There are few scenes more complicatedly tight-knit and wonderfully wound around people, real people, than alternative Christian rock music of the ‘90s. And no one in the scene was more complicated and knit in as much as Michael Knott. Of the 30+ albums he wrote and many colorful performances and appearances he made, none came as close to the recognition he was due as his band Aunt Bettys. They were originally "Aunt Betty's Ford", but Ford Motor Company did not like that. A lot of people "did not like that" when Mike wanted to make music happen: he didn't seek approval and didn't ask permission. He told stories in his songs, and those stories were brutally honest. They didn't shy from struggles with substances, pains of separation from loved people, or hypocrisy and abuse in the church and elsewhere. The eponymous album Aunt Bettys was a clear testimony to all this, and people both did and didn't like it. Sometimes the same person could feel both. That's just what Mike could do: make you uncomfortably comforted. The feeling of failures mixed into the everyday swirled into fundamental life questions was where he drew from, and his music sat people for decades in that mixture and let them feel whatever they were going to feel in it. It was a powerfully unique gift that he expressed in so many ways leading up to his recent passing in 2024.
Lost in Ohio Records put effortful work into seeing this re-release happen across vinyl, CD, cassette and digital, along with entirely new artwork re-expressing the original's luster and attitude. It took many people to make this happen, a process I was privileged to witness at times. Almost all those people had some close connection to express that explained their contributions to the album. For me, this album was fundamental to my understanding of alternative rock. That's a term Mike may have even coined before it was ever used on glossy labels and slick television spots. Many think so based on how early he was using it. I couldn't tell you for sure. What I can tell you is it wouldn't surprise me. Mike Knott gave things to music and to people with reckless abandon for a safe legacy and a heart for telling his own stories how he wanted to tell them.
And with Aunt Bettys, he wanted to tell them loudly, unfiltered through the wincing gatekeepers, and alongside his friends. Many of them are here, and the band features Andrew and Chuck, veterans of the original lineup. Brian, the third of the original four piece, had an unfortunate late scheduling conflict and couldn't make it that day, but his contributions are in the album re-release efforts and the bonus EP Off the Record that includes Aunt Bettys songs re-recorded by the band and friends. This show is to celebrate all that, and experience a legacy that's more than memoriam: it's in the music and stories of everyone in the room.
The Rocky Valentines
The Rocky Valentines are the kind of rock band you listen to while enjoying that it comes from somewhere. You can sort of hear it, and there's enough smiles and head bobs of recognition around you to say that somewhere has a place in this room. The first obvious "somewhere" is frontman Charlie Martin's father, Jason Martin of Starflyer 59. Jason was there in the audience, supporting of course his son's band but also to pay homage to the Aunt Bettys. Everyone who came out of this scene in those days was no more than one degree separated from Mike and zero distance from his meaningful legacy of songwriting and rock music. The Rocky Valentines are about to show us that through the people this scene produced, the distance of the legacy doesn't get much wider with new generations. That's a kind of legacy Knott earned, and that lends its own respect and feelings in this show. But before they can show us their own somewhere, The Rocky Valentines open with a disembodied robot voice making a simple declaration: "Hello. We are the Rocky Valentines." Simple enough. The band isn't much for talking. The songs do their talking, in a really enjoyable form that blends the floaty feel you could expect in a Martin lineage into an occasional run through some faster guitars and tempos upped enough to get heads nodding dangerously close to headbang velocities. The restraint visited in slower, floatier songs is tossed aside with little regard when Charlie is ready to take us somewhere more rollercoaster and straight alternative rock.
The band is tight and brings out the up and downs of the sound well, realizing their frontman/drummer's (frontdrummer's?) vision. Charlie himself said in a recent interview he "feels like a one-man band". He wrote and recorded most of the Rocky Valentines music himself. When live, Charlie takes the drums, joined by some frequent collaborators across his seven releases. They opt for pre-recorded vocal tracks during the show. Charlie puts the focus into the expressively thick drumming that drives the rhythms in his music. The rest of the band supplies the right kind of leaning motion-implied groove to complete it. There's a thoughtfulness to the songwriting that incorporates simple lyrics and lush melodies with a pleasant crunch underneath. They don't just open the show. The Rocky Valentines wordlessly show us one of the myriad paths Knott's legacy has taken: encouraging honest and raw-laced songwriting from a newer generation with strong friendship connections into the same circles. They finish their set well, and the disembodied robot bids us adieu, and then it's time for Watashi Wa to go next.
Watashi Wa
Watashi Wa are quietly expressive on the stage. Not music-quiet. Their music doesn't shy away from the distortion or rock drive. But it's understated, as if no explanation of the words and chords could ever be needed. Seth Roberts isn't the kind of frontman who talks much in his sets. Same with the rest of the band. A few appreciative words for this day, the honor of being included in it, and a wry joke here and there. They don't act like rock stars, they act like rock musicians. Seth has a gift for songwriting, bringing honest expressions to his lyrics that speak of imperfection, happiness, love, and loss. It fits well with the legacy of the man this re-release celebrates, and Seth would be the first to acknowledge the clear influence. Seth also appears on the bonus EP, singing "Starbaby" with an expressiveness that comes from a lover of the music and the people. Watashi Wa does with rock music what that one warm current in a cold ocean does for the swimmer: you want to find it, follow where it goes, and feel the transition between the coldness of everything outside and the comfort of everything inside. Watashi Wa's music fundamentally feels good: you know you're listening to a good thing, and you realize you wanted that. Their set wanders between classics from their earliest albums and more recent work, all woven with a love of people who've been doing this long enough to be more than proficient at it. And they've also been doing it long enough that they sing to friends, not audience. If you're not their friend already before the first chord hits, you are when the last one finishes. The whole band has an intimacy to their craft, and that extends to them out in the audience after, talking with anyone and waiting, as we all are, for the Aunt Bettys to take the stage.
