On the back cover of Prelude to Apocalypse, Kansas City’s Jerry Dowell looks a bit like Toby Keith, all muscles, facial hair and cowboy hat. So it’s only natural to fear the content of tunes titled “Loaded Gun” and “War Goin’ On.” But Dowell’s views on military matters are anything but reactionary, and his approach to songwriting is even more…
On her solo debut, Destiny’s Child siren Beyoncé Knowles proves that all her “Independent Woman” sloganeering was more than just R&B hyperbole. Knowles has a songwriting credit on all but three of the album’s fifteen cuts, and she produced a number of tracks herself. Opener “Crazy in Love” is already the song of the summer, a sweaty disco anthem with…
When the Thorns cover the Jayhawks’ crowd-pleaser “Blue” early into the trio’s self-titled debut, the purpose of this project suddenly becomes clear. Matthew Sweet, Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins must have formed this second-tier version of the Traveling Wilburys to create melodies like the ones Mark Olson and Gary Louris used to make. They don’t quite pull it off (who…
Keep the customers coming around/If you’re smart, then you better start dumbing it down. That’s the chorus of “Dumb It Down,” ostensibly a commentary on modern rap, from Taste the Secret, the latest from Long Beach, California, hip-hop trio Ugly Duckling. Don’t say anything too profound, the chant continues. Dumb. It. Down. It’s a funny line coming from Ugly Duckling…
England-based actor-producer-singer Rob Dougan struck pay dirt early with his 1995 underground hit “Clubbed to Death,” which surfaced four years later in The Matrix. Perhaps inspired by that experience, Dougan has meticulously crafted orchestrally bombastic songs destined for flicks flaunting state-of-the-art special effects. (Indeed, the disc’s title track appears in The Matrix: Reloaded.) He shamelessly piles melodrama on top of…
Don’t expect tumbleweeds, long pans across dusty plains, or even a stray Harry Dean Stanton or Sam Shepard reference at a Paris, Texas show. Like an improbable number of Midwestern groups, this band of Madisonites (Wisconsin, that is) grew up on the Wire/Buzzcocks axis, and it’s proficient enough to take that glimmering sneer into new territory. The group has been…
While Norah Jones became the official darling of this year’s Grammy Awards, guitarist and songwriter John Mayer’s loss to her as Best New Artist was softened by his surprise win for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Mayer’s nod was especially impressive given that three of his fellow nominees (Sting, James Taylor and Elton John) share nine prior awards in…
Since his 1996 debut Let’s Go Get ‘Em, blues harp player Rockin’ Jake has been a prominent fixture on the New Orleans scene. Besides fronting his own blues band, he’s also a tour veteran who has backed everyone from soul legend Oliver Morgan to G. Love & Special Sauce. Rockin’ Jake’s latest offering, Full-Time Work, finds the four-time OffBeat magazine…
With a voice as pure as the heroin he once loved to inject, a dozen Grammys on his mantle and about fifty gazillion albums to his credit, Ray Charles is as much a myth as he is a musician. Shifting effortlessly from blues-based rock (“I Got a Woman,” “What’d I Say?”) to jazz-inflected soul (“Georgia On My Mind”) and even…
Forget Hank Williams, Hank Jr. and Hank III. Obliterate from memory those pansy “outlaws” Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash. Country music’s true wild man is David Allan Coe. Willie might have smoked a joint in the White House, but he wouldn’t be caught dead crooning songs called “Pussy Whipped Again,” “Cum Stains on the Pillow” or “Don’t…
One of the first hip-hop artists to fuse politically charged lyrics and booming beats (a concoction he dubbed Edutainment), Boogie Down Productions founder KRS-One spent the bulk of the ’90s trying to downplay his pedantic image while still uplifting the masses. Often this involved sonic sleights-of-hand, as on 1997’s I Got Next, which utilized commercial rap clichés to make a…
The last time Sister Mary Rotten Crotch traveled to Lawrence to open for a female-fronted buzz band, it scandalized Le Tigre singer Kathleen Hanna with its robust street punk and raw, less-than-PC lyrical content. This pairing with the Fight should go much more smoothly, because this gruff, England-based pop-punk act is more interested in downing drinks and starting shit…
