MUSIC
ALL GROWN UP
BY
J OE MIL L E R
With Woods, and now the Babies, JoCo native Kevin Morby is inching toward indie-rock renown.
W
hen he was 17, Kevin Morby dropped out of Blue Valley Northwest High School, got his GED, and did what you do if you want to be in a successful indie-rock band: He bought a one-way ticket to Brooklyn. He had learned to play guitar when he was 10 and, before he could legally drive, formed bands with names like Creepy Aliens and Little Indian Boy. On weekends, Morby would hang out at places like the Stray Cat, the seedy allages downtown venue that fell prey to the construction of the Sprint Center. He got a fake ID so he could go see Arcade Fire on its first tour, at the Jackpot. When he announced his intention to move, his parents, Jim and Sandy Morby, were understandably concerned. “He was so young,” Sandy says. “But he was adamant. He was never really into school. He just didn’t like the whole cliquey suburbanschool setting.” For his first few years in New York, Morby bounced from crash pad to crash pad, working café jobs. One for the Babies’ scrapbook “My life was kind of a mystery to them,” This weekend, they’ll host the Babies, Morby says of his parents. “But at the same Morby’s new band. The Babies are a collaboratime, they embraced it.” tion between Morby and Vivian Girls guitarist Morby was working as a delivery boy at one Cassie Ramone that started more or less as a of those cafés when he became friends with joke. Out carousing in New York one night, some guys in a fledgling band called Woods. One of the members was about to quit and Morby spotted Ramone, whom he’d known move to Arizona, so Morby took his room in the since his earliest days in the city. They discovered that they were headed for the same party, band’s compound in the Bushwick neighborand Ramone asked Morby if he’d like to get a hood of Brooklyn, an old tenement building that serves as a combination recording studio, couple of “road sodas” for the walk. “What are road sodas?” Morby asked. practice space and boardinghouse. Not long “You know,” she said, “beer.” after moving in, Morby joined as Woods’ bass He laughed and said they should start a player. “I’d never played bass before,” Morby band called the Road Sodas. says. “I played guitar.” “And she took it seriously,” Morby recalls. Not long after, the folksy psych-rock band “She said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ ” released its fourth album, Songs of Shame, to Later, Morby asked Ramone if he could move rave reviews, including a coveted Best New into her living room. She said OK. He brought Music nod from Pitchfork, which helped propel over an air mattress and bought four 99-cent it from obscurity to DIY-darling status. “We plastic tablecloths, which he started getting write-ups,” hung from Ramone’s ceiling, Morby says. “My parents The Babies, creating a sort of fort. “It was thought I was finally doing with Gashcat, funny,” he says of his days at something with myself.” Berwanger Ramone’s place. “You could Jim and Sandy’s affection and Bloodbirds only get the Internet — could for Woods went beyond mere Friday, November 23, only steal it from the neighat the Riot Room parental support, though. bors — in the corner where The two (both in their 50s; I was. So I would wake up Morby is 24) have evolved every day to Cassie sneaking in to use the Ininto borderline hipsters. They now buy reternet. The drapes I put up eventually got torn cords at Love Garden in Lawrence and find new down by the cat that was living there. It was underground music by typing “Woods” into described many times as a ‘jack shack.’ ” Pandora. They’ve traveled to Woods’ shows in The two started writing songs together, Omaha and Iowa City and California and New York. “Sandy elbows her way right up to the added a drummer and a bass player, and changed their name to the Babies. The initial stage,” Jim says. “Afterward, she goes online idea was to do something low-key, a party and makes DVD scrapbooks.” The Morbys have even opened up their band, to relive the days before Woods and home, deep in the 130th-and-Antioch heart the Vivian Girls (a much-buzzed about, hazy, of Johnson County suburbia, to roving indie retro garage-rock act) got too popular for house shows. But soon they were touring, bands. “We’ve had Woods, Crystal Stilts, the releasing singles and then a self-titled debut Vivian Girls,” Jim brags. 24
THE PITCH
NOVEMBER 22-28, 2012
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garage-pop LP in 2011. “Everything I do, I do as seriously as possible,” Morby says. “I invest every ounce of energy into it.” Jeremy Earl, Woods’ lead singer and guitarist, also runs Woodsist, a record label whose early releases by now well-known acts like Real Estate, Kurt Vile and Wavves have earned it the kind of Brooklyn street cred that other labels only dream of. He’s scaling back Woodsist’s output this year to put all his resources behind Woods and the Babies. Woods’ latest, Bend Beyond, dropped in September; the Babies’ sophomore effort, Our House on the Hill, was released last week. The Babies dug in and spent more time on Hill, relocating to Los Angeles for a couple of weeks to work with producer Rob Barbato (Darker My Love, the Fall and Cass McCombs). “We were able to concentrate better, not having the distraction of going out every night in New York,” Morby says. “And the studio was fantastic, a beautiful studio.” As a result, the new album is richer and more varied than the first Babies record; organ, piano, saxophone and even strings mingle with the band’s punkish guitar-drum-bass foundation. After the recording comes the tour, and Morby has had a busy fall. Woods toured through September and October, opening for the Walkmen on some East Coast dates. Now the Babies are out for another lap, which has the group on the road until Christmas. First, though: Thanksgiving in Kansas City, where the Morbys, their son and the whole band will gather for turkey dinner before a Friday-night show at the Riot Room. “I’m excited to be having Thanksgiving there,” Ramone says. Another scrapbook opportunity? “Kevin likes to make fun of me for making them,” Sandy says. “But all the other band members like them.”
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