You've read about it in calendar; here's another reason why you should go to La Esquina (1000 West 25th Street) for the Urban Culture Project's musical/playacting tribute to Pink Floyd's The Wall: YOU'LL GET TO HEAR "WHEN THE TIGERS BROKE FREE!"
Floyd geeks (and World War II buffs, for that matter) will understand what a treat that'll be. Written and recorded at the same time as the original album but not released until the movie version of The Wall came out, "Tigers" (or "Tygers" as it's sometimes referred to), is about Roger Waters' dad getting killed in WWII. The song sets up the whole premise of The Wall movie and will be played close to the top of this weekend's tribute show.
If you don't get goosebumps when Waters sings that last line, "And that's how the High Command took my daddy from me," then you're not a real man.
Shows are at 10 p.m. tonight and Saturday and 8 p.m. Monday. Cost is $10. Get there early because they'll probably sell out.
The Runaway Sons, Thunder Eagle and Dead Set
Thursday, 5/29/08
The Point, KCMO
Better Than: Other fates that have befallen people at the Point (getting stabbed, maced, etc.). Download: MP3, Thunder Eagle, "Whiskey Pills Lady Shake"
By JASON HARPER
The Point, with its perennial David Basse and Phil Woods jazz poster up in the window and reputation as an outlaw Plaza sports bar, is about the last place you'd expect to find live punk rock, but the bar's basement level is perfectly suited for a brat-smackin' rock show. The space, which consists of a well-maintained bar area with TVs and tables and a basement room that looks like any midtown stone basement, has in the past been exploited by DJs, but thanks to booker Neill Smith, bass player for Attack on Uranus, the place has become the site of $2 punk and rock shows two Thursdays a month.
Last night brought out a crowd of haggard hipster dudes and a few chicks for a show that got increasingly loud and reckless as the night wore on.
The new Olympic Sizelimited-run LP You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone is chock full of sexy dread and longing. It should be mass printed and airlifted to those people who live in vast modern apartment complexes by exurban airports and handed out along with frequent flyer programs to lonely traveling businessmen. The music is bleak, bedroomy, warm and twilit, with clean, interweaving guitars, somnabulent keyboards and drums that drop like sleeping pills in a plastic cup. Far from any indie-rock trends and full of spaces, Olympic Size conveys the loneliness and isolation of grown-up single life, a similar territory stalked by the band's recent showmates, American Music Club.
The Replay Lounge helps raise money for a baby named Addison and her much needed liver transplant with a show featuring Scenebooster, Fourth of July and Dri.
And La Esquina presents the last of three tributes to rock icons with Ron Megee's production of Pink Floyd's The Wall. The show features Jeff Harsbarger, Mark Lowry, Cody Wyoming and Brodie Rush as Pink. No lasers this time, just raw, in-your-face phallic imagery.
Ratatat returns July 8 with its aptly titled LP3, and apparently the NYC duo has a soft spot for Schwarzenegger’s 1987 sci-fi flick, Predator. See for yourself on the video for new song “Mirando,” or just grab the MP3 right here.
NYC blogger Brad Walsh thinks Kansas City is the "New New York City." Why? Because we spawned the Republic Tigers, Alicia Solombrino, the Ssion and "20 or so transplanted club kids with more original style than I've seen around here in a long time." Walsh made his bold claim in a May 27 post on his blog at junk-mag.com. Also in the post: a bunch of artsy pics he took of Solombrino and streams of "Touch Me" by the Beautiful Bodies and "Buildings and Mountains" by the Republic Tigers. A second post features "Golden Sand" by the Republic Tigers.
Just who the fuck is Brad Walsh, though? He's a photographer and founder of Junk Magazine, an indie hipster culture rag that went all digital in 2005. Walsh's other claim to fame is being the boyfriend of Project Runway dude Christian Siriano. None of that makes Walsh's opinion worth that much -- but, hey, it's nice to see well-connected out-of-towners lovin' on our city and its almost famous peeps.
