Greg

03/25/12: The Growlers / TRMRS / Savage 7 / Radkey @ Riot Room

They say trends always make a comeback. Whether or not “they” is the indecipherable force behind the return of things like cut-off jean shorts, or hypercolor t-shirts (don’t act like the latter won’t be hanging off the skeletal frames of every malnourished hipster six months from now) is to be decided, but if “they” got one thing right, it is the resurgence in an appreciation for that which gave birth to future generations of rock. I speak of the well-deserved praise of golden oldies and soulful pop that has been dripping into even the most volatile parts of modern independent music for the last few years.

In spite of the short attention spans, I am blessed to be part of a generation that has instant access to music traversing more decades than you can count on one hand. From the dawn of the girl groups, to the bandstand-hungry gents with matching suits and perfectly coiffed hair, to the beach-clad co-eds who wanted nothing more than a fun day in the summer sun, the sounds that our parents experienced as a brand new sensation are returning as influences in the most odd of places: the dingy basements and beer-soaked floors of venues around the country.

Kansas City newcomers Radkey began an impressive 40-minute set promptly at 8:30. The trio of teenage brothers Dee (guitar), Isaiah (bass), and Solomon Radke (drums) threw out an energetic set that jumped in influences from the most obvious of Misfits and Ramones, to the earliest days of a Mod-friendly The Who, and plenty of variety in between. Dee and Isaiah, each pulling harmonies from the deepest parts of the larynx, were rarely immobile for the duration, constantly bouncing to and fro to the rhythm provided by Solomon. Most songs were prefaced with a short introduction that charmingly aged the band (leading into “Little Man” with a dig at their grandfather, about whom the song was written), and the band closed out their set with covers of Faith No More and the Teen Titans theme song.

The Savage 7 played a raucous thirty-minute set of acerbic rebel rock n’ roll pulled from the pages of full-throttle bands like Zeke and prairie punks Cocknoose and Cretin 66. With a name lifted from a cult ’60s biker gang movie, the band’s wurlitzer-fueled rock was robust, though the existence of only six members must not go without mention. The crowd dispersed to the bar and the patio through most of the set, leaving only a few stragglers to take in a set far more deserving of a rowdy audience than what it was handed. Next time I plan on seeing the band, I will grab the first denim jacket I see, cut the sleeves off, and chug a beer. Respect.

TRMRS brought their washed-out beach pop to the stage at 10:20, madly thrashing about for forty minutes and giving the audience shiny garage gems covered in a layer of grime. At times psychedelic, even downright tribal in their rhythmic drone, the quartet would not be the last band of the evening to combine unrestrained influences of ’60s rock, pop, surf, and country. They and headliners The Growlers created the musical equivalent of drawing Sharpie pentagrams on the beat-up covers of dollar bin Eric Burdon and Roky Erickson records. By the end, guitarist/vocalist Tommy Stewart was a writhing pile of melted flesh on the stage, slumped to his knees as the band closed their set with a blister-inducing psych opus.

Upon southern California desert pop quartet The Growlers taking the stage with Stewart on bass, what existed of the crowd became an ocean of wobbling bodies and make-out parties. There may have been a child conceived while the band was on stage. Vocalist Brooks Nielson was drowning in the pale blue light offered by the Riot Room, swaying with his microphone in a single hand like a lounge singer, eyes fixated on an invisible object behind the crowd for most of the set. The band’s approach to the entirety of early rock and pop is worth noting, each song in its own right seething with the timelessness that takes one from being doomed to psych-pop compilation appearances, to having LPs that are required listening for a generation.

The Growlers and TRMRS, good as they are, will not be the first or last of such bands to bring older influences to the forefront of their sound. Surfer Blood, Wavves, Vivian Girls, Hunx and His Punx, Shannon and the Clams, Sonny and the Sunsets, and the dreadful Best Coast are but a few of the household names that have surfaced in recent years, and the selection beyond those is growing more and more vast by the day. Now, more than ever, people are digging further and deeper into the roots of what once made a hit, and pulling out the most base ingredients required to craft a song that, while certainly not possible of earning a gold record in this day and age, will have a staying power that outshines almost anything heard on the radio in 2012.

