Jungle Love

Mike Dillon's creativity knows no bounds. A member of once-local act Billy Goat, the planet's only punk-rock vibraphonist lands in his native Kansas City fresh from a summer of touring and studying with the likes of Bill Ware (the Jazz Passengers, Steely Dan) and Les Claypool (Primus, of course). Bassist J.J. Richards and drummer Ray Pollard join Dillon to form Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle, making music that incorporates Dillon's not-too-demented views on life, loads of hard-hitting bass, and punk grooves with enough jazz in them to make Miles Davis smile in his grave.

Earlier this year, while bogged down recording songs with his previous project, Hairy Apes BMX, Dillon decided, he says, "to rerecord the songs that mean something to me with the Go-Go Jungle." Dillon says the Jungle allows him to roll his hip-hop, jazz and punk ambitions into one strange, exhilarating blend. Unfortunately for BMX fans, Dillon says the Go-Go Jungle will replace the Hairy Apes in his musical life.

These reworked tracks appear on an album called Battery Milk. A party Saturday marks the album's local release. Filled with hard shuffles and wacky lyrical concepts, the collection reflects what event organizer and Malachy Papers saxman Mark Southerland calls Dillon's "amazing musicianship."

"It just feels great, and it pays homage to all kinds of funky groove stuff," Southerland says.

The saxophonist will join Dillon and bassist Johnny Hamil for an opening-act performance as Malachy Papers, which, by the way, hasn't been sleeping lately. The long-standing, hot-burning KC experimental jazz ensemble barnstormed the globe over the past several months, making appearances at the Telluride Jazz Festival and Musique-Action, the largest avant-garde music festival in the world, held in France. "It was a great hang for all," Southerland says.

Dillon, meanwhile, kicked off this latest tour with the Go-Go Jungle last March. This weekend, both he and Southerland expect big crowds — aided, no doubt, by the fact that Southerland will marry artist Peregrine Honig the day after the show.

"It will be amazing," Dillon says. "We are going to pull out all the hits and some old Billy Goat songs like 'Everybody Take Your Clothes Off.' We will roll around in a vat of chocolate and get really sticky!"