Introducing Edge of Forever, Kansas's premiere Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. From their Myspace:
The drums, keyboard, guitars and bass guitar work have been meticuliously studied, polished and served up hot at every performance, with their stage show presentation of one 3 hr. non-stop set of everybody’s favorites with all of the stage props and the pounding southern/blues/rock pulse of Skynyrd.
Only a few artists have the audacity to play three hour concerts. Bruce Springsteen plays marathon sets, but he wrote Born to Run. Metallica can beat a dead horse for at least three hours, but they might play "Battery". Somehow this hairy, snakeskinned collection of bar-rockers has earned the right to three self-gratifying hours of Lynyrd Skynyrd nostalgia. If Springsteen can, why can't they?
In case you were wondering, Edge of Forever insist the prominent displays of Confederate flags represent "heritage not hatred". Nice try, wrong state.
Along with his excellent Lie Down in the Light LP (out now on Drag City), Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy, recently lent his vocals to Italy’s rock trio Numero6. Sung by Oldham in Italian, “Da Piccolissimi Pezzi” opens the latest Numero6 EP, which you can download for free in its entirety, right here.
Folks in all manner of mermaid costume -- except the kind that would require the bundling of legs into a fishtail (you can't march with a fishtail for legs) -- gathered at 18th and Wyandotte outside YJ's Snack Bar yesterday to celebrate the sand, the sea, seagulls, crustaceans, starfish and other things you'll find only a long, long way off from Kansas City.
Click the photo below for a slideshow.
The Mt. Righteous Marching Band from Grapevine, Texas, played a few songs before the parade, raising a cheerful, poppy-folk-brass ruckus that sounded like something Sufjan Stevens might kick field goals to. Then, urged on by Brick owner and parade organizer Sheri Parr, Mt. Righteous led the fishy revelers down the street to the Brick. Inside the parade's destination the bizarre permutation of the already bizarre Snuff Jazz known as Wee Snuff riffed on Sun Ra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk and summer camp with half the band inside a giant tent on stage and mermaid and crab women hanging out by a trippy campfire. Mt. Righteous finished off the fabulously weird night.
The Architects detail their adventures with talking conch shells, ultraviolet radiation, and the pigs on their Myspace blog here. Beware feather-bearing Floridians and pay your parking tickets.
The one thing everyone can agree on about today is that it really sucks being back at the office. Those of us blessed with jobs that allow us to furtively eat up our employer's broadband with Internet radio may have an easier time than others today, thanks to KEXP.org.
Today at 12 p.m. Central on the Seattle station, British soul prodigy Jamie Lidell drops by to render a live performance for your holiday-weekend-hungover ear cells. Then, stay tuned, because at 2 p.m., the Mates of State do the same. (Chin Chin and the Long Blondes each drop by later in the week.)
Don't think we've shared any Jamie with y'all yet, so here's track two from the clarion-voiced Motown-admirer's sweet 'n solid new one, Jim:
After the Libertines split, Pete Doherty became a tabloid cover-star and his co-frontman Carl Barat formed Dirty Pretty Things. Sign up here at the DPT headquarters for a free MP3 of “Hippy’s Son” from the band’s forthcoming Romance at Short Notice, out June 30 on Vertigo Records.
Texas folk-pop marching band Mount Righteous preach their ecstatic and irreverant gospel tonight on the YJ's patio. The 11-strong ensemble will then lead a procession, which they're calling the Mermaid Parade, to the Brick, where the Mount will play with free-jazz locals Wee Snuff. Mount Righteous encourage attendees to dress like mermaids and mermen, because why the fuck not. The YJ's performance begins at 6 p.m. and the Children's Crusade takes off at 8 p.m. Happy Tuesday, everyone.
The one thing everyone can agree on about today is that it really sucks being back at the office. Those of us blessed with jobs that allow us to furtively eat up our employer's broadband with Internet radio may have an easier time than others today, thanks to 
