WELCOME TO OUR NEW BAND MusicSpace hangout!
Tom wouldn't register us into the search system without uploading MP3s, so the above songs are temporary. The are live captures from a video camera, so excuse the quality. Good and raw, just like the night at the Boobie Trap with the Black Mollys and the Static with SiX sTiGmA, but still rock!
What is Warlok and where are we going?
Sunday, September 2nd Labor Day Weekend.The Real OzFest returns to Kansas for another go!If you missed the last one, don't make that mistake again!Jim Dandy and Black Oak Arkansas join Mutant and Warlok, plus Jolly Troll favorites Hellbent and Slow Ride, for an new installment of this great event from last year. This also marks the 20th Anniversary of Black Oak Arkansas’ appearance at the final show ever to take place at the Jolly Troll Stardust!Labor Day Weekend Sunday, the bar gets raised once again, don’t miss out!We are going to be having a free fish fry for the first couple hundred people, so plan on showing up early! Advance ticket holders will be admitted at 6:00pm, one hour before the door opens officially for this and some other special opportunities!Advance tickets are now available at the Jolly Troll, online or by snailmail! Get em now!CLICK HERE for all the details or to get advance tickets online!BE SURE TO "FRIEND" THE JOLLY TROLL so you will be the first to find out about even bigger upcoming shows!If you missed the last Real OzFest show you can see some great pics from the final night at the Static Bar by clicking on the photographers individual links here.
Doug Ruth and
Sly Stover .
Joey Krug (the guitar pikker) and I were together in Warlok back in the early-mid 80's. We came together from the demise of several bands of the era, including Limousine, Tracer and Raven and put together the group, started playing and became one of the hottest things going at the time, always standing room crowds rotating shifts from the parking lots. It was totally crazy, we could do no wrong. After about 4 years of running the course we separated and went different directions. Joey ended up in Texas, and finally after 20 years or so, I got a email from him outta nowhere saying that he was coming back to Kansas and would I like to get together and jam when he got there. Stupid question!
After deciding we wanted to give it a go again just for grins, we tried to locate the original bass player and drummer. They were still around, but were committed to other things in life, so we spent months looking for players interested in joining us. We kept getting the same general reaction. "Yeah, we're interested, but no one want to hear that old dinosaur music you guys are talking about."
Finally we came upon Tom Wiley, a guitar player from a band called Crosswind from the same era, who said he would be glad to play bass with us, so we started working with him and continued the hunt for the skinbasher to equal his skills.
Then we were introduced to Jaime Serrano, a drummer from the 90's who played in some seriously metal bands such as Unmerciful and Trail of Decay. Jaime is the "kid" in the band, being "only" 36, and as coincidence would have it, remembered us from his high school daze when he used to sneak into bars to catch Warlok gigs. We got together one night and things immediately fell in place.
Here we are now, doing our own Warlok style renditions of many classic rock, 80's metal, newer stuff such as Seether and totally off the wall versions of songs from people as unlikely as Johnny Cash. Somewhere along the line we will probably finish some of our original stuff, but at the moment things are too hectic.
The biggest obstacle so far has been where to play. The scene was booming when we left it. The money to be made playing back then was obscene compared to now, even considering inflation. We used to spend more each night on pyro and dry ice than most places want to pay bands these days. The venues seem to have de-escalated to small bars featuring mostly standard cover stuff or original music bands, so we were stuck in left field.
When Joey first came back to town, we met in one of the original music venues because it was in his neighborhood, The Boobie Trap. We caught the owners interest because he was once the singer in an 80's era group, and finally one night the idea came up, "Why not try a cover band in the Trap?" Didn't have an answer to that, so we all agreed to go for it. We did a couple of killer weeknight shows with established groups there and immediately garnered a following and started bringing new people into the bar that had never been there before. Finally on a Thursday night last year, Brian asked us to open for The Black Mollys. That night rocked harder at the Trap than anyone could remember for years! After months of doubt, we were finally committed big time to carry on. We gotta continually thank Brian for giving us our start when nobody else believed in our chances. You gotta check that place out sometime if you haven't been there. It may be small but the atmosphere is surreal sometimes, and Brian has got to be considered the Bill Graham of small venues here in Kansas.
We are working on getting our travel mode in gear so we can start hitting other areas. We played Emerson Biggins in Wichita in May with SiX sTiGmA and few other things are in the works. Our first actual road gig was in Iola, Kansas of all places at a club called the Getaway. It was awesome. I had forgotten what a major event things like that can be in a rural community. They made us feel real welcome and we will definitely be going back!
We're really not sure where we are going with this. We know we want to help revitalize the music scene to where going out is an event again, not just something to pass the time. We want to take peoples minds off the bummer parts of their lives, go somewhere where reality ceases to exist for a few hours, without having to drive a hundred miles and spend as many bucks to do it.
Don't know what else to tell you right now, except come out and see for yourself.
Just when you thought it was safe again...
THE NIGHTMARE RETURNS!
Tell your friends and keep an eye out for our arrival, the Warlok , Yahoo Group is an alternative to get your info, as we can communicate in a virtual forum there if you want.
I am also the moderator of the
Topeka Music Scene on Yahoo, which you should join to help all the musicians and club owners/promoters give Topeka and Northeast Kansas a kick in the butt it needs to get our jams happening again like the old days. Find out where your favorite band is this weekend, or post your gigs for all to see.
THE TOP 24 FRIENDS LIST WILL BE CONSTANTLY ROTATED FEATURING FRIENDS THAT WE SEE AT SHOWS, it's a bitch to find you on the friend list though! If you want to be on the rotation, please send your MySpace registered email address so we can find you!
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