A new festival with Reno bands will bring the noise to downtown Reno this fall.
Rage on West Street was announced in early August and is set for 2 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 26, with free music at Wingfield Park, 2 S. Arlington Ave., which reopened in June.
The headliner is The Deadly Gallows, the punk-meets-pirate-folk group. The rest of the lineup announced as of this writing includes other bands that have a veteran feel: Beercan, Vampirates, Nosebone and CHX Collective.
Alon Burton, a longtime Reno musician and show organizer, is putting together Rage with Sierra Tap House co-owner Mike Connolly and bar manager Josh Pratt (who is also in Beercan).
“I’m describing it as a punk-rock-driven, but still multi-genre, community festival,” Burton said. “It has a core Reno feel to it—a lot of DIY artists, and a lot of musicians I’ve known for a long time. I’ve even played in bands with a couple of them. They all have a following, and I just wanted to see them all on a stage together.”
There also will be food and drink vendors, a silent disco, artist booths and DJs at the nearby West Street Plaza, near the corner of First Street and Arlington Avenue. Burton is exploring options to expand the event footprint to additional locales.
The “Rage” idea was hatched in 2025 between Burton, who is a bartender at Shim’s Surplus, and Connolly, who owns Shim’s and co-owns Sierra Tap House.
“The Sierra Tap House 20th anniversary came around, and we started looking into doing something for that,” Burton said.
Burton wants to continue Rage on West Street next year, possibly expanding it into a multi-month summer street fair followed by a big Wingfield Park show in September.
“Basically, I just want something that’s available to a large section of the community, where people can be safe and comfortable there,” he said.
Learn more about the event on Instagram @rageonweststreetfestival.
Spencer Kilpatrick tackles an old-school sound for ‘Dog Run’
I’m old enough to remember using four-track cassette recorders, where your songs were likely swamped in tape hiss, but also had a charm that was timeless, in a way.
Reno musician Spencer Kilpatrick not only remembers four-track recording, but has embraced it for his latest project. Known for his work with his own group, the Sand Gators, Kilpatrick just released a solo record, Dog Run. Its 12 songs were recorded mostly by him on a TASCAM Portastudio, the first four-track multitrack recorder using a standard cassette tape, introduced in 1979. The album is a mix of minimalist folk-rock songs with some great instrumental tracks and fun surprises throughout.
Guest players on Dog Run include saxophonist Rachel McElhiney and drummer Kris Stosic from the Sand Gators, along with Kilpatrick’s wife, Dani, and sister, Jimi, as the rhythm section on “Rach’s Blues.”
McElhiney, who called Spencer Kilpatrick her “musical buddy for over a decade now,” put her sax work on during the musicians’ regular writing and recording sessions.
“I think I maybe listened to the tracks once and then just would start playing,” she said. “So, we really didn’t have a plan with it. It was just pretty good to hang out, and I feel really excited and fortunate to be on anything he’s doing.”
Kilpatrick said he wanted to experiment with sound and what kind of guitar tones he could get with a TASCAM. He treated Dog Run like a journal, writing a new song every day from February through April. Then, he picked the 12 songs he most enjoyed listening to for the album. He gave a shoebox of tapes with the songs to Rick Spagnola, the engineer and owner of Dogwater Studios.
“He’s the one that made it palatable,” Kilpatrick said of Spagnola’s editing and mixing work. “Every song has, at most, four tracks, so he just took them all and put on some light EQ and did such a great job of maintaining the spirit of the project while making it actually listenable.”
Kilpatrick is printing CDs of Dog Run, which will be available when he plays with McElhiney and Stosic as an opener for Los Angeles duo Brainstory on Thursday, Aug. 27, at the Holland Project. The next Sand Gators show is an opening slot for Black Joe Lewis on Saturday, Aug. 22 at The Alpine.
One Ton Dually gives fans ‘The Finger’
One of the band members’ young sons, Bobby, flips the bird on the cover of rock band One Ton Dually’s new album, The Finger, its first release since 2018.
Also recorded by Rick Spagnola (see above) at Dogwater Studios, the album is the band’s entertaining and expert mix of classic garage music, ’70s guitar rock and moody post-punk.
One Ton Dually features Rory Dowd on bass and vocals, Spike Richie on guitar and backing vocals, Steve Barron on guitar, and Nick Ramirez on drums and vocals. The band started 11 years ago, and Barron joined six years ago when original guitarist Jackson Truckle left Reno.
Richie described the band’s sound as “rock ’n’ roll that leans into punk,” while Dowd said the band has “that ’70s, ’80s kind of punk rock ethic—as opposed to being like, post-hardcore, post-punk or post-post.”
The Finger is available on Bandcamp and streaming services, with CDs possibly in the works, according to Ramirez. He gave a practical reason for the long wait between releases: “We write about a song and a half a year.” Plus, Ramirez and Dowd have young children, which affects the band’s playing and writing schedules.
“I think, emotionally, we are planning for a third album in a less lengthy amount of time,” Dowd said. “Because we are bursting with ideas; we’re better at production; and we’re better at our instruments. So, I don’t think The Finger is the last you’ll hear from One Ton Dually for the next 10 years.”
In fact, One Ton Dually has two shows featuring songs from the album on the docket for fall. They’ll play on Saturday, Sept. 26, at the Cellar Stage at Alturas Bar, and as part of the pre-and-post-show music for a production of the play Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll on Friday, Oct. 23 at the Brewery Arts Center in Carson City. The band’s Facebook page is the place to check for updates.
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If there’s a record release coming up, a festival slot or a show of note, we want to tell our readers. Send the news to markearnestwriter@gmail.com or follow me on Instagram @markearnestofreno.