pair of important scientific questions: What if the Pixies were funny? What if They Might Be Giants grew up listening to punk? Apparently somebody needed to conduct the experiment. The Eradicats volunteered.
SKUNK-ROCK. Their own explanation poses a pair of important scientific questions: What if the Pixies were funny? What if They Might Be Giants grew up listening to punk? Apparently somebody needed to conduct the experiment. The Eradicats volunteered.
Their 2024 debut EP, Best in Show, established a habitat populated by crooked teeth, aggressively
enthusiastic friendship, historical oddities, lighthouses, and a suspiciously accomplished stunt horse named Dave Griffin. The final track, appropriately titled “Our Last Song,” lasts twenty-three seconds. Even the conclusion refuses to behave normally.
The raccoon approves.
But absurdity is not the whole animal. The Eradicats have a useful habit of hiding sincerity inside humor.
In February 2026, bassist and co-vocalist Kristi released “I Ate a Sandwich,” rooted in her recovery from an eating disorder. The language remains direct. The music remains unmistakably Eradicats. But beneath the humor is something deeply human.
And there it is. The important distinction. Ridiculous does not mean meaningless. Humor can be camouflage. It can also be a delivery system. The band’s more recent material has continued that mixture of punk energy, absurdity, observation, and a willingness to occasionally turn the joke toward something sharper.
Live at Sound Bite Social, all of those characteristics made considerably more sense. The noise was real.
The musicianship was real. The songs were relevant. But nobody appeared particularly interested in pretending good music requires everyone involved to look terribly serious about themselves.
The room was allowed into the joke. And because The Eradicats closed the Sound Bite portion of the raccoon’s evening, the trajectory became obvious.
The musicianship was real. The songs were relevant. But nobody appeared particularly interested in pretending good music requires everyone involved to look terribly serious about themselves.
The room was allowed into the joke. And because The Eradicats closed the Sound Bite portion of the raccoon’s evening, the trajectory became obvious.
Headlight Rivals had made the first offering. The Touchdowns emerged from the Midwest rock archives.
Then the cats arrived. Organized. Loud. Suspicious. Exactly as promised.
And then there was the doorway. Only a few feet separated this little ecosystem of Kansas and Midwest guitar music from an entirely different world preparing itself next door. The Eradicats finished their offering. The raccoon collected the immediate evidence.
Then the cats arrived. Organized. Loud. Suspicious. Exactly as promised.
Field observations suggest the raccoon finds this enormously refreshing.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOORWAY
Then she migrated. VAMPA. Subsicc. Cluu. Hellbent. PLUR. Lasers. Bass. Kandi. Guardians.
Entirely feral creatures displaying spectacular EDM plumage. It would have been difficult to design two more different habitats. And they existed side by side inside Warehouse on Broadway.
Entirely feral creatures displaying spectacular EDM plumage. It would have been difficult to design two more different habitats. And they existed side by side inside Warehouse on Broadway.
That may be one of the raccoon’s favorite things about the place. On one side of the doorway, decades of Midwestern guitar culture had unfolded in chronological layers. Headlight Rivals brought years of bars, barns, basements, highways, and room knowledge to the first offering. The Touchdowns carried a history stretching back to teenage musicians in Iola in the late 1990s, disappeared for decades, and returned because apparently there was still noise to make. The Eradicats closed the habitat by demonstrating that absurdity, sincerity, punk energy, and cats attempting to access tuna can apparently coexist without conflict.
Then, only a few feet away, an entirely different habitat was developing. Different clothes. Different movements. Different traditions. Different gods. Different methods of making the air move. Neither was more legitimate. Neither needed to resemble the other. They were simply neighboring ecosystems. Connected by a doorway.
The raccoon wandered between them. Because perhaps live music culture is not one ecosystem at all.
Perhaps it is hundreds of little habitats occupying the same cities, venues, buildings, and nights. Every one with its own cultures. It's own creatures. Its own practitioners. It's own history. And its own evidence. Sometimes the distance between entirely different worlds is several hundred miles.
Sometimes it is a single doorway inside Warehouse on Broadway.
VIEW THE EVIDENCE GALLERY HERE
CONDUCT YOUR OWN FIELD RESEARCH
The Eradicats
The Touchdowns
Headlight Rivals
FIELD NOTE COMPLETE
The room left evidence.
The raccoon collected it.
Slightly Feral.
Entirely Capable.
— Laverna the Rockin’ Raccoon 🦝🖤
Slightly Feral Media
Written and photographed by Alethea F. Mehdipour — Slightly Feral Media
Published by My Midlife Crisis Creative Inc.
All photographs and written content are protected by copyright. Please do not download, reproduce, alter, or redistribute images without permission. Bands and performers may contact Slightly Feral Media regarding personal and promotional use with proper photographer credit.
THE HUMAN // ALETHEA MEHDIPOUR
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| 📷 Barefoot Lifestyle Photography |
This is Alethea—the photographer, stagehand, behavior scientist, and designated human attached to this operation.
She documents the people, rituals, machinery, and beautiful disorder of live culture. She carries the camera, follows the evidence, and keeps wandering into places most humans never think to look.
The raccoon provides responsible supervision.
Obviously.
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REFERENCES
Sources used for historical, cultural, venue, artist, scientific, behavioral, or other factual research appearing in this field note:
THE ERADICATS
THE TOUCHDOWNS
HEADLIGHT RIVALS
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