Butte band playing for big break in label showcase at Hard Rock

By Thad Kelling of The Montana Standard - 11/10/2004

Big Rain Over Old Montana band members clockwise from top left are Justin Ringsak, Mark Allen, Jessie Kostoff and Tim Mason. Photo courtesy of Big Rain Productions

The chances are one in a million, but a Butte rock band might get a big break when it plays in a showcase at the Hard Rock Cafe in Salt Lake City later this week.

Band members are lead singer and guitarist Jessie Kostoff, guitarist Justin Ringsak, drummer Tim Mason and bassist Mark Allen. They play a mixture of rock, metal and psychedelic music and call themselves Big Rain Over Old Montana — or BROOM.

They have performed only a handful of concerts this year. But they hope to take a big step forward at the 2004 Xtreme Music Group Major Label Showcase Thursday through Sunday.

"Our major goal is to get some management and some promotion," said Kostoff, 31, a Deer Lodge native and Montana Tech student who founded the band 10 years ago and runs a music

production company on the side.

Even though the showcase is open to any band on a first-come-first-served basis, BROOM was personally invited, members said, probably because of the honorable mention Kostoff won in the 2003 John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

Big-time music executives from Epic, Atlantic and Columbia records will attend the showcase and critique bands that will play two songs apiece. The executives will also be available to answer questions and

possibly recruit outstanding artists.

BROOM members struggled to pick two songs to play at the showcase because they have recorded three albums and have around 70 original songs, they said. After debating for weeks, they decided on "Nicht der Bleu" from their album A Girl Called Nature and "Paper Dress" from The Hunt.

While they don't expect to stun the executives at the showcase and be able to quit their day jobs, they do expect to at least meet other music lovers from around the country. In turn, that exposure might allow them to schedule more concerts.

"Just getting the music out there to more people is the most important thing," said Allen, 41, who grew up in Deer Lodge with Kostoff and is a construction worker between jobs.

Only Allen and Kostoff have been with the band since it was first formed. Mason is the bands' eighth drummer, Kostoff said, and Ringsak was recently recruited to fill a newly created rhythm guitar position.

Kostoff writes all their music. Much of it is inspired by four short stories he wrote as a young adult about a creature that lives in a post-apocalyptic future. Kostoff's friend lost his only copy of the stories years ago, and he has been recreating them through his music ever since.

Regardless of what happens at the showcase, Kostoff said the band will stay together in one form or another. Future projects include recording a fourth album and possibly producing a movie documenting Kostoff's short stories with BROOM background music. "I think we are just getting going."