Kansas City Music Blog

Before Commander Cody became a household name for his saloon-stomping, country-rock jams in the '70s, the man behind the moniker had a career in art academia as George Frayne. In the late '60s Frayne was plying his MFA in sculpture toward teaching at the Wisconsin State University in Oshkosh when he decided to move to San Francisco in 1969 with members of his backing band to pursue music full-time. Later that same year, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen would open for the Grateful Dead and then go on to tour the world, releasing albums throughout the '70s on Paramount and Warner Bros., the highest-charting being the band's self-titled 1975 release.

The Commander in Italy, July 2009.

​

The Lost Planet Airmen lineup ended with We Got a Live One Here in 1976, but the Commander forged ahead with various backing bands in the subsequent years. After the release of Let's Rock on Blind Pig Records in '87, Commander Cody stopped touring and recording regularly but continued with his art, especially painting.

This year, Commander Cody has a new album out, Dopers, Drunks and Everyday Losers, his first since 1999, as well as a coffee-table book, Art, Music & Life, which features paintings by Frayne alongside stories from his life and career in music.

The 1819 Central Gallery will be showing an exhibition of Frayne's paintings beginning with an opening tonight from 6 to 9 p.m. (Read our profile of the gallery here.) The show runs through December. Unfortunately, Cody won't be coming to town to play, he says, until probably sometime this Spring, at Knuckleheads.

Never ones to pass up a chance to talk to someone unusual and famous, we caught up with the Commander from his home in Saratoga Springs, New York, to talk about, among other things, a life-changing revelation in his family history, playing Cowtown Ballroom in KC, how he was the "reefer man" in Ann Arbor, how Hunter S. Thompson tried to blow up his hotel room and, well, art, music and life. Better clear your calendar for the next 30 or so -- the Commander likes to talk (and we likes to listen to him).

Is it alright to call you Commander?

The cover of Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen.

​

Sure, call me Commander or George or Cody - actually, most people call me Cody. But whatever you're comfortable with.

I kinda like Commander.

Military background?

Trekkie actually.

Excellent, I'm kind of a Trekkie myself. I certainly enjoy science-fiction. That's one of the things I really, really love.

Did you toy with any other stage names?

Yeah. It was 1967 and I was out at my summer job in New York as a lifeguard at Jones Beach, which is a pretty big deal. Every July 4th about 3 million people show up at Jones Beach. There's 427 lifeguards spread out over 32 miles and 17 beaches.

We'd retired to the Jones Beach Hotel where there's sort of a lifeguard bar. We were forming a lifeguard band and were trying to figure what names to call it, and I had three. First of all was the name I'd been trying to start a band with, a name I'd brought from college, which was Smooth Dog and the Puppies, which I thought was damn good, you know?

But that didn't work over. Then the television set was on behind the bar, and the rocket man was on there, the Commando Cody character. And the movie was The Lost Planet Airmen, so I went, "How about Commando Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen?" But they didn't like that either.

Q&A BY DANNY R. PHILLIPS

Since the early 1980s, the Meat Puppets have been confusing critics and influencing followers with their acid-fueled, psychedelic, country-punk freakouts. Few bands in the history of rock have so openly challenged existing boundaries like the Pups. Any given album (or song, even) features elements of punk, bluegrass, straight -ahead rock and beat poetry style lyrics.

​Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, and now based in Austin, the band was formed by twin brothers Curt and Cris Kirkwood on guitar and bass, respectively, plus drummer Derek Bostrom. Slightly ahead of the '90s grunge movement, the trio became a benchmark to bands like Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., the Lemonheads, Built to Spill and Mudhoney. The fact that the band has only had one hit single (1993's "Backwater") only adds to its fringe, counterculture mythology.

The Wayward Blog caught up with Curt Kirkwood by phone from his Austin, Texas home as he recovered from an opening slot on Stone Temple Pilots latest tour in support of the Meat Puppets' new album, Sewn Together (Megaforce).

What was the music scene like around Phoenix when you formed the Meat Puppets?

Kirkwood: Well, I had been in some bar bands then started playing for myself with Derek Bostrom and my brother Cris. There were others that had their punk bands, at least that's what they called them. Some were punk and others were just weird. After a while, it all just kind of dissipated. I don't really know what happened. We mostly just did our own thing.

Your first couple records were on SST, a punk label. Do you think the Puppets were a punk band at the beginning?

We were a bedroom, backyard band when we started out. We always just thought we were a rock band. That's more of a broad term and many things can fit into it. We found a place in the punk scene were we could play original music. We kinda showed our colors on the first two records. We just wanted to show we could play fast or slow and that we were interested in playing live.

There's a touch of country and bluegrass throughout your music. Were you always interested in those styles or did you pick it up later?

I was around it quite a bit. We moved to Phoenix when our mom married a guy that had race horses for a profession, so I spent a lot of time at the racetrack, and he always had the country station on. We watched The Johnny Cash Show, Hee Haw, so I got a huge dose of it. I didn't know from genres growing up, though. I loved the Beatles, the Monkees. I bought Anne Murray's "Snow Bird." I really liked when the Dillards were on Andy Griffith.

This Sunday, semin ... no, wait. Legen-- nah. Fucking righteous Irish rock band the Pogues is playing its first concert ever in Kansas City. Brief history: The band formed in the early '80s in London, forcing punk and traditional Irish music together like opponents in a drinking contest who both end up on the barroom floor, talking to God and hugging. Beginning with the trio of singer and songwriter Shane MacGowan, tin whistler Spider Stacy and guitarist Jim Fearnley, the group first called itself Pogue Mahone (Gaelic for "kiss my ass") and began adding members, releasing its first album as the Pogues, Red Roses for Me, in 1984. The album caught critical attention and established the band as the most exciting group in the UK working with traditional folk forms. But it was the 1985 album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, produced by Elvis Costello, that broke the band as a worldwide phenomenon. The Pogues continued their run with 1988's masterful If I Should Fall from Grace with God, but by the time the following year's imperfect but solid Peace and Love came out, things had gotten rocky.

​

MacGowan's reputedly titanic overindulgences were taking their toll. Stacy and banjo player Jem Finer sang most of the vocals on LP no. 4, Hell's Ditch, and shortly after, MacGowan was out altogether. The band soldiered on, recruiting the Clash's Joe Strummer to sing on tour and recording the final Pogues album, Waiting for Herb, with Stacy at the mic. Meanwhile, MacGowan returned on his own with backing band the Popes. Neither MacGowan nor the Pogues fared well without each other, however. The first reunion tour was in 2001. Since then, the Pogues have hit the road intermittently over the years to play their classics: songs about joy, drunkeness, working-class rebellion, the Irish immigration experience, love and being in a band. "Young men's songs," as Philip Chevron calls them.

Guitarist Philip Chevron (born Philip Ryan) joined the band just before Rum, Sodomy & the Lash. His best-known contribution is the immigration ballad "Thousands Are Sailing," off Grace. He's also known (mainly in the UK) for his ongoing punk band the Radiators. At 52 and a cancer survivor, Chevron is articulate and forthcoming. Constantly interacting with fans on the Pogues fan forum, Chevron is circumspect about the Pogues' tumultuous career and seems just as ready to debate politics -- he has a vehement dislike for the Westboro Baptist Church -- as remember old times. We caught up with Chevron on the phone from Dublin a couple of weeks before the beginning of this fall tour. Though it was a long, fascinating interview with a generous and entertaining man, we don't even want to think what our phone bill's going to be for the international call. Please, folks, savor these words. Keep them in your heart. Or at least buy us a beer on Sunday at the Midland.

