wade williamson

Middle Of The Map: Day One Wrap-Up

To anyone in attendance, the first night of Kansas City’s second annual Middle Of The Map Festival is on the books as a success. From my standpoint, I couldn’t have been dragged away from the RecordBar to see anyone else but those that were on the lineup. Laziness and wearing the most awful choice in walking shoes attribute to that as well.

I arrived fairly early to the venue, not sure if I should have expected a mass of people and a line down the parking lot. Entering the building shortly after 6, only a handful of people were peppered around, the usual crowd size for a poorly populated show or a trivia night. A current of excitement was permeating the air, stimulating the scattered bodies awaiting the opening band. The close to a never-ending workweek was near, and with it, the cathartic release made possible only by live music.

Brand new (as in, that day) KC import duo Schwervon! opened right on time at 7:00 with bubbly powerpop hinting toward garage without the distinctive schtick that so often comes with a membership of two. Drummer Nan Turner and guitarist Matt Roth faced each other while playing, connecting eyes while their vocal harmonies complemented over bare bones jangly riffs and simplistic drum beats. The former New Yorkers played a 30 minute set that started the night on a high note.

After a quick set change, the first in a series of local music veterans took the stage, as Cher UK opened with “Disaster,” the closing track from the band’s 1993 debut She’s A Weird Little Snack. Immediately following this was “Ba Ba Ba Ba,” a track from the band’s last release to date (from 2000). The set jumped around the bulk of their discography, and spanned the multiple punk influences that came from member changes, though it focused heavily on the previously mentioned releases. From the last full-length, Texas Vacation, the band performed “Retrofeeliac” and the speedy “One Nation,” dedicated to the GOP by grey-haired front man Mike McCoy with the same exuberance with which it appears on recording.

McCoy moved to Austin without ever officially retiring the band, and his return visits are usually graced with a show or two, though he has also stayed on the local music radar with the conceptual one-off Black Rabbits and country band Wood Roses. A new Cher EP is to be expected eventually, though little more than a few support shows will occur in conjunction with its release. The all too short 40 minutes the band performed was capped off by a few of their most potent power-punk anthems: “Kibbles ‘n’ Bitz,” “College Song,” and “Motocaster.” Here’s to hoping that new album is a priority for the group.

Metal stalwarts The Esoteric started their set late, the first of two taking place that would prove to be plagued by bass cabinet issues. I racked my brain during their reunion set to figure out how long it had been since I’d seen the band perform, and came up with the answer of roughly a decade (looking into it after, it’s been just under 8 years — and was at the El Torreon, no less). The band, like Cher UK before them, and the one that would follow immediately after, only play the occasional show every few years, the members’ lives filled with other music projects and interests.

Likely as a way to poke fun at the band as they were in their existence, Stevie Cruz came out wearing a mop-top wig, a hairstyle similar to what he had in his pre-Hammerlord days. The five members chugged through a deafening set, covering ground from a small amount of the early, vitriolic noise they played in the beginning, to the open chord, breakdown-friendly metallic hardcore with which they gained their popularity. This notoriety nabbed them a spot on the roster of Prosthetic Records, through which they released their final two albums, With the Sureness of Sleepwalking and Subverter.

By the time Season to Risk began, the RecordBar was shoulder-to-shoulder with people aggressively enjoying the band. While perhaps there was no all out moshing happening, a fair amount of close range shoving (which equated more to a small unison of people surging in one direction at once) and even a lone crowd surfer appeared. Steve Tulipana worked the room, often standing on the monitors at front or hanging from the projector installed in the ceiling, leaning over to yell at the audience through his microphone. As with most of the bands that evening, their setlist spanned across most of their discography, with key songs and former hits like “Mine Eyes” and “Snakes” getting the most audience reactions.

