Kansas City Blog

The RB's Web site, usually reliable, told me to be there at 8, and I was there at 8, and I missed the entire first act. Sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Weidner. I did, however, catch The Simpsons and part of the recently resurrected King of the Hill. Hank's voice sounds different.

The second duo was the night's oddest pairing. Howard Iceberg is one of the city's most loved songwriters, and also one of the most unique cats out there. He does things his own way, and one of those things is to lay the guitar on its back, strings pointed at the ceiling, and playing it like a dulcimer, pressing only simple bar chords with his thumb and forefinger on the neck. His voice is weathered, nasal and bleaty. He writes lyrics in his sleep, often waking up early in the morning each day, getting coffee, and starting a brand new song. If Iceberg had come up in Greenwich village in the '60s, I have no doubt he'd be world famous. He's an amazing talent, and he's quirky as hell. Amy Farrand brought her own thing, too, and it was way more rock and roll. She's been the drummer in numerous local bands (Sister Mary Rottencrotch, Whiskey Boots) and has held a bass residency in American Catastrophe the past few years. I've only seen her solo before at a couple of open mics, so I don't know whether being in that band has influenced her own songwriting or if it's the other way around, but with her booming, low-tuned guitar and occasional slide, it felt as if she were repping AmCat's dark, gothy take on Americana last night. It didn't always gel with Iceberg's gentle nature, but that was probably the point.

The two fell into step on a cover of Iggy Pop's "Candy." But for those paying attention, the highlight was Iceberg's own composition, "She's a Beautiful Girl," which he wrote 30 years ago as a song to sing to himself when he got older to remind himself how important his wife is to him. Until last night, he hadn't played the song publicly. It was super sweet. And good, too. The tune kind of reminded me of "Long May You Run."

Next up, Barclay Martin and Sara Swenson came dressed as if on a date, he in a grey suit and red tie, she in a red dress. He played guitar and sang, she just sang. As if from a sense of duty, Martin and Swenson brought out some of the Important Love Songs, namely "Let's Stay Together" and "God Only Knows," plus the recent Oscar-winning song from the movie Once, "Falling Slowly," which moved me to tweet. I mean, hell, it took balls to cover that one. Speaking of which, into almost all the songs, the two injected scatty vocalizations; with their gentle, high voices and falsetto twitterings, they came as close to personifications of chirping songbirds (especially on "God Only Knows") as I have seen in a mainstream performance. Aside from the crowd-pleasers, the two also did "Angel from Montgomery" by John Prine and "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" by Paul Simon, which pleased me to no end. (That was the second Graceland cover I'd seen live at the Record Bar in six days. I'll take it. I fucking love that album.)

The mood shifted from coffee shop to cabaret for the last act. Valery Price is a jazz singer of local renown; Nathan Granner is an opera tenor of national renown. Any sense of singerly decorum ended there, however; after a slick run through of jazz standard "Almost Like Being In Love," Granner jumped into the role of clown and Price played the straight-man, keeping him on track. But you already knew something was up by the fact that Granner had busted out not one but two flamboyant jackets for the evening to go along with his red pinstriped pants. The first jacket was black and looked like something a matador would wear while cocktailing at a nightclub; the second was white with a motley pattern on it that, from a distance, looked like splotches of dust and rainwater. The duo swung from swing to comedy, doing a send-up of Nat King Cole's "L-O-V-E," with Price singing "L is for the way you look at me" and Granner spelling out a different four-letter word beginning with F... you get the idea. And his mother was even there. They closed with a (mostly) serious take on the Beatles' "Something," which is a beautiful song but one that kind of makes me want to puke due to its involvement in a certain wedding ceremony I was a part of, god, now nearly eight years ago. Damn, I am an old salt.

And therein lies the danger of these love-song showcases. Even songs that carry the least amount of meaning -- i.e., "Falling Slowly," which is more about sound than lyric -- in the right context, because of the poignancy of it all, of that period in your life where (insert sadness here), and so on -- that shit can really hang you up.

I think I heard once about these scientists who collected a bunch of the sappiest love songs ever and played them for a group of monkeys. Among the monkeys, the scientists found, the ones who had loved and lost were way more affected than the ones who had never loved at all.

But which group of monkeys was better off? That, my friends, is not a question of science.