Wayward Blog: How did you get the name Chevron?

Philip Chevron: I can't remember. It's a long time ago, and I've been Chevron a lot longer than my original name. I suppose I wanted to impress American hotel concierges or receptionists that my father was a big oil millionaire or something. And maybe I thought it would get me a better table at restaurants, and if that's the case, it certainly hasn't worked. [Laughs.]

How did you feel overall about the dates you played earlier this year?

They went pretty good, actually. It's sorted of worked quite well for us, splitting America up into March and October, as it were. It means we can get to the East Coast in March and the West Coast in October. The shows have been pretty good, and we also did some shows in Europe over the summer that were good. So, it still works for us, I guess, and the audience.

What does the band do to prepare for going on tour?

At this stage, because we've been at it for so long, we just do a minimum of rehearsal in whatever the first city is. So we'll rehearse in Seattle a day or two before we do our Seattle gig. I guess if we don't know the songs by now, we'll never know them.

How's your health?

Thank you, I'm very well, actually. The danger seems to have passed, at least for the time being, so I'm feeling very good, quite strong again. That was a scary moment while it lasted.

Your struggle with the disease [throat cancer] took place over two years, right?

Yeah, pretty much. It takes almost that long just to get the fucking chemotherapy out of your system, which is the big problem everybody has who gets treated for cancer - it's not so much the cancer that wrecks you, it's the treatment that wrecks you. And if you don't have the treatment, you're leaving yourself wide open for even worse. But it does take a long, long time to get it out of your system, and I got pretty heavy doses of it and simultaneous radiation as well.

Were you covered by the Irish health care system?

My main home is in Britain, so I'm covered by the NHS. That much-reviled NHS that the American right are pointing to as a faulty mechanism for health care [laughs], without which, I wouldn't be talking to you.

You support the NHS, then?

Well, absolutely. They saved my life twice, why wouldn't I? I basically believe in the principle that societies deserve to do what it takes to make sure they're the healthiest they can be, if only because healthy societies are also productive ones. It's very disconcerting to see that so many people in America have financial issues and bankruptcy issues and just let their health deteriorate because they can't afford health insurance. It's just a no-brainer to me. The British basically gave themselves health insurance as a gift for helping to win the Second World War, and it was just the greatest social gesture of the 20th century, really. And every society that's emulated it since has found it works.

INTERVIEW BY DANNY R. PHILLIPS

St. Joseph, Missouri has never been considered a musical hotbed, and the odds are stacked against it becoming the next Seattle, Omaha or Athens. However, the birthplace of jazz great Coleman Hawkins and the Pony Express has been getting some press of late thanks to a one-guy-two-girls rock band named Alice.​

For the better part of five years, the trio of guitarist, bassist and vocalist Rachel Hoffman, drummer Bobby Floyd and bassist, guitarist and vocalist Erika Pontius Foulk has been building a strong local following with its hypnotic melodies, well-crafted songs and more than passing comparisons to 1990s alt-rock female-fronted groups like the Breeders and Veruca Salt.

We sat down with the threesome in the kitchen of Floyd's downtown St. Joseph home to discuss Alice's upcoming album, their Saturday CD-release show at the Brick, their recent in studio performance on KRBZ and the music scene up in St. Joe.

Phillips: Is the name Alice a nod to Alice in Wonderland or do you just like The Brady Bunch?

Foulk: When we started the band, Bobby wasn't in the band yet and Rachel and I definitely wanted a feminine feel to it, but we had just recently watched Alice Through The Looking Glass and we were reminded of the creepiness and scariness of things you watch as a kid. The name felt creepy, dreamy and familiar, and that's how we wanted our music to sound like.

Bobby, how do you feel when people hear about Alice and assume it's an all girl band?

Floyd: Well, it's like you want to joke about it and make as much fun of it as you can. But it is a female-fronted band so that's what people are going to say and what they'll assume.
Foulk: It definitely has a feminine vibe to it but I think Bobby's OK with it. He's secure enough in his manhood to deal with everything that comes along with it.
Floyd: I also like playing in the band because the girls are pretty. [Laughs.] It brings women into the shows, which is fine.

If there's any band that needs no introduction on any planet or in dimension, it's the Flaming Lips. The Oklahoma City legends' new album, Embryonic, comes out today: a hefty, 18-track double album full of some of the most daring and schizoid music the band has produced in years. The band plays The Late Show with Conan O'Brien tonight as part of a series of release-week events in LA that includes a MySpace secret show and the opening of a pop-up store.

Before all the hullabaloo began, we caught up with drummer Kliph Scurlock at his home in Lawrence to talk about, among other things, the Miles Davis influence on the album, astrology, Namelessnumberheadman, and who would play him and Wayne in a movie.

The Wayward Blog: So what's your year been like?

Kliph Scurlock: Oh, man... The first few weeks of the year were pretty mellow. We played a show on New Year's Eve in Oklahoma. I got home around the 3rd or so and hung out for a couple of weeks. We did a video for that song "Borderline" that we did with Star Death and White Dwarfs for the Warner Bros. 50th anniversary compilation thing. After that, we started going over to Steven's and working on songs. We did that pretty much every day for a couple months, and in March or April, we started going up to Tarbox and recording there. For a few months, we'd be at Tarbox for a couple weeks and come back and be at Steven's, recording there, working on demos. Some of the stuff we recorded at Steven's we'd take up to Dave's place [Dave Fridman of Tarbox Studios], and he'd fix 'em up and make 'em sound better, and then we'd add to those.

Was this your first experience recording with the Flaming Lips?

I would say yeah. I've done some B-sides and stuff, but as far as doing an album project, it was my first time.

Was that monumental?

It was. It was kind of weird when Wayne called and said, "We're gonna do this video and after that we're going to Steven's to do some recording, so be prepared to be down here a while." I was like, "Oh, wow, alright." So it was, but at the same time, the day to day of doing it didn't seem particularly monumental, because, you know, I've known those guys for so long and worked for them and have been playing with them for the last seven years, and when we're all together ... it's only when I think about the fact that "oh shit, we're doing an album, and I'm here in it"...

​Did any outside influences shape the recording of the album - other albums, bands, movies...

Actually, it's funny you should mention movies because Wayne really got into this movie called The Night Porter, I think. It's this weird film from, I think 1974, about a girl who was a Jew during World War II and one of the Nazi guards who tortured her and raped her and fucked with her all the time, and she survives the concentration camps, and later she goes to this hotel and that guy is working as the night porter, and they have this weird relationship, and turns out she actually liked it. I'm not sure what about it Wayne got into, but he did, and it ended up shaping some of the lyrics. A couple people asked me, "Was Wayne in a bad mood when he was doing the album? The lyrics are dark!" He wasn't at all, he was just exploring different lyrical things, and watching this movie and the psychology of somebody that could actually enjoy torture and being abused and submission and domination and stuff like that.