This review was originally written for Lost in Reviews.

03/20/12: Chuck Prophet / The Grisly Hand @ Davey’s

Hometown pride is a necessary thing in music sometimes. The phenomenon can be found across a variety of genres, and blues rock is no stranger. Even those not from the places they refer will typically write of the streets of Austin, the pawn shops of Memphis, or any number of dives across the Mid- and Southwest. Chuck Prophet is elated to call San Francisco his home, so much so that nearly the entirety of his newest album Temple Beautiful is a Cupid’s arrow shot directly into the heart of the Bay Area.

Prophet has been a boomerang of musical force for over 25 years, his craft taking him across the world and back, and into the studio with musicians as varied as Warren Zevon and Cake. His roots have always been firmly planted in the world of blues, but his songwriting effortlessly jumps from a salute to the early days of lip-curling punk, a subtle nod to ’70s arena rockers, a nudge in the direction of ’60s pop, and a hat-tip to power chord ambassadors The Kinks. Throw on any of his albums and you’ll be greeted with a concoction of decade-spanning sounds blended together in hour-long assortments.

Local fledgling bluegrass sextet The Grisly Hand kicked off the night shortly before 9:00, and in a brief pause after their opening song, audience members could be heard frantically trying to remove their jaws from the floor. The band unquestionably gave Prophet a run for his money with an animated half-hour set that bounded back and forth among the band’s currently humble discography. Accompanying Lauren Krum’s extraordinarily immense voice was guitarist Jimmy Fitzner, whose vocal style both contrasted with Krum’s and provided a proper stylistic companion, and his banter between songs gave enough levity to keep the crowd attentive.

Bassist Johnny Nichols, guitarist Ben Summers, and fiddler Kian Byrne all contributed vocals throughout the set in varying amounts, and Matt Richey backed up the group on drums. In a blur of limbs and swinging guitar necks, the band reached some moments of unequivocal unity during the set, with all players on stage perfectly in sync in unintentional choreography. It was genuinely fascinating to the only two senses that mattered at the time.

By the time Chuck Prophet was joined on stage by his band The Mission Express at 9:45, there was already a vacuum-sealed crowd packed tightly in front, eagerly awaiting the 100-minute set. With only a foot-wide path leading to each of the bars, anyone expecting to stand in front of the stage was out of luck. Greeted by drunken cheers and the kind of heckling you would expect to hear only at a place like Davey’s, Prophet and company quickly jumped into an opening set filled with numbers from the last two decades.

“Storm Across the Sea” got things moving with one of many slide guitar songs that were played that evening, underscoring guitarist James DePrato’s ability to keep up with Prophet’s frequent veering off in a story or guitar solo. The set covered much of the newest release, with “Castro Halloween,” “The Left Hand and the Right Hand,” “Willy Mays Is Up at Bat,” “White Night, Big City” and the title track among those. Prophet’s dedication of “White Night” to late gay rights activist Harvey Milk was met with a room so quiet a pin could be heard landing on the concrete floor.

Keyboardist (and spouse to the leading man) Stephanie Finch provided two of the highlights of the set with her vocal contribution to Temple‘s “Little Girl, Little Boy” and a spiced-up version of “Tina Goodbye,” the opening track to Finch’s 2010 debut Cry Tomorrow. Additional highlights were the covers of Alex Chilton’s “Bangkok,” and an irony-free version of Alice Cooper’s “I’m Eighteen.” The encore of “Always a Friend” (co-written by Alejandro Escovedo) was followed by the quirky “You Did,” the only song in history that poses the question of who did, exactly, put the boom in the boom-boom-shaka-laka?

