Indigo Kidd

So this is one of those good-news-bad-news kind of deals.

The straightforward, high-energy garage-rock band Yakima has always needed is here. Indigo Kidd, with its lineup set since last August, has become a tight, energetic argument for the virtues of guitar-bass-drums rock with catchy hooks and sneering attitude. That’s the good news.

The bad news? After Saturday’s Record Store Day performance and a handful of other as-yet-unannounced local gigs, Indigo Kidd is packing up and moving to Las Vegas. Great for them — they’ve got connections in the Vegas music scene and a slot on the Life Is Beautiful Festival lineup in September — but a huge loss for anyone around here who likes rock ’n’ by God roll.

There are other worthwhile Yakima bands, to be sure. There are singer-songwriter focused acts (Planes on Paper), dedicated punks (Bad Habit), blues-rockers (Shoot Jake), roots-rockers (Rust on the Rails) and psychedelic indie-prog rockers (Pastel Motel). But no other local band makes a noise that connects so immediately to the listener’s central nervous system. Indigo Kidd, made up of cousins Eli and Garrett Curtsinger and their friend Dalton Willett, is Yakima’s best band. For another month or so.

“We’ll be back whenever we want to see our parents,” singer-guitarist Eli Curtsinger said, laughing. “We’ll tour up the West Coast.”

You can’t blame them for leaving. Eli Curtsinger, 22, is the only one who’s ever lived outside of the Yakima Valley and that was just for a year in Seattle. It’s time for Willett, 22, and Garrett Curtsinger, 20, to strike out into the world.

Plus they think they’re really on to something with Indigo Kidd. It’s the culmination of a decade-long process that saw the (kind of) rise and (definite) fall of their previous bands Ponchus Pilot, which included Willett and Eli Curtsinger, and Flora’s Ghost, which included both Curtsingers.

That latter band, which took second but should have won at the Chinook Fest Youth Battle of the Bands in 2014 (full disclosure: I was a judge), is the one that really started to get people around here to notice. After it dissolved amid a love triangle involving two members, the Curtsingers were left as a duo.

They named themselves Indigo Kidd and started auditioning bass players. That’s when Eli Curtsinger, who hadn’t spoken with Willett in the two years since Ponchus Pilot broke up, got back in touch. The acrimony over that breakup had dissipated enough that the Curtsingers felt comfortable bringing Willett aboard. (“We’re grownups now,” Willett explained.) And Willett, who had founded local micro-label Wasp Records in the interim, became an official member last August.

The lineup was set: Eli Curtsinger, the affable, goofy frontman with the linebacker’s build and Glenn Danzig baritone; Garrett Curtsinger, the wildman drummer who can’t help shouting things from behind his kit; and Willett, the bass player with the splay-legged stance and classic rockstar swagger.

They released an EP, “Battle at the Fish Cafe,” last year and started playing throughout Washington state. Their sound, influenced by bands like Best Coast, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Wimps, SEACATS and Dude York, is a catchy take on rock with simple melodies and punk energy — the kind of thing that makes sense in 2016 but would have also fit in just fine on the “Nuggets” collection of ’60s garage rock. And their debut full-length album, set for release this summer, just builds on that.

“This is the evolved version of that,” Eli Curtsinger said. “The dynamics have definitely gotten more complex.”

It certainly doesn’t sound like anything else any Yakima bands are doing. That stems from Indigo Kidd’s three members’ misspent youth as avid rock ’n’ roll listeners. They were into Dinosaur Jr. and The Pixies while the rest of their classmates were listening to Slipknot and Five Finger Death Punch on the local hard rock station, 94.5 KATS FM.

“We’re the only band (in Yakima) that listened to The Arcade Fire growing up,” Eli Curtsinger said. “And I think it shows.”

Still, they don’t know quite how to explain their own music. They took a couple of stabs at it during a coffeeshop interview this week a couple of hours before Eli Curtsinger started his shift there. He used a Pokemon metaphor, but that was lost on me. Then they decided that calling it “garage pop” worked. That’s how Indigo Kidd was billed by the promoters of a Yakima house show earlier this year.

“What’s it say on our bio?” Curtsinger said. “‘It’s the sound of drinking a Rainier beer?’ It’s the bitter angst and sweet — I don’t know.”

Then we all laughed. Man, I’m going to miss these guys. They leave for Vegas next month. And, though they’ll be back for a few shows here and there — including a just-announced set June 30 as part of the city-sponsored Downtown Summer Nights series — Yakima is losing its best rock band.

“Yeah, but we’ll always consider this our hometown,” Willett said. - Yakima Herald

Something about Indigo Kidd feels oddly familiar, like you just found the band’s tape buried in the backyard after 10 years without it. It’s indie but it’s punk, nostalgic yet new. And it’s addictively good.