Outsiders can assume the bands in Kansas City’s hard-rock scene, like certain beleaguered countries, are at odds until there’s an explicit cease-fire. For example, every Wednesday this July, four metal acts “battle” at America’s Pub. For what are they fighting? “If only I knew,” Boomstick singer Galactic Celt says with a laugh. Well, ultimately there’s $2,000 and an opening slot…
Didn’t Helios Creed slip into LSD-induced oblivion years ago? Last I’d heard from him was Chrome’s surprisingly robust 1997 comeback album, Retro Transmission. So, viva Helios! This catalyst behind one of rock’s most original psychedelic outfits is still kicking out the warped jams 26 years after joining the mighty Chrome with Damon Edge (RIP). On this date, Helios will likely…
Any way you slice it, I Can Lick Any SOB in the House is a pretty bold boast. If the lick in question refers to fisticuffs, you’ll need battering-ram fists. And if you’re walking around with your tongue extended, sneaking slurps on unsuspecting strangers, you’ll have to move with catlike prowess once someone inevitably takes exception. Given the way it…
Even given the daunting drive to St. Louis, Ozzfest was pretty tempting. For pure spectacle, it’s hard to top ghoulish makeup, stilt walkers and prominent pyrotechnics, plus a profanity-spewing, disoriented, decrepit headliner who’s a lot more entertaining than the average drunk on a downtown corner. But then I thought, to paraphrase Stryper, to hell with the devils. Ozzfest dared to…
In just a few months, XTA-C has gone from an underground also-ran to a local celebrity. However, life at the top hasn’t been one big Cristal-poppin’ party. Allegations of payola, conflicts with former collaborators, and rumors that it’s no longer safe for him to walk the streets of Kansas City have accompanied his newfound fame. XTA-C’s single “So Heavy” has…
Mixing money, musicians and radio can be unseemly. In recent years, payola has plagued the corporate airwaves as unscrupulous independent promoters dole out cash to get their clients (usually upstart major-label bands) into regular rotation. Less sinister yet still shady are station-sponsored concerts that paste together incongruous acts; in exchange for prime spins, even self-respecting artists will bite the…
The novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald asserted that there are no second acts in American lives. But a horse named Seabiscuit and the three men who shared his success would surely disagree. Based on the best-selling nonfiction book by Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit recounts the true story of an unprepossessing, knobby-kneed horse that became not only a racing legend but also a…
I purposely avoided reading anything about Capturing the Friedmans before seeing the film, which has been no easy task. Andrew Jarecki’s documentary, about a Great Neck, New York, family torn asunder in the late 1980s by allegations of kiddie-porn possession and the horrific sexual abuse of numerous children, has been the subject of much backslapping and hand-wringing since its premiere…
Wrong side of the tracks: Regarding “Train of Thought” (Letters, July 10): I just don’t get how Clay Chastain, who resides in Tennessee and not in Kansas City, can put his failed plan on light rail once again on the ballot. We are not going to just get light rail but also some of the fringe benefits which come with…
When Mayor Kay Barnes and Councilman Jim Rowland announced they wanted to ration our free trash pickup to two bags a week, we went looking for really big bags. Our quest took us to Houston-based flexible-packaging-plastic-bags.com, where we hit the mother lode: giant poly bags. These suckers can be custom-made to any size, but the biggest off-the-rack model is 9…
Rich Hathaway has a military buzz cut, a bull-rider belt buckle and a sociopathic prosecutorial style. He has one of those faces that people call mugs. He wears two kinds of dress shoes, both of them cowboy boots — one pair light, the other dark. And he owns some of the world’s most hideous sport coats, double-breasted affairs with calico-burlap…
Troy Nash is the man. Since the March election, when five City Council seats turned over, 34-year-old Nash, now in his second term, has ascended to what’s arguably the most powerful position on the council. Controversy, which has dogged him since before he was first elected in 1999, has followed him to the top. In May — sweeps month for…