​David Cross hasn't been to Kansas City since suffering the drunken mindfuck he describes at length on his Grammy-nominated first album, 2003's Shut Up, You Fucking Baby. Launching into his tale of how he came to be undone by booze and the medium-lousy band Harlow, he says he started the night alone because he had no friends in Kansas City. "And good for my friends," he says.

That cheap shot hasn't stopped Cross fans here from quoting lines from that bit most of this decade. If you're reading this, you probably know someone who has affected a low, nasal voice and told you to "answer your telephone" -- or you've done it yourself.

Still, knowing that all the liquor in Westport wasn't enough to endear KC to the comedy hero of Mr. Show, Arrested Development and the upcoming Channel 4 show The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret -- well, that's disappointing. Cross is showing a segment of that new show, which he has co-written, to some audiences on his new tour, which stops tonight at the Midland downtown. (The show's at 8; Todd Glass opens.) He won't run into any acts from VH1's Bands on the Run, so the way seems clear for him to like us this time.

The occasion for Cross' tour is I Drink for a Reason, his new book of short essays, lists and tangents. It's his first book, and at this writing, it's holding at No. 32 on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list.

I talked to Cross for a few minutes last week as his tour got under way. I blame the flop-sweat inferiority complex induced by a quick refresher with the Harlow-Kansas City track from Shut Up for some weak questions. So if Cross still thinks KC is lame, it's probably all my fault.

So, uh, you're coming back to Kansas City ...

I'm sorry. I can only apologize so many times. No, seriously, I just remembered that the airline lost my luggage coming into Kansas City for that show, so I had to wing around 20 minutes that I normally would have had stuff.

Benjamin Tobias Ruth isn't quite old enough to be considered a grandfather of the scene yet, but he has enough stories to put you on his lap and spin a yarn or two.

Ben Ruth (second from left) and his Grand Marquis bandmates are music royalty.

​

I caught up with the 31-year-old bassman of the Grand Marquis and Be/Non at the Brooksider (located in the same neighborhood where he grew up and still lives) and talked ragtime, prog-rock and why no one dances around here.

And don't forget -- the Grand Marquis is celebrating its 11th anniversary as a band this Saturday at Crosstown Station. Cheers, big ears!

The Wayward Blog: How'd you get started on your musical journey, Ben?

Well, in high school I always played in a bunch of rock n' roll bands and we woodshedded in different people's basements. I think the first live show was when I was 12, 13 -- the summer in between when I was in the 8th grade and a freshman. I went through some success -- or however successful a teenager can be -- at that.

After high school, I started getting jobs in restaurants in Westport, and I met Adam Stotts and Lisa McKenzie. Lisa was more into jazz, and I kind of went with her into a group called the Moose Malloys. It was kind of an experimental jazz project. With Adam, we started playing in Overstep. He had been in a band called Uncrush and he had that rock n' roll fix that I needed, so right away there was this divergence.

I wanted to learn how to play the upright bass so I auditioned for the UMKC Conservatory, got accepted and stayed there for three years and ended up getting very disillusioned with the stringent policies that they liked to pull there. They liked to keep it real tight. So I ventured away from that, and I delved into the free jazz and the experimental dissonance of the rock n' roll that I was involved in at the time.

INTERVIEW BY DANNY PHILLIPS

Few bands today can say they've been slogging it out together in the rock trenches for 30 years. But longevity is just one of the reasons that makes Social Distortion compelling.

myspace.com/socialdistortion

​

After 30 years, founder and sole remaining original member Mike Ness still tours as hard as ever, is still copied by the younger generation and is still relevant. The road Ness chose, however, has not been an easy one.

Ness started Social D. in Fullerton, California, with friend and guitarist Dennis Danell (who died unexpectedly of heart failure in 2000) as response, Ness says, to "the shit that was around in the late '70s and '80s." Social Distortion mixed a love for country, blues, roots music and rockabilly with the speed and message of punk, creating a style that would influence thousands, even as the band pushed through addictions, tragedy, triumph and devastating loss over three decades.

We caught up with Ness over the phone about the fact that his band's so damn old, and also about turning his kids on to Johnny Thunders, his appreciation for the Killers, handling the death of Danell, the beauty of a chopped '40 Mercury and, well, quite a lot, actually.

The Wayward Blog: Tell us about the new album.

Mike Ness: Well, we haven't really started recording it yet. We'll start in the studio in January, but we have been playing some of the new songs live in the set. You know, it's been five years since our last studio record so we're really excited.

How's the tour going?

Very good. We've been working all summer. We did Europe for five weeks, Canada for three, now we're hitting up the States.

How are midwestern audiences different here then, say, New York, Europe or L.A.?

I really can't decipher, you know, I've tried and I really can't. There's really more stuff in common then there are differences. More similarities than differences. You know what I mean? You would think there would be differences for different reasons. Like maybe in Spain they're a little more vocal than Germany, but really our fans are pretty consistent across the Gourd.

How does it feel to be in one band for the past 30 years? 30 years, wow. It feels great. We never really thought it would last this long, ya know. I mean, geez, the average lifespan for a band these days is something like three years.

30 years is a long time for anything.

Yeah, exactly. I question all the time how do you do something for 30 years? Ya know, I think you gotta be stubborn and really love what you're doing. It's a combination of the two.

What made you want to start a band?

Because I love music so much, and I didn't just want to listen to it -- I wanted to play it too.

There is an obvious vein of country and rockabilly running through your music. Why such a connection to roots music?

After I got tired of all the British stuff -- it was good in the late '70s, early '80s, but by the mid-'80s, there wasn't really much happening, so I felt a real need to grab ahold of my American roots. You know, I saw a connection between early Americana music -- whether it be jazz or blues or folk music, rockabilly, primitive rock and roll, bluegrass -- I saw a connection from that directly to punk. It was working-class music, talking about working-class issues, the honesty of it and just the raw simplicity of it. Talk about rebellious music. I mean, please!

If anyone in the local music scene has managed to contradict his own name, it's thePhantom*.

ThePhantom* doesn't keep his game under wraps.

​Far from inconspicuous and never known to lurk on the sidelines, thePhantom*, whose alter ego is mild-mannered UMKC Urban Studies major Kemet Coleman, has been super-active in the fray, saturating the hip-hop milieu with hella live shows (many at the newly established ScionLab) and an online presence that other rappers could and should learn from.

He first swooped onto the scene in 2007 at the tender age of 21 with the release of Release, a blitz of techno-enhanced beats and Tech N9ne-influenced hyperspeed rap that was actually his fourth album. (Yeah, dude's roots run deep.) Earlier this year, he crafted the largely instrumental opus, Phantastic: Hummingbird Grooves For The Neo​-​Conscious Mind and gave it away free online. He's currently prepping his next record, Destroy & Rebuild, for a December date, to be put out on his own brand-new label, Ripple Effect Records.

We caught up with thePhantom* to preview a track from the new album and talk about his future career and why Kansas City should not be like a doughnut.

The Wayward Blog: What have you been up to lately?