Maybe it’s the way frontman Eli Curtsinger uses his voice as an instrument on June EP Mixtape for Senpai, bending it into a Danzig-esque warble, or how quickly he can change it into a high-pitched wail, a time-tested pop-punk signifier. But despite similarities to the Misfits frontman or Protomartyr’s Joe Casey (especially when Curtsinger roars, “I wanna watch you die slowly!” on “Till Death Do Us Part”), the band falls more along the ranks of Chicago’s Orwells or New York City’s Parquet Courts, with a glossy post-punk sheen. Nirvana is an obvious influence, band members say, as are ’90s indie-rock anchor Dinosaur Jr. and LA-based Wavves.

Originally from Yakima, Washington, cousins Eli (guitar/vocals) and Garrett Curtsinger (drums), plus longtime friend Dalton Willett (bass), made an unlikely Vegas connection inside a coffee shop where Eli once worked. Las Vegas writer/musician Joshua Ellis, living in Yakima at the time, was also captured by Indigo Kidd’s effortless, almost-by-accident charm. Eventually, he convinced them to move to Las Vegas.

“We’d all been wanting to get out of Yakima for quite a while, but we never really saw the right moment,” Willett says. “Eli lived in Seattle before, and it wasn’t the best experience. Josh had always talked of Las Vegas and knew that it wasn’t as saturated as the music scene in Seattle, and eventually we were all just like, ‘Why not? Let’s just do it.’”

Vegas’ proximity to LA and Arizona, along with the growing local scene here, also factored in. “We heard Special-K and listened to some different bands like [Vegas’] Alaska and Red Tank from Arizona,” Eli says. “Seattle kind of sucks. Even now we can’t get a show [there].”

The three-piece moved to the Valley in June and has already landed gigs the guys say they’d never get back home. On Saturday, they’ll open for one of their bucket-list bands, Seattle garage-punks Chastity Belt.

No matter its success in Vegas, Indigo Kidd agrees its sound will always be rooted in Washington. “There’s definitely some Northwest sensibilities you can’t really strip from what we’re doing,” Curtsinger says. “But I like it that way.” - Las Vegas Weekly

For the past month, anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock has been talking about the upcoming Life is Beautiful event that happened this weekend. Excitement at the promise of spending three days with good food, good music, and good people permeated the air.

On a more local level, Las Vegas residents were geared up for another reason entirely. A smaller but well-received festival, contrarily called Life is Shit, was set to take place during the same weekend as its larger, corporate counterpart.

For all intents and purposes, Life is Beautiful is a great way to promote and bring money to Las Vegas. The vibrant, in-your-face commercialism and block party vibe draws attention to and emphasizes the city’s reputation as a party city and promises all attendees a good time.

However, the cost of admission and the amount of tourists that travel just to attend the festival is exclusionary to Las Vegas natives. The combination of increasing expansion, availability of online tickets, and the persnickety way in which bands are chosen to perform, this carnival-esque music festival has become yet another attraction on an already stacked list of tourist experiences one can have in this city and yet another way Las Vegas residents are bounced out from their own events.

In response to the alienating effect of Life is Beautiful, Las Vegas residents created an alternative festival. Hosted at The Dive on Maryland and Flamingo, Life is Shit is an annual, single day festival that provides a variety of music acts, vendors, food trucks, a charity raffle and a do-it-yourself table. Bad Moon Booking, a business described as being a game changer in the Las Vegas music scene, promotes the event.

All that was asked for admission was a $5 donation to Girls Rock Vegas, an organization geared towards encouraging girls to perform music. The philanthropy was refreshing. Every donation earned you a ticket for a raffle where you can win interesting prizes, all of which were donated as well.

Despite it not being as big or flashy as Life as Beautiful, my overall experience at Life is Shit was a positive one. I was half-expecting to have a crappy time.

However, there were a few things that bothered me.

The music was very hit-or-miss, especially if rock music isn’t your cup of tea. The lineup consisted of fifteen different bands and each of them had a set of roughly 40 minutes.

A couple of the bands were enjoyable. Indigo Kidd was by far my favorite band that performed with their catchy choruses and refreshing sense of nostalgia. Listening to them felt like digging out old cds and listening to my old favorite songs. Their sound sent me back in time in the best ways. A close second was Go Bold, whose lyrics were both moving and artistic with just the right amount of truth. He was likeable on and off stage and I enjoyed watching him interact with the audience.

There were a few other bands that were comparable to a plastic cover that goes over furniture: pretentious, annoying, and feeling unsatisfied.

The worst of the performers sounded like a cat being choked to death underwater and left me feeling mildly violated. I had to step outside after the first couple of notes. I could feel my eardrums detaching and for a few brief moments, I wondered if I was bleeding.

Food was a source of contention as well. There were only two food trucks present at the event and neither had a wide variety of food available. The lack of options made it difficult for those who have special diets to partake.

Space was an issue as more and more people started drifting in and out as the night wore on. By 8:30 p.m., the place was almost full and moving from place to place was difficult, despite the open layout of the bar.
The heat of strange bodies and the overwhelming stench of alcohol was inescapable unless you walked outside and even then, it seemed to follow you. Like I said before, it was a good time. Was it the best festival I had ever attended? No, but it wasn’t as shitty as it could have been. - The Rebel Yell