This is the second time I have seen Prophet, and both times it has been at a reasonably filled Davey’s Uptown. After seeing a knock-out set twice in a row, I must pose a question I heard others in the venue asking that night — why the hell isn’t this guy more popular?

—————

Nerd talk: Grisly Hand’s Jimmy Fitzner honed his voice in the late ’90s working-class punk band Tanka Ray. Their 2002 album …And So I Abide will continue to be one of my all-time local favorites, and it comes highly recommended. After Tanka Ray broke up, Fitzner went on to play in the short-lived Dead Dora, then formed Grisly Hand with Lauren Krum, Johnny Nichols and Chas Snyder, who was also a member of Tanka Ray. Nichols played in the ska revival band The Uprights, who deserve their own post on this blog at some point, and will get it in due time. Nichols and Fitzner also play in the psyched-out “drum punk” supergroup Ad Astra Arkestra, with former GH member Mike Tuley. Kian Byrne, in addition to being a recently inducted member of his father’s band The Elders, plays in soul/ska/riddim band The New Riddim, and joining him is the Uprights’ Dan Loftus.

Matt Richey plays in minimalist country band The Blessed Broke, and lo-fi throwback pop band Dead Voices, whose frontman David Regnier also plays with Krum as Ruddy Swain. Ben Summers probably has the most complex music history of all members, having been in multiple punk bands that played basements across the city but never recorded anything. A few of his bands worth noting are U.S. Americans, Anne Emergency! (who went by An Emergency! early on), The Controlled, and Kill Brochtune, not to mention currently performing his own written material.

This review was written for Lost in Reviews. All photos taken by the talented Matt Cook.

Minden debut “Shine the Trophy Up” music video

Kansas City group Minden go from genre-bending to gender-bending in their newest video for “Shine the Trophy Up,” the b-side from 2001’s Swift Way On 7″. Watch below to be sufficiently creeped out by close-ups of dudes who are terrible at applying lipstick, lots of unkempt facial hair, and drummer Ryan Johnson giving the camera his sexiest facial expressions. Directed by Daniel Richard Myers.

Didn’t get your Johnson fill above? Then watch the Myers-directed video for “Gold Standard.”

http://vimeo.com/32238042

Deco Auto post first recorded track

I’ve written of new blood KC powerpop trio Deco Auto twice previously, both of which were live performance reviews. After over a year of toiling about town, the group finally made it into the studio to record some songs for an upcoming album. Only “Such a Bother” has been mastered so far, and you can stream it below. Their full range of sound and influences don’t fully shine on this one, but that’s in no way a dig to the band or the mastering job, it only whets the appetite for those to come. The rest will be mastered by Pat Tomek (The Rainmakers, Howard Iceberg and the Titanics) and will likely be heard sometime later this spring. Catch the band with Molly Picture Club on March 31st at a free Middle Of The Map pre-show hosted by the 39th Street Vinyl Renaissance.

http://soundcloud.com/michelle-bacon/such-a-bother

Center Of The City Fest offers punk alternative to MOTM

Spring is in the air, Kansas City! All over town, the trees are fighting to bud, and the midtown crackheads are beginning to bloom, shuffling up and down Broadway without direction. Each night that passes will see more and more people flooding out onto the sidewalks in front of crowded bars and venues offering a spot for music fans to dwell and catch up with friends over beers. In less than a month, Westport will be a mass of asymmetrical haircuts, tight jeans, denim jackets, and PBR cans as far as the eye can see. The second year of the Middle Of The Map Festival is upon us, bringing in over 80 bands from around the city and across the world, and the sounds that will be heard around the central hub will vary from electronic pop, to any variety of indie rock, to the occasional thrashy metallic hardcore band.

