This weekend, Koufax returns to town for two shows, banding together all the Lawrence livers who played on the group's latest, Strugglers.
Check out the record's new single, which features saxophone work by local horner Mark Southerland.
Koufax plays tonight at the Czar Bar and Saturday at the Jackpot.
"Isabelle"
2008 Pitch Music Awards Best Pop winners Dead Girls Ruin Everything are now calling themselves just The Dead Girls. While our semioticians parse the significance of this name change, enjoy this sharp, crisp and catchy free track -- like a piping hot Frito fresh off the factory line -- from the group's upcoming album, Out of Earshot.
MP3: The Dead Girls, "Hair Trigger"
Whoa, that's some serious clean-tone shredding there on the bridge.
Drummer Eric Melin reports that in addition to the new LP, the DGs are releasing two EPs -- over 20 songs total. "In about a 9-month span, we'll go from being the least productive to the most-productive band around," Melin tells us.
Catch the dead ones this Saturday at the Full Moon Festival in the West Bottoms. See www.fullmoonprod.com or call 816-842-4280.
Mmmmm...Fritos.
Dear Citizens of Kansas City,
Annie Zaleski from St. Louis reporting in. Y’all need to go to the Record Bar on Saturday night and see one of the finest exports from my fair city, Jon Hardy and the Public. This quintet sports dapper suits and beatific grins onstage, even though last year’s Spoon-meets-Elvis Costello song-cycle Working In Love is concerned with broken hearts and lost love, tales told from a bruised romantic’s point of view. But don’t take my word for it; writers from my paper, the Riverfront Times, say:
Here are some MP3s for you to hear exactly why we all collectively freaked out.
MP3: Jon Hardy & the Public, "Trouble"
Love and kisses from the Gateway to the West,
Today's a good day in Kansas City. It's not the cool autumnal weather, it's not that buxom Balinese maiden you woke up next to (imaginary) nor the delicious cold meatloaf sandwiches (actually a stale breakfast bar) the two of you enjoyed together as the sun's golden fingers caressed the prairie. No, today is wonderful and special because the streets were greeted this morning by regular issues of The Pitch -- always fabulous -- that contain our beautiful 2008 Best Of Kansas City special edition, which early reviews have been describing as our best ever in recent memory (no doubt as to that where cover is concerned).
Before you dive in and savor our annual love letter to KC, which includes tributes to our Best Athlete, Best Church, Best Place to Make Out, Best Sports Blog, Best Hot Lil' Doughnuts and all that rich, diverse, wonderful stuff that surrounds us at all times but that we too rarely notice, take a quick peek here at the Best Ofs that concern local music. Without ado and in no order:
Best Choir - The Kansas City Chorale
Best Music Videos - the Ssion
Best Music Blog - There Stands the Glass and Plastic Sax (tie)
Best Radio Show - Black Clover Radio
Best Place to Cut a Record - Chapman Studios
Best Hip-Hop Figure - DJ Fresh
Best Club DJ - DJ Just
Best Rock for Kids - the Terrible Twos
Best Band Reunion - the Pedaljets
Best Blues Moment - Myra Taylor Gets the Key to KCK
Best Sexy Musician - Barclay Martin [Readers' Choice: Alicia Solombrino]
Best Songwriter - Howard Iceberg
Best Bilingual Band - Making Movies
Best Local Album - Keep Color, the Republic Tigers
Best Local Song - "The Journeyman," Devil Blare
Best Rock Mom - Penny Valladares
Best Band - the Wilders [Readers' Choice: the Republic Tigers]
Read about each one here.
After kicking around these parts for a couple of years and releasing an EP, Lawrence band Boo and Boo Too is making the big leap with a debut full-length release on October 14 via local imprint Iron Paw Records.
Grab "I'll Be Your Whore," the first single off of No Tempo, courtesy of the band's all-profesh-'n-shit publicity firm, Fanatic Promotion, straight from the link below.
