With all the festivities that go along with St. Patricks’s Day in Kansas City, it can be hard to find some good beats among the noise. We’ve narrowed them down for you. First, there’s the Beat Lab at the Point, a DJ event hosted by DJ Dustin, J Fortune, Madame E, cQuence and Spinstyles. Recently, Fortune and Spinstyles squared…
As you read this, we suspect that you’re either trying to figure out where to go this year to spill green beer all over your sexy leprechaun outfit, or you’ve already woken up with that duder who promised to show you his pot o’ gold. If we’re not too late, we did a bit of planning recently for the best…
“Behind Me Now” by The Silos, from Come on Like the Fast Lane(Bloodshot): Cuba, the 1987 masterwork from New York group the Silos, is thought by some to be the holy grail of the alt-country movement. Founder Walter Salas-Humera has kept some form of the band going for two decades. The newest effort, Come on Like the Fast Lane, is…
“We are a fucking triumphant band,” declares the official Web site of instrumental metal enforcers Pelican. And with fucking triumphant song titles such as “Bliss in Concrete” and “Spaceship Broken — Parts Needed,” who can argue? The Chicago quartet alternates doom-and-grind metal blasts with melodic roundabouts on its upcoming Hydrahead LP, City of Echoes (due in May). The band’s all-ears…
“Weekends at a Time” by Shapes and Sizes, from Shapes and Sizes(Asthmatic Kitty): Ideally, the first song on a band’s debut album represents the culmination of its creative career to that point, an opening salvo expressing the group’s confidence in committing this introductory statement to indelible media. Shapes and Sizes exhausts its arsenal to ensure that “Island’s Gone Bad,” the…
The Thermals’ third and most ambitious album, 2006’s exuberant, underrated The Body, the Blood, the Machine, took a little more work than usual to complete. Drummer Jordan Hudson had left the band the year before, and Hutch Harris (vocals, guitar) and Kathy Hudson (bass) were looking to make their music a full-time gig after three years together. Luckily, Kathy Hudson,…
Brooklyn quintet Barbez crafts dark and exotic sounds that draw out the mysterious tones of an Eastern European musical accent. Singer and guitarist Dan Kaufman leads a procession of Theremin, clarinet, vibes and percussion that congeals in a murky, mostly instrumental traipse. The group’s songs are beautifully brooding numbers that fuse bits of cabaret melodies and gypsy melancholy with…
If you can’t dance to this, it doesn’t matter, raps K-os on his latest disc, Atlantis: Hymns for Disco. However, it does matter. In fact, that very idea has put the Canadian rapper at a musical crossroads. His latest is a mash of different styles and sounds, from acoustic numbers to straight-up, old-school jams. But to some critics back home,…
Given the fickle nature of the rap game and its fans, the Jesus metaphor is appropriate for Sean Price. The MC, who fell off the map following his former group Heltah Skeltah’s last salvo, 1998’s Magnum Force, resurrects his career with Jesus Price Supastar. With a slightly behind-the-beat flow and a voice like a cement mixer loaded with shell casings,…
If Memory Theatre’s anti-Suzuki-method hissy fits strike you as less uranium-dense and more nuanced than those on last year’s psychic aneurysm Way Blank, it isn’t because San Francisco violinist, moaner and wavelength twister Karl Bauer felt a sudden need to lighten up. Rather, Theatre haphazardly nets material from Axolotl’s limited-edition CDRs and vinyl recorded earlier this decade (originally released through…
One of the best things about attending the annual South By Southwest music festival is the abundance of up-and-coming talent. But if you weren’t able to make the trip to Austin, Texas, this time around, you’re not totally out of luck. The SXSW site has posted hundreds of MP3s from this year’s lineup. Simply browse the week’s schedule and look…
Pendergast, the man, was the original gangster of Kansas City machine-boss politics. Pendergast, the band, is the OG of local country-rock. In fact, country ain’t so different from the hip-hop preferred by today’s real OGs. It’s a music of formulas, bound to certain rhythmic patterns, striving toward pop catchiness and dealing in confessional lyrics. But whereas gangsta MCs boast about…
Midwesterners are a funny lot. For all of the genuine homeland pride in the hearts of breadbasket dwellers, there is an opposite impulse to think that everything worthwhile is somewhere else. If you happen to be a musician, this act of missing the forest for the trees can result in a strange identity crisis. Or, as producer Miles Bonny, a…
I am not the Wayward Son. First off, I’m a girl, and I don’t think I’ve strayed too far (yet). My name’s Megan Metzger, and I’ll be taking over this long, gray rectangle once or twice a month, writing about the people who make our little local music scene tick. I was 16 when the Ramones played Lollapalooza. And I…
“Wolf Like Me” from the album Return to Cookie Mountain (Interscope): “I’m surprised that I’m not still working at Kinko’s, especially making our weirdo music,” deadpans TV on the Radio guitarist and producer David Sitek in his Brooklyn studio. He’s working on a remix for an upcoming Beck single at the moment, but in just a few days, TV…
Dear Mexican: I recently discovered your column through the wonders of technology. I want to congratulate you and ask for a favor. PLEASE don’t use the stereotype of the overweight dirty revolutionary in the online logo for your column; it diminishes your work. If you don’t agree with me, at least ask your readers what they think of the drawing….
Burnt Ends, March 8 Wright Writes In I was at Subway not long ago. In the process of ordering a Spicy Italian, despite the fact that I was standing there, fruitlessly trying to direct the sandwich artist in construction of my lunch, it came out so messed up that, if I weren’t a more trusting soul, I’d be certain they…
Hey, you, person living on Summit Street between 45th and 46th streets, just off the Plaza. No matter how much you don’t like it, you can’t just leave notes on our cars telling us “Do not park here again!” These are public streets, and there are no rules about where to park along them. Sure, the other side of the…
Connie Morris’ farewell fuck-you to Kansans ended with the state paying the outgoing state Board of Education member more than $2,300 for one hell of a road trip. December 18-20, three weeks before the end of her term, Morris headed to Washington, D.C., for a series of secretive meetings. On her expense report, Morris argues that flying would have…
There’s nothing like February sweeps to bring out the worst in local TV. This year’s vintage included an inspirational tale from KSHB Channel 41’s Jack “Well, Hello Again, Everybody” Harry. You know, the crewcutted sports guy who looks like Peter Parker’s boss? He offered up his own story of kicking a 40-year cigarette habit to be sacrificed in the…
A really weird thing happened in Kansas City on February 27: The best two candidates won an election. I’m a cynic, so, heading into the primary, I expected a final brawl between Albert Riederer and Becky Nace. And I try to keep a sense of humor, so I would have enjoyed Stan “50-Foot Ferris Wheel” Glazer vs. Katheryn “I’m…
Kathy Goggin kept the notebook where she could read it out of the corner of her eye. For three days, she’d been practicing the name — Mhlongo, Mhlongo, Mhlongo. Mispronouncing it now would be perceived as a sign of disrespect, and she could forget about doing her research in South Africa. She was sitting in a conference room full of…
The ABC show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has returned to our sleepy metropolis. You remember, they were here once before and called upon the talents of local artist Stretch to build a sculpture for the home of fireman Steven Johnson. Well, this time, it was no sculptor they enlisted to add color to the proceedings but rather local glam-punk band…
Our friends from Warrensburg, Super Black Market, have recorded a tasty Misfits cover for an upcoming compilation CD out of Seattle. Sorry, all I know about the comp is that it’s out of Seattle. I got the MP3 from a secret source. We’ll call him Raoul and say that he’s a poor Mexican fisherman who dabbles in pirated music and…
