The Orange Donuts - sublegendary Kansas City punk rock band

Ladies and Gentlemen of Kansas City, I challenge you to find another venue in the metro offering the OD's "Back at the Ranch" 1984 LP. It's freaking fantastic: fast, sloppy, drunken, drug induced punk rock. I regret I never got to see the ODs (AKA The Orange Donuts) back in the day, but did kick it with guitar player Kurt Witt in the late 80s when I moved back to KC. No need to go into the circumstances and happenings pertaining to said kicking of it, but he probably doesn't remember and it's all pretty fuzzy to me (Kurt's alive and well in KC for those wondering).

Seems to me that Kansas City was a lot more fun back then, though. Kids would hang out behind the Nelson and drink beer, smoke weed, and all that good stuff, and the police didn't really seem to mind. There were always people hanging out back there in those days: art students, KCAL schoolers, the homeless, the insane, and on and on. I think it all ended about the time this kid named Terry spray painted some swastikas on the side of the museum, and that was just about the end of that (Terry had some pretty serious problems . . . years later I worked at a "facility" here in KC and ran into him there, doubt if he's still around today but ya never know). Seems like we went back a couple of times after that to try and hang out, but the musuem security ran us off pretty quick; seems everyone was pretty pissed at ol' Terry for that, but God knows what really happened.

Around the same time there were some pretty badass outdoor concerts at Volker Park across 47th St (and this is all post ODs I think). They were usually tied to some type of benefit or cause. I remember one was a "hemp fest" of sorts and I believe Sin City played. Across the other street from the park, about 15 or so motorcycle cops utilized the half-circle drive in front of what I think was a Kauffman foundation building of some sort. It was pretty intimidating, but I don't remember any trouble going down. Volker kind of took over as a place to hang out, though. There were usually a handfull of folks kicking it under the trees on the west side of the park, anytime day or night. A few years later Mark Holmes organized some pretty treacherous tackle football games out there.

So, yeah . . . I rambled off a little bit there, huh? But yes, the ODs - it's a freaking cool album, I don't really want to sell it - you know, come to think of it I'm not going to. Stop by and I'll play it for you if you, though.  Maybe Kurt will make it up to Waldo one day soon and sign it for me. Maybe he knows what happened to that mutual friend all those years ago . . . Chris . . . something . . .

Here's a front and back shot of the album. The ODs were also on the second Mystic Records "We Got Power" massive punk compilation around the same time. Looking at the liner notes on the hand pasted back cover of Back at the Ranch: "Lyric sheet by Mott ly" (sucks that it's missing), I'm reminded of some iconic KC graffit from way back when - "Mottley has one leg." Indeed he did, and it was painted all over town.

Back at the Ranch -1984

1. T.M.O.S.
2. Compete
3. Hook
4. Fancy Girl
5. Babylon
6. O.D. Theme
7. Disco
8. Time to Time
9. Chip
10. Twisted World
11. Jimmy Time

There's barely anything online about the ODs - post some comments.