ThePhantom*: A lot of events. I haven't really had the space to do many events in the past, but now that I'm hooked up with ScionLab, I'm able to do it. I'm trying to get the label together, and we're going to release my next album, Destroy & Rebuild. It's coming out December 22, and it'll be the first release. I'm trying to build this label Tech N9ne style, where I have a partner and have some other artists on board. We're trying to make it Kansas City's Motown - we'll have our own studio, do our own recording. It's gonna be called Ripple Effect Records. So, on December 22, be on the look out for that.

Who's your partner?

His name is Mike Frank. We're basically high school friends putting stuff together. He has a business degree now. I work with him on everything from merch to booking all my shows. He does all the little bitty stuff that I don't have time for.

How is this like Tech N9ne?

We're not gonna approach radio at all, we're gonna do it completely our way. We're not gonna succumb to the payola and all that stuff. Our basic belief is if we make good music, people will like it and it'll build a community. We're not gonna compromise what we're doing for radio play or televsion play. It's completely independent: for the arts, for the music and for the people.

So tell us about this song, "City Lights."

I'm trying to help bridge that gap between the newer generation of hip-hop artists in the scene with the older, more established ones. That's why I included Reach in there. I feel like if we divide any more, progress will stop.

MP3: thePhantom*, "City Lights (feat. Reach)"

So what about your own music - will you continue releasing your own stuff once Ripple Effect gets going?

I don't think I'll do much after Destroy & Rebuild. I'm looking to do more on the buisness side of things, such as producing events. I'm the type of person, who when I do stuff, I need it to be inspired by something.

John Hulston has a lot on his plate these days.

Aloha, Hulston.

​
I caught up with the owner of Anodyne Records and co-owner of Czar Bar via Facebook and talked about what's cookin' in the Crossroads.

The Pitch:Which is more difficult, being a bar owner or running a record label?

John Hulston: Owning a bar for sure. I'm dealing with a much higher volume of sales and much more day-to-day, minute-to-minute attention is required.

What does Czar Bar offer that other venues don't?

An unparalleled amount of drama!!:).

What is on your turntable these days?

Dust. Thanks for this question though as it is a reminder that I need to order a new needle ASAP.

Which Anodyne artist do you see going the farthest in the future and why?

That would be a toss up between Roman Numerals, Little Brazil & The Valley Arena as they are all playing the Anodyne 10 Year Party - which will catapult all performers (and attendees) into the Superstardom Stratosphere...if only for one night.

If you could go back 10 years in the past knowing what you know now, what would you do differently (with Anodyne)?

I'd move to Tahiti.

Catch the above-mentioned show tonight at 9 p.m. at Czar Bar (1531 Grand) and receive two free Anodyne Records CDs with $7 cover charge.

Yes the Grandmaster Flash. The first man ever to use the turntable as an instrument was kind enough to call our headquarters last week to field questions about his life, from the first record he ever cut to what's hot on the dance floor now to his starring role in the new game DJ Hero. Without the pioneering discoveries Flash (born in Barbados as Joseph Saddler and brought up in the Bronx) made in the early '70s experimenting with vinyl records, hip-hop as we know it today would not exist.

Credit: Mo Daoud

His bio puts it best: He was the first DJ to physically lay his hands on the vinyl and manipulate it in a backward, forward or counterclockwise motion, when most DJs simply handled the record by the edges, put down the tone arm, and let it play. Those DJs let the tone arm guide their music, but Flash marked up the body of the vinyl with crayon, fluorescent pen, and grease pencil--and those markings became his compass.

From there, Flash developed an array of techniques he called the Quick Mix Theory (the double-back, back-door, back-spin, phasing, etc.). This led to cutting between two records and scratching. MCs began arriving on Flash's figurative doorstep to rap over his beats, and soon Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were born and would introduce hip-hop to mainstream culture through songs like "The Message."

Nowadays, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee remains a vital voice in the world of hip-hop, performing, producing, hosting a Sirius show and interacting on all levels with the musical genre he helped create. Flash recently released The Bridge: Concept of a Culture, his first major studio album in 20 years, but what's got him most excited right now is DJ Hero.

As a working (and request-taking!) DJ, Flash gigs all over the world and will be coming to Kansas City on Friday, July 24, to spin at Mosaic.

We (that is, I) tried not to embarrass ourselves (myself) during a wonderful, 30-minute interview with Grandmaster Flash over the phone as he seemed to be running errands around his home city. Transcript follows.

The Pitch: What was the first record (or records) that you perfected your cutting techniques with?

Grandmaster Flash: There was no one record. Any particular part where the drummer had a moment to play alone was the one that I searched for - when the drummer got to play for 10 seconds or 10 minutes. It could've been a black record, a white record, foreign, American, didn't matter. Karen Young's "Hot Shot," was one of the first ones. Boz Scaggs was probably another. "I'm Gonna Love You a Little" by Barry White -- the drum thing at the beginning. James Brown "Ain't It Funky Now," that incredible bongo part. "Apache," "The Big Beat" by Billy Squier...

When you began using your brand-new DJ methods at parties and clubs, what kind of reaction did you get?

The first time, it was as quiet as you and I when we're not speaking. Why is he doing that? Why is he repeating that? How is he doing that? My theory was if I took the section - pop, rock, jazz, funk, R&B, new, old, foreign or American - if I sort of focused on the musical landscape in the area where the drummer played on for a small amount of time [i.e., the "break"], I would have total positive chaos, but when no one understood it, I was very sad and confused. I cried for a week.

A week?

For sure! At least a week. I couldn't figure it out. I was a kid, you know -- This isn't supposed to be happening.

Shinetop Jr. has the market cornered on blues piano in this city.

The KC native, a.k.a. Mike Sedovic, who occasionally gigs with Levee Town, Trampled Under Foot and John Paul's Flying Circus has also been nominated for a 2009 Pitch Music Award. Check out his boogie piano solo show every Wednesday night at B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ. Need a preview? Click the link for some footage of a show he played last year in Brazil.

The Pitch: How long have you been playing piano?
Shinetop Jr.: I've been playing piano for over 30 years - basically since I could reach the keys.

What is on your turntable?
I've just recently moved over to the iPod side of things, so I now carry around my whole collection on one device. Depending on my mood, I listen to everything from classical to metal. If I pushed play on my iPod right now, you would get some Brazilian music. My favorite is to put the iPod on shuffle and see which of the 12,000+ songs come up.

Where is your favorite place to play or see a show in KC?
There are a lot of great venues in KC, but with my playing style, I like B.B.'s Lawnside BBQ the best. When the music gets going, the place just seems to breathe with the beat. Plus, it's hard to pass on the barbecue and cajun food they serve.

Who do you think is the most influential person in the KC blues world?
Everyone has influential players unique to themselves... I owe most of
what I know to my former band, the Blues Notions and Lindsay Shannon. In my mind, I think Lee McBee has inspired and continues to inspire players, young and old. Part of being a blues musician in KC is sharing the love and knowledge of the music with anyone willing to listen. It's like a family.

How do you rate the blues culture in other cities that you've played in or been to, compared to KC?
The funny thing about the Blues is that it transcends culture. West Coast, East Coast, Chicago, Memphis, KC, even Brazil - it all plays about the same. It's the feel or the groove that changes. Kansas City has that "swing" that sets it apart from other cities and it's a big hit around the
world.

Robert Moore knows music.

