Crossover success usually requires certain concessions, such as shortening songs or collaborating with big-shot producers. Waylon Jennings enhanced his country standing and found a rock audience by doing exactly the opposite. The first disc of this chronological boxed set covers 1958-69, when Jennings worked with Nashville Sound overseer Chet Atkins. The 1970-74 disc contains his mission statement, “Lonesome On’ry and…
After two albums that pushed the envelope when it came to pretense (yet still managed to connect with an audience not necessarily into progressive or arty music), the Mars Volta’s third trip to the plate ought to deliver nothing less than an orgy of shameless self-indulgence. With Amputechre, creative partners Cedric Bixler and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez deliver nothing less. The new…
The riot-grrl revolution, launched in 1992, motivated scores of teenage girls to create their own bands. But with Sleater-Kinney defunct and Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna now playing electro-funk, no survivors of that scene remain tethered to its garage-riff-and-screams roots. Kansas City’s Witch and Hare carries that long-dormant gene, though — with a few advantageous mutations. The group’s songs fuse…
Kurt Cobain loved the Melvins. Without that band’s influence, there would be no grunge. The outfit un-cheesed Sabbath and created truly evil-sounding metal that directed future generations toward methodical bass lines and sick distortion. Cobain (the band’s most tragically beloved roadie) tinker-punked the Melvins’ sounds and made them palatable to a mainstream audience, allowing Nirvana to skyrocket. Meanwhile, despite a…
Luckily for Oslo, Norway’s Serena Maneesh, winter is coming. Like any good set of shoegazers prepared for an ice storm, the band wraps itself in dense layers, going for warmth rather than simplicity. The influences are immediately apparent — My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth and the Velvet Underground — but the band achieves its accessibility by meandering between easy pop…
Fashion-rock is about thought. People calculate and take positions on bands, based on some theory that has nothing to do with music and everything to do with some bizarre notion of hipster cred. On the other hand, people simply feel blues-rock. And blues-rock, especially that produced by the Mighty Orq, feels mighty, mighty good — as sweet and natural and…
Albertan singer-songwriter Chad VanGaalen can make his voice sound as surreal and exotic as the strange instruments he invents and uses as the basis for his songs. (A train whistle is the closest earthly comparison.) He also comes to our attention as the latest in a long line of celebrated lo-fi home recorders with a catalog of hundreds, maybe even…
After a decade of spinning tales involving bitterness, piss-drunk fornicating and/or waking up in a pile of filth, Scotland’s Arab Strap has cordially decided to call it quits. We always envisioned a nasty blowout breaking up this duo — an all-out cockfight fueled by alcohol and postcoital fumes. Instead, fans will have to settle for a farewell tour (which won’t…
Steve Bentley has played some trying gigs during his 16 years in local metal. At a rural Kansas club, he says, “a drunk guy having too much fun” stormed the stage brandishing a knife. Luckily, security intervened, and his band, Darkside, escaped unscathed. In 2000, Darkside played an outdoor show in the parking lot of an Overland Park Hooters,…
Dedric and Delaney Moore recline in Dedric’s combined living room and studio in Kansas City, Kansas. Surrounding the brothers, both in their midthirties, are a drum set, bongos, pianos and keyboards, records, a beat machine and a computer. Dedric looks out through droopy eyes, and Delaney’s hair is in tangles. They both just got off work. “I’m a general…
Blue Springs has taught me two things: (1) The goatee is the new mustache, and (2) irony may be dead in the city, but it hasn’t even arrived in suburban Missouri. Still, the good people of BS possess a cardinal virtue: a love for rocking out. That much was clear around Interstate 70 and Missouri Highway 7 one Saturday night…
The video for Band of Horses’ “Funeral” features scratchy black-and-white footage of a lonely, broken old man drinking himself slowly to death in a smoky beer-and-a-shot lush bar, his only friends the bottom of his mug, a jukebox and memories of a dead dog. With coffin-nailing lyrics such as I’m coming up only to hold you under and Every day…
