Wave Goodbye to Roky Moon & BOLT! (& Then Cry Quietly)

Well, fuck. This is what happens when I step away to deal with crushing day-job deadlines, frantic tax preparations, and driving three freaking hours to The Woodlands to find a damn rabbit. sigh.

So, in case you hadn’t seen it yet, it seems Roky Moon & BOLT! are officially no more. Or will be, rather, after they play the Free Press Summer Fest this coming June 2nd & 3rd. Per the {Houston Press}, that’ll be the band’s last hurrah, although frontman Mike Hardin will reportedly be playing on simply as “Roky Moon”.

However, he’ll be doing most of that up in Austin, I suspect, since he & BOLT! keyboardist Cassie Hargrove moved on up that way this past year. sigh…

It’s a damn, damn shame, because the band’s really-and-truly one of the most entertaining live bands I’ve ever seen — their album release show for last year’s American Honey was flat-out can’t-stop-grinning amazing, and the album itself’s no slouch, either.

You’ve got a couple of chances left to pay your respects, thankfully, namely the aforementioned FPSF set a month or two from now and, a little sooner, this coming Saturday, April 14th over at The Orange Show, where they’ll be playing as part of local scene fixture Mills-McCoin‘s “Rock ‘N’ Roll Circus” alongside {Poor Pilate}, {The Handshake}, & B L A C K I E.

After the initial shock wore off, btw, it occurred to me that this whole thing was set in motion by the drama-filled buyout of The Mink by the current owners. I’ve got nothing against anybody involved, honestly — the new owners picked up the live-show thing nicely, at least as far as I can tell from the various listings I’ve added for ’em — but if the bar hadn’t changed hands, well, Hardin would probably still be back there behind the bar, and maybe the band would still be burning bright. Funny how the world works, sometimes…