The band’s lineup was fleshed out by founding member and guitarist Duane Trower, David Silver on drums (a longtime player, but one of over ten drummers that have worked with the group), and Wade Williamson, who joined the band shortly before their final album was released over a decade ago. The night featured a special guest in bassist Josh Newton, who played on the band’s acclaimed post-major label foray Men Are Robots, Monkeys Win and has seen success in other nationally touring bands since. Final thought: my sinuses were thankful that the band decided to forgo the use of a smoke machine this time around.

The last band to perform on the RecordBar stage that night was from none other than Molly McGuire. It had been over a decade since the band performed together, when founder Jason Blackmore got the itch to piece the band back together and record some old songs for proper release. This led to an eventual series of live reunion shows, starting in California and ending in Blackmore’s former home of KC. The original lineup has remained intact, with Ray Jankowski on bass and Jason Gerken on drums, and rotating guitar spots from Scott McMillian, Seth Harty, and Toby Lawrence, each performing on songs from the era in which they were a member.

Though the rest of the band remained silent, Blackmore was audibly overjoyed to be able to perform songs that had been written 20 years earlier, and to be able to share the stage with who he described as some of his best friends. Set highlights include all of the songs that were written before their major label release Lime, including the great opener of “Sick,” followed by “With Passion,” both being the lead-in tracks on the far superior (and far grungier) debut album, Sisters Of. Molly is a band I was too young to have ever witnessed firsthand, but I’m glad I was given a chance to remedy this and hear songs performed live that I’ve been listening to for the last ten years.

This review was written for Lost in Reviews.

02/10/12: Katy and Go-Go / John Velghe + More @ RecordBar

Entering the RecordBar around 10:00 last Friday, one could not walk through the narrows without rubbing shoulders amid those throughout. The venue was particularly crowded for an all-local lineup, though as the night raged on, the audience noticeably waned from a college-aged demographic to a weekend warrior vibe. As though it were filled with drunken Cinderellas, the place all but cleared by midnight, save for some table or booth clusters and a pack of patrons standing near the patio door.The night opened at 10:05, as The Sawyers launched into a 40 minute set of No Depression alt-country lifted from the altar of Tweedy and Farrar, with some elements of honky-tonk thrown in for good measure. The band is led by local songwriter John Greiner, and is backed by Chad Rex on guitar. Rex fronts The Victorstands and previously played in Colorado’s own No Depression purveyors Armchair Martian with St. Joseph, MO, natives Jon Snodgrass and Steven Garcia, the latter of whom now plays in KC powerpop trio Deco Auto. Betse Ellis of The Wilders played the fiddle at stage right, and Chris Wagner (most recently of punk trio Hipshot Killer) filled in for the group’s recently departed bassist. Jonathan Kraft, a sound engineer who has spent time with SSION, and in another life, played with Florida screamo band Kite Flying Society served as the drummer. That was a mouthful, but I thought it necessary to document how varied the backgrounds are of the five members that shared the stage.

Over the duration of the band’s time on stage there was very little audience interaction. I don’t require a story when watching a band play live — and there are many artists that don’t really know when to shut up and play — but at the close, I was left wondering if there exists a tangible album that could be purchased, and remained without answer as nothing of the kind was mentioned.

Author note: I’d like to apologize to those reading this as a casual music follower. What you are about to see in the next two paragraphs is nothing short of conspiratorial six degrees of Kevin Bacon nerding out. If you can’t keep up, feel free to skip through it. I won’t take offense.

John Velghe (née Evans, as the man took his matrilineal surname for the stage to stand apart from the other musically inclined Evans’ in the area, of which there are apparently many) was joined on stage by the full-band form of The Prodigal Sons. Tonight, this included Mike Alexander, who as of this writing plays punk with Hipshot Killer, country with Starhaven Rounders, and Irish rock with Blarney Stoned. Alexander has done everything short of playing the part of Neil Schon in a Journey tribute band. Wait, what’s that? Oh, he has totally done that as well, and will undoubtedly be forming a new band by the time you finish reading this sentence. Chris Wagner pulled a double shift on bass, and in addition to playing with Alexander in a band now mentioned twice (not to mention the Revolvers), provided the rhythm section for Velghe in The Mendoza Lie, a post-Famous FM/Saint Jude band that had a backbone provided by Dan Dumit, who is still billed as a drummer for the Sons, though he did not make an appearance on this night. “Go-Go Ray” Pollard sat behind the kit, and is a nationally recognized performer who has served as the touring drummer for a few major label bands which, if mentioned, would sully the anticipation that you as a reader have surely built about this lineup.

