It’s often difficult to critically analyze a much-beloved artist; the reviewer’s tendency is to excuse irksome traits or loathsome sonic detours because of past greatness. So it’s tempting to give Morrissey a free pass for hauling in a children’s choir for several songs on his eighth solo studio album — in fact, the singsongy rugrats add to the creepy patricidal…
The label “bar band” conjures images of liquored-up shitkickers blasting blues-based rock out of overtaxed speakers. In the 1970s, this sort of group thrived at dives that featured live music. The Olathe quartet Crazy Talk flashes back to the days when bar bands emulated Thin Lizzy and Kiss, all high-wattage guitars, rock-star stage moves and stubbornly stupid slogans. Using “Let’s…
This Alibi Along with the technical, intricate tracks of national acts Explosions in the Sky and Red Sparowes and local groups Black Christmas and Lethe, Kansas City’s This Alibi is among the latest to abandon vocals in favor of lurking atmospherics, pounding drums and expansive guitar. Influences ranging from the Mars Volta to Sigur Rós and Mogwai reflect the three-piece’s…
Bela Fleck’s first album, 1978’s Crossing the Tracks, was finally re-released last year, and if nothing else, it clears up all the mysterious UFO artwork on his more recent Flecktones CDs. This banjo brother may, in fact, be from another planet. The cover photo’s evidence is direct: Fleck, like Spock, simply doesn’t age. His “more advanced civilization” status also lets…
Fans tout God Forbid as one of the few young domestic outfits that can go shred-to-shred with overseas acts such as tourmate Children of Bodom. However, the New Jersey group’s lyrical content makes it an unlikely catalyst for patriotic rallies. One of metal’s only majority-minority bands, with four African-American members, God Forbid delivers lacerating criticism of the government’s negligent treatment…
Named after an artfully wrong bar-trivia answer (Q: What is the name of Tom Petty’s backing band?), Cincinnati’s Heartless Bastards are, like Akron, Ohio’s Black Keys, a next-wave Fat Possum signing necessitated by the fact that the label’s octogenarian Mississippi bluesmen keep slipping into the next life. But the blues were only part of the ammunition that landed the trio’s…
Dan Bejar loves to destroy nothing more than our notions of what his band, Destroyer, is. His latest album, Destroyer’s Rubies, takes a hard left turn from the synthesizer symphonies of 2004’s Your Blues, opting instead for stripped-bare arrangements that further highlight Bejar’s witty lyrics. Melody and conventional song structure take a backseat to the songwriter’s loose, rambling, crotchety libretto…
Jacques Brel and Morrissey walk into a bar. As Kurt Weill pours the Makers and glasses are raised, Marlene Dietrich pulls up a bar stool. The liquor flows, and the conversation percolates. Dietrich is considering a sex change, Brel can’t stop talking about abortions and the Holocaust, and Morrissey keeps bringing the conversation back to masturbation. At a dark table…
Aside from David Bowie sightings at this band’s concerts, is the hype for real? With its pulsating, processed guitar melodies meeting somewhere between Wilco and the Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah produces a flamboyant, driving sound that, like the name of the band itself, leaves you at first repelled, then seduced. Band members Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler…
All hail “Love Rollercoaster,” a sweet slice of funk brought to us by the Ohio Players. There is not enough funk in this world. So we welcome every bite of funk that has been fed to us and every band that cooks it. Oh, Ohio Players, the sins that have been committed in your name! Last week, the companies that…
So you arrive home late from the third Get Up Kids reunion show this month, wasted and agitated, only to find your dog hanging from the ceiling fan by his entrails. The horrific scene is further compounded by the scratched CD skipping on a moment of grating guitar feedback on your stereo. That rhythm, it turns out — and the…
Creative and good-humored, the Tuna Helpers possess the essential virtues for successful pranksters. The all-female trio’s Saturday show at the Brick falls on April Fools’ Day, giving the Austin, Texas, group a perfect opportunity to showcase its mischievous side. The Helpers’ sets include puppet shows, sign language, costumes and surreal operatic piano pop, but singer Adrienne Sneed promises to…
