CHAPTER 1Seek the Riot

I came across the Beech Grove metal band Seek the Riot at the city of Beech Grove (Ind.) Freedom Festival on July 4, 2004. It was my first opportunity to use the first DSLR (digital single-lens reflex camera) that I owned, a Rebel 300D, which also happened to be Canon’s first generation digital Rebel (images were a maximum 6.3 megapixels).

The five-member group was performing on a stage set up in Sarah T. Bolton Park. Members of the band were (left to right in the above picture) Chris Sutter, Wes Goble, Chris Danz II, Stephen Viles (drummer, mostly obscured by Danz) and Chris DeWeese.

I chatted with Danz during a break in the show (or maybe it was afterward), and he told me that at the time, the group had been performing together for only about four months. He said all five knew each other from school in Beech Grove.

Because this blog did not launch until late 2008, I had never devoted a post to the images I took from that Fourth of July shoot. While trying to compose this post, it occurred to me to try and see if I could find out what happened to the band in the intervening years.

There is virtually nothing available on the Internet about Seek the Riot other than evidence that the band might have had a page at the old social media platform MySpace at one time. For those who don't recognize MySpace, it was at one time the leading social media networking site in the world. It launched around the same time as Facebook, and for several years the two went head to head attracting new members. 

MySpace seemed to be a place to which artists — especially musicians, but certainly those practicing other art forms as well — gravitated, while Facebook was a more open-ended social interaction venue. But after reaching its pinnacle in early 2008, MySpace membership and usage declined, slowly at first then dramatically. Seek the Riot's page at MySpace, for example, though still active today is void of anything of use, import or value. 

From research using Google and newspapers.com, I did learn a little bit about the band after its appearance at the 2004 Beech Grove Freedom Festival, but not a lot. So I went onto Facebook and asked any of my friends if they had knowledge — or knew someone who might have knowledge — of what happened to Danz & Co. or could put me in touch with one of the former band members. I received no responses.  

From a search of newspaper archives, I was able to learn that Seek the Riot was still performing together at least the following year, 2005. I found newspaper blurbs promoting the band’s appearances in February, May and August of that year at Club Logos, 154 1/2 E. Jefferson St. in Franklin, Ind. When looking up this address on the map, Club Logos appears to have been on an upper floor of the building pictured below, which is in downtown Franklin.  

Other bands appearing at Club Logos with Seek the Riot on the same dates in 2005 included Subfiction, Spout & the Orange, Retro Young, Jane Wasn’t Perfect, Inamorato, Ghost of Maine, Kingston Falls, Into the Silence, Mother Sixgun (make a note of this one), Devil to Pay, The Down Theory, Goodbye Celebration and Alfloras Demise. Usually, only three bands performed each night at Logos.

I also found a listing, again in February 2005, indicating Seek the Riot was on a substantially sized bill for a multi-day Emergenza Festival at Birdy’s, 2131 E. 71st St., Indianapolis. Since 1992, Emergenza Festivals have assisted independent, unsigned bands in gaining exposure on the national and international music scene by giving them an opportunity to perform before crowds. Festivals have been held in more than 150 cities globally. 

But those blurbs are the only things I could find on Seek the Riot, which seems to indicate that the band didn’t last much longer. But I don’t know for sure. It’s just a guess. 

Pictures in this post feature the full band, closeups of Danz and of 5-year-old Brandon Mangold, a member of the crowd watching the show who also was entertaining festival attendees with his distinctive manner of dancing. 

Incidentally, one of my pictures of the band on stage and another of Brandon were published on July 7 in the South zoned news section of The Indianapolis Star. 

Above and below: During Seek the Riot's July 4, 2004, performance at the Beech Grove Freedom Festival, 5-year-old Brandon Mangold, son of Michelle Mangold of Indianapolis, caught the eye of spectators (and yours truly) with his dancing in the audience during the Seek the Riot show.

Coming tomorrow: Chapter 2, City of Franklin, Ind. 

Previously in Catching Up ... on pre-blog years:

Introduction