The Lawrence garage-rock band Rooftop Vigilantes celebrates the release of its new album Let It Be this weekend.
Rooftop Vigilantes is a proudly sloppy band. Every song on Let It Be is shorter than three minutes. It’s possible this penchant for brevity may be rooted in an inability to maintain focus for more than a few minutes at a time.
3 reasons we’re listening to Rooftop Vigilantes this week
1. It takes an extraordinary amount of gumption to title an album Let It Be, the name of the Beatles’ final release. The members of Rooftop Vigilantes are probably goofing on the Replacements’ 1984 album of the same name more than the 1970 classic by the Beatles.
2. Let It Be is being released by High Dive Records, a Kansas City label that’s documented work by area rock bands including Psychic Heat and the Conquerors.
3. The dingy sound of Let It Be is in the low-fidelity tradition of acclaimed bands like Guided By Voices. The abysmal sound is seen as an attribute by the anti-corporate faction of the indie-rock community that insists on “keeping it real.”
Rooftop Vigilantes releases Let It Be with a show in Kansas City on Friday at the Blind Tiger, with Shy Boys, the Conquerors and Toys That Kill opening; and in Lawrence on Saturday at the Replay Lounge with Psychic Heat and Wendy Moira opening.
Bill Brownlee’s writing appears weekly in The Kansas City Star and Ink magazine. He blogs about Kansas City’s jazz scene at Plastic Sax.
