Summer is here and so are free, outdoor concerts suitable for all ages.  However, the once highly-anticipated Brown Bag series and Thursday evening shows at the Gage Park Amphitheater have halted due to city budget cuts. Despite the decrease in performances, this summer still allows for some free music outside and we encourage you to [...]

Topeka is hosting two rocking music events at two Topeka venues, so no matter what your musical inclinations may be, you’re likely to find it this weekend. The Topeka Music Scene Band Battle, Part 1, kicks it off Saturday, June 5, at 1 p.m, at Hot Pockets in Oakland.  When Les Roediger, event organizer and [...]

This is the eighth post of a blog by Matt Porubsky called “satisfactual,” which will be updated weekly, discussing odds and ends about Topeka history and culture, with a little opinion thrown in for good measure. It was my first time at Uncle Bo’s last night. My wife Leah and the general manager of Uncle [...]

In Sarah Newberry’s office at Colmery-O’Neil VA Hospital, patients fill up the institution-blue chairs and crowd around the stereo. They have over 200 CD’s to choose from, and the conversation blossoms in this small room, discussions starting with the immediacy of the music issued from the speakers, but ending in places very few of us [...]

Rod Peterson and Greg Spreer, members of the Back Porch Blues Band, also play as a duo under the name The Blue Devils.  Peterson does harmonica and vocals, Spreer on guitar and vocals.  They’ll be bringing the blues to the Topeka Farmers’ Market May 1. Q:  Which of you works harder? Rod:  On stage?  Well, [...]

The Heartland Men’s Chorus will perform a program entitled And Justice For All on Friday, May 7 at 7:30 pm at Grace Cathedral, 701 SW 8th Ave.  Joe Nadeau, Artistic Director, will conduct the 100 voices of the chorus in this special  program of music and narration centered on Martin Luther King Jr.’s statement that “Injustice anywhere [...]

Check out Patrick Lentz this Saturday, March 27th @ Sharkey's Tiki Bar and Grill

On the day that Sam Billen’s mother lost her 3-year battle with breast cancer, Sam played the piano to comfort her as she passed from this world. That very day, he composed the piano tune, “Death of a Saint,” the first of ten piano pieces that helped Sam to funnel his feelings of grief and [...]

-photos by EJ Drake “You play someone a great record and they don’t react to it, you know it’s time to get them out of your house.” - Miriam Linna, former Cramps drummer When vinyl chloride was discovered in the late 19th century, the resulting versatile plastic was tossed out as a useless rigid material, as [...]

If you yearn for the days when gas was less then fifty cents a gallon, Nixon was still in office and Midnight Special and Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert were the bastions of late night music shows, then get your bell bottoms on, lace up your earth shoes, and boogie on down to McB’s April 17. That’s [...]