But wait, there’s more. On trombone was Mike Walker, who played in the well-received, though tragically defunct Olympic Size (with Wade Williamson and Kirsten Paludan, both of whom play in Alexander’s Starhaven Rounders) as well as The Maytags, a “neo-dub explosion” led by Zach Phillips of the Architects and The Gadjits, of which Alexander was also a part for some time. On saxophone was the illustrious Sam Hughes, also seen as part of the seven-piece horn ensemble in Afrobeat jazz sensation Hearts of Darkness. Additionally, Hughes was in good company with Walker as a five-piece horn section on the most recent release by The Hearers, a country-spanning membership whose horn section can also be seen in various pairings in the jumpin’ and swingin’ Grand Marquis, roots reggae group The New Riddim, soul revival band The Good Foot, and almost any other act in town requiring some brass. Last, but certainly not least was the talented Hermon Mehari on trumpet, who moonlights in the Diverse trio, playing compositions that pay homage to the 18th & Vine sound that put Kansas City on the proverbial jazz map long ago.

Whew. Now that I have that out of the way, let us continue with the live performance. The band played an hour-long set that alternated from the full lineup that I made a passing reference to above, to an electric four-piece with the addition of Betse Ellis lending her fiddle and vocals. I spoke with Velghe briefly before they began hauling their gear up on stage, at which point he acknowledged his twenty year musical crush on Ms. Ellis, so for her to contribute those talents to a few songs (“Assume the Ground”) from his upcoming full-length, Don’t Let Me Stay (to be released on Lakeshore Records, the label that brought us The Belles‘ Omertà), must be a thrill. The set meandered very little from a full-bodied country-tinged Americana rock with strong horn presence (“Blood Line”), but the instrument changes were plenty.

Acoustic guitars and mandolins replaced electric Telecasters and hollow-bodies for portions of the set (“Stage Inside the Main”), and near the end, the full band took the stage once again for what Velghe referred to as a part of the set in which they will be playing some songs in the key of Paul. Following this, he plucked the opening notes to The Replacements’ “Can’t Hardly Wait,” which they played at the Sonic Spectrum tribute series for the ‘Mats at the same venue nearly a year ago. The lone song that saw Velghe without a guitar around his shoulder was a set closer of The Jam’s “Town Called Malice,” which brought a little less excitement from the crowd than one would think, but it was a fitting end to a very energetic, if instrumentally attention deficit set.

Whether by choice or by chance, the lineup thus far had built up to a swelling climax that could have potentially come crashing down if someone closed the night and was not prepared to hand the crowd their asses on a plate of rock (don’t let that imagery slip past you). Lucky for the audience, Katy Guillen (of The B’Dinas) took the stage and dished out a three-course meal of ass (already regretting that metaphor) and Go-Go Ray was there to serve as the second musician of the night to pull in some overtime. Taking a look at the two of them on stage, an obvious reaction would be to assume you are about to hear something of the White Stripes or Black Keys variety, both two-piece bands who built their reputation out of playing stripped-down blues rock in their own, weird ways. Well, you would have been wrong to assume that, and should be ashamed of yourself.

The reality is that the assumption is not a complete fallacy, but the sheer force with which Katy and Go-Go exerted sound as a two-piece, with Ray given the chance to show off on extended drum fills, and Guillen slinging out fast-paced blues riffs while the two kept in perfect stride with one another was something impressive. The two jammed a full 45 minutes until the house lights came up and the bar was ready to start kicking people out into the cold, and then they played one more song even after that. The two-piece is expected to release an album in late March, and a new one from Guillen’s full rock band is due out in the near future as well.