I caught up with the host of KRBZ 96.5 FM's Sonic Spectrum, CEO of local label Oxblood Records and ubiquitous face on the KC indie rock scene via e-mail and discussed past and present Kansas City music, DJ gigging and what sounds are cookin' so far this year.

The Pitch: What is the best, most unique show you have seen within the last five years in Kansas City?

Robert Moore: Well, best and most unique could actually be separate. A few that come to mind...AC/DC at the Sprint Center, Gary Numan at Record Bar, Woven Hand at Record Bar, X at the Madrid and Nomeansno at Record Bar.

What's new with Oxblood Records?

We're about to release a new 7" from The Pedaljets and we have a few more releases that we're working on. The compilation, First Blood, is still selling nicely in the digital world thanks to the constant touring of the Republic Tigers and the Ssion.

What do you think the music scene needs more of in Kansas City?

Fans. We have enough venues that feature local music and we have great coverage from local papers, online 'zines and radio. It's not the economy ... this has been an issue for quite awhile. Support your local scene. It's a damn good one.

When was the last time you had a drink at Mike's Tavern?

On a rainy, muggy afternoon, I caught up with Brookside native and Mike's proprietor, Kurt Wirken. To the sounds of old Irish drinking songs, we talked about the neighborhood and his east side bar.

 
The Pitch: How long has Mike's been around?

Kurt Wirken: It was established in 1964. It's been a bar and grill a long time before that. I've been here for eight years. I was fortunate enough to meet Mike Renner, the guy that named the place Mike's shortly after we reopened two years ago. He and his wife, Beverly, came in and showed me some bullet holes I didn't know existed and told me some stories of the old days. It's got a lot of history to it.

In the late '80s and early '90s, the smack-talkin', party-startin' Philadelphia duo DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince provided millions of young American suburbanites their first introduction to the joys of hip-hop.

credit: nathalie@gunpowder-3.tv

With multi-platinum-selling status and unforgettable songs like "Girls Ain't Nothing But Trouble," "Parents Just Don't Understand" (which won the first-ever rap Grammy), "Nightmare On My Street" (which, full disclosure, I memorized and performed in a fifth-grade talent show) and "Summertime" - not to mention the ubiquity of the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air - Jeff Townes and Will Smith were the Bob Hope and Bing Crosby-style musical-comedy duo for Generation X.

Though even kids today are likely aware of Smith's career trajectory as a Hollywood superstar, only close followers of hip-hop are likely to be hip to what DJ Jazzy Jeff has been doing over the years. Turns out, the guy's kept plenty busy. He's produced and lent scratches to records for a long list of artists including the Roots, Talib Kweli and Rhymefest. He's released two all-original solo albums, one of which, 2007's The Return of the Magnificent, went gold. He's built up a studio and production company in Philly called A Touch of Jazz, which has launched many artists recording careers, including solo Will Smith, and, more recently, Jill Scott.

DJ Jazzy Jeff is playing a free show in Kansas City this Saturday as part of the B-Live Tour, brought to town courtesy of VH1's Save the Music Foundation. Jazzy Jeff will share the stage at KC Live in the Power & Light District as part of an all-star DJ lineup that includes Toronto's MSTRKRFT and mashup pioneer Z-Trip.

I caught up with Jazzy Jeff over the phone from his hotel room in Denver yesterday to talk about his life as a DJ, how it's the feel of music, not the sound, and how if you believe in your music, you should give it away for free. (And to demonstrate that point, Jazzy offers up a mix for free, after the jump.)

The Pitch: How's this tour going so far?

Really good, really really good. This is my third date, and the first two dates were really good.

What did you listen to growing up?

I listened to a lot of old soul, a lot of Motown, a lot of Philly and national stuff very, very early on, and my dad was really into jazz, so I had no choice but to listen to a lot of his stuff, from Wes Montgomery to Jimmy Smith, Count Basie. My brothers were into Motown and also Return to Forever and Weather Report. And by the time I hit around 9 or 10, that was when the hip-hop era was starting, and it was a real big musical melting pot for me. I was listening to a little bit of everything.

Why did you begin DJing?

I used to go to the block parties in my neighborhood. Every Saturday, they'd block off the streets, and when the sun was going down, the street would turn into a dance party. You had a lot of local DJs that you would follow - some big and some small - and when the big guys would come, they'd bring a lot of speakers and stuff. Riding up on my bike, watching the DJ have command over people -- just by the tunes he'd play -- I'd go, "I wanna be that guy."

This weekend, metalheads will converge on the Beaumont Club for American Waste, a two-day festival of speed guitars, drum bursts, Cookie Monster vocals, moshing and infinite black T-shirts. Terry Taylor, vice president of Hunt Industries and member of two bands scheduled to perform (Hammerlord and the Blinding Light), has high hopes for the event. He took a little time out of his insane pre-Fest schedule of paper shuffling, countless phone calls and gear accumulating to answer a few questions from us via e-mail.

The Pitch: This festival is something you've been imagining for years, right? What made this summer the right time to go for it?

Terry Taylor: My friend Pat Fielder and I have talked about for almost 4 years that we wanted to do a cool hardcore and metal fest thing, but it always seemed like a pipe dream. We tried last year and the year before to put something together but nothing ever worked out. We decided this was the year to do it and that is how it is going to be. We asked a bunch of the local acts that we liked if they were into it. Most of them were, then we tracked down some headliners. Coalesce is a staple in the metal/hardcore scene in Midwest, so they were the first headliner we asked. After that we blew through some potential headliners for the first day but routing wise just didn't work out. The Testament/Unearth package just fell into our laps and it just sort of worked out that way!

As a promoter, you book single shows all the time. Putting a whole festival together is more complicated. You've done it before, though, right?

Yeah back home in Sioux Falls, I did at least one type of fest a year. There is so much more involved when doing this many bands -- gear, space, set length, time slots, controlling guest lists for 40 bands, food for all the bands, keeping everyone happy, not shooting yourself in the face the day of the show when everything goes wrong (i.e.: bands showing up late, gear breaking, bands playing longer than they are supposed to, etc), and most importantly paying your bills! We need about 1,300 people combined for the 2 days to come for us to break even and as of right now we are not looking so good. We really want this to be a yearly event that we can build on every year but if we take a big loss this year I don't know if we will do it next year.

More straight talk from Terry and an hour-by-hour tentative festival schedule after the jump.

Darren Welch has seen a thing or two.

Todd Zimmer

Currently playing bass in chamber-folk ensemble In the Pines, Welch also is a co-owner of Midwestern Musical Company. I caught up with him via e-mail talked about art, the economy and the Kansas City Sound.

The Pitch: Where are you from?

Darren Welch: I am from Kansas City. I lived in Lawrence from 1988 to '94. I went there to go to school and quickly found out that my interests were geared more towards "unsupervised living" than scholastics. I indeed had a thirst, but not for knowledge. Since then, I have lived in KC.

How do you keep up with new music?

I worked at Streetside Records for eight years and I'll never have my finger on the pulse of music the way I did in that period, but I still try to keep up mainly through friends and the Internet. I frequent some blogs, MySpace and Last.fm. There's still nothing like hearing a song for the first time that you know immediately will find a place on your musical palette for the rest of your life.

