Before and After Kevin McGraw refers to himself as a “junkyard guy.” Based on this show, the description is accurate. The title refers to the objects — metal traffic signs, skateboard pieces, tire treads, mudflaps — that McGraw frequently finds along the sides of roads. He incorporates these materials into photographs of assemblages he’s already made. There’s a bit of…
The posters for V for Vendetta read “An uncompromising vision of the future from the creators of The Matrix trilogy.” Uncompromising? It simply isn’t possible to translate Alan Moore’s multilayered comic-book masterpiece into a two-hour movie without making cuts that oversimplify, and it’s certainly not feasible to expect producer Joel Silver to keep things subtle. The notoriously cranky and anti-Hollywood…
If you read my bitching about the bottleneck “ordering station” — or whatever the hell they call it — at the otherwise pretty fabulous The Mixx , I know what you may be thinking. I’ve never designed a restaurant’s interior, so what the hell do I know? The fact is, I don’t know what I would have done differently in…
Maybe because I was a waiter myself for so many years, I don’t want to work while out to eat. That means I don’t like ordering at a counter and I really hate to carry my own plate, silverware and napkins across a dining room in search of a table. For doing that much work, the restaurant owner should be…
It’s no surprise that a record called Destroyer’s Rubies (as opposed to, you know, just Rubies) is endlessly self-referential to Dan Bejar’s earlier works. As you read this, Bejar acolytes are furiously footnoting every mention of his old songs, albums and motifs, as if it would help divine meaning from these dense, complex songs. While Bejar can’t shake himself of…
Married duos have always been around in pop music (Sonny and Cher, Johnny and June), but it seems like a resurgence of nuptially tied acts has hit the halls of indie rock (Mi and L’au, the Rosebuds, Viva Voce, the White Stripes … um). The latest local incarnation, the New Tragedies’ Bev and Aaron Wiedner, came together after discovering a…
If people know Stephen McBean — the rasp-throated, bearded-hippie frontman of the Pink Mountaintops — for anything, it’s his Sabbathesque project with the similarly geological name of Black Mountain. Those who didn’t sleep on the Mountaintops’ self-titled debut record got acquainted with a band that seemed obsessed with fucking —all simplistic beats, sexy guitars and come-hither lyrics about ejaculating on…
Kansas City has lost many musicians to the Left Coast, including two members of KC group the Hearers: Marc Tweed and Jeff Doom. Tweed nested with his new wife in San Francisco, and Doom ended up farther south in San Diego. He’s no longer interested in making the spacey, ambient sounds of his other former band, Transdimensional Doorway, or in…
Marah While the rise of so-called indie rock is generally a positive thing, it has certain limitations. Indie rockers aren’t supposed to try too hard or care about success, and there tends to be a higher premium placed on coolness than on talent and ambition. Philadelphia’s Marah isn’t cool in any arty-smarty bohemian way, and its brand of meat-and-potatoes rock…
In the end, what may be most remarkable about the Stones’ horny Exile on Main Street is the way it continues to spread its seed like Genghis Khan. To produce Portland’s I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House, Exile must have come to life and had its way with the political punk of the Pacific Northwest. The result is…
Cheesing through songs such as “Dance Commander” and “Dance-a-thon 2005” what else could Electric Six be trying to elicit from audiences except their most coveted dance moves? Blending cock-rock guitars, Turbonegro-style humor, Whites Stripes-stiff drumbeats and a healthy dose of synth, E6 has created the ultimate guilty pleasure for in-the-closet spastic dancers. The Detroit band reached the big time in…
Between 2004’s We Are All Natural Disasters and this year’s Parts & Accessories, singer-songwriter Brian Moss has transformed his Hanalei project from “laptop folk” to full-fledged band, with delightful results. The new album is full of insightful lyrics, sparkling instrumentation and relentless melodies. Moss’ vocal work combines the oblique sensitivity of Craig Wedren and the raspy obstreperousness of Craig Finn…
