THE SITUATION I’m spending a stormy evening at the Forge Lounge with the four members of MK Speed Dial: 20-somethings Brandon Jaffe, Adam Parker, Scotty Rickard, and Jon Wesley. After three years together, MK Speed Dial (the name is a random reference to Mary-Kate Olsen’s connection to Heath Ledger’s 2008 accidental death) is preparing to play their last show. Jaffe, one of the band’s two principal songwriters and lead singers (Rickard is the other), is moving to New York City to seek his fortune in just a couple of weeks.
HOW THEY GOT HERE Jaffe will be leaving a job at the Showbox, where he works alongside Rickard “settling with bands, walking out drunks, and making sure security breaks up fights.”
“George Clinton’s band had to be asked to stop smoking so much crack,” says Rickard, recalling on-the-job memories. “[At that show], a kid who couldn’t get in because he wasn’t 21 climbed through the air ducts and fell through the roof onto the guitar tech during the show.”
“The bartender was like, ‘It’s raining white people!,’ ” says Jaffe. “That [story’s] legendary.”
SHOP TALK MK Speed Dial’s final show at the Rendezvous will also serve as the release show for their second EP, the conclusively titled Here It Is. The five songs are youthful and punchy. “One of the songs [“I Wish She’d Call Me”] is about cell-phone stress,” says Rickard. “I wrote it specifically about this girl I was dating, and I knew she was going to break up with me, and she wouldn’t call me back or text me back. I was like, ‘I can’t deal with this! Just do it!’ “
“I think those are the best lyrics you’ve ever written,” says Jaffe.
BTW: I ask each band member for their favorite MK Speed Dial memory, now that it’s all coming to an end. Wesley loved playing Neumos, his favorite venue; Parker picks opening for Miike Snow at the Showbox SoDo back in 2010—”Biggest stage, most people,” he says. “It felt like our peak performance.” Rickard and Jaffe go with more low-key moments—Rickard chooses the band’s beginnings in the basement of his tiny house; Jaffe names a costume party they played in West Seattle two Halloweens ago. “We played in a basement and it was just packed,” he says. “We kept breaking strings and everything was all fucked up, but we just had a great time.”
