Star Magazine’s 2008 Emerging Artists

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“It was incredible,” says drummer Mike Mazzarese.

The experience was a lesson in both ambition and humility. On one hand, the band got some perspective on the difference between where it was and where it wanted to be.

“Backstage we were known as the band with the beat-up van pulling the U-Haul trailer,” says lead singer Brett Ditgen. “Everyone else was riding tour buses.”

The other lesson: Once you’ve had a swig of Cristal, it’s tough to go back to yard beer.

“Being up on that big stage in front of so many people — we didn’t want to stop,” says bassist Tom Brown. “It made us realize even more how much we want it.”

Crowds of thousands may not be in its immediate future, but Red Line Chemistry has launched a plan that should lead to more success and a few perks — or at least a bigger van with a smoother complexion. RLC recently hooked up with Alex Brahl and his management company.

“I had been following the band for about six months and listening to the record,” Brahl says, “but it was when I saw them live for the first time that I really knew we should work together. They are an incredible live band.”

Brahl and his partner, Bill Rusch, have been in business together for less than two years. Collectively, though, they have decades of experience in all facets of the industry, from making records to managing bands, owning a label and promoting music to radio stations.

One of the first things they did with RLC is clean up the recorded version of “TheEmpty,” a song from the band’s lone album, and get it in rotation at 98.9 FM The Rock, the local hard-rock juggernaut.

They also spread the word outside Kansas City, via the Internet. The week of April 7, RLC was a featured band at MySpace. That week, its jukebox took more than 7,000 hits a day.

As the Brahl group figures out the next steps and strategies, the band is focused on its simple game plan. The mantra, according to lead guitarist Andy Breit: “Write, rehearse, record and play live.”

Brahl is down with that, especially that last part.

“I have never seen a local crowd go as crazy for a local band as their crowd,” he says. “They sing every word.”

IT’S ALIVE! (AND A CAREER IS BORN)

BY ROBERT W. BUTLER

Local filmmaker and film educator Benjamin Meade sees a lot of student work. But when David Matheny’s 10-minute film “The Scientist” turned up on his desk at Avila University, he realized it was something special.

“Watching it, I knew that Dave had crossed that invisible line between student and semi-pro,” Meade says. “I think he may be the best young filmmaker we’ve got in this town.”

“The Scientist” is as impressive for what it isn’t as for what it is.

Most young filmmakers doing a variation on the “mad scientist” movie would go for creepiness or comedy. They’d revel in the laboratory hardware, they’d lavish attention on the “monster” on the slab.

Matheny defies those expectations. His camera rarely puts the action front and center. It’s a film of oblique angles and cluttered compositions. Action takes place just out of sight.

The story — a man attempts to create artificial life in the basement of his suburban home using little more than junk collected from trash bins — is told without dialogue. The central character speaks only a few lines, and those are in some foreign tongue (actually it’s beginner’s Hebrew).

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Trussell is The Star’s theater critic. Finn is The Star’s pop music writer. Butler is The Star’s movie editor. Horsley is The Star’s classical music and dance critic. Thorson is The Star’s art critic. Lybarger is a free