Season to Risk at the Raccoon Motel -- June 8.
Monday, June 8, 6 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
Touring in support of 2025's remastered version of their album In a Perfect World, a 30th-anniversary release for which, according to New Noise magazine, the artists were "sounding as powerful and vital as ever," the post-punk and alternative rockers of Season to Risk headline a June 8 concert at Davenport's Raccoon Motel, other fan-favorite albums including 1-800-Meltdown, Men Are Monkeys, Robots Win, and their sefl-titled 1993 debut.
Season to Risk formed in late 1989 from Kansas City, Missouri punk bands Nine Lives and Curious George, who played together at the Outhouse, a Lawrence, Kansas hardcore venue. Although Season to Risk have had several line-up changes, two founding members have remained constant: Steve Tulipana (lead vocals, guitar) and Duane Trower (lead guitar, keyboards, and vocals). Drummer David Silver joined the band in 1994. Wade Williamson (rhythm guitar and keyboards) joined in 1999, coming from the band Dirtnap. Bass player Ben Ruth began touring with the band in 2024 (and played with Trower in Overstep in the 1990s).
Founding bass player Paul Malinowski played from 1989 - 1995, until he left to join the Kansas City band Shiner. He was replaced on bass in 1995 by Josh Newton, who also plays guitar in Shiner. The band's genre-bending sound has been defined as post-rock, post-hardcore, math rock, and indie rock. Their constantly changing music has challenged audiences and the record labels they have worked with, with one CMJ reviewer calling it "metal for recovering indie rockers".
The band were signed in 1992 to Red Decibel records in Minneapolis, who then partnered with Columbia Records / Sony, who released their first two albums, during the early 90s post-Nirvana alternative rock band-signing frenzy. Season to Risk toured constantly for their first 15 years, being booked as a young band on shows with Killdozer, Killing Joke, Prong, Fugazi, Corrosion of Conformity, Monster Magnet, and Unsane. They performed a song in a nightclub scene in the 1994 film Strange Days, while living in a trailer on set in Hollywood for two weeks.
They released four albums between 1993 and 2001, at which time they were managed by Stacy Slater at the Talent House in Los Angeles (who also managed 7 Year Bitch and Kool Keith). The master tapes for the band's first two albums were destroyed in the 2008 Universal Studios fire, along with an estimated 150,000 other master tapes.
More recently, Season to Risk released a limited-edition of 100 cassettes/digital compiling a collection of rare singles, B-sides, experiments, cover songs including Bauhaus, The Go-Go's, Killdozer, and others in 2021 titled 1-800-MELTDOWN and played a release show with Descendents and The Menzingers. Season to Risk began recording new music with Duane Trower at his studio Weights and Measures Soundlab in 2022, while they were reunited for shows with Cheer Accident. Shows followed in 2023 with Man or Astroman and in 2024 with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Traindodge, and Cherubs.
Season to Risk headline their Davenport engagement on June 8, admission to the 6 p.m. concert is $19.84, and more information and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
