How does the Portland, Oregon, band I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House really feel about Fred Phelps? Click play to find out. (NSFW due to strong language and righteousness)
It's the LAist's SXSW song of the day. Info & lyrics here.
This weekend, our pal Roach, who's temporarily sitting in on bass with the Gaslights for a tour of Belgium, sent a couple of self-described drunken e-mails. I'm passing them along to you, unedited. Enjoy.
Drunken E-mail 1It is 3am and we are drunk
4 shows in 3 Days
We had 2 today 1st one of the Prisons
It was a fucking Castle, Literally
built in 1800's at least
every show has been great well attended and fun as hell
THE BEER IS SO GREAT AND THEY HAVE ALL WE CAN DRINK!!!
The women are so beautiful it is mind blowing
the country is clean and everything is close together
we played in Goes, Holland the first night qnd you know what that means for me(roach) legal as hell it is a beautiful thing
The world is huge and KC SUX all of a sudden
Abby rode a Blegian Stallion today and is now the rodeo queen of Belgium
Glen says hello, as does everyone else, and we shall get many cervesas upon return
Thanks for the >Wrtie up in St. Louis that was, in the immortal words of Chris Meck "Bitchin"
Thanks for living the life you do
Gaslights and roach out
Wow, thank you, guys.
Drunk e-mail 2's after the jump.
TGIF, homies.
Don't forget that tonight, starting at 7:30 downstairs at Skybox, our DJ challenge goes down like Julie Brown. Five DJs, whose spins can be sampled here, faceoff for command of the dance floor. The best and brightest gets a trip to Miami to lay down some wax (or CD or MP3 or whatever) at the Ultra Music Festival. For regular heads, it's a fun competition, and for people who don't get out to the clubs much, it's a good opportunity to sample what's going on in the local dance scene. You get five DJs in under three hours, and it'll be over around 11, so you can go home and get some good sleep, visions of girls doing the twisty-arm dance twirling in your head. I personally challenge everyone at the Kansas City Star to come represent. Oh, and don't miss this: one of the DJs put together a diss track. That's a first!
Later tonight, the OxBlood showcase takes over the Record Bar. The lineup has changed, so check the venue's site for details.
We talked on the Wayward Cast about this, but a lot of people still probably don't know that a real-deal film crew is shooting a documentary about the Kansas City music scene, with concert footage and interviews all taken from the OxBlood showcase. I spoke with filmmaker Bob Moczydlowsky a couple of weeks ago, and I salute what he's doing. Rather than make a film that hypes or zooms in too close to anything specific to Kansas City, Bob's shooting a film for a universal audience -- it's a movie about the trials and triumphs in the lives of people who participate in an independent music scene. He'll be interviewing somewhere around 125 musicians, plus hangers-on like me.
"It's basically a no-budget film," Bob told me, but he'll be using cinematic high-definition cameras, and he'll submit the product to small film festivals. His approach to making the film could help the scene -- precisely because he's not trying to help the scene. "The less it's actually about Kansas City, the better," he said, meaning better for both the film and the scene it documents. No one wants to watch a doc intended to hype some random city's scene, namely, a bunch of bands you've never heard of and don't care about. But with all this great music being heard in the context of a universal human interst story, perhaps people will be more moved to research the bands they see. Ah, counterintuitive!
A native to these parts now based in LA, Bob has done videos for the Roman Numerals, one of which is viewable off the Audio + Visual portion of the band's site.
OK, enough of the shoutouts. For some rock and roll that'll grab you by the shirt collar and push your face into its crotch, head down to the Brick tonight for the Pink Socks. If you're still not wise to this band, all I should have to say is remember the Litigators? That's them, but with different members and an ever rawer sound. (Is "rawer" a word?) The band recently added Josh Mobley from the Afterparty on keys. Also playing: the Afterparty (natch) and the Depressors. For those tired of indie rock, come to this show for some down-home, broke-ass shit.
At the Brick on Saturday and then again at Fred P. Ott's on the Plaza is a Texas band called Youngmond Grand. OK, I know nothing about 'em. They were supposed to send a press kit and never did, or it got lost. Or something. But enough people have recommended them to me (Amie Nelson and Shawn from the Roman Numerals, to name a couple), that I think I can safely pass along my secondhand recommendation to you. Plus, the songs on their Myspace don't sound half bad -- that "angular," dry, repeating-riff-based sound of Interpol, but with more rock than retro, sounds like. Oh, looky, they're playing tonight at the Jackpot and have plans to come back in April. They must have friends here...