Nathan Reusch knows the music business.

The man behind the local record label, The Record Machine caught up with me via e-mail and answered a few questions about local music, the music he likes and the music he's producing.

The Pitch: Where are you

Julia Parris

from?
Nathan Reusch: I have lived my whole life within two hours of Kansas City. I grew up in Ottawa, Kansas and moved here when I was eleven and then moved away to college for a year but hated it and came right back. I love this city and always struggled with the idea that I would never find it as good as I have it here.

How do you stay up on new music?
 
I don't know if I should admit all my hiding places because I spend so much time reading and keeping up with music. I will admit most of it is online but I love magazines like Paste, Magnet, and Under The Radar when I can get my hands on them and of course, Wayward Blog. But RSS and Twitter have made it super easy for me to keep up on stuff I find interesting. I am trying to be an encyclopedia of current indie music.

I always have the best interviews with Zach Campbell.

The guitarist and singer of Lawrence's Rooftop Vigilantes was working the door at the Jackpot on a slow Monday night when I popped into to discuss his side gig in a Guided By Voices tribute band. The group - unnamed as of the interview - will play this Friday at the Jackpot as part of a diverse bill that also includes rappers Approach, Info Gates, and Negro Scoe.

Zach Campbell is our kind of soldier.

We'll get to the GBV stuff in a minute, but first a few thoughts on being a doorman. It's harder than I thought - and more hilarious too.

Campbell's first task of the night is to turn away a group of gutter punks who want to check out the show for free. He tries to meet them halfway by asking how much they could ante up for the touring bands, and one girl offers a cough drop, a bass pick, and a nickel. Campbell politely tells them "no."

Five minutes later, a broham in a Billabong t-shirt comes in and asks if the bill is full. He says his band had planned on playing at the Bottleneck, but it's closed and he's looking for a last-minute venue to play a "sick-ass set." Campbell tells him that the lineup is full, but the broham is not deterred. He insists that he just wants to play a 20-minute set and "rock the fuck out."

"I'll play for dudes, bitches, nobody - I just want to rock," he pleads.

There are very, very few local bands that give me goosebumps the way
American Catastrophe does.

SLIMMphoto

Terrence Moore, the soft-spoken AmCat guitarist, backup singer and harmonica and banjo player, is also starting to pick up more solo gigs. I caught up with Moore, who is also a manager at the Apple Store on the Plaza, in front of YJ's in the Crossroads. We discussed technology, urban revitalization and Moore's solo goals.

The Pitch: Where are you from?

Terrence Moore: I grew up in Rolla, Missouri. It's a few hundred miles from here in south central Missouri.

How did you end up in Kansas City?

I've lived all over Missouri. I graduated from high school and then went on to a year of college in St. Louis, I transferred after that to Mizzou. I went to school for five years there. I didn't finish my degree in chemical engineering. I packed up to move to Lawrence, Kansas, with a band called the Blackwater at the time. I lived there for six years, and then I moved to Kansas City. It sucked both Shaun [Hamontree, AmCat frontman] and myself in.

Since opening Crosstown Station in December of '07, 30-year-old Chip Mitchell has upped the bar on quality local music venues and added fresh competition to the game. In the still new-seeming Crossroads venue, I talked with Mitchell about running a "destination bar," the shitty economy and the mantra, "predict, plan, promote."

The Pitch: Did you grow up in KC?
Chip Mitchell: Yes, born and raised. Grew up in the Lenexa-Overland Park area.

What was your vision for this place when it first opened?

My vision of this place was a place where local bands would be able to step up and get recognized as some of the superior emerging talent in Kansas City, I guess, and that hopefully this place would start to draw in national acts that I perceived were constantly skipping over Kansas City for Columbia and Lawrence, or whichever direction they were heading.

We felt there wasn't an appropriate-sized room for a lot of this emerging national talent. It just seems like before we were around, most of the rooms were either too small or too big. We were kind of trying to fill that middle void, thinking that I've been to a hundred shows at larger venues where there is a great band but it's a third full or only half full because it's a band playing in a room that's too big. I'm a believer in production and the energy of a show and the experience you leave with at the end of the night, and I felt like when those bands that put out high quality music are playing in those rooms that are too big for them, a lot of that energy just escapes, and it ends up giving the customer or somebody that's really less in tune to how the industry works to have perception that this band really isn't that good or that not that many people care about them. But you take a band that can sell 400 tickets and put them in our room and it's packed to the gills, and everybody thinks that this band has made it in this market.

As a supplement to this week's music feature on east-KC-bred rapper Ron Ron (which you should probably read first for context), we bring you some outtakes from writer Kyle Koch's interview with Ron, in which he shares his thoughts on his influences, the future of hip-hop, Stik Figa and going to college.

To hear Ron Ron, beat a path to Datpiff.com and listen to and/or download his latest mixtape, Mr. No It All. (Listen for free; download for a fee.)

The Pitch: So how'd you get into hip-hop?

Ron Ron: At the time, I was like every other kind of kid who grew up in the ghetto. You kind of relate to what you see on TV. I thought it [rap music] was the hippest shit at the time

Who was your favorite artist coming up?

Man, I loved Outkast. Andre3000. I thought he just had the whole artist and entertainer thing down.

So how did you feel after receiving the non-guilty verdict?

I put my faith in people. People let me down. Put my trust in something that wasn't getting me up out of this shit. It was getting me in this shit, but wasn't getting me out. God gives you the vision to see, you gotta have the spirit in you to see who to fuck with, who not fuck with. It's just about God providing you with a vision, with the spirit to understand what's going on. There was a lot of shit going on. But at the end of the day, I'm smooth.

GLC, aka Gangsta L. Crisis, came to town Sunday and Monday to promote the release of True to the Game, a hip-hop compilation album featuring industry giants like Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, T-Pain and Kanye West. A portion of the proceeds from sales of the album benefit Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I met with GLC, whose song with Kanye West, "The Big Screen," appears on the album. The 31-year-old is the latest signee to West's G.O.O.D. Records label. This post contains portions of the interview that mainly concern G's career and music. Earlier, I posted the parts of the conversation that focused on True to the Game and the Negro Leagues Museum -- and also contained GLC's highly entertaining vision for a future museum dedicated to the history of hip-hop.

The Pitch: Your first album, Love, Life and Loyalty is coming out this summer. Is there a release date?

GLC: We don't have the date yet. We just focused on knocking this record ["The Big Screen"] out, we just shot the video for it, and we're gonna ride the wave. We're gonna go around, make appearances, do performances, do everything we gotta do, and Kanye has just produced, like, five records on my album, and we have a lot of labels biting right now. It's just a matter of what route we wanna take with it.

So it might not come out on G.O.O.D.?

GLC: It'll come out through G.O.O.D., but it still has to have a distributor. So once we lock distribution, we'll go forward. It's just a matter of where we wanna go, but we're gonna do what makes the most sense 'cause now we have people biting, like majors. Everybody's like, "We wanna get GLC over here, we wanna get GLC over here." We have to do what makes the most sense, economically as well as comfort. You gotta be comfortable. 'Cause right now, we're feeling great. We just did South by Southwest in Austin. Woke up the next day, go out to the airport and I was on the front page of the newspaper, like, "GLC, Kanye West, rockin'"

I saw that video on YouTube.