What you may not hear, though, is a large assortment of punk rock. Outside the additions of touring bands like Mission of Burma and Fucked Up, or local weirdos like Cher U.K., the inclusion of punk is wholly non-existent in the festival. This did not go unnoticed by the local punk scene, and a few members of the community pulled together their friends to put on what they have cheekily dubbed the Center Of The City Festival. The two-day, 21+ event will be held the nights of April 6-7 at The News Room (3740 Broadway) and will provide a shelter for those who wish to avoid the festivities occurring just south, while still getting their fill of live music (though you can still expect to see just as many asymmetrical haircuts, tight jeans, denim jackets and PBR cans).The schedule is below, with links to music. Keep up with any changes that may happen here:

Friday, April 6th:
07:30 The Rackatees (Lawrence)
08:15 Smash The State! (KC)
09:00 Dead Ven (KC)
09:45 Bent Left (KC)
10:30 Iron Guts Kelly (Lawrence)
11:15 The Alerts (KC/Lawrence)
12:00 Red Kate (KC)
12:45 Dismantle The Virus (Lawrence)

Saturday, April 7th:
07:30 The Bad Ideas (KC)
08:15 Brutally Frank (Joplin, MO)
09:00 Hipshot Killer (KC)
09:45 Death Valley Wolfriders (KC)
10:30 They Stay Dead (Oklahoma City)
11:15 Bombs Over Broadway (KC)
12:00 Pizza Party Massacre (KC)

High Diving Ponies post first single from new album

I have very few qualms about dedicating an entire post to the release of a single track. Anyone who has kept up with this blog since the beginning (that would make one of us) could remember that one of my very first posts ever was about High Diving Ponies and the musical background of Josh Thomas. You can click the link to read some background and check out most of his discography to date. With that, I bring you a stream of the first track to be released from the untitled upcoming full-length from the droned-out KC group, and in my opinion it may very well be one of their best yet. I’ve already listened to it about a dozen times myself. Check it out below.

FOKL Center presents KC Psychfest

Kansas City, KS, gallery space FOKL (556 Central Ave) will be hosting the first KC Psychfest this spring, on May 18th and 19th. The full lineup has not yet been announced, but the press release reveals that it will be a two-day multimedia festival featuring psychedelic bands, live VJs, and visual artists from the KC Metro and Midwest.

Thus far, the only bands featured on the bill will be KC mainstays Expo ’70, CVLTS, Goodwillies, Be/Non, The Conquerors, Monta At Odds, and Lawrence band Karma Vision. With a lineup like that, I’ll estimate that additions from Umberto, High Diving Ponies, and LAZY are to be expected soon, as well as what I’d guess will be a handful of decent touring national acts, and a few bands that just happen to be coming through the area this May that may be thrown on the bill for the hell of it. Keep an eye on the venue’s website for more info.

Rooftop Vigilantes detail 2012 release plans

It seems as though Lawrence quartet Rooftop Vigilantes are making up for lost time from their 2011 break, and are coming out with guns blazing in 2012. Already having given us a very palatable album in Real Pony Glue upon their reunion late last year, the group have been slinging out new songs at a speed admirable by even the most reclusive of home recording four-track heroes, and have a full plate of releases scheduled for the year to come.

Up first is Weird Adventure, a four-track EP on a yet to be announced format (fingers crossed for vinyl) that is slated for a street date shortly after their return from SXSW, at which there will be performances from side projects Mouthbreathers and Dry Bonnet.

Weird Adventure EP track listing:
01 Barrier Appeal
02 Outlet Village
03 Movie Music For Assholes
04 Hit The White Kids

Once the Weird EP drops, there will be no rest for the foursome, as soon after they will have another release in the Party Animal EP. And as if that wasn’t enough to tide over those hungry for the garage rock darlings, they will then be unleashing Let It Be, a lush 14-track LP. Let us hope that by the name, this will not be their final release as a group before splitting off to do music of varying worth (or that one of them grow to be an insufferable douche named Paul McCartney) and instead this will be their jumping off point leading to a household name career and a hit single that inspires the title of a teen comedy a decade later. I’m sure we will not be unsatisfied.

