No matter how many records, good or bad, Rivers Cuomo has released with Weezer, he can't escape his mockable heavy-metal history with the band Avant Garde. (You have all seen the hilarious AG band photo featuring the frontman with an amazing '80s metal mullet, right?) And speaking locally, Minus the Bear and Roy can do (and have done) remarkable things, but despite all that, they'll probably always be the bands "featuring members of Botch."

It can be a great thing to have your history follow you, especially if it's beloved by the masses. It usually leads to you having an instant fan base and publicity. But it could also turn around to bite you in the ass. Hard. Unfair expectations are firmly set in place based on any and all previous work once done with an entirely different group of musicians. And the more successful the group was, the higher the expectations! That's gotta suck.

That's why the past, as permanent as it is, sometimes needs to be forgotten—or at least to be let go of a little bit. I congratulate those artists who, despite whatever success their previous endeavors brought them, climb over the high mountain of typecasting to fulfill their desire of making art. Even if it means they have to work twice as hard to escape from their history.

When the Get Up Kids broke up last year, a few of the band's members focused their talents on new projects. As a GUK fan, I was excited that some of the Kansas City boys would still exist in my musical world, and I hoped the best for their new stuff.

The first to release new material was singer Matt Pryor, with his band the New Amsterdams. I listened and tried not to pigeonhole him into the past, but unfortunately their slowed-down pop by way of alt-country is more reminiscent of my least favorite (okay, completely unbearable) Get Up Kids album, On a Wire. Bummer.

Blackpool Lights, though, are another outfit to rise from GUK's ashes. Jim Suptic started this project in 2004, before the Get Up Kids officially broke up, but they didn't release their first full-length, This Town's Disaster, until this summer.

The record is packed with sing-along, power-pop moments, some dirty rock 'n' roll guitars, and even a little country flare. It's no Get Up Kids, but hell, Blackpool Lights aren't the Get Up Kids!

You can see them for yourselves when they play El Corazón on Tuesday, August 8. Show starts at 7:00 p.m. and costs $8 advance ($10 at the door). So come, Get Up Kids' fans, rejoice in the brand-new but familiar sounds. And if anyone yells out "Red Letter Day," Suptic reserves the right to punch you in the face.