Be good to your friends this weekend, friends. Remember ladies, you can drive a man to drink, but don't drink ... don't... fuck, I can't think of how that one should end. Anyway, check Sad Dog and Lawrence.com and our own listings for other alternatives for live music shenanigans.
News just reached us that Kirk Rundstrom died this morning. The Split Lip Rayfield member had been battling cancer of the esophagus for over a year. His bandmates wrote a fitting elegy on the group's Web site, under 'News.'
Mark Twain said, "Let us endeavor to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."
During Kirk's struggle with cancer, the support heaped upon him by fans and admirers, in KC, Lawrence, and all over the country revealed a guy who had lived up to that calling as well as anyone possibly could.
We're sure sorry, Kirk.
Our last and best feature on Kirk: The Last Thrash, from August '06
The first edition of the Wayward Cast is yours to download free from iTunes.
This was my first time doing anything like this, so listen for the content, not the production value. And could I have been given better content for this one? Hell nyet, comrades. I got to interview Robert Moore and Megan Hamilton, founders and owners of OxBlood Records, whose wonderful compilation CD was produced by my other guest for the hour, Paul Malinowski. Buy the CD at the release party this weekend. Read more about it in my column.
We can't support this stuff enough. Really. It's not hype. It's... home.
If you're not feelin' the 18th Street Parade (and Lord help you if you aren't -- it's f***ing awesome), and if you're in Westport for the big crawl, you might stop by the Beaumont for the Architects, National Fire Theory and Walter Alias.
A note on the latter: Walter Alias, is a little-known local band who blew me away at a battle of the bands over a year ago, in the very same venue. Walter has a new CD out, a self-released number that looks and sounds like a major release. I've barely had a chance to listen, but I can tell it's big, serious music that fans of Snow Patrol and Vedera should eat the hell up -- it has more of a cinematic, progressive bent to it than those bands, even.
Over at the Record Bar, I hear there's a show featuring Bacon Shoe, a Social Distortion tribute band, and the Pornhuskers. Those are three separate bands. Bacon Shoe is not a Social D tribute, nor could it be mistaken for one. Not even if you're on 'shrooms.
Boozeday Tuesday at the Brick brings the Rumblejetts, the Rhythm Busters and the "island sounds" of DJ Zach closing the night. I think some island sounds may be on my afterparty agenda -- me and your mom's afterparty agenda, that is.
Knuckleheads hosts the Kansas City Blues Society's 16th Annual Mardi Gras club crawl, with shuttles to BB's and the Grand Emporium. Bands you'll see: Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys (K's), Trampled Under Foot (GE) and Mem Shannon (BB's). It's only $15. Not bad.
Hey, the Last of the V8s have shot a video. Or at least made a video. Rather than the footage of onstage antics you might expect from the rawest, bloodiest live rock band in town, the V8s have mashed up a Talking Heads video for their song "Demon Machine."
First, Talking Heads:
Now, V8s:
DJ Iggy Baby, Snuff Jazz and Street Jizz. Sunday, February 18, at the Record Bar.
Review by Jason Harper
Last night, I showed up to the Record Bar around 8, expecting Mark Southerland's Dimanche Gras show featuring DJ Iggy Baby, Snuff Jazz and Street Jizz to already be underway, because that's what Mark told me when I talked to him for this preview. (I titled that preview Snuff Jizz instead of Dimanche Gras, btw, because I figured it would probably be my only opportunity to publish the words "snuff "and "jizz" together, barring an unforeseen career change.) However, the show was far from kicking off, and the dinner crowd was still noshing on delicious RB grub.
Shawn Sherrill, RB co-owner and Roman Numeral, was sitting at the bar, MySpacing on his laptop. He's in his 30s but is justified in using MySpace because he's a musician, and that's how musicians and bookers and promoters and 21-year-old girls all network. "So, should I just sit around and drink?" I asked Shawn. He looked at me like I'd just asked if all them bottles of booze behind the bar were real. "Uh, yeah," he said. Luckily, a couple of friends who I didn't know were coming showed up, inadvertently saving me from looking like a lonely loser barfly (though a well-dressed one, if I do say so myself). We got food and availed ourselves of the $5 PBR pitchers, enjoying the expert service of Kimberly, our waitress who was a star at the late Late Night Theatre.
