Manhattan band hits big time

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Jul 28, 2000 by Bill Blankenship Capital-Journal

--- Marina Chavez

Shows

ULTIMATE FAKEBOOK will perform three times in this area this weekend to celebrate its just released album, "This Will Be Laughing Week" (550 Music/Epic). The band will headline an all-ages show with Ashtray Babyhead as the opening act at 6 p.m. today, July 28, at The Bottleneck, 737 New Hampshire, Lawrence. That will be followed by an 18-and-older show with The Creature Comforts at 10 p.m. On Saturday night, Ultimate Fakebook will headline a show with Kinder and Podstar at The Hurricane, 4048 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo.

Ultimate Fakebook returns to Kansas to celebrate the re-release of its album by a national label.

By BILL BLANKENSHIP

The Capital-Journal

MANHATTAN --- In the perennial K-State vs. KU battle for supremacy, the Jayhawks could usually humble the Wildcats with their much more vibrant local music scene.

Liberty Hall, The Bottleneck and The Granada are favorite tour stops in Lawrence for rising stars and some of the biggest names in pop music.

However, Aggieville now has a claim to fame with Ultimate Fakebook and its three K-State dropouts who have just graduated to a national recording deal.

Bill McShane, 26, says he and his third cousin, Nick Colby, 26, are fulfilling a dream they have shared since they were teenagers growing up in Beloit.

"We pretty much got into it early on from age 15 on and played in high school bands until we moved to Manhattan," said McShane last week from Washington, D.C., where he was taking some time off before resuming a tour that brought the band back home to Kansas this week.

The cousins learned to play instruments together --- guitar for McShane and bass for Colby.

"Nick and I always knew we wanted to be in a band, even before we could play instruments," McShane said. "It was our first career choice --- and there was no second choice. We had this rock 'n' roll sickness all the way back then."

So did they get into rock to make music or meet girls?

"It was making music, and then we figured everything else would kind of fall into place," McShane said with a laugh.

Meanwhile, Eric Melin, 28, was growing up in Olathe, where he began playing drums while a high school freshman.

"I bought this cheesy drum set for $100 and started playing along with all the metal albums I listened to in high school," Melin said. "I never took any lessons --- just sat there with headphones on, playing along until I could play all the songs."

McShane and Colby moved to Manhattan in 1994 and formed the first version of Ultimate Fakebook. Melin, who also moved to Mahattan to attend K-State, joined the band about 3 1/2 years ago.

"It was a four-piece with a lead singer who also played guitar," McShane said. "We sounded nothing like we do today. When the singer quit, we had time booked at a studio and I said, 'Hey, waddya say I try singing and in two weeks we'll go in to record?'

"And that changed our whole sound, with my style of songwriting and my voice. Nick and I had always been on the same page, and he wanted to go this new direction as well."

Those recording sessions produced "Electric Kissing Parties," which was released on Noisome Records, an indie label based in Lawrence. The band began touring throughout the Midwest and followed up their debut CD in April 1999 with another Noisome Records release, "This Will Be Laughing Week."

Both albums were produced by Ed Rose at Red House Studios in Eudora, and McShane credited Rose with urging them to record another album before they started touring extensively.

And did they ever tour, playing more than 140 shows in 1999 between April 1 and Dec. 31, including a nine-month stint on the sold- out "Get Up Kids" tour and opening slots with Cheap Trick.

"We ended up getting out to New York city quite often," McShane said. "At one point, we stopped and looked at our calendar and realized we had played New York City more times in the last six months than Kansas City."

Tracks from "This Will Be Laughing Week" garnered airplay on college radio across the country as the buzz about Ultimate Fakebook built. This led to it being picked up for national distribution by 550 Records/Epic, which just released the CD on Tuesday.

"Tell Me What You Want" is the first radio single from the album, and the re-release of "This Will Be Laughing Week" also includes two re-recorded tracks from "Electric Kissing Parties."

To mark the national label album release, Ultimate Fakebook is back home to celebrate with the fans who gave them their support in the early days. They played Thursday night in Manhattan, perform tonight in Lawrence then do a show Saturday in Kansas City, Mo., before their tour goes back East.

"We haven't played in Kansas for quite some time," McShane said. "Record release parties aside, we're just really excited we're getting back to our home area, finally, after being on the road for so long."

Bill Blankenship can be reached at

(785) 295-1284 or bblankenship@cjonline.com.