Pitch Music Showcase Guide

Ida McBeth It's easy to forget how long Ida McBeth has been doing this. The reigning queen of Kansas City soul recently took the stage at her 35th high school reunion (that'd be Wyandotte High School — and stop with the math already), and in addition to her national-anthem-singing duties (most recently drafted by the T-Bones), she's stayed busy playing both small venues and bigger festivals. Like the Wild Women of Kansas City before her, McBeth has the ability, within eight bars, to make us glad that we live here. www.idamcbeth.com

COUNTRY/ BLUEGRASS Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys Living in Buffalo, New York, for several years, Rex Hobart made his long-distance relationship with Kansas City work by charming hometown crowds during sporadic visits. Now he's back and compensating for lost time, hosting the Honky Tonk Supper Club every Tuesday night at the Record Bar. At the same venue, Hobart serenaded Valentine's Day diners, selecting tracks from his four albums (2005's Empty House being the most recent) as well as covering classic country artists such as Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette and Tom T. Hall. www.rexhobart.com

The Wilders With a new album, Throw Down, and a festival schedule that has them traveling from Buffalo, Wyoming, to Boring, Oregon (with multiple campgrounds, truck stops and whistle stops in-between), the Wilders have taken their old time full-time, crisscrossing the country as their day job rather than the between-the-clock-in kind of employment. With singer Ike Sheldon and fiddler Betse Ellis throwing in more and more of their own songwriting, the Wilders don't just make the traditional stuff sound like their own; they now officially own it. www.wilderscountry.com

Buffalo Saints People tend to push comparisons onto the Buffalo Saints, drawing the dotted lines to the Jayhawks (their harmonies are similarly wonderful), Son Volt and Ryan Adams. The Saints sometimes are a clear, clean hybrid of deep Nashville country and Nawlins humidity. Then again, they're sometimes just a delightful country-tinged pop band. Mostly, they are who they are. The Saints' willingness to pull out the pedal steel or trombone, plus their tales of regular-Joe melancholy, makes them work for alt-anybody. www.myspace.com/buffalosaints

The Gaslights The Gaslights play country music from a mythical place, a site carefully drawn in songs of theirs such as "Sundays and Interstates" and "Lines and Wires." Lately, they've also taken to spreading the Americana urge as hosts of regular roots jams. Chris Meck's guitar draws those highway lines with the kind of ringing guitar that Nashville left behind decades ago, Abigail Henderson's singing fills every molecule of a bar's cigarette smoke, and the band's new rhythm section (Jon Stubblefield and Quentin Phipps, formerly of the Bad Ideas) pushes hard enough to make the Gaslights a reasonable fit in the rock category. www.thegaslights.com

Split Lip Rayfield Most of Split Lip Rayfield's recent press has been devoted to member Kirk Rundstrom's battle with esophageal cancer and a series of benefit shows to help pay for treatment. This attention, though not necessarily wanted, reflects how much Rundstrom (and, of course, the band itself) is loved by the community. It's no wonder — Split Lip's energy, furious string speed, four-part harmonies and unparalleled live assault leave everyone wanting many more years of its bluegrass to look forward to. www.splitliprayfield.com

DJ/DANCE Oz McGuire After three years of Thursday nights at Jilly's, Oz McGuire ended his successful Soundsystem collaboration with turntable partner Fat Sal last November. Dancers didn't have to wait long before his blend of Brazilian beats and hip-hop resurfaced in fresh surroundings. McGuire has teamed with his brother, Joe, on "Afro-licious" Saturday nights at Louise's in Lawrence, and he spins exotic rhythm-driven cuts on the first Thursday of every month at the Record Bar. Sadly, McGuire's local gigging days are numbered; he's preparing to move to San Francisco. www.myspace.com/ozmcguire

DJ Just Well, it's about time Mike Just got some love. The quiet, diminutive, heavily tattooed DJ has controlled crowds for years, most famously at the late Hurricane, where he built a reputation as a skilled deck hero who could get the floor bouncing without throwing down strings of no-brainer club hits. Now he has set up shop at Karma, where his parties rage like 1960s Paris, only with a heavy spread of modern-day Midwestern sex and grit (thanks to the lusty crowd). Though you'll find him mixing chaste '80s dance hits with sweaty crunk bombs live, DJ Just also puts in his time at the lab, cooking up instrumental hip-hop, gnarly electro and other layered, experimental beats you'd be more likely to hear in the background of a film than over the PA of a dance club. www.myspace.com/djjust