Blogs

'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.)

More

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

More

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.

More

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.

More

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.

More

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.

More

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!

More

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.

More

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

More

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.

More