By JUSTIN KENDALL
I was in an Omaha Comfort Inn & Suites when I spotted the man from this photo.
He was wearing a sleeveless, gray Kansas City Royals shirt and talking with a biker-looking dude.
"Check out Vince Neil," I whispered to a friend. We giggled while signing for our room.
I was in Omaha for my friends Brandan and Maggie's wedding. The reception was at the Comfort Inn. When the reception ended at midnight, we weren't finished partying. So we headed for the hotel bar, the ambitiously named Firewater Grille. It was karaoke night, and the bride, still in her dress, hopped on stage, slipped on some shades and nailed every lyric to "The Humpty Dance."
"Let's get stupid!" she demanded.
WOOOOO! One of my favorite British bands, Elbow, was awarded the Mercury Prize last night for its fourth album, The Seldom-Seen Kid, beating out weightier contenders such as Radiohead and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss.
"This is quite lit-rally the best thing that has ever happened to us," said perpetually unshaven singer Guy Garvey.
One day like that a year would do anyone right.
Elbow - "One Day Like This"
Brodie Rush, tenacious leader of Be/Non -- the band of which he's famously the only original member and of which everyone else in town is an ex-member -- posted a MySpace bulletin today drawing fans' attention to two brand new songs from his newly rebuilt (again) band. In the band this time: Jeremiah Gonzales, ex Elevator Division and Lovers in Transit; Ryan Shank, ex Golden Republic and Lovers In Transit; and Ben Ruth, who was in the previous incarnation of Be/Non and is also in Overstep and the Grand Marquis.
Head to myspace.com/thebenon to preview new songs from the group's upcoming album A Mountain of Yeses.
Good Christ, what I've heard so far is incredible, and I'm only halfway through the second song on the page, "Passion for Displacement," which starts out with a freakish quivering forest of analog keyboard over rolling toms like the work of some kind of forgotten '70s Spanish prog band then pops into a disco Roxy Music debauch with horns. God. Damn.
I don'ts gots cables, otherwise I might have plunked myself in front of the tube a couple weeks ago to catch Lawrence band Big Surrender on the Lifetime show Army Wives. And then I might have grown breasts, but it wouldn't have been the band's fault.
Check out the playlist for episode 7, "Uncharted Territory," and go to the band's MySpace to hear the mighty catchy "Empty House."
Cool! But how'd they do it? Read on, friends, read on....
You already know the Foo Fighters are playing this Saturday, July 19, at Kemper Arena.
And we've already told you lots about openers Supergrass.
Oh, Supergrass ... love them.
But another band worth loving a little, too, is going on first, at 7:15, to be exact: Year Long Disaster.
Photo by Paul Harries
More on the band, plus audio/visuals, after the jump.
Hospital Ships' Geiger counter
For two weeks in a row now, tastemaking indie music blog Stereogum has featured Lawrence bands in its Band to Watch segment. As the blog itself says:
As we pass saturation point for press coverage of Montreal, Portland, Brooklyn and et cetera, it seems Lawrence, Kansas is poised for its coming turn in the music media trend piece carousel. At least from what we're hearing; this marks two straight BTWs from the burgeoning midwestern artistic oasis.
The fallacy here, of course, is the implication that Lawrence only recently began to have a music scene, its rise being conveniently timed with Stereogum's editors' collective fatigue with bigger, more European-like North American cities. When, really, Lawrence has had a GREAT music scene since at least as far back as '05. I kid.
Anyway, last week it was Rooftop Vigilantes. I hadn't heard of these guys, wait, maybe I have, but judging from the free song available, "Oscar Want Inch," I'll be listening.
This week, the Band that needs Watching is Hospital Ships, a new side project from Jordan Geiger of Minus Story, which I was also unaware of. I applaud the S-gum readers who dutifully posted the names of other good Larrytown bands in the comments.