GLC: Aw man, you got your virals down.

When you were young, who did you look up to in hip-hop or in music, and what messages did you look for?

GLC: I really looked up to Marvin Gaye, because he was super smooth, like, with the ladies, and his music had content. He opposed war. He opposed hardships. I looked up to Curtis Mayfield because I could really relate to what he was talking about, even though his music was from the '60s and '70s. Everything that he was saying in his songs, I was seeing whenever I went outside my door, and I was like, "Wow, he's putting this to music, and it's super smooth." I looked up to Isaac Hayes, man, all the like really player-types in the music business. I also looked up to, like, Michael McDonald, like [claps and sings] "I keep forgettin' we're not in love anymore." He was super cold because he was like, I keep forgettin' that things'll never be the same again, baby. I looked up to Luther, 'cause anytime I turned his music on as a young man, I turned on Luther Vandross, and that'd be less mackin' for me to do, because he'd say all the stuff to the woman for me. I wouldn't even have to say it! I was amazed by that, man.

I looked up to Public Enemy, cause they was just rebels. I looked up to Tribe Called Quest, they was cold. I had a range of artists. ... UGK, Scarface, man, I even looked up to MC Hammer, 'cause he was just funny. He used to wear them big pants and came out dancin', and he traveled the whole world, and hired everybody he knew! Now he went bankrupt doin' it, but just to see this man come out, got everybody doin' his dance wearin' these crazy pants, it was like, wow, look at his take on pop culture, and look what he did. He transcended the game. ...

What style of artist are you?

GLC: I am a hip-hop artist. I'm also one of intellect and one of playerism. Like, I can teach you things and give you knowledge, wisdom and understanding and give you game, but I cannot ignore or hide my passion for women. ... I love women as much as I love the sweet potato muffins at the Peach Tree. I had those, and my mind was gone, you know what I'm sayin'? Women kinda do that to me a little bit. But also, I don't glorify violence or negativity or hustlin' or this 'n that. I speak in terms of history as opposed to glorification, like "Hey, I did this." Or this bad thing happened to me. I learned from it ... All these negative situations, but instead of me going into a corner and balling up, or going to jail or being in a crazy house or just being out there messed up, I turned it into something positive. How to turn tragedy into triumph. ... We are a reckoning-power people bound by no measures. We can do whatever we wanna do. Who's gonna tell me no? That's how I feel. You can't deny the undeniable, that's what my music says.

Hank Aaron and Jackie Rob/Cool Papa Bell and Hank Leonard/Yeah, they set the stage/But the baddest of them all was prob'ly Satchel Paige/Yeah, clear as the air you breathe/This beat is ballin' like the Negro League

That isn't the rap of your usual children's entertainer - some kind of square, after-school-special hip-hop dabbler. Far from it. That verse is intoned by none other than the Doggfather himself, Snoop Dogg, on a compilation album of raps and R&B out today benefiting Kansas City's Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Like most of the songs on True to the Game, Snoop's contribution, "Tha Bigg League," pairs a famous artist with one or more not-so-famous artists (the Hustle Boys, in this case). Unlike all but one other song on the album (Young Joc's clever crunk banger "Knock It Out Da Park"), Snoop's joint is actually about baseball.

The other tracks are true to the game, no doubt, but it's not America's pastime -- unless, that is, hip-hop is suddenly more popular than baseball (hmmm). Love, lust, talking big, walking tall and getting down in the club are more the type of base covered on this album, which hits stores today on the brand-new, East Coast-based philanthropic label Stadium Entertainment. But don't worry, mom and dad, the album is free of the profanity, violence and crimetalk that pervades so much commercial rap.

The idea began three years ago as a longshot dream in the head of Negro Leagues Museum marketing director Bob Kendrick. He knew someone who knew someone who knew someone, and eventually Stadium Entertainment came aboard and began tapping artists from all over the industry -- Talib Kweli, Ludacris, Chingy, Big Boi, Macy Gray and Kanye West, to name some of the luminaries -- to contribute at no cost to the museum songs that haven't appeared anywhere else, save one. (The exception is "Beam Me Up," by Tay Dizm, featuring T-Pain and Rick Ross, which came out last year as a single for T-Pain's label Nappy Boy Digital.) A portion of the proceeds from sales of True will benefit the museum.

"Hopefully this will be the first of three to four volumes of releases in partnership between Stadium Entertainment and the museum," Kendrick says.

If all the releases are this cool, by all means, keep 'em coming, Bob. The cover may not scream hard beats and hella bling, but the tracks inside are short on neither. In between commercial rap tracks like "Pretty Girls," on which Ludacris describes an onion booty that makes him want to cry, there are soaring R&B slow jams, like the achey "Still Hurts," featuring Macy Gray and Marsha Ambrosius. It's the kind of album your kids might actually thank you for -- and then go get freaky to.

Kind of wild, huh? When the project was announced all over the 'net last August, it was certainly unexpected. (The album was originally scheduled for an October release but was delayed.) Since then, articles in the Star as recently as last week have blasted the museum for thus far failing to find an elder-baseball spokesman to replace widely loved NLBM celebrity advocate Buck O'Neil, who died in 2006 at the age of 94. But even those critics have to agree that the museum needs to reach young people just as much as it needs to please baseball history fans. Kendrick says True to the Game is all about the kids -- and it's about also about finding "non-traditional streams of revenue" for the museum.

Photo by Jason Harper

G.O.O.D. sport: Rapper GLC visited the NLBM on Monday.

"You're probably not gonna find another museum that's doing a hip-hop salute, you know what I mean?" he says.

The first artists to join the salute were Kanye West and fellow Chicago rapper GLC, the latest signee to West's label, G.O.O.D. Records. The two contribute "The Big Screen," a signature-Kanye drum knocker that's about a young woman going to Hollywood to become a star. GLC (short for "Gangsta L. Crisis") came to Kansas City this past Sunday and Monday to talk with the local media about the album's release. I got some face time Monday afternoon in the museum with G, Kendrick and a room full of happy museum people. After the jump, I've posted some excerpts from the interview about True to the Game. Excerpts from the Q&A focusing on GLC and his music will be posted in a separate entry.

By BRIAN BARR

Raphael Saadiq just wasn't made for these times. Then again, maybe he was. Like Erykah Badu, the former Tony! Toni! Tone! frontman, who is playing tonight at the VooDoo Lounge, is an analog guy in a digital world. But his old-school way of thinking has lead him to successful collaborations with Q-Tip, Mary J. Blige, The Roots, Bilal, and countless others who have needed a producer to give their music a little more "retro" feeling. Last year, he released The Way I See It, a set of Motown replicas. From the toe-tapping beats to his smooth-as-whipped-cream falsetto, the record harks back to a feel-good era. Just as "My Girl" and "Just My Imagination" seemed effortless, so does The Way I See It.. It just is what it is--a bunch of catchy tunes that could've been R&B hits back in the day.