On “Company on My Back,” from A Ghost Is Born, Jeff Tweedy croaks, I attack with love, and he could be motto-slinging for Wilco’s legendary live shows. With last year’s Kicking Television, the band dropped documentary proof that Ghost’s meditative songs were, down deep, big-time rock and roll — and hey, their fans knew it already. In this year’s Wilcarnation,…
All hail Boogie Down Productions! Their track “The Bridge Is Over” cemented the diss record and rap feud as legitimate branches of the art form! From 3rd Bass to Kool Moe Dee to 50 Cent, a rapper’s best work will come in the form of a well-thrown bitch-slap. But nothing in the music world is sadder than a li’l artist…
Most bands slowly evolve from local club shows to modest Midwestern tours to cross-country canvassing. The prospect of international travel looms as a distant dream that could be realized only through record-label largesse. However, Kansas City’s country rockers the Gaslights skipped a few steps, embarking on a two-week trek through Belgium and Holland in support of their latest self-released record,…
If the line between genius and insanity is thin, Say Anything’s Max Bemis is walking it like a tightrope. He’s seen his opus, 2004’s Say Anything … Is a Real Boy, simultaneously catapult him onto a major label and give him a multiple-tour-canceling nervous breakdown. So Bemis yells. Not a tearful emo yelp or a guttural hardcore scream, but the…
By all accounts, the South by Southwest Music Festival and Conference this week in Austin, Texas, is huge. Take the crowd you’d see at a sold-out show at the Uptown, multiply it by a couple thousand, spread it over five or six days, then factor in all the journalists, promoters, booking agents, record label reps, interns, money people and miscellaneous…
It sometimes seems like the last wall left standing in this era of increasingly genreless music. But the idea that black artists can rap but not rock still retains its peculiar power, and all the history to the contrary — from Ike Turner and Chuck Berry to Jimi Hendrix and Prince to Run-DMC and Mos Def — hasn’t eradicated it…
Of all the main thoroughfares in Kansas City, Wornall Road is dearest to the Night Ranger’s heart. After all, her kindergarten and grade school are located at its southern end, and the NR’s parents traversed it quite a bit to cart the family from the suburbs to midtown for various cultural activities. As a young Night Rangerette, we remember passing…
Soundsystem The Record Bar’s regular Monday DJ, Billy Say 10 (known to his mama as Billy Smith), has joined forces with fellow Scorpio and longtime KC wax champ DJ Just to take their act to Jilly’s on Wednesday nights. Unlike Monday nights, when dub and reggae dominate, Team Scorpio’s plan at Jilly’s is to resist being limited by a particular…
Whether or not you consider the results “hip-hop,” you’ve got to respect Oakland’s Anticon collective for establishing its own paradigm. Since 1998’s Deep Puddle Dynamics, the Midwestern transplant crew has branched off into numerous subgroups, exploring new creative waters each time. A celebrated beatmaker for Themselves since going solo, Jel has something to say and a unique way of saying…
They got Billy Bragg; we got John Cougar Mellencamp. If that sounds like a poor analogy as well as a bad deal, you’re absolutely correct. The ’80s produced no American political troubadour as distinctive as the UK’s Bragg. This nine-disc box, covering his first four albums (’83-90), two DVDs and 36 outtakes, shows a working-class record-store clerk reinventing his favorite…
With a kind of exuberance bordering on obnoxiousness, too many white bluesmen have attempted to make up for their discomfort playing a form of black folk music that prizes authenticity. But Soledad Brothers’ singer-guitarist Johnny Walker often sounds as if he’s laying back and letting his favorite records speak through him from the Delta. On The Hardest Walk, his Detroit…
Hip-hop MC Priceless Diamonds describes herself as a “boss bitch” who grew up boosting clothes and turning the occasional trick. She’s no angel, but she’s got advice. So listen up, y’all. My ass is whiter than a new pair of Jordans. Suggestions, please! Go down to Westport where all them tanning booths are. You won’t get skin cancer as long…