James Christos is intense and bad ass and totally underrated in the Kansas City hip-hop scene. It's not for lack of hustling -- the guy plays a ton of shows, drops a ton of CDs, and stickers up the town (to name a few of his tactics). More likely, it's because Christos' music floats between gangsta hardness and indie ideology: He sounds angry and his beats are hard and locked-in, cleaving to a non-jazzy, non-funky, street-angst sound; but his lyrics are devoid of thug-life narratives.
"Its hard to get an audience in KC because the type of music I'm doing is not exactly 'Gangsta Rap' or 'Hip Hop,'" Christos said in a recent e-mail. "It's more like "Neo Rap," something alternative."
Whatever it is he's doing, Christos gets more compelling with each release. His latest is an EP titled The Black Reign, which contains six bangers cooked up by Christos with help from Jaz Brewer and Krush Groove of 64111 Studios.
Here's 10 reasons to dig ya some Christos. ...
By PETER RUGG
Before 9/11, U.S. Marine Corps Major Mike Corrado was opening up for acts like John Mayer and Robert Cray. After 9/11, he was in Iraq, overseeing security at a military base in Fallujah. Now safely back in Kansas City, his experiences and his lyrics about the life of a military man have given the singer-songwriter a wave of national attention.
Photo courtesy MikeCorrado.com
Follow the link for videos and more.
Koufax has a new album coming out. Why haven't we heard from Koufax lately? It's probably because bandleader Rob Suchan has been living in Praha in the Czech Republic while writing the new album, while his band mates have been at home in Lawrence, sending Rob messages like "done yet?" and "how's the coffee in Prague?" Something like that. Anyway, the new one was recorded at Black Lodge in Eudora, and it's called Strugglers, which, title-wise, is an appropriate follow up to 2005's really good and really underrated Hard Times Are In Fashion.
I'm bound to have a copy of Hard Times around here somewhere. In the meantime, check the band's 'space for the new single, "Strugglers," a jaunty, toy-keyboard-enhanced track with some slick, powerful singing from Suchan, harmonized guitars and, wow, really good production. And mark your calendar for August 10, when Koufax comes to the Record Bar with Smoking Popes.
And watch this forgotten classic video for "Isabelle" off Hard Times. Fantastic song, fantastic nudity.
She Wants Revenge et al
Tuesday, May 12
The Beaumont
Better than: Paying $400 to see the Police.
By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE
Photos by SARAH OKUN
As rock tours go, Nylon Magazine's Summer Music Tour has some pretty rad elements: up-and-coming bands, free posters, a digital photobooth. In fact, it’s too bad more folks didn't show up at the Beaumont Club last night for the festivities, which included sets by She Wants Revenge, Be Your Own Pet, the Virgins and Switches.
Just before the first band came on, my buddy Jake pointed to the 20 or so teenagers right in front of the stage. “That’s how many people came the last time Be Your Own Pet played,” he said, referring to a show at the Grand Emporium. Granted, folks were seated at most of the high tops in the house, too, but save for that small clutch at the front, the floor of the Beaumont was desolate.
That made me really pity Switches. But it's always some band's job to open the show, and the UK band mustered some enthusiasm and did what it had to. Unfortunately, Switches did not perform the rendition of Beck's "Sexx Laws," which appears on MySpace. Rather, the band played pretty much everything off its debut album, Lay Down the Law, saving the title track and single "Drama Queen" for the end, both of which really showcase the band's knack for the catchy, power pop chorus.
Last night at the Record Bar was one of those times when you go to a show expecting nothing and totally get blown away. I speak for everyone -- all 15 or so of us -- who were there. Thanks, Black Hollies.
Far from being a blase, modded-out retro act, the Black Hollies come live with an arsenal of testosteronal psychedelic pop that attempts to reach back in time via a tube-amp-generated wormhole and fuse a couple of fratboy 50s bands to the Lovin' Spoonfull to early '70s Who. Last night, when bassist and lead singer Justin Morey isn't singing about sweet-sweet lovin', his fingers tore up the frets alongside his madcap sidemen's own righteous wallbanging -- Herb Wiley (lead gtr/backup vocals), Jon Gonnelli (12-string gtr) and Keith Moon-conjuring drummer Nichoals Ferrante -- making for a continous head-unzip with breaks only for the verses. The message I'm getting at: These prettyboys can actually play.