The Pitch: You've called this record your "downtown" record. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Saadiq: Well, at first everybody was saying "Motown," but later on I started to think of it as my "downtown" record, meaning, like, the kind of music that you would hear when you go downtown back in the day. Y'know, you used to hear Motown and stuff like that when you'd go downtown and I was picturing that kind of a dress-up night, like when you'd get dressed up to go see Cab Calloway or Duke Ellington, y'know, in Harlem or wherever. So, I wanted it to be that kind of a record that made people feel like they were getting ready and going out that night and feeling good. So that's where the "downtown" thing came from.

How, exactly, did you achieve the vintage tone on this record?

It was just being in that frame of mind, y'know, putting yourself in that place. I gave my mind and body to the music. I mean, I went out and bought old drum sets and guitars and things like that, but it was more about being in that headspace and just playing the music and not really thinking about the label's reaction or if the TV bookers will get it or concert promoters or whoever. That wasn't one of my concerns. It was just about being in that headspace.

Pitch contributor Saby Reyes-Kulkarni recently conducted a monster-length interview with producer Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, John Zorn, Herbie Hancock and many, many more), who appears tonight at the Record Bar in support of his new album, Sirens of the Apocalypse. Having participated in so many cutting-edge recordings, not to mention graffiti culture, Bisi had a great deal to say about the musical movements he helped kick-start, but prefers to look at them from a broader social perspective. Some choice highlights from that interview:

The Pitch: Engineering is seen as a technical job, when really, it's more like alchemy.

Martin Bisi: It is, and I actually use the word "alchemy." I also use the term "social alchemy," because I feel that what's transpired in my life and my career is this weird social alchemy. It's not just the music, and definitely not just about the technicality, but it's truly about people. That's what excites me about my life. That's why I can look back and say, "You know what, I've had a good life." Not just because of the records I have on the wall, but because they represent this social story. It's about people. And that's what warms my heart. That's what makes me feel that I've lived. Because I've been part of a people-story.

You prefer for bands to not do more than three takes, because you've said it's hard to weigh five different takes.

If you have four, it's basically un-doable. If you're listening to the fourth, you almost can't even remember the first. Also, you know how people look for an "X-factor?" Often, people believe that the X-factor is in the fourth or fifth take. There's nothing wrong with the takes they have already, but they're seeking this intangible X-factor. My assumption is the opposite, where if there is an X-factor, it would be in the first take.

Pitch contributor Saby Reyes-Kulkarni recently caught up with current These Arms Are Snakes and Russian Circles (and former Botch) bassist Brian Cook. An edited transcript of that interview follows.

These Arms Are Snakes, from left: Ryan Frederiksen, Chris Common, Brian Cook, Steve Snere

The Pitch: You like collaborating with other people, and These Arms Are Snakes likes to keep things fresh from album to album. What else are you into, creatively?

Brian Cook: I don't know. I kinda like doing more simple, traditional song stuff from time to time because I don't feel like there's any pressure with that kind of stuff. I have a weakness for simple Americana-type stuff. But I'd also really like to do something obnoxiously ugly again. Even though both Russian Circles and These Arms Are Snakes are pretty abrasive, something that's not melodic at all, really brash and ugly would be really fun.

When you were in the band Roy with Dave Verellen from Botch, an interviewer quoted you as saying, "When you spend years and years playing loud music, touring with loud bands, and attending hundreds or hardcore and metal shows, you reach a point where you need variety or you get totally burnt out." How do you still get excited about playing and listening to heavy music?

Especially around the time that Botch was really active -- I guess at our peak -- I was trying to stay very involved in the local hardcore scene. I hate to say it, because it sounds so negative, but at a point it just stops being something that you do because you love it, and you do it because you feel this sense of obligation. You have to keep track of what's going on and who the new bands are and what's going on at certain labels -- all the stuff that makes hardcore cool because it's more community based.

But when you're in a band that tours more, your worldview expands. So all of a sudden, it's not "I have to keep track of what's going in Seattle." It's like "I have to keep track of the whole US." To try and stay abreast of what's going on in all these cities with these people that you've gotten to know, you sort of feel like you don't give anyone attention anymore. That's how people get burned out a lot of the time. So for us, rather than driving around listening to shit that sounded like the stuff we were doing, we'd listen to Belle and Sebastian or Neutral Milk Hotel or Bob Dylan -- whatever was the antithesis of that.

Duane Trower is a busy dude.

Usually found behind the soundboards of the Record Bar, the Brick or Czar Bar, Duane has also played with some of KC's most acclaimed bands (Season to Risk, Overstep, Doris Henson) and recorded, mixed or mastered even more of them (The Beautiful Bodies, Olympic Size, the Grand Marquis), often at Westend Recording Studios.

We caught up with Duane via e-mail to get this sound dude to sound off.

The Pitch: What are your KC roots?
Trower: I was born in western Kansas. Lived in Boulder, Colorado, for a while as a kid, and have been in Kansas City since.

What do you read? How do you stay informed?
Tape Op (magazine), Gearslutz.com and various recording forums, Found Magazine for inspiration, and listening to music, recorded and live, to search for something new and exciting.

What's the craziest sound mixing/recording experience you've ever had?
I'm not sure about craziest ... Maybe witnessing two cases of beer consumed between three guys during a final mix session, a singer thinking that smoking meth would help him hit a higher note, or a high blind rapper almost fall onto a drum set. Wow, these are all substance related!

Michelle Markowitz is the owner and proprietor of Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club, a Midtown entertainment institution. From Alejandro Escovedo and Freedy Johnston to goth DJs and burlesque shows, this family-owned operation has continued to host diverse local and touring acts and pour stiff drinks through the digital music explosion, a literal building explosion and the threat of a light rail running past the front door. Yesterday, to the sounds of the Grateful Dead, Michelle and I talked about iPods, Maker's Mark vs. Old Fitzgerald and what it takes to stay ahead of the game.

The Pitch: What are your KC roots?
Michelle Markowitz: Born and raised in Kansas City. My family's had the bar since Prohibition. It was at the location where Café Trio is on Broadway. Now we're here at 34th and Main and relocated here after the explosion in '49. My father bought the Bow and Arrow Rambler's Club #2 which is what we currently call Davey's Uptown Rambler's Club.

Berry Anderson

It's always Old Fitz o' clock at Davey's.

What's the best local show you've ever seen?
That's really hard. Let me think. In this decade? Can we pick a decade, let's pick a decade. In the 2000s?

How about the last 30 days or so?
The Chickenhoof reunion with Hearts of Darkness would have to be the top, tied with this last Saturday's show, which was Olympic Size, American Catastrophe and Expassionates, You don't have enough paper in the book to write down all the ones I've seen in the last decade, because there's been tons. A lot of great music comes through here ... our doors and elsewhere. I don't get out much, I have kids, so I don't get to go to other places much, but I have to say in the 2000s, the Republic Tigers at the Brick [11-27-07]. Apocalypse Meow was last year, so I can't put that in as my recent 30 day favorites. I would have to say that is clearly the most organized and locally talented music benefit that's ever been done here. I would have to say that for sure. It was a truly memorable show and one of my top tops. As well as the one at the Record Bar the following day that had Sister Mary Rottencrotch and the Pedaljets, I thought that was stellar as well.

Local hip-hop veteran James Christos, an MC and originator of the Guerilla Movement record label, just inked a distribution deal with label EMI Music Publishing and Gracie Productions. How cool is that? Let him tell you after the jump: