FIELD NOTE// Metal Mayhem at Warehouse on Broadway: Kansas City Metal

FIELD NOTE // METAL IS NOT A SPECIES

Metal Mayhem Meltdown at Warehouse on Broadway with Third Wounded Man, Pure American Filth, Into Existence, and Waking Demons

By Alethea F. Mehdipour — Slightly Feral Media

METAL IS NOT A SPECIES

Metal is such a vague statement. Metal means many things. There are thrash metal creatures fueled by speed, sharp edges, and repetitive neck injuries. Doom metal sounds like an ancient structure collapsing during a thunderstorm. Death metal growls. Black metal appears to have emerged from a cold forest deeply disappointed in organized religion. Sludge metal is something extremely heavy dragging itself out of contaminated water. Industrial metal located machinery and intends to use it. Nu metal returned wearing very large pants. Groove metal made movement heavier. Metalcore brought breakdowns. Power metal brought swords. Possibly metaphorical swords. The raccoon does not assume when it come to these things.  

Each subgenre tends to draw a slightly different crowd. Yes, there is PLENTY of crossover, but every metal habitat develops its own collection of markings, rituals, fabrics, boots, hardware, hair, and acceptable quantities of black. The aesthetic at Metal Mayhem Meltdown was definitely leaning toward the darker and twistier side of the humans. The raccoon observed many individuals who could easily cross over into goth-adjacent habitats.

Not everyone. Not everywhere. But substantially more than the average dabble and sprinkle of weird kids dressed in black had come out for this Kansas City metal show.

THAT caught the raccoon’s eye immediately.

SAME BUILDING. DIFFERENT HABITAT.

The raccoon began the evening inside Soundbite Social, photographing Kansas City rock ’n’ roll band Combo Diablo. Metal Mayhem Meltdown was taking place on the Warehouse on Broadway side of the building. Before their own substantially heavier habitat came into existence, members of Pure American Filth had been spotted inside Soundbite Social. They were chillin like the villains they are. They were enjoying Combo Diablo. They were supporting another Kansas City band before it was time to create their own noise.

The raccoon noticed. Artists supporting artists is cool. Photographers supporting photographers is cool. Sound creatures supporting musicians, musicians supporting venues, and venues creating room for all of them is cool. We all bring something different to the table. When the humans support one another, the table gets bigger. After Combo Diablo finished, the raccoon crossed into Warehouse on Broadway.

Same building. Different noise. Third Wounded Man—the first band to play Metal Mayhem—was already onstage.

She heard them before she saw them.

THIRD WOUNDED MAN

The raccoon followed the noise. Then she walked around the stage and was shocked to discover that only three artists were responsible for it. Based upon the volume, she had expected more. Possibly several more.

Third Wounded Man was a trio producing enough sound to suggest that reinforcements were hidden somewhere behind the amplifiers. There were no reinforcements. The raccoon checked. There were simply three humans being significantly louder than the available headcount should have allowed.

The mathematics did not work. The noise did.

Further investigation revealed a Kansas City band with history in the regional heavy-music habitat. ThirdWounded Man released the six-song live EP Patsy in 2013, featuring “The Ghosts of Tuesdays Past,” “Every Little Thing She Does Is Tragic,” “I, Escapist,” “Too Far Gone to Crawl,” “Murdercar,” and “A Friday in Dallas.” Archived listings place Third Wounded Man on regional stages in St. Joseph in 2013, at Aftershock in Merriam in 2015, and on a Kansas City bill with Prong in 2016.

Then the searchable evidence becomes quiet. Until Metal Mayhem. The raccoon is not calling this a resurrection. Not yet.

Warehouse on Broadway is already haunted enough.

PURE AMERICAN FILTH

 The raccoon had already observed members of Pure American Filth supporting Combo Diablo inside Soundbite Social. Then they crossed into Warehouse on Broadway and became completely feral. They committed fully to the Pure American Filth name and aesthetic. The raccoon means this in the best way possible.

Their drummer, Travis Fittro, earned an honorable mention in a highly specific and deeply respectedcategory: The raccoon’s Top Five Drummers Who Remind Her of Animal from The Muppets.  The raccoon just made up that classification system.  Yet, this is one of the highest honors available within the Slightly Feral Media classification system.

 

Arms. Hair. Sticks.Cymbals receiving consequences. No shirt.  Travis did not merely play the drums.He appeared to be settling a generations old family dispute with them. The cymbals knew what they had done.

Pure American Filth formed in Kansas City in 2023. Their recorded trail includes Blood, Lies & Controversy from 2024 and a five-song self-titled EP released in March 2026.

The name suggested filth. The performance delivered.

No Notes. 

INTO EXISTENCE

At some point, the Hair Gods, the Lighting Gods, and the Guitar Gods held a meeting. Into Existence came, well, into existence.

 Hair moved through light. Guitars moved through hair. The lighting changed shape around both. 

The raccoon attempted to collect photographic evidence while the entire habitat refused to remain still. This is one of the primary difficulties in Kansas City concert photography. 

The most photographable humans are often the least interested in remaining
anywhere near the location where the camera last found them.

Into Existence formed in Kansas City in early 2015. Their public musical trail includes “Descension,” “Revenge,” “Saint Apocalypse,” “Exit Bound,” and “Sound of Betrayal.”

The stage provided one category of evidence. The Stage Dive KC interviews provided another. During the first interview in the series, Into Existence demonstrated that the artists in this band are MISCHIEVOUS. Definitely slightly feral. Possibly raccoons. They messed with their interviewers and appeared delighted by the results. This is known behavior.The following interviews became SLIGHTLY more serious. This did not erase the initial evidence.

        

The first Stage Dive KC interview with Into Existence can be observed here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1JbfMDzcBF/?mibextid=wwXIfr

The Hair Gods were present. The Guitar Gods were present. The Lighting Gods were clearly involved.

Into Existence was inevitable.

WAKING DEMONS

As Waking Demons began setting the stage for the final set, the raccoon started to understand the darker underworld aesthetic a little more. These creatures brought the underworld with them. The stage changed. The atmosphere changed. The room looked like something was about to be summoned. Possibly something with its own merchandise.

The raccoon appreciates good production. Waking Demons brought good production. Theatrical metal shows have a special place in the raccoon’s little black heart. Waking Demons was not exactly theatrical metal, but the band understood presentation. 

Their set began before the first note through the environment they created around it.

DID I MENTION THE RED MICROPHONES? The raccoon may have taken an embarrassing amount of photos of the red microphones.   Production does not have to become theater to tell the audience that something different is about to happen. Waking Demons made the transition clear.

Then there was the drummer.

Nitro Destruction.

Some humans acquire stage names. Others are accurately classified. 

The available online history for Waking Demons remains limited, so the raccoon will not invent a neat biography where the evidence does not support one.  The internet may be comfortable doing that. The raccoon is not.

What the available evidence does support is this: Waking Demons closed Metal Mayhem with a deliberate visual identity, a darker atmosphere, and enough production to make the final set feel like the natural destination of the entire night.

The underworld had arrived. It brought drums. As Always.  

THE CREATURES PRACTICING STAGECRAFT

Make no mistake. There are MANY, MANY ENTIRELY CAPABLE—and probably slightly feral—creatures practicing stagecraft behind the scenes at Warehouse on Broadway and Soundbite Social. They make all of this happen. The raccoon does not intend to overlook them.

She has tried many times to collect photographic evidence of the stage crew,sound engineers, lighting technicians, cable wranglers, button pushers, problem solvers, and other creatures who appear before the audience arrives and vanish into the dark as soon as someone points a camera in their direction.

The evidence has been difficult to collect. These creatures are elusive. They work in the shadows. They appear beside the stage and then somehow reappear on the opposite side of the room without crossing the space in between. 

 raccoon has developed two working theories. They are either fellow raccoons and therefore exceptionally sneaky, or they are vampires and cannot be properly captured by a camera.

Both explanations remain plausible.

THE SOUND ELF: CONFIRMED

The Sound Elf has been confirmed. The raccoon knew he was present at Metal Mayhem before she sawhim. The evidence was right there on the stage. Magically coiled cables. The Sound Elf possesses a cable-wrangling ability that the raccoon hopes to develop..

The Sound Elf creates orderly circles. Elf behavior.

Confirmed. 

The Sound Elf and the raccoon have known each other long enough to move beyond the awkward stage of not knowing how to interact. They now simply ARE. There may be a side hug in which neither creature actually touches the other. The fondness is completely real. The raccoon appreciates every opportunity to collect evidence of the Sound Elf in his natural habitat: surrounded by cables, controls, invisible frequencies, and problems the audience will never know existed because he already fixed them.

This is the strange thing about capable stagecraft. When it works, the audience notices the band. When it fails, everyone notices everything else.

The Sound Elf works in the narrow space between those outcomes. The music comes through. The humans remain unaware of the disaster that did not happen.

The elf disappears back into the dark.

THE LIGHTING GODS: SUSPECTED

 There are other stagecraft practitioners inside Warehouse on Broadway. The raccoon knows they are there. The images do not always show them well. This is not because their work is unimportant. It is because they are usually standing in the darkest part of the room while making sure everyone else can be seen.

The Lighting Gods are particularly difficult to document. The raccoon is not entirely certain whether they work at Warehouse on Broadway or simply live there. 

 influence is everywhere. They put light behind hair. They put light through smoke. They put light across guitars. They arrange it around musicians in ways that make the raccoon squeal quietly behind the camera.

 They even put lighting on the FLOORS.

This is not where light traditionally lives.

NO ONE SEEMS CONCERNED.

The raccoon has also collected evidence of glowing pedalboards and other slightly haunted stage equipment. Guitarists step on the little boxes. The boxes light up. The noises change. Everyone behaves as though this is normal.

 It is not normal. It is excellent, but it is not normal.

There have clearly been meetings of the Hair Gods, Guitar Gods, and Lighting Gods inside Warehouse on Broadway. Into Existence may have been produced during one of them.

THE WORKING HAUNTING THEORY

The building remains under investigation. The current working theory is that Warehouse on Broadway is completely haunted. There are almost certainly displaced theater ghosts living somewhere near the stage. They may be assisting with production. They may simply appreciate live music.

Either way, the production values remain excellent.

The raccoon has photographed empty sections of the stage and found evidence of something still happening there. Light remains where light should not be. Cables arrange themselves into suspiciously competent circles. Pedalboards glow. 

People appear from dark corners already knowing which button needs to be pushed.The humans call this the weekend. 

The raccoon is keeping all available classifications open. But Stagecraft appears to have otherworldly magic involved.   

A NEW SPECIES APPEARS

The raccoon has also observed a new species at Soundbite Social. Classification is pending. He appears to have connections to both the Sound Elf and the Lighting Gods. He moves through the same dark spaces. He understands things happening near the stage. He may be a lighting familiar. He may be a sound-adjacent creature. He may be a displaced theater ghost with technical training.He may be human. The available evidence does not yet support that conclusion.

Further investigation is inevitable.

The performers are the most visible humans in the room, but they are never the only artists responsible for what happens there. Someone built the stage. Someone ran the cables. Someone shaped the sound. Someone put the light on the floor. Someone fixed a problem before the audience ever knew it existed.

The raccoon sees the creatures behind the stage. Even when the camera does not.

SAME BUILDING. DIFFERENT NOISE.

The raccoon began the evening with Combo Diablo inside Soundbite Social.

She ended it at Metal Mayhem inside Warehouse on Broadway with four heavy bands, one confirmed Sound Elf, several suspected gods, possible vampires, a developing haunting theory, and substantially more black clothing than the average Kansas City Friday night requires.

Metal is not one species. It is an entire collection of overlapping territories.  An entire ECOSYSTEM. 

Every band brought something different. 

🦇Third Wounded Man brought enough sound for twice as many humans.

🦇Pure American Filth brought the filth, the feral energy, and one extremely Animal-adjacent drummer.

🦇Into Existence brought the Hair Gods, Guitar Gods, Lighting Gods, and evidence of mischief.

🦇Waking Demons brought the underworld and its production department.

Behind all of them were the hidden creatures making the performers visible and the music audible before quietly disappearing into the dark again. Pure American Filth supported Combo Diablo. Stage Dive KC documented Into Existence.

The stagecraft practitioners supported everyone. The raccoon has noticed a pattern across the Kansas City live music community.

It is the same people on the stage who are also building the stage. They play in bands. They photograph bands. They interview bands. They run sound. They shape light. They attend each other’s shows. They stand in the dark and make certain someone else can be seen.

Same building. Different noise. One Kansas City music community.

