Victory Lap

Kelly Minnis and Rob Baughman put an ad out in The Stranger looking to form a rockin’ power pop band. The same day their ad published they saw an ad from a guy into the Replacements, Wilco and The Posies. Sounded promising so they answered the ad. It was Mike Collins known as Michael Collins (13), a one-man band from Norman, OK. they met him and listened to his songs, a kind of Gin Blossoms-Tommy Keene Midwestern power pop. The first person to answer the ad was Minneapolis Pete Hilgendorf, the world’s biggest ‘Mats fan. So off they went. But Rob turned out to not be that great a bassist so he was replaced with Dan Leary, a great rock bass player. They played shows and practiced a lot, but Pete was tired of being micro-managed so he quit right before VL began making an album. Victory Lap continued as a trio for awhile and then picked up Dan’s friend Beaux R. Bartron on guitar. But Mike was tiring of playing with guys who dumbed down and rocked up his jangly power-pop. So he broke the band up on the eve of releasing the album with help from Not Lame Recordings.