Desperate Electric Turns a Billings Sidewalk Into a Disco
Most bands that show up to a free Thursday-evening downtown gig play it safe: covers, classic rock, something the after-work crowd already knows. Desperate Electric will show up to Alive After 5 tonight — July 23, hosted by Thirsty Street Brewing Co. and try to turn a Montana Avenue crowd into a sweaty, glittering dance floor instead. That's the bet this Montana duo has been making for years, and it keeps paying off.
Rooted in Butte and built around Kayti Korte (bass and vocals) and Ben Morris (production, keys, synths, guitar, vocals), Desperate Electric make what they cheerfully call futuristic R&B and retro dance grooves — a funk-soul-pop hybrid that has earned them a national touring footprint far larger than their Montana ZIP code would predict. They are, in the best way, a live band pretending to be a machine and a machine pretending to be a live band, and the tension between those two is where the show lives.
They've stayed prolific heading into 2026, rolling out singles at a steady clip — "I Control the Vibe" this spring and "Disco Daddy" landing in July, on top of a back catalog anchored by their self-titled record. The through-line is a commitment to groove as a serious pursuit — songs engineered for movement without being disposable, which is a harder trick than the genre gets credit for.
What makes tonight worth flagging is the setting. Alive After 5 is a come-as-you-are civic event: strollers, dogs, lawn chairs, a $3 beer wristband, zero cover charge. Dropping a genuinely road-tested electronic-funk act into that context is a small act of ambition on the series' part — a reminder that "local free show" doesn't have to mean "background music." Desperate Electric don't do background.
And this is the part of the scene that outsiders miss. The story of Montana music isn't only the arena tours that pass through; it's the regional acts who've figured out how to build a career from a place the industry map barely acknowledges — touring relentlessly, releasing constantly, and coming home to play the free Thursday gig for the hometown-ish crowd that watched them grow. When Desperate Electric plug in on a downtown Billings street tonight, that's not a consolation prize for a thin touring week. That's a Montana band showing a Montana city what's possible from here.
Wear something you can dance in. Leave the lawn chair in the car.
Sources: 2026 Alive After 5 Line-up — Downtown Billings; Desperate Electric on Bandcamp; Meet Desperate Electric of Butte, Montana — Voyage Denver