Concert Review: Martin Bisi, Medicine Theory, Olympic Size at the Record Bar

It’s not every weekend – or year, for that matter – that someone with the rock pedigree of Martin Bisi drops by Kansas City, guitar in hand. The longhaired New Yorker of Argentine descent has produced everyone from Herbie Hancock to Sonic Youth to Kansas City bands Be/Non and Season to Risk. Read our interview for more on that.

Unfortunately, his show Friday night at the Record Bar was beset by numerous problems. Bisi was scheduled to go on at 11, after the Medicine Theory, a local drums-and-guitar two-piece that played hammering, dull, repetitive, skronky and tiresomely simplistic noise rock for about 40 minutes too long. I’m all for dissonance, edge, minimalism, etc, but my theory is these pills are expired. After they’d lulled the sparse audience into a metallic torpor, poor Bisi began setting up. And setting up. And setting up…