The OrphanAGE, Vol. 1.21

First Lines

"They called him the Motorcycle Boy because of his passion for motorcycles…" —S.E. Hinton, Rumble Fish

The OrphanAGE turns 21! Twenty-one weekly issues! — Don’t believe it? Check out back issues!

It was a bit of an effort, scouring up a smattering of ROSCHITZOA's (aka Olaf) wild-ass paintings. Reports of a couple hanging at the old Scott Fitness, revealed that they had scattered to the winds when it changed over to The Gym KC. Rumor has it that our treasure hunt may have inspired the artist to lay in a new supply of materials.

With a new album dropping, we wanted to turn our spotlight on one of KC’s most prolific yet under appreciated musical projects going: Angie Fights Crime. Our interview with Brent adds depth and understanding to Mike Bechtel’s review of the recent To Be Beautiful.

Disclosure: It is quite possible that I own more AfC discs than anyone in the city…perhaps the planet. It should also be noted that the OrphanAGE tries to utilize Bandcamp or Soundcloud links where possible (simply because of how the big-streamers openly, Trump-i-ly, screw artists $-wise.)

Peace,
Dante

In The Issue:

• Interview: Brent Kinder of Angie Fights Crime
• Paintings by Olaf Roschitz
• Album Review by Michael Bechtel

The Very Big Interview - Brent Kinder & Angie Fights Crime

The Big O: Where does the name Angie Fights Crime come from?

BK/AfC: In the 90s I moved from Columbia to Lawrence with my band The Black Water. A pack of friends, most in bands, and their girlfriends, would hang at The Bottleneck. Play pool… Drink beer…  Angie, the only non-musical member of our crew — I’m still not sure how she joined in — was the one with a job and more adultness than the rest of us.  One night, Angie was very late to The Bottleneck. She finally showed up with her boyfriend. We all asked: Angie, where you been? She replied, oh you know, fighting crime.  We deduced that this was a metaphor for having sex, thought she wouldn’t admit to it. I decided then and there that if I ever started a band it would be called Angie Fights Crime.

The Big O: 45* albums in 20 years. That’s like 400-ish songs?! Is there really that much to say?

BK/AfC: I’ve been writing songs since i was a child. At one point my mother bought me a Casio keyboard, and i would play songs off the radio which eventually led to writing my own sappy love tunes.  I learned bass in 8th grade and soon followed with guitar. With my first all originals band, The Church of Bowling, I wrote 90% of the music.  We all graduated and as a band moved to Columbia for school where we even opened for Fugazi at the Blue Note.  In ’93 i started a Primus rip-off band called Ped Zing but soon joined The Black Water. Once we started jamming, the music turned out very bass forward.  I would sit at a piano or pick up the guitar and write a song here or there, but I fancied myself a poet — I went to weekly readings and even put out 5 chapbooks. 

Around ’98 I pulled together a group of musicians to play as Angie Fights Crime at the open mic at the Bottleneck.  It was refreshing to step out of my Black Water clothes and try something new.  This lead to a second incarnation, with totally different performers, again for open mic night. This time it stuck. I wanted to keep Angie Fights Crime for my personal music, so we called ourselves Kill.Pop.  Even as Black Water and Kill.Pop played shows, I would write songs that didn’t fit either project.  These I recorded on a four track and saved. 

Both The Black Water and Kill.Pop long gone — I heard about the RPM Challenge on NPR. Launched in Portsmouth, NH, RPM encouraged songwriters to commit to recording their work.  The Challenge: record an album of 10 songs/35 minutes of music during the month of February.  I’d just discovered Garageband installed on my Macintosh and I thought, this is what i needed to do. 

My first album, D is for Destiny, was released for RPM 2007.  At the time, I had a bunch of songs I’d been working with. I recorded them as well, which resulted in A is for Apathy. …B is for Burnt and C is for Cunt…  There were learning curves. Nothing sounded quite as good as the radio, but I realized I could never be restricted if I wrote and recorded songs for myself.  I decided then and there to do the RPM Challenge every year I could.  Sometimes, I’d be writing songs and just couldn’t wait til February. I’d record these songs and release a second album… or a third.  Do I really have that much to say and are all those songs masterpieces?  Probably not, but in the course of learning Garageband, and later Logic, and eventually putting a studio in my basement where i could record at the drop of a hat, i realized, the only limitations on releasing music were those I imposed upon myself.

The Big O: Which do you prefer: Live or Memorex?

BK/AfC: Songwriting is fun, but every day of the week i’ll take performing.

The Big O: Could you recommend an EP’s worth of AfC songs from the catalogue as an intro for listeners?

BK/AfC: My favorite song I’ve ever written is called Several Things from the Zero album.  Written when I was 40, it means the most to me.  The vocalist, Alex Moody from Wales, took a lot of instruction from me on this, and I think its the best thing either of us have ever done. Counting Hours from the same album, is the kind of song I write because of my composition background, with poly-rhythms and strange vocal melodies.  I love writing songs where it’s an experiment with exactly what i can get away with. My favorite AfC album is Murakami, which I’m currently in the process of revisiting. While the original recording sounds great, performance-wise it’s all over the place.  I’ve re-tracked the drums and some other parts. The best song on that album, hands down, is Sumire.

With the advent of the live band, my song writing has tacked to what we play live—more engage-able for a live audience.  That being said: the last two albums have generated songs that get stuck in my head and bring me emotional glee on stage:  Weight of the World from Savior of the World, and All My Breath from To Be Beautiful (see review in this issue of the OrphanAGE.)

The Big O: So, is AfC a set band or is this better described as the Brent Kinder Project?

