Kansas City's Best Garage-Psyche Band. Period.
The Red Headed League’s sound has been fermenting on the fringes of Kansas City's music scene for many years. Like a fine bottle of wine or 30 year old scotch -- judged for its rich flavor, color and smoothness -- compelling songs, strong vocals and instrumental parts, clever hooks and riveting rhythms: these take time to develop, record and release to the world. Echoing from the River Bottoms to the Crossroads Arts District, through Midtown KC and beyond, the Red Headed League has an unique take on a 60’s retro sound. It’s groovy man! You may recognize it from your spinning head and dancing feet. It’s a musical HAPPENING: a new adventure in sonic exploration -- “freeing a tiger from its cage.” The Red-Headed League takes their name from a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- of Sherlock Holmes fame.
The Red-Headed League
The Red-Headed League
The Red-Headed League: "ALIVE & AIRBORNE - A PANDEMIC PERFORMANCE" - Live at recordBar June 13, 2021
The Red-Headed League LIVE at RecordBar 06/13/2021 - “Big Boss Buddha”
The Chupacabra
Big Boss Buddha
The musicians of The Red-Headed League combine a musical legacy dating back to the early days of Kansas City rock, punk, New Wave, folk and alternative rock scenes. Building a dedicated audience in the KC-Lawrence area, RHL plays a solid mix of obscure garage classics and vibrant originals. Written with a solid backbeat, the perfect amount of fuzz guitar, bottomless bass and tasteful organ, the Red Headed League tell tales of shady deals, fast love, broken hearts with a pinch of cosmic illumination.
Led by songwriter and singer extraordinaire Mark Stahl (Nosferatu/The Jolly Rogers) and bassist Dave Olds -who performed in punk bands with the Sinclairs, EMF and most notably, the legendary Sin City Disciples. Previously they created D.E.M. - Deus Ex Machina - a fusion of punk, psychedelic, and jazz in the 80’s, and reformed as The Kansas City Hitmen in the mid-2000’s, cranking out a blistering version of the KC blues.
In 2013, The Red-Headed League was formed with multi-instrumentalist Daniel Starling (Power & Fear/dwstar/Bipolar Magnets) on organ/keys and newcomer Jessee Koehn, on the drums. They went on to produce an unique variety of original material, along with a selection of classic and obscure 60’s garage music. In 2017, the infamous Joey Skidmore (Nikki Sudden/The Royal Nonesuch) joined on rhythm guitar and backing vocals. Bringing decades of musical knowledge and rock tradition to the League - plus a long discography in his own right - Joey’s swaggering guitar sound fits right in.
The Red Headed League have released two EP’s, “The Summer Of Like” in 2015 and “Raw, Live, and Dangerous,” recorded live in 2016. Their first full length album, “A Fistful of Dharma” debuted Spring 2018 to good reviews and has been featured on radio stations from KKFI-90.1 FM - Kansas City to WFMU - New York’s Last and Greatest Rock Radio Station, along with internet playlist adds from Paris, France to Rio De Janeiro.