And they're playing tonight at the Replay. Be there.
The Black Hollies - "Baby, I'm Your Fool"
By CRYSTAL K. WIEBE
Apparently, being KC's most hyped indie rock band can be slightly uncomfortable, especially when the whole stinkin' scene is gathered in your honor.
The Republic Tigers, you know, that local indie rock band whose song got played on Grey's Anatomy last week presented their album "Keep Color" to Kansas City last night during a free listening party at the Record Bar. The house was packed with hipsters who swigged free PBR while the record played. The band wandered through the club, too, listening to their own music with all their friends and local fans.
At the bar, Tigers frontman Kenn Jankowski confessed that he found the experience kind of surreal.
"Well, as loud as it is in here, no one can really hear it, anyway," I said.
"Good," Jankowski smiled and walked away.
By JASON HARPER
Princes of Pain
KC is lucky to catch a couple of not-necessarily-hot but totally solid touring acts this weekend. First up, Little Rock, Ark., band American Princes brings its blend of lo-fi guitar pop, broken-throated harmonies, heavy lyrics and big choruses to Davey's. You won't find these dudes written up in the hype-osphere, but if you give 'em a chance, it might pay off. This first song here, "Open Letter," is a chilling and spot-on song about a dysfunctional father-son relationship -- and it kind of rocks, too. The next one, "Where I'm Calling From," is philisophically meandering and sort of depressing but also hopeful -- kind of like most of the work by the writer whom song references: Raymond Carver. This one, too, comes with a sweet chorus. If you feel desperate and poor most of the time and like slice-of-life short fiction and guitars, American Princes may be your new fave.
MP3: American Princes, "Open Letter," from Less and Less (Yep Roc, 2006)
MP3: American Princes, "Where I'm Calling From," from Other People (Yep Roc, 2008)
Catch them: Friday, May 1, at Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club
Call the Cops
I wrote about the Cops a couple of issues ago and was later embarrassed to learn that this Seattle band's latest, Free Electricity, came out last year and was therefore one of 2007's most underrated records, not this year's, as I said in the writeup. Oh well, the disk has definitely been in my car a lot the past few weeks, and as a result, I've been braking for old ladies and running down chumps in my energy-efficient VW. The Cops' sharp guitars, streetwise lyrics and neck-jostling rhythms make for rock that's respectful of punk sensibilities but not bound to them.
Photo by Curt Doughty
MP3: The Cops, "Light It Off"
MP3: The Cops, "N.99"
Both tracks from Free Electricity (Mt. Fuji, 2007)
Catch them: Sunday, May 4, at the Record Bar
More(land) after the jump.
Remi Remembers
By JASON HARPER
Not too long ago, in Warrensburg, Missouri, punk was kosher and Kosher was punk.
Starting in the dredges of the Warrensburgeois punk scene and rising all the way to a contract with L.A.'s BYO Records, Kosher was a pretty big deal. Its frontman, Remi Remlinger, is remembered as a patriarch of the scene, and the now-grown kids are going wild for the group's reunion this weekend.
If you youngins recognize the name Remlinger it may be because of Remi's little brothers, Sonny and Joe, who play together in KC power trio Super Black Market. But what you probably don't know is that all three Remlingers used to have a band called G.O.D. with Scott Burnett of Minnow Records. Burnett recently created a MySpace for the group. It's sick.
The Wayward Blog caught up with Remi via to answer 10 questions about himself and Kosher. Read it and snag some MP3s after the jump.
Show Info: Kosher plays with Super Black Market tonight, Friday, May 2 at the Brick and tomorrow, Saturday, May 3, at The 400 in Warrensburg.