The stage may be haunted but the community is real.

FIELD NOTE //Combo Diablo and the Doo-Dads: Kansas City Music History

FIELD NOTE // THE BAND NAMES CHANGED. THE HUMANS KEPT PLAYING.

Combo Diablo, the Doo-Dads, and a Slightly Feral Journey Through Kansas City Music History

By Alethea F. Mehdipour — Slightly Feral Media

THE SHIRT

The first thing the raccoon saw was the drummer’s shirt.

THE GRAND EMPORIUM.

The letters reached into an old, poorly labeled section of the archives, grabbed an entire collection of memories, and dumped them directly onto the floor. The raccoon may have squealed. Not a dignified, professional Kansas City concert photographer squeal. More like a slightly feral teenage girl encountering a boy band in the wild. This was unexpected. She had arrived to photograph Kansas City rock ’n’ roll band Combo Diablo. Instead, before the band had played a single note, drummer Joe Gose was standing there wearing a doorway into the raccoon’s own live-music history.

BEFORE THE DIGITAL EVIDENCE

Many years ago—decades, even—before digital cameras allowed a raccoon to take 1,200 photographs and quietly dispose of the evidence that 900 of them were terrible, she made her first attempt at live-music photography inside the Grand Emporium in Kansas City.

The Grand Emporium was dirty in all the right ways.

It was not the kind of dirty that required cleaning up.  It was the kind that proved something had happened there. The walls were covered from floor to ceiling with concert posters. The posters continued into the bathroom and, if the raccoon’s recovered archives are accurate, onto the ceiling.

This may be where the fascination with Kansas City venue bathroom walls began. Further study is probably required.

A neon sign reading 18th and Vine stood on a post in the middle of the room. Another neon image of Stevie Ray Vaughan glowed from the wall.  In the far back corner was Amazing Grace’s barbecue operation, serving food from a makeshift kitchen inside one of Kansas City’s most important live-music rooms.  The raccoon can see it in her brain.   There is also a completely unnecessary but historically delightful family footnote here: the raccoon’s stepdad’s brother apparently dated Amazing Grace way back in the day.

Kansas City is not a large city. Kansas City is a very complicated collection of humans who have all met each other at least once.

THE FIRST FIELD NOTES

The raccoon remembers seeing Chris Duarte at the Grand Emporium on New Year’s Eve. She also remembers Annetta “Cotton Candy” Washington and So Many Men. There were others. Their names have slipped behind boxes in the archives, but pieces of those nights remain.

A hippie couple wearing fringe danced between the tables.  A tall man moved through the room in a full-length fur coat, pointy boots, and a hat that appeared to have been fashioned after Mr. Bojangles. The room was crowded with live blues, barbecue smoke, clothing choices, neon light, and humans who knew exactly why they were there.

The Grand Emporium eventually followed the raccoon into college.

Experiences from that room became assignments in a creative-writing class many years later. The raccoon had already been writing for most of her life. She began writing poetry in second grade and has had more than one piece published over the years. Still, some of the best pieces she produced for that college class came from the Grand Emporium. That room gave a young raccoon something worth trying to describe. It also gave her one of her earliest reasons to carry a camera into Kansas City live music.

Somewhere along the way, those memories disappeared into the archives. They were not gone. They were simply waiting inside Joe Gose’s shirt.

AN ALMOST-MEDIOCRE PHOTOGRAPH

The raccoon was so excited to see the Grand Emporium shirt—and so thoroughly flooded by beautiful memories she had forgotten she possessed—that she failed at the very task she had arrived to perform.

She photographed the shirt. Almost. The resulting image is almost mediocre. This is particularly unfortunate because the raccoon is allegedly a professional concert photographer. 

However, the photograph still contains the important evidence: The shirt existed. The raccoon saw it. The archives opened.

The shirt also started a conversation. It took approximately .28 seconds for the raccoon to realize that the members of Combo Diablo were going to be fun.

FRIENDS WITH THE DRUMMER

Shortly before the Grand Emporium incident, the raccoon had been in the little girls’ room, where she encountered another human. The human explained that she was friends with the drummer. This statement means something very different in adulthood than it might have meant when the humans were younger. In this case, it appeared to mean that she was genuinely friends with the drummer.