Iggy Baby began dropping beats around 9 to warm up the growing crowd, which was still in the drinking and mingling phase, not quite ready to cut a rug. Clad in a Mickey Mouse shirt, the svelte hipster DJ worked a laptop and mixer, mashing together house beats and dance pop and never staying on anything for longer than a couple of minutes. It was refreshing to hear clubbier music in the Record Bar, where, like the other music venues in town, most DJ nights feature selector-style jocks who play whole songs -- not that there's anything wrong with that, it was just nice to hear some real EDM.
The mood (and by that, I mean, I) was a bit tipsy and the room was full when Snuff Jazz took the stage an hour later, freakishly ravishing in shimmering cloaks and plumed masks. Joining the trio of Mark Southerland on sax, Jeff Harshbarger on upright and electric basses and Josh Adams on drums (formerly of Ghosty, I think, which is pretty surprising), was local eccentric J. Ashley Miller on keys, guitar, random vocals, and various metallic percussion implements on the floor. It actually really worked. The jazz wasn't so free as to be unlistenable -- the band kept a rough rhythmic pulse as it careened into free improv. Those more expert in jazz could probably make a direct comparison with a single player like Joe Lovano or whothefuckever, but, to me, Southerland's brash, thunderous horn work evoked the tortured, dark sound of the saxophone arrangements on Charles Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady. That's one feverish record, man.
The only lineup change that came with the Street Jizz performance was the arrival of frontman Cody Critcheloe, pimped out in black stretchpants that stopped below the knee, a white jacket, white pillbox cap and striking black fu-manchu mustache. He's best known as the pervy leader of artpunk band the Ssion, which has opened for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in the past and is no stranger to the ass-shakin' groove. The combined Street-Snuff band, aided by some prerecorded tracks, put on the best damn live band freak dance party I've seen since Glass Candy was last in town. Amazingly, only about a dozen people were dancing, and some fools were even sitting in chairs near the front of the stage. WTF!? That's like a new low for this town. Well, I got my dance fix, but the show ended after only five or so songs, and I was left fiending for more.
The night wound down with another Snuff set (with a special Jizz encore), followed by Iggy Baby, for those who were in the mood to dance, which I was, and I literally danced until I couldn't dance any more. Danced out. Completely. I'm not sure I've actually accomplished that before. Cross that one off the list.
The Afterparty was set to close the evening down at P. Ott's on the Plaza, but I probably would've spent the night in the bushes outside The Cheesecake Factory had I gone. Did anyone out there go? Was it fun? Did people dance?
Ladies & Gents, we've picked our finalists for this year's Pitch Ultra Music DJ Contest.
They are: DJ Sku, Spinstyles, DJ Shad, DJ Soap and J Fortune.
We got 26 submissions for the contest (27 if you count a guy who didn't read the call for entries very carefully and sent us a mix from his home base in California)
Now all that remains is to throw a party, let each of them take a turn at the decks, and pick the most talented and most loved by the crowd. Be part of that crowd when we throw said party a week from tonight, Friday, February 23, at Skybox. Doors at 7, show starts at 8. If you're late, you could miss a whole couple of DJ sets because they're only 30 minutes each. So, like, don't be late.
Next week, we'll run a story with more info on each contestant. For now, get a sample of each spinner's style after the jump. Each track is an excerpt from the continuous mixes they each sent.
Asylum St. Spankers. Thursday, February 15, at Knuckleheads.
Review by Chris Packham
I attended an evening of acoustic, mostly unamplified old-timey-esque music by the Aylum Street Spankers at Knuckleheads Saloon last night, down in Kansas City's spectacular Railyard District. If Knuckleheads is any indication, Kay Barnes' railyard revitalization program is finally yielding a more exciting nightlife, like Denver's much-vaunted railyard district.
We need to follow the Denver model, and encourage the KC arts community to put down roots in the railyards. First, the sculptors and the alternative theater groups and amateur fire-eating crews move in. Then the condo developers come. And pretty soon, you've got lawyers and architects living in rehabbed switchyard outbuildings.
Sorry about the digression. I have a secret fascination with city planning and zoning ordinances which I will suppress for the duration of this music review. The Asylum Street Spankers are a talented music combo from Austin, a large Busking District in Texas. They've been playing together in various configurations since 1994, but the band's mainstays are Christina Marrs and the mononymous Wammo.
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