I’m enjoying the Pitch’s new design. I had no issues with the old design, but the new format is nice, and I look forward to seeing its evolution. I have to point out my favorite feature — the staple. Although that metal clasp is something hated by many males who might be perusing other alternative-like publications, it’s a very welcome…
On the September cover of ARTNews, the oldest and most widely circulated fine-arts magazine in the world, is a detail from “Knotty but Nice,” the work of Egyptian-born Ghada Amer. In the full work, the outlines of four women are embroidered on a large canvas with heads thrown back, eyes closed and mouths open, limbs bent and folded; errant threads…
Perhaps Patrick Crowe knows Oprah Winfrey better than anybody thought. Crowe, a retired Kansas City teacher, continued to run his Oprah for President campaign, even after the talk show host’s attorney on August 22 sent him a five-page cease-and-desist letter. Crowe told the Pitch that it was “highly unlikely” Winfrey would sue. Seems he might be right. On Monday, Winfrey…
Dear Mexican: I see Jews, Asians and Persians making something of themselves and creating safe, walkable communities. Of course, they’re not perfect, but I don’t see high Jew-crime communities, either. I see these people sticking together and helping each other out instead of envying their own. Why can’t Mexicans get their act together and promote the message behind the…
Lynn and Kris Cheatum believe the U.S. government spies on them. The Cheatums, long-time Kansas City-area peace activists in their late sixties, say they’ve seen men dressed in black photographing their weekly anti-war protests at the J.C. Nichols Memorial Fountain on the Country Club Plaza. The Cheatums claim that the men in black are local police officers who shot their…
If a person tried hard enough, she could avoid 9/11 commemorations last week. Each day’s news brings a reminder of how much we’ve ruined the world using 9/11 as an excuse, how we’ve become the land of the duped and the home of government-induced fear, a perpetrator of state-sponsored, Shock-and-Awe-brand terrorism. I have no use for stopping to think…
If there’s one thing that ethanol fuels, it’s hype. The fuel made from corn had its own pep rally at Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency Crown Center in August. Bob Scott, the president of the American Coalition on Ethanol, told the crowd of farmers, engineers, energy experts and economists, “Let’s keep ethanol the buzzword in Washington, in the coffee shops, in…
Louie didn’t last the night. As I announced to some random coworkers from the classified department upon my arrival to the Pitch headquarters today, it’s official: I have come to work drunk. Shortly after I made the declaration and showed off my rad lip wound from last night (more on that later), my hangover kicked in and I began to…
Tech N9ne, is coming out with a new joint called Everready on November 7. Tech N9ne’s publicist, Meg the “Anghellic Psycho Publicity Bitch,” sent us word today of Tech’s new album — the first one in four long years — which drops November 7. Here’s some addtional, interesting factoids Meg sent along: The proof: Tech N9ne, who has performed in…
If you can’t dance as well as former Pitch music editor Andrew Miller, then maybe you can find other ways of enjoying yourself at a few of these shows. FRIDAY Nina Nastasia and Olympic Size at Record Bar We wrote about this but failed to mention that it’s an early show, starting at 7 p.m. I reeeeeally wish I could…
Ballets Russes (Zeitgeist) The Batman: The Complete Second Season (Warner Bros.) Beavis and Butt-head Do America: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount) Bottoms Up (Sony) Disney Princess Stories, Volume 1: A Gift From the Heart (Disney) The Girls (New Yorker) Goal! The Dream Begins (Disney) Grey’s Anatomy: Season 2 Uncut (Buena Vista) Headspace (Freestyle) Las Vegas: Season Three (Universal) Lucky Number Slevin…
What could be more fun than monkeys trapped in plastic hamster balls? That’s the strange philosophy of Super Monkey Ball, a puzzle series that debuted in 2001. Much as with Marble Madness, the goal here is to cross the finish line without falling off a floating platform. Except that this game has monkeys, and they make everything more exciting. The…
