Folk Thrives Amid Gentrification!
I was in a going-out mood last night, or at least a bar mood, so around 11, I rolled down to the Brick from some Brodioke action. But I didn't stay long because the Fates had decreed that I would be guided to the unlikeliest of folk jams.
Afterparty backup singer Amie Nelson (aka Etta Vendetta) was about to get off work and mentioned going to The Drop to see Ike from the Wilders do an acoustic set. I perked up at the idea of seeing an old-timey honky tonk guy play at a shmanzy Martini Corner bistro, so I accepted Amie's offer to let me save her the cab fare and give her a ride down.
At the swank, two-room bar, the same well bourbon cocktail I'd gotten at the Brick had risen in cost from $3.50 to $5.25 but had inflated in size, too. The bartender shook my hand and introduced himself, and before the night was over, two or three other male servers would buddy up, all of them ultra-attentive without being awkward or overeager. It's the style of serving that treats restaurant patrons like very welcome guests at a party, or colleagues at a business mixer, or manly, full-of-life, Hemingwayesque buddies at a Turkish bath (... no).
But the music -- now this part is weird. Ike Sheldon was indeed there, representin' with shaved pate and pointy goatee (a look also sported by one of the upright bassists who'd come to jam), sitting in a chair on a cleared-off, raised area right in front of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto 31st st. On either side were other urban bumpkins with guitars, upright bass and banjo. It was an unamplified open jam, so guys came and went, including Dave Regnier of the Afterparty and (GET THIS!) one of The Drop's own co-owners, Eddie Crane. It was weird enough that this kind of music was welcomed at the trendy Drop; seeing one of the owners, clad in stock black server clothes and black-rimmed horizontal glasses, get up and play guitar AND banjo AND honk like a hillbilly... well, that was surprising even in Kansas City.
Turns out The Drop has backporch acoustic music every Monday. Last night was their fourth, according to Crane who, after playing, plopped down next to Amie and talked to us, interrupting conversation to reach across the table to light the cigarette of a girl at the next table. (He must've known the girl, because he began talking to her friend, seated across the table, then, finding out the friend had a cold, left to return a few minutes later with a hot toddy. He's not just a watier -- he's a healer.)
What's also interesting is that the Brick hosts Rural Grit, a more traditionally down-home acoustic folk open mic from 6 to 9 every Monday. There were a few old cowpoke-looking drunk guys at The Drop who'd probably started their evening at the Brick. And, at the beginning, at least, there were some office babes left over from dinner or happy hour who'd maybe never seen a guy pick up a guitar and yodel about jugs of moonshine -- especially not in the proximity of a pricey cocktail.
To that I say: "Hooie!" and "Yes, Maurice, I'll have another Grey Goose martini, extra dirty."
1 comment(s) / Post a Comment
