Kansas City Music Blog

'CAUSE I SAID SO!

(Thanks, Robert.)

The Spoon concert, scheduled for Wednesday, October 3, is canceled. We've heard it straight from the show's would-have-been promoter, Jacki Becker.

Sorry, kids.

And now, A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Missing a day at the office, I don't feel so guilty about. But missing Office when it played KC at the Westport Beach Club, September 21, I feel terrible about. Why? Because Office is, as of discovering them today, my new favorite band from Chicago.

It's about time this New Wave revival lightened up and rediscovered the Cars. Like records by many a recent business-wear band, Office's debut, A Night at the Ritz contains keyboards, dance rhythms and catchy hooks, but it also flows over with orchestral instrumentation, piano riffs, killer harmonies, funny and passionate lyrics, and a hell of a lot of, just, well, spirit.

Office on the beach. Photo by Aaron O.

(Listening ops after the jump.)

BY CRYSTAL K. WIEBE

It ain’t easy to live on rock and roll – or to live with it. The Pointless Forest, a midtown KC party house that frequently hosts underground rock shows, seemed a little worse for the wear when I watched a show there back in May. In this past entry, you can read about how one of the venue’s residents collected donations in a plastic bag. Apparently, he hasn’t been able to collect enough – from guests or his roommates.

The band Causeco-motion at the Pointless Forest, August 22, 2007

From a recent press release:

"The Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc ® is a non-profit organization founded in 1969 to bring radio broadcasters from around the world together with the Country music industry for the purpose of ensuring the continued vitality of the Country radio format. They do this by idea sharing and education through an annual convention called the Country Radio Seminar."

Any good seminar needs a keynote speaker. So who are they getting this year? Merle? Willie?

Try Sean Hannity, Clinton-hater for Fox News, as NNDB has it, and author of books Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty Against Liberalism (2002) and Deliver Us From Evil: Defeating Terrorism, Despotism, and Liberalism (2004).

Way to put the c*nt back in country, CRB.

BY ANDY VIHSTADT

Titular Homicide

It looks like Electric Six is going to take this year’s longest album title with I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me from Being the Master. Suck on that, Modest Mouse. Stereogum has the first single, “Dance Pattern”.

Peace Offering

I’m a little bummed that Deerhoof skipped us on this year’s lengthy Friendship Opportunity tour, but the band won me back with this free album of assorted goodies posted on its site. Afterwards, download the self-explanatory Coverhoof!.

More fix after the jump.

Wilco, with Dr. Dog.
Wednesday, 9-19-07
Outside the Blue Note in Beautiful Downtown Columbia, MO
Better than: Having the show inside the Blue Note, where there are places to sit and better vantage points to actually see the bands, as opposed to standing on pavement for three hours behind some tattooed love girl who will not stop invading our space.
Review by Megan Metzger, amateurish-but-earnest photos by Darren A. Fox, bastard French cutlines by Harper

Le crowd.

After a two-hour road trip and a pit stop at the Flatbranch Brewery, we arrived at Ninth and Broadway to catch Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog. Although we aren’t a fan of the band’s name, we totally dig its ’70s-infused, blue-eyed granola soul, which the boys in sunglasses and retro threads rollicked through for about an hour.

Attendance was fairly light for the opener, and we surmised the threat of rain and the just-announced October 13th Wilco show in KC kept some fans away. But the night turned out to be clear and gorgeous, and as Wilco’s start time crept closer, the crowd got bigger and bigger.

The Bob Newhart theme streamed through the PA, and Wilco took to the stage, opening the long show with “You Are My Face” off of latest release Sky Blue Sky.

Le dog docteur.

An alert reader in St. Louis just sent us a link to an article on the national gossip blog DListed.com that reports of an onstage flare-up at Patti LaBelle's concert in Kansas City last Friday night.

Miss Patti Is Pissed!

Was anyone out there fortunate enough to witness the event?

Touch Patti LaBelle. But only if you know how.

The Wayward Son's (that's me!) Wayward Cast, a wayward extension of his wayward ass and the wayward Pitch music section, is wayward ready. (Ain't it great having a "brand"?)

Download it via the RSS page or as an MP3. Subscribe to the Pitchcast on iTunes and get it automatically each week for free like hay fever.

Our steez will make you sneeze.