This was consistent with the rest of the room. Much of the audience seemed to be made up of people who knew the members of Combo Diablo personally. Friends had come to see their friends play music.

The raccoon noticed something very quickly.

THE SMILES.

This may have been the smiley-est collection of humans she had encountered in some time. There were smiles onstage. There were smiles in the audience. There were smiles during the conversations before the music began.

For a Kansas City band called COMBO DIABLO, there was a suspicious amount of joy in the room.

The seriousness of the name appeared to be a front.

THE SLIGHTLY HAUNTED PEDALBOARD

Then there was the electric guitarist’s pedalboard. Don “Gator” Wilson had assembled a collection of completely individualized little gadgets, each apparently responsible for convincing the guitar to make a different kind of noise. These were not anonymous factory pedals lined up neatly and behaving themselves.

Each one had its own design. Its own identity. Possibly its own backstory. Collectively, they looked like a row of tiny, slightly haunted machines waiting for someone to step on them.

The raccoon had questions. Did each gadget have a name? Had any of them been constructed during a thunderstorm? Was the guitarist controlling the pedals—or had the pedals selected a guitarist capable of carrying out their instructions?

No definitive answers were available. What was clear was that this was not simply a collection of guitar effects. It was another piece of Combo Diablo’s personality: individualized, a little strange, and far more interesting than anything designed to disappear quietly beneath someone’s boots.

The raccoon photographed the evidence.

Carefully. Some equipment should not be startled.

THE STORIES CAME FREELY

As the raccoon talked with the members of Combo Diablo, the stories came freely. These humans had history. Not polished biography history. Real Kansas City music history. The kind that arrives through half-finished sentences, remembered shows, former band names, old venues, shared jokes, and somebody suddenly saying, “Wait until you hear about this.”

Combo Diablo is a Kansas City trio featuring Mike Niewald on acoustic guitar and vocals, Don “Gator” Wilson on guitar, and Joe Gose on drums.

They describe what they do as soul-scorching rock ’n’ roll. That description is useful, but it does not contain the entire creature. There is Americana in it. Rockabilly. Blues. Punk. Traditional rock ’n’ roll. There are also decades of Kansas City music history moving underneath it.

Between the three musicians are connections to bands including Absolute Ceiling, the Bindlestiffs, the Saddlemen, the Grave Escape—and one band the raccoon was not expecting to uncover that evening. The guitarist handed her a treasure.

THE DOO-DADS.

THE DADS ADAPTED

Apparently, these humans have been together—in various musical configurations—for quite a while. Long enough to play in bands. Long enough to become fathers. Long enough to discover that mainstream adulthood has some very strange ideas about what responsible parents are supposed to give up.

There is an old assumption that becoming a dad means placing certain parts of yourself in storage. The guitar. The stage. The band. The loud parts. These Kansas City musicians did something much more interesting. They adapted.

Instead of giving up live music when fatherhood arrived, they made music that their children could enter with them. They became the Doo-Dads.

THE DOO-DADS

The Doo-Dads formed in Kansas City in 2002. The original band brought together four musician fathers: Mike Niewald, Matt Kesler, Joe Gose, and Ken Lovern. These were not children’s entertainers attempting to imitate a rock band. They were experienced Kansas City musicians who redirected everything they already knew about live performance into music for kids and the adults trapped in the room with them. The result was kid-cool, adult-friendly rock ’n’ roll.

The songs covered matters of serious concern to small humans: Bicycles. The zoo. Brushing teeth. Potty-related business. The Doo-Dads performed in matching shirts, filled rooms with bubbles, and built shows that allowed parents to bring their children into live music without reducing the adults to hostages.

Their own children became part of the story. Known as the Doo-Drops, they sang on the records and grew up around the music their fathers had refused to abandon. The dads had not stopped being musicians. Fatherhood simply changed the set list.

THERE WILL BE ROCK

The story of Kansas City children’s rock band the Doo-Dads eventually became the documentary There Will Be Rock. Directed by Kansas City filmmaker Anthony Ladesich, the film followed the band’s unusual history as working musicians, fathers, and performers inside the world of children’s music. It also preserved something larger than a novelty band. It documented what happened when a group of musicians decided that becoming responsible adults did not require them to become entirely different humans.

WATCH THERE WILL BE ROCK ON YOUTUBE: Watch The Doo Dads Documentary Here!

