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Photo byNolis

 

Six months ago the dream was all but dead.

Kids These Days officially broke up on May 8, 2013. Two days later I was behind the wheel of my Chevy Trailblazer heading north to Wisconsin. The seven piece funk/soul/rock/hip-hop group that had captivated a generation of a city was no more, and they had retreated north to make sense of it all.

As I drove through the newly warm spring air with drummer Greg Landfair, his girlfriend and a friend, we listened to the eclectic sounds of Traphouse Rock and Hard Times. The group had spanned nearly four years together, essentially amounting to what would later be referred to as their “college days”. With college over, we pulled up to a hastily-erected sign on the side of a seldom-used street in what seemed like the middle of nowhere of  Wisconsin to return to where it all began.

As we pulled up to the main house of the Postock farm, the ominous sounds of Macie Stewart’s voice could already be heard emanating from the large, old barn located just on the other side of the red brick structure.

For a group of young adults that achieved so much, the end of the band was almost jarringly abrupt. After a series of tense discussions and numerous arguments, Kids These Days rode out their tour through New York and called it quits. Horn players Nico Segal and J.P. Floyd left from there to join Frank Ocean on tour, Vic Mensa immediately embarked on a solo hip-hop career and the rest headed back to Chicago to figure everything out.