Kansas City Music Blog

If you want to watch video of some of upset, pissed-off people, do a search on YouTube for "Sonicsgate." The folks in Seattle are pretty much the mirror image of what the people in New Orleans are acting like right now. Seriously -- these folks are bitter. Sad, too: check out this song from Manther.

If you thought it unlikely there could ever be a slow jam about a basketball team, you are sorely mistaken. Anyone know if there's a crunk piece anywhere about how the Thunder is a bunch of punk bitches?

Austin's Jesse Dayton is a fresh face in the world of Americana and old time honky-tonk. 

Forester Michael

​Standing on stage at Knuckleheads dressed in black with a dangling chain wallet hanging from his pocket, Dayton looked like a clean-cut kid with early Elvis sideburns. But with a strum of his guitar and his raspy voice, the youthful guise dissipated and a vintage vibe permeated the bar. With two-stepping shuffle beats, a slapping stand-up bass and whiny steel guitar, Dayton and his band rocketed the crowd back to a late 50's venue of swinging rockabilly. While staying true to the old country themes of crying in your beer and being an outlaw, he also brings a new, fresh edge to his music.

Dayton reeled out boot-scooting songs about how home is where the hat is, running from the law and ending up in the county morgue. But with his rockabilly background (he was the former frontman of the Road Kings), Dayton brought a progressive twist to the country sound with lyrics in songs like "Honky Tonk Halloween" about trick or treating with trailer park trash.

Razorcake is not only one of my favorite magazines, it's also one of my favorite labels. Tthey put out last year's all-killer no-filler Shang-A-Lang/God Equals Genocide split 7", which was about the best $4 I spent in 2009.

If you're unfamiliar with the magazine -- or even if you do know the magazine, and just want to know more -- there is an engaging and informative short documentary (we seem to be all about those docs this week, don't we?) that just showed up on YouTube called "getting the mag." Check out the first half below, and the second part after the jump.

Miles Bonny's INcense & Wine comes out today, and you can grab that sucker at the dedicated site for the album.

​Much like Coalesce's OX last year, INcense & Wine comes as a special package. Whereas with OX, you could get a pocketknife engraved with the symbol on the album's cover, INcense & Wine comes with an engraved flask.

The album and flask together will run you $25. It's limited, so grab it now if you'd like to show everyone how much you like to sneak booze while at the same time showing your love for Miles Bonny.

First of all: Jason Webley is responsible for the best show of which I've ever heard. Webley and friends staged a guerrilla concert at a Safeway. Look at photos of the show while you read the description and see if you don't get all giddy and excited.

Now, the idea that Webley has teamed with Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls as "conjoined twins who had spent their lives trapped in the circus industry" fills me with happiness and a lightness of heart. The news from TwentyFourBit:
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Their eponymous full-length album will include "an anthemic 80's power ballad entitled 'My Space'" featuring "gang vocals" by "Weird Al" Yankovic, My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way, Andrew WK, writer/Palmer fiancé Neil Gaiman, Tegan and Sara, and Frances Bean Cobain.

This is either going to be an epic piece of art which boggles the mind and redefines the word "chorus" or an artsy-fartsy piece of crap which collapses under the weight of its own hubris. Either of which is possible considering the updated news that, "[a]ccording to Chantal Claret, she and members of Mindless Self Indulgence (her husband, Jimmy Urine is their frontman and Gerard Way's wife, Lyn-Z, is their bassist) have also contributed to this project."

In my mind, I'm building it up to sound like a cross between Flight of the Conchords' "Petrov, Yelena, and Me" and Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I know that it's not going to sound anything like that, but if someone wants to get on making that, I'd be more than happy to hear it.

MP3: Evelyn Evelyn, "Have You Seen My Sister Evelyn?"