I recently asked my friend, the humorist and Pitch assistant calendar editor Chris Packham, to go to this site, stream the new Tragically Hip album (bottom of the page, limited availablity) and let me know what he thought of it. I've been a fan of the Hip -- arguably Canada's biggest rock band -- since I was a wee bairn, and yet few people I know have even heard of them. Their new one, World Container, came out earlier this year. Compared to other Hip albums, this one's a bit overproduced and anthemic, trading the band's usual nuanced style for booming pomp -- just listen to all the times Gord Downie goes "yeah" and "that's right" to punctuate his verses (especially on "Fly"). Blame it on producer Bob Rock for getting 'em all worked up. But there are some damn great songs, as always. As a result, it's one of the best workout tapes of the year. But anyway, here's Chris' hilarious take.

Here is my review of World Container, by Tragically Hip. I have never listened to a Tragically Hip album, and am therefore COMPLETELY UNQUALIFIED to voice an opinion. I am totally typing and listening at the same time, so you're getting my raw, unfiltered impressions. There are no swears, here, though.

1) Yer Not The Ocean

Pretty awesome song, with an excellent melody, nice breaks, some surprising background vocals as the song's arc approaches a lush climactic finale. TEN POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!

BY RICK ANDERSON, Seattle Weekly

Photo courtesy of CourtneyLove.com. 

By Rick Anderson, SeattleWeekly.com 

"I did not fuck you," was how Courtney Love responded when told by her Seattle attorneys that she owed them up to $340,000 plus interest. That was the balance due on legal fees attorney Katherine Hendricks and O.Yale Lewis say Love incurred in a 2002 lawsuit against former members of her late husband's band, Nirvana, from which she ultimately earned at least $9 million. 

But the troubled rocker and widow of Kurt Cobain has now agreed to settle the attorneys' tab for an undisclosed amount, according to King County Superior Court records. The settlement, effective Monday, Sept. 17, apparently ends a three-year claim by Hendricks and Lewis, who alleged Love breached their legal-services contract. Hendricks would not discuss details of the settlement or confirm whether Love had paid her debt on time, as she agreed to do in an Aug. 28 settlement report. A trial had been set to begin on Wednesday.

Court records indicate Love paid the Hendricks & Lewis firm $1.15 million to represent her in the battle with Nirvana's two surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. But the attorneys claimed she still owed $341,000, plus as much as $200,000 in interest accrued over five years.

BY ANDY VIHSTADT

The Big Payback

Little Brother returns next month with Getback, the outfit’s first LP without 9th Wonder behind the production. Click here to download the album sampler mixed by DJ Flash. I doubt Big Pooh and Phonte will be able to match their excellent Minstrel Show album, but at least they haven’t lost their sense of humor.

Zo! feat. Phonte: “Africa (Toto cover)” MP3

Zo! feat. Phonte and Carlitta Durand: “Take On Me (A-ha cover)” MP3

This is the actual title of a press release sent to the media today from Sony BMG. (Thanks for the all-caps, you guys.)

BARRY MANILOW REIGNS AS THE HIGHEST SINGLE-HOUR MUSIC SALES EVENT IN QVC
HISTORY

The short of it: Manilow went on QVC to preview his upcoming CD, The Greatest Songs of the Seventies, and sold 40,000 of those fuckers. That's the worst mass misallocation of funds since the Iraq War.

Oh, well, however big a cheese sausage Barry Manilow is, at least no one has ever died from his music. That we know of.

No danger to national security; no boon to national sanity.

Live Nation has announced that the Cure is playing at Starlight on May 19, 2008. Don't believe me? Come to my office. I got the press release right here, signed in lipstick by the man himself. (Not really, but the rest is true.)

Blonde Redhead, with School of Seven Bells.
Wednesday, 8-12-2007
The Blue Note
Better than: Getting trampled by a horse.
Review and pics by Richard Gintowt

If I were a sumo wrestler, I’d probably listen to Blonde Redhead to get me psyched up for a match. There’s something sinister about the trio’s music. Very few of their songs are memorable in a hum-them-while-you-kick-ass-on-the-elliptical kind of way, but there’s some secret ingredient that’s mighty seductive.

That elixir inspired a couple friends of mine to drive all the way to The Blue Note in Columbia, Missouri, last night, and having already experienced Wayne Coyne’s Big Top numerous times, I figured I’d hop along.

Who: Nick O'Malley, bassist, Arctic Monkeys
Where: Tonight, Thursday, September 13, at the Uptown Theater
Interview by Jason Harper

The Arctic Monkeys bring their pint-swilling, dancefloor-filling, blue-collar British rock and roll to the Uptown Theater tonight. The Sheffield band is touring on the heels of its second full-length, Favourite Worst Nightmare. Not only did the new album shoot to number 1 on the UK chart on the day of its release in April, all 12 songs from the album landed in the top 200 singles chart.