Aunt Bettys
The band started the way I think Mike would have if he was there. I think this because it's about how he started when I had the privilege of seeing him live before his passing. A quick simple hello from Ryan, then "We're the Aunt Bettys and we hope you have a good time." Right into "Addict". Of immediate note was the four vocal mics on stage. Lead guitarist Andrew Carter and vocalist Ryan Mead (of SoCal band GoForth) having mics was to be expected. Justin Morales, standing in for original bassist Brian Doidge chiming in on vocals also made sense: the three mic setup was the standard run for the Bettys across their touring. But Chuck Cummings was back there on the drums, belting out with them. "Chuck never had a mic when we used to play live." Andrew jokes about it later in the set, "but we decided... eh, why not? Let him sing." And he did. As an original member of the Bettys appearing on stage beside Andrew, his tie to the words showed in the power he put into them, and his expressiveness seemed to place him somewhere between here and the last time he played on this same stage... with the Aunt Bettys, about 30 years ago, at what would be their last show. It's really something to be standing in the venue where the Aunt Bettys last played, and the gulf of years seems a lot less about time when you hear the continued passion in the performing and the love for it all in the audience. I see lots of smiles when I go to shows. I rarely see so much bliss. This is a genuinely unique experience to get access to, and we all appreciate it.
Every person there felt a certain gravity in the songs. Listening to Knott's Aunt Bettys work is a weird juxtaposition, because like so much of his music, the lyrics and riffs sit in this fun crunch of genuinely unusual lyrics that make sense, like you're hearing a story and maybe you were even there. But there's a hint of something else underneath the skin of the words and grit of guitars.
And then she started dancing like a mad-hatted, star-gazing, love-making, nympho-killing, psychotic, tail-wagging, cloth-ripping, body-whipper
Needless to say
We were dumbfounded
Ryan sings this in the second song of the set, reciting Mike's words from the 90s. Mike's close friends, including those in The Aunt Bettys, could really only tell you a few things for certain about Mike's lyrics: they all came from stories he lived, they all had at least a little embellishment to them, and they all mean something. None of these are surprising to anyone who's listened enough to Knott's expansive discography over the years. You can hear these are stories. Some of them are as relatable as a neighbor who makes the whole building smell (listen to the album; you'll find it). Some are as unexpected as pining so badly for a woman who's decided upon a different lifestyle that... you know what, just listen to the album. You'll find it. And yeah, it's the album for this band, because Aunt Bettys was cut unmercifully short. It's a story of betrayal by the music industry and a failure of people, and it's a story worth knowing and not mine to tell it best. Suffice it to say of the 30+ albums Knott put out over his storied career, this is the closest he came to the recognition he deserved. As pioneer of "alternative" as a named genre and co-creator of what would become the hugely impactful Tooth and Nail Records, Knott's legacy is utterly inescapable. But here, at this show, it's painstakingly visceral. You can feel it in the room from people eager to talk about the impact on their lives. This impact comes the same way his whole legacy arrived: people telling stories to each other.
The band finds their way through each of the songs, and the audience participation isn't just singing along. It's memories. I hear some of them. People tell me about how they heard one of the songs the first time Mike played it live, people tell me they heard a version where Mike just wanted to tell the whole story start to finish about what happened in the song, and others tell me about how instead of playing at all, he'd just leave the stage because he was done. If you wanted the safest, album-clean and glossy performances, Mike Knott was never for you. Many people here who had the privilege of knowing him say this wasn't just about his music, but also Mike himself. He wasn't for the people looking for tidy Christian rock that fit on the posters. "If your teen likes _______ they'll like ______". He was for the Christians that wondered who was for them at all. The ones who struggled and didn't understand why so many others either didn't or hid it better. For those who struggled and made disasters and found friends who helped them limp through it and sometimes had to say a bad word about it. He was for me. And I'm not at all alone in this room. No one is.
And some of the room ends up on stage. Jeff Elbel is here, a man who was friends with Mike and the scene. He's important to its history through various bands and continues documentation through contributions to Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. Bill Spry, founder of Lost in Ohio, is here too. They both are summoned for the closing encore, and it fits. Seth, too. He's brought up once to sing "Starbaby" just as he had for the EP, and again for that closer, "Kitty Courtesy", a fan favorite. This is a stage and a show for people. And those people hang out after the show, swapping more stories and witnessing the length and breadth of his legacy. I hear about how some of the album artwork was designed. I hear about how horrified he made record executives. I hear about how he went to a theme park and spent a long time playing with these mounted squirt guns that let you spray people as they went by on a ride. He loved it, laughing and genuinely just enjoying spraying the hell out of these people. That was one of my favorite stories.