Expect to see a stream of the first single from Weird Adventure in the coming weeks.

Anakin debut “Send/Receive” music video

Local space-rockers Anakin have unveiled their new Fernando Cordero-directed music video for “Send/Receive,” the first single from their debut album Random Accessed Memories. Watch the video below, and read a review of their recently played first show here. Rated R for robot content.

In Review: John Velghe & the Prodigal Sons – Don’t Let Me Stay

There is much to be said about Americana music as a means by which to reveal an allegory. The true beauty lying therein comes from the narration administered by generations of story-tellers, woven into the accompaniments provided. The path one must take to attain the status of a celebrated raconteur is often wrought with years of relentless touring and can ultimately be joined by misfortunes of substance abuse, strained relationships, and ostracization from the general public. Those few that reach the zenith of a lauded career are either gifted by luck or have a past haunted by the tribulations that give them the voice by which they earned their keep.

While Kansas City singer-songwriter John Velghe may not have many looming skeletons in his closet to speak of, the man has given decades of his life writing and performing for rooms across the country. It would be experiences had during these formative years that provided Velghe the articulation that culminates with an outstanding ensemble on his new LP, Don’t Let Me Stay.

In the first line of album opener “Time Bomb,” Velghe asks in a self-imposed drawl, “Could you blame me if I don’t trust pretty faces?” followed later by a proposal to allow the imagined former lover to whom he speaks the ability to tell a story which he never wants revealed. The basis of the entire song lies in that single sentence, but Velghe’s conversational writing style expands it into a nearly four-minute-long piece that gives the listener insight to the direction the album’s sound will be driven. Velghe’s portraiture is given further depth by the voices of Kirsten Paludan, guitarist Mike Alexander and bassist Chris Wagner, whose vocals braid together through the entire album and are strengthened by drummer “Go-Go” Ray Pollard providing the metronome by which the album retains its pace.

“Blood Line” begins with a purposeful false start before picking up to a marching beat of a repetitive snare and kick with a guitar providing the only cushioning. Piece by piece the instruments begin to fill in, and at each new measure another layer is added to the vocals. The sound explodes once the chorus is reached, as we are brought the first noticeable taste of the three-piece horn section from Hermon Mehari, Mike Walker, and Sam Hughes. It is at this very moment that Don’t Let Me Stay becomes more than an alt-country or Americana record, and begins to brazenly reveal flashes of the Big Star and Replacements influences that drove Velghe to begin creating music in the first place.

Not to be outdone with a mere nod toward that on which he was reared, the A-side is given closure with an acoustic song titled “Iron Skin,” whose echoing haunt immediately conjures thoughts of Big Star’s “Thirteen,” which celebrates its 40th anniversary this very year. Later in the album there is an additional salute to Alex Chilton with “Owe My Soul,” a play on words from Big Star’s “O My Soul.” Velghe sends out one final love letter to the most musically prosperous city in the south with “Austin (you sorta stole my heart).” Austin is a city that has been kind to Velghe in his previous endeavors, to the effect that he is something of a protegé of roots rocker Alejandro Escovedo, and will be playing a SXSW showcase with him this year.

The 12 tracks on Don’t Let Me Stay coil around the intricacies that are possible when the investment into your work comes at a level of detail so concentrated that instruments are removed and added even though the change may be wholly unnoticed by a large number of the listeners. Mike Alexander trades in a guitar for a mandolin on “Stage Inside the Main,” and there also exists the inclusion of James Mitchell, Whitney Williamson and Catherine Root as an understated string section on a handful of tracks. That brings the count to 11 well-versed musicians that lend their talents to the release, creating a patchwork of backgrounds and an amalgam of sounds on an album that would do well to be in any local music fan’s rotation. If Velghe thinks his hands were “meant for telling three-minute lies,” then consider this review an investment in deceit.