Music Forecast June 13-19: the Mountain Goats, Dwight Yoakam, Father John Misty, and more

Father John Misty
The best indie-rock breakout story of 2012 was Josh Tillman’s: He quit his gig drumming for Fleet Foxes, moved to Los Angeles, and released an album under the name Father John Misty. That album, Fear Fun, climbed onto a lot of year-end lists, and deservedly so — it’s full of smart, psych-tinged, alt-country songs with sticky melodies. He also gets points for his next-level stage presence, which is intense in a Neil Diamond–on-peyote way. Last time through Lawrence, Tillman was at the Bottleneck; he graduates to Granada status for this performance.
Sunday, June 16, at the Granada (1020 Massachusetts,
Lawrence, 785-842-1390)

The Mountain Goats
The past 10 or so years have seen John Darnielle, lead Mountain Goat, move beyond the gritty, acoustic-guitar-and-four-track-recorder aesthetic on which he built much of his fervent fanbase. These days, you’re likely to hear instrumentation like cellos and pianos alongside his guitar strums and earnest whine, but his gift with words is still as dazzling as ever. Opening here is the Baptist Generals, a ramshackle folk act from Denton, Texas, that shares a bit of Darnielle’s literary bent. The group just released Jackleg Devotional to the Heart, the long-awaited follow-up to No Silver/No Gold, a 2003 record that’s getting close to qualifying for cult status.
Wednesday, June 19, at RecordBar (1020 Westport Road, 816-753-5207)

Dwight Yoakam
A couple of years ago, a friend played me Dwight Yoakam’s “Ain’t That Lonely Yet,” which I have listened to approximately 700 times since. That discovery has prompted a fair amount of digging into Yoakam’s back catalog, an endeavor I highly recommend. Yoakam’s sound — a mix of Bakersfield classicism (Buck Owens, Merle Haggard), shitkicker country rock, and pop — peaked commercially in the late 1980s and early ’90s, but it has aged pretty damn well. His most recent album, 3 Pears, features collabs with Kid Rock and Beck, and I suspect we’ll see more and more younger artists finding inspiration in Yoakam’s work in the coming years.
Sunday, June 16, at VooDoo Lounge (Harrah’s Casino, 1 Riverboat Drive, 816-472-7777)

The Reverend Horton Heat
The Reverend Horton Heat has been doing its rockabilly thing (or psychobilly or punkabilly or whatever ‘billy niche you might deem the Dallas band to be in) since 1985. The group flirted with major-label success in the 1990s but has since settled into the road-dog lifestyle, and few summers pass around here without a show from the Reverend. The band is joined here by Dirtfoot, a rowdy bluegrass act that employs saxophones and banjos; local rockabilly act Rumblejetts; and the semi-local, cheerful roots-rockers Ha Ha Tonka. It’ll sound like summer in the Crossroads, that’s for sure.
Friday, June 14, at Crossroads KC at Grinders (417 East 18th Street, 785-749-3434)

Mumford & Sons
Perhaps, given how dominant nostalgia fetishism has become in our culture, it should not be surprising that a group of British folksingers wearing old-timey vests and harmonizing bombastically over 4/4 thumps is one of the most successful bands in the world. But I’m still awfully floored by Mumford & Sons’ rapid, relentless ascent. I’ll say this: They’ve changed the music landscape more than just about any act in the last decade. I’ll say this, too: They’ve changed the quarterly reports at suspender-manufacturing companies. This show is sold out, obviously, but there’s always Craigslist and Stubhub.
THE SHOW HAS BEEN POSTPONED: Monday, June 17, at Cricket Wireless Amphitheater (633 North 130th Street,
Bonner Springs, 913-721-3400)