When we say "record your own records," we mean that literally. We're not talking using Garageband, or Pro Tools, or anything like that. Thanks to Gakken's Gramophone Kit, not only can you play records with a bamboo needle through the old-fashioned horn, you can flip the equation and use the horn as a microphone to cut your own vinyl.
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Gakken makes all sorts of amazingly expensive, yet exquisitely made retro audio equipment. Their analog synthesizers and theremins are certainly drool-inducing, and priced accordingly. You can get all of the gear needed to make the most limited-edition, outsider art ever at Japan Trend Shop.

If you think about it, you could drop something like $500 and make single-pressing recordings of improvised atmospheric electronic music. Every single recording would be absolutely, 100% unique. Jandek would have nothing on you.

(Courtesy Gizmodo)

Celebrating the random, the tabloid-ready, the meme-worthy: in other words, music news far more interesting than the actual musical output of most people involved, Wired presents the Second Annual Rippy Awards.

The Little Friends of Printmaking

​The magazine started the awards "because the stodgy Grammys will, as ever, ignore the most interesting music achievements," namely things like Twitter feuds, viral videos, and album leaks. You can read the results here. Relive everything that's graced the pages of Idolator, without having to deal with American Idol results.

By ELGIN SMITH

One of today's brightest contemporary jazz saxophonists, Javon Jackson, spent Saturday night with his quartet performing at the Blue Room on 18th and Vine.

​Jackson--who has worked with names like Art Blakey, Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Ron Carter, and Dr. Lonnie Smith, to name a few--left the audience with no doubt about his appreciation for his predecessors.

Jackson and his quartet kicked off the evening with "Four," a classic jazz standard written by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson (but best known for Miles Davis' rendition of the tune). The tempo was hot, and Jackson's initial solo was even hotter, with a sound that resembled John Coltrane and a fluidity that Charlie Parker could have appreciated. The surprisingly small crowd, which only filled one third of the Blue Room, applauded Jackson after his lengthy, blistering solo. Guitarist Henry Johnson then took his turn, demonstrating a non-picked style that sounded remarkably like Wes Montgomery.

After finishing up the most recognizable tune of the evening, the quartet shifted into an original composition of Jackson's, "Mr. Taylor." The group relaxed a bit with a medium tempo that allowed them to swing a bit. Jackson started things off with a solid solo, but Johnson's bluesy guitar work stood out as the tune's bright spot. Drummond played the last solo, a straight, almost march-style (see Art Blakey's "Blues March") that allowed him to show off a few tricks (including a one-handed solo stretch that got a few shouts from the audience).

In a face-melting fusion of hard rock and LSD, the Entrance Band churns out music that sounds like an acid trip gone straight to hell.

Scott Spychalski

Pairing​ vocalist and guitarist Guy Blakeslee's freak-folk background with drummer Derek James' tight beats and bassist Paz Lenchantin's penchant for heavy alternative rock (she was a member of A Perfect Circle before joining the Entrance Band's lineup), this LA-based trio melds stoner-rock grooves with wailing psychedelic vocals.

In front of a crowd dense with fringed leather and body odor, Blakeslee (a dead ringer for George Harrison circa All Things Must Pass) shed his shirt--and his inhibitions--as the Entrance Band began their set on the Jackpot on Saturday night in a masterfully spewed Jackson Pollock-like smattering of sound.

By RACHEL GRAY

"Kansas City -- everybody should be dancing!" DJ Andy Butler shouted as galloping bass lines and hand claps introduced his disco-infused dance music project Hercules and Love Affair to the Record Bar last Friday night.

Scott Spychalski

Although unaccompanied by the project's multiple collaborators -- vocalists Nomi, Kim Ann or Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons) -- Butler's celebratory beats kept arms in the air and hips turning. 

Adhering to the standard for dance concerts, the bass was loud. "Does the women's bathroom vibrate like it's getting bombed?" I was asked, along with: "I can feel my jeans vibrate." But the pounding bass seemed to induce the party atmosphere more than deafen it. People got up next to tables to dance before even reaching the dance floor, overwhelmed by the satisfying throng of continually swelled vibrations.

Hercules and Love Affair is sexy. It just is.