BK/AfC: AfC is me, and always has been.  Through the years I’ve worked with multiple singers, a drummer or two, guitar players galore…  I’ve also done collabs where people will record my songs as they see fit.  To me if you have participated in an AfC project, you are a member in proud standing.  Currently there is a live version of the band — that started 2 years ago — and those guys are my brothers in arms.  They are basically playing in an AfC cover band.  It’s humbling that they are so committed to the music.

The Big O: Where do you go for all the inspiration?

BK/AfC: I’m 55, I’ve got a lot to say! So many times before a February challenge, I’ve tried to Brian Eno an album out of the nether.  The Murakami album, based on 9 novels of Haruki Murakami;  E is For Everything where every song is in a different key and progressively faster tempos.  On Uniform all 10 songs use the same lyrics.  I literally wrote down a 10-phrase lyric on the spot.  It was poetry, yet profound.  From there I devised 10 distinctly different musical landscapes. Since I played every instrument, sang every word, it was 100% me.  Funny story: I gave the words to the RPM Challenge world and few people took up the challenge, wrote their own songs using the words.  Very cool.

Any album that happens in the middle of an RPM cycle, comes from the heart.  We Are Eagles Now was written for my sister who suffered a spinal stroke.  The Lake was written in New Haven Michigan while on holiday.  Inspiration comes from my life, my loves and hates, my attempt to distance myself from all of those.  The album The Machine, was written about a bunch of words on the paper that sounded good and made a story.

The album I just finished, Desperation, was written and recorded in February. It’s a brutal take on our current political landscape. I forced myself to write bass lines first, then flushed out each song around those.  Lyrically, I just took the words out of the headlines and ran with it. The album Respite was Brian Eno’ed out of some random words drawn from a hat.  When creating music, sometimes you have to be a novelist… or a poet… or a documentarian… and just write.

The Big O: What’s your musical background?

BK/AfC: When I was young i had a voice and sang in school musicals and church choirs.  When I hit puberty, very early, my voice sucked. But my gravity toward music never diminished.  I took piano lessons from my next door neighbor. I joined band in 7th grade. I learned bass in 8th and guitar soon after. With drum, bass and guitar in my head, it was a very short road to being in a band.  I went to college to study music composition. In 2000 I had too many calls about my student loans and joined the 312 Army Band out of Lawrence KS.  26 years later, It’s still the best paying gig I ever had!

The Big O: Is there symbiosis between your music endeavors and your ‘day gig’ with the military?

BK/AfC: I can tell you being on summer tour, I’ve written a ton of songs. I can also tell you that joining Stan Jones and me are two of my favorite vocalists, Ash Reynolds and Daniel Jordan who I met as members of the military band.  I remember recording Ice Castles, Ice Castles, the first album I used live drums on, and setting up at the Army Reserve Center with a 15-piece drum kit. Everything mic’d up, timpani mic’d up. I thought I was hot shit, and my monitor system was flawed so a lot of the timing was off…  I used army gear for at least 7 years before I had cash to buy my own, so I owe a huge debt to the military for those first years of creating and recording.  I wish every musician could have the benefits of being in a military band, because none of them make money and none of them have healthcare, and in the military you get all of that stuff.  It’s pretty remarkable really for a gutter-punk from Columbia to be a 26 year veteran and still playing the local clubs.

The Big O: That’s quite a spread; what’s the coolest place you’ve played?

BK/AfC: Rock band wise: opening for Fugazi was pretty sweet. Military band wise: I played the Lincoln Library dedication, George Bush and Barrack Obama in tow, Brown vs. Board Anniversary, George Bush and Jesse Jackson, Hawaii twice and El Salvador.

The Big O: Why Greece?

BK/AfC: I was in love with Greece as a child. Greek Mythology was the shit and any movie or book that came out was my jam.  My wife and I went on our 10th anniversary and saw all the tourist shit, but also the non-tourist shit and just fell in love.  We have gone every two years since, seeing a different set of islands, a different part of the country. It never gets old.  When we retire at 60 that is where you’ll find us.

NEXT LIVE SHOW: Lemonade Park June 12th with Harper K, 90 Minute Cassette and Neon Signs.
*As we completed work on this interview, AfC dropped album #46...

Roschitzoa

To Be Beautiful - Angie Fights Crime

Review by Michael Bechtel

Brent Kinder is the backbone of this indie, pop, rock band. …more of a project in flux like Alan Parson’s Project but quietly, with a grander scope. With 45 albums since 2007 and a revolving lineup of musicians and vocalists, Angie may not be on time, but she’s timeless.

The latest incarnation of AfC is To Be Beautiful released in 2026. It starts with a mystical and ancient intro. Then comes out swinging, with a bass driven Belinda Green Eyes. Like the great Muhammed Ali, this tune furiously floats like a butterfly. The furious float continues with All my Breath. Between the Mountain and the Sea transforms this float into what seems like an intentional travel tune. The vocal harmonies are very present and you realize they have always been there, just not in your face, but intricately woven into the music.

Ash Reynolds lends the vocals on most tracks, but in true project fashion To Be Beautiful features Jess Savigear and Bethan Mathis while Nikki Goalson is reminiscent of Kate Bush on Tiny Lies.

The power of this album is the subtle growth of how it makes you feel. It drives, it climbs, it sails and it floats. I got the feeling of fearless, endless falling-flying. Without exaggerating the out-of-body, let yourself go throughout this stream of tunes. It took 3 to 4 full listens before the hopeful, longing, crying happiness became one overall feeling. It was almost like it was potentially waiting To Be Beautiful.

Angie Fights Crime:
Brent Kinder, guitar, vocals
Virgel Stigall, bass
Keith Howell, drums
Jason Ulanet, keyboards