None of that’s suprising, considering the band’s Mercury Prize-winning debut record, Whatever People Think I Am, That’s What I’m Not, beat out the Beatles and Led Zeppelin (and, well, everyone else) upon its January 2006, becoming the fastest-selling debut album in British history. The band’s rise to fame, instant success and global touring created pressures that were too intense for original bassist Andy Nicholson to handle, and he left the band between the two albums.

We caught up with replacement bassist Nick O’Malley (whose instrument chugs throughout Nightmare like a steam press in a workboot factory) via phone yesterday as he was browsing through the racks at a Chicago music store preceding a Windy City gig. His Yorkshire accent was a bit thick and the cell phone connection wasn’t crystal clear, so some of this is our best guess.

The Arctic Monkeys' Nick O'Malley pulls out his 10-grand's worth to the Uptown Theater tonight. Photo from a 2006 Austin, TX, show by Scott Spychalski.

Wayne, Steven, Mike, Kliph, and everyone else involved with the Flaming Lips show at the Uptown last night, thank you. It was like a birthday party planned by an archangel, attended by gods.

Thanks for reminding all us lost souls to cultivate happiness in life, surround ourselves with friends, celebrate, sing and seek beauty. Here's looking at you, Lips.

Tireless, camera-wielding foot soldier Anna-Marie Perry crawled all over the Crossroads Music Fest snapping the good shots left and right. Uploading them to this blog would take all evening, and even though my boss may yell at me tomorrow, I'm going to have to direct you to Miss Anna's own Web site. Let's hope it doesn't crash.

Go here for Day 1 photos.
And here for Day 2 photos.

Crossroads Music Festival
Saturday, September 8 / Sunday, September 9
The Crossroads at Grinders, the Gorilla Theater, the Brick
Review & some crappy snapshots by Jason Harper

DAY TWO: night

I pussed out of most of Sunday. I admit it. I'd hit it so hard the day before that I didn't arrive until, well ... later. (Please, do go see AMP's shots for more action from this day.) At least I didn't come looking like a perp.

Now this, folks, is what we call a perp. See yesterday's pt. 1 entry for the opening-day perpshot. It's no surprise that both of these perps are in the morally dubious local act Bacon Shoe. You can usually spot a perp by his inappropriate shades. Perps commit crimes against the citizenry, usually while exhibiting outlandish behaviors -- i.e., robbing a convenience store while dancing; shaking down a vending machine while f*cking. Their preferred substance: PCP. Their idol: Dennis Rodman. The presence of these perps and others (full disclosure: I'm a recovering perp) may have accounted for low festival attendance. But what ya gonna do? Don't hate the perpetrator; hate the crime. Anyway, back to the bands...

Crossroads Music Festival
Saturday, September 8 / Sunday, September 9
The Crossroads at Grinders, the Gorilla Theater, the Brick
Review & some crappy snapshots by Jason Harper

DAY ONE: night

I got back in time to hear Eleni Mandell singing my anthem, Makeout King. Just kidding, that's not my anthem. "Paying for Dinner and Having You Home by Ten" is my anthem. The pictures I got of Eleni, the festival's biggest name and mellowest chanteuse, were all out of focus. Sorry. Roach's own band, It's Over, took the grand stage next, and people got up on the PA speakers and danced toward the end of the set, but the pictures I took of that sucked, too. Don't worry, though, Anna-Marie Perry was there with her professional power-demon camera in hand, and I'll be posting the good shit soon. (I AM ONLY ONE MAN, KANSAS CITY!) Ah what the hell. Here are a few teasers:

Eleni Mandell, by Anna-Marie Perry

Crossroads Music Festival
Saturday, September 8 / Sunday, September 9
The Crossroads at Grinders, the Gorilla Theater, the Brick
Review & crappy snapshots by Jason Harper

In case you're one of the thousands of Kansas Citians who failed to support the local music scene by going to last weekend's Crossroads Music Festival and having fun, well, you missed out.

Overall, the festival could have been much better attended, especially on Sunday. It's depressing to dwell upon how disconnected and apathetic and unsupportive people in Kansas City are when it comes to live music that's generated from right here in town. Put Elton John's shiny boohiney in the Sprint Center, and folks will trample their own children to get in line for tickets. Plan a local music festival on a beautiful September weekend and people stay in their caves of darkness and ignorance.