There Will Be Rock premiered on Kansas City PBS in December 2020. The documentary later received a 2021 Mid-America Emmy Award in the Arts and Entertainment long-form category.

THE CHILDREN GREW UP

Eventually, the children grew up. This is a known side effect of feeding them. The Doo-Drops were no longer little. The songs about bicycles, bubbles, brushing teeth, and other urgent tiny-human affairs had served their purpose. 

The musicians, however, were still musicians. The band names changed. The humans kept playing.

Now there is Combo Diablo. Not the Doo-Dads with darker clothing. Not a children’s band attempting an adult rebrand. Combo Diablo is its own creature: a Kansas City rock ’n’ roll band carrying the accumulated history of the people inside it. The Doo-Dads are one chapter. Before that were other bands, other stages, other versions of the same humans.

After decades of Kansas City music, fatherhood, children’s shows, bubbles, old venues, lost memories, recovered stories, slightly haunted guitar equipment, and at least one Grand Emporium shirt, they are still doing the thing. They are still getting onstage. They are still playing together. And judging by the suspicious number of smiles in the room, they are still having an unreasonable amount of fun.

The raccoon arrived expecting to collect photographs of Combo Diablo. She left carrying part of Kansas City music history—and a collection of her own memories that she did not realize had been missing.

All because the drummer wore a shirt. The archives are strange that way.

DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE

View the complete Combo Diablo concert photography gallery from Soundbite Social inside Warehouse on Broadway:

https://mymidlifecrisiscreativeinc17.pixieset.com/combodiablosoundbitesocialwarehouseonbroadway/

FOLLOW COMBO DIABLO

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/share/1C4GuUDmWb/?mibextid=wwXIfr

SoundCloud:

https://on.soundcloud.com/D2pVPuxbYf6aQMrz7

SUPPORT THE HUMANS WHO MAKE THE NOISE

Follow the band. Listen to the music. Support local venues. Buy something directly from the artists whenever possible. Tell the humans when their work matters.

The room left evidence. 

The raccoon collected it.

Slightly feral.

Entirely capable.

— Laverna the Rockin’ Raccoon

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.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Combo Diablo. Music, recordings, and band information. SoundCloud.

https://soundcloud.com/combo-diablo

Kansas City PBS. “Local Kids Rock Group Takes the Stage in New Doc.” Information about the Doo-Dads documentary There Will Be Rock, directed by Anthony Ladesich.

https://www.kansascitypbs.org/blogs/station-news/local-kids-rock-group-take-the-stage-in-new-doc/

Mid-America Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. 2021 Mid-America Emmy Award recipients. There Will Be Rock is listed as the winner in the Arts and Entertainment long-form category.

https://emmymid-america.org/files/2022/04/2021-WINNING-ENTRIES.pdf

The Pitch. “The Doo-Dads Bring Garageland to Kidsville.” Background on the Kansas City children’s rock band, its members, performances, and music.

https://www.thepitchkc.com/the-doodads-bring-garageland-to-kidsville/

University of Missouri–Kansas City Libraries. Grand Emporium Collection. Historical photographs, flyers, promotional materials, and information documenting the Kansas City venue.

https://library.umkc.edu/grand-emporium-collection-added-to-umkc-digital-special-collections/

The Pitch. “Requiem for a Room.” History and remembrance of Kansas City’s Grand Emporium.

https://www.thepitchkc.com/requiem-for-a-room/

The Clio. Grand Emporium historical entry. Background on the venue, its ownership, performers, and place in Kansas City music history.

https://theclio.com/entry/191261

KCUR 89.3. “Music Review: The Bindlestiffs’ Long-Lost Tracks.” Additional Kansas City music history connected to Mike Niewald.

https://www.kcur.org/arts-life/2015-12-08/music-review-the-bindlestiffs-long-lost-tracks

Marmoset Music. Absolute Ceiling artist history. Additional background on the Kansas City band and its members.

https://www.marmosetmusic.com/browse/33754-death-and-fear-of-dying-young

Some details in this field note—including the Grand Emporium memories, conversations with Combo Diablo, the remarkably cheerful audience, and the suspicious pedalboard devices—come from the raccoon’s direct observations and personal archives.

The memories remain the raccoon’s own.  The supporting history has been linked for humans wishing to investigate further.