You may not think you’ll miss it now, but just wait a couple of months. You’ll be driving down Main, and you’ll hit the light at Westport Road and you’ll look over into the empty windows beneath the silver, art-deco lettering that spells Recycled Sounds (I imagine that sign being there forever), and you’ll ask yourself, When was the last…
Maybe it’s the pleasure of playing music onstage again. Maybe it’s the relief of leaving old demons behind. Or maybe it’s just the time of year: these early spring weeks when sun starts to push aside snow, when birds scramble up the last of the slush piles. The time of year when winter relents — even in Duluth, Minnesota. Whatever…
Crew cut: This letter collectively expresses the views of Van Sneed, Adonus Ray, Fredo Montez, Josh Romero and Brandon Roberts, all subjects of Nadia Pflaum’s recent article “Beefing B-Boys” (March 16). We feel this article is a gross misrepresentation of the dancers mentioned as well as B-boying. Ms. Pflaum’s story inadequately reflects the views of many interviewees and fails to…
The Priceless Guide to Love Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds has been classing up these pages for months now with her bits of wisdom. This is her last installment. But the “Boss Bitch” isn’t leaving without giving us all one big piece of advice. We’re talking love, y’all. For a worldly, street-smart woman, P.D.’s take on a romantic evening starts out…
It takes a lot to push this cynical sirloin to hard drinking. Last Saturday night at Lew’s, a bar in Waldo, the Strip just about paid for Boulevard Brewery’s expansion, hoping all those Pale Ales would erase the memory of the Save Our Stadiums ads. This tough tenderloin wasn’t afraid of those scary signs around town urging voters to “Keep…
God bless St. Petersburg, Florida. By building a domed stadium in 1990, the good people there gave the Tampa Bay Devil Rays an opportunity to exist. And without the Devil Rays, the Kansas City Royals would be the biggest joke in baseball. The Devil Rays haven’t run away with the title of Sorriest Baseball Franchise. Royals owner David Glass has…
Just another Thursday night for the Pornhuskers Here’s a roundup of some of the noteworthy shows that didn’t make it into the preview coverage in this week’s Pitch music section. THURSDAY, MARCH 30 Band Scramble III at the Brick. A few weeks ago, local musicians dropped their names into a hat and were randomly assigned to different bands, with which…
I didn’t know much about Nikki Sudden, the consummate rocker who passed through town a couple weeks ago and passed away yesterday at the age of 49. But Nikki had some friends in town who are gonna miss him. Here’s a spontaneous, e-mailed eulogy courtesy of one of our own rock-and-roll torchers. Joey Skidmore wrote: I just received some really…
Alacartoona Something’s fishy when it comes to Timothy Finn, pop music critic at The Kansas City Star, and Alacartoona, and I don’t just mean their names (get it? “fin,” “tuna,”!?!?LOL!!!). Seriously, though, I have to wonder what’s going on. Finn wrote one big arse-licker of a feature in the Thursday Preview section on this band in March of last year,…
Quite a town it is where you can go out to a dive bar on a Monday night and discover something you hadn’t known about before — some small token of goodness hidden among the ankle-shredding brambles of Western Civilization. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the beerback. Beerbacks and Mike & Ikes. On a recent Monday, after a…
KCUR’s Cyprus Avenue deejay Bill Shapiro’s top 5 reactions to hearing Pay the Devil, the new Van Morrison country album: 5. Clears his throat so forcefully that a fist-sized lump of phlegm rockets out of his mouth and knocks over a lamp. 4. Dresses a supermarket turkey in a bra and wig, cuddles with it for three hours (until it…
In the late ’70s, would-be disco dancers strolled into nightclubs expecting boogie grooves and instead encountered safety-pin snarls. Instead of turning the beat around, they had to turn to avoid getting beat down. Erstwhile dance destination Jilly’s (1744 Broadway, 816-221-4977) recently completed its own punk-for-funk switch, canceling its Thursday vinyl showcase Sound System, which had been drawing sparse crowds since…