But enough moralizing. The important thing is that the festival happened and the bands were good and the people who went had fun. I talked to heroic festival overlord Roach (aka Bill Sundahl) Sunday night, and he said much the same thing, pointing out that it took the now humongous SXSW festival about 15 years to break out of obscurity. CMF stands to grow. The believers were there this year. There was even a production company shooting a documentary.

DAY ONE: day

This man perp had more fun at the festival than you will ever know.

Roach was king of this year's Crossroads Music Fest, but for a few seconds last night, Brick host David Wayne Reed took control of the ass-shakin' department. More pictures and reporting from the festival right here tomorrow, folks. Today was spent recovering, proofing the paper, staring at the sprinkler head in the ceiling wondering if blood would shoot out of it, drinking coffee, and making this video. We do hope you enjoy it.

BY ANDY VIHSTADT

Mercury Rising

While the pre-ceremony buzz seemed to teeter between Amy Winehouse and Bat for Lashes, Klaxons took home the 2007 Mercury Music Prize with its debut, Myths of the Future. The Klaxons saw a 500% increase in record sales since last Tuesday’s announcement and start work on LP2 in the next couple of weeks.

Klaxons-“Gravity’s Rainbow” MP3

klaxons

Here’s this year’s list of nominees.

Arctic Monkeys Favourite, Worst Nightmare
Basquiat Strings with Seb Rochford, Basquiat Strings
Bat for Lashes, Fur and Gold
Dizzee Rascal, Maths and English
Klaxons, Myths of the Near Future
Maps, We Can Create
New Young Pony Club, Fantastic Playroom
Fionn Regan, The End of History
Jaime T, Panic Prevention
The View, Hats Off to the Buskers
Amy Winehouse, Back to Black
The Young Knives, Voices of Animals and Men

Drakkar Sauna
Sept. 6, 2007
The Gaslight Tavern
By Crystal K. Wiebe

Apparently, Drakkar Sauna was supposed to play in Des Moines last night, but that show didn’t work out. So, on the night before leaving for a monthlong tour, the Lawrence band played a midnight, farewell gig at the Gaslight Tavern.

from left: Jeff Stolz, Wallace Cochran and Chris Whatshisname

What is it?: "Out jazz played on tiny instruments."

What's it like?: A children's TV show gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Do we like it?: Sure.

Recently posted on the MySpace page of local punk rockers Super Black Market, this pro-quality video finds the lads from Warrensburg, MO, nonchalantly going lycanthrope after a disappointing nightclub gig then rocking their hairy tits off at a house party. There's even a nod to the basketball scene in Teen Wolf. In short: beautiful.

"There's Going to be a Party...!" by Super Black Market

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It's been too long since I done set down and made me up a podcast of a' talkin' and song playin', so that's what I done did with the last night of my Labor Day weekend. It's short, and it begins with an academic discussion of a certain amazing jazz drum solo. Hope you enjoy.

Wayward Cast 13: Bang the Drum Slowly is available off the Pitchcast RSS page, or you can download it as an MP3

Joe Morello of the DBQ

Main Music:

1. Dave Brubeck Quartet - "Take Five," from various Brubeck releases
2. Spacemen 3 - "Things'll Never Be the Same," from Forged Prescriptions
3. Arctic Monkeys - "Teddy Picker," from Your Favorite Worst Nightmare
4. Interpol - "Heinrich Maneuver," from Our Love to Admire
5. The Republic Tigers - "Patterns," from current demo collection

Background Sounds:

Maria Monte - "Infinito Particular," from Infinito Particular
Clutch - "When Vegans Attack," from From Beale St. to Oblivion
The Long Winters - "Honest," from Putting the Days to Bed
Digitalism - "Digitalism in Cairo," from Digitalism

BY ANDY VIHSTADT

Separated at Birth

Is there some kind of weird beard contest going on at Sub Pop Records? If so, Sam Beam’s got competition. Ben Bridwell and his Band of Horses return next month with Cease to Begin. Download the album opener, “Is There a Ghost,” at The Glorious Hum.

Sam Beam might be hiding iron and wine in there.

Ben Bridwell toasts the indie bristles.

Phony Rappers

MF Doom’s West Coast fans are pissed. Accusations have been circulating that the rapper lip-synched and/or used a body double for some of his California appearances last month. Get the skinny at Byron Crawford's site, and if you haven’t lost all respect for the masked villain, hit this Wikipedia entry for an MP3 of “Angels,” from Doom’s perpetually upcoming Swift and Changeable collab with Ghostface.

MF Doom faces allegations of mad villainy.

Fix continues after the jump.